Whether we like the title or not, many of us are Thatcher’s children because she was in power when we started to work.  Everything she put in place had an effect on all of us, in a way that no politician since has done.  What I find hard to understand is the rejoicing of the few at her death.  ‘Distasteful’ is far too polite a description.  She wasn’t a tyrannical despot, philanderer or a philistine.  She didn’t plunge us into unnecessary and costly (lives not money) wars.  She wasn’t a slippery crowd pleaser either.  She was a scientist and a mum who became a politician; she led from the front and was the driving force behind how this country works and how we are viewed on the world stage.  In case anyone’s in any doubt, much of this is for the better.

Even now there are a lot of people who don’t like change; Margaret Thatcher wasn’t one of those either.  She wasn’t interested in supporting the old ways if they were past their sell-by date; she was interested in exploring the new, even if it took her down a path that was unpopular.  You could never accuse her of courting popularity, but she was because we kept voting for her and she was the longest serving prime minister of the 20th century.

Her confrontation with the unions is something that always sticks out in my memory.  No, not because it was long overdue, and that no one had ever had the mental strength to grasp this political nettle in previous governments; it was because of desktop publishing.

Desktop publishing must sound so old today, but in the 1980s it was new technology that would revolutionise the speed in which newspapers and magazines could be produced.  This was the future and opened the doors for Wapping and the digital age of publishing a few years later.  Where technology steps in, less people are needed.  So, while “everybody out” was still ringing in our ears, thousands of pickets were surrounding the offices of Eddie Shah, who was launching a new national newspaper using this technology.  The pickets were there for months, it was violent and it was ugly, but the newspaper, Today, was published.  I know it’s difficult to imagine, but replace Eddie Shah and Today with Sergey Brin and Google.  Unthinkable isn’t it?

It’s hard to know what the history books will write about this time, but it’s more likely to be that Margaret Thatcher stood for progress and competitiveness while the unions wanted to prevent both to protect its members.  You can’t stop the future from happening  so you have to look forward and work collaboratively, but this was impossible for the unions to do then; they were locked in a time warp that thankfully doesn’t exist now, but it was a painful journey getting there.  But we did get there.

Better to think outside of the box and embrace the new than to keep your mind and spirit locked inside it.  That was Margaret Thatcher’s legacy and we should be rejoicing that we have it.

“Actually mum we prefer your hair the way it used to be.”  No, this wasn’t in response to a perm gone wrong or a ropey cut; this was about me having grey hair.

I’ve been working in  PR for decades, so I know how important image is and I also understand and empathise with the pressures some women feel to look younger to hang on to their jobs, their men even.   Apart from staying trim, dressing well and having a great cut, most women have been disguising their hair colour for decades.  And I was one of them.  In fact for many of those years, I didn’t know what my true hair colour was, but I knew that one day I’d have to face being grey and was dreading it.  Well, getting breast cancer and having chemotherapy meant my decision to embrace the grey was sort of forced on me.  I lost my hair and, when it started to grow again, steel grey in places, white in others, I decided NOT to reach for the hair dye.  As much as I wanted to go back to the security of Medium Golden Brown (with-caramel-highlights), I thought I should take advantage of my situation and turn a potentially ageing hairstyle into a short, funky look.

As I was getting used to the close crop and the new colour, which I thought looked good on me (despite the double-takes and instinctive kerb falling reactions from friends and acquaintances), my teenage kids admitted that they preferred my hair colour the way it used to be, and perhaps I’d think about growing the hair a little longer too.  Were they concerned that their friends might think I looked like a granny?  Yes.  Did they think I looked a lot older?  Yes to that too.   Then my sister took me to one side and said that someone at the school fete thought I was her mother and my children’s grandmother.  All this could have made me fall off the wagon completely, but I held my nerve until I could get a more objective view.  I confided in a friend who, sadly, agreed with the kids.  Being grey was just plain ageing.  To top it all I saw a picture of Jane Fonda at 72 looking fabulous, with the style and hair colour I used to have.  To say I was depressed would be an understatement.

My confidence knocked, I started studying grey-haired women in their 70s and 80s and wondered if that’s how I looked; I even stopped doing SuDoku in public as if that might mark me out as being older than my years.  Then I felt angry that the colour of my hair should become such an issue.  I’ve always been used to people enjoying my company and taking my advice because of what was going on inside my head, not on it.  Clearly grey was more than just a colour, it was a sort of litmus paper that indicated I was, in some way, ‘past it’.

Now I wear my greyness like a badge of pride.  I hope, despite the views of my nearest and dearest, that I’m making it a little easier for other women to follow my lead.  Until they do though, I shall enjoy making an entrance and cutting a dash wherever I go, because, believe it or not, my greyness is making a statement and I’m enjoying it.

Years ago, when I was working at an advertising agency in London, I was asked to help someone out.  He was down on his luck and my husband thought, as we worked in the same industry, I could help.  (I should mention that my husband was a Freemason and helping other Freemasons who were down on their luck is what they do, among other things.)  I was reluctant, but decided to look at his portfolio.  It wasn’t great, in fact it wasn’t even good, but by now I was feeling sorry for him and thought he deserved a chance.  I briefed him on a project and waited.  He came back remarkably quickly but what he presented to me was beyond poor; he couldn’t cut it.  He’d wasted my time, I’d wasted his.  I was no further forward thanks to going against my natural instinct and dipping my toes into the murky waters of the old boys’ network.  For some time to come it was impossible for me to disassociate networking with nepotism, using mates and generally subjugating quality for mutual backscratching.  Was I guilty of double standards? A tetchy purist?  Haven’t we all tried to gain benefit for ourselves, family and friends through our contacts?  Of course the answer is yes.  But my reputation would have been adversely affected if I’d accepted his work, and for me, like the majority of businesses, your good reputation is everything.  It takes years to build and only seconds to destroy, as Gerald Ratner knows only too well.

When I moved to Essex and started working in a small consultancy I became aware very quickly that networking is what businessmen and women do as effortlessly as charging their mobile phones.  And the opportunities to get involved are endless.  There are breakfasts, lunches, after work events, speed networking, mums’ networking; Rotarians run them, so do the Institute of directors and the Chambers; enterprising business owners set up regular events of their own; magazines have been created off the back of them, venues make money out of hosting them.  They’re not always called ‘networking’, but that’s what they are and there’s something going on every day of the working week, which is replicated all over the country. This is a big business where the turnover is likeminded people, all wanting to improve their chances of success, and the profit is knowledge; knowledge about people, opportunities, issues, skills gaps, the marketplace, anything and everything.

With my only experience of networking a negative one, I initially gave it a very wide berth.  However, through my work I was always involved in hosting, running and attending client events and, whether I liked it or not, I was networking like a trouper.  What was it about networking that was so good, when my one experience had been so bad?  By meeting business owners and other professionals who weren’t working in my field I was broadening my local horizons, but more importantly, like a fine wine, I was laying down relationships for future benefit.

Leigh Hemmings, Creative Director of Stone Productions, is a networking devotee:    “People do business with people, not companies, so it’s important that you get to know people and they get to know you.  If you didn’t have networking how would you do that?”  In a way networking, if you do it regularly enough, helps you make decisions based on insight because you’ve been able to probe more deeply under the skin of a fellow networker.  This is probably one of the best ways of finding out who you’d feel comfortable working with and who you should avoid like a bout of Norovirus.

But networking is a social exercise and, for some, being sociable in a room full of strangers is similar to death by a thousand cuts.  There’s no doubt that the more you do, the easier it gets, but it helps if someone can show you the ropes at the outset.  Mark Howell, Operations Director of Capel Court and, like Leigh Hemmings, no stranger to networking, believes that’s a problem easily solved:  “I’ve been doing this for six years but at the beginning you can feel quite isolated.  I used to be that person standing on the sidelines, gripping my coffee cup and hoping someone would come over to me.  A mentoring scheme for new networkers would help make their experience less daunting and more positive.”  Whether operated informally or formally by the companies attending or by the host, a scheme like this would not just reduce the fear factor but could also stop bad habits.

The biggest, baddest habit of them all is feeling the need to overtly sell.  You can work the room, hand out as many business cards as humanly possible and talk 19 to the dozen about you and your company and you will have learned nothing at the end of it all.  But others will have learned that you’re pushy and interested in number one, not them.  You might as well just leave a flyer under the wipers of their windscreens for all the good it will do you in developing any form of trust, let alone a business relationship.  Most businessmen and women already know that the best way to sell is to listen, so we should all be trying harder to form the listening habit while networking.   Before you start listening you need to join one of the groups, but what do you do if they’re all locked in conversation?  Take a tip from Damian Culhane, Director of Perceptions Coaching, who says the secret is to just look at the feet:  “The feet are farthest away from the brain and basically speak the truth about how a person feels about those around them.  If you see two people whose feet are pointing towards each other, don’t join the group; look out for someone with one of their feet turned out, they’re either looking for an exit or would welcome new company.”  Body language should never be underestimated, especially when the time period is concentrated; those unspoken cues can make the difference between getting a relationship onto the right footing (doh!) and blowing it altogether.

With the raft of networking opportunities open to all of us, it pays to be choosy, as Louise Dyer, Director of Dart Design, has learned:  “You need time to network and breakfast meetings are great because they don’t interfere with your working day.  My children are very young though, which means I have to be selective about which ones I attend, but I have won business as a result.”

Winning business and getting referrals all make the time spent networking worth it, but you need to use your time wisely.  Not all networking groups will attract the industries important to you, or the right calibre of personnel and not all networking groups are good.  Then again, if you want to be recognised nationally or internationally, you need to be networking further afield.  The institute of Directors would be helpful here, as would the Essex Chambers of Commerce.  For example, the Essex Chambers is affiliated to 52 other Chambers through the British Chambers of Commerce, and can let you have information on relevant events up and down the country. They also have strong international trade links with the Council of British Chambers of Commerce In Europe, where you can gain access to international trade events in member countries as well as support on exporting to them.

Over the past few years I’ve gone from stone cold detractor to lukewarm “I know I’ve got to do this but…”.  Now I’ve reached the stage where I find the right kind of networking events (usually based on the calibre of the speaker) incredibly useful to me.  I have made excellent contacts, some of whom have become dear friends, and I’m still learning.  As the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc, notably said, “when you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot” and I’m proud to be green.  And I don’t just look at the feet when I’m networking either.

Anyone running a business knows how important first impressions are. Creating the wrong one, no matter how unintentional, can be the difference between a potential client picking up the phone or deciding not to bother.

Speaking of phones, is yours answered the way it should be? Do you come across like a cast member of TOWIE when you’re really more of a Made in Chelsea? What about your website? Are you a professional who is responsible and accountable, or do you look like you write deals on the back of beer mats? Either is fine, depending on what you want for your brand.

Ensuring that you’re presenting a coherent and relevant image to your target audiences can be tedious and time-consuming, especially when all you want to do is run your business, but it is important.

A good starting point is to have a communications audit conducted. The audit involves talking to your trade, end users, intermediaries and the media. Your literature, stationery, advertising and website will be examined, as will the quality of your social networking.  And, of course, you’ll see how those phones are answered. These findings mean nothing if they are not compared with those of your key competitors and this will determine where you really ‘sit’ as a company and as a brand.

It won’t be statistically relevant, but will provide independent, qualitative evidence fast that will inform any future marketing activities. Of course you’ll want the information fast, so you can implement change where necessary, and an audit of this nature – depending on the size of your company – shouldn’t take longer than a week from start to report and recommendations.

No one would go into battle without a well-planned strategy, which took into account the  weight of the opposition, an understanding of the terrain and the strength and resilience of their own troops.

The same applies in marketing communications, but everything now happens faster than ever, so it’s no surprise that action is often confused with progress.  Developing strategy takes time; it deserves to because it’s the most important weapon in your business armoury.

A great example of a thought-through strategy?  The Government’s dementia strategy.  In March the Prime Minister announced plans to make the UK a world leader on dementia, to deliver major improvements in dementia care, dementia awareness and dementia research by 2015.  There will be three ‘Champion Groups’ to lead work in each area.   One group will look at how to make 20 cities, towns and villages dementia friendly by 2015.  Small changes can make a huge difference to people’s day to day lives, such as having greeters in supermarkets to help guide people around the store and setting up dedicated dementia cafes.

Innovation will be a key area of interest too as it opens up huge possibilities for supporting people with dementia. This has been brilliantly demonstrated today by the unveiling of  five ground-breaking designs, including a dementia support dog, a room fragrance system to stimulate people’s appetites and a wristband personal alarm, all created to help people live well with dementia. The designs have been developed through a national competition, run in partnership with the Department of Health and were unveiled at the Design Council yesterday.

The Government announced this week that it is going to slash the Feed-in Tariff by 50% to 21p/kWh.  The cut is unexpectedly harsh, but then we were told that it would be introduced three and a half months early, which means the cut-off date to receive the higher tariff of 43.3/kWh is only a few weeks away.  This is bad news for homeowners who are getting their funds together and taking their time to consider their options and their installation company.

It’s even worse news for the solar PV companies.  The announcement has caused panic, so much so that some companies – mainly those with enough spare cash – have been busy stock piling panels, railings, inverters and generation meters, leaving many with a full order book and no product.

In one fell swoop, the Government, well Greg Barker, has possibly bought many enterprising young businesses to the brink of extinction.  All for the sake of three and a half months.

Such short term tactics serve no one in reality: it won’t reward savers, it won’t encourage spending, it won’t reinforce a commitment to going green and it won’t motivate SMEs to be enterprising.  How, without doing any of these things, can the Government hope to achieve any economic growth, let alone meet its renewables targets?

The one thing I’m sure of is that the Government can’t do it on its own.  It needs to work as part of a team, with players who know how to make, not lose money.  The Government should spend a little more time talking to SMEs, rather than bankers and newspaper magnates, and get more connected with what is really going on.  There’s no time like the present.  In fact it’s imperative.