And we’re live. Happy Sunday. Day one forty. Who would have thought it? Wow. I’m going to have to make landmarks of celebrating what days we’re getting too. Anyway, I wanted to start. For next year I have a few things happening and I want to have a little more of a pattern so I know what’s happening every day. Even though I changed my mind about what I want to talk about, that there’s still a bit more structure to it. And next year I’m actually launching a podcast as well, which is really exciting. I can’t wait to do that and that’s going to have a structure to it as well. So I kind of want to get into a habit of having a bit more structure with these things. So I thought Sundays would be Q and A Sunday because I’ve been asked a few questions recently and thought, “Well, I’ll answer them.” Not all tonight because tonight I’m just starting Q and A Sunday.
So I’d love it if you do have any questions. No topic, should I say that? No topic is out of bounds. Not many topics would be out of bounds. There might be a couple where I go, “Oh I don’t know if I want to talk about,” but at the moment no topic is out of bounds. So I’ve had people DM me questions, I’ve had people had comments and questions and contact me in other ways if they actually know me personally and that’s been really cool because I was doing this to get over my, “Oh my God, I got to be perfect,” crap and also doing it so hopefully I can help someone at some point or lots of people at lots of points with any of the vast knowledge that I’ve learned and the stuff I’ve gone through and what I still continue to work on every single day.
Which brings me to today’s question. So today’s question, and else, actually, if you could let me know if you do watch this or when you watch this, what your kind of preferred format would this would be? Do you want me to say who’s asking the question, why they want to know the answer, or I just ask the question and come out with it? Because I’d like to do what you guys want. So today’s question I was actually asked what I’m reading at the moment because as you know, and as you can probably see from my bookcase that you’ve looked at on lots of lives, I’m an avid reader. So I was asked what I’m reading at the moment.
Now, what I do is I read nonfiction in real books and I read fiction in Kindle. And a lot of the time, most of the time really, I have both of those going. I tend to fall asleep really easily at night, so that’s when I get out my trusty friend. And that sounded a little different to what I meant. That’s when I get out my Kindle and read fiction. So at the moment, I’m reading a book called Elevator Pitch; the gripping new crime thriller from number one crime writer, Linwood Barclay. So it’s a hell of a suspense novel. Stephen King said that, there you go. I went through a phase of not reading crime fiction because I found when I first had Elodie I found reading a lot of crime fiction actually got me really miserable. I was like, “Oh my God, there’s so much bad in the world,” forgetting that it was fiction. What I should have been not doing is actually watching the news because that is truly depressing.
So I am really mindful of what I or watch or read, consume on the news. So a bit of fiction or crime fiction for me. And then with my nonfiction, I either read books I get given or I keep picking up Everything Is Figureoutable as I discussed the other night. The Marie Forleo book. Because I was always already started reading something else and I don’t like having two, I get confuddled if I’ve got two NonFiction’s going at the same time. But I try and pick a book based on a topic I really want to learn more about or something I need help with or something that I find really interesting.
So you’d see on my bookcase there’s books about psychology, there’s books about quantum physics, there’s books about law, there’s books about real estate, there’s entrepreneurial stuff, there’s a little bit of woo-woo but not a lot of woo-woo, a lot of biographies, and a lot of things. A lot of stuff about music, there’s just a lot of stuff, travel, everything. So at the moment I want to learn more about sales. I think it’s one of my weak areas in my business because I just am a bit hesitant in some ways in it. And I think from years of seeing and learning and watching really high-pressure tactics and silly, silly sales, I kind of lost my way a little bit in sales thinking, “Well, I can’t be like that. So therefore, I just need to be completely quiet and not sell or talk about what I do because if people want to work with me, they’ll just want to work with me.” Which is just insane. People don’t know they want to work with you unless you actually tell them what you do different.
I really wanted to work on my sales skills, and I’m getting better. I’m definitely getting a bit better. So I picked up this book when I was in the state, called Selling Boldly. So I’ll read you a little bit about it. You already know what to do and I’m not going to teach you much in this book that you don’t already know. You’d read that think, “Why am I getting it then?” But that actually drew me into it, I’ve got to say. You’re a professional salesperson. You do this for living, you know, for example, the testimonials and referrals are among the best ways we have to grow sales, I never ask them, but do you ask for that enough? Most people don’t. You know that calling a customer on the phone is more effective than emailing her, but you still often revert to email or text. Guilty.
You know your customers buy other products and services that you can help them with, but you don’t ask them about these products. You’d like to help them, but they would like more of your help. That is why they’ve been with you for five or 10 or 20 years but nevertheless, we don’t ask them. There was a difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. I know you know. With Selling Boldly we start to do what we already know, blah-blah, keep going. So I’m into page 24. I only actually started yesterday, but I’m looking forward to that. So what I actually thought I’d do, we’d do the Q and A on a Sunday and then what I’m going to start doing, years ago I used to do it on my blog, should have kept those blogs, is actually a book review. Because people find these interesting and not just going on Amazon and reading a quick review, but getting a bit more of a detailed nut out of what the book is about, what I learned from it, that kind of thing.
And that will be something that’s also in my podcast. So that’s exciting. So welcome to the first Q and A Sunday. Have a great night. Please, please, please, please, please send me questions. I’ll probably keep these ones about 15 minutes long I think, so if I can get a couple of questions in there, that would be awesome. So them through and if you’re in Sydney, sorry, and if you get a chance, totally digress, go and see Fangirls. Elodie and I saw it tonight at Belvoir Street. Phenomenal, phenomenal. Written starring this young woman who I just can’t tell you how talented she is, just how talented she is. Oh my golly gosh. Look it up, Fangirls. Read about it and if you can get a chance to go see it, awesome. Happy Sunday and I’ll see you tomorrow night.