Happy Sunday- time for reflection.
I love Sundays as they are a time to spend with family, a time for self-reflection, a time to review the past week and plan for the upcoming week.
Business Development
It’s time to make that sales call…
Recently, when I polled my audience about what they procrastinated most about in their business, 40% reported that it was making sales calls. Now, I believe I have a good idea why this occurs and it begins with the lack of a strong foundation.
You see, when someone begins a business, it often is because they had a strong passion about something; whether it is baking, or physical training or any one of the many other small business ideas out there. And in the beginning, there is a passion and excitement that is very effective at getting some customers. The business owner thinks “I am on my way because see how easy it was to get customers.”
But passion about your service or product just gets you so far. Once the business is becoming more established, customers begin to look at you a bit more closely. They want to know that you “get them and their needs” and this is where the foundation needs to be solid or your customer’s will lose confidence in you. This is where the fear of sales calls begins to take hold.
Here are 3 areas that you must consider when building your foundation:
- Who is your target (ideal) audience (and everybody is not an acceptable answer?
- What is the problem you solve for them (consider what they need and desire)?
- What is the result you provide?
Answering these questions gives you clarity regarding whom you do your best work with and what you do for them. Knowing this also gives you confidence and language with which to start a conversation with your ideal clients.
And the best sales calls are those that sound like a conversation. And suddenly the phone won’t seem so intimidating.
So go out and engage your ideal clients in sales conversations; after all no business can grow without selling something.
7 Quick Tips to Concentrate Better and Get More Done in Less Time
With so much going on in our lives, the ability to get more done easier and in less time is priceless. Here are 7 quick tips to how to concentrate with greater ease.
Focus:
Hobbyists know the pleasures of intense focus. The hours go by like minutes. Some call this flow and starts with desire. For each task, find something you really like about it and focus on that component. This will allow you to complete the task quicker and with more joy. Practice will make allow you to get to a state of intense focus easier.
Eat nutritious meals:
If you’re hungry, have a healthy snack before beginning the task.
Drink water:
By the time you notice you are thirsty, your brain is already dehydrated. Keep water handy and drink it throughout the day.
Adjust the noise:
Some people need quiet to focus. Others need background hum. Experiment to discover your best setting, soft music or rock or white noise. Use this to help you concentrate on the task at hand. Remember that music can give you energy so if you are finding yourself needing a boost, play some music. Emotion is Energy in Motion so you can adjust yours.
Don’t let worry distract you:
These minor, distracting thoughts are called “niggles” and are the thoughts that hang out at the back of your mind. Jot down distressing thoughts that cross your mind so that you can worry about them later, if you must. Getting them out of your mind will lessen the effect they have on your ability to get things done.
Practice:
The ability to concentrate is not dependent on IQ or natural aptitude. It’s a muscle strengthened by practice. Track the length of time that you can pay attention, and extend it a little bit each day.
Breaks:
Spotters in search planes are switched frequently. After a while, it’s impossible to keep the mind and eyes sufficiently focused. Give yourself breaks. Stand up and stretch, do a different activity, or go and play as a well-earned reward.
And when you are done with your task, celebrate! Success breeds more success so create mini-wins and you will be getting more things off your plate in no time flat.
All Businesses need Systems to Succeed, even Yours!
Solopreneurs, start-ups and even small enterprises sometimes take pride in flying by the seat of their pants. They believe that eschewing structured systems, policies, procedures and processes enables them to stay agile, flexible and opportunistic.
They couldn’t be more wrong. Systems are vital for all businesses – large and small.
Integrated systems ensure that all functions of your business including sales, customer service, follow-up, service delivery, accounts payable and direct outreach are all aligned.
With integrated, interconnected systems, tasks merge in a logical way and activities come together toward a common goal.
Systems allow people to be aligned around a single purpose instead of focusing on individual tasks in isolation. This helps ensure that the entire organization is in sync, delivering a consistent message, brand and experience to customers.
What’s more, well-defined processes are key to doing things better, faster, more consistently and more efficiently, as well as to pinpoint when and where things may go wrong.
Systems can prevent you from over-promising or underestimating and they can help keep you focused on your top customers and most lucrative business.
Organizational systems, policies and processes should be:
- Aligned to your goals and strategies
- Responsive to changing conditions
- Documented and communicated to your customers
- Open to scrutiny and modification
Keep in mind that systems are not goals but only ways to achieve goals, so they may need to bend and flex as circumstances change or new opportunities arise. Moreover, you always need to be on the lookout for ways to streamline, strengthen, simplify or automate your processes.
Want to get more done in your Business? Get rid of Your Tolerations…
What do desktop clutter, wrinkled clothes, overflowing email boxes and troublesome relationships with friends and family have in common?
They’re all tolerations, the little and big things we put up with– often without realizing it– that sap our energy and drain our spirit. Every time we tolerate something, we deplete the energy we could be using to grow our business or make desired changes or to simply experience happiness.
It’s like living with a low-grade fever or pain that somehow dulls our experience for life.
When am I going to get to all that paperwork? Zap!
Ughhh. I wish I could get through all my mail. Zap!
My computer just froze again– the third time today. Zap!
Limiting Beliefs
At the root of our tolerations are a variety of limiting beliefs that immobilize us. For example: “I can’t take the time.” “That’s just the way it is.” “Don’t rock the boat– play it safe.” “Don’t complain or be too demanding.” “It’s not that important.” “I have no control.”.
There are countless different limiting beliefs, yet they all serve to dampen our life force and keep us playing small. And, boy, are they exhausting!
If we are committed to creating work and personal life that is balanced and fulfilling, if we intend to fully express our unique gifts and be of service, it is necessary to consciously evaluate and eliminate the tolerations standing in our way.
Here are some ideas on effectively doing that:
Appraise:
Make an honest appraisal of what you are tolerating in each of the areas of your life: environment, health, work, money, relationship and so on. Write down everything that annoys you or that you feel you are putting up with. You will likely come up with at least 100 of these tolerations!
Choose:
Based on your values and goals, you get to choose. What will you say “no” to? “Yes?” Make certain the “yeses” really excite you. Commit to making them real!
Plan:
With the support of your coach, friends or family, develop a strategy for eliminating these tolerations. You don’t have to do this alone– in fact, it’s more fun to collaborate or create a support team.
Verify:
Create accountability around your goals, with specific deadlines for eliminating tolerations. How many and which ones will you eliminate each day?
Evaluate:
Examine each underlying limited belief that has kept you enduring these things. Again, get support to help you break through them. You may be so close to some of these beliefs that you can’t fully recognize them for what they are.
Appreciate:
Take an honest look at what you are getting out of keeping things as they are. There is always some kind of payoff for whatever is happening in your life. Who in your life– or what part of you– does not want things to change? Appreciate that person or part, and try to find ways for it to be win-win for all concerned.
Request:
Remember that complaints are usually unspoken requests. What requests do you need to make?
As you eliminate tolerations, you will feel the joy of being at choice, an increase in your vitality and a sense of empowerment. Then YOU will find yourself in the driver’s seat … and won’t that be a beautiful and worthwhile ride!
Writing an article is like cooking pasta
Writing an article without an outline is like cooking a pasta dinner without a recipe. Now you may have an end in mind for each; an amazing article that will gain you credibility and expert status and a mouth-watering pasta supper that will have your family raving about your cooking prowess for days to come.
Let’s cook some pasta
You have an idea of what you want to create; an amazing dinner that your family will thoroughly enjoy and give your flowing compliments. You think to yourself, “I know how to cook pasta, let’s just get started.” I don’t need to look at the recipe. You don’t take a look at the recipe or gather all the ingredients but instead just jump in to cooking the noodles.
The same thing applies when writing an article without an outline. You think you know the material very well and you just go for it and write. As you go through the writing process, however, you may forget an important element and take much longer than intended to get to the finished product.
The result is a bit bland and not very memorable
Your family is served a meal that they enjoy but it is a bit bland and nothing that will be memorable in the morning. This is what your reader may say about your article if you do not spend the time preparing all the ingredients and bringing all together in an outline. You may end up with an article that, like the pasta dinner, will serve a purpose of nourishing but it will not be remarkable to your intended audience.
You want your reader to enjoy and remember what you write
An article without the preparation of an outline may cause you to miss some key elements that may leave your reader feeling not quite satisfied. Without a clear picture of how all the elements go together, one area of your article may become overcooked while another is not fully simmered so that the full impact of your argument is not felt. Without all the pieces laid out, you may forget an example or a story that will enhance the flavor and thus the experience for your reader.
You can create a memorable experience
You start with an end in mind when you write also; usually to provide information that will make a change in your reader, either through increased knowledge or change in perspective. By taking the time (and it might just be 5 minutes, that is what it took for this article), you pull together your argument, your examples, your subtopics and then your conclusion.
You can order your ideas so that they flow best and then decide what objections your reader might have. You also can see the next step that will help your audience in their growth.
So you see article writing does not have to be hard. If you do your prep, it can actually be quite enjoyable. I invite you to try this today. Decide what you want to write about, create an outline and then write your article from your outline. You will be able to create a masterpiece that will have your audience begging for seconds. And perhaps you will have time to enjoy a glass of wine as well.
Outsourcing When Money is Tight: 5 Steps to Effectively Outsource
For the independent business owner, the demands on your time are often overwhelming from day 1. There are so many moving parts and things to do that there are never seems to be enough hours in the day. They know they need help to get everything done. However, even for the seasoned businessperson, it’s often difficult to relinquish control of any part of their business. Still, every successful business owner comes to the point where they have to outsource some of their business in order to take it to the next level. So, how do you decide which things to outsource when you’re ready, especially if cash is tight?
Before you even start to look for people you can outsource tasks to, here is a process you can go through to outsource effectively:
Step 1. Make a list of all the tasks you hate to do
It doesn’t matter whether you’re good at it or not, if the task is something you truly dislike doing then it’s a good candidate for outsourcing.
Step 2. Look at where you add value in your business.
Make a list of tasks where you don’t actually add much value to your business. What are tasks that you are not particularly good at? For example, if you’re not very good at writing, that’s a great opportunity to outsource.
Step 3: Identify one-time activities.
Are there any jobs in your business that just need to be done once, and then they’re complete? Those are great for outsourcing too. For example, setting up a new blog and configuring it with plugins and themes is a one-time task that can be completed quickly by one person.
Step 4. Look at tasks that are easy to outsource first.
The one-off tasks are usually the easiest to outsource first and allow you to try someone out without immediately having to make a commitment to a longer-term investment. However, if there are mundane activities you are doing that are taking time away from the true value-added parts of your business, then outsourcing these can help you grow your business by leaps and bounds. If you already know that your business is profitable and could expand if you only had the time, then it may be worth outsourcing basic ongoing tasks.
Step 5. Make some decisions and start your search.
Organize your list of tasks to outsource into immediate, short term and longer term. What will you outsource right away vs. in a few months or a year? Once you’ve made a list of what you’d like to outsource, you’ll be able to tell just what you need in terms of a real person. This often means hiring different people for different tasks since not everyone is good at everything. Get recommendations, search for people with good reputations on freelance sites, and make sure you always get samples of work. Finally, be sure to test someone before you commit a lot of money.
One of the most common statements by successful marketers is that they wish they’d outsourced sooner. However, it’s always easy to say something in hindsight. Take care to outsource wisely by making the most of your budget and testing your business model on a small scale first. Then, unless you want to drive yourself insane or want a smaller income from your efforts than you deserve, you will probably need to begin to outsource sooner rather than later. So, what are you ready to outsource?
Putting Your Systems into Place
It’s Groundhog’s Day and I am reminded of the movie by the same name. You know, the one with Bill Murray where he repeats the same day over and over again. Ever feel like that? Like you are continually doing the same tasks over and over again and wasting lots of time as you are doing that. Well, take a lesson from Bill and learn from your mistakes. Bill began to improve and change his outcome of each day. And you can improve your days by putting systems in place. Remember yesterday when we identified what was causing you stress and frustrating you in your business. Let’s take those and create some systems.
Start by Writing It Down
The first step in systematizing a process is to write it down. What exactly is the process you go through to handle a possible sales lead? What paperwork do you need to begin working with a new client? If you are struggling to get all the steps down, try the “backwards” approach. Start with the end result and then determine what you did right before that, and so on, for each step.
Another valuable exercise is to document everything you do in your business. Do this for each person who works in your company. This may highlight different opportunities to build systems that can be leveraged throughout your organization. This will become even more important as you grow.
Often, the documentation you create in this process is all the system you require. The next time the task comes up, you can pull out the file and save the relearning. It also becomes the core of the training manual for new employees, which is often one of the most valuable systems you can build.
Is the system worth it?
There are some guidelines to help you determine whether something is worth creating a system. There are 3 things to consider when deciding whether to create a system:
- How hard is it to automate? Creating paper checklists is easy; programming Outlook to sync your phone contacts and automatically generate follow up emails isn’t so easy. However, don’t give up if the software approach is too expensive or complicated. Productivity guru David Allen sells several slick software products, but his core recommendation for organizing tasks is to create a set of clearly labeled file folders. Again, a well-documented, step-by-step manual is the core of many highly successful systems.
- How painful is the task? And how painful is failing to execute it well? High-value tasks, such as annual conferences and the like, are good candidates for setting up systems in order to reduce risks and the associated stress.
- Can you outsource the tasks? In some cases, the best system is to hand the documentation for the process to an assistant to carry-out the tasks. In particular, those stress-inducing tasks can be partially off-loaded. But you will need to do the work up front of carefully recording the steps involved, and how to achieve and measure the necessary outcomes.
Keep reviewing and refining
As you go through this analysis, don’t be afraid to start with the question: Why do we do this process in the first place? For every process you find that could be automated with a new system, you may find another that can be eliminated altogether. Systematically reviewing your business this way may be the most valuable system of all.
So I invite you to learn from your activities and put your systems in place so you can be more productive AND take more time off. Please share where you are going to start!