Todays diary

0900 – 14/02/2012 I woke up, realised it was Valentine ’s Day gave my husband his card, made in porridge and fruit breakfast for him & I and sent him on his way to work. 1000 I decided to have a shower and get dressed and put my feet up whilst watching a documentary about the heart. I found out that every day, your heart beats about 100,000 times, sending 2,000 gallons of blood round your body. Isn’t that amazing that 1 muscle alone could do that? 1100 I decided that after the documentary there was just the usual “day time” TV on and we all know how rubbish that can be! So I thought I had 3 hours to spare to do some work. I usually work in the spare room to I wandered in turned my laptop on and started by looking through my emails. I had 3 unopened emails all with good news; 1. From google Ads telling me that my cheque for $400/£258 was being sent out today and I would receive it in the next 2 to 3 weeks. I thought to myself whilst reading this email. I though what did I do to get this money? Well the simple answer is nothing I just set it up. I felt ever so jammy. 2. I opened this email and thought to myself; wow this is very long but it was from an old friend I haven’t heard from for a while so I thought I’d skim through as after all I had the intention of advertising my business today. Skimming through the 1st paragraph or so I decided that because of the content I’d read it properly. She’s away on holiday and got a little sunburn but on the plus side she’s having a great time. 3. Another to say I have money coming! I cannot believe this! Another $18/£12! Okay so it’s really not much but as I like to remember my father saying in for a penny in for a pound. 1137 I start to add traffic and advertising, I love it I can socialise whilst I’m doing it, it’s that easy. I can chat on facebook whilst I’m working and catch up with other friends & family. 1302 Here I am, writing this blog & eating my BLT French stick. I’ve decided I’ve done my work for the day as there is little else to do. Knowing I have money coming in is fantastic news as the last couple of months have been hard for business with it being Christmas I guess but I’m up and running and feeling positive again. Plans for this evening is to cook a lovely roast chicken for my husband and I (unless he’s got a surprise for me because it’s Valentine ’s Day). Pack our bags ready to go on holiday on Wednesday. Cuddle up in front of a love film (probably A Walk to Remember) and fall asleep. If you want to know how easy it is go see for yourself, just click the link to mywebsite bellow: internet-marketing-online-company.com/helenaldin

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Top 10 Tips for Entrepreneurs by the CEO Expert

The Solopreneur Juggling Act

There are so many hats for the solo-prenuer to wear that it can be a juggling routine. There are so many balls in the air and each one can take on many forms:
... marketing... online, offline, in person... networking events, which ones, what is the goal, does it fit with the business... work on billing, invoicing... planning new products... recapping the quarter, updating plans for the next quarter... online seminars, in person development... client attraction, client retention, client relationship building and the list can go on and on, creating massive hurdles that can be difficult to overcome. The solopreneur needs to be the master of many functions.

Try the following tips to push past the juggling act and into a smooth routine process that can help develop efficiency and a more productive work environment:


Plan time to respond to emails and voicemail. Do not look at every message as soon as it arrives in the inbox.
Plan a time to focus on specific parts of the business. An hour a week for marketing or recapping if that is what is required.
Be selective and plan which networking events to attend. Use tools such as LinkedIn to see who is attending the event or call then organizer to understand the guest list. This can help with planning who to meet or if the guests at the event match your target audience.
Set ringtones to specific callers. This way there will not be a chance to miss calls from the school or personal emergencies, leaving other calls to go to voicemail if you have set that plan in place.
Determine if activities are focused on the business or are they simply distractions taking away from productivity.
Do not be afraid to suggest appointment times for clients and prospects. Providing an open calendar will cause changes to business activity commitments.
When creating project plans, include obstacles and how to overcome them should they arise.
Plan time to review trends, stay on top of emerging opportunities and do follow up on project planning.
Enlist in experts to take work away such as a book keeper or a virtual assistant, leaving more time to focus on actual business with your expertise.
Take time to re-energize, regroup and reflect on accomplishments, giving a fresh perspective to moving forward towards your goals.

The list can go on, as any solopreneur knows. Try a few and see what works and, step by step, the juggling will stop.

Lora Crestan has over 20 years experience in personal and business development including retail management, leadership development and marketing communications. By applying her coaching skills with you to your business, both you and your business reach new heights. Go to http://www.solsticegroupcoaching.com and learn more.

Top 10 Mistakes New Business Owners Make

Today's video shows the Top 10 Mistakes Most Business Owners make:

Solopreneurs: Attraction Strategies for New Clients

Pat Wiklund is our guest article writer today. Pat says:

In traditional marketing parlance, there are two primary ways of filling your professional practice.

You can push your message out to the public, or to your narrower niche market. You can send letters, announcements of your new services, or call people on the phone.

The second way, the way that is more comfortable for most of us, is to have your phone ring because of all the things you are doing that aren't really traditional marketing activities. Have what you do with your current clients, your professional network, or even the community events in which you participate as just one of the folks, not necessarily in your professional role, pull potential clients to you.

It's called pull marketing.

Potential clients see what you've done for others, or what you can do and want to engage you. Current clients are so pleased with what you have done, they want more. Word gets out about you. Your phone rings out of the blue, with a request for service from folks you don't even know you!

A couple of examples from colleagues and friends:

A colleague was 3 days out from the big all hands kick off for a series of programs for a state agency. The state legislature hadn't approved the budget yet, and all the monies for any outside services had been held back. He told the client he'd do the kick off meeting anyway, even though he wouldn't be paid. She guaranteed he'd be the first consultant back on the payroll once the budget was passed. And, she made good her promise.

A woman who's doing sub-contracted training is treating every client as if it were one of her full fee training sessions, even though she's paid a fraction of her fee.

When I announced I was automating my coaching newsletter for my consulting clients, I was asked if it weren't too much trouble, could I add a few more names to the list. Another client asked why wasn't I charging for what I was offering. She'd gladly pay for it. I told her to just subscribe all of the managers in her department.

In each of these examples, the professional was showing, not just telling, clients, and potential clients how dedicated, generous, and accommodating they could be. The focus was on "how can I best serve you, my client." It is a focus that will come back to you multiplied many times over.

Pull marketing: drawing prospects to you and developing additional business with current clients by being generous and accommodating.

How can you incorporate pull marketing activities into your strategic marketing plan?

Pat Wiklund is known as the One-Person Business Turnaround Specialist. She works with professional services business owners so they can make more money and get more personal satisfaction from their work. Start taking charge of your business and your life with her Business Tune-Up mini e-course at http://1personbusiness.com/mini-ecourse/

Self-Motivation

The arousal theory of motivation says we are motivated to do things to keep our level of arousal at a level that makes us happy. This becomes our optimal level of arousal, and we are motivated to do activities that maintain us at that optimal level. We will try to avoid a level that is too low and avoid a level that is too low.

There is a fascinating corollary to the arousal theory of motivation called the Yerkes-Dodson law, which says that your arousal level impacts you in another way. It states that how your performance on tasks is impacted by your arousal level depends upon the difficulty of the task. Your performance on both simple and difficult tasks will initially be better as your arousal level increases (as you get more aroused), but a point will come where your performance on the difficult tasks will start to suffer as your arousal level increases. Your performance on the simple tasks, however, will not suffer by the increase in arousal level.

We want to stay in charge of our motivation. So how should we use this information to increase our motivation?

This is the model for self motivation:

MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).

This means that your motivation is related to your vision (that special change you want to make in your life), your successability (your confidence in your competence, that is, your ability to make the change) and your environment, both your physical environment (where you will do the work necessary to make the change) and your social environment (the people and organizations available to you).

The model for self motivation tells us that any positive steps you take to impact your vision, successability or environment will automatically positively impact your self motivation.

We use the Yerkes-Dodson law to increase our motivation by exercising our control over our physical environment, the place we do our work on our goals and dreams.

We do this by looking at the task we are doing and comparing it to our physical environment.

Is it a complicated/difficult task, or is it an easy/simple task? If it is the former, we need to be extra careful that our environment does not over arouse us. Music blasting, television distracting, children running in and out, phone ringing, email announcements, are all going to raise our arousal level. But a high arousal level is not what we want, not when we are attempting a complicated/difficult task. If this is the situation you are facing, a difficult task and an over stimulating environment, something needs to change. You need to exercise your intent to make it work.

You have three options:

1) Change the environment, which means reducing the things in your environment that are arousing you. Turn off the television, turn down the music, lock the door, silence your phone.

2) If you can't change the environment, move to a less stimulating environment. Go to the library, or to a book store.

3) If you can't change the environment, and you can't move to a less stimulating one, change tasks. This just may not be the time to do a complicated or difficult task. Instead, find an easy or simple task on which your performance will not suffer by the high arousal level of your present environment.

Being conscious of the things that increase your motivation and that decrease your motivation is necessary if you are to maximize your motivation. So be conscious of these things; achieving your dreams is much easier when you are motivated.

Bob A. Prentiss, the Non-Motivational Speaker, is the creator of the Model for Self Motivation and the author of the soon to be released book, iMotivateMe. To find out more about the Model for Self Motivation, and how it can help you achieve your goals and make your dreams come true, visit Bob at http://www.bobaprentiss.com. Follow Bob on Twitter @motivateyou

A Kick in the Pants