This is Bob…

Bob is 35 years old, around 178 pounds and has a penchant for chocolate. This is an unfortunate predilection because Bob is no longer allowed to eat yummy chocolate. According to his wife Betty, a family history of diabetes and heart problems precludes him from eating anything sweeter than a piece of fruit.
Bob’s wife is a caring woman and Bob knows this, but in defiance of her requests (and doctor’s orders) he continues to have the occasional chocolate ‘blow out’. He enjoys it and why not?

Bob’s situation mirrors that of hundreds of thousands of people.

I’m not talking specifically about people with heart disease or diabetes. Or even about people with chocolate addictions. I’m talking about people who are determined not to listen to the people who have their best interests at heart.

Too many people in life, business, sport…the list goes on, do what they want against the advice of others who may know better and who have the life experience to back their concern or suggestion.

Can you think of sports identities who were given numerous warnings to behave but failed to listen to the most basic directives?  Now they possible face criminal charges or public shame.

Then there are the politicians who have found themselves in hot water. Failing to listen to their advisors they make decisions by themselves or behave impulsively and embarrass themselves. Had they taken the ‘time’ to listen to industry groups or their own advisors they may have had a more long term positive impact.

The most successful people in life are the ones who listen.

They are the ones who have surrounded themselves with people whose comments and ideas they respect and thus evaluate.

Before you ever dismiss even the smallest ideas, listen to them, evaluate them and utilise them in the most positive way ow can find.

It wouldn’t be too hard for Bob to stop gorging on chocolate, eat it in very measured moderation and accept his wife’s advice. If he does this, there is no doubt he will succeed in staying healthy, taking negative pressure away from his relationship and live longer to do the big things he always wanted to do.

Do you feel like your business is stalled? Like you are facing a brick wall with no where to go? Stubbornness can kill your business. I know you can be so determined to stay on track that sometimes you can fail to see how twisted the track is that you’re trying to run your business along.

Emotional Intelligence is one of the most important traits that you need to get a handle on.

Your business is your baby, you know it inside out, you created it, nurtured it, love it – even though it’s killing you through exhaustion. Because it has you DNA all through it, you can’t see the havoc – until it’s too late. Your business runs out of steam, it implodes with a shudder or it continues to limp along, surviving on grit and sweat and other manly and overrated attributes.

This sort of emotional attachment can kill your business and, believe me, it is rampant amongst start up businesses. Newbies sees the freedom, the lifestyle, and… the money. All they have to do is share their vision with enough people and they’ll have it all. The free time, no boss and… the money.

When things don’t work out they way they expect they convince themselves that it ‘will take a little time’. So they keep waiting and waiting, thinking that’s the same thing as running a business. What they’re really doing is getting ready to become a statistic.

Tell Me How You Sell It

If you become too attached emotionally to your business you can fail to see what your business is really all about. You can fail to see how others perceive your business. Rather than working in your business you need to start working ON your business.

Put 90% of all business efforts into sales and marketing

This is what strategy is…. sales and marketing. This is what your business needs to be all about.

What’s Your Purpose?

Have a purpose that is bigger than ‘making lots of money’. A vision that inspires people needs more than simply a profit imperative. Every business must make money to stay in business – but the business that has a vision bigger than that, that people can believe in, follow, and invest in, will make you more money.

Promise Big!

What do you promise to do for your customers that make you stand out from the crowd? What can you deliver that sets you apart from the pack, drives prospects to you and gives them a sense of certainty that you are genuine? The Big Promise is EXACTLY what your customer wants.

Find Your Customers…

The most crucial role of any business leader is to generate quality leads for the business. The more leads, the better. A business that has few leads feels constant pressure and ultimately, won’t attract the best people to work for them.

Set Benchmarks Around Sales and Marketing…

By setting 90 day, 1 month and 1 week goals, you and your team know exactly where they are heading, what needs to be achieved, what needs to be prioritised and what’s expected of them.

They Keep Coming Back!

The goal is to make one sale after another to the same person, as often as you can.

Too many business owners think that their goal is to make a sale – it is, and it isn’t. The goal is to make one sale after another to the same person, as often as you can.

Promote Your Customer!

Upgrade your customers to more expensive products or more helpful programs. This is a key element of the best businesses. If your customers get your Purpose, want your Big Promise and have bought from you, the odds are they will buy again… and again.

Reward your customer by promoting them to more expensive programs or products that give them more and more access to you, your services, and more importantly, your culture. People love to belong, and will pay to be part of the ‘in’ crowd. The ‘inner circle’ of the elite can be sold at a premium.

What’s Your Next Action?

If you’ve spent too much time until now organising, designing products and anything else that isn’t sales, it’s not too late – study whoever is focused on sales and marketing and learn – as fast as you can. Be as skilled and excited about sales and marketing as you are about your vision.

If you worry about what you are giving up for your career or business, then it’s time to get out.

Never let anyone talk to you about the sacrifices they make, even if they are real and justifiable… if any entrepreneur believes they are sacrificing anything on the way to the top, they won’t get there.

Having said that, there are sacrifices that can become too much for any person which will eventually lead them to question their direction in life.

Time In The Trenches

I’ve heard experts say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. The time you devote to your business is something to love rather than be treated as a chore. 10,000 hours is obviously a huge commitment but certainly not impossible for a serious entrepreneur. No doubt there will be years of blood, sweat and tears and you will be challenged by partners, family and loved ones, but it will be done without regret and you will reap the rewards.

Family and Friends

Family and friends will be put on hold while career aspirations take priority. You may miss family milestones… 21st birthdays, weddings and even the birth of your own children. This is probably the biggest negative to a entrepreneurial life, but the positives still outweigh the negatives.

Where Have I Been?

You could put the “real world” on hold for up to 15 years in order to develop your business to those stratospheric levels that only a few achieve. You may get left behind in other professional areas and there are few favours handed out in business these days. You may become isolated from other colleagues and competitors and this may cause hard times if you decide to change careers at a later date.

Living In The Cocoon

A successful career can be lived in a total cocoon. Frequently, towards the end of a successful career, an entrepreneur can become more aware of the sacrifices they have made and may decide to retire from the fast life. Their children are grown up, business is a chore and their intensity starts to wane. Their priorities change and the younger crowd are eager to take their place.

If you have a sense of sacrifice in anything you do you are probably in the wrong game

If you have a sense of sacrifice in anything you do you are probably in the wrong game. Enjoy what you do and you have a greater chance of success. Life can be so easy to enjoy if you make the choice.

There are others that make the supreme sacrifice in their chosen professions. Defence Forces, Police, Fire and Rescue… a bad day in these professions may cost you your life. Have you ever heard these people complain about the sacrifices they make?

Positions Vacant: Social Administrator

Companies are already paying attention to how their brand is perceived and what is being said about them online. This means 2010 will see the hiring or formally appointing of staff to handle a company’s brand perception across social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The real power of social media marketing will lie in the crowdsourcing of social media sites to actually offer customers the opportunity to actively provide input into the development of a brand… perhaps even collaborate on the actual production of a product.

PYO – Produce Your Own

2010 consumers will create their own marketing information. The buzz word is ‘prosumer’. Prosumers use their ability to create and distribute content to contribute to online conversations on brands and services. Companies will begin to incorporate and address content created by prosumers into how they develop products and present themselves online.

21st Century Wonder Women

The pay gap between genders will continue to narrow in 2010. Women have been found to not only make more collaborative, team focused leaders, but are more empathetic, have stronger organisational skills, are better given to people skills and are more resilient in a business environment.

Freebies

In order for brands to be seen, heard and TRUSTED, companies will need to offer valuable, relevant content to their prospective customers for free. 2010 will see more companies embracing small-scale gift-economy offerings. These are likely to take the form of creative commons licensed content or open-source software; free products that provide value to consumers and drawing the right kind of attention to a brand and the other (monetary) benefits it offers.

Going Green

More and more businesses will be making the effort to go green, and incorporate that status into how they’re perceived. In light of the growing awareness of climate change, and the apparent ineffectiveness of global meetings like the one in Copenhagen earlier this year, individuals will be more conscious of how they and their communities impact negatively on the environment.  There is great value in being able to declare to this growing carbon-conscious customer group that your business is certified green. People are more likely to react positively to a business that shares the same principles and concerns in this respect.

In The Clouds

Cloud computing will be recognised as something that happens everyday and is commonplace. Accordingly, more small businesses will begin to favour affordable cloud based software as a method of managing their internal processes. VoIP is also likely to rise in popularity amongst small businesses.

Here is an extract from a study on the importance of sleep.

We show, for the first time, that insomnia patients have lower grey matter density in brain regions involved in the evaluation of the pleasantness of stimuli, as well as in regions related to the brain’s ‘resting state’. The more severe the sleeping problems of insomniacs, the less grey matter density they have in the region involved in pleasantness evaluation, which may also be important for the recognition of optimal comfort to fall asleep,” explained Altena. She added, “Our group previously showed that insomniacs have difficulties with recognizing optimal comfort. These findings urge further investigation into the definition of subtypes of insomnia and their causal factors, for which we have now initiated the Netherlands Sleep Registry.

Basically, if you don’t get enough sleep you can lose brain density.

Naturally, I’m not even trying to bash anyone or any one system, because at the end of the day, we have to admit, most business and internet marketing systems WORK.

The question is – how complicated is the answer, and how much of your life do you UNNECESSARILY have to change to get a result?

My NEW answer … hardly at all.

Here’s why.

If your goal is to build wealth, or to develop a specific business… and you’re NOT really looking for a specific monetary outcome, or competing in some type of obscure niche market…

… then MOST of the advice that STEMS from these “internet gurus” is simply OVERKILL for you.

In other words, you just don’t have to modify your ENTIRE life to get the results you want.

So you don’t have to change EVERYTHING to get ONE THING.

Can you feel the relief?

Look, not only are complex solutions to simple problems, um, COMPLEX…

… but they’re also STRESSFUL.

• STRESSFUL because they make you feel incompetenet
• STRESSFUL because they make you feel like you’re lazy
• STRESSFUL because fitting them in your life DISRUPTS the harmonious balance you already have going on… that iron tight system that IS your daily life.

Why would people expect you to make such a DRASTIC change in your LIFE… to get such a small change (by comparision) in your business?

Especially if it brings stress and implied failure into your life.

I’ll be the first to tell you that if you WANT to compete, sure, you may have to do a lifestyle overhaul… and that’s a whole other GOAL altogether.

But, ever since I’ve met other successful business people, not only have I completely dropped all of the unnecessary planning and worry that comes from trying to build a successful business…

… my overall RESULTS have skyrocketed.

I’m healthier, richer, and more worry free about this area of my life than I’ve ever been.

And its a good feeling.

So here’s the deal, quit concerning yourself with all of this “change your life” mumbo jumbo and just make one small change…

… insert a clear and simple system into your business, and you’ll get faster results, with less BS, and more free time, guaranteed.

Self Trust

Do you have it?

Not many do and it’s becoming readily apparent to me that this is the area that most entreprenuers need to get a handle on.

I mean, if you don’t feel like you can trust yourself to make the right decisions, pay the bills, follow through on your goals then you’ll end up nowhere… and depressed in the process.

Seriously, I should know – I remember a time in my life where I wasn’t as confident and “balls to the wall” as I am now.

And it sucks.

But here’s the deal.

Once you start to get this handled, things change… and it only takes some small successes in life for you to begin to flip this particular switch.

This is why you keep things simple.

If you want to understand how to keep things simple check out my previous post. I recommended you to establish a system for developing unbreakable confidence and solid skills.

==> Read how to keep it simple…

Look, I wouldn’t tell you this stuff if I didn’t think it were important, but I know this:

Having the confidence and self trust in yourself to get things done just may be the MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY YOU CAN EVER HAVE in this modern age.

You can achieve greatness if you truly believe you can.  The secret to greatness is to love your life and enjoy living it.  It’s not an exclusive quality that only a few lucky people can achieve.  Greatness exists in all of us and you can achieve greatness by believing in yourself and loving you life and sharing that positive vibe with everyone around you.

Don’t try and make things complex when they don’t need to be.  Greatness is simple and you will achieve greatness by approaching your life in a simple, constructive way.

There’s No Shortcut To Achieve Greatness

You have to understand the difference between talent and skill.  Talent is something that you have naturally and it is truly a blessing… but skill is only developed after hours and hours of practice.  It takes discipline to develop skill.

Talent can shine quickly but fade just as quick.  Skill takes time to develop and it’s through that development that skill can propel someone to achieve greatness in all areas of their lives.

You need a solid work ethic to develop your skill.  Make a commitment to developing you skill, work hard and keep your development simple.  Developing a skill does not have to be complex.  It’s simply just working on your skills…. repetition and time…. then repeat.

You can achieve greatness.  Don’t waste your time and your life.

Start today and achieve greatness.

Have you ever wondered exactly WHY you aren’t experiencing the success you want?

I know have in the past.

You know, I think I’ve figured out the reason that the vast majority of people can’t or WON’T improve themselves.

And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with “being lazy”.

In fact, I think that the “you’re being lazy” statement when it comes to achieving success is THE big copout used by experts and gurus when their overcomplicated and total lifestyle altering systems just don’t work for you…

… and the bad thing…

… is that YOU END UP BELIEVING IT.

Because of this type of pervasiveness out there, you might even BELIEVE that my ideas work… but you don’t want to try it because you are afraid of failure…  and if you fail then there’s no hope.

And you don’t want to be told that the REASON it didn’t work is because you’re a loser.

Look, I’ve been there.

I’ve been in situations where I’ve wanted to try something but didn’t, even though other people just like me were getting great results, just because of the implied hopelessness my situation would become should I not get any results.

I was terrified of failing!

Better to just say “I could if I wanted to” than to KNOW I really couldn’t.

Fear is being conditioned in our industries right across the board.

With every complicated solution to trivially simple problems like business success and financial independence…

… with every failure…

… with every lifestyle altering pitch…

… people are being conditioned to not even TRY anymore.

Better to AVOID the humiliation.

Hey, I’ve been there, and I told that story here.

But enough of that.

Here’s the REAL reason most programs don’t work

They require you to change your ENTIRE life to get a small result.  Look, I’m not gonna lie, it’s tough enough to make a SMALL
change in your life, but to make a huge change that isn’t in line with all of your true goals in life…

• having a great woman
• having a great family
• making more money
• having some freedom to do what you want, when you want

… just ISN’T going to happen if you’re living the “self help lifestyle” most books and courses recommend.

And what I thought of this weekend that really nailed it home with me is this…

ANY CHANGE THAT YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND DOES NOT AGREE WITH, WILL NOT HAPPEN OR LAST

Subconsciously, you WANT all of those things above.

You don’t want to live your life measuring food, stressing about calories, guessing on the best business plans, trying to figure
out if health programs are good or not…

No, overall… you just want a better life.

Hell, we all do, right?

So, most programs are doomed to fail because you know deep down that “their way” is not the way you want to live.

Here is my best crack at the solution to lasting change, and it’s worked for me.

GROSSLY OVERSIMPLIFY

In other words, do first things first and other things not at all.  Does that make sense?

Here’s the truth.

In order to enjoy success in business, you don’t HAVE to be “the best”, or the most knowledgeable…

… you just have to be competent and consistent.

Competent meaning that you know the big picture items that do all of the real work for you.

Consistent meaning that you DO the action steps in those big picture items over and over again as you build your business.

Think of it as giving yourself a CONSERVATIVE CHANCE OF SUCCESS.

When we want to change something, generally we don’t have much confidence in ourselves in that particular area.  Giving yourself the simple and direct path gives you a better chance at results, which leads to more confidence, which leads to more action, which leads to more results.

So, no matter what your overall is… going simple is the best course of action.

Sometimes we can be either our own worst enemy or our own best friend.

Unconsciously you can end up sabotaging your health, happiness and success unintentionally due to unresolved thinking, beliefs and attitudes. Yet even when we know a thought, belief or attitude is not serving us, most of us find it very difficult to change it or let it go. You have to wonder why it can be so hard to let go of an idea.

The reason for this problem is very simple: our emotions color, create, and lock these limitations in place, making the limitations supposedly “real.” It is our emotions that either put us into action or prevent us from acting. The Sedona Method will show you how to master your emotions, thereby mastering how you think and act. That is the short explanation of why this one technique can influence all of your diverse behaviours.

Free DVD and CD – find out how you can tap your natural ability to let go of any unwanted feeling on the spot.