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Greetings!
With the Winter Solstice comes a daily
increase in sunlight, a real increase in energy, and a
traditional commitment to do better. With January
comes the new year and new
opportunities. Let's capitalize
on that energy and take advantage of those
opportunities.
Here's to the best year yet.
Stop Making Resolutions
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Start Making Plans
Why do we keep wishing people ?Happy New
Year??
Will wishing make it so?
We make
resolutions, but all
we seem to be thinking about is what we did wrong
during the past year and resolve to do the opposite.
I will lose ten pounds (because I gained ten). I will
exercise more (because I haven?t been exercising). I
will watch less TV (because I couldn?t find anything
better to do). In each case the resolution seems
more like a punishment and we find it difficult to be
motivated by a cure that?s worse than the
disease.
If you want the coming year to be a great one, start
it off with a different mindset. I want you to begin by
imagining yourself on New Year?s Eve, 2007. Imagine
being truly content in your life and all its aspects -
business, finance, health, relationships, and
reputation - whatever it is that will make you truly
content. It might take ten minutes or it might take
thirty, but create a vision that is real for you. See it
and feel it. Got it? Now, let?s make it
happen.
That vision is your destination. Since you know
where you are now, all you need is a plan to traverse
the distance. This is the point at which most people
throw up their hands and say, ?That?s too much
work!? They?re content with resolutions. We,
however, imagine the path to our vision. We can see
that it won?t be easy, but we begin to formulate the
steps we can take each day, each week, and each
month to move us closer to our goals. Those steps
become plans, each plan having its own goals. Now,
the truly hard part: write it down. This is the process
of affirming what you want and how you are going to
go about getting it. Writing it down moves it from
imagination to reality. Now we can focus on our
path, our goals, and our vision. We have left the
past behind. Because we are focused we will begin to
notice the countless opportunities in life that align
with our goals and we will take action to integrate
them into our plans. It?s energizing. It?s rewarding.
It?s an entirely different mindset.
Enjoy the journey. May your vision guide you and
sustain you in the coming year.
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Focus on Sales
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What's your sales plan? Don't tell me about your
plan for the year, I want to know about your plan for
the day.
I worked with an insurance rep who
planned her day in terms of calls and knocks -
telephone calls to prospects and visits to places of
business to meet owners. She knew, based on
her "batting average", that if she made her quota of
calls and knocks every day she would land the
business to meet her sales goals each week. She
also knew that if she increased the quota she would
land more business.
She had a plan. Do you?
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Networking Tips
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You've heard the phrase, "It's not quantity but
quality that counts." How can you improve the
quality of your network?
Make it a goal this
year to get more than contact information from the
people you meet. Make an effort to figure out what's
important to them, how they make decisions, what
their goals are and why. Then find out how you might
be able to help them reach their goals. It might not
have anything to do with your business, but it does
have everything to do with developing relationships.
The more relationships you have, the more
connections you will discover. Those connections
bring opportunities that would have gone
undiscovered. It's a huge return on the small
investment of time and effort.
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