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Greetings!
Focus, prioritization, and action are some of the key ingredients to a successful business. Without them you will keep spinning your wheels. This month's issue of In Harmony, will help you create a more successful business and full-filled personal life by focusing on the action steps required to take your goals from where they are now to where you want them to be in the future. Please join us on Facebook and state your focus!
Greg Stuart
Certified Business Coach
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 What Are Your Goals for the Next 30 Days?
Being a small business owner often means wearing a number of different hats. How many of you act as the CEO, the general manager, the accountant, the salesperson, the computer technician, the secretary, the receptionist, etc.? Sound familiar?
 Many entrepreneurs try to chase too many targets at once and end up overwhelmed rather than focusing on their business. They spend all their energy carrying out daily tasks leaving little time for the most important part of their day - their own business!
To avoid this, spend some time focusing on your business and decide which strategies will be most helpful in developing your own marketing plan. In order to grow and succeed in your business, you first need to have a crystal clear idea of what you want to do and where you want to go. In other words, have you defined your objectives? And more importantly, have you put them in writing?
Writing your objectives on a weekly basis and being very specific in each area of your business can give you the opportunity to create strategic alliances with other entrepreneurs, triple your database, increase your revenue, and maybe even leave time for writing that book you've always talked about.
You can make your big dreams a reality!
When you write your objectives on a weekly or monthly basis it makes you actually work on them and act faster. If you are not specific and just say, "I will have money, or I will have more clients," then yes, these things will come, but the question is "when"? You don't have any deadline to accomplish them by! But if you decide that by November 30th you will have 6 new clients, you will then do something in order to get those clients instead of praying or waiting to see if this will happen.
In my last networking event, I asked my members, "What are your goals for the next 30 days?" Some answered without hesitation while others had to think about it. And somebody told me, "Thanks for reminding me that I need to work on my goals, I had actually forgotten about it."
I found that the best way of incorporating time for your objectives and marketing plan into your schedule is to set up an appointment with yourself. And whatever happens, even if there is a client emergency, never cancel this appointment with yourself.
Make a decision that once a month or once a week you will spend an hour or two working on your business, focusing on: strategies to get more clients, new products or services to offer, special campaigns to make more sales and writing articles for your newsletter, newspapers, or ezine directories to promote your business. The more links you get, the more traffic you will receive on your website (by the way, do you have a website? If not this should be one of your objectives for the next 30 days). Do you have a newsletter? This is the easiest and cheapest way to communicate on a regular basis with your clients and prospects in order to promote and grow your business. This can be another objective for the next 30 days.
Take the time to plan strategies that will help to grow your business. Consider yourself as your most important client. Do for yourself what you do for your clients. Your business needs all your attention, all your energy, and all your dedication. Your future and your success depend on it.
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You Can't Do Everything First
Trying to decide which of 15 or 20 options to pursue can be frustrating, especially if all of them appear to be good choices.
An old friend of mine used to say, "A dog that chases two rabbits won't catch either one." He'd pause for a second, then add, "And he'll go hungry tonight." He was trying to get me to realize how important it is to just pick one thing and do it.
Let's take an example that we often see on the Internet. How many eBooks have you bought within the last six months? Of that number, how many of them tell you how to do marketing or to make money online?
If a book is any good, you'll be impressed; you'll say, "Yeah, I can do this." But then, after a few days, you'll read another really great sales letter, you'll feel that you really, really need the knowledge in this new offering. Then you'll buy yet another eBook, and you'll again be impressed: "Yeah, I can REALLY do THIS.'
This cycle is being repeated over and over every day all around the Internet.
This may have happened to you. I've done it. Lots of people have.
So there you sit with perhaps dozens of books, all good, dozens or even hundreds of franchise offerings, some excellent, and page after page of website ideas, all interesting.
In fact, you've got so many options that you may not know what to do first.
My friend ran one of the biggest plumbing shops in his town, and when he'd spy one of his men dithering over what to do next, he'd simply say, "Son, you can't do everything first."
And neither can you or I. If all your options are good, then it doesn't really matter which one you choose first. Throw a dart if you have to, but move. Make a decision. Get yourself into motion.
For many people, getting into motion means you'll be stepping into unfamiliar territory, doing things you've never done before. So what? At least it's interesting and exciting. But never terrifying.
If you think starting your very first business is terrifying, you need to think again.
Wrestling a grizzly bear is terrifying. Falling from an airplane without a parachute is terrifying.
But starting a business? Nah ... that's not scary; it's just unfamiliar.
And right there we have the main reason most people lock up when they face a long list of options. It's unfamiliar ground, so they think they don't know how to choose. (They do, but they THINK they don't.)
Here's a strategy for taking the terror out of decision-making. Take that long list of options. Say there are 15 items on it, and you've never done any of them before.
Once you've examined all the items on the list, do this: Decide if all the items are REALLY about equal. If there are any that clearly don't measure up, cross those off. You'll still be left with lots of choices.
Let's say you're left with only 10 items on your list.
Take out a new sheet of paper.
Write item number one on it, the first item from your original list.
Okay, that's it. That's your new list of options - just one item.
We've already agreed that all the choices are more or less equal.
So now you've got your action agenda. One item. No more indecision.
Now just go do it.
And those other 9 items? They'll be there waiting when you get done with the first task.
See how easy decision-making can be?
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Harmony Solutions International, LLC
Call: 805-413-4128 Email Us |
"If you want to succeed
you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success."
- John D. Rockefeller
Setting clear goals for the things you want to accomplish in your organization and also in your personal life, creates a positive balance. There are no roads to "nowhere." Achieving your purpose and your passion can be a reality!
For more information visit our website, send us an email, or call Greg at 805.413.4128.
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