I get pitched business ideas all the time. Some I think are great, some I wonder how many cocktails the person had before coming up with the idea, some I think are a great start looking for a unique twist and others I think downright suck.

Recently I was introduced to Fiverr by Lara Solomon (@LAROO). The simple premise of the site is that there's a whole bunch of people there who'll do things for $5. Some of them border on the bizarre (I'll be your Facebook girlfriend for a week and make all your friends jealous) but many seem, at first glance, like they could actually be useful (I'll design you a custom MySpace profile).

Long story short, I've become a bit of an overnight fan of this site, tweeting my little heart out (@kirstydunphey) about it after having purchased three different things yesterday and already receiving my first job (five photographs put on transparent backgrounds for @Baby_Teresa) done perfectly and in around an hour after I booked and paid my US$5. We'll see how my cartoon and video, currently on order, go.

My point is not to rave on about Fiverr though - despite how novel and great an idea I think it is.

My point is that if the people who started Fiverr had pitched the idea to me - I might have told them it sucked.

My first thought would be - who would do anything for $5?

And of course, I would have been wrong (check out the site to see how many people are prepared to do a wide range of things for $5!)

So the next time someone tells you your business idea sucks, tell them to bugger off! It doesn't matter if everyone doesn't "get" your idea. It matters that you see a market, it matters that you have a vision and it matters that you're prepared to get off your butt and do something about it.

PS. if the guy who started FedEx had listened to his college professor he may never have started that either.

PPS. And here's my video which has just arrived (bear in mind it only cost a fiverr!)

And now we're even selling things on fiverr!

50 Tips to Improve Your Customer Service as a Real Estate Agent

http://www.fiverr.com/users/kirstyd/gigs/give-you-50-tips-to-increase-and-improve-your-customer-service-as-a-real-estate-agent

100 Awesome Headings for Creative Real Estate Sales Advertisements

http://www.fiverr.com/users/kirstyd/gigs/give-you-100-awesome-headings-for-creative-real-estate-sales-advertisements

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 her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about at www.kirstydunphey.com. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property (www.elephantproperty.com.au) a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa (www.baby-teresa.com) a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell and ReallySold (www.reallysold.com) which helps real estate agents stop writing boring uninteresting ads.

My husband and I cruised through Alaska as part of our honeymoon. On this trip a fellow traveler told me that Alaska is the “cruise you take before you die” (the comment was more to do with the average age of the cruisers, not the danger level involved in trying to run on a treadmill while the ship dodged icebergs!)

We LOVED Alaska and this cruise despite the fact that we may have been the youngest people ever to set foot on the shuffleboard deck.

One of the reasons we loved it so much was because of our housekeeper Merawai. There’s a reason I still remember her name 4 years on (and it’s not just because she liked to enter our room without knocking.)

Every morning when she serviced our teeny tiny cabin she’d leave us a towel folded into a create of some sort. She’d use my glasses as props, or hang them from the ceiling.

It was systemized brilliance and gave us a giggle each and every day. It cost the company a little in time and nothing in materials and 4 years old I’m still telling people about the experience.

What could you start doing today to make someone still feel the need to rave about you 4 years on?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can www.unleashedknowledge.com) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Kirsty’s current projects include www.reallysold.com which helps real estate agents write amazing ads, Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au a boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners, Baby Teresa www.baby-teresa.com a baby clothing line that donates a baby outfit to a baby in need for each one sold. Find out more about Kirsty at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

I had the pleasure of watching arguably the world’s best magician David Copperfield live in Melbourne recently. The magic itself was awesome: motorbikes and cars were materialised on stage, a paper rose was lit on fire and turned into a real rose and of course there were ducks (well one duck at least called Webster).

Strangely what stood out for me the most though was Copperfield’s story about his father and his grandfather. Copperfield’s father won a prestigious acting scholarship (also won by Robert Redford and Danny Devito) but his father (Copperfield’s grandfather) banned him from taking it with threats of disowning him. His father acquiesced.

At the age of 14 when Copperfield decided he wanted to pursue a life as a magician his grandfather tried the same act on him telling him that performers were “bums”. Obviously Copperfield wasn’t dissuaded but sadly his grandfather never spoke to him again. I’ve got to have such respect for someone with the maturity to determine a career path at age 14 and to overcome such obstacles to follow it. He had a dream and wouldn’t be bullied into forsaking it.

I feel sorry for his grandfather. Firstly, he’s attempted to bully two generations and has succeeded in helping one give up his dream. Secondly, he didn’t have the courage to admit he was wrong prior to his death when Copperfield had obviously proved he wasn’t going to be a “bum”.

If there’s someone around you: young, old or even yourself with a dream, what can you do to encourage it today?

And just for a giggle, here’s Webster (the duck).

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can www.unleashedknowledge.com) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Kirsty’s current projects include www.reallysold.com which helps real estate agents write amazing ads, Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au a boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners, Baby Teresa www.baby-teresa.com a baby clothing line that donates a baby outfit to a baby in need for each one sold. Find out more about Kirsty at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

The air was electric as I looked over a sea of bobbing blue caps hotdog in hand. It was my first Chicago Cubs baseball game at historic Wrigley Field and I was loving every minute of it. With every crack of bat to ball my breath paused, my neck arched and I took another bite of my fabulous Chicago dog.

That day, like so many others, was not the a day for Cubs victory – but one moment definitely stood out. The opposing team hit a huge fly ball right…. out…. into centre field… home run.

All of a sudden the crowd started to boo and howl wildly. My husband asked me why the Cubs fans were showing such poor sportsman ship. Being a nerd (with access to Wikipedia on my iPhone), I knew exactly what the boos were about.

It was soon readily apparent to all Australian tourists at the game that the booing wasn’t about the home run. The boos were about the fan who caught the home run ball keeping the home run ball from the opposing team! Culturally speaking, Chicago Cubs fans throw back the opposing team’s homers and nearly every one of the 35,000 people at the game let their feelings be well known on the subject!

Now whether you agree with throwing back the homer or not (my husband adamantly states that regardless of the boo-ing, he’d be keeping that homer!) you’ve got to admit, this is a very clear indication of the culture of Wrigley Field.

Is the culture within your organisation as readily apparent to new comers? Now I’m not suggesting that you should be getting boo-ed by 35 accountants in your firm when you don’t refill the paper in the photocopier. But I am wondering how comfortable the team around you feel about pointing out when someone isn’t living up to your office culture? Does the new guy know that in your firm you reward other’s successes, you actively engage with the people around you, you say good morning with a smile each day, you don’t take shortcuts, you get your filing and other little tasks done, you treat even the most junior of staff members with respect…. And who amongst his peers will figuratively boo at him if he doesn’t?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can www.unleashedknowledge.com) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Kirsty’s current projects include www.reallysold.com which helps real estate agents write amazing ads, Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au a boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners, Baby Teresa www.baby-teresa.com a baby clothing line that donates a baby outfit to a baby in need for each one sold. Find out more about Kirsty at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

Sometimes I feel as though I’m one of those people that likes to nitpick. I’m so fixated on customer service and get so disappointed when it doesn’t live up to even basic standards that I’m often “whinging” about the dodgy hotel experience I had or the conference I attended that did such and such.

I almost think that sometimes I’m a little programmed to see the wrong, which is why it was so nice that a bad service experience yesterday turned into something kinda great.

I’d emailed a property manager to meet my husband at a property at 1.00pm amongst a whole swag of other things, they’d confirmed with “all done”. At 1.13pm I got a call from my husband – no-one had been there to meet him. I called to chase up and long story short, the property manager hadn’t read the part of my email about the appointment.

Her boss apologised to myself and my husband which was fine, but the thing that had me leave the experience with an uplifted feeling was her apology to me on the phone. It was heartfelt. It was genuine. She didn’t offer any excuses. She just assured me that it wouldn’t happen again and took her lumps. She then followed it up with a further email.

We’re human. We mess up. All of us (I know I certainly do!). It’s what you do when you mess up that determines how that relationship will progress.

Option number 1 is:

1. Own it

2. Convey your apology in a heartfelt way

3. Put a plan in place so that it doesn’t happen again

You easily have the power to turn a bad experience into a positive. Where you run into trouble is if you follow the dodgy conflict resolution strategy of Option 2:

1. Bury it

2. Deny it

3. Shift the blame

The next time you mess up – and we know it will happen – what 3 steps will you decide to do?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can www.unleashedknowledge.com) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Kirsty’s current projects include www.reallysold.com which helps real estate agents write amazing ads, Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au a boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners, Baby Teresa www.baby-teresa.com a baby clothing line that donates a baby outfit to a baby in need for each one sold. Find out more about Kirsty at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

Some of my favourite songs are those that are able to convey a storyline worthy of a full feature length movie in only a few minutes.

There’s the eternal Kenny Rogers (yes, I like Kenny and won’t hear anything negative about that) with Ruby don’t take your love to town.

More recently, and while it’s not as powerful as Ruby, I still love the simple and beautiful story in Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus.

And the shocking (well I found it shocking the first time I listened to it) All I wanna do is make love to you by Heart.

This got me thinking, if a musical artist can convey that much of a story line in such a compressed time, so too can a business in their marketing materials. For my money, the “about us” page on your website is the best place to start.

One of my favourite corporate about us pages is that of the recently aquired Zappos. Check it out to see how they’ve incorporated testimonials, video, social networking, blogs and more.

Even on twitter where you’ve got only a few tiny characters for your bio, http://twitter.com/caseystevens got my attention with hers (although I don’t know if I agree with the ugg boots):

• Bio Yes to: Marketing, Dancing, Dogs, Pina Coladas. No to: Brussel sprouts, violence, wearing ugg boots outside

Check out this fabulous article to see a few more wacky but story filled examples.

Here’s a simple checklist for your website’s about us page:

• Does it adequately convey the personality of you / your organisation?

• What else can you do to link it to your social media output (twitter, facebook, linked in etc) • Does it help people get to your blog (er… do you have a blog?)

• Could it link or show testimonials?

• Can it help me find your team bios?

• Is it current and up to date?

• Does it link to the other pages on your website?

• Have you missed anything “bragworthy” – awards, qualifications etc?

• Is it visually appealing?

• Is there anything on there that would make me want to tell someone else to check out that page? Now, I’m leaving now ‘cos you just heard the slamming of the door (if this doesn’t make sense then I humbly request you start listening to more Kenny Rogers!) I’m off to work on updating my about us pages… how ‘bout you?

Also If you know of any great “about us” pages, please put them in the comments here, I’m always up for seeing fabulous examples.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can www.unleashedknowledge.com) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Kirsty’s current projects include www.reallysold.com which helps real estate agents write amazing ads, Elephant Property www.elephantproperty.com.au a boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners, Baby Teresa www.baby-teresa.com a baby clothing line that donates a baby outfit to a baby in need for each one sold. Find out more about Kirsty at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

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.