The Kiss Business too (2)

Team work: team building outside your company

(Oops, a month ago I wrote: 2007, where has it gone? I could say the same of January 2008: where has it gone?!? and excuses for the silence on this blog: I've been rather business busy ;-))

In 2006 73% of UK businesses employed just 1 or 2 employees, most times the 'hands-on' (jack of all trades) director - directors (or sole-trader and partner). Accounting, logistics, marketing, sales, operations, deliveries, customer care, debt collecting, networking etc etc etc. All tasks, jobs any normal business has to tackle. All tasks, jobs in 73% of UK businesses done by the 1 or two employees.

Now, some of these tasks can be outsourced of course. Then the question is always: will the company that handles the outsourced task represent you in same the way you would represent your company. Comparability and consistency.
Also, outsourcing on a part-time or full-time or even project time base? Cash-flow (and once again: consistency).

Or, a method I prefer, you can build a dedicated team around you. A team that consists of team members who know you and your company and the other team members; team members who are a star in their own field - or fields; team members who help you build your company stronger in a consistent way. Team members who have their own business but who will regard you as the team-leader.

You can't build a team like that on an ad-hoc base and, like with any internal team, it takes time to find, source the correct and compatible team members. Not only do they have to get along with you, the team leader, but also with the other members.

Tomorrow, on our FAQ & News site a terrific sample of outside team work will appear. The title is very appropriate too: From little Acorns.....
(small ideas are little acorns, not? And when little ideas are fed with nutritious input and cared for gently but firmly they grow into the most wonderful results, products.)

More on this specific team work, the specific team members and their tremendous input in another post. It's back to the long 'still-to-do-list' for me at the moment.

235% increase in subscribers in a day ?!?!

As a double Capricorn (and bookkeeper) I love statistics. Every day I do a quick check on the various online statistics my websites (static and dynamic sites) have generated the day before, like Statcounter, Feedburner, Technorati and MyBlogLog.
Mostly the stats behave normally - showing an nice average that is slowly growing. This morning however I had to blink my eyes when checking the Feedburner stats:

Over the last few weeks there has been a steady increase in the number of subscribers to the this (Kiss2) blog and the average has risen from around 65 to 80 subscribed readers daily - not bad IMHO.

Now, look at the image left: 187 subscribed readers yesterday!

That's a hefty increase - in 1 day - of around 235%. Of course I like to think it's down to my excellent writing, captivation stories and inspiring revelations on the Keep It simple Sweetheart, specially in business principle - but I'm not kidding myself.

True to my 'character' as double Capricorn and bookkeeper I'm investigating. The Statcounter stats of yesterday showed 21 unique visitors to this blog, the Feedburner stat on yesterdays outgoing links didn't show over 110 clicks on any of the 'Subscribe to Reader' links embedded on this blog (see right hand column and feel free to click!). And nor does the Top10 outgoing links on MyBlogLog Stats.

So a 'freak of nature'? A Feedburner glitch? IMHO: definitely. But very nice for posterity ;-)

Sure it will be back to 'normal' tomorrow. And very happy with the steady growing number of the last weeks, might even reach the 187 in 2 years time. I'll keep you all posted in the future.

Update 18.01.08: Feed Subscribers per 17.01.08 = 627. Apparently FeedBlitz went from 4 this Tuesday to 106 Wednesday to a massive 549 yesterday.
Feedblitz is on to it, reading their news: "FeedBlitz metrics - stats spike"

"A bug that caused circulation data to get out of sync with the poller has been found and fixed. Metrics for today (Thursday 17th) may well be off, but should be all straightened out from now on. In other words, Friday's metrics will be what you expect."

Darn! ;-)