I have lost count of the number of people who have told me in the last four weeks that they are planning to write a book.

Some people love to talk about their ideas – but they will probably never actually begin to write.

Other potential authors do start to write. But they don’t plan what they are doing. They don’t think through what they want to say and nor do they check the competition.

As a result, they are unlikely ever to get published.

Some authors decide they want to self-publish.  That will speed up the process of getting your book out there.

But it is unlikely to make you very much money or reach the widest possible potential market – unless you have taken the time to self-publish in a professional manner.

Traditional publishers are known for their ability to get physical books to marketplaces not just in this country but all over the world.

If a traditional publisher makes an offer for your book, they will pay for all the costs of production  – both for the print and digital markets – and they will give you an advance on account of royalties as well.

Their experienced staff will ensure that your book is edited and designed and marketed to a high standard

Traditional publishers always need new non-fiction books that they can market and sell brilliantly and are always on the lookout for exciting new writers in fiction.

If you get an offer from a traditional publisher they may not publicise or market your book as well as you would like. Budgets have been severly curtailed recently because of  investment in digital production and because there are fewer outlets for printed books.

But you can always use the money you might have spent on self-publishing to find yourself a freelance publicist.

Or you can do some of the marketing and publicity yourself.

We are living in a time of immense creativity.

New ideas are coming at us every day. 

If you have specialist expertise – or a deep yearning to develop plots and characters – then waste no more time.

Get out your computer – or your pen – whichever you prefer – and experience the joy of developing your creativity and producing something wonderful.

I wish you the best of luck.

You have spent weeks and months doing all the groundwork. 

You know what you have to bring to the business, what you will create, where and when you will launch, how the systems will work – and above all, why you are doing this extraordinary big thing which will likely change every aspect of your life.

But what you also need to be sure of, which most of the business books or the people you talk to don’t tell you about – are your own personal values.

We are living in fast-moving times and one of the changes we are gradually witnessing is a change in people’s consciousness which will, over the next few months and years, affect every business.

People want to deal with businesses and individuals who they feel they can trust.

This attitude has arisen because of the transparency created by the internet.

Nowadays the people outside a company know almost as much as the people inside.

The companies who we want to give our money to have to be honest with us and tell us the truth.

We are happy for them to tell us when they are getting things right.

We also want to know why they get things wrong and how quickly and how well they will rectify their mistakes.

As soon as you start in business, you will come up against your own values and you need to have clear understanding of what they are and why you do things the way you will be doing them.

Many companies still do not understand this.

They think they can continue to treat their customers and suppliers with little or no respect.

They have not yet realised that, as soon as they do that, we the social media- savvy public, will get to hear about it.

There will be no place for them to hide.

They will see their market share slide fast.

If you are launching a business you are able to start with a clean slate.

Remember, all company culture comes from the founder, or the person at the top, as long as he or she is running their enterprise.

Be sure you have looked in the mirror and been honest from the start, both with yourself and with all those who your enterprise will connect with, whether physically or online.

If you are honest and straightforward with all, you will be able to attract the brightest people to work with you and your powerful team will forge ahead, even in difficult trading times.

If you are not honest with yourself, the results will soon become apparent as you try to untangle the sticky mess you are likely to get yourself drawn into.

Take the time to think about what is truly important to you and how you want to convey that to the world.

It will be time very well spent.

Not so long ago, the leader of an organisation was expected to know the answers to every problem. 

They were comfortable with running the business in their own way and their personal decision on most matters was the one that everyone waited for.

In the 21st century this leadership model can no longer work.  The world in which businesses and organisations operate is much too complex for one person to have all the answers.

In addition, the new culture of transparency means that everyone connected with and interested in your organisation, whether on the inside or the outside, now has access to similar information.

Future leaders must be flexible problem-solvers. 

They must know who to ask and where to turn for the information they will need to resolve challenging issues in the best way possible.

They must build great teams around them so they can use collaborative wisdom to make decisions.

They need to work with people who think differently from the way they do – whether commercially or technologically – or because they have a different gender viewpoint or come from a different culture.

The globalisation of business means that top teams need to be aware of how their customers and suppliers think, as well as understanding that different generations wil have different ways of viewing the world.

Future leaders must build trust among their employees and for their brand or they will not attract the best people.

Future leaders must be humble and good at listening.

There is no longer room for arrogance in the board-room.

Future leaders will face tough challenges as the world moves faster and in more complex ways.

Future leaders will need to learn these new skills and behaviours.

Are you up for the challenge?

When I made a comment about how much women worry about – and how unimportant it is - whether their colleagues like them – or not – it sparked particular interest.

All of us know many people both inside and outside of the workplace.

We do not like all of them.

There might not be anything wrong with some of the people we dislike.

But in a world where we are all so different, we will always be attracted to spend more time with some people rather than others.

Often people we like a lot are friendly with perfectly fine people but we ourselves are not too keen on them.

In the workplace it is unusual to like everyone.

It is equally impossible and a waste of time to worry whether people like us.

What is most important to concentrate on is doing the work in the best way you can so that people respect you.

Later in your career you want to be known as ‘the expert’.

You want to be talked about as the person to go to because your work is excellent and you can solve other people’ s problems.

People do not have to like you to be happy to recommend you.

Focus your efforts on being tough, capable and fair and then you won’t need to worry if anyone actually ‘likes’ you. 

If you treat everyone in the way that you would like to be treated, they probably will like you.

But that is simply an added bonus.

But it won’t be long before we too begin to recognise that most of us living now will have the opportunity to live well into our 90s and we too may posibly receive our telegram from the Royal Family when we reach the age of 100 (unless they begin to cut back on costs there also).

That means that we may well have more than 50 years of useful working life.  We won’t be able to retire earlier than 70 (unless we are unable to work) because we won’t have enough money to support ourselves in the future.  And we can’t expect the government to do it for us, because they won’t be receiving enough in taxes.

All this will shortly inspire a radical rethink of how we plan our working lives.   People are already beginning to realise than 50 years is a very long time to be engaged in full-time working.  The concept of regular sabbaticals, and of part-time working (for men and for women) at various times will become normal.  We will want to enjoy ourselves during our prime now and not put it all off until retirement which will be so far away.

Companies who recognise this and are willing to be as flexible and make as many compromises as is practical and feasible will keep their most talented workers.  They will be respected by all the staff as long as everyone has their turn in which to have a period of working less hard, or even not working at all.  

Companies who, even now, resent their hard-working employees not being contactable by the office on their two week annual leave (if that is their choice), can expect to fall behind in the challenge to keep their best talent on board.

Statistics show that younger employees entering the workplace move jobs at a frequent rate.

Make sure that your company, whether large or small, is increasingly seen as flexible.  The changes in the population’s longevity and wellbeing will affect every aspect of our working lives.  All of us will want to work with and for those people who understand this and can find ways to adapt to their employees’ needs.

Today’s young people – Generation Y - are the first generation who have spent the last ten years of their lives closely connected to everyone they want to get to know via the internet.

They are more used to communicating via email and text-messaging than through face-to-face contact.

This generation cannot understand why they may have to wait several years to be given a blackberry from their new employers when everyone they know is likely to be easily accessible online and will reply to their emails 24/7.

This generation wants to learn and they like to throw themselves into projects and do things fast.

They know that they need to deepen their knowledge in several areas because that is what the workplace of the future will demand.

They will often choose to work for a boss who they can learn from – and they expect that boss to devote his or her time to teaching them whatever they want to learn so that they can achieve mastery in a particular area.

But just as Generation Y is used to multitasking and the fast pace of constant change, so will they prove more likely to change jobs and loyalties in an instant.

The challenge for more old-fashioned employers is to balance the demands of their new hires with the more formal behaviour and slower pace of older employees, many of whom are still struggling to understand how to use social media themselves.

Young people bring fresh thinking and fresh ideas to the workplace.

But they sometimes find it difficult to understand and learn the norms of the workplace which, for the most part, comprises people who have not grown up in the digital age.

In due course it won’t matter because everyone will be connected to everyone else all the time.

But for the moment, it is adding to the challenges of older-style companies and organisations.

For many years in the publishing industry, a deal would happen on a handshake.

An offer would be made by a publisher to an author (often via their literary agent). 

If the general terms were accepted by the author, the writing and publication of the book would then progress even though a signed contract might subsequently take several weeks or months to negotiate (especially if it were a boilerplate).

The book publishing industry is so small, that it would be easy to get a bad reputation if you did not keep your part of the bargain and you would not then be offered the books that you wanted.

Nowadays every startup entrepreneur must learn vigilance.

A deal is not a deal until a confirmed order on the terms agreed has arrived.

And even then some large retailers or global corporations have been known to cancel their orders.

But you do at least have your piece of paper and can try to negotiate something out of it which is in your favour.

If you have been promised investment of any kind, whether by a bank or other corporation or private investor a deal is not a deal until the papers are signed and the money is in your account.

There are many reasons why a deal does not take place.

One party might find the marketplace or their circumstances or financial situation suddenly changes;  another may get cold feet.

These things are reasonable.

They can happen to all of us anywhere at any time.

The important thing for the entrepreneur is to always be vigilant.

Chase the paperwork and chase the deal until it closes.

But until it has closed, know that you can never be 100% sure that it will.

He was wondering how to encourage more women to achieve greater success in his company.

He made the point that the skills required to achieve board level are those possessed by both men and women and that he himself had entered the industry because of his financial and management skills.

We both agreed that not enough companies had sufficient understanding of how to mentor and develop many of their most talented female employees.

I made the point that it is particularly important in all businesses that women are given the opportunity to develop their abilities with interesting and challenging projects.

Many employers, both men and women, often assume that because a project - it might involve travel or longer hours spent at the office – will take a woman, particularly if she is a mother, out of her comfort zone, that she will not want to do this more challenging task.

The job is then given to a man.

And if this happens over and over, the woman is not seen as a potential candidate for valued promotion. 

But this is not the way to equip women with the skills to reach the top of their careers or for their companies to benefit from their abilities.

And women who know that they will be having a 9 – 5 working life, either because they need to, or simply because they want to, are often just as ambitious as any man.

What’s important for the woman is to ask to be given interesting projects and challenges and to network within their companies so that they can see what opportunities may be out there for them.

Many women take a more passive role in regard to their career, waiting to be asked to do more interesting work.

If the exciting opportunities are always given to men, who often do ask for them, the women then feel they are overlooked for promotion and frequently drop out of the workplace to start their own businesses as consultants.

We came to the conclusion that it was important for the people at the top of every organisation to recognise the differences between how men and women respond to the demands of the workplace. 

Women often benefit from great mentors and if there is a chance to have one, she should take it.

As always, the culture of an organisation comes from the top.

There is huge wasted talent in the workplace if women are not given the opportunitiy to use their skills and develop their potential.

Companies must ensure that both men and women take the time to understand their differences in style so that both can work together to achieve the highest potential of the organisation.

You watch every pound closely.

Not a penny is wasted.

When you make a bad spending decision, you might give yourself quite a hard time.

It’s all part of the process of honing your skills as an entrepreneur.

When your company begins to do well, you feel you can relax a little.

You can gradually allow yourself and your colleagues a little more luxury.

You can take on extra people in the areas where you are particularly stretched.

Suddenly your overheads are climbing but you can justify it because you are making profits.

Everything about (life and) business is cyclical.

Right now its important to think back to those awkward days when you watched every item of expenditure.

The global financial situation is worsening by the day.

Its just a matter of time before the really major cracks appear.

We are already in a recession.

Take a look at your staffing and your overheads again.

Imagine you are still that startup entrepreneur with fire in your belly.

Be aware of what you might need to cut back on if – and when – you might have to.

And consider cutting back now – before your customers start to cut.

Then you will have a little fat in reserve.

And you will be as well prepared as you possibly can be.

The first task of a successful entrepreneur is to achieve their own start-up capital. 

A few technology businesses are impossible to start without a certain amount of capital.

But many other businesses, especially businesses where you buy and sell reasonably priced goods, can be started with your own savings.

Ambitious entrepreneurs who don’t have help from family or friends will simply go without until they have amassed the money they need.

They will work all the hours they can – sometimes taking two or three jobs - until they have saved enough to get started.

If you want to trade, you can start in a small way and learn quickly.

If people are buying your product or service, you are getting it right.

If  they are not buying, you are getting the offering or the price or the target market or your sales pitch wrong.

Everything you want to know about starting a business can be learned from one of the many advisory centres that exist, the internet, an experienced friend or colleague and a good book on the subject.

It isn’t rocket science.

But what starting your own business does require is persistence and determination – both of which are free.

If you don’t have either of those, stick to the day job and find a different dream.