Here is our December 2012 News The 12 Days of Business Christmas click here to read more 

I’m continually amazed at the range of things that present themselves that can potentially distract a business owner from achieving the goals they have set and what tasks they need to do on a daily basis to achieve them. Not long after I started my business (just over 11 years ago now) I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of goals I had set and what I had to do to achieve them, I had a business plan that was easily 50 pages thick.

To make life easier I summarised my plan to one page so that I could become focused and logically work my way through achieving the goals. Interestingly I started to achieve more goals, have more time and importantly for me became less distracted.

So do I still get distracted? Yes! and when I do I simply come back to my one page plan to see what I have to do next to achieve the goals I have set rather than going off in a tangent from the original distraction.

What are the two main things that distract us?

I ask this question at the seminars I run and typically these are the top two distractions for most business professionals:

1. Procrastination and 2. New Ideas. Here are some ways to overcome these two distractions:

Procrastination

Most people procrastinate because they are not crystal clear on what they specifically want, which then leads to not knowing what to do or the best place to start. When this happens all the excuses for procrastinating come into play.. a customer called with an urgent request… I have emails that I must respond to… I need to attend a function… I don’t have enough time… I have to do the paperwork… and the list goes on.. Take a minute to think about what your procrastination excuses are?

To overcome the excuses I use my one page plan it has one word (usually the thing I am crystal clear about wanting to achieve) that helps me remain focused for the month, I only set three goals at one time and have limited number of tasks to complete, as they are completed cross them off and only add others that directly relate to my goals until the goal is achieved. As the goals are achieved I set new ones. By following this method I avoid being distracted and procrastinating on what to do next, I follow the rule if it’s not on the plan it’s not getting attention until it makes it onto the plan!

As I mentioned earlier procrastination comes from lack of clarity. If you are struggling with procrastination and continually going off track  go back to your goals and ask yourself if the goal is really what you want, how committed to the goal you are and is it something you really want to do or is it something you think you should be doing. Seek the assistance of a coach, mentor or business buddy to help you get clear on what you want, sitting in your office thinking about it will keep you exactly you are right now. Taking action will bring results.

New Ideas

New ideas are one of the biggest distractions for achieving your goals! How easy is it when we get a new idea for marketing our products and services to start researching it immediately? the next thing you know 1/2 a day has gone and you have all this great new information, the current workload you have is piling up and now you are 1/2 a day behind!!

This is a common scenario for most people, it may not be a marketing idea it could be a new product idea, a new sales idea, a new networking idea or a new business opportunity.

When I get a new idea the first thing I do is look at my current one page plan to see if it fits in with any of the actions I need to take that month. If it does not fit in it goes in the new ideas folder on my desk until it’s time to set a new plan where I have allocated the time examine new ideas to see if it relates to moving me towards my goals in a timely manner. (I take one day a month out to work on my business) I have found this to be a more efficient way to invest the time and money to making these ideas work with everything else I have to do.

Take action and turn your distractions into Success Drivers…

• Make a list of the things you are distracted by and what your excuses are
• Assess your goals today, are you really committed to them?
• Create a one page plan for yourself to keep on track
• Plan to take one day off in the next month to work on your ideas

Let  me know how you go

Cheers

Sue

At various stages in our lives we strive to achieve goals in all different endeavors some we hit spot on, some we change as we learn, some we miss altogether and some we put aside because of other life commitments.

A missed, changed or derailed goal needs to be acknowledged, learnt from and put into perspective in order for us to grow as individuals and to ease the path for our next goal/s. Here is a simple five step system to help out missed goals into perspective and to learn from:

Step 1 – Make a list of the last 5 – 10 goals that you have set or attempted – make sure you include the ones you achieved as well as the ones that were missed, altered or derailed.

Step 2. Identify what you hoped you would achieve with that goal, what would the result be, how would you feel, what difference would attainment have made in your life?

Step 3 – Describe EXACTLY what did happen – did you achieve it or not? How was it different from what you had hoped you would achieve? How did you feel? What differences if any did it make in your life? Was there pain or pleasure? Elation or disappointment? What did you say to yourself & others about the experience?

Step 4 – Now put it into perspective by asking yourself and documenting your answers to these questions
•    What did you learn from the experience?
•    What about the experience made you stronger?
•    What did you achieve? (it does not matter how small, make sure you recognise it)
•    What will you do differently next time?
•    What wouldn’t you do again?
•    What can you celebrate about this experience?

Step 5 – Let it go and move onto your next goal

It is absolutely pointless hanging onto what didn’t work.  Think about it like this… you may want to be 21 again thinking about it is not going to make you 21 – it’s pointless – you need now to focus on your current age and enjoy the benefits that it brings. Same as your missed goals – pointless hanging on – You are best to use your efforts in focussing on what you want now with what you have learnt.

Let me know how you go.

Cheers Sue

Here is a link to our latest newsletter where we discuss how to appear on Page 1 of Google, we would love to hear about your experiences and what has/hasn’t worked for you.

Cheers

Sue!

I love direct marketing, simply defined direct marketing is about understanding exactly who your customer is and tailoring your message and marketing efforts directly to that person. I follow these five basic direct marketing principles and have had exceptional results each time:

Principle 1 – Know and understand who the customer really is

A good question to ask yourself is Who are they? Where are they? What are their interests? How can we reach them? And, most importantly, why should they be interested in what we have to offer? What is our unique offering? For clues to these questions examine your current customers and ask who are they? Why are they here? You could even ask them if you can’t discover the answer on your own!

Principle 2 – Determine which products and services to offer to which type of customer

Most businesses will have varying types of customers that will buy different products and services, it’s critical to ensure you understand who these types of customers are in your business. For example my entire database receives this newsletter, but I choose customers from this list for specific direct marketing campaigns depending on which products and/services I’m offering. As an example I have a very popular ladies brief case in my business accessories range, in a recent direct marketing campaign information was only sent to a small select group of female business owners in a particular geographic area. I received a very high response rate to the campaign and didn’t alienate the male customers on my database with unnecessary marketing information from my business.

Principle 3 – Develop your campaign with the customer in mind  

When compiling your offer and the marketing piece for the customer continually ask yourself what are the benefits to the customer. How do they best receive information? Would they prefer an offer by mail or email? The creative look of your direct marketing piece is important however, it’s not as important as the offer itself. I see many business owners get caught up in ‘making it look good’ rather than focusing on what the customer really needs in order to make a decision.

Principle 4- Make sure the back end supports the front end

If you are sending out a campaign, ensure that your office is ready and prepared to take orders and fulfil them! I know this sounds simple but I see a lot of businesses send out campaign without advising or preparing the rest of the business. Involve any relevant staff in the campaign process, I have one client that does a full briefing with their staff prior to the campaign going out. They spend time explaining the thinking behind the campaign and the expected responses for their customers so that they are ready and prepared when the phones start to ring. They check to see that their website is up to date and have developed systems to fulfil orders promptly.

Principle 5 – Follow up, test and measure  

Not all campaigns will give you a FANTASTIC response, when designing any direct marketing activity always plan to test and measure what you are doing so that you can improve each time you run a campaign. I have a customer that sends out information twice a month via email to their customer base, each six months we sit down and examine the results of each campaign by comparing the offers, copywriting, creative look and headlines to the responses and sales. This way we are able to continually improve the offering to their customers and they don’t waste time, money or effort on not knowing what’s not working.

Cheers

Sue!

How many times have you started a new marketing strategy, sales process or a new way of thinking in your business and then an obstacle occurs or you become busy and distracted and end up back to doing things the way you have always done them?

Well my friends you are not alone!

Obstacles, distractions and difficulties occur everyday in small business land – they are a natural part of life as a business owner. The great news is we do have a CHOICE in how we manage them. What I have learnt over the 11 year history of my business is there are two key ways of dealing with them:

1. You either change or alter the obstacle, distraction or difficulty (I call this the hard road) or
2. You can change your attitude, behaviours and actions to be able to deal with it. (I call this the really hard road but the BEST road forward)

By selecting the 2nd option you enhance your confidence in running your business, empower yourself and the people around you and move towards your goals faster. By selecting option 1 you can do some serious damage to your self worth, the results you get and the way you run your business. The biggest lesson I’ve learnt in being a business owner is that ultimately the only thing I really have control over is what goes on in my head.

So if it’s just a matter of changing our attitude, behaviours and actions why don’t most people do it and get what they really want?

Now that in itself is too big a question to give a broad answer to and simply because we all have different values, beliefs, backgrounds, education and life experiences. We will all look at life and the things we need to change from 0ur own perspective, we can all read the same books, subscribe to the ‘experts, guru’s and motivators’ but ultimately we make the CHOICE to change based on what we know to be true for us according to our values, beliefs, backgrounds, education and life experiences.

So when we are faced with the two options and we keep choosing option 1 what really is the answer for moving into the productive and beneficial number 2?

Here is what I know works…

When you are faced with any type of obstacle or difficulty your ability to deal with it can be turned around into a position of strength by asking yourself positive empowering questions, being silent enough with yourself to listen to the truth and taking action on those answers.

These positive and empowering questions must be just that positive and empowering, there’s an old fashioned saying that sums this up perfectly “ask a stupid question and you will get a stupid answer!”. Here is a classic example:

“Why does this always happen to me, I never have any luck?”

Your mind will probably come back to you with something like this…  “Because you are useless and good things do not happen to you!” and because the mind is such a powerful tool you will continue to get an avalanche of answers of all the times you have failed, had obstacles, challenges or setbacks. Which in my experience will only perpetuate your situation.

So what’s the answer? well like I said it’s different for everyone but what works for me is to re-frame this unhelpful question to a positive empowering question for example…  “What did I learn from this setback for next time? or What do I need to do?” plus be patient for the answer and TAKE ACTION on that answer – even if it is difficult, hard or really out of your comfort zone. This takes guts, patience and practice. The change you want to see will arrive, for some it arrives instantaneously, for others it may take some extra time. In the end it works… you just have to do it.

Here are some other things to think about when faced with obstacles, difficulties and distractions:

• Acknowledge that it has happened. Don’t hide from it. These things happen. So what? (it’s highly unlikely you will die from it)
• What positive empowering questions can you ask yourself?
• What is good about this situation?
• How can I make the most of this situation?
• What can I learn from it?
• What are the facts about this problem?
• How can we make it a successful outcome?
• Acknowledge that setbacks occur to everyone and you are not being singled out.
• Ask for help, see a professional that can help you uncover limiting beliefs or discuss it with a colleague
• View them as a challenge to overcome rather than an issue or problem, the language we use with ourselves is extremely important.

What positive empowering questions can you ask yourself to give some better answers to your setbacks? Write these down now and take action on them.

Asking ourselves tough and confronting questions in business (and life) is difficult and hearing the truthful answers can be unsettling, not taking action and ignoring the truth keeps us exactly where we are. So for my ‘expert’ opinion give it a go, ask yourself better questions, listen to your truth and importantly take action. It’s worth it, because every time with fail that I choose this road I get outstanding results and I know you can too.

Cheers
Sue

Any sales opportunity whether you are selling to one person, a panel or a group of people must have some structure and process to it. The golden rule for sales success is to keep it simple and logical. here is the process we use when selling:

Clearly define what you goal is.

Is the opportunity to learn,  inform, educate, build relationship, make the sale or a combination of all five? Be as specific as you can, your clarity will determine your success rate.

Establish a structure

Based on you goal, work within a structure to keep you focused on achieving the goal. keep it as simple as you possibly can, this will prevent you from loosing your place or going off on an unrelated track. We use a three step process:

1. An introduction – This needs to be strong and to the point to create impact. Your introduction will be the one thing that leaves a significant impression. Introductions are your defining statements of what you are about to discuss. Keep them brief and to the point, avoid unnecessary “filler” words to manage the time you have.

2. Content (aka your sales speil)

This is the art of the sale, here is where the real magic happens selling your products and services. The content must not only contain facts and features, it is IMPERATIVE that the benefits are highlighted, discussed and points made on how they affect the customer. Use questions to deliver your content and create the need for the sale in the mind of your potential customer. Questions also assist you in assessing how interested the customer is in purchasing from you and allows you to clarify any areas of uncertainty or objection along the way.

3. A summary

The summary need to capture the essential key points to your content, it must be short and to the point and reconfirm the benefits for buying from you.

Finally we work by the mantra “don’t leave the office unless you are going to make a sale” this one thing helps us to always clarify our goals when selling opportunities present themselves.

Cheers

Sue

The number one mistake most small businesses make is not having clearly defined goals. They know that they have a great business idea and that they want to make a great living from that idea. But what they fail to do is clearly define exactly what they want!

The unfortunate result is that this lack of clarity and specifics will cause you to be easily distracted and take you off track from achieving what you want and have you running around chasing your tail!

While there are hundreds of books, blogs, videos and commentary out there on how to set and achieve goals I found that a mix of several methods blended into one actually worked better for me rather than one particular process.

In fact what I discovered was that all the processes that I explored had several factors in common here are the seven things that I apply when setting my goals that may help you in achieving yours.

1. Be to the point and specific about what I really want, new customers is not descriptive enough – 7 new consulting project customers by 31 December 2011is descriptive and to the point.
2. Only select 3 – 5 goals to set. This will help you focus on what is really most important to you and you can realistically achieve. And if you achieve it quickly you can always add in another goal, this way you are always focused on the three goals most important to you right now.
3. Visually design the goals so they appeal to you.  For example I am a very visual person so I have a poster in my office with pictures of what each goal represents.
4. Keep the language you use simple and conversational. Imagine that you are sitting with me and I am asking you what your goals are, how would you answer me? (Make sure to use the words and language that you use in your everyday conversations)
5. Keep the goals brief, you will have a greater chance of remembering them if they are short and to the point.
6. Develop a list of rewards for taking actions towards your goals and of course rewards for achieving them. Remember the journey towards achieving your goals is just as important as achieving them (after all you never know what you might discover along the way). If you reward yourself along the way it can act as a motivator to keep you moving towards them.
7. Tell someone, a friend, relative, business colleague, your neighbour, a coach. Just make sure you speak the goals out loud. I have found this is one way that keeps me accountable to my own goals. After all I don’t want to face the person I tell the next time I see them if I have done nothing!

Take action right now on getting what you want by writing down the three goals that are most important to you. Go on, I dare you you might just get what you want.

Cheers

Sue

I’m continually amazed at the range of things that present themselves that can potentially distract me from achieving the goals I have set and what tasks I need to do on a daily basis to achieve them.

Not long after I started my business I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of goals I had set and what I had to do to achieve them, I had a business plan that was easily 50 pages thick.

To make life easier I summarised my plan to one page so that I could become focussed and logically work my way through achieving the goals. Interestingly I started to achieve more goals, have more time and importantly for me became less distracted. So do I still get distracted? Yes! and when I do I simply come back to my one page plan to see what I have to do next to achieve the goals I have set rather than going off in a tangent from the original distraction. The best thing about using the one page plan is that I now complete tasks quicker than planned and because it is one page I can take it with me everywhere I go!
What are the two main things that distract us?
Typically these are the top two distractions for most business professionals:

1. Procrastination and
2. New Ideas.

Here are some ways to overcome these two distractions:

Procrastination
Most people procrastinate because they are not crystal clear on what they specifically want, which then leads to not knowing what to do or the best place to start. When this happens all the excuses for procrastinating come into play.. a customer called with an urgent request… I have emails that I must respond to… I need to attend a function… I don’t have enough time… I have to do the paperwork… and the list goes on.. Take a minute to think about what your procrastination excuses are?

To overcome this I use my one page plan it has one word (usually the thing I am crystal clear about wanting to achieve) that helps me remain focussed for the month, I only set three goals at one time and have limited number of tasks to complete, as they are completed cross them off and only add others that directly relate to my goals until the goal is achieved. As the goals are achieved I set new ones. By following this method I avoid being distracted and procrastinating on what to do next, I follow the rule if it’s not on the plan it’s not getting attention until it makes it onto the plan!

New Ideas
New ideas are one of the biggest distractors for achieving your goals! How easy is it when we get a new idea for marketing our products and services to start researching it immediately? The next thing you know 1/2 a day has gone and you have all this great new information, the current workload you have is piling up and now you are 1/2 a day behind!! This is a common scenario for most people, it may not be a marketing idea it could be a new product idea, a new sales idea, a new social media platform, a new networking idea or a new business opportunity.

When I get a new idea the first thing I do is look at my current one page plan to see if it fits in with any of the actions I need to take that month. If it does not fit in it goes in the new ideas folder on my desk until it’s time to set a new plan where I have allocated the time examine new ideas to see if it relates to moving me towards my goals in a timely manner. (I usually take one day a month out to work on my business) I have found this to be a more efficient way to invest the time and money to making these ideas work with everything else I have to do.
Until next time!

Cheers

Sue

Whenever you put information out about your business you are putting yourself on display, I’ve just watched a YouTube clip that I followed from a twitter posting and was aghast at perception it left me with.

I have seen information and read posts from this person for some time on twitter and was looking forward to seeing the video clip on YouTube, the clip loaded – excitement building now…. excellent graphics and branding to introduce the clip… high expectations of quality to follow….

Oh NO! they had set up a backdrop – looked like a bed sheet – and had not ironed it! A simple thing and yet became a distraction from the person speaking…. OK I said to myself let’s give it a chance the information I’m sure will be good as expected…

Oh NO part 2!!! the person speaking spent the entire time looking down and across the screen clearly READING a SCRIPT! Now I don’t have a problem with scripts and in fact I think they are a good idea, however, learn the script and add your personality to it, don’t just read from it,  it’s distracting.

So was the information good? Yes – did I take it all in? No I was distracted, and I can’t bring myself to look at it again.

Whenever you do something publicly for your business check the smaller details – distractions drive customers and potential customers away. Five  minutes to iron a backdrop and 10 minutes to learn a script could make a huge difference to your business.

Cheers

Sue!