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Productivity & Entrepreneurial Time

There may come a time when you feel that you are not as productive as you feel you should be in your business. You wonder where the time has gone at the end of the day. While the clock says that you have a certain number of minutes per hour, a certain number of hours per day and so on, the key to managing your level of productivity does not have to do with how you manage the passage of time. The key is to spend more time doing what gives you the most results.

Let’s say that you know that for every 10 potential people you contact, you will get one new client. You need two clients per month. You can measure your results by making contact with a potential client every day. One time management technique is to ask yourself “What action can I take today so that I can contact a potential client?” While that question is in the back of your mind, take a moment to engage in the following exercise.

Here are some items that you will need:

1 blank sheet of paper

1 blue marker

1 green marker

1 red marker

On one side of your blank sheet of paper, write the answers to following questions:

What is the big result you provide to your client?

How do you deliver your result?

How much money are you making per year?

On the other side of your paper, make 7 columns – one for each day of the week. Using the colored markers, you are going to fill each column to reveal how much time you spend on each category during a 24-hour period. The colors represent how you spend your time.

White – no work related activity; allows you to disconnect from work and enables you to approach your work with more focus (sleeping, playing, exercising, spending time with family).

Blue – time where you prepare for work activities (travel, paying bills, administrative work, research, doing taxes).

Green – actual results; work time where you provide results to clients (interacting with clients, delivering work to clients). This includes consulting with client.

Red – time where you are not effective, nominal results (disruptions, time spent procrastinating, being distracted).

While the amount of color that you use for each time category will be different from what you see in the example presented below, your paper will look something like this:

Add up how many hours per week you spend on white time, blue time, green time, and red time and write the totals for each on the right hand side of your paper. To calculate the monetary value for each of the colors, divide the amount you make per year by the number of work hours per year (4200 work hours per year).

By looking at how you spend your time, consider what your ideal time mixture can be. You may find that you need to increase or decrease your white time, your blue time and your green time. White time and green time are essential to your ability to create new ideas and support the processes of running your business. You may also think of ways to reduce as much of your red time as possible.

Here are some tips that can help you to be more productive:

Stick to a strategy of having regular work hours.

Allow for productivity cycles – up time as wel as down time.

Organize your time in order to increase your profits.

Don't try to eliminate your white time. It enables you to come to work with renewed energy and focus.

Turn red time into white time and you will be able to come to your green and blue time fully present and fully recharged.

By looking at how you utilize your time, you may decide that you would like to increase your profit without increasing time. You can accomplish this by

Charging more for your products or services,

Freeing up your time to allow you to do more profitable things,

Serving more people in a group setting rather than one-to-one, or

Becoming more efficient at doing whatever you need to do to get clients (better, faster, provide more results).

Conversely, you may find that your goal is to reduce the amount of time your spend working while maintaining your current income. You can accomplish this in the following ways:

Outsource part of your work,

Spend time to create a strategy with your client,

Specialize in a fast-growing industry, or

Increase your value within one industry,

The challenge with being self-employed is that it is possible to get pulled in different directions while dealing with interruptions in your day. Look at where you spend your daily energy and you will see just where your time is going and remember to ask yourself what action you will need to take on a daily basis to achieve your goals.

Jeff Moore is a business strategist, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor. He helps business owners who are stuck transform themselves and their companies. Contact Jeff to learn about Puzzle Thinking and get Moore Impact for your business today.

Is Your Business Life a Grand Adventure?

(Image courtesy gapingvoid.com)

Think about (or, if you're lucky enough, watch) a child learning to walk. Does she fall? Sure. She falls over and over and over. Does she treat her falls as failures? She does not. They are just things that happen. If you watch closely, you'll understand a couple of things:

She's having an adventure.

She knows she's making progress.

She's going to walk. It's inevitable. A certainty that hasn't happened yet, but that WILL.

When I first saw Hugh MacLeod's "Career Hierarchy" illustration, I thought about my career. Working for a paycheck at IBM, starting a business to do software projects, growing that business and making all sorts of connections. There's been a lot of fun, a lot of work, and some significant ups and downs.

But as I think more, I realize that the adventure is always there, and my choice is to be like the learning child.

I choose what I am creating.

I observe myself without judgement.

I recognize when I'm "on" or "off" (and return to "on" consciously).

I trust the future.

I celebrate all progress (even when it's slower than I want).

I practice gratitude.

I'd truly love to hear what this illustration or these thoughts inspire in you. Please share on Facebook or Twitter.

Are you currently facing business challenges? The first step to addressing your issue is to create a crystal clear description of your specific situation. Then you'll be able to see your options and involve others in solving the problem. My Discovery Guide will help you create your crystal clear description. Download your free copy now.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

Strategy or Spark: Which Does Your Business Need?

One of the most important business strategy questions to ask yourself is this: Am I in the right business? If you are producing the revenue you want, your strategy is working. You might not be happy, you might not be making a profit, you might be stressed, but if you are hitting your revenue numbers, then your issue isn't strategy. Otherwise, study both of these books written by Jim Collins: Good to Great and Great by Choice. As you read these books, you'll be able to get some ideas that will provide you with clarity about what it takes to move your business forward.

Understanding the importance of what makes a company great is often overlooked. The following example may be helpful: In 2008, I was doing some work at Lehman Brothers. They were looking to improve sales and services, so I introduced them to Jim Collins' Hedgehog concept.

The concept is deceptively simple. All you have to do is imagine three overlapping circles. In each circle, you will fill in specific information. Circle 1: What am I passionate about? Circle 2: What am I (or could I become) best in the world at? Circle 3: What can I make money at?

NOTE: Adapted from Jim Collins’ Hedgehog concept

The essence of business strategy is to discover what, for you, is simultaneously in all three circles. As you can imagine, filling in the three circles will help to reveal your strategy. So, I'm doing this exercise at Lehman Brothers and we're making progress. Lots of Circle 1 ideas. Lots of Circle 3 ideas. Nothing for Circle 2. I pressed. I asked in different ways. I probed. Nothing. They didn't see themselves as best at anything! You know the ending. Four months later they were bankrupt. Not really cause and effect here, but eerie. Take a few moments to write down what your answers are for each circle. With the exception of the Lehman Brothers group, every other time I've taken businesses through this process they got a spark of clarity and were able to move forward. This is my hope for you.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

Identify Your Ideal Clients in 10 Easy Steps

One of the benefits of using the basics of Puzzle Thinking is that you can allow yourself to be removed from the problem that you are trying to solve. As part of the Puzzle Thinking Strategy, you will find that you are not as emotionally involved and are not attached to a particular viewpoint.

Today, the puzzle that needs solving is how to identify your ideal clients. Using what you know about your clients can help to improve the results you will have as you interact with your ideal clients. Let’s get started so that you can work confidently from a place of finding your solution.

Step 1 - Your Best Clients

Call to mind your three best clients. These would be the ones that you like to work with the most and feel energized when you work with them.

Step 2 - Preferred Characteristics

Describe the characteristics that each of these people possess that allow you to perceive them as your ideal clients. Perhaps you value communication and appreciate when you have open communication and the free flowing exchange of ideas with your clients. List the words that describe the characteristics that you truly enjoy.

Step 3 - Your Worst Clients

Think of your three worst clients. These would be clients with whom you have uncovered challenges that lead you to reconsider whether to work with their target market or their specific personality traits. Write their names down.

Step 4 - Characteristics of Worst Clients

Repeat what you did in Step 2, except this time you are focusing on the characteristics of your less-than-ideal, or worst, clients. Allow yourself to bring to mind those dissatisfying characteristics. Some words that may surface for you can be as follows: demanding, critical, closed-minded, inconsistent, disorganized.

Step 5 - Assess Attributes

Take a few moments to look at the attributes from both lists and read each word. Pay attention to how you react as you read each word.

Step 6 - Positive Conversion

Look at everything you wrote on the list of the characteristics of the less-than-ideal clients and next to each word and make a positive conversion by writing down its opposite. For example, if you wrote “secretive”, you may choose “open” or “forthcoming.” Choose whatever words mean the most to you.

Step 7 - Group Together

You now have a list of appealing attributes. Look them over and sort them by identifying words that belong together. Look to see how some words that reflect the same concept can be rearranged and grouped together. If you find that you have different versions of the same idea, decide what one word or phrase you want to represent that idea. For example: Open communication, exchange of ideas, and collaborative may be just called “direct communication.” The combinations need to be whatever you decide they should be.

Step 8 - Prioritize

Identify your top 3 or 4 favorite attributes. Take a moment to consider which is the most important to you and list them in order of importance.

Step 9 - Process

For each of your top 3 or 4 attributes, ask yourself these questions and write down your answers:

How can I listen for whether someone is my ideal client when I first meet them?

How can I find out if this potential client with whom I might choose to work with has my top 3 or 4 favorite attributes?

How can I recognize these attributes in someone?

You can get to know a little about someone through their social media channels. You may find out what they are like, how they communicate and other traits that can be meaningful to you.

Step 10 - Create Statement

Take a look at what you have written down and summarize it into 1 or 2 sentences. Below is an example. Write one in your own words:

“I work best with people who are ___, ___, ____. I have a pretty good sense of how I can identify these people. If I have a rapport with them, I will learn about them quite easily.”

You now have a method to use where you can identify people who are highly likely to be your ideal clients. When you interact with people who have these qualities, you will find that you do your best work and that the business relationship has a better chance of being a long-term one.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

Key Performance Indicators

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is something that you measure to predict whether or not you are on track to produce a specific result. For example, if you have a monthly sales target for your company, that's a result. Depending on your business a KPI related to monthly sales might be:

number of 30-minute calls with new prospects

dollar value of outstanding bids

number of sales conversations

website visitors who browse for 10 minutes or more

KPIs are powerful tools for growing your business, but they take work to develop. Here's how you do it.

Establish the results you want to create. For example, sales of $1,000,000 per month. You can have multiple results, but start with one. Make it specific, realistic (but inspiring).

Publish your goal and your results each month (or day or week), posting more often is better.

Develop a hypothesis.If the company does <x quantity> or <y activities> then we will have <z sales>. For example, If the company has $10,000,000 in bids outstanding each month, then we will have $1,000,000 in sales each month.

Track the numbers in your hypothesis and there results you achieve.

Evaluate

Were we able to maintain the level of bids we aimed for?

Did we get the level of sales we wanted?

What is the relationship between bids and sales? -- do more bids lead to more sales?

6. Refine.

If your hypothetical KPI does predict your results, keep it up! You've found a great KPI that you can use to drive business growth. If not, repeat from step 3 with a new hypothesis.

Once you've mastered your first KPI, it is time to expand to cover your other business goals.

Are you currently facing business challenges? This first step to addressing your issue is to create a crystal clear description of your specific situation. Then you’ll be able to see your options and involve others in solving the problem. My Discovery Guide will help you create your crystal clear description. Download your free copy now.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

What if Alexander the Great, Oprah, Steve Jobs, Yoda and 4 other unique thinkers got together to focus on solving your hardest problem?

Whenever you are faced with any difficult problem, there are three things that always help:

Write It.

Involve others, and

Lower the stakes -- take a different perspective to avoid getting stuck looking at things in just one way.

There are many ways to involve others or two lower the stakes. Today I'll discuss a specific technique: Role-storming. Just as it sounds, Role-storming is a combination of Role-playing and Brain-storming. Rolestorming was developed by Rick Griggs in the 1980’s and was later described in a book published in 2004 by Dr. Arthur VanGundy called "101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem-Solving." Here's how it works:

1 - See

Present the problem. Write it down for all to see. Draw a picture that represents the problem. Take questions until your are sure that everyone understands the problem (but ask that no one make suggestions or work on solving it -- YET.)

2 - Plan

When everyone understands the problem, ask them to write their ideas privately. ALL ideas are wanted. Even bad ones. ESPECIALLY bad ones. Call on individuals to share their top written ideas and WRITE what they say publicly.

3 - Let the fun begin

Ask everyone to assume the role of an exceptional thinker. They can choose their own (but assign names you've prepared in advance to anyone who gets stuck).

Ask everyone to inhabit their character by answering these questions in (private) writing:

How do I (in character) see the world?

What is my attitude?

How do I solve problems?

What are my strengths and weaknesses?

When everyone is ready, ask them to privately write their ideas while thinking in character.

Call on characters by name ("Alexander the Great, please share your top idea...") and WRITE what they say publicly.

For the curious, the last time I did this, we channeled the following:

Alexander the Great,

Oprah Winfrey,

Steve Jobs,

Yoda,

Napoleon Hill,

God,

Alan Weiss, and

Bethany Frankel.

There were a variety of viewpoints and many powerful ideas that were brought forth. Please contact me and share your experiences with Role-storming.

Get specific help growing your business, perspective from people in different industries, and expert insight. Join the next free Build Your Business Brain Puzzle Thinking teleconference.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

7 Cycles of Business Growth

From the early inception of your business to its very successful phase, every business goes through various phases in its growth cycle.

The Seed Stage

The seed stage of your business life cycle is when your business is just a thought or an idea. This is the very conception or birth of a new business. This is the time to do market research, create your business plan, and determine where to find the financial resources you will need.

The Start-Up Stage

At this stage, the business is a legally entitity. You have your first customers who are buying your products and/or signing up for your services. At this point, you will need to get support through coaching and personal development in order to keep your business mving forward. Updating your business plan will include a marketing plan that will help you direct where you will focus your revenue generating efforts.

The Growth Stage

At this stage, your business revenues are growing and your customer base is expanding. This will bring many opportunities as well as issues you had not anticipated. With challenges like finding a unique way to position yourself in the market, you will need to find out what activities will give you the best return on investment.

The Established Stage

At this point, you have a thriving company that has matured and has established itself in the market/ You have a system for sales, marketing customer service, etc. Things can be rather routine. The challenge is to avoid falling into keeping things status quo.

The Expansion Stage

When your business is at the expansion stage, you are moving into new markets to gain a larger market share and new distribution and revenue channels. Improvements in efficiency need to be implemented to ensure that the business is making money rather than leaking money from the cost of its expansion efforts.

The Mature Stage

At the mature stage you tend to have stable profits. However, newer and companies and other mature companies can present with some stiff competition. Keeping the focus on top quality products and unparalleled customer service will help you to keep a loyal customer base that is willing to be evangelists for your company.

The Exit Stage

This is where you can either be acquired by another company or simply shut the company down. If you have a happy set of customers, you will most likely be able to cash out and enjoy the fruits of your dedicated efforts. The best way to enhage in a successful exit strategy is to get outside help and providing coaching to buyer.

For more information, read The Business Lifecycle: An Overview.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

3 Top Reasons to Have Written Business Procedures

You are a smart person. You know how to prepare for a sales call, how to invoice your clients, how to prioritize your time. You've developed a set of skills that you apply routinely to accomplish the myriad tasks required to keep your business running.

Is it better to follow a written procedure or to function from memory? Here are three top reasons to have written procedures.

Consistency

It's safer and easier to accomplish a task with a checklist (a very simple procedure) than without one. By following the same procedure every time, you will be able to maintain consistent quality and prevent errors. That's why airline pilots and brain surgeons use them. You'll also share the advantage that pilots and surgeons have--freeing your brain for higher level work.

Scalability

Imagine completely running out of capacity. You cannot take on another project or client, but you want to grow. It will be time to delegate some of your work. Delegation is far easier, less distracting, and more likely to succeed starting from a set of already written and battle-tested procedures. Without procedures, assigning tasks to new helpers is frustrating and often fails.

Improvement

Once your procedures are written, you can review and improve them without having to use your brain capacity to recall every single step. The extra perspective you gain from just looking over the written instructions allows you to see new possibilities.

Try this:

Identify an important task that doesn't have a written procedure.

Make a simple checklist from the required steps.

Use the checklist over the span of one week -- actually checking the steps as you perform them.

Next week, ask yourself: "How can I improve this process?"

If you find you have difficulty sitting still long enough to write down your common business practices, hire an assistant to follow you around and have them write down everything you do. Put it aside for a week or two and meet with your assistant to go over the list. You may find that there are activities that you are engaging in that can be delegated to someone else once the process for it is written down. Continue to hone the information until you are ready to give it to someone else to follow. Ask for feedback to make sure that what you wrote is understood by someone who is following your instructions.

The perspective you gain by abstracting your work into procedures will help you to develop a deeper understanding of your business and of its possibilities.

Are you currently facing business challenges? The first step to addressing your issue is to create a crystal clear description of your specific situation. Then you’ll be able to see your options and involve others in solving the problem. My Discovery Guide will help you create your crystal clear description. Download your free copy now.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

#business procedures #written procedures #consistent quality #scalability #improvement

Snowballing Your Business Strategy

Thinking It Through

Think of the experience of something snowballing. What images come to mind? I think of myself standing at the mountaintop on a clear, crisp day. The sun is bright. I'm surrounded by snow that's between powdery and damp. There's a pathway that seems designed for snowball rolling. I carefully form the core of my snowball. I make in perfectly round and solid. I dip it in the snow and roll it around. Some of the surrounding snow sticks, enlarging my snowball.

Soon, I push the ball--now about one foot across--into the snowball path and start it rolling. The path is sloped downward, gently at first, and the ball begins to roll on its own. It gathers speed and mass as it continues down the path. I watch calmly until it drops below my view, now almost unimaginably large.

Common Business Strategy

What if that snowball represents your business, your aims, and your aspirations? What would it be like to have the environment and gravity working in concert with your actions to magnify your impact?

I've found that many businesses are working against gravity. Very often, they find that they are continually struggling to push uphill in an attempt to reach their goals. They grapple with issues related to business strategy such as:

Strategic Planning,

Sales Strategy,

Client Experience,

And other challenges.

Businesses often struggle to get attention, get clients, or assemble and inspire the right team. The causes for the uphill battles can be varied. It often results from a lack of communication or a breakdown in communication. Some businesses strive to meet nearly impossible deadlines without looking at how their systems can be improved.

Your Business Strategy

Not all businesses are like that. Some are more about keeping up with the demand; more like maintaining the snowball as it rolls mostly on its own. Less pushing. More tending.

As you think about your business and the fresh start implied by another year's beginning, I invite you to the mountaintop and ask you to think and write about your own business as a snowball. What is the snow for you? For most, it's clients who bring more clients. What is your gravity? Is it the experience your clients have that's so compelling they can't help but share it? Maybe it's something else for you.

What needs to change so gravity is working for you instead of against you?

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

Get It Out of Your Head to Free Up Your Mind

Have you ever found yourself recreating the wheel or retracing your steps in your business and even in your personal life? Perhaps you wrote something brilliant just to save it and forget about it for who knows how long. By developing a process for generating what you write, organizing your writing, and easily retrieving what you have written, you will save yourself a lot of time and headache.

I'm a fan of SimpleNote, which I use as a notepad in the cloud. It's easy to take text notes on my computer, iPhone, or iPad and not worry about synching ever. I use SimpleNote for to dos, meeting notes, research, and activity reporting.

If you are a Mac user, I also recommend Notational Velocity. Notational Velocity is a note-taking and searching application that stores notes in SimpleNote. It’s a nice user interface on a Mac and, like SimpleNote itself, doesn't require any fiddling with synchronization. Your notes are simply accessible and editable via SimpleNote in your browser or IOS app.

Writing about what's in your head and reviewing or sharing what you've written is one of the key components of Puzzle Thinking. Every challenge is an opportunity to exercise your Puzzle Thinking so that you can solve them is a systematic way. As you develop your Puzzle Thinking prowess, you will see that there is no challenge that cannot be surmounted and no puzzle will remain unsolved.

Want to know more about the key components of Puzzle Thinking? I invite you to join the next free Build Your Business Brain Puzzle Thinking teleconference.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

Business Problem Solving: Understand The Basics of Puzzle Thinking

Puzzle Thinking is a powerful mode of thinking that you do where you approach a situation with some amount of certainty that you will get to the answer or solution as long as you follow the processes and rules. While it is generally done in a low stress environment, it is not a casual process. It is indeed an effective mode of thinking.

In order to benefit from Puzzle Thinking, you need three basic skills: knowledge, reasoning, and flexibility. The definitions listed below will help to clarify the meaning of each skill.

Knowledge – basic required knowledge for the particular puzzle.

Reasoning – be able to make deductions.

Flexibility – breaking the one idea to find another solution.

When applying Puzzle Thinking, you can solve challenges and problems in a low stakes environment. This is important because when circumstances become high stakes for anyone, our brains freeze and we become locked into thinking in one way. The best way to release your inner Puzzle Thinker is to be relaxed, involve others and use pen and paper to write things down. Once you have set the right mood or envirnment, you will be able to proceed with the four-step methodology which include the following:

See – Stop and frame the problem, understand and define the problem without trying to solve it

Plan - generating possible solutions without judgment; purposely generate bad or inappropriate ideas as well as good ones.

Do - looking at the solutions and prioritizing them, delving into them, and learning about them

Check - compare what you have learned to what you are trying to accomplish.

Even though this is about creating serious results, I encourage you to experiment and have a playful attitude. The key is to allow yourself to be light-hearted during the Puzzle Thinking process. The more light-hearted you can be, the more you will allow yourself to be flexible in viewing greater possible solutions.

Want an experience like this one? I invite you to join the next free Build Your Business Brain Puzzle Thinking teleconference.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

See Inside Your Clients' Minds

You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1960

Do you really know your clients? Probably not, but you could!

To understand your clients and customers, I recommend that you take a moment to look inside their minds and see things from their perspective. Just follow the few steps below and you will come away with a clearer persective about the needs of your prospect.

Pretend for the next few minutes that your business doesn't exist and that you are not yourself, but rather someone looking for a solution to a problem. The problem that you have is one that your real business helps clients with, but for now you ARE that client or prospect. Take some time to adjust your outlook and to inhabit that prospect’s viewpoint. Then write your answers to the following questions. Please, really write your answers, don't just think about them:

What is your background (name, age, feelings, talents, etc.)?

What problem do you want to solve?

What have you already tried?

How soon do you need to solve this problem?

What is your budget?

Who can help you with this problem? [This may be competitors to your real business]

How confident are you that you've found the right source of help?

What obstacle is in the way of deciding to pay someone for help solving your problem?

While still thinking like your prospect, go to your computer and take a look at your website.

Forgetting everything you know as yourself, does it attract you as a prospect?

Does it state the problem and promise a solution in clear, simple language?

Does it provide empathy and guidance for the obstacles you have as a prospect?

What is missing, or is not right, from your prospect viewpoint?

Now become yourself again. Is there anything you need to change?

Now that you have spent a moment looking at things from the point of view of your clients and customers, you are better prepared to meet them where they are and to make real connections. Most others--including your competition--continue to think, act, and communicate from their own viewpoints and usually aren't even heard, let alone making great connections. Congratulations to you.

Want an experience like this one? I invite you to join the next free Build Your Business Brain Puzzle Thinking teleconference.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

How Gratitude Builds Success

One on the fundamental ideas of Puzzle Thinking is being able to develop the capacity to shift perspectives -- to see a situation in many different ways. In addition, we can look at people around us and appreciate what they bring into our life. For example, let's focus on the people who help you to succeed:

Mentors and Examples - for inspiring and teaching;

Employees - for making growth and life balance possible;

Vendors - for supplying the goods and services you need to serve your clients;

Clients - for validating the business and providing needed revenue;

Friends - for providing support and perspective;

Colleagues - for the network which provide opportunities for learning and increased success; and even

Competitors - because they inspire improvements, trigger market insights, or ignite competitiveness.

Drive. Empathy. Understanding. Getting buy-in from others. Getting help, in many forms, from other people. These skills, and so much more, are the factors that help us to succeed. Each person in our life plays an important role in our success. Seeing their value and having gratitude about it helps us to have a fuller and deeper interaction with each person.

Overcoming Nature

This key skill--flexible thinking--is naturally difficult to achieve. That's because the brain is all about locking in to one interpretation and saving energy thereafter. The same applies to other success factors as well. Having gratitude for our attributes such as our drive, our insight, or understanding helps us to develop flexible thinking and increase our success. There are many ways to become more of a flexible thinker. One of them is active gratitude.

The Gratitude Success Formula

Spend 10 minutes daily writing and drawing to express your gratitude for someone or something that helps you succeed. The drawing and writing free mental space and help you gain perspective.

By thinking about those who help us and writing the specific ways we appreciate them, we are building our mental flexibility. Deep gratitude helps us gain perspective. It also helps us see more opportunity and attract even more support.

Here is a simple reminder of this rule: What you appreciate appreciates. Translation: What you express gratitude for increases in value. Spend time daily expressing gratitude and you will find that you are continually building upon your success.

Want an experience like this one? I invite you to join the next free Build Your Business Brain Puzzle Thinking teleconference.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

#gratitude #success #puzzle thinking

Increase Sales with These 4 Coaching Steps

If your salespeople aren't producing the level of sales you expect, personalized coaching can help. Follow these four steps to get more from your sales people.

Step 1. The Person

Find out what drives the salesperson. What are her passions? What special talents does she have? What fulfills her? Keep detailed notes and confirm what you heard and ask for feedback or correction.

Step 2. The Goal

Find out how selling your product or service supports your salesperson’s wants and needs. What are her personal goals? How do they relate to selling your product or service? Coach the salesperson on setting a personal sales goal. The goal must be attainable and it must be sufficient to justify your investment in her. Within those bounds, it’s essential that your salesperson sets and owns her own goal.

Step 3. The Activities

Find out what specific, repeatable activities produce sales. The specific activities vary depending on your product or service, but typically include activities like:

Have meaningful contacts with enough prospects every day. Enough may be 20, or more or less--depending on your particular business.

Identify and gain agreement on a next step within each call.

Write notes on the call and the next step, then email your notes to the prospect.

Find common interests, document them, and communicate regularly about them.

Immediately mail a hand-written note after an in-person meeting.

Work on being more likeable (friendly, relevant, empathetic, and real).

Systematically make and keep promises to build trust. Keep score of this every day.

Step 4. The Execution

Support your salesperson in actually doing and tracking the activities identified in Step 3. Ask her to track and report on her activities. Meet one-on-one and support her thought process without leading her or offering advice. If she isn’t doing enough, stay on this step. If she is, but the results aren’t enough, return to Step 3 and change the activities. Whether your effort is to gain more market share or to strengthen your position within a market, getting to know how your sales people function at their best will help you to know how to direct them to do their best.

Following the four steps outlined above will help you to get more from your sales team by providing them with helpful coaching. And when they do their best, they are positioned to meet or even exceed their goals. Meeting sales goal allows you and your company to serve more people which is the key to growth and success.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

#personalized coaching #increase sales

Accelerated Learning by Example

I'm a huge fan of “The Four Hour Body” by Tim Ferriss. I've been following Tim's Slow Carb Diet for almost two years now, and it suits me well.

I've just finished reading a pre-publication excerpt from Tim’s new book "The Four Hour Chef." I'm excited by what I read and I'm looking forward to getting the book on November 20. No doubt, the subject matter, becoming a great cook in a short amount of time, is very interesting. However, what I find to be most amazing is HOW Tim manages to DO it. Through this book, he manages to elevate your comfort level and provides you with a sense of ease which allows your cooking skill to go from where it is now (even if it’s non-existent) to mastery. Cool, but only the beginning.

How this book works is through the use of what is known as "accelerated learning." That's what excites me. There's a whole lot that I'd like to learn and this book feels like a gateway to new worlds. I can hardly wait.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

#The Four Hour Body #efficiency #Accelerated Learning #Tim Ferris

Getting Things Done

Every big vision is accomplished by completing the little details. One of the challenges of being in a position where you have to manage yourself, such as being in upper level management or self employed, is that you can find yourself being sidetracked quite easily.

There are many online resources to help keep you focused and get things done. NowDoThis is a free web application that helps you with maintaining your focus. It takes your To Do list and shows it to you one item at a time. I've recommended it to several of my clients and they have had great results.

To maximize your experience of using NowDoThis, here are some tips that will help you to make the most of any tools.

Write down your priorities.

Choose one of your priorities and write the intended outcome.

Immediately write down all the steps required to get your intended outcome.

Open NowDoThis.

Enter you To Do list.

Keep NowDoThis running in the background.

Take immediate action on each step.

Only edit the list to add steps. Don't waste time trying to create a perfect list.

Reward yourself for getting the job done.

Make sure you do any follow up work needed.

Following these tips will help you to get things done. You do not need to have a complicated system to get the best results. Use a tool that is easy to understand and that you can use in a disciplined and consistent manner. After all, if you have a tool and don’t use it, don’t blame the tool.

If you have a specific question or need an outside viewpoint, contact Jeff for one-on-one help today.

#efficiency #getting things done #NowDoThis #priorities #organization

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