Archive for Planning
The Skills Every Solopreneur Needs
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If you want to succeed as a solopreneur, there are a few core skills you need to have. The majority of these skills aren’t things that are taught in business school, but skills that need to be honed in the real world. Fortunately, once you develop these skills, they can be applied to just about any venture you embark on.
These are the skills every solopreneur should have.
Leadership (Not Management)
John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Fund, the largest mutual fund in the world, defines leadership as knowing what’s worth doing. Management is knowing how to do it.
A leader needs to be able to decide what’s important and what will actually impact the company’s bottom line. They need to be able to make moral decisions about when to go for profit and when to sacrifice profits for long-term values.
They need to be able to identify what’s really best for everyone involved, including clients, employees and shareholders, and make business decisions for the greater good.
A manager is someone who understands things like time management, project flow, tracking employee performance and such. But they aren’t necessarily the right people to steer a company.
A good solopreneur needs to be a great leader. It also helps if they’re a good manager.
Persistence and Patience
In “Good to Great,” one of the most highly acclaimed business books of the century, Jim Collins studies eleven public companies whose performance consistently beat the market average for 15 years in a row.
One of the key factors he found was persistence and patience. He likened it to a giant spinning metallic flywheel.
If you had to take this giant metallic wheel and make it spin, in the very beginning it won’t budge at all. You can put in immense amounts of effort, only to find it still not moving.
Yet once it does start moving, slow at first then getting faster and faster, it’ll build up momentum until it starts to move on its own. At that point, it would actually be harder to stop the flywheel than to push it faster.
Building a business is like that. In the beginning, you’ll be swimming upstream. But as momentum builds, it’ll get easier and easier. The trick is to have the persistence and patience to stick it through.
Team and People Focus
“Take my 20 best people and, virtually overnight, Microsoft becomes a mediocre company.” — Bill Gates
Whether it’s Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, one thing is consistently clear across the most successful companies: a relentless drive to hire the best people.
More than anything else, the success of your company is going to be based on the kind of people you hire.
Aim to hire people who are smarter and more competent than you. Don’t try to hire a team that you can lead, but a team that can lead your company and you to better results than you alone could create.
These are just a few of the key skills every solopreneur needs. These skills aren’t developed overnight, but they’re absolutely skills that anyone who’s committed can learn.
Running Your Business With an iPhone
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Don’t you just love technology? A few short years ago it really wasn’t possible to run your business from your phone. Now you can do almost anything with the help of applications for your iPhone.
Writing/Editing
There are a number of apps that let you view and edit documents directly from your smartphone. One of the most popular is called Documents to Go. It lets you view and edit documents right on your phone.
You can also find text-based writing tools like PlainText and iA Writer that are inexpensive and easy to use.
Desktop Communication
You can use the GoToMyPC app to connect to your work computer. This makes it easy to access your work files directly. No need to plan ahead. You can also use Apps like Dropbox and CloudTalk to share and store information that is accessible both from your computer and your smartphone.
Communication
With Skype you can have voice chats (and video chats if your device has a camera) with customers and contractors.
You can also use dictation applications like Dragon and QuickVoice to record your thoughts or create business content or documents.
Payment and Invoicing
PayPal offers an easy to use payment application that lets you send invoices and manage your account from your smartphone. Many banks also offer applications that let you manage your account from your phone. Intuit, the makers of Quicken and QuickBooks also have a payment processing application called GoPayment that you can use on your smartphone.
Blogging
Like to blog on the go? Check out the WordPress application that makes it easy to write, edit and publish blogs from your smartphone.
Social Networking
There are myriad applications to manage your social networking for both Facebook and Twitter. You can post pictures, comments, and stay in touch with your friends from just about any mobile device. Check out Friendly and the iTunes Facebook app for Facebook. Check out the HootSuite application for Twitter.
Organization
Last but definitely not least are the wide number of organization and brainstorming applications that you can find to not only grow your business but also to manage it from your phone. Check out MindNode for mind mapping applications. Evernote and One Note are both fantastic note taking, clipping, and organizational tools.
And don’t forget the basics. You can access your Google accounts with Google applications which means you can check your AdSense earnings, analytics and of course you can check your email too.
Smartphone applications make owning and operating a business easier than it has ever been before. You can network, invoice, pay bills, brainstorm, publish content and launch new products – all from your phone.
Starting out? How to Ensure You Have a Mindset Geared for Success
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Guest post by: Kirstin O´Donovan – TOP Results Coaching
Whether you are just starting out or you have been an entrepreneur for a few years, wherever you are in your career, ensuring you have the right mindset is essential for your success. It is said that 80% of the reasons holding us back from being successful are inside ourselves and only 20% are on the outside – so we must always start by looking at ourselves. Don’t let yourself be your worst enemy.
So how can we ensure we have a mindset geared for success…there are a few qualities we need to work on to be geared for success.
CAUSE: EFFECT – There are only two sides of the equation that we can be on. If you are on the cause side, you accept and know that you are responsible for everything that happens to you and your company. You know that your business is a reflection of your actions and you take responsibility for your results. If you are on the effect side, you feel like a victim, you have excuses for why this doesn’t work, why you can´t succeed in that and you live by these stories. To succeed, you must always take responsibility for what happens. Decide to be in charge of your business success, and not at the mercy of what happens to you.
We also need to look at our attitude towards events. In business, we must use failure as feedback and respond positively to feedback. Our attitude determines how we look at setbacks, events, and situations. If we have a positive attitude we could look at the same situation very differently from someone who has a negative attitude. A failure in business could be very daunting for some people or it could be positive feedback to others. The feedback that they need to alter their course a little, change what they are doing to get a better result. Failure is guidance, helping us to find the best way to succeed, so cultivate the habit of using failure as feedback.
Know where your focus is – you need to focus on what you can change and do and not on what you can´t. Some of us spend a whole day, focusing on the negative, how bad the situation is and how unfair, how could this be happening, instead of moving on and changing what we can. Our focus determines our reality so keep focusing on succeeding and not on what we can´t control.
You have to be committed and persevere in what you want – don´t give up! Perseverance is the key in reaching any goal. You must focus on what you want and you must dedicate yourself to achieving it. You must be committed throughout the journey and it will pay off. Being an entrepreneur is not always easy, the journey may have setbacks, mistakes, but successful people are the ones who have the ability to overcome these, use them as feedback and keep moving forward.
Your mind must be organized, you must be very clear about where you are going, the vision you have for your business and the certainty that you will have it! If your mind is full of doubt, uncertainty and you are not clear about what you actually want or what solution you provide, this will have a very negative effect on you. You need to manage your mind and be clear about what you want, what you offer and to whom, etc – if your mind is disorganized, this will reflect directly on your outside world.
You also need to break old habits if they are not serving you or helping you to succeed. Bad habits will only hold you back and have a negative impact on your life. You must recognize your bad habits and find the strength to change them.
Lastly, you must have a high self esteem and believe in yourself and other people too. The beliefs you have about people, your abilities and business in general will determine the results you get in business. Identify your beliefs and if they are holding you back, change them! This also refers to your negative thoughts, if they don´t serve you, they only make you feel bad and bring you down. Anchor positive feelings and be your own success coach.
“Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success!” – Henry Ford
About the Author
Kirstin O´Donovan is a Personal Growth and Success Coach, helping entrepreneurs who struggle with time-management, organization and goal setting to achieve their goals, improve organization and gain control over their time. She helps entrepreneurs to alleviate stress and to be more productive, empowered and fulfilled. Find out more about Kirstin and TOP Results Coaching here.
Do you want MORE Visibility in Your Coaching Business?
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Join us on Thursday, October 6th at 1-2 pm eastern time for:
Easy Biz and Visibility – With Louise Crooks
Louise will give her ideas on how business can be easier for coaches, advice to leave the struggle behind and her best tips on the ins and outs of visibility – the one thing that will make sure your ideal clients can find you!
Louise Crooks, The KeystoClarity! Coach, is a heart-centered business coach, radio show host, speaker and author. Her big focus is helping you create visibility in your business, be seen as an expert in your field, and fill your practice with the ‘right’ clients. Becoming VISIBLE has many facets – there are so many ways to put yourself out there that it’s difficult to choose which is best to see the results you’re looking for. Visibility takes courage yet when you visibly share your gifts and talents and do what you were meant to be doing with them… you’ll be helping MORE people, more EASILY, in your biz!
Join Janet Slack as she interviews Louise Crooks to get her best tips and tricks for easy biz success through visibility.
Register now in the box below to reserve your seat for this important call. If you can’t attend live, register anyway to get free access to the call recording for one week.
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Once you register, you’ll also receive notice about each of our upcoming monthly calls. Right now we are planning calls on marketing through public speaking, video basics and the role of customer service in your coaching business with many more yet to be scheduled! As a special gift, you will also receive the acclaimed weekly Biz Tips for Coaches, a quick idea each week to keep your coaching business up to date with the latest resources, technology and marketing tactics.
Making Decisions
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Have you ever felt nervous about making a decision that could affect the rest of your life? Sometimes even seemingly minor decisions can send you into a fit of anxiety when you begin thinking of all the things that could go wrong.
It’s fairly common for people to bounce back and forth between several choices, whether they are related to career, money, business, opportunities, or even relationships. How do you know which choice is the best one for you in any given situation? Sometimes the best choice is obvious, but other times they all seem to hold a glimmer of possibility – and the threat of regret.
The good news is that making wise decisions is a matter of weighing the potential pros and cons of every available outcome. Below you’ll find a simple 3-step process to help you make wise decisions no matter what part of your life they may affect.
What Do You Stand to Gain?
When you’ve got more than one option to choose from, a great first question to ask of each one is, “What do I stand to gain from choosing this option?” If the rewards are big, you might be willing to withstand a bit of risk in order to benefit from the opportunity. Conversely, if the payoff would be small, you might not feel so confident about taking a chance right now.
What Do You Stand to Lose?
The next question to ask is, “What do I stand to lose if this option doesn’t work out?” No one likes to think of the negatives in a potential opportunity, but you could save yourself a lot of heartache with a bit of foresight. If your losses could be huge with a particular option, you might decide to hold off for awhile to see if the odds improve over time.
What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
Finally, take it one step further and ask, “What is the worst thing that could happen if I choose this option, and would I be willing to accept those consequences?” It may seem like a very pessimistic question, but it’s extremely effective at clarifying the situation. If you couldn’t handle the consequences of making such a choice, then you know immediately that it’s not the right choice for you at this time. If, on the other hand, the consequences wouldn’t be so bad, you know it’s a viable option for you.
What do you do if all of your options hold the same potential rewards and consequences? Go with your gut. Take a few minutes to think carefully about each possibility, and then choose the one you feel strongest about.
When it comes right down to it, there are no guarantees in decision-making. You simply weigh the pros and cons, listen to your intuition, and do the best you can. In the end, there really isn’t any such thing as a “bad” decision, because you do learn something from each one you make. If you keep that in mind you should grow more confident with each choice you make, which will help you make even better decisions in the future.
