Basepoint Innovation Centre and Business Base in Luton are hosting a free workshop entitled Speed Planning for New Business on Thursday 3rd December 2009 – 1.45pm – 4pm. The workshop is being presented by Patricia Wilson, Director of Frozen Ps

Patricia has developed a business improvement consultancy, specifically focused on implementation – because great ideas need to be converted into action! She has a background of practical operational management, typically clients range from Start Ups to existing business that have just got stuck, from one man bands to large organisations, including commercial business, schools and charities.  The process of planning for your business has a value in its own right and can sometimes be overlooked whilst coping with the day to day activity. A sound plan can help keep you focused on your goals and be used to manage your business effectively.

This session is designed to give you a set of guidelines to develop a framework for that plan if you are thinking of starting your own business, are already en route or wanting to ensure that you are on the right track!

Frozen Ps practical workshops for Start up Businesses provides an essential tool kit and Business Health check that you might not be aware of:

• Create a one page plan for your business
• An action plan ready for implementation
• Learn what steps to take and identify your priorities
• Learn how to define what makes your product or service different
• Learn simple, cost effective and realistic methods to market your business
• Take time to network with each other

To book your FREE seat please email heatherpedder@basepoint.co.uk or telephone  01582 434200

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This recipe came from my friend after I tasted it at her house – so I have no idea of its true origins, but it is a great cake to make – quick, easy and very tasty. I have made this for Mum’s The Boss meetings and other occasions and it has always received many compliments. The other great thing about this cake is that it only uses ingredients that I would always have in the house. And maybe – just maybe – the squirt of lemon juice goes some way towards your 5-a-Day!!

Lemon Cake
4oz soft margarine
6oz self raising flour
6oz sugar
4 tablespoons of milk
2 large eggs
Squirt of lemon juice

• Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
• Pour into a lined loaf tin
• Bake at 180C for approx 35 – 45 mins
• Once cool slice and fill with butter cream and/or lemon curd
• I often drizzle with lemon icing –just icing sugar mixed with lemon juice

Good luck – and enjoy!

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Popularity: 5% [?]

A few weeks ago I wrote about my Golden Twitter Moment, when I was honoured to receive a ’tweet’ from the magnificent Stephen Fry. When I read back over that post I still get goosebumps at the fact that, from amongst all those hundreds of thousands of followers, he happened to notice me! However, we @mumstheboss (aka Sam & Helen) now find ourselves in an even more honoured position, all thanks to Twitter. We have been invited, by @sarahbrown10 to Downing Street!

On 4th December we have been invited to the Downing Tweet Christmas Party, at a reception in support of the Million Mums Campaign, the patron of whom is the Prime Minister’s wife Sarah Brown. This is a campaign which we have personally supported and publicly promoted on Twitter by wearing a White Ribbon Alliance ‘twibbon’ on our avator.

The Million Mums Campaign is run by The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. Every minute of every day, a woman dies of pregnancy related complications, totaling more than one half million women each year. The White Ribbon Alliance is an international coalition bound together by a common goal: to ensure that pregnancy and childbirth are safe for all women and newborns in every country around the world.

The aim of the Million Mums campaign is simple: Sign up a million people to speak out against the needless deaths of women in pregnancy and childbirth around the world. So if you are lucky enough to be a mum who had a happy and healthy pregnancy, then maybe you would like to join the campaign too and donate £1 or more to help prevent children all over the world being born without a mum to take care of them.

I don’t know why we have been chosen to attend such an amazing event, but I do know it would never happened without Twitter.  And if, in some small way, we can help spread the message and encourage more people to join the campaign, then that will make all our tweets about baking cakes and drinking wine (as well as running great events for business mums!) even more worthwhile!

Popularity: 14% [?]

In August this year Mum’s The Boss member Helen Lindop, owner of Business Plus Baby, gave birth to her second baby. Helen was at our very first networking meeting in September 2008 and we lived her second pregnancy with her, watching her bump grow monthly at each meeting!

To celebrate the birth of our first “Mum’s the Boss baby” we ordered a personalised print from business mum & artist Carla Daly.  The print is from one of Carla’s original designs and contained a whole host of personalised information, including the name of baby, mum, dad and his sister, as well as the time he was born, the name of the hospital he was born at, and his weight. But the whole thing is done in a wonderfully quirky way which is perfect if you aren’t a fan of the more traditional pastel shades and teddies.

Carla specialises in art for your baby’s nursery or your child’s bedroom, and her main theme is jungle animals, with the odd octopus or farm animal thrown in for good measure! The colours used are bold and vibrant and the pictures have lots of detail so children will delight in discovering new elements within them all the time. Carla also produces alphabet wall stickers, growth charts, personalised door signs and maps, all of which would brighten up any childs room and make an unusual and thoughtful gift.

For a full range of Carla’s work visit her websites www.carladaly.com or www.carladaly.co.uk

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Just in case you having one of ‘those’ days when nothing’s going right and you’re wondering why you bother – here’s a little something to let you know you are NOT alone and hopefully bring a little smile to your face!

I’ve got snot on my skirt, and sick on my shirt,
Everything’s covered in kiddie dessert,
I’ve no time to change,
So I’ll just look deranged,
In clothes smeared with baby food,
Thrown from close range.
What I really want now is a sleep or long soak,
But no time, I’ll have to drink coffee and coke,
I’ve lost control, it just is no joke,
Life would be easy if I were a bloke.
I’ve no time to eat, that would be a treat,
A romantic meal an impossible feat.
Real food would be great,
But it’s part of mums’ fate,
To only eat scraps the kids leave on their plate.
Where is the note I wrote to myself?
I’m sure it was there, in that pile on the shelf,
When was the party for Lucy and Fay?
Oh bugger, it happened yesterday,
I’ll have to ring them or send them a note,
If it goes on like this I’ll cut my own throat.
I’ve got so much to do, it makes me feel blue,
And where should I start? I haven’t a clue.
My list is so long,
Where do I go wrong?
I need a plan to move me along.

This poem was taking from Allison Mitchell’s book Time Management for Manic Mums. Allison is a mother of 3 and successful businesswoman, www.mumscoach.com has a masters degree and is an NLP (neuro linguistic programming) Master Practitioner.

Popularity: 9% [?]

As part of the Building Enterprising Communities project, Exemplas in partnership with EEDA (East of England Development Agency) is running a workshop to support local people in overcoming their barriers to succeeding in self employment.

Exemplas is a non-profit distribution organisation with a deep fund of expertise in a range of disciplines that enhance performance and influence success. These include corporate development, leadership, skills and training, change management, enterprise, diversity and many more. They also jointly run Business Link East.

The workshop, entitled Removing Barriers To Progression, is aimed at anyone currently not working (either unemployed, redundant or parents wanting to return to work) and is free to attend.

Location: Houghton Regis Library, Bedford Square, LU5 5ES
Time: 9:30 – 16:30
Date: Tuesday 1st December

Whether you are being held back through lack of confidence, are worried by gaps in your knowledge or you just don’t know in which direction you are heading, then this cognitive based workshop supports you in identifying the things that are holding you back – and accessing the skills and capabilities that will get you moving towards your personal goals.

To book a place on this workshop, please call 01707 398384 or email your full name, telephone number and email address to bookings@exemplas.com

Popularity: 10% [?]

I’ve tried lots of flapjack recipes over the years but this one consistently gives the ideal mixture of crunch and chew! It’s always a hit at our meetings with the mums and children alike. And the final seal of approval? Even my fussy little eaters like it!!

Flapjack is a great standby as you only need 4 ingredients which are cheap, everyday things you would normally find in your kitchen cupboard anyway. It is super quick and easy to make, keeps well and is great for lunchboxes. Plus you can always ring the changes by adding some dried fruit (raisins, cranberries or chopped apricots), chocolate chips, nuts, or even be completely decadent and pour melted chocolate over the top, then refridgerate.

Fantastic Flapjack
200g butter
200g light brown sugar
140g syrup
350g rolled oats

• Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan over a medium heat
• Mix the rolled oats into the melted mixture
• Press mixture down firmly into a greased baking tin 34×24cm
• Bake at 180C for 20-25 mins until golden brown
• Mark into squares/fingers whilst still warm but leave to cool completely before removing from tin

And for any of you mums who happen to be breastfeeding, oats are a great way to boost your milk supply – so you have the perfect excuse to eat as much flapjack as you like!!

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OK people, I need your ideas. I am going to be 40 in just under 3 months and I need suggestions as to how I can celebrate reaching the age ‘at which life begins’.

I have never really celebrated any of my milsetone birthdays – my 21st involved getting drunk with friends at university and my 30th was a meal with family and friends at our local Italian restaurant. I’m not looking for things like sun-drenched holidays or world cruises – I’m looking for magical ways I can mark the occasion without breaking the bank, that I’ll remember forever.

I must confess that I am secretly relishing the idea of growing old disgracefully and cannot wait until I reach my 50th so I can join our local chapter of the Red Hat Society. But until then I need to make the most of my 40s and squeeze everything I can out of them! Sam Thewlis (@samthewlis) and I have already pencilled in a joint Twitter party, as our birthdays are quite close together (although she is much younger than me!) to which you are all cordially invited – wear what you like but please DO bring a bottle!

So please throw some ideas into the hat – the best one gets a slice of birthday cake!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Last week 8 of us attended a Mums Who Bake Cupcake Decorating Course in Milton Keynes. Vicki Hoskins, the founder of Mums Who Bake, started running the courses as a way to demonstrate the amazing cake decorating equipment she sells in her online shop, but the courses have proved so popular in their own right that she is finding herself booked up months in advance.

When we arrived we were each presented with a box of 12 plain cupcakes for us to decorate. We were then taught about the different types of icing – glace, fondant and buttercream – and how to colour and pipe it. Then we were let loose on the vast array of cutters, icing pens, edible glitter, coloured balls and pearlescent spray and given free reign to decorate our cakes however we wished. Vicki was partly trialling her Christmas Decorating Course on us, so the finished results were a mixture of Christmas/Kiddy/Wedding style cakes because everyone just wanted to have a go at everything that was on offer. So the finished result was 8 boxes of rather eclectic looking cakes which looked surprisingly professional – and tasted absolutely divine!

It was such a lovely way to spend an evening with friends, doing something creative without little hands getting in the way! It also gave me a great sense of achievement, coming away with a box of beautifully decorated cakes. I love baking, but I normally opt for no nonsense home baking without the frills – but it boosted my cooking confidence knowing that I can now make the things I bake look pretty too.

I can’t recommend Vicki’s courses highly enough and am looking forward to going back to do one of the specialist courses, now that I know what I’m letting myself in for, so I can come away with an even more presentable box of cakes!

NB. For those of you on Twitter, if you want to put names to faces, going rouns the table left to right is Pippa (non-tweeter), Sarah @Ivy_House, Susie @susie72, Sue @pulsescreening, Helen @mumstheboss, Lesley (non-tweeter) and Sam @mumstheboss. So now you know!

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People use Twitter for many different reasons – to chat, to celebrity-watch, to keep up to date with a particularly industry or market sector, or to promote a blog or a business. Whatever your reasons for using Twitter there are certain things you should be mindful of but these are particularly important if you are using Twitter to market your business.

We started using Twitter 8 months ago and had no idea what we were doing. But through trial and error, and following some of the great advice available online we quickly got the hang of it. Like our Guide to Free Publicity, this is a lighthearted overview of what has worked for us. So now we are proud to present - The Mum’s the Boss Guide to Twitter!

Be Yourself – one of the huge benefits of social media is the ability to engage with potential customers and clients on a personal as well as a professional level, so let your personality shine through! Talk about things other than your business – your family, pets, hobbies etc – to give a more rounded view but always do so in a careful way without giving away too much specific information. And don’t ever try to be something your not. People like to do business with people they like. If at a later stage they find it was all an act it will not endear them to you. And apart from anything else, it’s hard work pretending to be something you’re not.

Know your audience – as with any form of marketing, knowing who your audience is and how to speak to them is half the battle. Once you have identified your perfect customer, speak to them in their language about things that will interest them, not just about your business, to help build up a positive relationship online .

Quality not Quantity – this does depend somewhat on your business but generally it’s better to have less quality followers than thousands of spammers and wierdos! If you have an online sales business it is obviously good to have a large following, however you will probably still be aiming your product at a specific type of customer, so seek out your ‘perfect’ customer to follow, in the hope that they, and all their friends, will follow you back. And if you find yourself following people of little interest, don’t be afraid to unfollow them – your live feed should be full of posts that add value, either personally or professionally.

Watch what you say – it can be tempting to get embroiled in long conversations or to bear your soul when you’re having a bad day, but do always bear in mind that anything you tweet is then in the public domain. Think carefully – especially if you are feeling low or have had a drink - you really don’t want to damage your brand or your reputation. Things can spread like wildfire on Twitter. Just think about the furore at Jan Moir’s article about Stephen Gately’s death or the torrent of support for Stephen Fry when he threatened to quit Twitter. You never know what might be picked up, and by whom, so always think before you tweet.

Mind your Manners – Twitter has its own online etiquette and it is polite to thank people who retweet your posts or recommend you. Many people also like to thank new followers for following them, and it’s always much nicer to get a personal welcome from someone who has taken the time to look you up and find out something about you. And lastly, try not to use bad language – you really don’t know how sensitive your followers are and it won’t do your brand any favours.

Use Humour (with caution) – nobody wants to be bombarded with sales spiel or lectured all the time and many small business owners and home workers use Twitter as their down-time, rather like a ‘virtual tea-break’ . So a bit of light banter, a link to an amusing news story, a funny quote or just something unusual that has happened to you that day is generally well received, particularly by any of your followers who may be having a bad day.

Be Interesting – there is simply no point in tweeting if you don’t add some value by doing so. Yes, your business is brilliant and amazing, but sometimes it’s just as valuable to share information about great service you have received, a great holiday resort you have visited, or a delicious recipe you have discovered. I for one have picked up no end of useful tips from people that have nothing to do with business – topical news items, interesting blog posts, information about films or TV programmmes. So if you discover something that interests you, chances are other people will be interested too – so share it around.

Pay It Forward - try and use your Twitter habit to help others. If you notice someone very new to Twitter is following you, introduce them to your followers and extend a warm welcome. If you have a large following, retweet relevant postings of people who have a much smaller following, thus spreading their message even wider. Retweeting is at the heart of the community spirit of Twitter and you will find that the more you do to help others, the more people will be inclined to help and support you. 

Don’t overdo it – lots of people find Twitter a bit addictive once they get going, and it can take over your day. But don’t tweet about absolutely everything you do (i.e. every meal you eat ot TV programme you watch, or when you go to the loo!). You can have TOO much of a good thing and if you appear too frequently on someone’s live feed they may get fed up of you and unfollow you. Don’t forget you can Direct Message people – not everything you share with your contacts has to appear publicly.

If in doubt, tweet about cake (or food in general) – it may seem banal and trivial but eating is a fundamental need that binds us all together, so sharing a virtual cup of tea and a slice of cyber-cake can provide you with those water cooler moments you miss when you work from home.  And if you ever need some cake inspiration, take a look at our recipes in the Cake section of this blog!

Twitter is an amazingly powerful, free resource for you to market your brand, and if used properly can reap huge benefits for your business. And if you found our guide useful you may also enjoy Mrs Stephen Fry’s Indispensible Guide to Twitter – one of the funnisest Twitter Guides you’ll ever find!

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