Kirsty's TV Interview On Sky Business

Kirsty's new free book - Peacock Feathers

Thanks Indiana

Watching Indiana Jones (of all things) last night with my husband I was reminded of one of the more memorable places I’ve ever been.

I was 21 years old and on my first trip overseas. A Contiki tour through Europe – comprising something ridiculous like 13 countries in 5 weeks. Many would say, not enough time to enjoy any of it and I might agree but for the fact that at 21, I had no idea what in Europe I wanted to see.

Sure I had vague images of the Colosseum and the Eiffel tower but aside from these bastions of what Europe was in my just post teenage mind – I was stumped as to what I actually wanted to see. So I just went with the flow. Loving almost everything I was, albeit briefly, exposed to.

Of all that I most adored on this trip: cobbled streets in Florence, friendly bocce players in Barcelona, the hushed silence in Notre Dame, one place chilled me but also stuck with me in a really memorable way.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade reminded me of it last night in a scene where an Austrian woman (a bad-guy mind you) holds back a tear at a Nazi book burning site in Berlin.

When I visited Bebelplatz, Berlin at first I didn’t understand what the empty shelves illuminated underground meant.
 

I didn’t realise I was standing up on the site where Nazis burnt over 20,000 books in 1933. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebelplatz)

The monument is elegant and simple and is something I’ll never forget.  Nearby to it there is a plaque which quotes Heinrich Heine, a German poet: "Where books are burned, in the end people will burn."

Thanks Indiana Jones for triggering a memory so powerful. Thanks to the tour guide who adequately explained Bebelplatz to me. Thanks to a world where, thanks to the internet, expansive libraries and blogs like this – we are all free to read, grow and learn.

Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of http://www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: http://www.kirstydunphey.com

Is 2008 going to be a year of growth for you?

I’ll make this short and sweet. If you want 2008 to be a year of growth for your business, here are 2 things you can do to help you achieve that. In actual work time they could take as little as ten minutes, in thinking time – perhaps a little longer.

1. Draw up a growth matrix.

Plug everything you do in a work week into one of these four boxes.

If you love doing it and it is helping you grow your business plug it in the top left hand quadrant. Note here that something that makes money in your business may NOT necessarily be helping you grow your business. The business owner who still sees all their own clients isn’t growing their business, they’re growing their job. Growth comes from leverage and you can’t leverage one on one time with yourself.

If it helps you grow your business but you don’t love doing it – it goes in the bottom left hand box. Love it but it’s not about growth, right hand top. Don’t love it and it’s not about getting growth, bottom right hand side.

I’ve found the easiest way to do this is to go back over a week’s dairy / schedule and just start plugging things in. Mark my words: your first instinct for where something should go may not always be right. Keep asking yourself is this really helping to GROW my business.

Once you’ve got your matrix sorted, this is what I recommend you do with each area:

2. Read this post by Scott Ginsberg

http://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2007/12/34-questions-to-keep-yourself-growth.html

Short, sweet and done. Now I’m off to grow my business!

Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of http://www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: http://www.kirstydunphey.com

Megaphone or Muffler?

After getting back from an amazing trip to South East Asia I took some artwork from Cambodia and Vietnam in to be framed at a local store.

I had been recommended to this particular store by not one but two of my friends and after seeing the work they performed I know why, it was total quality and very impressive.

What surprised me though was that as I was discussing my order with them – I mentioned these two friends who had so glowingly referred me to this business. The reply I got basically amounted to “that’s nice”.

Now what they could have done in this instance was ask me one simple question that I believe would have a lasting positive impact on their business and their bottom line. They could have asked me just who it was who had referred them.

They could have sent them a thank you card or called and thanked them personally or sent them a discount voucher for their next framing. Something… (anything) to let them know that they appreciated the referral.

When someone refers a friend to your business - that’s advertising dollars you haven’t had to spend, because you’ve just got yourself a walking talking billboard going around advertising your business! What you do to thank them for doing your marketing for you can act as a megaphone or a muffler – which would you prefer?

I got turned into a megaphone when a local airline newspaper published a list of my favourite restaurants in Launceston. The savvy owner of one – Sara from the divine Novaros - sent me a gorgeous bunch of orange roses to thank me for mentioning them (and I haven’t stopped mentioning them since!)

Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of http://www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: http://www.kirstydunphey.com

3 Things Vegas Reminded Me About Business

I recently had the pleasure of being invited to speak in none other than Vegas (baby – sorry – can’t help myself with that!) While there good old Vegas reminded me of a few things about business that had almost slipped my mind.

1. Nothing lasts forever

Since the last time we’d been to Vegas the classic Stardust hotel and casino (home of the eternal Wayne Newton for so many years) was gone, as was the old Aladdin, and the new Aladdin (transforming into Planet Hollywood).

This time while in Vegas at 2.30am in the morning (after a quick powernap) we got to watch what was truly an awesome site. Another Vegas icon – the Frontier got imploded to the ground to make way for yet another “bigger / better” in Vegas.

The Frontier was originally opened October 30, 1942 and was only the second to open on the strip. It also housed Elvis’ first show on the Strip in ’52 and now it is no longer.

In Vegas you can do the Eiffel tower (half size), the New York skyline and the canals of Venice in a day, but don’t expect them to be here forever.

In the same way, we can expect to constantly see changes on the business landscape. Say the word Google or Yahoo in the 80’s and you would have received a polite “pardon me?”. 

2. You’ve got to know when to hold em

Kenny never spoke truer words than “You’ve got know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and know when to run”. And despite the fact that the song is called “The Gambler” it could have just as easily been called “The Entrepreneur”.

Steve Jobs knew to hold on to Pixar when it was going through troubling times. Bill Gates knew when to fold first company Traf-O-Data. Tyra Banks knew when to walk away from her music career (and back into the arms of her loving television audiences). Warren Buffet knew to run in the opposite direction of tech stocks missing out entirely on the tech crash.

3. If you build it, (and have faith in it) they will come

Celine and Caesars Palace “built it”, it being a $95 million purpose build Colosseum and didn’t let poor early reviews stop her mammoth 5 year stay. Over 3 million fans have seen the show with revenues in excess of $400 million.

Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of http://www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: http://www.kirstydunphey.com