“We use 10% of our abilities. Tap into the other 90%”

Everyone knows that many businesses and people are experiencing hard times right now. But I have to tell you, I also see some amazing things happening with many of my clients. It’s not that they are not experiencing the pinch of the economy. They are. Yet, what I love about my clients is that they are remarkable people who refuse to focus on the fall of the economy and so remain focused on the rebuilding! For those focused on the possibilities and potentials, forward movement is occurring in spite of the economy.

Below are seven steps that you have control over that will allow you to reach your business goals.  These steps will assist you in making goal-centered, knowledgeable decisions on a daily basis. 

1. Define Your “Visioning Great” Vision

Define your vision first and then make sure that you write it in one or two sentences. If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you ever plan to get there?  When you write down your plan, it will bring clarity and will serve to solidify your thoughts for business.

2. Create a Dynamic Mission Statement

This is where you define the core business you’re in. Write it and refine it until it becomes one or two sentences that are your true mission. The mission can become your tag line or your selling proposition.

3. Identify Forward-Thinking Goals

Start with annual goals, and then break them down into quarterly and monthly goals. Think through the sequence of events that will lead you toward your annual goals and objectives.  Be sure to celebrate every milestone along the way.

4. Develop an Out-of-the-Box Strategy

Use your review of last year’s operating budget and information along with your goals for the coming year to help you define the results you want. How can you best use your resources? What else do you need? What else should you do?

If you are planning a new business, your strategy will be to identify and define your target market, to strategize on how to identify your niche and to determine on how you will be better than your competition. 

5. Define Your Accelerated Plan of Action

Create an action plan with a corresponding timeframe. It may take a little time, but it is well worth the time.   Be sure to allow some initial planning time. Get help if you need it – there is nothing wrong with asking for help.

For those who are new to the business arena, your plan will be an action plan that defines how you will get your business up and running.  You will also need to determine what steps are needed to bring your business to fruition.

6. Implementation for Success

This is one of the most important steps in the process. Break down your yearly plan into monthly plans, then into a weekly plan and add the specific action steps to your weekly calendar. Make sure you schedule time to do what’s necessary. When planning the next week, bring forward anything that didn’t get done from the previous week. The bottom line is that it is all about “implementing.”

7. Assessment is Mandatory

Review your operating procedures monthly. Check out industry trends and pertinent economic indicators. Use the data and make adjustments to your strategy and plan. At least annually, perform a total review of your vision and mission. Summarize and document results, define what worked and what didn’t. Most importantly, ditch what doesn’t work.

7.5 Repetition is a Must

Repeat the process annually and reap the rewards daily. Success is not a one-time act. You need to repeat one success with a second; and the second with a third … life moves forward and you need the next success to move forward with it.

Decide to proceed. Do not waver. Do not pay attention to what you see outwardly. Focus on the resources that will create the new, the improved, the expanded and as yet unmanifested ideas. Be the one to bring in the New. Be the one that goes the extra mile. Play. Be creative. Connect to new people. Form alliances. Go with your instincts. Trust! Imagine. Dream…and do it!

I have found that if your career and business plan includes success, you must step up and play a bigger game. If you need someone to assist you in up-leveling your career or you’re your business, visit: www.masterpiecesolutions.biz.

, Career Success and Business Growth Expert

One of my former clients called to ask me what she could do to ensure that she keeps her customers coming back for her services.  My first question was this, “What have you done for your customers lately?”

There was a pause.  I knew at that moment, she had not done anything for her customers recently.

Remember, it costs five to seven times as much to acquire a new customer as it costs to get a current customer to buy from you again. 

Here are my suggestions to maintain your current customers: 

Are you communicating with them on a regular basis? 

Send an email with a report you think they’ll find interesting.  Better yet, create a Google search with the customer’s name and every time the customer shows up online, Google sends you an email.  When they’ve done something newsworthy or get some great publicity, congratulate them.

Are you asking how they are doing and what you can do to help them? 

Ask the hard questions – how can I make you look good, make your company more productive, and help you achieve your corporate goals?  If you can’t help them, are you referring them to someone who can?

Are you reminding them how important they are to you? 

Send a handwritten note thanking them for their service.  Take the extra step and show them how much you value them.  Answer the phone when they call, take the time they need, and be genuinely friendly and warm.  Be helpful, even when there is no immediate profit.

Are you developing new products or services to keep them coming back?  Offer some specials for current customers only and when you roll out a new product, let your customers know they get to the front of the line with an exclusive introductory offer.

Are you rewarding your customers for being repeat customers? 

Perform a small service for free, or give a discount when they refer others to you.

Think about it, if your customers are not hearing from you; then they are listening to your competition.  One of the best things that you can do is to tell your customers what you’ve done for them lately and then, do it often. 

I have found that if your career and business plan includes success, you must step up and play a bigger game. If you need someone to assist you in up-leveling your career or your business, visit: www.masterpiecesolutions.biz.

, Career Success and Business Growth Expert

In order to tell you what habits help me to be successful, I’ll have to share with you my idea of success. Success means living a purposeful life, where I experience radiant health, abundant prosperity and meaningful relationships.  Here are a few habits that I’m cultivating as I move from success to significance.

1. Meditation
2. Exercise
3. Journaling
4. Waking up between 5 am and 6 am
5. Keeping the important list to 3 items
6. Having a “fantastic” day
7. Reading daily
8. Less television time

8.5        Personal development at all times

It’s this simple – when your energy is high you can bring your best to every task you take on. When your energy is low, you can’t.  You must focus on raising and maintaining your own energy, keeping yourself strong and well, so that you can be focused and effective and brilliant while taking on the next steps for success.

What daily habits do you have that help you to be successful? Why not share them in the comment section of this Blog.

You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ http://highachievingwomen.biz/?page_id=185

A vision without a plan is just a dream.
A plan without a vision is just drudgery.
But a vision with a plan can change the world. 

Greatness is about one’s day-in and day-out habits, character and core values. In other words, no matter what your past was like, you have the ability to achieve greatness—starting now. You just need to hone in on the small things you do every day—those tasks and chores that may seem trivial and unimportant—and start doing them based on your best, all the time. Here are some guidelines for greatness to help get you started:

1. Walk your talk.
2. If you make a promise, keep it.
3. Do sweat the small stuff. (Or at least pay attention to it.)
4. Align yourself with the other “greats” in your life.
5.  Always act as if someone is watching you.
6. Surround yourself with people who don’t think like you.
7. Be known for your integrity.
8. Know when to ask for help.
9. Read at least ten books a year.
10. Shape your life around your passions.
11. Talk to strangers. 

11.5    Expect Greatness to come.

Success doesn’t just happen by accident.  It also doesn’t happen just from working really, really hard.  It takes a great plan, a great strategy that you can work from.  And that takes the discipline to step back from the daily grind, to talk with other trusted and committed people and to create a plan and strategy that will take you where you want to go.

I would love to help you develop and expand your portfolio of success through discovering your purpose, unleashing your passion, helping you achieve next-level results and enjoying the realization of your result-oriented dreams.  You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ http://bit.ly/9AA92z

A friend of my Sophfronia Scott, Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company recently published this article.  It is so on target with a subject matter that is near to my heart From Visioning Great to Successing Great™.

This article, How to Rock Your Expertise re-enforced the importance of visioning great, then successing great so that you become an “Expert Who Rocks”.  Take a moment and read this article, I would love to hear your comments.

Before I forget, she is also the Editor of the soon to be released anthology: How The Fierce Handle Fear – Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times which details personal stories, proven techniques and tips on how each contributor handled fear and pushed through it. The book demonstrates that even the most successful business people (Experts Who Rock) like Donald Trump, Jack Canfield, Sophfronia Scott, Frank McKinney and I experience fear just like everyone else.

How to Rock Your Expertise! By Sophfronia Scott

Are you an expert? Yes! In what? You tell me. We’re all experts at something. You gain your expertise in one of two ways: doing a thing or studying it. I’m an expert in writing and publishing books because I’ve done it. My clients are experts in marketing, motivation, cooking, feng shui, and dealing with credit because this is what they do in their businesses every day. I can also say I’m something of an expert in the Beatles, cooking, potty training, gardening, yoga and road cycling because I’ve done or studied all of these things.

Having the expertise is important–you have to be able to walk your talk and pony up the goods when the opportunity presents itself. But here’s the rub: the opportunity comes from how you make your expertise known.

Wielding Your Expertise

You see, having authority is kind of a double-edged sword. People like to defer to people who have it, but if you’re perceived as a know-it-all who can’t or isn’t willing to share or teach for the benefit of others, then people (and by that I mean customers or clients) aren’t interested in being around you.

Former Vice President Al Gore is a perfect example. During his ill-fated run for the White House in 2000, he took a lot of flak in the debates for coming off as smug and condescending. Fast forward to 2006-2007, when Mr. Gore began putting his brains to use for the good of our environment. He filmed An Inconvenient Truth and suddenly people started seeing him as the kindly yet kingly professor who was compassionately letting us know we were headed for a world of trouble with the global warming stuff. They were even begging him to run for president again!

How can you demonstrate that you are willing to teach and share your expertise? With a book! When you craft a book, you seek to solve a big problem for the reader. You instantly start from a position of wanting to help, and that’s the first place where the reader will connect with you.

You start out by clearly outlining the problem and how it may be negatively affecting the reader. You let him or her know you have experience with the problem either from your own life or working with your clients. Then lay out your solution in whatever way you see as the best.

Don’t worry if it seems like you’re giving it all away. When people have a good experience they usually want more. In your case, they may want to hire you or come to a workshop so they can meet you in person. In fact some authors, like Dan Kennedy, encourage this by giving away free seminar tickets in their books.

What to Do With That Power

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

If you want to be an “Expert who Rocks” sign up for the Visioning Great Successing Great™. Virtual Retreat to be held on March 20, 2010. http://highachievingwomen.biz/?page_id=185

The only way to fail is to quit” – Chris Widener.  Why not take this partial list of habits that drive business success and start to put each one into practice. By learning and instilling new habits in your daily business life, it will have a dramatic effect on your level of success.

1. Cultivate Inner Networks: Take the time to identify and build relationships with key peers, mentors, and advisors.
2. Practice Centerness: Focus away from business and profits toward what you can do to improve the life of your customers.
3. Be Humble and Honesty: Be open and honest about yourself and your business creates growth as an individual and as a company.
4. Embrace Adaptability: Be flexible allows us to respond to changes without being paralyzed with fear and uncertainty.
5. Be Opportunity Focused: Look at both sides of the coin. Every problem has an opportunity.
6. Find A Better Way: Productivity is the cornerstone of business success. Start by embracing technology, automation, outsourcing, and improving business systems and processes.
7. Maintained a Balanced Lifestyle: Business success requires the habit of balancing all aspects of your life; free time is a habit that will make your business and life more enjoyable.

     7.5. Love What You Do and Who You Are: Everything else follows.

Here my suggestion, review each of the 7 habits and choose one habit to focus on for a month or until you achieve mastery; then gradually incorporate each of the 7 habits of business success into your life and watch yourself attain your business dreams. Adopting these 7 habits will help you create a business or career that will give you not only success but also joy and fulfillment in your life. 

I would love to help you develop and expand your portfolio of success through discovering your purpose, unleashing your passion, helping you achieve next-level results and enjoying the realization of your result-oriented dreams.  You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ http://bit.ly/9AA92z

One of my favorite books is Good to Great by Jim Collins. This book along with my 12 years entrepreneur experience got me to thinking a lot about greatness and what that really means. I have identified what I call the essential elements that must exist within a company to achieving lasting greatness.  They are Quality, Service, Leadership and Accountability.

Below is a list of business success rules from my Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat. 

1. Be On Target: Decide on your niche–narrow your focus and broaden your appeal.
2. Be Different: If your competitors are doing it, then you don’t.
3. Be Diligent About Building a Team: Employ a person to be part of a team to build your business; you are not hiring an employee to fill a position.
4. Be Fast: Time is the most precious commodity.
5. Be Thankful: Tell your customers and employees how much you appreciate them; the old fashioned way work great… pen to paper and write them a note.
6. Be Consistent: Make sure your business has a consistent look and feel and the same flavor from everyone within your organization.
7. Be Smiles: Get rid of the notion that people buy from you because of price, product quality or your warranty. They buy because they like you and your product.
8. Be Optimism: Attitude will always win out in the end and infect all of those around you.
9. Be Soft: Don’t ever hard sell. Solve problems. Satisfy wants. Always do what is best for the customer.
10. Be Comfort Zone: Never accept the idea that this is the way you’ve always done it. Never accept that a new idea or technology could never work for you.

10.5.   Be the Best and Beyond™

Let’s face it, if you already had all the tools and information necessary to create all the success you want; you would already have created it, right?  The keys to lasting greatness are the missing link to help you get out of your own way and connect to that power and passion and consistent action that create success.

“Greatness is as greatness does” I would love to help you develop and expand your portfolio of success through discovering your purpose, unleashing your passion, helping you achieve next-level results and enjoying the realization of your result-oriented dreams.  You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. http://bit.ly/9AA92z

“If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived?  Find your passion, whatever it may be.  Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen for you, to you and because of you”. – T. Alan Armstrong

Here are my 5.5 tips for greatness:

1. Develop a Vision Plan for Greatness: Once you decide to commit, then create an action plan and take action.
2. Think Less, Do More:  Day dreaming has it place, but it is not the goal.  You must take proactive, powerful action to achieve your goals.
3. Small Steps: Plan tasks out in small manageable steps.
4. Surround Yourself with Mentors:  When you have someone you can look up to and model, you’re bringing yourself one step closer to greatness.
5. Survive Setbacks: When you hit a snag in the road, you need to pick yourself up, change course and forge on.

5.5.   3E Success Circle™:  This is part of my full-circle success wheel designed for greatness.  The E’s are: Engagement, Empowerment, and Expectation.

• Engagement: consistently seeking the right career relationships and business opportunities.
• Empowerment: constantly acquiring and applying knowledge and maintaining an impeccable presence and brand.   
• Expectation: confidently setting career plans and business goals to manifest even when the manifestation cannot be seen.

Consider this point:  Your life right now is perfectly structured to create what you already have, and is not structured to create that amazing vision of yours.  If it were, you would already have it!  After all, it doesn’t matter how hard you are working and how fast you are going if you are headed in the wrong direction with no vision!

You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ For more, visit: http://bit.ly/9AA92z.

When you envision what you want to achieve, it will help you clear away clutter, negativity and the people and time-wasters so that your natural brilliance can emerge.  Here are 10.5 mindsets for success through visioning:

1. Be Passionate
2. Be a Risk Taker
3. Be Creative
4. Be a Learner
5. Be Focused
6. Be Proactive
7. Be a Server to Others
8. Be a Value of Freedom
9. Be a Builder of a Team
10. Be Evolving

10.5.   Be a Person Who Will: ‘Thinks Big, Act Big to Win Big – It’s Your Time to Sparkle™” 

Once you learn my visioning technique, it will be a tool you’ll use for the rest of your life, in your own business and with your clients. It is an invaluable tool that every business owner and career professional must know.  Remember, visioning your future brings clarity, which causes a shift toward greater, faster growth—it’s like a magnet that pulls you toward success.

I would love to help you develop and expand your portfolio of success through discovering your purpose, unleashing your passion, helping you achieve next-level results, and enjoying the realization of your result-oriented dreams. Don’t sabotage your chances for success.   This virtual retreat is an affordable investment that no savvy business owner can afford to miss!

Take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ http://tiny.cc/ndBZT