Sitting at a desk

If you ever get stir crazy sat at your desk, try spending the majority of your life on the road. This week is my first this year in which there is no travel at all – just 5 days sat at my desk and on email and telephone, with the exception of a couple of team meetings scheduled, one yesterday and the other on Thursday afternoon. In a world in which I constantly search for wi-fi signals or a powerful enough transmitter for my 3G phone card, in which I write emails in hotel rooms, hotel lobbys, railway stations, airports and motorway service stations – the chance to wander into my home office (with a cup of tea) and just sit down and read is incredible. Equally, being able to take a break, whether it’s to make another cuppa, stand in the garden or walk down to town or jog by the beach – all wonderful. Naturally, the absence of ending each day with a journey from Hotel A to Hotel B is also a big treat. I’ve been consequently creative this week – those who read the ezine in the last 24 hours will know that – thinking about ways to accelerate cash flow in the short term and “creatively destroy” the business in the long term. It’s fascinating that my request for help on content development and practice analysis, published less then 24 hours ago, has already prompted 6 replies from people I trust, respect and like. It has reminded me that Thomas Leonard grew Coach University with volunteer help from the clients. I’m no Thomas – but it would be fascinating to enrol the help of dentists and their team members in this process. Sometimes I forget how much talent there is “out there” and how much goodwill we have developed in The Dental Business School over the years. By the way – after months of paperwork and expense, it looks as if we have obtained a trademark for “The Dental Business School”. That’s been an unusual step for me, as I have been very generous in releasing my IP over the years – but the proliferation of “cut and paste” merchants is troubling me slightly – I’m starting to see some articles in trade journals, written by wannabee business coaches, whose “steps” and stories seem hauntingly familiar. So after years of vowing never to buy protection from lawyers (a species I have little time for), I’m now reluctantly having to take some measures. On the positive front, it means that those clients who have paid good money for our ideas will have some protection for their investment. Today is a call-in day – I’ll be on 15-minute phone calls with my clients, right through from 8.30am to 5.00pm – and then a client conference call at 6.00pm. I’ll be jazzed up by their stories this evening – and no doubt some good ideas will emerge. Call-in day is one of my favourites in the calendar – my clients inspire me sometimes. And my head continues to spin with ideas around the “Process – Toolkit – Implementation” concept (see this week’s ezine). I genuinely think this is the concept that will take the DBS group of businesses from £650,000 in sales past and beyond £1 million. As Bonnie keeps reminding me – that’s all well and good, but we have to pay the bills in June!