On a recent trip to Melbourne I found myself, yet again, past dark sidling up a seemingly deserted alley way. I was in search of “La la land” a bar.

You might already know that seemingly all the very groovy bars in Melbourne are hidden in laneways more befitting a morose mugging than a civilised cocktail. It’s part of the culture and thankfully I have my Bar Secrets Melbourne cards so that I can try a new one each time I’m there.

I have to lurk in a laneway in Melbourne to manifest my mohito, but did you know in the corporate world you’ll also have to do some covert skulking?

The corporate alleyway you might have to lurk in could be:

• Knowing the right after work drinks place to network with your target demographic.

• Knowing which receptionist to turn on the charm with to get your messages delivered on time.

• Knowing what bottle of wine is the client’s favourite to ensure their repeat business.

• Knowing that promotions at your office get decided by a select few at a monthly luncheon.

There’s secret “laneway-like” world in almost every workplace and every industry. How many corporate secrets do you know? Too bad there isn’t a card that can help you out with that one. But you could try:

• Finding out where the most successful person in your industry has their after work drinks (you could even, shock horror, offer to buy them a drink).

• Charming all the receptionists at your work place (being nice to the front face of your business always pays off in the long run, they are your tie to the rest of the world).

• Ask your best client’s assistant or partner what their favourite drop is so that next time you get them a gift you know it’s spot on the money.

• Find that person who got the promotion you wanted and take them out to lunch to try and unearth their secrets (a good mohito helps with this too).

Good luck in uncovering the hidden laneways of your industry and workplace.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

When I was about 6 years old I was at my Mum’s workplace running amok as I always did. When it was time to go I’m not sure what came over me, but I refused. I hid under tables, I ran from my Mum and I basically caused all sorts of fuss and embarrassment for her.

I then got the brilliant idea that with this newfound leverage over my Mum I’d start making demands (genius I know!) I wasn’t leaving the office until she promised me that we could go out for pancakes.

After much to-ing and fro-ing my Mum finally gave in. I’m sure I let out a yelp of delight and we left the office.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that, sadly, there were no pancakes that night or for a very long time afterwards.

It taught me a really important lesson though – making demands is pointless if you’re looking for a good long term relationship. Even if you are able to demand your way into what you want, the animosity created by that demand leads to ongoing acrimony.

I’ve seen it time and time again in workplaces where employees will make demands of their employer and wonder why neither party ends up with what they want. So, how about this – the next time you want something, rather than demanding it, why not show some VALUE.

If you want a new coffee machine at work, put together a quick proposal that will show your boss that it’ll give each staff member an extra half an hour in the office a day (rather than going across the road to get coffee) thus providing him with X number of extra work hours a week, that’s a VALUE.

If you want a payrise, put together a list of your VALUE (not demands) to the company. Show the improvements you’ve made in the past X months, the increase in revenue to the company, the benefit on office morale and then go to your employer with a plan for how you can continue increasing the VALUE to them.

As a child, how much better would I have been when Mum wanted to leave the office for me to say, sure, let’s go now, and by the way, is there any chance you could look at us having pancakes at some stage in the next little while if I clean my room and do the dishes as soon as we get home? Ahhh… if only I’d known!

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

The highlight of every weekend I spend in Melbourne is a trip to the magic shop in Southbank. Yes, I’ll happily confess I’m crazy for the magic. I’ve always loved it. But I don’t go into this shop just to buy magic tricks.

Every time I go into this shop it’s an experience. The staff are all dressed in bow ties and when asked, or even sometimes when you don’t ask, they’ll start demonstrating their wares by performing fantastic magic tricks. I adore watching their demonstrations (they’re flawless and funny) and it’s great for business. I want to do EVERY trick they show me and I tell all my friends (and now you guys!) that they have to go into the shop. Cost to the shop?

Nothing. When the staff are busy serving, they don’t do tricks, it’s just in between customers buying. The benefit? Immeasurable I’m sure.

Now while a magic shop can literally create magic in their shopping experience, I don’t think it’s a feat beyond any business.

The restaurant Bubba Gump (based on Forest Gump) in the States did it for me by having a sign on each table that could be flipped to say either “run forest run” or “stop forest stop” depending on whether you wanted service for your waiter. I loved it so much I thought about getting my own portable version to take to every restaurant with me (it’s so frustrating to wait and wait for service!)

How will you create magic in your business today?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

So, more and more these days I’m getting asked about social networking / web 2.0 and what on earth their purpose is. This includes websites like:

• Twitter

• Blogger

• Facebook

• Linked in

• Myspace

Now, if you’re online, I doubt you’ve managed to exist without knowing about one or more of these sites, but from a business perspective, what’s their use?

We’ll go through each quickly, but there’s some general pros and cons that cover them all:

Pros

• Greater access to customers in a non-invasive, opt in (ie the person says they want to get your twitter updates or read your blog etc)

• Using these sites allows you to put a more human face on a business

• Almost all of these sites don’t cost anything (except your time) to use

Cons

• These sites demand time. I know people who invest upwards of an hour on social network sites every day (I don’t – but it does take time)

• Like a website, if you don’t update and keep things fresh on social networking sites there isn’t much point

Twitter

It’s the latest and the greatest if you listen to celebs like Ashton Kutcher @aplusk (putting the @ symbol in twitter speak means that you can find Ashton at www.twitter.com/aplusk) or Ellen @TheEllenShow who are all raving about it. In short, Twitter (www.twitter.com) was built to answer the question, what are you doing? You get 140 characters to let people know what you’re up to.

From a business perspective, I use @kirstydunphey to tweet (a tweet is a post on twitter) and push traffic towards my blog (more about blogs later), to promote listings (with my real estate hat on) and to stay in touch.

Some tweeters to check out from a business perspective include:

@zappos – Zappos CEO (service oriented online shoe store in the States)

@miafreedman – former Cosmo editor and current author and blogger

@Rove1974 – TVs Rove McManus

@ThisIsSethsBlog – Seth Godin, author and blogger

Facebook / Myspace

I’ll lump these two together because they’re really similar. Myspace used to be all the rage and in the last two years it’s become more about facebook. I maintain a presence on both, but if you’re strapped for time then it’s more likely that you’ll go with myspace if you target a younger key demographic (say 10 – 19 year olds) and facebook if you’re targeting an older demo.

Both sites allow you to connect with friends (facebook prefer you connect with people you know, whereas myspace don’t care with people often having thousands of friends they’ve never “met” outside of myspace). Graphically facebook is a little cleaner while myspace allows you to customise your profile a lot more.

Secure wise, I allow anyone to access my myspace page (www.myspace.com/kirstydunphey) because I don’t use it for anything persona. Myspace is just about business for me in terms of driving traffic towards my blog and books and keeping people updated about my businesses. Facebook on the other hand I actually use to connect with my friends so I’ve tweaked my security so that the general public can’t see much about my personal side, only really the basics and my status updates (like a tweet but for facebook).

Facebook has another great functionality though where it allows you to start groups and fan pages. We have a fan page for all our businesses and it allows others to become “fans” and show that they love the business on their profiles. It’s all just basic free marketing.

Linked In

www.LinkedIn.com is like facebook but for business connections. A fabulous tool if used properly you upload your business / resume history and find people you know (the same as facebook), but from there, say you want to get in contact with an exec at IBM or any company, you can find out how, through your network you know that person. It might be that you’re 4 degrees of separation away (ie: you know someone, who knows someone, who knows… you get the picture) but linked in will allow you to trace that relationship to get in contact with that person. Another handy functionality is the ability to write referrals / testimonials about people you’ve worked with.

Blogger

I use google’s free blogging site www.blogger.com to run all my blogs, but there are plenty to choose from. Blogging allows you to post online articles which can then be indexed and searched by web engines such as google. It’s a great way to increase credibility, drive traffic to your website and to give the world more of an insight into your business. Our real estate agency uses one (www.elephantproperty.com.au/blog) so that we can update people on our market, the economic conditions and what’s going on in property generally. People can then subscribe to get your blog updates delivered to their inbox (like a newsletter, only you don’t have to go to the trouble of making it and emailing it) and you can also subscribe to blogs you like reading, or a reader can simply come back to the website when they want to find out more.

Phew, the conclusion

So that’s basically it on the social networking sites I use for business. There’s a few more you may want to check out, but my advise is as follows.

• Don’t do everything! You still need time to run your business.

• Find out what works for you by employing simple and free google analytics on your website so that you can see where your traffic is coming from (if you’re tweeting like a crazy person plugging your blog, but no one is visiting, then maybe it’s not working for you)

• Utilise tools like www.ping.fm which will allow you to update your status simultaneously at all your sites so you don’t have to log into them all

• Link to your social networking on your website (see www.threadless.com for a great example of how to do this)

• And remember, if you don’t intend to update these sites, don’t bother! You’d do better to concentrate on more traditional marketing. Now... off to post this article as a blog on blogger.com and then use ping.fm to update my status on linkedin, twitter, facebook and myspace to point to it!

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter. 

I’m Horrified. That’s right, Horrified with a capital H.

I just received this text (SMS) message verbatim.

Hi u are due for ur regular dental check. We are booked for 6wks.Call on 63xx xxxx.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for a strategic use of a text message. I get a sensational one from my physiotherapist to remind me about appointments and we even use them in our real estate agency for rent reminders, but this text message is, in my opinion, appalling.

What’s more, there’s an extra 69 characters they could have used in this text message without spilling over into a second message and thus costing them more.

I get that there is a language that people use for text messaging and I get that abbreviations make things easier to fit in to the limited space but c’mon! This text is just crazy. I don’t want to get my teeth checked by a place that sends out reminder text messages that look like they’re from a bored 17 year old.

The sad truth is that I will end up going back to this dentist (it’s near on impossible in my area to get into another) and I won’t let them know how horrified I was by this text message. How could they get the feedback? The next time I’m waiting the 30 minutes in the surgery why not give me a little survey that says “what can we do better?” Then I’d share it with them.

Until then though, in language my dentist’s receptionist will understand if no one else: C u l8r, KD.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

So, you’re about to buy an investment property, or any property for that matter and you want to get the absolute best deal. Always keep in mind that a contract for purchase doesn’t just consist of a price. Many times there are other conditions on the contract which are just as important to the seller as the price.

If you’re trying to get your offer accepted and it’s not quite at the sellers asking price, or you’re in competition with other buyers and want to make your offer stand out… here are a few things you can try to help smooth the deal.

1. Leave the settlement date (the date when you officially own the property) off your original offer and let your agent know that you’re happy to settle whenever suits the seller. If a certain time specifically suits them (quick or a long), being flexible may just help you get the deal across the line

2. Put down a sizeable deposit. This shows you’re serious and are capable of completing the contract. Oftentimes attaching a cheque for the deposit to your offer is enough of a mental stimulus for the seller.

3. Where possible make your contract unconditional or subject to as little as possible. Unconditional means that a contract isn’t subject to a building inspection, finance, selling another property etc. If you can get your building inspection done prior to offering and have your finance approved, this can be a very strong incentive for a seller to sign and put the sold sticker up straight away.

4. Consider letting the agent pass on your circumstances. You’d be surprised how many sellers I’ve dealt with over the years who like to know who is going to own their property after they’ve moved.

It’s important to note that if you’re not able to do points 2 and 3 – DON’T! These are only handy hints and they only work if you’re able to do them.

The points also work in reverse if a seller wants you to come to their price. You can then start to be more rigid with settlement date (perhaps you want to stretch it out so that rent increases can be completed) or deposit (perhaps you want to put down NIL deposit so that your cash isn’t tied up).

Contracts are like living breathing organisms and they’re open to being changed, amended and reworded so that they best suit the parties involved. Before you sign any contract make sure the agent takes the time to explain it and that you’ve read every part of it. Where possible, take it to your conveyancer or solicitor to check over.

Real estate agents – these points are important for you to note too in trying to get your contracts to come together!

Happy purchasing!

Kirsty

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

At 18 I received some of the best life and “interview advice” from my boss at the time Nick. I was interviewing with him and he asked me about where I was working at the time. I proceeded to tell him I couldn’t wait to get away from the place because I really was having issues with the boss.

Now, even though these issues were justified (a death threat is a justified issue right?) Nick sat me down after I got the job and explained to me that a future boss doesn’t want to hear about your issues with your current boss.

This was one of many lessons he taught me during the time I studied while working with him. Another one that stuck with me was when you start a sentence with “In all honesty…” you’re inviting the person you’re talking to think that you’re not speaking with honesty at other times.

I was reminded of these lessons when chatting with a friend recently who was having an issue with her boss. They didn’t appreciate her. They didn’t respect the work she put in. They took her for granted. No death threats here which is a great start! But it got me to thinking I’d had a similar discussion with her about her previous boss, and the one before that, and the one before that.

When a pattern like that emerges, where you’ve been at odds with every boss you’ve ever worked for, maybe it’s time to look internally instead of continuing to push the blame outwards?

There are great bosses out there and of course really average ones, but if you’re always looking for flaws instead of appreciate opportunities you’ll always have a martyr complex and be wondering why you’re not being fully appreciated. Who knows, given the economy (I was told just this weekend that 500,000 people in the States are losing jobs each month!), you could turn your feelings around and start appreciating your boss for the very fact that you have a job right now.

So, wrapping up and in all honesty… er I mean with as much honesty as I always write:

• If you can’t stand more than 60% of your current / previous bosses and managers, maybe it’s you.

• If you can’t stand your current boss but aren’t going to leave, try and change your attitude by realizing how lucky you are to simply have a job at the moment and consider what you can do to make the attitude more positive.

• If you’re getting death threats, leave your place of employment, but keep it to yourself in future job interviews!

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

I had lunch a few weeks ago at a great little restaurant. Our waiter was very well spoken his restaurant patter flowed from his tongue like poetry.

Until that is, we started talking back. Whenever we interrupted his well prepared dialogue he stammered, blinked wildly and then went back to his script as though we’d said nothing at all.

He’d memorised what he was meant to say beautifully, but he hadn’t internalised it at all and as such, if we didn’t say our lines perfectly, he was thrown. Unfortunately no-one had given us a script for eating lunch!

I’ve written before on the fact that I love scripts and dialogues. I love it that when I call my hairdresser they answer the phone “how can I make your day” I love that my old real estate agency answers the phone “it’s a great day at Harcourts”. That’s memorisation, but when you ask someone what the company’s all about. They can memorise your mission statement or you company profile and repeat it verbatim, or they can have internalised that information so that they can speak conversationally about it (with interjections) and not be thrown.

Memorisation’s a great start, but internalisation and be able to interject a scrip with a personality is key.

Many thanks to Rob Morton from the Disney Institute www.disneyinstitute.com for reminding me what an important topic this is in a recent speech of his.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

I’m not sure I could ever be in the military as my father was. Blind obedience doesn’t sit well with me, and yet it’s a way of life and a vital tool for survival in the military.

In a business environment however, I think that blind obedience only hamstrings an organisation.

Any manager who expects and wants blind obedience is really just saying they want to constrict the growth of an organisation.

There’s a huge difference between respect and blind obedience.

• Blind obedience keeps on doing something even when it knows there’s a better way.

• Respect, says “have we ever thought about adding / changing…”

And while there’s a huge difference between respect and blind obedience there are also miles between respect and disrespect.

• Respect says “I’ve been thinking, what if we tried…” and clearly and concisely states their point for their manager.

• Disrespect says “That’s stupid and inefficient” either to their manager’s face or behind their back or continues to press their point long after their manager has considered it and decided to go in another direction.

The problem? So many employees think that what their manager wants is blind obedience. The secret? The best managers want your input. They want you to help your organisation get better. When you improve something, everyone benefits and you make your manager look better. They may not always take your advice, or move in your direction (as a manger that’s their choice), but done respectfully it will always be of benefit.

Tweak your communication so it’s always respectful and always helpful and you’ll soon see that a first class manager will welcome your suggestions.

What to do if you have a manager who isn’t first class and who only wants blind obedience? Firstly, find out if this is the case or if you just assume it is (have a coffee with them and try them out on one piece of feedback, ask how they like feedback delivered). If you’re positive that they only want blind obedience my advice is: fall into line (but keep your eyes open for a different manager or mentor - you deserve better).

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

So the question here is how do we whip our staff into a frenzy (as opposed to just whipping them)! Having been a small business owner with a growing number of staff the focus on keeping them engaged, encouraging them to grow but still stay with us and finding time to run my business often felt overwhelming. To follow are the simple, and yet at the same time not to simple top ten tactics that worked for me.

1. Communication – find ways to get your team to come to you when there’s an issue, not to whinge behind your back.

2. Create problem solvers – encourage your team to bring any problem to you, but to always bring a solution at the same time.

3. Reward fairly - based on performance, not time in the job.

4. Develop champions – who can grow into their roles and champion and action new ideas and techniques.

5. Trust – regardless of how you’ve been burnt in the past, treat your team first with trust.

6. Reward creatively – consider education rewards, family based rewards (such as dinner vouchers) and tiny rewards (such as their favourite chocolate bar) instead of just standard pay rises or bonuses

7. Involve your team – get their opinions, seek their feedback, hunt out criticism before it infects your organisation

8. Show the path – foster career drive by showing your team the career paths open to them within your organisation.

9. Listen – instead of always talking.

10. Lead by example – live in a manner consistent with what you say. It’s managing, not parenting, so “do as I say, not as I do” aint gonna cut it.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania's only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty's other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.