The big ‘P’ word can be the cause of many a job being left undone, which is a major cause of stress in our lives.

I know when I am on a ‘bender’ – that is, a week where I just can’t get myself into gear, the big ‘P’ word takes over. The washing, the dishes, the kid’s rooms (I have four under 13 years) just seem to become major disaster zones and I finish my bender more and more determined not to let it ever get that way.

So how do I, and how do we, tackle this major robber of peace, order and organisation in the home, the workplace, the general community?

We’ve all heard of the Nike advertising, “Just do it”. I believe this is a principle that goes across every aspect of our lives. As my dear old mother would say, “Work never killed you, Hayley. It is just the thought of it.” I think having a Nike attitude is the type of attitude that you have to adopt to beat procrastination.

I know for me, if I let things slide it is just that much more difficult to get things back to good working order. It is much easier to beat myself up for a few seconds a day with the “Just Do It” message and get the job done, than to let things go for a few days and live with the guilt and lack of peace that is a much heavier burden to bear.

My son brought it all to a head for me recently. He is sharing a room with his sister who is 18 months older. They are aged 7 and 9 years. Well, they’d managed to get their room looking like a bomb had hit it. There were clothes on the floor, toys, books, bags and discarded shoes. That room was wall-to-wall clothes carpet. Now I have a policy with my children that their rooms are their responsibility and I try as hard as I can not to rescue them from their own mess as I want to teach them to clean their own space. But what happened was my 7 year old son refused to come home from school oneday and when I asked him why he didn’t want to come home he told me it was because his room was “disgusting”, which he said with the emphasis as I would use. It actually was affecting how he felt about living in the house, as he kept asking to move out and go to live somewhere else!

It was then that I realised just how important order was to his feelings of security and peace. He craved order just as much as I did. So I got in and I cleaned that room and it took me all of 15 minutes. Now I had put up with that room for over a week being disorganised and it has weighed very heavily on my heart every time I went to that end of the house. I could no longer procrastinate because my procrastination was having a significant impact on my son’s peace and happiness.

How many times do we succumb to the big ‘P’ word and then pay the price for days. I know that this is particularly true of doing projects that I don’t really want to do. If I leave the large items that I know are going to be big thinking tasks until last, guaranteed I am going to run out of time and be stressed out. So I’ve learned to move these difficult tasks to the top of the pile and to get them off my pile so they are not playing on my mind. The same with phone calls you don’t want to make, with visits you don’t want to make. Just do it and you will feel so much better.

I have a little jingle I use with my children when they are struggling with motivation. We chant together, “You can do it, you can do it, if you put your mind to it.” It works for them!

Tell me what works for you. Leave a comment.

One of the marvels of modern times is that man is always questing to come up with time saving gadgets and gizmos.  Hootsuite is just one of these tools and I’m so glad they invented a dashboard that gives me control and speed in my posting to popular social media sites!

So here is my independent review of Hootsuite, a recent addition to my fabulous time saving tools that I am keen to share with savvy business owners.

I recently found out about Hootsuite from the guys at Crowd Conversion (thanks guys!) and it rocks.  It’s basically like Tweetdeck and Seismic or other programs that allow you to post to Twitter, however it also allows you post to a host of other social media platforms and that’s it’s value.

Here’s an eagle’s eye view of the platform:

Some of the features that you can see above that I love are:

• Shrinkit – You can resize URL’s by pasting and clicking shrink it.  This also activates an internal analytics program that counts the number of clicks on the link and tracks them by post and location of IP Address. VERY HANDY FOR ANALYSING who is reading, what they like and where they are from geographically.
• Multiple Accounts - In the top right hand size you will a number of thumbnails. These are the thumbnails of accounts that I have online that I am able to click on to post to when I type something into the box area on the left top. ie I have a business Twitter account, a Personal Twitter account, my personal Facebook account, my four pages on Facebook, my LinkedIn account, and my MySpace Account.  I can put one post in and send it to all these accounts at once or to any combination of accounts.   This is AMAZING!
• Scheduled Posting - FABULOUS TIME SAVER.   You can spend one morning and set up tweets to be broadcast over the week.  Each tweet has to be individual entered but once again can be scheduled to appear on multiple accounts.  Particularly good if you have an event you are wanting to promote and get in front of as many people as possible.  You also get a whole column devoted to scheduled posts and if they don’t send for whatever reason it lets you know and you can reschedule them.  It’s also a great column so that you can cut and paste content for repeating the same post at intervals.
• Photo Icon - You can upload photos direct to post on Twitter via the dashboard, particularly time saving if you’re wanting to quickly share a pic, especially with your Facebook friends.
• Search – You have the ability to search via keyword and see who is talking about your subject.
• Profiles Selection – I love it that when you click on the person’s account hyperlink you get a quick profile that tells you information about that person including the option to follow, unfollow etc.  Really helps in deciding whether or not to follow that person.

I created this video above and this image below to explain to a client how the techno stuff works together with regards to putting up a website.

It’s just a very basic chart that explains the relationships between domains, hosting services, and Nameservers (DNS).

If you are new to the internet or website creation, then this is a simple map of what you need to consider. If you’d like me to talk you through the process, then please make good use of my 30 mins free consultation by completing my email form.

You may use the content contained in this post, so long as it you include the following information:

Hayley Solich is Chief Creatician at The Creaticians, where she supports business owners to grow their skills and knowledge so they can grow their businesses.  PR, Branding, Marketing and Business Training are her speciality.  To find out more how Hayley can help you to grow your business, visit TheCreaticians.com now and sign up for your complimentary 30 minute consultation.

One of the biggest shifts that came for me in building my own successful business was learning about – and implementing – what I call my Marketing & Product Funnel.

You know what a funnel looks like, right? It’s wide and the top and tapers down to a narrow opening. When your prospects enter your funnel through your ezine or other (usually) freebie offering, they are in the “getting to know you” level of the funnel.

Once they get to know you, like you and trust you, they likely will move down to the next level, which will include your for-fee products and services, your least expensive ones first, increasing in value and cost as they continue downwards, until they eventually get to hiring you one-on-one or to your other big ticket item. That’s basically how the funnel system of marketing works.

I see a lot of coaches and other solo service professionals offer a freebie at the top of their funnel, and then their one-on-one service packages at the bottom, with nothing in between. I made this mistake myself. It’s important to have offerings at each level of your marketing funnel so people can continue to get to know, like and trust you, as well as get to know, like and trust your products and services.

Implementing the Marketing & Product Funnel system is easy. Get started by attracting prospects into your funnel. Create a freebie offering (an ezine, mini ecourse, ebook, report, guide, checklist, etc.) and put a sign-up form ‘above the fold’ and prominently on your website. And add a link to your freebie offering in your email signature as well.

Once you have prospects in your funnel, find ways to give them more valuable content at increasingly higher prices as they go through the funnel.

For example, the second level of your funnel might offer an ebook for $27 or an ecourse for $39. The third level might have a home study course for $147 or a series of teleseminars for $77 each. The fourth level might offer a boot camp for $347, and the fifth level might offer your one-on-one services for $500.

Get the picture? By the way, when you offer your products and services at different price points, you are lowering the financial and emotional risk for your prospects. You are essentially making it impossible for them not to buy from you!

PS: If you want help with creating your own Marketing & Product Funnel, I cover it in detail, including worksheets for you to use over and over in my bestselling 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System.

© 2007 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com

Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach? and creator of “21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System?, teaches coaches, consultants, and other solo professionals and online entrepreneurs how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.clientabundance.com/

Used with permission.

Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_131758_3.html

The question is, how do you know what to aim for and how do you know when you have achieved it?

It is easy to have lots of ideas, but goals are the process by which you are able to focus those ideas to make them achievable.

Here are the main points why goal setting is a good idea:

1. Knowing where you are heading empowers you. If you can see the finish line, you know exactly how much effort is required for you to cross it and that is empowering.

2. Recording your goals also empowers you. By writing them down and giving them a timeframe to make them measurable, you go through the mental process of figuring out exactly what you are going to need to achieve them. Giving them a date to be achieved by helps to apply the pressure necessary to motivate you to action.

3. Visualising your goal in your mind, helps you to adopt the mental attitude necessary to achieve your goal. Imagine yourself doing whatever your goal is. The clearer you can see it in your mind, the more achievable it will become.

4. Talk positively about your goals and eliminate negative self-talk in relation to them. Every goal will have it’s issues but by being solutions focused, the issues will fade into the glory of achieving your goals.

5. Break your goals right down into achievable bite size chunks. The more detailed you are, the more probable your success will be.

6. Protect your goals from what are called the “dream stealers”. These are people that want to discourage you by pointing out all the obstacles and problems associated with your goal.

7. As you are working on your goals, adopt a “do-it-now” mentality. If something is annoying you, do something about it. Take action.

8. Make lists. If you rely on your brain, you will miss important things out. Buy a notepad you can carry everywhere with you and make lists of what you want to achieve, then tick them off as you go.

9. Make new goals regularly. A goals list is a fluid document. It needs to be visited daily and updated as things come up.

10. No more excuses, take action now! You can only guarantee success if you start the journey.

Achieving your dreams

You now know what goals are and how you can set them and you have been given the keys to setting and making your own goals. But is there another process that is missing that ensures that you achieve your goals?

I would like to suggest that there is. You know what you want to achieve, you even have created a visual board for yourself where you have images of what you want to achieve, with all the description and dates of your goals. But what it is that takes the dream off the page and converts it to reality?

Here are my three factors for making it happen.

1. Belief—Do you believe that it can and will happen to you?

2. Faith—Do you have the faith to step out and test your vision to prove it’s worth?

3. Focus—Are you prepared to make your goal the focus of your life?

If you can firstly, believe in your dream; secondly, have faith in yourself and any spiritual power that you may believe in; and then thirdly, place your focus on attaining that dream, amazing things start to happen! Without these your dream will fail before it has even lived.

So what do you do when you start to feel the pressure on you? Do you cave at the first resistance to your idea or your movement forward?

I was a professional dancer and often there was a pain threshold that you would reach after doing a class for 30 minutes. You are just up to the part where you have to spring into the air over and over and your legs are screaming at you to stop and the idea of of just stopping right there is almost enough for you to revolt. I mean, I became the guru of escape. I had to suddenly go to the toilet when they were up to their 16th spring in the air. I had to do up my ballet slipper that had mysteriously just come undone. There is always some excuse that we can find if we want to but what happens if we push through?

Well, I can tell you from watching The Biggest Loser, Australian Series, tonight that I saw the results of perservering. On the television I watched a guy called Cosie take 90kilos of weight on his shoulders and outstand five other competitors that hardly even got over the 40kilos marker. What kept him standiing on that little elevated platform with almost the same as his body weight sitting on his shoulders? The knowledge that if he perservered he would make it over the line and have another chance at the Biggest Loser title. I think that if there was any doubt in anyone’s mind about him winning it was all sorted out right there. This is his moment to shine and quite deservingly, he was selected by the trainers to go through to the next round.

So what is there in your life that feels like an insurmountable mountain of opposition to your plan or your progress? Are you going to give up just before your breakthrough or are you going to tough it out, to dig deep and pull on every ounce of energy that is left in you to make your dreams come true?

There is a bible story about Jesus Christ when he was praying in the garden the night before he was crucified. It says that he sweat drops of blood. That was the level of his anguish in preparing himself for his death. There is a scripture that the new testament that says, “You have not resisted in your battle against temptation unto the point of shedding blood.” I am asking you, in your desire to achieve your dreams, have you gone to the level of your ability or have you piked out just before your breakthrough? Next time you are tempted to give up, I challenge you to hold in there and tough it out and see what happens.

Feel free to comment. I’d love to hear your feedback on this thought.

How often in life do we get an idea and want to run off, 100 miles an hour, in the direction the idea is taking us but without any real preparation?

Over my 42 years of life I have learned one simple wisdom:  To sit on my ideas and wait to see if they are seeds of greatness. For if I run off after every idea, I will not have the energy or resources when it most counts. It is far better for me to conserve myself, that the impact of what I do may be far greater, than to spread myself too thinly on the ground and not do anything well

I guess it all comes back to my favourite concept at the moment – the word focus.

Focus means to concentrate on a particular thing or an aspect of that thing and to clear your vision.

How many of us need to clear our vision, so that we can have maximum impact in our lives?

If you are chasing your tail, chasing after the prize but not really feeling like you are achieving anything of worth because you are running off in all different directions, my advice is to stop and listen to your heart. If you still your soul, you will hear clearly what you are meant to be doing.

Conserving your resources by focusing your energies in a particular direction, allows you to have more to work with when it really counts. Like a race horse, it is critical to harness the raw energy and to channel it into running the race at the right time, rather than jump starting out of the blocks.

Take the time to lay a solid foundation for whatever you do. This is achieved by researching your idea thoroughly, by not being pressured into jumping before you have all the information and a clear idea of the direction you are wanting to jump and by setting clear goals so you know what you want to achieve. You don’t have to have the whole picture to start something, but it does help if you have a detailed analysis of the part of the picture that you do have, as this will help you to attract and identify the missing pieces when they eventually arrive.

To focus is to love yourself, for when you narrow your options you limit the amount of stress that exists in your world and give yourself the opportunity to master whatever it is you are putting your hand to.

Remember, masters get paid a whole load more than jack-of-all-trades do! It pays to become a master.

Randy Pausche was a lecturer in the US and he shares a message about living that many people who are not dying don’t get to hear. His speech, delivered to his peers and students, was recorded with his children in mind. He wanted to pass on to them everything he had learned from his life time. It’s an incredibly brave message and completely inspired. RIP Randy Pausche, your legacy lives on!

Networking is like dating; you don’t ask your guy or girl to marry you on the first date, so why then do people expect to make a sale or gain a new client the first time they meet? Effective and productive networking is about building relationships and ‘win win’ scenarios. To ensure that your networking is highly effective consider my top ten tips:

1. Don’t look for a sale; look for a list. Consider this – isn’t it more productive to create a ‘win win’ scenario where you can both market to each others lists? That’s a far more productive way to network then trying to get a customer or a client.
2. Be curious – Ask lots of questions. The more you know about the person you are talking to them the more relevant you can be when it’s your time to chat.
3. Be interesting – No one likes a bore. If you are feeling a little crappy, leave it at home. When you are networking be a person that others want to meet and get to know. Talk about things that are relevant and interesting.
4. Don’t become a member of any particular networking group unless there are huge benefits and a variety of people who attend. It is better to attend a variety of events so you get to meet a broader group of people.
5. Volunteering at events helps you to raise your profile to the group. i.e. on the door, product sales etc.
6. Give as much of yourself as you can.  Become known as a powerful resource for others. People will remember to turn to you for suggestions, ideas, etc. This keeps you visible to them.
7. Remember people’s names. This sounds really obvious but it’s amazing how many people don’t do this. Think about how impressed you are when a person remembers your name.
8. Ask people who their ideal referral or customer would be and see if you know anyone who you can refer to them.
9. Follow up – The majority of people do not follow up after an event. Here are my tips for effective follow up.
10. Don’t waste your time having coffees or lunches with people simply because they called and asked you to. Instead, have a phone chat about what might be possible and then decide if it is worth taking it to the next step.

Used with permission from Ludwina Dautovic.