Women’s Business Coaching Tip

Working On Your Business Instead of In It

Hello Fabulous Women!

One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is stepping back from the host of tasks involved in running their business day to day, and taking time to look at the big picture.  When was the last time you stopped and reviewed your business plan?  Do you have a business plan?  What is the end goal of all this effort you put in every day?  What is your strategy for getting there?

Here is a relatively quick and simple technique you can do today that will help you to step back and work on your business instead of only in it.  This is no substitute for a full business plan and more in depth strategic thinking, but it is great way to get you thinking more strategically, and can have a huge impact on your effectiveness and efficiency.  This is an exercise I have my Business Coaching clients go through on a regular basis, with great results.

It’s very simple:

Make a list of all of the individual activities which you perform on a daily to weekly basis in running your business.  Don’t include those things which you only do every few weeks or a few times a year, but include each individual activity which you do every day or at least once a week. 

Examples might be: Checking email, responding to email, writing ad copy, talking with suppliers, answering phones, following up on leads, making cold calls/warm calls, mailing things, accounting/bookkeeping, checking inventory, updating website, working on designs, etc.

Please make this list now, before you read further.  Most of you will probably have somewhere between 10 and 20 items on your list.  Go ahead, please do it now, you really do have time for this!

Okay, now look at your list and ask yourself, if you could only do one thing on the list, what would it be?  What one thing would have the biggest impact, make the most difference, if you had to choose?  (It’s usually pretty obvious!) 

Now, pick the next two most important activities on your list.  So now you have your top three most important tasks for running your business.

Now ask yourself, “What would be the impact on me and on my business if I spent 80% or more of my work time doing only those three things?”

Get specific – what kind of results would you be producing?  What would it feel like?

Now ask yourself, why are you still doing all of those other things, none of which made it into the top three?  And what would it take to have other people doing those things instead of you?  Perhaps someone who is actually better at it than you are, and who would enjoy it!  Leaving you free to focus on those three most important tasks that you and only you can do.

I urge you to take on this exercise as more than an exercise – use it!  Take it on!  You’ll be amazed at what happens.

For Aspiring Best-Selling Authors Only!

 

Hello Fabulous Women!

If you have no interest in becoming a successful, best-selling author, no need to read further.  But if you have a book inside you, or one already in process, this is an opportunity you will want to take advantage of.  My thanks to Mike Litman, a coach and best-selling author whom I’ve found to be a great resource, for letting me know about this opportunity to pass on to you!

Rick Frishman, author of Guerrilla Marketing for Authors and Guerilla Publicity, has helped many aspiring authors to achieve huge success. He will be hosting an event on May 29th, Author 101 University, designed to help you!

To learn more and hear a message from Mark Victor Hansen (author of Chicken Soup for the Soul) about the event (at which he will be a presenter), follow this link:

http://www.webmarketingmagic.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=780280

 

Learn from the best about how to get your message out to the world!

–Ann

Interview with Confidence!

Hello Fabulous Women!

I am very excited to tell you about a great opportunity!  One of the most challenging aspects of owning and running your own business is finding and hiring the best people.  Interviews are one of the most critical aspects of finding the right person for the right job, but it’s not easy!  There seems to be tons of information out there about how handle a job interview if you are the job applicant, but what about you as the employer? 

This Thursday, you will have an opportunity to learn from an expert, Bobbi Palmer, of Bobbi Palmer + Co., just how to prepare for, structure and run an interview that will help you find the very best people for your business.  Bobbi’s years of experience will take years off your learning curve, so you can find the right people, right now.

It is estimated that a mis-hire can cost your business 20 times the annual salary you are paying, and also that only about 25% of hires are “good” hires!  Clearly, most of us have a lot to learn about how to interview and hire the right people!

Just starting to think about hiring your first employee?  This Webinar is for you!

Already have employees, and looking to grow your business further?  This Webinar is for you!

Still a one-woman warrior, handling all the aspects of your business yourself?  This Webinar is definitely for you, to help you plan for the future and start thinking about who you will need to take your business to the next level!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Join Bobbi Palmer of Bobbi Palmer + Co. this Thursday for a Webinar that will give you the tools you need!

 

 Interviewing with Confidence (60 minute webinar)  Only $29.00 
May 22, 2008    12:00 PM PDT  (3:00 PM EST; 2:00 PM CST)

Traditional methods of interviewing don’t work!  Hiring based on what your candidate lists as previous jobs, or based on how much you like them does not lead you to the people who will do great work and fit well into your company.

In this information-packed webinar you will learn how to develop a highly effective system and use straight-forward techniques that prepare you to make fully informed hiring decisions.

You will learn how to:

* Prepare properly for interviews

* Frame the interview for best results

* Use four types of questions to get your candidate to open up and share the information you need

* Have the candidate demonstrate critical skills (and why it’s important to “test” during an interview!)

 

 Space for the live session is limited*.
REGISTER now at www.bobbipalmer.com

Click on the Webinars and Workshops page.

* If you can’t attend the event live, register and receive a workbook and recording the day following the webinar.

Need a Marketing Makeover?

Hello Fabulous Women!

Here’s a great opportunity for you from my friend and marketing expert, Susan Payton of Egg Marketing.  Egg Marketing is sponsoring a contest for a FREE marketing makeover for your business! 

Here is the press release announcing the contest:

Need a Marketing Makeover? Enter Eating Cereal with a Fork Contest

May 1, 2008 – Orlando, FL – Marketing in a recession got you down? Egg Marketing & Public Relations is here to help. The company announces its “Eating Cereal with a Fork” Marketing Makeover contest, which launched this week.

Entrants are asked to submit creative videos of why they need marketing help. Business owners can sign up at www.eatingcerealwithafork.com/contest.

“We wanted to get creative and help people find a way to market their products, despite the economy,” said Susan Payton, owner of Egg Marketing & Public Relations. “Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive, and we have some great sponsors that will help the winners learn techniques they can do themselves,” she stated.

Payton recently wrote the ebook, Eating Cereal with a Fork: Maximize Marketing in a Recession, which helps business owners get the most out of their marketing without overspending. In fact, she said, “By implementing these seven marketing techniques, businesses will actually save money on marketing while increasing sales.”

Entries will be accepted until May 30, and winners will be announced June 6. For more information, visit www.eatingcerealwithafork.com/contest.

About Egg Marketing & Public Relations

Egg Marketing is the Orlando marketing firm that hatches good ideas. Susan Payton and her team assist businesses in promoting their products and services through internet marketing and public relations. Egg offers a range of services, from marketing strategy to press release writing and email marketing campaigns.

Egg’s blog, The Marketing Eggspert (www.sparkplugging.com/marketing ), offers free advice for marketing in a Web 2.0 world.

For more information on Egg, visit www.eggmarketingpr.com or call 407.895.7296.

Purpose – Being Clear about the Why Behind It All

Hello Fabulous Women!

Busy busy busy — running, creating, building your business, your family, your home, your life?  Feels like a hamster wheel sometimes, doesn’t it?

As human beings, especially in our culture, we are so focused on doing doing doing all the time that we sometimes lose track of Why we are doing all this!  And without that sense of why – our sense of purpose – all the doing in the world just never seems to get us where we want to go, does it?

I’ve been on the hamster wheel of doing doing doing without much sense of purpose myself lately.  Yes, me, the On Track and On Purpose woman, the women’s business coach, the one who says, “You could wake me up from a sound sleep at 3AM and ask me what my purpose is, and I could tell you without missing a beat.”  Well, that’s true, I could, but the fact is I haven’t exactly been feeling it lately all day long.  What’s the point of being able to speak my purpose at 3AM (like that’s ever going to happen!) if I’m not connecting to it at 3PM, or most of the rest of the day either? 

My purpose is to inspire and empower people to discover and fulfill their purpose in life, and to do it with passion, ease and joy.

For the past couple of days, I have to admit I have not been much connected to that purpose.  I’ve been running around doing this, that and the other thing – and instead of feeling purposeful and effective and happy, instead I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, disconnected and, well, unhappy. 

Any of you relating to this?

You’d think I’d know better, wouldn’t you?

Well, I do know better, and enough of this!  Everything I’ve been doing these past couple of days could have been done with a sense of purpose, so why wasn’t it?  I was caring for my children, dealing with tenants (I’m a landlord, too), coaching current and prospective clients, taking care of my house, etc.  These are all important and valuable things that are totally consistent with my purpose.  And to give myself credit, all of the time I was coaching clients and at least some of the time I spent with my kids was filled with a sense of purpose and therefore was inspiring and fulfilling for me. 

But that’s just not enough. 

Today, I have plenty of things to do, believe me.  Business coaching clients, marketing, yardwork and housework, a couple of tenant issues to deal with, calls to make – and so on.  I’ve been relating to all of them as simply things to do, without stopping to think Why I am doing them.  So today that stops, and I’m taking the time to connect to the Why.

I can do yardwork because it needs to get done – or I can do it because I enjoy creating beauty and order, and because connecting with green and growing things allows me to feel connected to everything around me.

I can work on marketing my business coaching practice because I have to – or because I love talking with people about what matters most to them, creating clarity and connections and knowing I’ve helped someone move forward in their lives.

I can talk to that troublesome tenant because it’s my responsibility – or because I care about what’s going on in her life, and because I take pride in providing people with a safe and pleasant place to live.

The more I start looking at it from Why instead of What, the easier – and the more fun! – it all sounds.  Amazing what a little sense of purpose will do to a busy day!

I invite you to do the same – take a look at that list of things to do and ask yourself Why you are doing them.  What purpose could be behind everything you do today?  You get to say.

Have a purposeful and inspiring and fun day today. 

–Ann