Month: July 2009

Seven Critical Factors That Support Achieving Transformational Goals

Post author By
Post date July 10, 2009

Seven%20Critical%20Factors%20That%20Support%20Achieving%20Transformational%20Goals.jpg Passion – What lights you up and brings you joy? What juices you and gives you the most energy? What makes you feel the most vital and alive? Our passions motivate and inspire us to take action. Without passion our life can become mechanical and empty.

Deep desire can give us the courage to take life –changing risks with determination and power in the face of fears and uncertainty.

Fulfilling Your Life/Soul Purpose – Having a sense of why we are here and what we are here to do gives meaning to our life. Making choices with a sense of purpose helps us to regain perspective when we feel confused, doubt, and fear. Our purpose reminds us of who we are when we slip into the dramas and details of our life.

Commitment to Go the Distance – Stretching beyond the limits of your comfort zone and walking through the discomfort without running back to where you were is essential. Change can be very uncomfortable and brings up a lot of different feeling and behaviors that many seek to get rid of block rather than to embrace. As you begin to spot the subtle ways you sabotage your dreams and desires and stay and don’t give in to that sabotage, you can feel pretty vulnerable and raw at times. Comfort zones give the illusion of safety; a safe haven where we can hide. If we are not moving forward, we begin moving backwards. Being able to recognize your personal patterns of sabotage empowers you to make choices that will motivate you to keep going.

Solid Support and Accountability – Who keeps you on your toes? How many times have you been excited about doing something, felt ready and committed to your goals and dropped the ball within a few weeks, days or even hours? Surrounding yourself with people who can be objective, uplifting, encouraging, and forthright to cheer you on, challenge you to be great, kick you in the butt when you’re stalling, help you stand strong when facing fear, remind you of who you are when you forget, and hold you accountable to your purpose, passions, and vision makes a huge difference in going the distance and achieving success.

Having accountability keeps you moving steadily forward with your goals/intentions. When we fulfill self-agreements, we feel in integrity with ourselves. When we break promises with ourselves, we can use self-condemnation as a means to beat ourselves up. The fact is that when we deliberately set up accountability such as buddying with someone else for a common purpose, hiring a coach or mentor, or joining a mastermind group, the probability of success goes waaaaaay up.

Over a month ago I decided to focus on making specific changes to commit to a healthier lifestyle. I had tried numerous times to eat healthier, regularly exercise and meditate with limited success and generally take better care of my body. I’d start out gung ho and in a matter of weeks, days, or even hours, I was sabotaging myself by using food to manage my stress or self-soothe.

So, I started working with an accountability buddy who also wanted to be taking better care of her health. We each decided what changes we wanted to implement and we committed to one week as a beginning point. Over 5 weeks later we are going strong. We’re raised the bar for ourselves a few times and we check in twice a day using an accountability form that state 4 intentions. We answer the first two points and email to each other every morning. Every evening we answer 3 & 4. No cutting and pasting answers so we are truly making the commitment each day

1. Today I am accountable for:
2. To accomplish this I have to:
3. At day’s end, how much did I accomplish?
4. Was there anything that prevented me from achieving my outcomes?

To receive the benefits of support, you must ask people for help. If you are usually the one who helps others and have trouble asking for or receiving help you are blocking love. To be a great giver, you must also be a great receiver. It’s a circle. Love is our natural state as spiritual beings. To deny love from others or to yourself is a way to starve your soul.

Have a Strong Self-Care Regime – Think of taking care of your body, mind, and spirit as an important element to your inner foundation. When we feel “fed” we can show up for the people, responsibilities and situations that we most care about with our best SELF.

When we are depleted, over-extended, hungry, lonely, or angry, life becomes more burdensome. To check when you might be out of balance or in need of some self-care pronto, here are some common signals: taking things too personally, beating yourself up, irritability, over-reacting, resentment, anger, overwhelm, confusion, distracted, stressed, or tense. Ask yourself, “What do I need right now? What is my body asking for? What have I been ignoring?“ Then DO IT!

Attitude shifting tools – What helps you shift into a better thinking and feeling place? I’m not talking about ways you “get rid” of your thoughts and feelings so you can avoid them. Stuffing thoughts and feelings can weaken our bodies and self-esteem so that we open ourselves to potential illness, psychological problems, depression, and unhappiness. I believe it’s important to have your thoughts and feelings without “building four walls, a roof and setting up permanent residence”. Having tools to shift out of negative self-talk, fearfull thinking, ruminating about the past, worrying, anticipating problems and challenges in the future costs you a whole lot of energy and peace of mind.

My attitude shifters include:
1. Adopting an attitude of gratitude
2. Bringing my attention back to the present moment
3. Appreciating all that is right in my life including people, my cats, gifts and blessings
4. Meditation helps me get centered and connected to Source
5. Keeping my self-care strong to include fun! Am I being too serious and do I need to lighten up?
6. Doing something to help another
7. Remembering who I am, what I am here to do and experience. Asking, “What is mine to do today? How can I be of service? What gives me faith? In what do I totally trust” are questions that help to shift from feeling fearfull and out of control to a more peacefull, connected space.

Taking Inspired Action – Listening to and following your gut instinct and intuition to guide your choices and actions can bring amazing opportunities into your life. It takes courage to take leaps of faith when we are motivated by fear. Inspiration comes from within; from our Divine “inner knowing” urging us to step into the unknown with faith and trust, often without a safety net. Our mind is an instrument with the ability to reason and assess situations that support us in making logical, sound choices that can motivate us to action when things makes sense.

The key is bringing inspired guidance and logic together so that we are following our heart and making sound choices that support our dreams and desires. When we stretch out of our comfort zone and our ego freaks out, we can easily disconnect from our spiritual core if we do not use our tools, resources, attitude shifters, supports… to come back to our SELF.

Be realistic and take one step at a time. Bring compassion and loving patience as your partner in your journey. And remember to celebrate each step of success along the way. Small steps lead to big leaps!

People & Relationships

Eight Ways to Engage Employees and Power-Up Performance During a Recession

Post author By Ethan Theo
Post date July 8, 2009

Eight%20Ways%20to%20Engage%20Employees%20and%20Power-Up%20Performance%20During%20a%20Recession.jpg
If you’ve seen the movie Jerry Maguire, you’ll remember the scene where Tom Cruise asks Cuba Gooding, Jr., “What can I do for you?” Gooding says, “Show me the money.”
Many employers think that’s the key to employee engagement. But any company that THINKS you have to pour money on employees to get them engaged will write off employee engagement efforts during tough economic times. “We just can’t afford to do it right now,” they say.
In fact, you can’t afford NOT to pay attention to engagement, especially during a recession when sales are soft. Employee engagement scores regularly account for up to 50 percent of the variance in customer service scores. A disengaged employee can cost you 30 TIMES as much in safety-related incidents. And disengaged employees are over 85 percent more likely to leave.
Engagement comes not from dollars but from more personal factors.
Eight Ways to Keep Your Employees Engaged for the Long Term
1. Listen to your employees. Most people want to work for an employer who cares enough to listen. The best way to know what your employees need and expect is to ask them—and to listen carefully to their answers.
2. Provide clear, consistent expectations. Vague policies and unclear expectations can make employees feel irritated, unsafe and even paranoid. This leads to your employees becoming disengaged. They click into survival mode instead of focusing on how to help the company succeed.
3. Give employees a sense of importance. This has a greater impact on loyalty and customer service than all other factors COMBINED.
4. Develop opportunities for advancement. The chance to work your way up the ladder is a tremendous incentive for productivity, bonding, and employee engagement.
5. Create good relationships with others in the workplace. If you have a toxic relationship with your employees, you can forget about asking them to put their shoulder to the wheel for the company.
6. Offer regular feedback. If you want to keep your employees moving forward, give them the occasional rudder report. And don’t forget positive feedback, which should ideally outnumber the negative by about 5 to 1.
7. Celebrate and reward for successes. Set realistic targets, then reward and celebrate when they are reached. And don’t wait for the end of a big project to celebrate. Pick landmarks along the way and go nuts when you hit them.
8. Move from “the company” to “our company.” The heart and soul of engagement is ownership. As long as your employees feel they are working to help YOU make YOUR company succeed, engagement will be low. Once you get them to see themselves as partners in the endeavor—making decisions, staying informed, sharing in the company’s ups and downs—everything changes. Engagement soars.
Just imagine a workplace in which employees feel important and listened to, in which expectations are clear and feedback consistent, in which relationships and shared ownership are cultivated, advancement is available, and success is celebrated.
Now stop imagining it and CREATE it!
About the Author:
Roxanne Emmerich is renowned for her ability to transform “ho-hum” workplaces into massive results-oriented “bring-it-on” environments. To discover how you can create a 20/20 business vision, motivate employees, ignite their passion and catapult performance to new levels, check out her new book – Thank God It’s Monday. Now, you can get a free sneak preview at: http://www.thankgoditsmonday.com/preview_the_book/

Online Business Sales & Marketing

Article Marketing: Repurpose Your ONE Article in 3 Easy Steps!

Post author By
Post date July 7, 2009
1 Comment on Article Marketing: Repurpose Your ONE Article in 3 Easy Steps!

So, you’ve written your ezine article and published it in your ezine – now what? Do you just let it sit there, never to see the light of day again, or do you repurpose it and let it really work for you to grow your list?

I say the latter – repurpose your article and let it build your list!

You know I’m a huge fan of repurposing your material and really leveraging your time, and using your articles in this way is one of the most effective strategies you can implement to build your business and grow your online community, a.k.a. your list.

Today I’d like to share with you 3 easy steps as to how you can take your ONE newsletter article and use it in a variety of different formats to reach more of your ideal clients and customers.

Step 1 – Post it to your blog

After you’ve published your article in your ezine (hint: let your subscribers be the first to read your brand-new articles – one of the perks of signing up to your list!) take your article and post it to your blog. This is a great way to reach a whole new audience to let them know about your ezine, and to reach those people who are subscribed to your RSS feed.

If you also include your Author’s Resource Bio at the end of your blog post you will provide an additional way for your blog readers to sign up to your ezine.

Tip: If you use a blogging platform such as WordPress, this is hosted on your website. Each time you post to your blog you are creating fresh content for your website, which the search engines love!

Step 2 – Link your article to your Social Networking Profile(s)

If you’re active on Facebook and Twitter and other social networking sites, create a link to your newly posted blog article and let your social networks read your article too. Encourage them to also post comments so that you can engage with them on your blog.

If you’re using Facebook, you can set up your profile so that it automatically pulls all blogs posts into your Facebook account each time. This is done via the Notes feature.

And, because you are also driving traffic to your blog via your social networks, this is going to help improve your search engine rankings.

Step 3 – Create a Podcast

Reach those people who prefer to listen rather than to read, and create a podcast episode out of your article. A podcast is simply a digital recording that is made available on the Internet so that people can listen and download the files to their iPod or Mp3 player.
And if you’re using the services of a streaming media company such as BYOAudio creating your podcast becomes a cinch!

The three simple steps that I’ve outlined for you above all work very well on their own to help you repurpose your articles, but if you put them all together into a system then you have the foundations for your online marketing system and these strategies, if implemented regularly, will drive traffic to your website and build your list.

Tags article marketing, blog post, ezine, Newsletter, online marketing, podcast, social networking

Home-Based Business Sales & Marketing

Mailing List Basics: How to Target your Direct Mail Efforts

Post author By Pamela Swift
Post date July 6, 2009

Here’s something many small businesses already know: the mail is one of the most effective ways to reach out to current customers and attract the attention of new ones. According to the United States Postal Service, 98%- almost all mail recipients- check mail on the the day it’s delivered, and 77%, sort through it immediately. Think about it- you can turn radio down or fast forward through commercials, but you do need to check your mail. What other advertising method has proven to capture the attention of so many potential customers?
The mailing list is the foundation of a direct mail campaign. You can choose to purchase a direct mail list from a list broker or mailing service, or generate a list in-house. Purchasing a list works well if you’re looking to reach out to new customers or increase your presence in a new market. Your own database or information is an excellent source for efforts geared towards current customers.
Buying a List
Search for “mailing list vendors” online can turn up thousands of results- not all of them reputable companies with accurate lists. A quality mailing list is thorough (it contains the full names, addresses, zip codes, and possibly email addresses of potential recipients) current (information is up-to-date and accurate), and targeted. Targeting your effort is important- a mailing list based on market research will generate a higher ROI than one that includes every house in a given neighborhood. You can target by demographic (for example, families with small children) by consumer habits (families who have recently purchased a home or a car) or using other “filters” that help you find your target customer. Here are a few ways to make sure you’re purchasing a quality mailing list:

Response lists v. Compiled
Mailing services can compile lists in two ways: A response list is typically generated using a customer’s responses to online advertisements, while a compiled list is generated using data collected by other businesses, such as magazine subscription lists or mailing lists compiled by companies that target a particular market niche. Both types of list can be effective, though many businesses have found response lists to be more targeted toward customers who are ready to make a purchase.
List History
Make sure you ask a list broker which other businesses have used a certain list within the last six months. You want to guard against soliciting customers that have already been bombarded with sales pitches from your competitors. Finding out who has used the list can also be a great way to check how accurate and effective it will be. You can call the prior users and ask how well the list worked in their mailing campaign. Was their effort successful? Make sure you take into account geographic differences, different product offerings, and any other factors that would make their campaign different from your planned effort.
Data Accuracy
Be sure to ask list brokers how frequently mailing information has been updated, and how recently the addresses were obtained- especially if you’re using a list generated by online ad responses. The older the list, the likelier it is that information is outdated- make sure you don’t waste valuable marketing dollars by mailing to households whose information has changed since the list was created.
Costs
Mailing list costs typically fun from a few hundred dollars to several hundred for highly targeted lists. Typically, you can obtain a list of up to 1,000 names for between $100 and $500.

Tags direct mail, direct marketing, mail marketing