Month: January 2012

Categories
Success Attitude

Three Things You Gotta Believe about Your Business

Article Contributed by Dr. Joey Faucette

What do you believe about your business?

Your business beliefs are the core values of your “how” in leading your relationships and managing the details. Have you ever taken four minutes and written them down?

Make sure you include these three things you gotta believe about your business:

Business Pace

When my daughter ran distance races, she trained her body to build endurance by putting in the necessary miles daily. She also exercised her mind to learn course management.

She discovered in her first races that adrenaline would push her out hard and fast from the start and carry her for a while. If she kept up that pace, she often led, but when she approached the finish, she had no energy left and fell way back. The only result that counts is when you cross the finish line.

She discovered how to pace herself, starting strong, settling into a comfortable, economical pace, with enough reserve for a powerful finish kick. Such a pace allowed her to compete and succeed.

Your business has a pace. Adjusting your intensity to reflect it is a key to Work Positive success. You run sprints one way. Maybe that’s your 4Q. You run 5K’s an entirely different way. That might be your 1Q.

You gotta believe that your business has a pace and rhythm all its own. Adjust your intensity accordingly and train for it.

Balance People and Tasks

You can focus your business efforts on people—employees, vendors, and customers—but when you do, you lose sight of your company goals.

You can focus your energy on accomplishing tasks—your goals and action plan—but when you do, you forget that its people who accomplish those tasks.

My grandmother gave me a chocolate bunny every spring for Easter. Some years, I bit into it to find only air inside. Other years, it was marshmallow. My favorite years were those when I discovered chocolate through and through.

Balancing people and tasks means you lead your business consistently—through and through. You lead people to accomplish tasks and focus on tasks for people to achieve.

You gotta believe that your business succeeds when you balance people and tasks.

Beyond the Obvious

You’re staring at your P&L and balance sheets for 2011 about now. What do you believe happened in 2011 in your business?

A pair of sisters enjoyed shopping in a Goodwill shop in Virginia. One of them saw a pearl necklace, found it attractive, and since it was only $.69, bought it, believing that it was just costume jewelry.

Wearing it back home in Arizona, a friend commented on how beautiful it was and encouraged her to get it appraised. She did and discovered that it was worth a little more than the $.69 purchase price.

Like $50,000 more.

As you look back on 2011 and forward into 2012, you gotta believe beyond the obvious. Believe that at least some of your investments in adjusting your business pace will pay off this year. Believe that by balancing people and tasks you will discover unimagined value.

You gotta believe in your business in 2012!

About the Author:

Best-selling author, speaker, and coach Dr. Joey Faucette shares how all of us working together create a more positive world this week. Adapted from his #1 Amazon best-seller, Work Positive in a Negative World.

Categories
Business Ideas

3 Steps to IMPLEMENTING Your 2012 Marketing Plan

You just put the finishing touches on your kick-butt marketing plan that’s going to skyrocket your business. Hooray!

Only problem is that kick-butt marketing plan isn’t going to do a thing for your business unless you actually put it into action. And that, alas, is where most marketing plans end up — a really good idea that never got implemented.

So, how do you stop that from happening? Here are 3 steps to help you move from thinking to doing.

1. Figure out what you need to be doing versus what you can get someone else to do. Look, there’s no reason why YOU have to do all the implementation. Get some help! 

If you already have a team, fantastic! Now you just have to start delegating. If you don’t have a team or you don’t have the right person on your team to do a specific job (for instance, a technical person to fix your shopping cart) then you need to put finding that person to your to-do list. In the short term yes it does add to your workload, but in the long term it will save you a lot of time.

2. Block off time in your calendar to work on your plan. The only way these things are going to get done is if you actually take the time to work on them. So start by actually setting aside the time. 

You may be someone who works better in shorter, more frequent bursts of time (15 or 20 minutes every day) versus a longer time less frequently (2 hours or half a day once a week). Only you know what appeals to yourself more and I would suggest scheduling your time accordingly. (Look, it’s tough enough to get things done, you might as well make it easier for yourself by working with your natural tendencies than against them.)

3. Set yourself up for success. Just because you set the time aside doesn’t mean you’ll actually get anything done on your plan during that time. So you need to keep yourself focused and motivated and don’t allow yourself to get sidetracked. 

Now there’s no question that’s much easier said than done. So how do you do that? Here are a few tips to try:

  • Remind yourself WHY you’re doing this. Is it so you’ll be able to take care of your family better? Is it because you want to sell a million copies of your book? Is it because you’re so tired of the way things are you’re ready for a change? Whatever it is, remind yourself of the bigger WHY before you sit down to work. That will keep your motivation up.
  • Make it a special time just for you. Maybe light a candle, put on some favorite music or pour yourself a fave cup of tea. Or maybe you head out to a local Starbucks to hang out. Whatever it is, make it special — something you look forward to.
  • Create a “squirrel” file. If you ever watched the movie “Up” there’s a talking dog in it that keeps getting distracted by squirrels. So he’ll be talking and in the middle he’ll shout “squirrel” and completely lose his train of thought.

As entrepreneurs, we are surrounded by squirrels. And there’s no better time for the squirrels to come and play then during this time we’ve set aside to implement our marketing plan. “Oh, I’ll get to my plan as soon as I get this email out…as soon as I return this phone call…as soon as I clean up my desk.”

You get the idea.

So the way to keep the squirrels away is to create a “squirrel” file (or call it something fun like squirrel nest). Any of those squirrels come running out, capture it and stick it in the file to work on “later.” If you want, you can even designate a time to work on all those squirrels.

But the most important thing to do is DECIDE you really ARE going to implement your plan. Once you do that, the rest will fall into place.

Categories
Recommendations

GetEntrepreneurial on Best of the Best Blogger Series

We were recently interviewed by Bill Hazelton of CreditCardAssist.com on a variety of topics, including inspirational business ideas, the pro-business climate in Singapore and the prospects of Singapore becoming the next Silicon Valley. Some exciting excerpts:

What are 2-3 of the most important things you would tell any new aspiring entrepreneur?

Perseverance is extremely important to an entrepreneur. For CoolBusinessIdeas.com, we took 3 years to achieve a steady state. There were many ups and downs along the process. The crises and obstacles are the ones that really test an entrepreneur’s mettle. Entrepreneurship is a self-learning process. The process may be tough, but the reward is certainly sweet.

Passion is another attribute of success in any entrepreneur. Do what you like best. This will drive you forward no matter how tough things get.

What’s been most surprising to you as an entrepreneur yourself running your site?

I’ve always thought that you can taste success in the market with a well thought out business plan. In our experience, most of the times, our well-drafted business and marketing plans are left on the table and we had to rely on instinct in running our site based on our understanding of what our readers are actually looking for instead of what we aim to write in our websites as planned.

We also learned that as an entrepreneur, one has to always experiment, refine and find a niche in your area. There is no one size fits all solution.

Read the full interview at CreditCardAssist’s 38th edition of the Best of the Best Blogger series. Thanks Bill for the interview!

Categories
Entrepreneurship

The Entrepreneur’s Journey: Finding Your Place in the World

Article Contributed by Gary Jordan

It sounds easy – knowing who you are. It should be a given, right? Knowing and understanding who you are is a lifetime process that begins in childhood, on the playground, when you begin the process of learning just where you fit in. But where you fit in as an entrepreneur is a whole different question!

Most people start a business because they have an area of expertise. If they’re in tune with who they really are and what makes them happy, chances are, this area of expertise is also an area of deep personal passion. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs take the time for self-discovery once they start their business – and wonder why they’re not happy actually running their business, day in and day out..

After all, the focus of the business is something they love, and the products and services reflect that passion. Shouldn’t that be enough?

Well, actually, no – for one simple reason. Starting a business means that you’ll wind up wearing all kinds of different ‘hats’, playing a multitude of different roles, from accountant to marketing director, personnel director to chief financial officer.

The entrepreneurs who are actually happy in their businesses, day in and day out, are those who have gone one step further in their own process of self-discovery and determined the types of roles they actually enjoy filling, and the sorts of tasks they’re naturally suited for. They’ve found a way to focus in on those roles, developing what they do best – and delegating the rest. All of this benefits their businesses.

First, by freeing them up to do their ‘genius’ work’ – the work they truly do better than anyone else. Second, by filling the other roles with people who are actually happy and fulfilled in those capacities that bog down the entrepreneur and sap his drive. To be happy in business, it is vital for people to do what they naturally prefer to do and find engaging, because they will be more productive, happier, and, as a rule, procrastinate far less.

The business owner who understands how important it is to build his business around his natural strengths and abilities in this way also discovers exactly where he fits within the context of his business. These entrepreneurs also stop trying to do everything themselves, exponentially increasing their effectiveness with the help of a dynamic, powerful team.

Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs fail to reach this point. They look around at the business they’ve built, based on a real passion in their life, and wonder, why am I not happy with this? What’s missing? And (worst of all!), what’s wrong with me?

About the Author
If you’ve ever felt this way, take heart: there’s nothing wrong with you. But it’s high time you honored yourself enough as an entrepreneur to discover your natural strengths and put them to work for you in your business.
Gary Jordan, Ph.D., has over 27 years of experience in clinical psychology, behavioral assessment, individual development, and coaching. He earned his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology – Berkeley. He is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary psychological assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. He’s a partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd., a consulting firm that specializes in helping people discover their true skills and talents. For free information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur or coach, create a thriving business and build your bottom line doing more of what you love, visit www.YourTalentAdvantage.com

Categories
Starting Up

5 Tips for Starting a Business on a Shoe-String Budget

With the economic crisis around the world still in full swing, it seems that it won’t be any easier to strike out on your own and start up your own business in 2012, especially if you do not have a lot of money saved up for the endeavor. However, nothing is impossible, and you can still start up a quality business on your own, as long as you have a vision and play it smart.

Here are some useful tips to take into consideration if you are looking to become your own boss this year.

1. Avoid loans

Taking out loans immediately and not being able to pay them back in time can be crippling for a new business and might force you to shut down your operation even before you are able to get it off the ground properly.

The most important thing to do is to think small and start out small. No matter what your final goals are, there are methods for starting your business in a way in which you will be able to naturally and slowly work up to your goals without getting into serious debt.

For example, if you want to start any type of retail business, thanks to living in the Internet age, there is no reason to go out and rent or buy a store for yourself. Start out at home and save that money. If your business takes off, you will then be able to take the next step and get a physical space for yourself without taking out loans from banks or borrowing money from friends and relatives.

Having a new bill to pay every month is the last thing you need when going out on your own.

2. Start at home

As mentioned in the previous point, your home is your best friend when starting out. Just about any business is able to succeed these days being run from home. The Internet is your friend, and getting the word out about your product or your services has never been easier. No longer do you have to rent an office or buy a store in order to make yourself visible to the consumer.

Instead of spending money in physical space put that money towards a professional looking and fully functional website. If you don’t have a lot of money to start with, you need to use the money that you have to the best of your ability. Investing in your online presence and getting the word out via the Internet is a much better way to spend your money than getting yourself a new office to sit in.

Additionally, no one has to know that you are working from your bedroom or kitchen. Thanks to the Internet, you can look like a big company with an excellent online presence and no one really has to know that you are working from home. A PO Box is one of your best friends, too.

3. Follow your interests

More often than not, people who are successful in starting up their own business are people who have a real interest in what they are doing. Hoping on a bandwagon in hopes of making money, even if this type of business does not interest you, is probably the worst thing that you can do.

People who recognize something as a potentially good business, but have no prior knowledge and experience in it, often end up playing catch-up to the rest of the industry they are aspiring to join.

The best thing to do is follow your heart and follow your interests. Your business needs to deal with something that you are not only genuinely interested in, but also something that you are knowledgeable in as well.

To roughly paraphrase one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, Steve Jobs, one of the key ingredients of starting a successful business, and one that is often overlooked, is having a passion for what you are doing.

4. Do the research

Heading into the business world on your own is not a decision that should be taken lightly. You should not be starting a new business on a whim – there is a lot of research that needs to go into this decision.

First and foremost, you need to ask yourself one question – Is there a demand for my business idea? Getting real research done can take months, and this is one of the most important aspects of the process, meaning that it should not be rushed under any circumstances.

Get your pencil and paper out, put your ideas together, fire up your calculator and count the initial costs – planning is vital. The more you know ahead of time, the better prepared you will be for potential bumps in the road that may occur.

5. Call on your friends

There are more ways that friends can help you out in your cause than just loaning you money. As stated earlier, taking out loans from the bank or borrowing money from friends or family is not recommended, but there are different ways to get your acquaintances involved.

For instance, everyone knows someone who works as a professional web designer these days, right? And even if you don’t know someone, you definitely know someone who does.

Asking friends to either get things done for you or to get their friends to do things for you at a fraction of the price is something that many start-up businesses depend on. Do not be afraid to ask friends for favors, if they really are your friends, they will be happy to help out.

You probably have friends and family in many different places and lines of work that can help you out, you’ve just never thought about it earlier. Get them all involved as much as you can.

At the very least, get your Facebook friends to spread the word about your business.

Starting your own business is a daunting task; there are no two ways about it, especially in times of economic recession. However, the rewards that come with being your own boss are well worth it. As long as you have a plan, play it smart and don’t get ahead of yourself, with the will and the passion to make your business goals a reality, the sky is the limit.

About the Author
David Lazar is a regular blogger at PDF Converter blog. With a background in journalism, he specializes in writing blogs on a variety of topics, including business, finance, careers, technology and new media.