Business Lounge, the small business coaching and networking program we’ve been developing, is soon to be officially launched. To mark the occasion, we’re having a party!

If you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur or run you own small business, this is for you.

It’s on March 3rd, 7pm at The Grape Wine Bar in central Edinburgh. Come and join us for a glass of wine and hear more about Business Lounge.
There’s a special offer too – if you register on the night, there’ll be no joining fee.
Just click here to download your free invitation.

Fair enough. But I wonder – exactly what is business confidence? For me, the expression suggests a certain tone of resignation. It’s like it’s some mysterious, nebulous thing our businesses need, but which we can’t control. We just have to wait for it to return. I don’t like that; I think we can do something about our lot. (I’d be a pretty poor coach if I didn’t.)

I prefer to think in slightly different terms. Confidence is knowing you can do something. You’re confident you can tie your shoe laces, give a good presentation, or provide a good service. It’s something inside. Business confidence is something else – it’s not just about believing in yourself. It’s something that exists between people. A better word for it is trust. I like that a lot better – you can actually do something about building trust. And let’s face it – it’s a lack of trust that stops the banks lending. To call it a lack of confidence is to be euphemistic.

So what’s my point? There’s a lot out there about what opportunities the recession offers – but it can be difficult seeing it that way. It comes down to a choice of perspective. You can see business confidence as something to wait patiently for. Or you can see belief in yourself and trust between your business and your customers as things you can build.

(Not wanting to incur the wrath of web designers out there, I should point out that they’re not redundant here. WordPress gives you a great platform on which to test drive your initial ideas for copy and layout. Then you can pass them on to the designer to make it REALLY good, and tailored to you.)

So, I’ve been looking forward to getting this new site up and running. It’s still growing, so please, don’t mind the gaps. In the meantime, if you’d like to find out more about what Mark Lister Coaching’s about, do get in touch. Thanks!

All part of making getting work with the public sector in Scotland easier and more open, apparently. If it does what it says on the tin, it should be a big help.

This evening we ran Business Lounge, my new program of coaching and workshops for one-person businesses, for the first time. It was great fun, and very productive too. Business Lounge has a workshop once a month, and the participants are very diverse – so the focus can’t be too narrow. Instead, I take a broad subject and tailor it to the needs of the participants.

In this workshop we were talking about the internet – well, I did say it was a broad subject. Interestingly, blogging seemed to emerge as a very popular topic. So I guess just as I launch this new blog, I’ll have a whole lot of new neighbours.