Swine Flu vaccination

I had my swine flu jab last week and although my arm hurt for a few days I am so glad that I've had it.

I took my 4 year old too, as we both have athsma, we were on the priority list.

I must admit that I had had some doubts about having it but luckily I work for the lovely Southdowns Private Healthcare GP's who have been blogging about how safe it is.

They really have helped me to feel more reassured and hope that they can reassure you too. You can read their blog Making time for your health you can also see their latest news release at Swine Flu Vaccination in pregnancy

What's Stopping You?

I've Just got back from a fantastic Business Link event for women starting their own businesses called What's stopping you?

It a great title as it remind us to keep asking ourselves : what is stopping us from following our dreams?

It was a fantastic atmosphere with loads of positive women starting out on that journey into the unknown.

I was lucky enough to be asked to speak on the "She means business" panel and talked about my experince of starting out and setting up morph pr and marketing alongside 3 other female entrapreunurs.

All 4 of us had the same message which was "life is too short to do something that you're not passionate about, so if you want to do something - go for it"

I met lots of potential new customers too who are thinking about business names and branding and the same kinds of questions kept on coming up.

In fact what seemed to be stopping a lot of the women was the lack of a name for their business.

My advice was this:

1. When choosing a business name it's great to write a list of your business values and image values across the top of a piece of paper and potential names down the left hand side.

2. Score each name out of 10 for each criteria.

3. Once you have scored them add up your values and choose the name with the highest value....unless of course you then realise that you are really disappointed in which case, that should tell you which name you really wanted anyway!

Finally you might want to check that you can get a corresponding domain name from somewhere like 123-reg and that if you are going to be a limited company it is availble to register with companies house

I have got to say that Liz from Henry & Jayne was a brilliant speaker!

Her speech brought a tear to my eye as she talked about her journey setting up her company in India which ploughs it's profits back into the local community paying for operations and schooling for members of her team.

She was amazing and her products are lovely too. I am def going to buy some of her fab felt cars for my boys.

Ruth from The Lady Gardener was also a star as was Karen from

Now I better get on and write my free Marketing newsletter......

Winning Women - The perfect pitch

What a fantastic night we all had last night!

We had 35 of Hampshire's finest business women in the same room and it was wonderful.

After giving a presentation on putting together the perfect pitch, we split into groups to work on our pitches and present back to the group. The ideas were coming thick and fast and there was a real buzz in the air.

Now this a networking group that really networks!

We all learnt a lot about each other businesses and a lot about how we present our own businesses.

There was such an atmosphere of support and enthusiasm I am sure a lot you will be hearing more about these winning women really soon.

If you'd like a copy of my top ten tips for a perfect pitch just get in touch rachel@morphpr.co.uk and I 'll send you one.

Here is what some of you said

" Very worthwhile - I believe I have come away with a very useful pitch that I will definately use again"

" Great presentation really natural and good fun. Really got me thinking about what I actually do!"

"Really enjoyable evening have learnt a lot on how to sell my business and to be more confident"

Dates for you Diary - Thursday 24th September

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be running a workshop at Hampshire's Winning Women networking group on Thursday 24th September and I'd love to see you there.

The Winning Women networking group meets on the fourth Thursday of every month at the Lysses House Hotel, High Street, Fareham from 7-9.30pm and everyone is welcome. It's a really warm friendly group with a great membership I have enjoyed every single session I've ever attended and always come away feeling happy and motivated.


You have probably heard of the 'Elevator pitch' where you explain your business in a very short time, usually one minute, to make an immediate impression.

In this workshop we'll be learning just how to put together the perfect pitch and with a supportive group around to practice on, by the end of the session you'll have your very own perfect pitch and be raring to go out there and spread the word about your business.

Come along and bring some business cards. At just £7 on the door its a brilliant opportunity for some networking.

Winning Women evenst are run by Allison Marlowe.com

Building Customer Loyalty through Customer Experience

I believe marketing is not just about leaflets, web-sites and branding but is about the whole customer experience and how you make your customers feel. 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers so make sure yours keep coming back by using this customer experienece tool.

Simply think about each point of contact you should could have with your customers as illustrated above and then make sure that each point of contact is exceptional. I find that writing them down and then putting down examples of what I've found to be excellent from other companies works well as inspiration. Good luck this approach will pay dividends in customer loyalty.

How to create a Fan Page on Facebook

Simply follow the link below and follow the instructions which will appear, alternatively you can go to any existing fan page and look bottom left for a Crete a fan page button.


Create a Facebook Fan Page
Hope this helps

Rachel x

Take a load off your mind - Twitterfeed your Blog to Twitter

Here's another time saving tip - sign up for Twitter feed and get it to update your Twitter account for you everytime you update your blog.

You can also add other people's blogs to it so that your Twiier account will Tweet about them when ever they are updated.

Once you've set up an account it will ask you for the RSS Feed URL ......you can find this on the blog you want to link usually under a buttom that says subscribe to posts (ATOM) if you click on this it will take you to a new page and the address in the address bar is what you are looking for.

It should read feed://nameofblog etc you just need to copy and paste this into the RSL feed URL box and then click on add feed.

Hope this is helpful

You can sign up here Twitterfeed

Get ahead of the game - submit your site to BING

If you've got a website don't forget to submit it to BING Microsoft's new Serch Engine submit to BING here

I've just submitted

Morph PR and Marketing

Charterhouse Counselling

Southdowns Private Health Care

Adding Google Analytics to your Blog

Want to know how to see how your blog is used by others I just found a great article by Andy Wibbels which takes you through step by step. I'don't know about you but I love this easy to follow step by step approach and think it's brilliant which tecchys share in a simple way!

Read it here

Create a fan box on facebook

Did you know you can create a fan box button on face book just look at the link below for instructions http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Fan_Box

or click here to see my facebook business page.

Morph PR and Marketing on Facebook

National Eczema Week 2009

Having a baby who won’t sleep is one thing but having a baby who won’t sleep and scratches themselves until they bleed is another.
For parents of children around the country this is a nightly occurrence. Parents of children and babies with eczema can testify that staying up all night watching over little one and holding their arms and legs still so they can’t scratch is an exhausting business.
Jae Rance a mum from Winchester remembers doing just this with her son Max, now 20 months. “He would scratch until his face was red raw and all we could do was to watch him and hold him - you couldn’t leave him for a minute”
Jae had tried all manner of lotions and creams, exclusion diets and alternatives to household detergents in a bid to stop Max scratching. However it was an old T shirt and some scraps of wedding dress that saved the day.
Jae made some sleeves with a cardigan style back and sowed off-cuts of silk from her wedding dress on to the outside to stop Max’s nails from doing any damage. To her amazement they worked and Max was unable to take them off.

The family then made some for friends with children who scratch and found that they worked for their children too and scratchsleeves was born. The couple now want to get the word out to other parents so they don’t have to suffer in silence. They have started manufacturing them in the UK and charge just £7.50 a pair you can buy them on their website www.scratchsleeves.co.uk 

You can't afford to miss this

If you want to get your business noticed and feel confident enough to do your own PR, saving yourself tonnes of money along the way - this is for you.

Now I’m not going to puff this up by saying that I am a Guru, or that this will change your life, I am not going to offer you $500 of FREE stuff that you simply must have.

I’m just going to tell you that this works and I know because I’ve done it myself. So why not save yourself a lot of time and money by signing up to PR Mentor today.

Simply put PR Mentor is a six week course, comprising one workbook a week, you spend one hour a week completing the exercise and getting yourself noticed!

By the end of it you will understand how to get yourself and your company some column inches for FREE and you’ll understand a lot more about PR and how to get noticed. If you don’t, you can have your money back.

Now there’s only one of me and I’ve got 2 toddlers so not a lot of spare time on my hands, this is why I’ve designed PR Mentor to support those of you in a similar position to me with small budgets, not enough time and a great business idea. Just one hour a week is enough to really start investing in getting your business noticed, let me show you how.

At less than £10 a week this offers fantastic value for money and really is an investment you can’t afford to miss.

 " Fun to do and really useful" Jo, Portsmouth

Sign up at www.morphpr.co.uk/services-pr

I love this blog, http://www.beccakate.com/

the pictures alone are enough to inspire me to think about food and drink and the fact Bec's seems to do this out of sheer pleasure is very inspiring in itself!

 "Do what you love and love what you do"

 that's what I say!!

The Perfect Pitch

I was lucky enough be invited to give a workshop at Southsea's newest networking group last week. We had a great meeting and I just wanted to share my top tips with you!

Here is what one of the participants said about the session

"It made me realise how much I need to focus on what my business really is about, and how to get this across to people"

Which captures your interest?

Hi, I'm Mike and I can save you money or
Hi I'm Mike and I'm an accountant

10 Top Tips

1. Short and Memorable
2. Get people interested in YOU
3. No Job titles or Jargon
4. Get them to ask you about it – make them want to say HOW as soon as you finish
5. Avoid things which they might have preconceived ideas about – consultant, accountant etc
6. Paint a memorable picture which includes them
7. Find common ground, or something they can relate to
8. Sell them the benefit to them rather than the features of your product or service
9. BELIEVE it or it just won’t work
10. Head up shoulders back, breathe and SMILE!

Good luck and call me if you need a hand!

New Followers = New Tools

Well my twitter post earlier led to the discovery of this new tool @philconell followed my blog and recommended trying hatmandu.net's bloganalyser and well, here are the results. This is testing my about us page www.morphpr.co.uk/about-us

Have a go and see what it tells you about your writing style. I must adnit I'm quite pleased with mine.

The Blogalyser reveals...

Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 18.

This suggests that your writing style is intellectual
(to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20).Your text contains 11 sentences, which suggests your general message is distinguished by complexity
(writing for the web should be concise).

CHARACTER MATRIX

male		female
self		world
past		future

Your text shows characteristics which are 33% male and 67% female
(for more information see the Gender Genie).
Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about yourself, then the world in general and finally your social circle. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the future and lastly the past.

Find out what your blogging style is like!

Nice cup of tea

Make your life easier and automate where you can, remembering to make time for the real interaction as well!

Try Tweetfeed to get your blog to update Twitter for you. 

Let's share our automation tips here - we'd love to hear from you.

Twitter Presentation

Hiya

Love it or hate it, it's time to embrace it! Twitter that is...

Just prepared this short Twitter presentation which highlights some of the many applications available to use with Twitter.

I'm sure you will all have other faves to share so I'd love to know what you think.

I'm more than happy to update it if you can add to it.

Hope you find it useful. Oh and don't forget to follow me

http://twitter.com/racheloreilly

Enterprise 09

Morph had a great day at Enterprise 09, we met loads of lovely people and had some very interesting conversations.

Rachel hosted a business advice booth on Marketing and PR and spoke to some fantastic people about their businesses. Emma Austin our fantastic new student was a great help.


Emma worked the crowd in her morph PR T- shirt, a brave girl!. She also did a great job setting up our booth and networking with potential customers. She then had to wizz off to do a presentation on her dissertation!

My first session of the day was with the dynamic Gill from Butlers 2 go a naked butlers service! This was a welcome start to my day and as Lisa Sturge, of Laughterlines Coaching would say, a very healthy one. Gill is great fun but has a fantastic business head, which I'm sure you'll agree is a winning combination.

I must say I was blown away by the energy of Deborah from Talk Eczema and Pure and Simple Skincare, she is an absolute dynamo and I am looking forward to working more with her and her team. She is currently looking for Party Planner so if you know anyone get in touch with me and I'll pass your details on.

I met Naomi Lloyd who runs a photography business in Southsea and has 2 boys of an identical age to my own. She is doing a cracking job of keeping her business smoothly and keeping her busy family happy. I can't wait to start helping her revamp her website.

I met loads of other fab people as well, but didn't get their permission to blog about them so we'll keep stum for the moment and update you when we can.

The only downside was a lot of my existing friends and colleagues didn't find me as I was in the furthest back corner behind a healthy a safety banner, so lessons taken from the event are: have a bigger banner than the man next to you and make sure you get there early to get a good pitch. But hey I had a great day and did my best, and really that's all anyone can do.


Enjoy your weekend!

Inspiration

I love this book for my textile projects or even just a bit of time out.

Neglect and the art of prioritizing

I have been neglecting my own blog for some time now as I have been fantastically busy with new clients.

However I want to 'walk the talk' and can't continue recommending to clients that they have fabulous blogs whilst neglecting my own.

I have just spotted the gorgeous Grace Designs Blog, whilst researching for one of my textiles projects. Seeing it reminded me that I am an intrinsically visual person and aesthetics really do matter to me and make me happy. I just realised that the sight of my own blog has been making me a bit sad of late, which is probably, psychologically, why I have been avoiding it.
Oh Lightbulb Moment!

My latest newsletter is all about why image matters and this is just reinforcing my determination to upgrade this blog and make it what it should be 'A showcase of all Things Bright and Beautiful'.

Work is also afoot behind the scenes of www.morphpr.co.uk and this is being updated by the fabulous Toby Inkster whilst we speak.

However my priorities are always going to be my clients work and I have been really blessed of late, with some fabulous new clients coming on board.

I will be blogging about them individually as part of my forward plan for this here blog!

Watch this space for a new look Moroh's Moments and have a great weekend.

Beginers Guide to Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing BBC Today Challenge

RELAX - Take a Minute

www.just-a-minute.org/ FREE one minute meditations to download

Love it or hate it it's time to embrace it - Twitter that is!

You can read my March Newsletter here which is all about Social Networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Just an update on Twitter, I ended up having the most fantastic night out in Rowland's Castle courtesy of a random Tweet between myself and Catherine Billam a local Life Coach.

She had organised the most wonderful night 'Wine Man's Bluff which involved tasting (lots) of wine and having enormous fun!

So you see Twitter can be very helpful both for business but also pleasure.

Cheers Catherine

Winning Business On-line

Website Design - Tip No. 1

If you are designing a website or you have a website please, please remember to add you contact details at the top right of every page, it really does help make your customer contact you!! Example of contact details

Really Useful Social Media Article

http://viigo.im/2HM

Laughing and Tweeting

I went to Hampshire's fabulous Winning Women Networking Group last night for a laughter session... and boy did we laugh.

The site of 30 of Hampshire's finest business women, lying on the floor with tears streaming down their faces as they laughed and laughed is a sight I will not forget in a hurry!!

We ended our laughter session on a more serious note though, discussing the rise of Social Networking Websites and Social Media Optimisation or SMO as the technocrats call it!

In plain English, this refers to websites which I'm sure you've all heard of such as Facebook, Ecademy and Twitter. You may already have a Facebook account to keep in touch with friends and family...but have you considered the potential for your business?

Recently I've been coaching some of my clients on how to use these sites and helping them to set up their on-line profiles. After our conversations last night I decided to offer this opportunity to all of you. So if you want to give it a go and see what these sites can do for your business give me a call and we can discuss how YOU can use them to grow your business quickly and easily. I offer all aspects of advice and support in getting started, getting your message across and winning business.

Last month I sent some of you an invitation for a one-to-one phone session with me to get you started on social networking sites....I've had a great response so far and I wanted to make you a very special offer...Anyone who signs up for a one-to-one Tele-session before 14th March can SAVE 25% on any or all of my Sessions.

Remember these are one-to-one Sessions so you will get my undivided support and attention for an hour and start getting your business noticed online.

Call me on 023 9229 3113 or e-mail rachel@morphpr.co.uk quoting WW25%

What we've been up to....

Please click here to see some of our recent work

Click here for How to win Clients Newsletter

Brand New Tele Class Series

Exclusive one to one teleclasses: Please click here to find out more -
Link to teleclasses

Love is in the air and in the dates!!

I have finally become an Aunty this week! Twice!! 

After years of me and my husband being the only parents in our huge clan TWO of my gorgeous sister in laws have given birth within days of each other! One on them shares her birthday with her brother (my husband) and now has a daughter who shares a birthday with our son, which get this... is the same day as their dad's birthday!! What are the chances? 

Does any one else have a crazy dates story to share?

Anyway as we welcome Cara and Isobel into our family it reminded me how important, pure and simple love is and how important it is to be grateful for those around us who love us. So as next time we are feeling stressed about work or money or anything else, let's stop and remind ourselves how lucky we are and on Valentine's Day let's not just think about our partners but all of our Friends and Family as well. 

That said I'm off to buy my Grandma a Valentine's Card!

Twitter Twitter Twitter

I am loving twitter and loving yoono even more, this gives me access to facebook and twitter on the left of my screen while I work.

It' s great for keeping in touch with others, while working from home can be a little lonely at times it's great to know there are others out there doing the same. I am not easily distracted so am able to use it in my tea breaks but i would suggest not using it if you are easily distracted. I suspect it's not doing my google ratings any harm either!

Join me on Twitter http://twitter.com/racheloreilly