Additional Thoughts…

I had some positive feedback from my other post so I thought I’d share some additional thoughts with you…

• You decide. You decide how people view you and your business, along with what hours you’ll work and how you live your life. If you don’t decide, they’ll decide for you.

• There is hidden opportunity in every business. It’s money that’s just sitting there waiting for you to grab it. But most people never take the time to look.

• Associate with like-minded, successful people. It’s often said that your income is the average of the 5 people’s income you’re around most, so don’t hang out with slackers.

• If most people realized that they had all the same training skills (often better) as the top earning trainers in the field there would be far more successful entrepreneurs.

• A big obstacle to success is distraction. Turn off the email, Facebook and TV and work on your business.

• Always have a higher priced option. There are a certain percentage of people in every market who will pay top price.

• You need to work on you as much as you work on your business.

• It’s not what you make, it’s what you keep. Focus on improving your net profits, not just your gross revenues.

• Organize your day the night before and make sure you block time for everything that is important to you. Working on your business gets time. Networking gets time. Family gets time. Self improvement gets time. If you don’t schedule it, you’ll find yourself putting it off.

• A lot of success is born out of a hatred of losing. As a coach I enjoyed winning, but I HATED losing. I think you need to enjoy it (success) to sustain it…but it often begins with hating the idea of failing.

• Recognition and rewards are great motivators. Use them often.

• Successful people are always growing. Success is never stagnant.

• Business should be fun. What don’t I like about what I do? Being away from family when we’re on the road, but other than that: nothing. Why do something that sucks? Enjoy your work, if you don’t, find new work.

• People are pretty predictable in what they’ll buy. Watch infomercials about fitness or fat loss. They want results fast. They buy based on emotion. Testimonials are more powerful than almost anything else you can share. You have to meet people where they are, and once you have them, you can educate them on what they really need.

• You can’t be afraid to reinvent yourself. Don’t be afraid to transform your business model to better serve the market, to better position yourself against the competition, or to better apply what you’ve learned along the way to take advantage of a new or different opportunity.

• There’s power in creating a community. If you can create a community, it will improve retention, generate referrals, and provide opportunities. Plus, it’s just a more enjoyable environment to work in.

• Nothing beats being around a group of like-minded, motivated fellow entrepreneurs. Do it at least a couple times per year.

• Not every offer needs to be accepted. You don’t have to answer the door just because someone knocks. You don’t need to answer the phone whenever it rings, and you don’t need to respond to every email the minute it hits your inbox.

• Taking that a step further, not every opportunity presented to you needs to be accepted. Just because it has some potential upside doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for you right now. There will always be people knocking, calling, emailing, and offering, and all of them will be asking you for your time.

• Just because they ask doesn’t mean you need to accept.

• Plan ahead. The most important time management strategy I employ is planning out every day the evening prior. If you don’t plan out what you need to accomplish, you’re leaving the day to chance, and you’ll likely be allowing everyone else to decide how you spend your time. Not good.

• Get help. Every day there are low return activities that you do and there are high return activities. Here’s how I’d quantify each:

Low Return Activities:

• Activities that could be outsourced for significantly less than your hourly worth. If you can make $75 per hour or can generate $1200 worth of new business public speaking, then you can certainly delegate $8 an hour work to free up your time.

• Activities you don’t enjoy at all. If you really don’t enjoy some facet of your business, find someone who can do it effectively.

• Activities you are bad at. If you’re bad on the phone, outsource some of the calls.

High Return Activities:

• Activities that generate significant revenue, close to or exceeding your hourly worth. Most marketing activities, sales, delivering service, program design, retention work, etc., falls in this category.

• Activities you enjoy. If you enjoy mowing your lawn, mow it. It doesn’t really matter if you could earn more doing something else if it really makes you happy.

• Activities you’re best suited for. If you’re the best person at program design in your business or the best salesperson, those should be among the last things you delegate.

• Delegate the lower skill activities first. You don’t have to spend a lot to start delegating. Offer a few hours to a client that would like to earn some extra money or get your service for free. Then your job is simple: You need to more than make up for the money you’re spending delegating with the new time you’ve freed up.

• Finish projects. One of the biggest timewasters of all is not bearing down and finishing stuff. As I mentioned yesterday, you get paid for done, so until something’s finished, it seems like time wasted. Luckily, the solution is simple: when you start a project, put the blinders on and finish it.

• Offer a powerful guarantee. At a minimum, 100% Money Back.

• Have a powerful message that appeals to your ideal client. If it doesn’t make your ideal prospects jump up and say, “That’s exactly what I want,” then strengthen it.

• Make it easy to buy.

• Have plenty of testimonials handy. Social proof is crucial if you want to make selling easy.

• Use a structured sales process. If something works, stick with it.

• Target better prospects. That doesn’t always mean more affluent prospects; target prospects that are a better fit for you and your business.

• Give better service, all the time. Every day you need to be on.

• Underpromise and Overdeliver.

• Raise your rates. You can do it in small increments, too. A $2 or $3 increase per session will get no resistance from clients but will add a lot to your bottom line over the year.

• Treat everyone like you want to be treated.

• Run a buzz-worthy business. If you run a great business, get clients incredible results, and have tons of energy, people will spread the word.

• Do the most important thing first. Nothing sets the tone for a productive day like knocking out a big task early.

• Know when you work best. For me early mornings, late evenings, and Sundays are best for writing.

• Make it easy to get started. Prep the night before, keep what you need handy, and eliminate distractions.

• Use your time wisely. We all have the same 24 hours each day, so why is there such a disparity in what high achievers accomplish versus what the average person does? The answer lies in how they use those hours. Use yours wisely.

• And lastly… Enjoy It!

If you don’t like your work, fix it.

It may not happen overnight, but if you systematically start getting more of the clients you like and ridding yourself of the ones you don’t and doing more of the tasks you enjoy and delegating more of the ones you loathe, you’ll be more successful.

Your clients will be happier because you’ll be happier.

I’m guessing that’s why you went into business: to build something where you could help people, enjoy financial and personal freedom, and do what you love.

In short…your Ideal Business.