If you are dreaming of taking your business to the next stage, but you find yourself JUST dreaming and not growing, then it’s probably time to find yourself a mentor!

If you are an RD, ADA has a mentor program. The Nutrition Entrepreneurs Dietetic Practice Group of the ADA also has a mentor program, which I highly recommend.

But what if you need the NEXT stage of help? Then follow these 4 tips to help you choose a mentor who will challenge you to create the business of your dreams:

Tip 1: Find someone who is more than just a figurehead. It has to be someone who lives the life you imagine living and models what you would like to be doing. How do they live their life? What things are important to them? Do THEY invest in a coach for themselves? You don’t want to find someone who talks about the importance of mentoring/coaching yet doesn’t invest in that help for themselves.

Tip 2: Look for someone who can provide done-for-you templates. We’re all so extremely busy! Wouldn’t it be nice if you could find someone who understood your business and could provide you with templates and scripts for how to write your website text, how to write promotional emails and even how to have an assessment or strategy conversation with a potential client!?

Tip 3: Choose someone who shares your values. Are you looking for someone who believes that the path to success is making a difference in the world? Or would you prefer to find someone who can just show you how to make a lot of money, no matter how you do it? I suspect you would rather work with someone who strives to empower others, since if you’re reading this, that’s YOUR goal, too.

Tip 4: Choose a mentor who is a real coach. Anyone can call themselves a coach. But I have to share that I’ve heard MANY horror stories from people who THOUGHT they were hiring a coach, only to find out that they were really hiring a consultant. Coaches don’t scold you. Coaches don’t get angry when you don’t follow their advice. Coaches don’t give advice! Granted, it’s nice to find a coach who can both provide amazing coaching AND give you advice on how to move forward, but a qualified, educated coach will ultimately hold you as knowledgeable and the person in charge of your choices.

Although I believe that all of us can create whatever we can imagine, I also believe that if we invest in ourselves by investing in a powerful mentor, we will create it MUCH faster! And, life is too short: I want to create my dream business today and then have the rest of my life to enjoy it. What about you?

Margie

If you are serious about taking your business to the next level this year, the 6-month group Platinum program is for you! Click here for more information.

I feel great! I just totally cleaned out several of my listserv (EML) folders to ZERO!

I hear it all the time: “I have so many emails I can’t function!” or “I don’t know what to do with all these old emails that I really need to read.”

No; you do NOT have to read them all! But having them ‘hanging around’ definitely causes mental clutter. So, how do you manage them?? It’s really simple if you follow these 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Do you have folders and filters set up? I DO believe I’ve talked about this before, but when you’re busy, you forget.. If you do NOT, set them up, now. In some email readers, after you’ve set up a folder and a filter/rules, there is a place where the email reader will search your messages and put them into the designated folder.

Step 2: Hit the delete button! If it’s over a month old and you haven’t read OR taken action on it, chances are real good you’re not. And it’s just making you nuts, so why keep it around? We really do open up new opportunities when we clear the clutter!

Step 3: Start a new habit of dealing with each email that comes into your inbox right then and there. Don’t tell yourself you’ll come back to it. David Allen suggests creating a folder that starts with “@” if there are emails you feel you need to address, but don’t have the time. For me, if it’s an email I need to read with complete concentration or respond to in some way, and I don’t have the time at that moment, I keep it highlighted. Then, twice a week, I go back and make sure that all of those have been addressed.

Take these three simple steps NOW! Don’t wait. Trust me, it really will feel good! And let me know how it goes!

Margie
MEG Enterprises

Do you struggle with controlling YOUR time? Need to create a plan for reading email, handling social media? Do you feel your days fly by with nothing to show for it, and you’re starting to worry you’ll never grow your business? Check out the “Time Management Toolkit” that helps you control your time so you can make more money.

When I started my business, I always envisioned being able to make a difference in the world, be in charge of my schedule and take time off when I wanted. I imagined generating healthy revenue, honoring my beliefs and values, and enjoying the short time we all have with our family and friends.

Then I went to business school.

Because my emphasis was in entrepreneurship, I was instantly made to feel inadequate and a small

thinker by my professor. What do you mean I don’t want to grow and have a staff below me? I was doomed to failure, I was assured.

So, I started to think bigger. Create the plans for the staff, beyond what I currently had. I had to grow in order to be successful and get that freedom I wanted!

Many of the clients I work with also wish to make a difference in the world, and just enjoy what they love to do and enjoy flexibility to have fun with family and friends.  For some, growing the busines

s to where they have a staff, and successfully securing a small business loan has been part of their dream. And they succeed!

I see myself as the coach who helps my clients achieve their dreams, no matter how big or small. I’m currently reading the book “Rework” by Fried and Hansson, and one of my favorite statements is “Let your customers outgrow you.” That has always been my goal. To stay a comfortable size, be able to do what I love to do from ANYWHERE in the world (while traveling, of course), and help others l

ive the dream they never believed was possible. In my book, “Just Jump“, I describe my role as watching baby chicks grow up and fly off.

Does a business have to grow in order to survive? Look around. What do the companies who have failed have in common? Have they all been small? No! What it REALLY has to do with is that they stayed ‘mean and lean’; they didn’t try to become ‘big’ because that’s what “makes them successful”. They watched their cash flow and have been able to weather this financial storm we’re currently still in.

As have I.

It took some soul-searching after school to come back to my original vision. My entire purpose of getting an MBA degree wasn’t so I could build an empire; it was so I could offer the most amazing service possible to my clients who needed not only coaching, but also guidance as they navigated the maze of business, which is so foreign to them.

Today business couldn’t be better and I AM making a difference in the world. I am doing what I love, in integrity. And, after just moving to a new state, I have been able to enjoy taking extra time off from work and spending time with my retired husband, as we hit the hiking trails 2-3

days a week. I am doing EXACTLY what I envisioned doing, 14 years ago, when I started my business.

My former professor works an average of 12 hour days, trying to make the program I graduated from one of the top in the nati

on. H

e’s grumpy and feels stuck in the politics and pressure of the academic world. I

‘m living my dream, enjoying my freedom.

I should send him a card from the trails that says, “wish you were here.” Afterall, we’re heading to the Grand Canyon in a few weeks!

What is YOUR business dream?

Margie

As we explore the huge expanse of hiking trails in our new home, we found the perfect ‘training’ hike for preparing for the Grand Canyon. This means it’s REALLY steep!

Today, as we headed back up the next incline, again, my husband was looking up and moaning about how crazy we must be. As I told him, “Don’t look up!” I realized that this really is the same advice with any goal that seems overwhelming. Let’s look at six of the steps to overcoming this 7-mile “eternal incline climb” with the same suggestions you’d apply to starting your own business:

1. Break your big goal into small steps. Let’s say you envision a multi-service wellness center. But you may need to start with just YOU, seeing clients, one at a time. For our hike, we literally took each incline section one piece at a time (without looking up).

2. Envision the end in sight. Do you know where you’re going? How will you know when you get there, if you haven’t envisioned the end? See your goal destination in your mind. Ideally, write it down. Set up milestones to achieve at certain times. For our hike, we set as our first goal to walk for 1.5 hours. The second hike, our goal was to pass that first location in the same time. The third time we decided to do the entire trail and documented the time it took us. Next time we’ll try to beat our previous time. And so forth.

3. Set ‘stretch’ goals. What do you know you can achieve? Now, take it a bit bigger! Do you know you can write a blog? What about submitting to write for a magazine? For us, our stretch goal was to do the entire 7-mile trail, both ways. Yea, we felt those 14 miles, but it felt GREAT to achieve that goal!

4. Share your intentions with others. It’s easy to tell yourself a goal and then back off when the going gets tough. Nothing risked! But when you tell others of your intentions, suddenly you feel compelled to ACHIEVE them! For us, just being accountable to each other is enough. Neither of us wants to back out.

5. Get support. As I said above, my husband and I use each other to keep us motivated. Support is extremely important! Who can you enlist to sit in your corner and cheer you on? Family members are the most valuable, but friends will work. A coach is a great support, because a coach is more objective to the outcome and only has your own best interests in mind.

6. Measure your progress. With any goal, knowing how far you’ve come can really help you move forward! When you set your goals, you then have a way to measure where you are compared to where you’d like to be. On our trail, using the guidebook helps us get a sense of where we are in our mileage, so we can prepare for the next part of the trail.

When a goal looks too big for reality, just a few simple strategies can  help you turn that HUGE dream into the life you once thought was for others. Take it one step at a time… and don’t look up!

Margie

MEG Enterprises

February 7-13 is National Coaching Week (NCW), where coaches from around the world celebrate the wonders of coaching.  NCW was created as National Personal and Business Coaching Week by Jerri Udelson in 1999 as a way to promote the profession of coaching. In 2000, coaches in Canada wanted to take part, so the name was changed to NCW, and the International Coach Federation (ICF) started to promote it.

ICW is a designated time for coaches and clients to educate the general public about the value of working with a professional coach and to acknowledge the results and progress made through the coaching process. During this extended commemoration, coaches around the world offer a variety of activities and pro bono services in their local communities to share what coaching has the ability to do. For more information about ICW, visit www.coachingweek.org.

Have you experienced coaching, yet? If you haven’t, you are really missing out!

I still remember when I started investigating coaching. I started attending teleclasses like they were going out of style, met my first coach in one of those classes, and not only did I learn a great deal (about coaching, about myself), but met some incredible coaches! This was also when I made the decision to BECOME a coach, and thus coach people from wherever I happened to be at the moment! It meant working while traveling, which combined my two loves. Since then, I have coached clients from my home, from cruise ships, from Zurich, Jamaica and even Rome.

What is the value of coaching?

• Coaching helps successful people accomplish more sooner. That’s really it in a nutshell.
• Or, as the ICF puts it: “Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. “
• Coaching provides you with the questions you can’t ask yourself, or family and friends can’t ask, in an objective way.
• Coaching helps you really see or hear yourself as someone else does. It can open your eyes to awarenesses and perspectives that hadn’t occurred to you, helping you move past obstacles to achieving your goals.

To celebrate, my offer is a free, 30-minute coaching session during that week and a free article on business structures. But you have to contact me soon, because these spots WILL fill up quickly! To contact me to set up an appointment for your free session, you can call me at 909-867-7317 or email me to margie@meg-enterprises.com. I work with health, fitness and service professionals who wish to start or grow a business.

You can accomplish great things with coaching! If you haven’t tried it, now is the time. And give me a call to try it!

Margie

MEG Enterprises provides business coaching services to health, fitness and service professionals who wish to take their business dreams to the next level. As author of the book, “Just Jump: The No-Fear Business Start-up Guide for Health and Fitness Professionals”, President Marjorie Geiser helps clients do the introspective work that is often ignored, which then leads to lack of movement in accomplishing business goals.