What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 4 January 2016

Happy New Year to all and welcome to 2016. Here at Cloud 9 Towers we're back and raring to go after the festive break - and straight back into a busy time with client events and forward planning our year ahead.

The start of a new year traditionally brings the onset of resolutions, be it to lose weight, stop smoking or start training for some sporting challenge or goal and here at Cloud 9 most of the team have some sort of plan or other for change this coming year. Despite the fact that we think we are a pretty creative lot here, it seems that we could all do with an injection of imagination as some of our aims this year seem a little dull so instead, we've had a rethink and here are our resolutions for the year ahead...

First up, we are all going to try a new food each week. Forget the diets and quick fix weight loss programmes, but instead we are going to attempt to introduce or try a new food each week - something green and healthy is a bonus and instead of sticking with the same old lunches and trips to the biscuit tin when the munchies strike, we are going to try to eat better. With this in mind, if you are visiting us, please ditch the biscuits, cakes and chocolates for fruit or something exotic for us to try. Not only will it make your visit more special but also be more memorable!

Next on our list is a really big clear up and clear out. As we set the theme for many events we end up with an overflowing stock room full of everything from scientific vials to giant martini glasses to lava lamps to feathers galore. We did send a work experience student in once to try and take a stock check and we don't remember seeing them again...... But we really should sort this out as no doubt, all of the items can come in handy at some point, and we don't know just how much stuff we have.

Resolution three is simply to be a bit nicer. We think we are a pretty nice team already but we want to pay that forward a little. Each and every day we want to undertake an act of random kindness. Some of them might be grand gestures and some of them much more simple such as smiling at a stranger or paying a compliment to someone -but each and every day we are all going to remember how fortunate we all are in comparison to others and try and spread a little cheer wherever we can.

Whilst we are on the subject of being fortunate, the invitations we get to fam trips and experiences is amazing and we do consider ourselves to be incredibly lucky to be invited. We can't always spare the time or the bodies to go to everything but we are going to make sure that wherever we go, we are going to take a lot more photos to share as part of an online album. So that's our number four objective for 2016.

Five is also fairly easy. We are going to ditch the same old same old. It’s easy to get into a rut where we do the same things day in, day out, so in 2016 we plan to shake up our routines. Every week we are going to try and do one thing differently. Use a different route to the office, have a new lunch (see resolution one), wear something special, read a book we wouldn't normally consider or try a new genre of films. Instead of saving things for best or special occasions, we are going to treat every day like a special occasion - because in a way it is!

Number six is for all of us to learn a new skill of some sort. Whether is mastering another language from French to German to Klingon, whatever it is, we are all going to try and learn something new. It might be a party or magic trick, how to ice a cake like a professional, how to get 180 when playing darts (not that any of us play darts at present) or something weird and wonderful. It doesn't have to be a practical skill but something that we can say, we did that.

The next one requires some participation from the event industry as a whole and is inspired by a conversation with a fellow agent. We are going to try and encourage visitors from venues, DMC's or hotels to stop bringing us lots of expensive and unnecessary

promotional items and brochures which sit on a shelf gathering dust. Instead, we'd like to educate visitors to bring us practical items that will make better here at Cloud 9 and will make a difference to the office. No, we are not talking about large expensive items but branded loo paper, or tea bags or something that we use daily will be much better received. One of the best things we had all year in 2015 was from DeVere who bought us boxes of tissues - they sit on all of our desks and have been really appreciated! Pens are useful but we really do have enough now to open our own stationery shop and our kitchen cupboards are overflowing with mugs so please think practical rather than promotional please! We promise you, it will make you much more memorable...

Eight is about education. We all have strengths and weaknesses and some of our skills are good in certain areas but not all. So whether its finding out how to code, how to tweet, how to use excel, how to programme our internal phone system or some other work related function, we are all going to identify once a month something we don't know how to do, or how to improve and work on it. It's not going to change the world but it should improve our skill set and our collective output. 

Our final resolution is simply this. To wish everyone for the entire month of January a Happy and Healthy 2016. 

We recognise that this normally stops a week or so in, but January can be a long and flat month and therefore we are going to keep the momentum going as long as we can and try and spread a bit of New Year cheer. If that means saying it as с новым годом (Russian) or gelukkig nieuwjaar (Dutch) to keep it interesting so be it!So there you have it, nine resolutions from Cloud 9, enjoy!

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 5 January 2015

Welcome to our first blog of 2015 - we hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

Cloud 9 Towers are now open as usual and raring to go and get stuck into 2015. As we all know, after a couple of weeks out of the office, it can take a little while to get back in to the swing of things. So, as a motivation for you all this new year, below are the top 10 New Years resolutions for business success...

1. Learn how to delegate and do more of it - There are so many things to do when you're running a small business, it's easy to delude ourselves that we need to do all of them. Then we wonder why we're so tired and frazzled and have no time to do anything else! Determine Your Personal Return on Investment, and decide to let someone else do some of the tasks for a change. Delegation is the key to a healthy work-life balance.

2. Promote your business regularly and consistently - Too often the task of promoting a small business slips to the bottom of the to-do list in the press of urgent tasks. If you want to attract new customers, you have to make promotion a priority. Make a New Year's resolution to hire a marketing expert, or take the time to create a marketing plan on your own and follow through. 

3) Make business planning a weekly event - Planning is vital if you want a healthy, growing business. Business planning lets you take stock of what worked and what didn't work, and helps you set new directions or adjust old goals. So why do it just once a year or once a quarter? Set aside time each week to review, adjust, and look forward - or even better, make business planning a part of each day. Not only will this help you avoid costly mistakes and stay on track, but you'll feel more focused and relaxed.

4) Learn something new - What you choose to learn may be directly related to your business or completely unrelated. Learning something new will add to your skills and add a new dimension of interest to your life - another important part of achieving a healthy work-life balance. Depending on how you choose to learn, you may meet new and interesting people, who may become customers, colleagues, or friends. How will you find the time to learn something new? By delegating, remember?

5) Join a new business organisation or networking group - There's nothing like talking to other business people for sparking new ideas, refining old ones, and making contacts. Whether it's a group specifically designed for networking or an organization dedicated to a particular type of business, in person or over the 'Net, making the effort to be a part of a group will revitalize you and your business.

6) Give something back to your community - There are all kinds of worthy organisations that make a difference in your community. Make a New Year's resolution to find a cause that matters to you, and give what you can. Make this the year that you serve on a committee, be a mentor, volunteer, or make regular donations to the groups in your community that try to make the place you live a better place. And those that give get. 

7) Put time for you on your calendar - In Schedule Time for You, recharge and refresh yourself; a healthy work-life balance demands time out. All work and no play is a recipe for mental and physical disaster. So if you have trouble freeing up time to do the things you enjoy, write time regularly into your schedule to "meet with yourself" and stick to that commitment. If you won't invest in yourself, who will?

8) Set realistic goals - Goal setting is a valuable habit - if the goals lead to success rather than distress. Make a New Year's resolution that the goals you set will be goals that are achievable, rather than unrealistic pipe dreams that are so far out of reach they only lead to frustration. If you have trouble setting realistic goals.

9) Don't make do; get a new one - Is there a piece of equipment in your office that's interfering with your success or something that you lack that's making your working life harder? Whether it's an old fax machine that's a pain to use, or the need for a new employee to lighten your work load, make a New Year's resolution to stop putting off getting what you need. The irritation of making do just isn't worth it.

10) Drop what's not working for you and move on - All products aren't going to be super sellers, all sales methods aren't going to work for everyone, and all suppliers or contractors aren't going to be ideally suited to your business. If a technique or a product or a business relationship isn't working for you, stop using it. Don't invest a lot of energy into trying to make the unworkable workable. Move on. Something better will turn up.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance is like maintaining a good relationship; you have to keep working on it. But if you apply these New Year's resolutions throughout the year, your success is guaranteed!

We're also interested in hearing what your New Year's resolutions are?!

That's all for this week folks, and we wish you all a fantastic 2015!