Matthew Kimberley

The leaflet above was dropped through my door. It’s a list of useful telephone numbers. It’s a useful document to have, exactly the kind of thing you’d want to keep stuck to the kitchen fridge. There’s the number of the ambulance service, fire brigade, emergency locksmith and dentist, the townhall, etc etc.

The very last number is, rather incongruously, for a “voyant/magnetiseur” – a clairvoyant and hypnotist. It’s a mobile phone number, and it’s the same person who printed off these leaflets. Guerrilla marketing at its best.

Meanwhile, LesbianBuilder.com now operating as a niche recruitment site within a niche industry.

Nic(h)e.

Howdy! Back from Mexico with a tan that’s fast fading …

In my last post I quoted Tim Ferriss as saying “I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have”. This week I’ve come across two more articles which mention the notion of uncomfortableness:

The Duct Tape Marketing Blog, a guide to making a success of your business on a shoestring, has the following:

“Get Uncomfortable on Purpose! – Your wealth, your success, will correspond directly with the size of your mindset. Get in front of an audience and speak, write for an industry publication, start blogging, network with prospects, write personal thank you notes. Let someone else be in charge or take the credit for success. You can’t grow unless you are uncomfortable – embrace it!. Write a book. Start a radio show. Create a podcast. You are so much bigger than you are allowing yourself to be. Reach.” – The ultimate secret to business growth

While ere.net, the recruiting blog network, has “the difference starts with you … THINK UNCOMFORTABLE. Do what you think you cannot do. You will find it is very cool.”

My company is toying with a marketing product that I haven’t seen used before in the recruitment industry. I won’t go into too much detail yet, but I can imagine it’s something that would make a lot of recruitment consultants hide away under their desks when it came to their turn. I don’t yet know if it will work, but I’m prepared to stick my neck out and give it a go. Will report back here, of course.

Guy Kawasaki in his blog How To Change the World has a guest post from Scott Shane, a director of Entrepreneurial Studies at a US university. He writes some fascinating stuff about the myths that surround the start-up, as well as some hard statistical home truths:

“Seven years after beginning the process of starting a business, only one-third of people have a new company with positive cash flow greater than the salary and expenses of the owner for more than three consecutive months.”

If you’re hesitating about breaking out on your own, I recommend you read it all. Together with “duct-tape marketing” ideas, you should be well-set.