Peter Bromhead: A Stirling solution

Anyone called Stirling has to be made of the right stuff. Illustration / Peter Bromhead

With the axe poised over this column, I've been pondering how to reboot my career in a shrinking economy.

So when somebody called Stirling sent me an email offering to teach me the inner secrets of marketing and monetization (whatever that is), I immediately cried out: "Rescue me!"

My confidence is in the name. Anyone called Stirling has to be made of the right stuff. My boyhood heroes were Stirling Moss, the motor racing driver, and David Stirling, the lantern-jawed soldier who founded the British SAS.

Anyhow, this Stirling, the business guru, wants to share with me his expertise in managing revenue streams and how to set up my financial portfolio correctly in today's business jungle.

He also promises to teach me how to effortlessly attract clients, even if I don't enjoy marketing. Needless to say, I'm attracted to anything that is "effortless", in the same way I'm attracted to gym equipment that promises me abs of steel in exchange for spending "effortless" time exercising on some sort of vibrating platform.

Other secrets Stirling promises to share include "How to easily build power partnerships with key influencers".

I'm unclear about this, and hope it doesn't mean sucking up to colleagues by offering them expensive alcohol-driven lunches.

Another of Stirling's promised homilies also has me apprehensive. He wants to address secret sabotage signals I might be sending out that might be short-circuiting my success.

"Surely I don't send out secret sabotage signals?" I despairingly murmured to the caregiver.

"Well ..." she responded, "telling the newspaper's bean counters to get stuffed might not be helpful for keeping your journalism career afloat."

I hurriedly ignored her comments, and passed on to Stirling's concluding offer, that he wants to talk to me about the sneaky time, energy and money wasters that have been sucking the life out of my business.

"What's he going on about?" I wailed again. "Surely, I run a tight business operation?"

"Well, other than spending all day chatting up women in cafes and boozing with your journo mates half the night," the caregiver continued, "though I suppose you do fill in your remaining moments churning out a few vacuous scribbles.

"Anyhow," she added, reading his promotional email, "you haven't spelt his name right, it's Sterling, not Stirling!"

"Well in that case, I'm bailing out," I responded. "I don't have any past heroes in my life called Sterling."