Improvability Blog

Please note: these are NOT last posting dates.

These are the last dates you can PLACE YOUR ORDER as the warehouse staff have to then pick and pack your order before they can post it.

By Royal Mail

Orders under GBP 150.00* are automatically sent by Royal Mail
Small Packet service to UK, Airmail service outside the UK, neither are signed for and are not trackable.

Last date to place your order for delivery to:

UK: Tuesday 13th December
Western Europe: Friday 9th December
Eastern Europe, USA and Canada: Thursday 8th December
Rest of the World: Friday 2nd December (TODAY)

By courier

Orders of GBP 150.00* and over are automatically sent by signed-for courier service

Last date to place your order for delivery to Anywhere!
Monday 20th December

If you have an order under GBP 150.00 net value and want to use the courier service to get this to you before Christmas, email us.  We can issue a PayPal invoice for the difference in cost. Please note that your order will only be processed when we have received all payments due.

Please note minimum courier costs (regardless of how many items you order) to:

UK: GBP 10.00
Europe: GBP 30.00
USA and Canada: GBP 50.00
Rest of the World: GBP 55.00

* This is the net product value, before shipping and EU VAT (where applicable).

Full terms for shipping have been available in the wholesale catalogue on the website for the last 7 years and have never changed!  You might want to check them out.

Placing your orders for delivery in early January

The warehouse closes on Friday 23rd December and opens again on Monday 9th January.  I encourage you to continue to place your orders during that time as all those received between 21st December and 8th January will be processed in order of receipt, ready for posting week commencing Monday 9th January 2012.

Order your colour supplies

Go to http://www.improvability.co.uk/consultants/index.html

If I asked you, “Who do you want to work with in your business?” and you give me the answer, “I want to help every woman in the world,” this is not a great marketing strategy – in any way, shape or form.

Let’s put this into perspective. If we work on the basis that there are around 21 million women in the UK alone, even if you spent just 1 hour with each one, you couldn’t possible get round all of them.

So a little common sense here tells you that…

You need to define your target market

And then hone and refine it!

For instance, I once thought that I could get to a certain group of women via their teenage daughters.

So I ran a workshop for teenage girls. I can quite safely say without fear of contraception* that it cured me on the spot.

Within the first 10 minutes, I knew I had made the biggest mistake of my life. All they talked about was boys and make-up and answered their blasted mobile phones! It’s a wonder I wasn’t sent down for GBH!

Clearly, teenagers are absolutely not for me but they might be for you.

Do any of these appeal to YOU?

• Teenagers?
• Ladies who lunch?
  (see Beryl Cook’s most excellent painting
  ‘Ladies’ who Lunch’ above right!)
• Mums at the school gates?
• Business ladies who want promotion?
• Professional ladies who want promotion?
• Working with local businesses?
• Men?
• Ladies with health or weight issues?
• Baby boomers?
• any other group that springs to mind?

If you’re going to stand any chance of success with your business, you have got to stop trying to be all things to all people.

You were put on the planet for a darned good reason, to help a specific group of people with their specific issues. So I strongly recommend that you take some time out to think long and hard about who that group is – for you, your skills, and your personality.

Your personality is your USP

YOU are your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). You are your personality.

My personality dictates a huge part of my own decison about who to work with, and who NOT to work with.

• As you’ve seen, the last group on earth I should ever work with are teenagers. All I want to do is slap them. I only want to work with people who are willing to listen and participate (and have good manners!)
• It only took me 17 years to work it out but I’m also pretty useless at running 1-1 colour or style consultations. If the consultation goes on longer than 2 hours, I get bored, restless…
• But along the way I realised that I love working with groups; I couldn’t work to a script to save my life so I’m in my element when I have to react to the dynamic of the group.

About four thousand years ago, my first business mentor, Phil, said to me, “Stop trying to be something you’re not. Be who you are and the business will be easy.”

I’m straight-talking, bossy, contentious, and I want everyone to realise that they are unique and to live life to the full. So I changed from the old Kim, trying to be what I thought people wanted, into just being me. I now warn people up front what about they’re going to get.

Understanding who I am, how I operate, what naffs me off, and what makes me happy – this is my personality; this is me.

Who are YOU?

Find out who you are, what you want, what makes you smile, and what doesn’t, and this will start to give you huge clues about who you should be working with in your business, and who you shouldn’t!

Until you know who you are, how on earth can you help others become who they really are!

As George Sand said, “It’s never too late to become the person you were meant to be.”

* “I can quite safely say without fear of contraception…”

This is one of my favourite sayings from one of my favourite British comediennes, the brilliant Hylda Baker who died in 1986. Of course, the usual saying is, “I can quite safely say without fear of contradiction…” but Hylda’s version makes me howl with laughter every time I say it (and I say it a lot!).