TAO Blog - Wordy Bird

You Wouldn’t Send Your Child To The Pub, Would You …..?

Just like most things in life, social media platforms come with minimum age limits.

It’s Not All About You!

I’ve undertaken a fair few social media audits of late, and without exception, one of the things that leaps out time after time, across all platforms, is that businesses only tend to post about themselves.

Vaguebooking? Please stop it. Now!

For many years now I’ve held a pet peeve, primarily with Facebook although it does pop up on other social networks from time to time. So, imagine my sheer joy at discovering that I’m not alone. I’m actually in the majority, maybe the masses. There’s even a...

5 Top Tips For Successful Networking

Now, I'm guessing you wouldn't expect to win the first marathon you ever entered, would you? However, if you train hard, apply yourself, invest the time and really work at it, subsequent marathons will eventually get easier, your finishing times will improve and the...

The Art Of The Business Expo. Yes, There Is An Art …..

My name is Cheryl, and I love to visit business expos! There. I’ve said it. My secret is out, and there’s no going back!

Who Holds You To Account When You Work For Yourself?

There are so many benefits to working for yourself: you can manage your own time, work around school hours, work at your own pace and yes, be your own boss. Perfect! But wait! There are down sides too, and the biggest one I came up against was the self-discipline...

Social Media: How Safe Is YOUR Teenager?

I was recently asked to deliver a social media-based enrichment talk to a group of Sixth Form students at a local all-girls' school. During my research and preparation, some of the things I discovered led to me questioning the values of social media, and whether there...

It’s Basic Grammar – Let’s Get It Right!

The other day I opened an email newsletter only to be confronted with the opening line “Do you know where you’re business is going?” My shoulders immediately tensed up. Did I want to continue reading this piece if the sender couldn’t even get the opening line...

Fed Up With Candy Crush Requests? Block ‘Em!

Hardly a day goes by without reading a status update on Facebook bemoaning the various game requests that can bombard users to the point of distraction. Did you know that you can block game requests? It takes a matter of minutes to do, and will stop the pesky requests...

Top 5 Tips To Make Your Tweets Sparkle!

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last few years, you can’t have escaped the popularity of micro-blogging social media site, Twitter. Launched in 2006, the site now has over 270 million active users. Businesses of all shapes and sizes across every imaginable...

Tao’s Top 5 Tips for Effective Networking

I first had the idea of working for myself sometime during 2011, after ranting to my partner how unhappy I was in the job I was doing at the time. He actually planted the first seed, and yes, I laughed! As I thought about it, the idea grew on me and a battle plan was...

Monthly Mentoring – and moving forward

In March 2014 I signed up with three fellow small business owners for a monthly mentoring group. We’re all from different business sectors so there’s no clashing in terms of clients or “trade secrets” and we’re pretty much all “one man bands”, although the fourth...

The 10 Commandments For Business Owners

Thou shalt not be perfect, or even try Thou shalt not try to be all things to all people Thou shalt leave undone things that ought to be done Thou shalt not spread thyself too thin Thou shalt learn to say NO! Thou shalt schedule time to thyself Thou shalt switch off...