Tammy Landau
The other day someone asked me to give my “not so humble” opinion of their website.
I went to their site, I saw…well I didn’t really see-I couldn’t. Their font size was so small I could barely read it.
Christine Kloser
Christine Kloser is one of my original business mentors. She introduced me to the ideas and teachers that shaped my own business plan. You may have heard her interview me last month for her Conscious Entrepreneurs mastermind group. Now it’s my turn to introduce her to you with her article “Sticky Note” Business Plan:
If you’re like most creative entrepreneurs, the thought of writing a business plan is not the highest item on your priority list. You’d rather explore new ideas, create products and services, develop a new speech, or work with your clients… than sit down and write a plan.
But, to be successful in business, you need to have a plan in place. The good news is you don’t have to write a formal (bank-friendly) business plan to keep your business on track. In fact, until recently, I used my self-made “sticky note business plan” to keep track of my business goals and plans.
The “sticky note business plan” is a simple and fun tool you can use anytime, any place to keep your business pointing in the right direction. Here are a few simple steps to get you started:
1. Gather Your Planning Supplies. Thankfully, you won’t need fancy computer software, or heavy reference books to write your plan. All you’ll need is a wall, six poster boards, three pads of sticky notes, scotch tape, a note pad, a Sharpie marker and a pen. It’ll also help to have a quiet place and a few hours of time to enjoy this process. You may even want to light your favorite candle and play some relaxing music.
2. Lay Out Your Plan. Tape the six poster boards up on the wall. Once the boards are up on the wall, grab your notepad. Sit down for a few minutes and quietly think about the aspects of your business you want to plan. For example: do you need to design a new product or event, do you want to create a marketing plan, do you need a timeline plan for the next 3 years of your business, or is it time to plan the launch of a new service?
Use your notepad to collect all of your ideas and decide on the six main categories you want to include in your plan. Next, write each category on six separate sticky notes using your Sharpie marker. Then, stick one note on the top center of each poster board… so each board is labeled for one of your six topics.
3. Download Your Ideas. Here comes the fun part. Get your pen and sticky notes and begin to write down every single idea that comes to mind for each category. Don’t edit or censor any ideas. Simply write them down and stick them on the poster board for that category. Try to stay with one category at a time as best you can. But, if other ideas keep coming to mind, write them down and pop them on the appropriate poster. Let the ideas flow and enjoy the process of getting everything on paper.
4. Organize Your Ideas. So, now that your ideas are on the poster boards, begin to organize them. Look for themes, sequences, and categories of items. Physically move the sticky notes on the poster board to group ideas together. Sometimes I’ll organize ideas by timeline, sometimes I’ll organize by concept… you can organize them in the way that makes sense to you.
5. Put It All Together. Now, step back and take a look at your whole plan. After going through this process, you may discover some items need to move higher on your priority list; while other ideas may need to be dropped from your plan completely. The right things to do (and the order in which to do them) will surface now that you have the whole plan in place. Next, rearrange the posters so the highest priority plan is at the left side of the wall and the lower priority plan is to the right side of the wall. Finally, transfer your highest priority tasks to your calendar to make sure you begin executing your plan.
6. Keep Going. As you make progress with your plan, continually re-evaluate where you are… and keep moving forward with your projects. Personally, once I complete a concept from one of my poster boards, I remove the sticky notes so I can visually see my progress and all that I’m accomplishing. You may enjoy doing the same thing.
Now that you know how to write your “sticky note business plan”, you’ll discover it’s actually FUN to work on your plan. And, it’s a huge asset to your business.
Copyright (c) 2008 Christine Kloser
Christine Kloser, author of The Freedom Formula, helps small businesses put soul in their business and money in the bank. If you want to enjoy a purpose-driven business and a soulful life, send for my free Conscious Business Success Kit, which includes my report, How to Avoid the 3 Massive Mistakes Made by Conscious Entrepreneurs and audio, 7 Strategies Entrepreneurial Authors Need to Know Before Writing a Word, at LoveYourLife.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christine_M._Kloser
What does it mean when clients “can’t afford” you? This is such a powerful learning, when you finally get it…
“Can’t afford” to hire you means they don’t want you enough. That’s all. The bottom line is if someone doesn’t hire you, they don’t see the value you give as worthy of the sacrifice. That doesn’t mean you don’t provide great value. That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be well paid. They just don’t see an urgent connection between what they need and what you offer. Either you aren’t giving them what they perceive they need, it’s not important enough to them, or you are offering what they need but you’ve dropped the ball in communication.
When someone tells me she “can’t afford” me, I always take the opportunity to point out that it’s more powerful–and honest–for them to say, “It’s not an economic priority for me at this time” instead of “I can’t afford” it. I’m totally cool with not being an economic priority! Nothing wrong with that!
As a coach, I feel it’s unethical to allow (even prospective) clients to relieve themselves of responsibility for their choices. I will not collude with their disempowerment. It is PROFOUNDLY disempowering to make money or time a scapegoat, an excuse for not doing something. This doesn’t serve them. And it can be quite LIBERATING to be given total permission to say “No. Other things are a higher priority.”
At the same time it takes enormous self-management to hear someone talk about having trouble coming up with money for food or rent. Everything in me wants to say, “Don’t hire me! You can’t afford it!” (And I’ve done that, much to my regret.)
It is ALWAYS their call to make. To give a discount, to give it away for free, or tell someone they can’t afford me is, essentially, saying “You don’t have what it takes.” Ewwww.
The people I take on as clients want me so badly that they’ll do whatever it takes to hire me, and they thank me. The moment I find myself trying to convince someone to hire me, I need to pause and acknowledge we probably aren’t a good match, and say so.
Ironically, this hands off approach (trying to “overcome objections” tends to bite me in the a**) is often enough to motivate people to come back and hire me. And if it doesn’t, we weren’t a good match.
I’ll add one last word: I find it helps to be CRYSTAL CLEAR about what results a client will get, how they’ll know, and when. I never promise “you will make money,” but I can tell them precisely what I can guarantee. And I stay absolutely in integrity about what I can promise and what I can’t.
Here’s the biggest, most revolutionary business secret that’s so OBVIOUS it’s almost impossible to see: LEARN TO ASK.
1) ASK for input. You wanna know what your customers want? Don’t guess or try to be a mind reader. Just ask them! Obvious, huh? Before you build the widget, write the proposal, or design that seminar, ask your audience what they’re looking for. My best teleclasses came from “tell me what you want to know” emails. What could be easier than answering questions? And nothing makes people happier than giving them what they ask for. ALL the super successful people I know ask before they offer.
2) ASK the experts. Oooooh this has been a tough one for me! One of my earliest phrases as a toddler was “Gana do self.” That philosophy’s okay when you’re learning to tie your shoes, but it’s not so great when you’re building a business. If I hadn’t had coaches and mentors every step of the way, I’d be answering phones and fetching coffee today. If they didn’t fire me first. (I make an AWFUL secretary.) And believe me, I’ve wasted years and maybe a million dollars by not asking questions soon enough, by trying to figure it out all by myself.
3) ASK for help. You know all those gurus who say ‘Do the hard stuff first’– I say don’t do it at all! Give it to someone else. The stuff I do well I do very, very well. Instant money magic and quick life transformation? No sweat. But don’t let me near accounting, scheduling, or mailing. I conisistently make mistakes, no matter how careful I try to be. Hiring someone else is a NECESSITY! That weakest link is going to bring you down. If you’re the weakest link, replace yourself.
4) Work with the best. Getting good help is essential for your survival, whether it’s medical, personal, or professional, and it can be HARD to find! And frankly I’ve hired some scammy creeps who cost me tens of thousands of dollars on bad “help”, so I’m going to open up my rolodex and share my business faves.
|
|
|
just a few of my faves These are MY experts, who’ve made my life a whole lot easier, and my business a whole lot better. I am such a HUGE FAN of them that I’ve been wanting to share them for a long time: I completed Alex Mandossian’s Teleseminar Secrets class, and was up in San Francisco for the reunion event two weeks ago. He’s the guy who taught me to ASK my audiences what they want: http://tinyurl.com/charmed-TSS
I mentioned I took Ali Brown’s Online Success Blueprint workshop (her last ever, in person) late last year. I even paid for my assistant to attend too. I wish I had taken it earlier! It’s too late to do it live, but she’s offering a home study version:
www.tinyurl.com/charmed-ali Tammy Landau introduced me to my FIRST Joint Venture and my first on line info product. (Do you remember From Employee to Entrepreneur?) Her “Create Your Signature Product” starts Monday. It’s so grotesquely UNDER priced (talk about insulting her relationship with money), that I told her I would kick her bottom if she ever did it again.
http://tinyurl.com/charmed-TammyLandau Did you get my celebrated e-book? It was easy peasy to make. I sent a recording of my best teleclass to Susie Ward, where she transcribed the text for me to edit, then she put it into a lovely e-book format and designed the cover.
http://www.theadminsource.com/ Mari Smith is THE expert on social media (facebook, twitter, linked in, etc) and she is SO NICE! As generous and knowledgeable teacher as you’ll ever find.
http://tinyurl.com/charmed-MariSmith There are so many more, but I’m running out of room. I’ll share more over time.
|
Financial Alchemy
Norfolk, VA (PRWEB) March 12, 2009 — With all the doom-and-gloom swirling around the news media and across the Internet, it’s refreshing to hear about some small business owners who have seen growth in their businesses since January 1. Now, they are coming together for a live event to share the reasons for their success with you. Easily a $275 value, this event is absolutely free.
You can hear The Success Stimulus Series from your home office via teleconferencing and online audio streaming. These 10 business owners are carving out time from their busy schedules: Ann Rusnak, Rosey Dow, Ray Edwards, Denise Michaels, Mari Smith, Jim Turner, Bob Jenkins, Morgana Rae, Zna Trainer and Linda Zimmer. They will deliver easy-to-understand and quick-to-implement guidance that will let you cut through the fog of fear and step over the roadblocks of discouragement.
This event will take place on March 17-19 from 10am-2pm Pacific / 1:00-5:00 pm Eastern. Each speaker will speak for only 30 minutes. They are going to cut to the chase to give you the most value per minute because we know that your time is priceless. So is their expertise.
MY INTERVIEW IS MARCH 17 (pot of gold day, right?) AT 4PM EASTERN TIME: “Proven Steps to Be a Money Magnet.”
Topics will include:
* Ways get new clients begging for your services
* How to build a Tribe of loyal fans who love to promote you
* A simple formula to easily develop new products fast
* Low-cost to no-cost methods for driving traffic to your site
* Your top activities that let you accomplish so much more in less time
* How to boost your energy in as little as 15 minutes
* How to attract money to you (That’s mine!)
Plus much, much more…
For more information on this free Success Stimulus Series visit
The Success Stimulus Series
Talk to you next week.
Warmly,
Morgana
P.S. It’s been soooooo long since I did a public teleclass. Did you miss me?
Host Christopher McCauliffe