As we head into an exciting new year of opportunities, and I work on updating my marketing plan for 2010, I reflect on what makes me good at what I do. What clients often tell me is that I best help them focus, set priorities that make sense for them, and help them organize. Without these pillars, we are less likely to see the success we envision for ourselves.

I thought it would be good to discuss these three ‘kings’ of building a successful business.

1 – Focus: Do you find yourself jumping from idea to idea and potential opportunity to potential opportunity, only to find yourself feeling overwhelmed and overworked? Yet, you are NOT earning the income you envision, because you don’t have TIME! You’re too busy jumping at more and more ideas! This is where focus comes in. As you update your marketing plan (we need to address this, huh?), I challenge you to pick just 2-4 areas you would like to really focus on for the upcoming year. Then ask yourself this question when a new idea comes your way: How does that help me achieve these goals right now? If it doesn’t, put it in your opportunity booklet and let it go.

2 – Prioritize: You can’t do it all,  all at once! Something has to be FIRST. I love what Chip and Dan Heath say in the book, “Made To Stick“; “Prioritization rescues people from the quicksand of decision angst…”  What do you want to DO first? What is most pressing; has your greatest passion right now? If you could only pick ONE of those 2-4 areas above, which would it be? But also be able to say WHY. Why is that the most important thing? Sit back and envision each of those areas to decide what you want to accomplish first.

3 – Organization. Ah, my hero is David Allen, the king of organization.  I continually strive to stay organized, myself, because I see the value of it helping me actually getting things done! If I want to seriously expand my speaking career in 2010, I have to organize HOW I will make that happen! I can’t just will it. Sure, I TOTALLY believe in the Law of Attraction, but I realize it’s more than just willing it to create an empire and make a difference in people’s lives. What must you do to get a handle on your organization?

As you read through these three “Kings” of business success, I encourage you to take a step back, take a few minutes out of your busy, hectic life, and address these three “kings” to see exactly where you are and what you must do to increase focus, prioritization, and organization in YOUR life.

Certainly, if you need help, give me a call!

Margie

How can you create a successful business?

Give your customers/clients what they want!

I find that when people first come to me they say they want to do this and want to do that. This is great, because I hear their passion, which is ALSO critical to successs. But, what if your clients don’t WANT this or WANT that? Then what?

How do you find out what your clients want, then?

It’s a hard answer: ASK THEM!

Ok, on the surface, this seems a simple thing to do. Until you start to work on the actual action plan of asking them. Hm; ask them what, exactly, and how? Should it be a survey? Should it be in your newsletter? Should you ask on Twitter or Facebook?

Grin; this is where the perfectionism kicks in for many of my clients. So, my answer is this: Just simply ask them what they want, and ask it in all of the above! Well, the survey is great, but that WILL take a bit more time, so why not keep it simple (KISS) and literally ask your followers what they want. What do you like that you are offering? What is it about you they like? What do they wish you would offer? What is it about you they would like to see improved?

When I was working on my book, I asked everyone I knew, who was willing to share their input, a lot of questions to help me come up with a title, different concepts, and the book cover. Granted, I got TONS of different input, but it was extremely helpful.

There’s a little side benefit to all of this, too, when  you’re creating a product! It lets people know about your product, and people enjoy seeing what the final product is once you release it.

So I challenge you to put a simple question out to your target market. And I’ll ask YOU this one question of me: What would like to see me offer that I don’t offer?

Happy Holidays!

Margie

Although I hear it from my own clients, it’s usually only after my session with my own coach that I really can appreciate the power of coaching to help me move my business to the next level. Sure, I LOVE coaching my clients: It is the most rewarding experience there is. But then getting it from the OTHER end is just so amazingly empowering!

Do you have a coach to help you grow? If not, ask yourself why you don’t. No matter how successful you are, there are always other hills to climb and other dreams to pursue, and often it’s not that we won’t DO them, but with a coach, we do them SOONER! Imagine getting to your goals sooner! Wow. Why imagine, though, and not make it happen???

I know. I changed my focus of my business thanks to the coaching discussions I had with my very first coach, which led me in a direction I had never IMAGINED. And I wrote and published my book as a result of the discussions with my second coach. These days, thanks to the sessions with my third coach, I see a new path for my speaking career taking shape. It’s not that I wouldn’t be taking that path, but with someone for me to be accountable to, there’s that little extra push to move more deliberately and focused.

If you have dreams and goals you have not yet moved into, I can’t encourage you enough to consider finding a coach that will help you move in that direction.

Although anyone can call themselves a coach, the one strong recommendation I would make is that if you ARE looking for a coach, look for someone who has had some formal coach training. You may gain some advantage to having a conversation with anyone who provides ‘coaching’, but coaching is not telling you what to do (do it this way because that’s what *I* did and it worked!), but helping YOU decide the path you want to take. Plus, trained coaches have skills that someone who just wants to ‘coach’ you generally lacks.

Regardless, get out there and make your dreams come true! And if you want to make it happen SOONER, you need a coach!

Margie

Margie is a graduate of the Coach Training Institute and provides business coaching to health, fitness and service professionals around the country. To set up a complementary 30-minute coaching call, or to look at the services she offers, go to her website, http://www.meg-enterprises.com.

As a business professional, today, you really can NOT be part of the internet community. Oh, yea, I guess if your clients are in retirement homes and are NOT online, sure. But even THOSE type of clients have relatives!

And most of us know this. The big ‘buzz’ is Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I limit myself to these three, though, just because there are only so many hours in the days.

But what happens when technology doesn’t perform?

I have just made a short move for an interm period of time before moving out of state in the spring. And, thinking I was clever, I decided to eliminate my ISP in favor of a wireless wi-fi connection. It works so well away from home/business!

The first step I took was to set up a new email program, and had my website designer set up a ‘test’ forwarding of one of my business email addresses. Ok; that worked well! Next I told her to set up all of them. But my first glitch came when I realized it wasn’t going to be as easy to set up to SEND from my business email addresses. My second glitch came when I realized that the easier way would be to use the online email reader, but I am a die-hard Thunderbird fan, and quickly missed that program.

But reality really hit when, after just a few days in my new location, I realized that I don’t LIKE being tied to the clock for my internet connection! I’m used to doing things online and walking away to do other things. And I realized that, between Skype calls and e-conferences, I’m online A LOT!

Thank goodness I didn’t cancel my ISP, so I called and discussed moving it to my new location. Good news is I am. Bad news is it will take 2 weeks before they can set me up.

So, they say one of the traits of an entrepreneur is adaptability. I’m making this system work, but I’m not happy. BUT, most people don’t notice the change or the glitches. And, if I didn’t share it with YOU, you wouldn’t know it, either.

Why DO I share it with you? Because it’s important for people to know that even if we DO feel comfortable with today’s technology, not all things run as smoothly as I think they will. But, again, it’s how we make it work for us, and adapt that is the difference between success and failure.

I refuse to fail and refuse to let this hold me back. And I’m REALLY looking forward to having my ISP back, so I’m not writing this and then closing the connection down, grin.

Margie