Tips and techniques for achieving success in business.

Investing In "YOU"

When people talk about investing, they immediately think of investing money somewhere. Maybe in real estate, in the stock market or possibly bonds or maybe something relatively safe like CDs. They may strategize and make sure their portfolio is “diversified.” However, when I talk about investing I like to think about how you can invest in yourself. After all YOU are one of the greatest assets you can invest in.

Why Do People Fail?

If you have read enough articles and books or listened to the many self-help experts out there you will find consistent factors as to why people fail. We could be talking about many different kinds of failures. Certainly business failures but also failures in many other endeavors such as weight lose, improved health, relationships and so on. The two common denominators that I have observed with any failure seems to be the lack of planning and the lack of taking correct actions to achieve that plan.

What Do These Objections Mean?

When selling your services or products I’m sure most of you get objections much like I do. “I would like to think about this,” or “I don’t have time to do any of this,” or “I’m not ready yet,” or “That seems expensive,” or “Call me back in a couple of months.” What does all this mean? Most likely they are afraid of making a bad decision. If they spend the money and it’s the wrong product or service they will look foolish. And no one wants to look foolish. How do you overcome these fears?

Changing Habits

We all have them. Some of them good, some of them bad. Habits are those things we do without too much thought. We kind of go through our day and they just happen.

Help! My Sales Have Fallen and I Can't Pick Them Up!

We’ve all experienced it. Sales have been down and for some reason you can’t get out of the hole. Cash is tight. You start to get nervous. You start to blame everything around you. The economy is in the tank, your prospects won’t return your calls, your proposal didn’t get mailed on time, your car broke down going to an appointment . . . on and on and on. Ok, many of these things could be a cause for a slip in sales. But then these are all things out of your control. So what can you control? The answer to that is . . . yourself and the actions you take!

Your Attitude, Your Choice

I have recommended to many of my clients the book titled “FISH”. It’s a book about how to improve moral in any organization and thereby improve results. There are actually four principles in the book but, I think, the most important one of them is called “Choose Your Attitude.” The philosophy goes something like this. When you go to work, or run your business, or do just about anything in life the attitude you bring to that event is your choice. And depending on the type of attitude you bring will primarily determine the type of experience you will have.

The Cash Gap

In a previous post, I talked about planning and managing the financial aspects of your business. Included in that was the importance of managing cash flow. I’d like expand on that principle and specifically talk about the concept called “The Cash Gap.” What is the cash gap? Well, it’s simply the number of days between when you have to pay for things in your business and when your customers end up paying you. For example, you might have to buy materials to produce a product or buy inventory to stock your shelves.

Plan and Count Your Beans

As a former Director of Corporate Financial Planning for a large corporation and with a degree in accounting I have heard my share of bean counter jokes. Like this one: “what does an accountant use for birth control . . . his personality.” Jokes aside, for the past six years, as a business coach, I have found that my financial background has helped me teach business owners how to run their business more effectively.

Goals and Resolutions — How To Get Them Done!

It’s an annual ritual . . . setting resolutions and looking at the goals we want to achieve in the New Year. How did it go last year? Did the goals and resolutions you made start to fade after just a few months? Did you start out gang busters only to look back at the end of the year not even getting close to the goals you set for yourself and your business? If so, either you did not commit fully or face it; you don't have the resolve to make the changes on your own.

If It Ain't Broke, Should I Still Fix It?

When was the last time you really took a close look at how you are doing things and asked yourself “how can I do this faster, cheaper, simpler and easier while maintaining quality and customer satisfaction?” In the “old days” this might be something you look at once every couple of years. However, in today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing environment I would suggest you need to ask yourself this on a daily basis. Otherwise you might find yourself left in the proverbial dust.

Do You See What I See?

In a previous post, you may recall, I wrote about the four mental laws and how they impact the results we get in our business and personal lives. The common thread among all the laws was that the results we get are tied to our thoughts and beliefs. If we think in a certain way our actions will follow those thought patterns and the results will turn out accordingly. Consider this.

The Four Mental Laws

I was listening to a CD produced by Brian Tracey regarding changing yourself in order to change your results. These results could be business results or results in your personal life. He talked about the importance of 4 mental laws and how they shape who we are and what we achieve in business and in our life. I’d like to share these laws with you and see if you can understand why you are getting the things in your life you are getting. Whether those are good things or bad things. These laws have been around for quite some time and seem to apply at all times, w

What's Your Plan?

You may have heard this quote before . . . “A failure to plan is a plan for failure.” I’m not sure who said it but in my experience I believe it is a very true statement.

Is Your Business Working?

I meet many business owners every day that are working a tremendous amount of hours per week. When I ask them “is this what you expected when you started your business?” . . . most say they thought in the beginning they would have to work hard but as time went on they had hoped to work a lot less. They had dreams of spending more time in other interests or with their family. But here they are, years late, still working incredibly hard. Why is that? I would contend the reason they are working so hard is because their business isn’t working.

D.I.S.C.: What Is It and How Can It Help?

There have been many times in my consulting practice when I have used the DISC analysis to help people understand human behavior. Why would this be important in business? Well, if you have customers or employees (and most businesses have both) I’m sure you can see how understanding their behavior traits might help you deal with them in a better way. It could help you communicate with your employees and get them to “want’ to do the things you want them to do. It certainly could help you build rapport with prospects, which is essential in the selling process.

Leadership— How Well Do You Influence Others?

Your ability to influence other people determines how successful you are as a leader. As a leader you need to change people’s beliefs, thoughts and actions in order to have them follow you. This is true certainly in business but also in life in general. Parents try to influence their kids, kids try to influence their parents, bosses try to influence employees, sales people try to influence prospects and on it goes. So how are your skills at influencing others? And how can you improve your ability to influence others and become a great leader?

Customer Service That PAYS

Customer service is a cliché if there ever was one. And it must be one of the most misunderstood concepts in business today. The name of the game is making customer service PAY. I am always amazed at how most businesses go about tackling the question of customer service. What most businesses do is spend lots of money and lots of time in an attempt to impress their customers. What they fail to do is to find out if this will make them any more money or not. You see, great customer service without bottom line results is a waste of time and money.

Identity Iceberg

I think we all can agree that in order to get better results in our business we need to make changes. Most people would define that as making changes in your behavior or in the actions you take. However, there are elements that you need to change much deeper than simply behaviors and actions in order to make the necessary changes in your business and life.

Dreams and Goals

Dreams are different from goals. Both are essential in running a successful business.

The Fly on the Window

You may have heard this story or my guess is you have witnessed this first hand. There you are in your home or at work in a conference room on a warm summer day and you hear a nagging buzz sound near the window. As you approach the window you witness a fly futilely attempting to break through the glass to get outside. The fly just keeps on bagging and bagging against the window. It starts to work harder and harder to achieve the objective. And yet there is no hope. It is impossible for the fly to break through. Just yards away there is an open door where