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Author: Debbie Allen

Meet Debbie Allen
Business Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author of 9 Books & Business Mentor
Debbie Allen, CSP, has achieved the honor of CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) by the National Speakers Association and International Speakers Federation, making her one of the top professional women speakers worldwide. She has been a professional business speaker for over 25 years and has presented before thousands of people in 28 countries around the world.

She has built and sold six million dollar companies in diverse industries and has been an entrepreneur since the young age of 19. As an business and brand strategist, she supports and mentors entrepreneurs, experts and business owners in developing brand and internet domination around their expertise. She presents her own live events and also speaks at many business conferences around the globe.

Debbie is an award-winning entrepreneur and bestselling author of 9 books including her newest books The Highly Paid Expert, Insider Secrets of International Speaking and Success Is Easy.  Debbie has also been featured in four motivational movies and dozens of publications including Entrepreneur Magazine, Personal Branding, Sales & Marketing Excellence, Forbes, Washington Post and USA Today. And is a featured VIP contributor to Entrepreneur. |Meet Debbie Allen
Business Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author of 9 Books & Business Mentor
Debbie Allen, CSP, has achieved the honor of CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) by the National Speakers Association and International Speakers Federation, making her one of the top professional women speakers worldwide. She has been a professional business speaker for over 25 years and has presented before thousands of people in 28 countries around the world.

She has built and sold six million dollar companies in diverse industries and has been an entrepreneur since the young age of 19. As an business and brand strategist, she supports and mentors entrepreneurs, experts and business owners in developing brand and internet domination around their expertise. She presents her own live events and also speaks at many business conferences around the globe.

Debbie is an award-winning entrepreneur and bestselling author of 9 books including her newest books The Highly Paid Expert, Insider Secrets of International Speaking and Success Is Easy.  Debbie has also been featured in four motivational movies and dozens of publications including Entrepreneur Magazine, Personal Branding, Sales & Marketing Excellence, Forbes, Washington Post and USA Today. And is a featured VIP contributor to Entrepreneur. |Meet Debbie Allen
Business Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author of 9 Books & Business Mentor
Debbie Allen, CSP, has achieved the honor of CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) by the National Speakers Association and International Speakers Federation, making her one of the top professional women speakers worldwide. She has been a professional business speaker for over 25 years and has presented before thousands of people in 28 countries around the world.

She has built and sold six million dollar companies in diverse industries and has been an entrepreneur since the young age of 19. As an business and brand strategist, she supports and mentors entrepreneurs, experts and business owners in developing brand and internet domination around their expertise. She presents her own live events and also speaks at many business conferences around the globe.

Debbie is an award-winning entrepreneur and bestselling author of 9 books including her newest books The Highly Paid Expert, Insider Secrets of International Speaking and Success Is Easy.  Debbie has also been featured in four motivational movies and dozens of publications including Entrepreneur Magazine, Personal Branding, Sales & Marketing Excellence, Forbes, Washington Post and USA Today. And is a featured VIP contributor to Entrepreneur. 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

How to Make Business Decisions Faster and Better

When it comes to making decisions, the perfect solution seldom exists. But that doesn’t stop a lot of people from an endless and unrealistic pursuit of the perfect decision. While it’s important to be careful and layout the alternatives, obsessing over a decision can take a heavy toll on your time and emotional energy.

Delaying an important decision just slows you down and makes you worry — the decision will still be there waiting for you in the end. Don’t overcomplicate things! Take ownership of the decision. Instead of waiting for the moons, stars, and planets to align, move on!

One of the best ways to make faster decisions is the “Quick-Step” approach. Imagine only having a few minutes to make an important decision. Quickly run through all the elements, including the problem, objectives, consequences, and risk tolerance. Next, compare those to the overall benefits and outcomes of taking action. Do this in a matter of minutes. Don’t get hung up on the details or worry about getting it perfect. Just decide to decide!

It can help to write out a rough sketch of the elements on a piece of paper. Work through the pieces of the decision to see the possible outcomes more clearly. Once you have a rough outline, you can go back later to tie up any loose ends on specific points. It’s often a pleasant surprise to discover that the Quick-Step approach helps you make better decisions faster. Eventually, it becomes a habit.

Work on speeding up the process for small decisions to free up time for the big-picture decisions that really matter. When you make good business decisions quickly, you have a significant advantage over those who take a lot of time making up their minds.

If you need a little extra time to make a complex decision, plan a short deadline. The brief delay will give you just enough time to make sure the decision feels right before implementing it as an action plan.

How to get unstuck

Of course, there will be times when you just can’t decide. You may not know where to begin because of an obstacle that’s getting in your way. Other times, despite analyzing the decision, you still can’t make up your mind.

When this happens, remember to remain focused on the facts. Don’t allow emotions to get in the way! There’s an old saying: “Don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions.” Successful people recognize when their emotions come into play and can weigh decisions as objectively and rationally as possible.

Keep in mind that every decision you make goes back to focusing on your vision and goals. Every time you make a tough choice, consider the choice that supports the vision. Below are five tips for better decision making:

Find a solution to a decision-making problem by asking a suc­cessful person you trust. Once you share and brainstorm the information, you can make connections you never saw before. Select your advisors wisely to help you make decisions beyond your experience level.

Stop the perfectionism cycle. Instead of seeking impossible perfection, you’ll often need to take the leap first without hav­ing all the answers. Then simply trust that you’re on the right path.

Don’t overthink it. Learn to turn your overactive mind off for a while. Often your insight can come when you least expect it. By keeping your thoughts quiet, you may switch to a new thought process that will result in a different outcome.

Admit it when you make a mistake. If your decisions steer you wrong, fess up, correct the error, and move on. Even making the wrong decision will help you learn something. And when you admit to yourself and others that you were wrong, you gain respect for being humble, honest, and real.

Don’t try to solve a problem — simply decide. The decision can help solve a problem, but not every problem can be solved by making a decision. Instead, decision making often relies more on intuition than over-analysis. The solution often comes from your gut reaction, or what feels like the right decision.

Sometimes you just have to trust your intuition

Psychologists define intuition as “a process that gives us the ability to know something directly without analytic reasoning, bridging the gap between the conscious and unconscious parts of our mind, and also between instinct and reason. 

It’s an automatic, effortless feeling that often motivates you to take action on a decision. Intuition involves trusting the sum total of your subconscious experiences. It draws on everything you’ve experienced for all the years you’ve been alive, which means it’s constantly growing and evolving, just like you are.

Some scientists have started calling your gut instincts or intuition the “second brain.” Like your conscious mind, your gut absorbs and responds to information. You know what it feels like to have a hollow pit in your stomach as you weigh a decision. That’s your gut talking to you loud and clear. But can it really compare to your conscious mind? Yes! Your gut or intuition doesn’t just compare to the mind — it rivals it!

Intuition is also the result of a lot of processing that happens in the brain. Research suggests the brain is a large, predictive machine, constantly comparing incoming sensory information and current experiences against your stored knowledge and memories of previous experiences to predict what will come next.

You may be surprised to learn intuition is a deliberate skill you can learn to develop. Simply start by paying more attention to it. Once honed, it can apply in many situations, from developing an action plan to making quick decisions under pressure.

When you have a question to answer or a decision to make, rely on your intuition. You might sell yourself short with limiting thoughts, but your intuition will never let you down. Learn to tap into it and trust it more!

Categories
Growth Personal Development Women In Business

5 Things You Should Really Be Focusing on If You Want a Successful Business

 

It shocks me to see how many entrepreneurs continue to get in their own way by focusing on the wrong things in business. There’s no reason to make success hard when it’s easy.

Don’t focus on what you don’t know at first you’ll just get frustrated and stuck. Focus instead on what you can do and keep going to gain momentum. This means focusing on the easy parts first, then coming back to the more difficult aspects of building your business. Hopefully, by then you’ll have built up enough momentum that it won’t break your productive focus.

The following are some of the basic business skills (especially soft skills) that drive you to success with ease. These basic skills are what truly set you up for success.

Focus on what works for easy success

Many entrepreneurs believe they’ll succeed, but they lack the basic business skills and common business sense to back up that belief. They waste a lot of time focusing on expensive details.

For instance, when I work with entrepreneurs in building or reinventing their businesses, I help them develop or re-create their branding. Occasionally, I get a client who gets stuck on such details as perfecting the font on the logo when he should be focusing on areas of the business that generate profits. People like this make it hard for themselves, instead of making it easy by trusting the process.

Obsessing over perfection or the wrong details isn’t cost-effective. You must learn how to prioritize. Know how much time to spend on each aspect of your business, and don’t waste time on less important tasks.

Avoid “Squirrel Syndrome”

It’s not uncommon for a business owner to spin their wheels and lose focus. When this happens, many people start looking for the next bright, shiny object to grab hold of. This is called Squirrel Syndrome.

Squirrels have a severe inability to focus.

Squirrels often dart back and forth—doubting their deci­sions—unable to choose a direction.

Squirrels have something to teach us: what not to do.

The Squirrel Syndrome may cause abrupt dashes from one idea to another or one project to the next. When this happens, you become unfocused and may even become frantic about not getting things accomplished. The result is, you delay or never complete important projects to reach your goals.

You can avoid Squirrel Syndrome by learning to recognize when a squirrel shows up in your life. Refocus by taking the time to define the project or direction in which you need to go. Then stay on task and turn off all distractions. Remember, every time you stray off course, it takes that much longer to reach your goals.

Focus on activities that create results

Focus is one of those basic-but-critical, habits you need to master if you want to be successful. Improve your focus on the day-to-day basic business activities you do best, and from which you produce extraordinary results. If you don’t, you’ll create higher stress levels and may experience burnout. When you spend most of your time and energy doing the business tasks you’re brilliant at and allow others (like employees or subcontractors) to do the rest, you reap the biggest rewards.

For example, don’t try building a website unless you’re a webmaster, and don’t try learning technical skills if that isn’t the best use of your time. Outsource those things instead, and focus on running your business so it can grow and prosper.

Multitask mindfully

The key to multitasking is to do it strategically and mindfully. Mindful multitasking means that you check in with yourself and determine how you need to focus in each new situation.

Mindful multitasking allows you to stop reacting to distractions, such as the automatic reflex to answer the phone or read an incoming text. It allows you to focus on the actions that provide the best results and disregard everything else. After you set your intentions for the day, create a to-do list that you can tackle using mindful multitasking, allowing yourself to be present in each action you take for the day.

Focus on developing one big project at a time

Don’t try to start multiple projects at once—it fragments focus and time. Entrepreneurs are creative people, often with many good business ideas. And it’s hard turning off the desire to act on multiple ideas at one time. But if you split your attention between more than one big project at a time, you’ll run into trouble completing anything at all. You’re going to need all your energy and focus to get your one new project off the ground.

Here are five ways to remain focused on whatever your task at hand may be:

1. Write out what you need to accomplish each day so you don’t forget important tasks. When a new idea comes to mind, don’t stop what you’re doing. Simply make a note of it and come back to it at a more convenient time.

2. Focus on your overall ideas and then implement an effective action plan. Keep your top three goals in mind and commit to achieving them each week. Write down the specific actions you need to take to achieve those goals.

3. Tackle creative work first. Mindless work will drain your energy, lower your focus, and waste your time. When you start with creative work at the beginning of the day, you can work on the most complex projects when your energy is highest before moving on to simpler tasks, such as answering emails or returning calls.

4. Understand what’s worthy of distraction. Don’t allow last-minute, nonemergency issues to kill your focus. Stay on task and stick to your commitments. Prioritize other tasks and put together a timeline so you’re not needlessly distracted.

Unplug from email, social media, and phone calls. Take a break from all outside distractions and focus on the task at hand. You’ll get a lot more done when you’re not constantly interrupting yourself.

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

5 Beliefs About Success That Are Going to Help You Fail

F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real) comes from the false beliefs and myths that exist around the meaning of success. Yet all fear can vanish once you own your beliefs and discover the real truth about success.

Once you define your own success with new beliefs, there’s nothing to fear. So let’s look at a few false beliefs or myths that contribute to failure, as well as the reality behind them.

False Belief #1: Success is all about power, wealth and fame

People who measure success only in terms of power, wealth and fame are looking in the wrong places. When someone believes you must measure up to those high standards, you may not even want to try.

Here’s the reality: Success is about feeling confident, empowered and committed to your core values. Your values are part of your overall success equation. Successful people stay connected to their true self by tapping into what they value most about themselves and their business.

False Belief #2: Success is hard work and takes forever to achieve

People who believe that it takes too long or that it’s too hard to achieve success will lose motivation and commitment to take action. But that’s not you! If success seems too far out in the future or even unattainable, people will start to make up excuses for why it won’t work.

Here’s the reality: Working hard for a long period of time doesn’t guarantee success. In fact, success can happen quickly and easily. If you have the right skills or talent, you can succeed with minimum effort. You can experience success easily every day through small achievements, accomplishments and personal growth.

False Belief #3: Successful people are selfish and self-centered

Those who believe successful people are selfish or self-centered usually feel uncomfortable standing out in a crowd and may also fear self-promotion. A person who believes this often feels that putting themselves out there will cause others to judge them as rude, pushy or intrusive.

Here’s the reality: You won’t find truly successful people focusing internally. They know how to self-promote effectively in the service of others. The only way to truly be successful is to get comfortable standing out and promoting your value, services, and ideas.

False Belief #4: You need a formal education to succeed

Some people believe getting a college diploma or another degree will make you successful. Some actually work hard at becoming professional students, while piling up debt. Others use the excuse that it’s critically important to learn more before going out into the world and taking action. In the meantime, they’ll hold themselves back from going after success until they feel “ready.”

Here’s the reality: You don’t need a formal education to prepare you for success. That can sometimes be the slower route. The most expensive university will only give you the tools to help you learn and grow. It’s still up to you to come up with a plan and execute it. Education comes in many forms and can be gained in a variety of ways. The key is to absorb knowledge and gain life experiences that will teach you how to apply your wisdom.

False Belief #5: Negative thinking patterns cannot be changed

When you engage in habitual negative thinking, positive thoughts will not come naturally or easily until you choose to change your thoughts.

Here’s the reality: All thinking patterns can be changed, even negative ones. Once negative thinking turns to more positive thoughts, it creates a greater sense of success. The more someone trains their brain to think in positive ways, the more it’s expected, acted on and achieved.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Leadership Personal Development

5 No-Nonsense Action Steps to Help You Achieve Success

What you may have learned about success when you were growing up was probably wrong if it was taught by someone who had never actually achieved any real success of their own. The fact is, you often have to fail your way into learning to be successful.

Limiting beliefs around success can get in your way for far too long. It’s time to take 100 percent responsibility for your success and make a strong commitment to making things happen in a big way.

You can choose winning over losing. You can choose to succeed even when you fail by learning from the experience. You can choose to learn from your mistakes and move on. You can choose to win by grabbing hold of success from this day forward and never letting go. We should always be true to the best within ourselves!

Success Is Easy Affirmation (say it, believe it, and own it): “Success comes easy to me because I have a new reality around success to believe in from this day forward.”

Now take these five steps to start wrapping your mind around the idea of success:

Study the strengths and habits of other highly successful peo­ple, and learn how to create a success-driven, ambitious mind­set. Successful people are simply those who have successful habits. Whether we like it or not, a big part of what we do in life is governed by habits. They can lead us to think and feel in certain patterns; they can also make us feel ambitious and motivated to succeed. Successful people know nothing can take the place of persistence and determination, so they make a habit of never quitting until they get results. The world’s greatest achievers are those who have the willpower to stay focused on their goals and consistent in their efforts.

Learn how to create a new reality — that success is easy for you to achieve. A dream without action is a world of make-believe. Success can be easy unless you choose to make it hard. Don’t believe the myth that success comes from hard work alone. After all, without motivation, you can’t get anything done. And even if you have all the motivation in the world, you need the ambition to achieve a worthy goal.

Repeat the word “success” frequently with complete faith and conviction; believe it to be true. What you learned about success growing up probably wasn’t true if it was taught by someone who never actually achieved it. Limiting beliefs and words around success can get in our way for far too long. It’s time to take 100 percent responsibility for your success and make a strong commitment to making things happen in a big way!

Pay close attention to the words you speak every day, and choose empowering words from this day forward. Not only do your words affect your success opportunities, but they impact how others perceive and relate to you as well. Instead of framing your words into limiting “can-nots,” turn them into non-limiting words to empower more success.

Get off your ASS and really go for it! You can choose winning over losing. You can choose to succeed even when you fail. You can choose to learn from your mistakes and move on. You can choose to win by grabbing hold of success from this day forward and never letting go. You should always be true to the best within yourself. Don’t ever give up on the shameless pursuit of success. Period!

Categories
Growth Personal Development

The 7 Strengths and Habits That Successful People Possess

There’s no secret recipe that will make you a successful person, but these seven strengths and habits can greatly increase your chances of success.

Finding and developing success within yourself can come easily when you look at the strengths and habits of other successful people. The attributes of successful people don’t develop overnight and didn’t just happen by accident — although they may make it look effortless.

Successful people continue to work on their success habits as part of a daily routine so that success becomes a way of life. Let’s walk through seven of the most important strengths and habits of successful people.

1. They have a success-driven mindset and the passion to achieve

Successful people have a strong will to succeed and achieve in life. They look forward to growth and have a deeply rooted desire to do much more than the average person. These people take action to make positive changes and move outside their comfort zone. Even when their attempts fail, they can quickly see opportunities that surround them, adjust when things go wrong and move in a new direction.

Unsuccessful people, on the other hand, feel defeated, throw their hands up in the air and give up way too soon.

2. They are self-aware and have self-confidence

Successful people face challenges with confidence and trust their skills and knowledge. Even when they don’t have the right skills or knowledge to begin with, they move forward with enthusiasm and commitment to succeed despite the odds. Successful people have a strong sense of self, which allows them to make stronger commitments. They are comfortable speaking their minds. Successful people stand up, speak out and enjoy sharing ideas and opinions.

Unsuccessful people who lack confidence are often unwilling to open up and speak up, which holds them back and causes missed opportunities.

3. They are vision-focused and achievement-oriented

Successful people create a clear vision for goals and take action toward achieving that vision, which doesn’t allow anything to stand in their way. A strong vision serves as a guideline to keep them motivated and on track to achieving their goals. They set and conquer smaller goals first and then move on to bigger and bolder benchmarks so they can hit larger targets.

Unsuccessful people are frequently unclear, unfocused and misguided, so they often waste time and money getting to their goals or even missing the targets altogether.

4. They value time wisely

Successful people are extremely productive. They value and use their time wisely and don’t allow others to take advantage of or waste their time. They create barriers around their time by adding structure and systems into their businesses, which are respected by clients and peers. They clearly understand that time is their most valuable asset.

Unsuccessful people waste time doing unproductive things that don’t allow for effective growth and give away their time too freely to others. Therefore, they create fewer income-generating opportunities.

5. They own it!

Successful people build a solid business and brand foundation that sets them apart from the competition. They are known as experts and authorities within their respective industries. They own their business and their brand, which allows them to easily maximize their avenues to success.

Unsuccessful competitors either do things like everyone else, lack a success plan to build on, or do just enough to survive.

6. They think differently than the average person

Successful people think differently. They look one step — or more — into the future and see opportunities everywhere. They think outside the box and come up with creative and innovative ways of doing business.

Unsuccessful people follow the crowd or wait to copy other people’s ideas, so they usually remain one step behind the competition.

7. They love what they do

Successful people don’t think of work as work. They take pleasure in their business and love what they do for a living. This gives them a sense of achievement and happiness that fulfills their definition of success.

Unsuccessful people see work as survival, and they work simply to earn a living. Most don’t enjoy what they do for a living and consider what they do to be a J-O-B.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Do You Have These 7 Powerful Success- Building Characteristics?

Many successful people have similar personality traits. If you don’t have these seven, start cultivating them now.

Successful people have many of the same characteristics in common. The following are seven characteristics that highly successful people have that are critical in both business and life.

1. The disrupter mindset Successful people passionately seek out opportunities for change or ways to disrupt their industry altogether. So, learn how to break the rules to stand out in your industry. Always look for the chance to profit from change and/or an innovative way to adjust how business is done so you can stand out and succeed. Don’t get me wrong — you need to start with a useful idea. But when you think you have one, don’t hold back. Take the core concept and turn up the disruption dial to the highest volume.

For example, Sean and Thora Dowdell are the owners and founders of Club Tattoo, a chain of tattoo studios in Arizona and Nevada. They turned the tattoo business model on its head by avoiding the unapproachable atmosphere of typical tattoo parlors. Instead, they took a high-end, modern, customer service-focused approach to the studios and retail stores, which brought the tattoo business into the mainstream and built a multimillion-dollar business for them in the process.

2. A vision for opportunity

Successful people seek out opportunities everywhere. But finding good business opportunities isn’t going to mean anything if you can’t recognize them. Recognizing good opportunities takes talent — you have to know what to look for and you need to be able to envision the future of that opportunity. Understanding the type of opportunity you’re looking for and having a few goals in mind is crucial and will help determine which factors make it a good opportunity for you. The first step is to remain on high alert to spot opportunities while remaining ruthlessly disciplined about limiting the number of projects you pursue. Go after a tightly controlled portfolio of opportunities in different stages of business development. Link your strategy with your choice of

projects rather than diluting your efforts in many areas. Make quick decisions instead of over-analyzing new ideas, and execute a plan of action.

3. Shared belief system

Successful people build a great support team. One characteristic of a strong supportive team is a shared belief in the same set of values, which helps create a bond so the team works and supports one another. Shared values serve to connect team members at a core level, and this, in turn, serves to validate and strengthen their support for you as their leader. Their support continues to level up your success.

Begin to engage the energies of everyone inside and outside your organization in the pursuit of good opportunities. Successful people create and sustain powerful networks and business relationships rather than go it alone. You know how to best leverage the wisdom of experts and other resources to help achieve your goals. Business associates and joint venture partnerships can help move you miles ahead of your competitors.

4. Common business sense Successful people have good common business sense and are always looking for ways to continue educating themselves.

Developing good business sense is about continually seeking to understand the ever-changing business environment. It’s not a skill you can learn from a book. It’s something you acquire through hands-on experience and trial and error, but it can also be fostered through the wisdom of others. Brainstorming with seasoned business professionals can give you insight into how successful people with good business sense think and make decisions.

5. Motivation to learn

Successful people continue to learn throughout their lives with great enthusiasm and motivation. When you learn more about your business and successfully implement the strategies you discover, you become enthusiastic about learning even more.

Successful people become sponges to absorb anything that can help take their business to the next level. It’s almost as if they can’t get enough! Call them engaged, devoted, enthusiastic, or even obsessed — successful people believe in their mission so much that it’s contagious to everyone around them, who marvel at their commitment and dedication. This energy can fuel you to remain focused on your mission and help you persist through difficulties.

6. Ability to adapt

Successful people keep moving forward and adapt as needed. They’ve learned to change and reinvent their business often as the world and their industry change around them. If you fail to adapt, you’ll simply get left behind.

To keep growing, you must continuously think of ways to improve. Allow time in your busy schedule to learn new things and come up with new ideas. Successful people remain in constant motion by investing in learning because they’re eager to pursue knowledge. They understand the world is always changing, so they need to adapt to avoid getting stuck in a rut. Successful people keep moving forward and reinvent themselves when required.

7. Observant communicators

Successful people are observant communicators who pay close attention to how other people react. Communication is an activity, skill, and art that incorporates lessons across a wide spectrum of human knowledge.

One of the most likable characteristics of successful people is how observant they are. They give their full, undivided attention to others. Those who’ve mastered this are great communicators who go far in business.

Successful people learn this skill by being more self- aware. Being observant requires practice to perfect. These seven key characteristics will move you forward every day, keeping you in constant pursuit of a creative purpose that inspires you. You’re more likely to get three to 10 times more accomplished in a day than the average person because you’ll stay focused on what empowers you the most.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

Using ‘Shameless’ Self-Promotion to Grow Your Business

If you’re not sold on yourself, no one else will be either. Here’s why learning to shamelessly promote yourself is nothing to be, well, ashamed of.

In business, you understand that if you don’t promote and market, you can’t succeed, right? No matter how great your service is or what amazing value you offer, if prospects don’t know about you, you’re not going to have a chance to do business with them.

To gain some clarity on this point, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do I feel passionate about helping prospects and customers get the best experience possible?
  • Do I feel our services and/or products are better than our competitors’?
  • Do I want to help others?If the answer is “yes” to any of these questions, promote these facts. When you don’t promote your services and products, you rob people of the opportunity to do business with someone who has the customer’s best interest in mind.

Do you feel passionate about your business, career and/ or what you have to sell? When you passionately believe in yourself, your value, your service and your products, you also believe prospects should do business with you instead of your competitors, right? If the answer is “no,” I suggest finding your passion before going any further, or success will become challenging for you.

It’s easy to promote yourself when you believe in the value of what you offer. To move to a higher level of success, you must practice promoting and selling in ways that may feel uncomfortable at first. Next time you experience a feeling of discomfort in self- promotion or the feeling of rejection creeps in, move toward it instead of away from it. Go ahead and feel uncomfortable. It’s only a feeling. Step outside the limitation zone, and go for it!

Learn to never give up

Growing up in a family business, I learned early on that I had to self-promote on a daily basis if I wanted the business to succeed. Since my family had many different businesses, we were always promoting something new. Most of our businesses started out

with little or no investment, so self-promotion was essential to getting them off the ground.
My father taught me that the first step toward marketing success was to believe in myself and my ideas. It doesn’t matter if others don’t believe in your ideas as much as you do, you must be strong enough to never give up!

Back in the mid-1970s, my father ran across a mini- storage business while traveling in Texas. It was a new concept at the time and intrigued him, so he stopped to inquire about it. The owner was proud of his new business and openly shared the details of how he got started. After my father talked it over with the family, we decided to start a mini-storage business in our home state of Indiana.

The next step was to get a bank loan to build the facility. That should have been simple, especially since our car rental business was already successful. But the banker wouldn’t go for it. He said, “I’ve never heard of a mini-storage facility. It sounds like a fad to me. I don’t think it’ll work.”

One bank after another turned us down, but my father never gave up. Finally, we got approved for a small-

business loan, although it wasn’t quite enough to complete the entire project.

My father and brother jumped in to help the construction crew assemble the storage buildings to save money. As I ran the day-to-day of the car rental business, I started promoting the mini-storage concept to our existing customers. Before the project was even completed, we had a long waiting list of interested customers. As soon as the storage units became available, every space was rented.

Finally, the bank started believing in our business and offered to fund a second location. Within a few years, we sold our successful company to a large self-storage corporation, Public Storage. This experience taught me to always believe in my ideas, to promote them to the right people and to never give up!

Here are 5 no-nonsense action steps to help you become a shameless promoter:

1. Accept that if you don’t do shameless promotion, you’ll end up with nameless promotion. If you don’t promote yourself, no one else will. It’s challenging to succeed if you’re not will­ing to let others know that

your business, products or services exist. Choosing to become a successful self-promoter requires working to create more positive experiences and seek better results. You can choose to change your beliefs and create a new reality starting right now.

2. Promote yourself more often and always in the service of others. When done effectively, self- promotion is an art form. It comes from a place of service. It comes from your passion and commitment to support others first. Effective self-promotion is natural when words and actions connect our head and heart. When you promote effectively, more prospects are readily open to doing business with you. Simply put, effec­tive self-promotion is good marketing!

3. Speak up and get noticed. Don’t allow the voices and opinions of others to drown out your true “inner voice.” Summon the courage to share your opinions and promote your gifts. It’s important to remain true to yourself at all times. When you promote your knowledge, skills and ideas, you give others something to cheer for and a cause to support and follow.

4. Understand that resenting self-promotion will become a huge obstacle to your success! People who have issues with selling and promoting rarely succeed. To excel in this area, you must become absolutely sold on yourself, your abilities, your prod­ ucts, your services. Before you can sell yourself to others, you must first be sold on you.

5. Learn to live by the “Three Rules of Shameless Success”:

  • Rule #1: Have your own personal style. Dare to be differ­ent!
  • Rule #2: Never give up even when others don’t believe in you or your ideas.
  • Rule #3: Stand out. Position yourself in front of the right people to get noticed.
Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

10 Simple Ways to Improve Your People Skills

Much of your success in life hinges on your ability to understand and interact with people. Use these tips to up your people-skills game.

No matter what new technologies and systems you put in place to grow your business, how to work with people will always matter most. To develop natural charm and innate people skills requires effort along with trial and error. Here are ten simple ways to help improve your natural charm and create real connections to build more powerful people skills:

1. Talk to others about what they want to hear

People often hear only what they want or need. The things potential customers want to hear most are how you can serve their goals, interests, ideas, experiences and aspirations. Talk about that, and you’ll get and hold their attention without difficulty.

2. Take a training course

Invest in learning how to communicate more effectively. This will pay off in every aspect of your business and your personal life. The highest-paid and

most powerful people on the planet are all master communicators who have learned how to take control of even the most challenging situations, understand the art of persuasion, and know how to recognize and use persuasive strategies. Good communication leads to success!

3. Show appreciation

Make it a habit to thank others for everything they do to support you. A simple “thank you” makes others feel appreciated. You benefit in return by having good feelings about making others feel good. And you also benefit by making others think better of you, making them want to do more good things for you in return. The more you genuinely show others you care, the easier it will be to make a good impression on them.

4. Give genuine, sincere compliments

When you compliment someone about a trait, skill, accomplishment, or possession, it gives them feelings of recognition and value. The more you pay close attention to customers, the more important they feel. When you pay compliments often, even on small things, it helps build rapport.

5. Act honorably and treat others with respect

Always do the right thing, even when no one’s watching. That’s how you build a positive business reputation. Reputation isn’t purchased; it’s earned. We’ve all heard this: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” This is the Golden Rule in business that should govern your attitudes, thoughts, words, and actions.

6. Identify personal core values

Clarifying your core values highlights what you stand for. Your core values also represent your uniqueness and personal style. They guide your behavior and provide you with a personal code of conduct. When you honor your core values consistently, you experience fulfillment in every part of life. And when you don’t, you become incongruent in your business practices. For example, if one of your core values is to offer high- quality customer service, yet your employees don’t show customers the respect they deserve, that’s a problem because you’re working outside your core business values. To turn it around, you must empower your team to match every area of your core values, including valuing customers.

7. Commit to good business ethics

Practicing good business ethics should go without saying. So why are there still so many unethical

businesspeople out there? Ethics are your moral judgment about what’s right and what’s wrong. Good ethics simply make good business sense!
Success comes easily when you act with honesty and integrity at all times. Good ethics require dealing honestly in your business, backing up your products and services, and treating everyone fairly. A lack of business ethics endangers your future success and jeopardizes your reputation. If you believe that, like karma, what goes around comes around, always practice good ethics.

8. Remain true to your authentic self

Remaining true to your beliefs helps you sincerely connect to others. Pretending to be something you’re not makes doing business hard. You can’t manipulate your personality to seek approval or avoid disapproval. Authenticity isn’t defined by your title, position, or role. It’s all about being true to your heart and your destiny. This requires you to trust yourself, embrace your uniqueness, share your gifts, and learn to be present in the moment.

For example, one of the greatest compliments I get from audience members after giving a speech is, “You’re so real and authentic. I felt like you were speaking directly to me.” Hearing this always warms

my heart. It’s my goal to always be in the moment, make a personal connection (no matter how large the audience is), and share my knowledge with the audience. It’s about connecting your head and heart to make an impact.

9. Build confidence to make stronger connections

Being confident earns you the respect of others. Confidence shows in many ways, including your mannerisms, appearance, and the way you talk, walk, and listen to people. To become more confident, you must respect and accept yourself as you are right now. You are unique in your own way. Accepting yourself and your flaws without any inner conflict helps build confidence.

Take responsibility for your success by having confidence, which is independent of all external factors, especially the things beyond your control. Confident people talk assertively, strike an assured pose, and use a certain tone of voice. Confidence allows you to be tough in business, but tough doesn’t mean you can’t still be friendly and approachable. Having true confidence is about being daringly honest and truthful at all times.

10. Tackle problems with a positive mental attitude
Positive thinking allows you to try to solve problems through constructive action. A positive mental attitude lets you build strengths and overcome weaknesses. It helps you realize you’re born for greatness because within you is the power to make any dream a reality.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

How to Position Yourself as The Go-To Expert in Your Niche Market

Accelerate Your Market Positioning to Gain More Credibility, More Clients and More Sales

Quickly accelerate your brand awareness and expertise by effectively marketing yourself as the go-to expert within your niche market or industry. Learn how to become recognized as the authority and stand out in a crowded marketplace.

During this inspiring presentation, you will learn how to expand your value, increase your fees, and multiply your income streams to create more sales and profits.

Learn How To:

  • Quickly accelerate your brand to become known as the go-to
    expert in your niche market.
  • Stand out, get noticed and gain more high-paying clients.
  • Dominate your competition.
  • Create multiple income streams around your expertise to dramatically increase your income.

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

Grow Your Business With Powerful Online Marketing Funnels

Drive More Traffic and Gain High Value Clients

Discover how automated marketing funnels and data capture strategies will up your marketing to increase your online sales. Learn how Facebook ads, Webinars, Landing Pages and Video Marketing will move you ahead of the competition as the go-to expert.
Uncover innovative and strategic action steps to move you to the next level of online exposure. Get motivational with up-to-date business marketing strategies and solid business advice from a Global Marketing Expert with over two decades of experience.
Learn How To:

  • Activate automated marketing funnels that grow your database
  • Develop innovative marketing strategies to increase sales
  • Utilize online marketing funnels to up your competitive game
  • Take strategic action steps to move to the next level