Don't Let Anyone Tell You, "You CAN'T'

“Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.” I don’t know much about Les Brown, but this quote ‘rings true’ for me.

My parents were teenagers during the Great Depression and lived through the turmoil of World War II. They married right after the war and life seemed to work against them. My mother suffered from health issues, my dad was crippled in an car accident; they saw life as unfair and unforgiving and predicted life would be the same for their sons.

Almost every one of us can remember someone who predicted that we would be a failure! Maybe it was a family member or the next door neighbor who told you that you would never be a success if you continued on as you were doing. People offer opinions about you for many reasons, and not all of those are fair and just. Some people are simply jealous of you, thinking that if you succeed it will show up their weaknesses or inadequacies. They try to hold us back with caring statements like, “I just don't want to see you get hurt when you fail.”

Beginning with our childhood, we are influenced by those around us in so many ways that limit our thinking. In order to become a successful adult, we need to examine these limits that we've accepted about ourselves, and eliminate the ones that don't apply. No matter how you were labeled as a child, you can acknowledge that, as an adult you actually have many positive attributes. Perhaps you are creative, focused, hard-working or adventurous. If you think about it long enough, you discover that you are smart, mature, strong, committed and knowledgeable enough to do whatever it is that you want to achieve in life. You are capable of believing in yourself and can accomplish whatever dreams you set as your goal.

The key is to know who to listen to. My life changed when I started listening to positive thinking CD’s and podcasts. I started reading Success Magazine to be motivated by the successes of others. If you are going to do big things in life, it means that there are some people who will not like it. Learn to tell the difference between someone who should be listened to, and those who ought to be ignored. A good idea, like a small potted plant, needs to be nurtured

Take your good idea, your big dream, and believe you can achieve it. Work on a plan to accomplish it. Oh, the plan may change and the outcome may be different than you anticipated. It may be far greater and far bigger than anything you ever imagined.

Learn How I turned my big dreams into reality here.

Don't Just Work IN Your Business, Work ON it!

I do not know the source of this quote, but it goes something like this, “To plan is to bring the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”

The idea behind this post is, Work ON your business, not IN it. There is a big difference between the two. No matter how enthusiastic you may be today about your new business, your enthusiasm or energy level will probably not stay the same. Old Man Time takes his toll of both our physical and emotional energy, as do the curve balls that life throws at us. For that reason, as entrepreneurs, we need to be thinking ahead…

Successful business people treat their business as a lifelong endeavor - thinking beyond balancing the books at the end of the month. They plan long-term, transitioning their role from being the developer of the business into becoming a rich business OWNER. You see, whether you are a brand-new rookie in the business field, or have some experience under your belt, the time to plan and execute is now, not next year, or five years from now, or when you have enough money to think beyond getting your next contract.

1. Choose one day per week to move beyond the day to day activities of your business. Block off a few hours to work on improving, systematizing, or implementing new strategies.

2. Focus on one target market at a time. You cannot be all things to all people. I started out by selecting small office buildings between 5000 and 20,000 sq. ft.; big enough to be profitable, but not so big I couldn't staff them. Do a good job and establish a solid reputation in the business community.

3. The idea is to get rich, not famous. You are not the ‘brand’. If you build your business all around you… your image, your personality, your expertise and experience… you'll have a hard time stepping away, or expanding because people will expect to work only with you. Build your company's reputation.

4. Alternate. Outsource. Delegate. If a task is hard for you, find someone for whom it is easy. I would never try to keep my company's books, or file the tax forms. I can pay an accountant to do that and use my time to solicit new accounts.

5. Let your current clients lead you to new clients. We all know that it is much cheaper to keep a current client happy than to solicit new accounts. Let the happy client become a referral generator. They are already in their business networks. Let them know you are looking for new accounts and offer incentives for referring new customers to you; perhaps a gift card for dinner at a local restaurant if they refer a prospective customer

Doing some of these things will allow your business to grow, and you can reap the benefits of time well spent.

For more information on business building , check this out.

Fight Back! Overcome the Resistance That is Holding YOU Back!

This post is about overcoming ‘resistance’. The word ‘resistance’ may conjure up a number of images in your mind:

 For example, some dictionary definitions include:

: refusal to accept something new or different,

: effort made to stop or to fight against someone or something,

: the ability to prevent something from having an effect.

For the purposes of this post I am going to refer to the book, the War of Art, by Stephen Pressfield.

In his book, Pressfield labels the enemy of creativity ‘resistance’, his all-encompassing term for a destructive force inside human nature that arises whenever we consider a tough, long-term course of action that might do for us or others something that is actually good.

I am going to give you a simpler definition: resistance is a thing that holds you back. Our daily lives are filled with evidence of resistance at work. Here are some examples:

• Have you ever brought home a treadmill, and then let it gather dust?
• Have you ever started a diet, and then quit?
• Did you grow up with a dream of doing something really spectacular or accomplishing something really great with your life, and then never even attempted such a thing?

Pressfield says that most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. What separates the two is resistance. Press field is writing to an audience largely made up of creative types, but resistance is active in the life of the entrepreneur.

Many of my blog readers, newsletter subscribers, and book purchasers are individuals that have often dreamed for years about starting their own businesses. Many things have kept them from doing so:

1. A perceived lack of start-up business capital
2. A fear of giving up their regular job
3. A perceived lack of a salable skill
4. No prior business experience.

How about you?

• Do you dream of being your own boss?
• Are you tired of waiting for the boss to decide what your raise will be this year?
• Would you like to invest your time and effort in building up a business that will be an asset when you retire, rather than spending 12 months a year building up your bosses’ business?

I started my business as an act of necessity. See my story here. But you? YOU have a choice. You can start your office cleaning business part-time, use it to generate extra income to pay off bills or put the kids through college. OR, build a full-time business with unlimited income potential.

My book will show you how I started with just a few dollars, teach you how to bid an account, present the proposal and get the job. Learn as you earn. Fight the resistance that is holding you back!

Find it here and get the house cleaning guide for FREE!

Listen for Your Success

There are many people in life that are looking for success. yet success is not often something that you find, but it can be something you listen for!

 

Some people in the cleaning service business are amazed that, in an industry with a 40% client turnover rate, we keep our clients year after year; 10, 12, 15 years and more. Many people ask what the secret is, thinking that we must have some gimmick that causes such a high rate of customer retention.

 

We DO have a secret, one that costs us no more than a few minutes of time; we listen to our prospects and our customers. You see, the world is full of noise, much of it demanding our attention; how often do you find someone that wants to listen to you? Our clients are no different. They have needs and concerns, and they want someone to care about those things. Early in our business efforts, we made a point of making regular visits to each of our clients. It wasn't easy to do, we would have rather spent the time doing other things to 'grow' the business; but we learned rather quickly that it takes much less effort to keep a current client than to go out and recruit another.

 

Let me share with you just a few tips to enable you to become a really good listener:

 

1. Focus on the speaker - as if nothing in the world is more important to you than what that individual is saying. Give them your complete attention, it will be recognized and appreciated.

 

2. Wait before replying - allow a short silence to occur before you respond. Three great things happen when you do this:

 

• You keep from interrupting the other person if they are not finished speaking, but are merely pausing to organize their thoughts before continuing.
• You let the individual know that what they said was important and that you are taking time to consider it. 
• A short pause allows you to consider what the individual said and what they meant.

 

3. Clarify if necessary - language is a strange thing. Don't assume you know exactly what an individual meant what they said something. Don't be afraid to ask, "So what you're really saying is.......?"

 

4. Feed it back - rephrase what the individual said. That lets them know that you really are paying attention. When they are done, allow a moment and say something like, "I understand that you really would like five nights a week service, but the corporate office doesn't believe you need more than three, correct?"

 

 

Dave Ramsey, in EntreLeadership, says we all tend to trust people and connect with people who understand how we tick.  To do that, you have to Listen.

 

 

These are very simple but surefire ways for building rapport with anyone and can pay big dividends in a business relationship!

 

 

For more great business ideas go here.