Big life changes can make you more aware of the power of ideas

I’ve had several big life changes recently. My Dad died in March. My Grandmother died in April. In May, I learned, through a stroke of good luck (a new client), that I am gluten-sensitive, and changed my diet.

But the funny thing about the world… the big wheel just keeps on turnin’. I honestly don’t know what happened to March, April, May, and June… and here we are the middle of July!! Summer’s half over. It’s taken me the better part of 2Q to get my head screwed back on straight.

On top of that, I’m a Small Business Consultant who has been bootstrapping my consulting business for the last 4 years, and using all the money that comes in to run our household. When things like this happen it can turn your world upside down…

… in a good way.

I’ve lost about 20lbs without even trying. And I am now out of the rut that I was in. A mental fog has lifted, and it’s opened my eyes to a whole new world–it’s literally as though I’ve woken up. Before I was just going through the motions. Now I’m in full control, and mindfully moving forward in a very positive direction.

And I’d like to share with you how I did it.

The Law of Attraction and The Power of Ideas

In a previous post that I wrote with one of my clients, I affirmed the importance of maintaining a positive attitude–no matter what. I suggested a couple of books: ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People‘ and ‘Think and Grow Rich‘. These are without a doubt the two singlemost important books in the self-help industry.

If you Google “Law of Attraction” you’ll see just how influential “Think and Grow Rich” is.

“Like attracts like”

The Law of Attraction is a metaphysical belief that “like energy attracts like results”, i.e., that positive thinking brings about positive results and negative thinking brings about negative results. In “Think and Grow Rich“, Napoleon Hill says that thoughts are objects, and ideas are the wellspring of abundance. Change your thoughts, change your life.

Channeling your desire, affirming your belief, visualizing your success, you can re-program your mind to think successful thoughts. The effect of this “rewiring” is that you can catch yourself when you’re being negative. As with the concept of mindfulness in Buddhism you can see your thoughts are objects, and train yourself to dismiss your negative thoughts.

The Power of Ideas (Do this excercise now):

Meditation and Vizualization: The key to stilling the left brain and creating greater inner awareness 

Many mystics have taught their students to develop greater inner and psychic awareness through meditation. This works because it is a great way to quiet the constant stream of thoughts that wander through our heads.

A great way to do this is:

1. Stop what you’re doing (Quiet your mind and take note of your breathing or body sensations)
2. Take 3 really deep breaths (Visualize breathing in health and vitality–and breathing out toxins and things holding you back)
3. Be grateful for where you are right now (Be thankful for what you have–even your current problems–because abundance springs from gratitude. Say to yourself: “I was born for a specific purpose, and I am grateful for the opportunity to use my talents to serve others.” )
4. Affirm your belief that you will have abundance (say to yourself ”I have more than enough money to pay all my bills, pay my taxes, fund my retirement, and expand my charitable giving.”)
5. Visualize yourself in possession of lots of money (What does it feel like? What would you do with it? Anything different?)

Note: I don’t know if he followed the first 4 steps, but when I was in business school, my International Finance and Trade Professor Arkadi Kuhlmann used to ask us to visualize all the money sloshing around in the financial markets and he called it: “Kuhlmann’s Bathtub”, a big bathtub of money. He is now the Chairman of ING Direct, which has over $92 billion in assets, and is the 15th largest bank in America.

If you do this, you’ll begin to see patterns of how your left brain chatter is overwhelming all of your creative impulses, and by quieting your left brain you’re able to unleash your creativity with the power of ideas.

Try this exercise now again now for a 2nd time, and listen to your inner voice.

What is your inner voice telling you to do? Without a doubt, “that” is what you should be doing. If you listen to your creative impulses and your intuition, it will guide you in a positive direction.

“Give and it will be given to you”

Do you feel like you can’t accomplish something because you’re not smart enough? Not courageous enough? Just follow the Yellow Brick Road. The Cowardly Lion did and he discovered he already had everything he needed to succeed. He just needed to do it!

Actions produce results. Left brain chatter stymies action, so no results. It’s simple.

Big Question: What would you do if money wasn’t an object? Would you do anything differently? If you had extra resources to accomplish your goals, what would you do? Chances are it’s not resources that are holding you back. It’s simply the idea that you don’t have enough resources that’s actually holding you back. You are holding yourself back. There are many ways to the top of the mountain.

As Eckhart Tolle affirms in “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose“:

“Whatever you think the world is withholding from you–you in fact are withholding from the world. [...] Give, and it will be given to you.”

So what is it that’s holding you back?

GetSimple CMS one of the latest in a lineup of simple web content management systems that underscore the trend toward leaner, simpler websites.

Yellow pages aren’t working like they used to. Traditional advertising isn’t working like it used to. What’s a small business owner supposed to do?

As IT & marketing budgets continue to get squeezed, small businesses are looking for easier and cheaper ways to (1) create a website (2) manage their content, and (3) use Social Networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to build their own channel with their customers and prospects.

GetSimple is a great CMS for Small Business

GetSimple has everything a small business owners needs, and nothing a CMS doesn’t.

While it’s unlikely that a large multinational is going to use a simple CMS system like GetSimple, it’s perfect for a small business owner who needs an online presence. Most small business owners need a small 1 to 10 page brochure site that will help them achieve search engine visibilty… they need a simple web presence — that’s it.

Here are some of the features:

• XML Based ~ Getsimple doesn’t use mySQL to store information, but instead depend the simplicity of XML (extensible markup language). By utilizing XML, it removes a layer that causes slowness and complexity.
• You can “Undo” Almost Everything ~ This feature was based off an eye-opening AListApart article explaining how warning messages never work as planned. Because of this, they’ve included “undo” into almost every action you can take on the site.
• Easy to Learn ~ The top priority when designing a user-interface for a small business is to make the best in it’s class. GetSimple tried and tested all the competing management systems, took the best practices out of each one – then refined it.
• Simple Theme Customization ~ It’s very easy to create a custom theme and make it your own look. The base software is extensible, meaning you can add just the functionality you want: for example a photo gallery, or a new manager (or blog), or a google map.
• It’s Perfect for Small Business ~ For most small businesses, the only need is to be able to easily update their site from time to time — to create seasonal offers, ur update a list of services. GetSimple alllows them o do it efficiently and effectively.

If you have any questions about CMS for Small Business, or you’re looking for a resource to help you build a website or increase your online visibility, please contact me today.

Based on a conversation with John Milgram and Ralph Dise

“It can be lonely at the top,” but it doesn’t need to be, and it shouldn’t be.

Many people would be surprised at the number of successful corporate executives who feel like fakes—these are highly successful people who attribute their success to luck, timing, or coasting by with a great personality. This includes CEOs of big, successful companies.

Many of these CEOs feel lonely and isolated – and that’s precisely the problem. As a Leader you should not let yourself get isolated in the first place.

It is natural to feel isolated, and that’s precisely why encouraging others is important

It’s understandable though, how Leaders can become lonely and isolated. In our culture, starting from a young age, many children are told “don’t do this”, “don’t do that”. We spend the first couple of years of our children’s lives teaching them how to walk, and then the next sixteen years telling them to sit down and shut up. When and if you’re called upon, it’s a sign of weakness if you say you don’t know something.

But being a Leader doesn’t mean you have to be Superman. Leaders are human, made of flesh and blood, and put their shoes on one foot at a time—like everyone else. Many of the best Leaders are very hands off – they’ve learned to delegate everything to their colleagues and subordinates.

As Leaders, if we’re going to be open to new opportunities, one of the most important things we can do is to work to better understand our own personal strengths and weaknesses, and the strengths and weaknesses of our organizations, and then enlist others—from the HR department to the people who are working in the field—to fight the good fight against our ingrained culture, and tell everyone who works with us: “You are stronger than you think you are.”

“It’s up to you to build a positive culture.”

As a Leader you must maintain a positive attitude, no matter what. But attitude and affirmations are not enough. You need to show you mean it, because actions speak louder than words. Follow through to better understand your people’s strengths—and then find ways to put them to good use. With use, your strengths—like your muscles—will naturally get stronger and more resilient.

Kunstler’s Law and “The Geography of Nowhere”

In “The Geography of Nowhere” (Simon and Schuster, 1994), James Howard Kunstler offers a scathing critique of America’s urban and suburban landscapes, with our endless highways, bedroom communities, and strip malls.

It’s really a critique of our culture. Unfortunately when you compare many parts of the United States to other developed countries, which have put a great emphasis on developing livable communities, it rings true. It should make us think about what constitutes a good human habitat, a good community—and if you’re a corporate Leader—a good organization.

Kunstler received great praise for his work, and like others who’ve worked hard and suddenly achieved acclaim and success, he found acclaim and success somewhat unsettling.

In his own beautifully self-deprecating words, Kunstler says:

“‘The Geography of Nowhere’ was moderately successful. It seemed to help people understand their feelings about a subject that had long bewildered them. I became something of a low-grade guru. I received many invitations to speak to civic groups, professional organizations, and colleges around the country. My initial reaction was panic that people were looking to me for illumination. What could be more natural than to feel unworthy of other people’s esteem? I am aware that many successful figures secretly feel like frauds, including people far more knowledgeable and accomplished than myself. This is apparently a universal neurosis. Everybody feels inadequate. I’ve since formulated a social principle called Kunstler’s Law, which states that: “In any room containing 100 people, 99 of them each think that they are the only one in the room who doesn’t have his-or-her act together.”**

As a Leader you need to stop the negative self-talk and the negative feedback

Kunstler‘s observation is dead–on target. Many CEOs, Corporate Chiefs, and Leaders feel like fakes and frauds, and secretly think: “If only someone really knew ‘the real me’, they’d know that I am a fraud (or a loser, or a jerk).” If you’re ever going to succeed, you need to stop the negative feedback and the negative self-talk. Stop it dead in its tracks.

Here are “Three things you can do to combat negativity“:

1. Surround yourself with positive people – Negative people and negative thinking will only bring you down. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to bad news. You should just have a positive attitude when you hear it, and deal with it accordingly. It’s not what happens…, it’s how you react to what happens that really makes the difference between a winner and a loser.

2. Listen to motivational tapes and read motivational books – You need to hard-wire your brain to think positively. Two of the best books ever written are ‘Think and Grow Rich’, by Napoleon Hill and ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, by Dale Carnegie. They’re classics. They’ve helped millions of executives and managers to get their heads on straight, so they can take advantage of the opportunities that lie in front of them.

3. Celebrate positive attitudes and open-mindedness – You should work always to have a positive attitude, no matter what. If you see someone maintaining a positive attitude despite the circumstances, especially when the going is rough, let that person know you really appreciate it. If one of your employees was faced with a difficult situation, and they work their way out of it, celebrate that success. If someone finds a new way to solve an old problem, praise him or her openly for looking at things with fresh eyes.

As a Leader you are responsible for your culture

If you are a Leader, you set the tone of your business, your household, your civic organization – whatever you do. If you’re a CEO, a division chief, a human resource Leader, or a father or a mother, you have people looking up to you. They will follow your lead, whether you’re leading by intention or by default—so be mindful of how you conduct yourself and the cues you’re giving them.

Do you create a culture of fear and intimidation? Do you tell your people what they should and shouldn’t do? Do you show them just how wrong they are? Or do you project confidence and tell your people that you trust them? Do you celebrate successes and tell your people that working together you can accomplish great things, that working together there’s nothing you can’t do?

If you’re a Leader, and there’s negativity in the workplace, it’s up to you to get rid of it. The tone of an organization is set by the CEO and the HR Leader.

“You really are stronger than you think you are—and if it’s feeling lonely at the top, it doesn’t need to be.”

Takeways:

• “A positive culture doesn’t just happen; you have to create it.”

• “Work on your strengths and make yourself stronger”

• “Stop listening to the negativity of the news media—and start consuming positive thoughts from other sources”

~~~

Written by Les Proctor, Marketing Consultant to Dise & Company, based on conversations with Ralph Dise, CEO of Dise & Company, and John Milgram, CEO of Aexcel Corporation.

**Excerpted from “Home from Nowhere”, by John Howard Kunstler,  Simon and Schuster, 1996.

In a previous post I covered several different very good Social CRMs. Social media CRMs are applications that aggregate information on your contacts’ social profiles, making it easier to engage and ultimately influence and educate them to the point where they’re ready to do business with you. 

One Social CRM that I didn’t cover in the previous post was Rapportive, which is an application we use, and I highly recommend, since it’s free, and helps you connect with contacts on their preferred social networks.

Rapportive helps you get  rich contact profiles right inside Gmail. You can download it here. Download it and install it, and connect to your social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and it will automatically feed you information about your contacts’ social activity in your email inbox — see below).

Eh voila! A Free Social CRM that gives you rich contact profiles right inside Gmail.

Happy connecting!

Designed correctly, it can be a great way to educate the people you interact with every day, turn prospects into 1st time buyers, and 1st time buyers into regular customers.

People have been asking me how I create my social media email signature, and how I seem to connect with people so easily on my social networks, and I am going to share with you an easy way that I have found to do it.

If you don’t already have social profiles established at Linked-In, Facebook, and Twitter, I highly recommend you do this now. Also, if you are interested in sharing your ideas and establishing thought leadership, I suggest you look into WordPress.

My solution requires the use of both Firefox as a browser, and Gmail as an Email Application. I highly recommend using both. Not only are they great applications; they’re free. I have quit using Outlook altogether.

Firefox — Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Corporation. As of October 2010, Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with 30% of worldwide usage share of web browsers.In Germany, Firefox is the most popular browser with 60% usage. With Firefox, functions can be added through extensions, created by third-party developers, of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox’s users.

Gmail — Gmail is a free, advertising-supported webmail, POP3, and IMAP service provided by Google. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release in 2004, and became available to the general public in 2007. As of November 2010, it had 193.3 million users monthly.

Assuming you’re using Firefox and Gmail, to build your own social media signature, you just need to follow these easy steps:

1.) Download and Add Wisestamp to Firefox –

WiseStamp is a web browser extension which supports Firefox, Google Chrome and Rockmelt web browsers. WiseStamp enables you to include your social profiles and dynamic Email Apps in your emails. With this you can design your own email signature and link it to your social profiles.

2.) Add your contact information in the rich text box

Sincerely,

[I've added my image and my actual signature here; that requires a little bit of HTML coding].

Les Proctor
Founder/CTO
HyperLocalDeals
216-973-9228

3.) Add Social Media Icons

I added my profiles from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.

4.) Add IM Icons

I added Google Talk, which contains my email address, but will also allow people to chat with me through Gmail and AIM.

5.) Add Email Apps

I added 2 RSS Feeds from HyperLocalDeals, and new venture we recently started. It’s a Group Buying Website with a Social/Community Twist. With our merchants, we offer great deals and also give back 5-10% of every deal to local charities. In my social media signature, I have a feed to the latest deal, and a feed to the latest blog post (where we feature the charity that’s going to benefit from the latest deal).

This is a live example of my social signature:

Sincerely,

Les Proctor
Founder/CTO
HyperLocalDeals
216-973-9228

Connect:
Some Really Awesome Local Deals Coming Soon!
“We make a life by what we give”

In the Wisestamp Settings, you can set up your default signature when you hit the “compose” button. you can have a business signature, and a personal signature. In my case, I am running two businesses, HyperLocalDeals and Les Proctor Direct, my marketing consulting practice, so if I want to switch signatures, it’s quite easy… just hit the little Wisestamp button in the rich text box.

Voila! That’s how you can create your own social media email signature.

Coming up next: How to Use Rapportive as a Free Social CRM with Gmail

While the Internet has brought us a huge, new marketplace with boundless opportunities for success–it’s opened up a whole new world of problems, especially when it comes to marketing and sales.

Every day, we’re deluged with unwanted information about goods and services we’re not looking for.  Otherwise known as ”spam”, it comes in many forms: undifferentiated email blasts, facebook posts, tweets, etc. It overwhelms many potential customers, and if you’re not careful you could break a protocol that will make customers consciously decide not to do business with you. 

Content Marketing and Conversation Marketing  offers a solution.

Conversation Marketing is a Two-Step Process:

Instead of the traditional sales pitch spammed out to everybody on the planet, conversation marketing strives to provide reliable, high-quality information to potential customers.  Well-written blogs or articles providing valuable information, and delivered at the right time in the right way, are much more likely to be read than spam, which is filtered out or deleted. 

This duplicates an important aspect of the marketplace of yesteryear.  Conversation marketing makes it easy for prospective customers to locate suppliers of the goods and services they need. 

The medieval cobbler or blacksmith, for example, kept a sign outside his shop and he often greeted passersby with valuable information about repairs and costs for his services.  Well-written, informational blogs and articles about specific subjects have replaced the helpful artisan and his sign.  The cobbler and the blacksmith didn’t wander all over the kingdom delivering canned sales pitches to people who had no need of their services and no interest in learning what was available. 

The sign attracted the prospective customer, and intelligent conversation by the artisan-helped close the sale. First, attract and get found. Second, engage and convert.

Step 1: Attract prospective buyers with a great offer and a compelling call to action

If the social media revolution is a revolution of user-generated content, that means we all need to start thinking like publishers. So what does it mean to think like a publisher? When you boil it down, publishing is simple to explain:

1. Define a target group of buyers (your prospects and customers) 
2. Determine what information they need and how they want to receive it
3. Create an offer to deliver valuable and relevant information to your prospects and customers the way they want to receive it, and  
4. Get them to subscribe to your offer

Step Two: To engage and convert, you’ve got to stop marketing and start engaging

Once you’re connected to someone, start listening, and engage with them to find opportunities to help. You can send out a marketing sequence, but every message should have a mechanism where you ask for feedback. And or you should add a human intervention into your marketing sequence so that they know there’s a real person behind the information you send out.

1. Task: Add to Social CRM
2. Task: Take a look at the person’s latest tweets, posts, etc. (If there aren’t any use the phone #4).
3. Task: Engage with prospect to establish rapport and start a conversation
4. Task: Call them and have an actual person-to-person conversation to learn about what their problems are, and what they’d like to accomplish
5. Task: Send them the information they’re seeking and that shows you understand their problems

The research you do will tell you a lot about how this person likes to be communicated with, without asking them with a dumb web form.

Is it still possible to automate this marketing process? Yes! You can automate anything. When it comes to marketing automation, you’re better off automating the human side of the equation, rather than the messaging side. You want to get the messaging and information side right, so that you’re providing people valuable information delivered the right way, so that your prospects are receptive to your message.

If you’d like some help implementing a conversation marketing program please contact me today.

Direct Marketing 2.0

Infusionsoft CRM is simply the most powerful CRM/Marketing Automation tool for small business. There’s nothing better.

It’s like Salesforce.com + ExactTarget + 1ShoppingCart all-in-one.

And for two seats at $299/month, plus $59/month per additional seat, the price cannot be beat.  

Infusionsoft CRM offers you more

You will not find a better all-in-one CRM/Marketing Automation System.  It includes:  (1) CRM (2) Autoresponders (3) Web forms (4) Order forms (5) Sales force automation (6) Shopping cart (7) Affiliate marketing management, and (8) lots, lots more, and what’s best, you can get it all without spending tens of thousands of dollars, or cobbling together other systems that do parts of what Infusionsoft can do (like Salesforce.com + ExactTarget + 1ShoppingCart, which you’d probably spend 5 figures putting it all together anyway).

If you’re looking for a CRM or Marketing Automation System for your Small Business, but haven’t been able to decide which one is best for you, here are 5 good reasons to get off the fence:

5 Reasons to Get Off the Fence and Choose Infusionsoft CRM

Here are 5 really cool, unique features that should make you want to sign up for Infusionsoft CRM today:

1. Tags – Known as “custom taxonomies” or “tags”, these became popular with WordPress, and “Tag Clouds”, this is an alternate method of classifying information so it can be easily found, and it’s also great for segmenting your list “to get the right message to the right person at the right time.”
2. Marketing/Action Sequences – You can easily add/change a record’s status based on actions/ conditions, or example: A prospect buys “Product B” from you, you can change the record’s status from prospect to client, add a tag indicating that they’ve purchased “Product B”, and initiate the “Upsell marketing sequence of emails for Product B.”
3. Trackable Links – You can send an email with a link that says “Yes, have someone call me!”, and if someone someone click the link you can start an action sequence, for example, create a task, and assign it round-robin for a salesperson to follow up, followed up by another specialized sequence of emails.
4. Infusionsoft API – Infusionsoft CRM is one of the very few systems that allows you to tap directly into your database via an API, which gives you virtually unlimited ability to tie it into your operations.
5. Subscriptions and Recurring Payments – You can create order forms that accept credit cards and spread payments out over a period of time ”just like a big company.”  After you’ve sold something, you can concentrate on delivering the goods–as far as getting paid is concerned you can “set it and forget it.”

Ultimately, the biggest reason why small business owners love Infusionsoft (and why I love it) is because it helps them make more money, while at the same time increasing their productivity so they don’t have to add more staff. Which means greater profitability–more money to the bottom line.

The Infusionsoft organization and culture is really a wonder to behold; and everyone–the upper management down to the troops working the line–should be praised for the culture they’ve created. They practice what they preach and are absolutely committed to customer delight. As the company who was first-to-market in the Marketing Automation Category, Infusionsoft is on an upwards trajectory, and are continually coming up with product enhancements that make the system easier to use and manage.

Does the Shopping Cart need some work? Admittedly. But the product management team is working on it. You’ve heard it here, and I guarantee they won’t disappoint.

Right now Infusionsoft is running the Double Your Sales Guarantee with a Free Trial. Simply click here to do it now.

And if you’re looking for someone to help you implement Infusionsoft CRM, please contact me today.

Seek to understand

Emphatically “Yes”! 

There are lots of reasons, other than the economy, why you might be losing customers. Customers could’ve been frustrated by delays, or aggravated by one bad experience. They could be annoyed by lack of response from you, or seduced away by your competition. 

The point is: “If you are losing customers—do you know why?” 

There’s a big difference between customers who are gone and customers you can win back. Unfortunately, most sales managers and salespeople don’t make that distinction. 

And many executives neglect to direct their managers to ferret out the reasons why customers are defecting. Why? In the rush to get new business—we ignore lost business—even though in many cases the closing ratio for winning back lost customers can be much higher than the ratio for new business. And the reasons for customer defection are vitally important. 

A customer winback program is valuable for three main reasons (1) you win back “lost” revenue (2) you can uncover potential weaknesses in your organization, and (3) you can discover potential threats from the competition. 

4 Steps to Customer Winback Success

Here are some ideas for creating your own customer winback program: 

1. Track your losses and your winbacks
You need to establish a system for identifying lost business and recovered business. Is a lost customer someone who hasn’t bought from you in a month, in six-months, in a year? It’s different from business to business. But if you’re not measuring your lost customers, you’re not managing your customers very well. Identifying which customers is active and which is inactive is vital for establishing and running a successful customer winback program. 

2 Put a senior manager or director in charge
You can’t expect a junior person to handle this job. A senior manager or executive is truly representing and speaking for the company. Priority number one is to visit the client in a face-to-face meeting, and get to the root of ‘what went wrong’. Use your ears and mouth in proportion to one another, take notes, use your active listening skills to show the client you really care. 

3. Re-establish the lines of communication
Your might ask for a meeting with top management, send a personalized letter from the CEO, or ask for a new new needs-analysis meeting. This all flows from the first face-to-face meeting where you discover the problem and refine your approach. 

4. Document Your Successes
Customer Win-backs is a process—and with practice it should be a repeatable one. It may take you ten steps instead of the previous three, but once you’ve won back several customers, you’ll begin to see patterns that you can use to reduce customer attrition. The whole process should help you garner valuable information to help you run your business better. 

Next time you speak with your customer ask: “What result are you looking for in (the next period of time) that will make you continue to do business with us?” Knowing these expectations makes your life much easier and increases your chances of retaining that client. 

Winning back customers is not for the meek of heart. There may be some confrontation, and you will undoubtedly hear things you don’t want to hear. However, it’s hard to correct a problem you’re not willing to discuss. At the very least you’ll discover the weaknesses in your organization that caused your customers to defect in the first place. 

Moving forward it would be wise to recall Ben Franklin’s aphorism that “An Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure.” Manage your customer’s expectations at the beginning of the relationship, not the end. 

Happy Win-backs!

If you need help implementing a Customer Winback program, please contact me today.

"You have what it takes"

Yes, you do… if you’ll just get over yourself and do what it takes to succeed in business.  

From my experience, 99% of people have everything they need to succeed.  The only thing holding them back is… themselves.   

It’s all about actions…. creating a presence, promoting yourself, finding someone who has a need, showing them you can fulfill the need, confirming that they understand you can fulfill the need for the price you’re proposing, creating a formal  proposal and closing the deal.  

Yes, it’s important to have a website, business cards, and a cell phone… but you don’t really need a lot more than that.  

The Cowardly Lion had what it takes to succeed in business

Just remember the Cowardly Lion. He followed the Yellow Brick Road and finally met the Great Oz, only to learn that he already had courage… that he always had it… he just needed to use it.   

Just like you already have everything you need to succeed.  You have What It Takes to Succeed in Business.

Once you come to the realization that you’re completely in control, then you can quit looking to others for permission, or for their approval, or whatever is in you that is holding you back from doing what you need to do to be successful.  

Call 20 businesses per week, ask to speak with the owner, and offer something for free that shows off your expertise. If they take you up on it, perform your analysis, and create a two-page report. You’re almost guaranteed an engagement. If they don’t take you up on your free offer, send a follow up email to say thank you. Move on. That’s only 4 calls/follow-ups per day.  

You have the power, you probably just need to push yourself to do things you haven’t done before.  

You most certainly have What It Takes to Succeed in Business. The question is: “Will you do what it takes?”

If you have any more questions about What It Takes to Succeed in Business or you would like some help achieving your objectives, please contact me today.