Are you doing great work? When I received an invitation to do a podcast interview with my internet friend Michael Bungay Stanier to talk about great work I was thrilled.

Then he emailed me the questions he wanted to cover in the interview – well really thought starters for what he wanted to explore and my heart sank. Not they weren’t great questions.

It’s just that Michael has this ability to make us think – to reflect – to self analyse. That is what makes him one of Canada’s leading coaches. Michael is on a mission to shake up peoples lives.

He made me STOP. I love what I am doing in my career right now. But just because I love it, am I doing ‘Great Work’? I am not talking about work that is technically competent, that my clients appreciate. I am talking about work that has real meaning, stretches you and makes a difference to those around you – leaving a footprint on the people in your own life or even in the world.

Michael has been interviewing people about thier Great Work including leading authorities such as David Ulrich, David Allen, Marshall Goldsmith, Jim Koezes, Henry Mintzberg, Lance Secretan, Dan Pink, Hugh McLeod, Garr Reynolds, Pam Slim – and now me!

If you are interested in leading a little about my own experiences of what great work is you can listen to the interview I did with Michael here. We cover:

• Why stability is as important as risk as the foundation for Great Work
• What dealing with the threats from the Mafia taught her about Great Work (yes really THE Mafia)
• How to become CEO of your own career – and what support structures you might up in place to allow that to happen
• How to rail against the threat of a mediocre life.

I can not believe what I revealed to Michael – because like all great coaches he left me wide open space but provoked me to think, reflect and learn.

Michael’s book ‘Find Your Great Work’ distinguishes what Great Work is – he defines:

• Bad Work as the mind-numbing, soul-sapping stuff that all systems seems to generate. The company Richer Sounds has a ‘cut the crap’ committee – and Bad Work is what they seek out to eliminate.

• Good Work as the efficient, productive, useful, comfortable day-to-day work that fills most of our lives. There’s nothing wrong with Good Work. Organizations love Good Work, it is their “cash cow”, the reliable and tested way to make money. When you think back on the week that’s just passed … and can’t remember much about how you spent those 40 or 50 or 60 hours, that’s a sign you’re doing a lot of Good Work. (It’s all rushed into your subconscious mind, as your conscious mind has decided there’s nothing much new here to remember.)

• Great Work as the work that takes you to the edge of who you are, your learning edge, the work that stretches and inspires you. People and organisations alike are ambivalent about Great Work. It’s rewarding and risky, inspiring and frightening, compelling and paralysing. It takes focus and courage to do Great Work.

So here is an exercise for you this weekend should you want to accept it – these are the questions Michael gave me – why not reflect on them yourself and do a little ’self coaching’.

• What’s a Great Work story of your own?

• What helped you say Yes to Great Work? To what did you have to say No?

• What insights/tips/secrets/musings do you have on Great Work?

• What’s your Great Work now?

What reflections do you have about your work today – are you doing Great Work? What have you learned from this exercise?

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Michaels Great Work interviews over at his website and if you are inspired to do more great work remember you can buy ‘Find Your Great Work’ at all leading booksellers. I’ll be interviewing Michael soon – so leave me your questions for what you would like me to ask him about how to find and do great work – just leave a comment below.

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Increasingly we are looking for value for money in the purchases we make. I cover the subject of creating an irresistible offer in my digital marketing and social media workshops and without question, the attendees agree that they are also on the look out for great value offers.

Last year Hitwise reported that in the UK, Internet searches for discount vouchers had increased by 47.5% over the last 12 months (reported in August 2009).

In a recent video tutorial about using Google Local to boost your online visibility results, I mentioned how Google Local also allows you to add a discount voucher or coupon for your services to your profile. When recording that video I noticed that there is a new Gadget enabled for coupons in iGoogle.com which many people use as their default profile to manage their news, RSS feeds, calendar and even email.

So here is a quick video about how you too can benefit as a consumer in terms of accessing discounts and coupons being offered in your location from businesses using the Google Local tool and the neat integration with iGoogle.

As a business owner it’s free for you to use too – so what offer could you try out and test in terms of bringing more business to your door – can you hear the Kerhing of your cash register now?

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Last year I recorded and published a podcast about using the Google.com Local Business Centre to list your business and enhance your online visibility using this free tool.

I was recently explaining it to my client – and decided to create a short video tutorial to explain the benefits and how to get started. And I thought I would also share it here.

Your business can optimise your listing in Google Local for the key words you want to be found for when people are searching for services and products that you offer in your town or city.

In this video I cover a case study of the Westbury Hotel in Dublin – you can see how they have added photos and even a free discount coupon for people visiting their restaurant Cafe Novo.  Remember this is FREE for you to do too – and for those of you using online video you can also add video to your Google Local profile.

I made sure my business is listed in the local search results – have you done so yet?

Note – you might not want to list your business if you are operating from a home based office if you want to protect your privacy online.

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I receive many emails each day from entrepreneurs and PR professionals across the globe asking for me to share information about their product or service to my community here, on Facebook or through my newsletter.

Most don’t consider reading my tips on how to pitch to me. I do try to respond to most emails, but many I just delete – I should probably keep a file of them as they would make a fun compendium of how not to pitch your story!

One email that did catch my attention was from Gary McGeown who is organising an event in Dublin this next weekend called ‘Life Lasting Success’. Gary has offered me 20 tickets for the event which takes place between 5-7 February 2010 at the Red Cow Hotel, Dublin.

Speakers include Sean Gallagher, someone I’ve shared a stage with a few times and one of the Irish Dragon’s on The Dragons Den and a host of other speakers I’ve not heard before including Pat Slattery – The Millionaire Mentor, Mark Anastasi – The YouTube Millionaire  and Debbie Allen – the US Sales Queen.

The regular price of the tickets are €97 each – but remember I have 20 tickets – and they are available on a first come first served basis. Just leave your name and why you’d like to attend below. Don’t leave your phone number – but make sure that when you leave a comment that your email address is correct as I’ll be emailing Gary with your details if you win a ticket.

Now I know this is not for everyone. And yes the event comes with my personal health warning to you – many such events have a low entry price and the speakers are likely to have coaching and training programmes that they will be introducing to you. So you have been warned – if you don’t want to invest in their training programmes leave your credit card at home!

I will certainly be there – so be sure to say hi if you see me.

Full details of the event are HERE.

So remember if you want a ticket be sure to leave a comment.

Note – this is not an affiliate link or promotion on my part – I don’t get any reward for sharing this information with you – not a dime!

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If you are finding the start of 2010 a little challenging and that you are not achieving the business growth with referrals and new clients that you want to achieve, today I have a content rich podcast for you with my friend and colleague Hannah McNamara (@coach_marketing) on Twitter) – you might recall I interviewed her last summer.

I invited Hannah to join me for a conversation and a special edition podcast so we could discuss specific client attraction tips for coaches and consultants as I know a number of the Biz Growth Community are in that profession.

You can either download the audio (right click with your mouse on the link and save the file to your hard drive) or listen to the live stream of the conversation (click on the audio and it will open up a player in a new window).

Here is what we cover in the interview – and get ready to take notes:

00:00   Coaching and Consulting in 2010 – Industry Trends
02:10    Is it worth producing your material as an information product?
04:49   Coaching business models
12:42    Do membership communities work?
20:27    Joint venturing and how to attract leaders in your industry
32:04    Attracting More Clients using a teleseminar series
37:00    What one thing will Hannah is going to be focusing on to ensure her own success in 2010?
37:32    The social media tools Hannah uses in her own consulting and coaching practice
45:10    Show ends

If you enjoy the conversation with Hannah you might want to join her for a FREE teleseminar series with some of her colleagues where they will be exploring in depth specific actions you can take to grown your practice. Find out more about the Get More Clients FREE teleseminar series HERE. The programme started this week – however you will be able to access replays.

Disclosure – the link to Hannah’s FREE teleseminar programme is my referral link and that means that if you do register on her programme she will track that you connected to the programme through my recommenation.

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