Set Deadlines for Yourself

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If you have an unlimited amount of time to work on something, you probably won’t get it done very quickly. If you have a tight deadline, you’re much more likely to get to work on it right away.

That particular theory was first expressed in 1955 by a man named Cyril Northcote Parkinson, and now famously called Parkinson’s Law, and states: “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.

In other words, assuming it’s possible to complete a task in a day, if you give yourself a day to complete it, it will get done. If you give it a week, it will take a week. And if you give it an unlimited amount of time, it might take virtually forever.

Some people believe that having an unlimited amount of time to work on something is a good thing. Instead, it makes you so much less efficient. When you have a deadline, you’re forced to be creative and innovative. You’re forced to cut the fluff and just get the task done.

You might already have deadlines in place for most of your action items. If you don’t, I suggest you start to set deadlines for yourself.

You need deadlines whether you set them or someone else sets them for you. You need to have a clear picture of which tasks you have to have completed, and by when.

Again, set deadlines for yourself, even if the deadlines are fairly strict. You’ll be forced to manage your time well. 

And if you need to boost your productivity have a look at My Productivity Blueprints for a novel way to get more things done quickly, effectively and easily. 

Categories: Success, Your own business

How to Figure Out What You Should Be Working On In Your Business

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Are you ready to take your business to the next level and watch some explosive growth unfold over the coming months? Great.

Before you start to plot and plan what you want to do to make that happen, it’s important to stop and look at where you are at right now. 

Business planning for future success is all about data. You can work most efficiently and spend your time and money most effectively if you know exactly where you are starting from. By recording data, you can start to see what’s working, what isn’t, and what trends are starting to play out. And it all starts with recording where you’re at right now. 

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Let’s take a look at some of the things you want to record. First though, you should decide how you want to record this information.  You can write it down by hand in a notebook, open up a word document to do it digitally, or use a spreadsheet. If you use a spreadsheet you have the option to have it calculate fun additional information like weekly and monthly averages and even map it all out in graphics to help you get a clearer picture. But if spreadsheets scare you, just use a notebook or word processor.

Traffic

To grow you need to expand your reach. That means getting more traffic, but also engaging the people that come to your site by encouraging them to click around and read more. Good things to keep track of are total visitors, unique visitors, bounce rate, and of course where the traffic is coming from. 

Email List / Subscribers

Your next goal is always to get these people on your list. Here you want to track total number of subscribers, conversion rates for each of your opt-in forms and pages, open rates for your emails, and also unsubscribes. As you start to collect and review this data regularly, you’ll get a much better picture of your subscribers. 

Customers

Subscribers are great, customers are better. Start by keeping track of how many total customers you have and how many purchases per day, week, and month. Other good numbers to look at are total lifetime value of your average customer, repeat purchases, and refund rates. 

Income & Expenses

Last but not least, look at your bottom line. This is your typical accounting data. You want to keep track of your income as well as your expenses. With those two sets of numbers, you can easily calculate your overall profit. You might find it helpful to look at profit for the month, but track income on a daily basis. 

Yes, you can look at most of this data in various different places. Google Analytics, your shopping cart, and your autoresponder service, for example. But it’s important to have it all in one place. This makes it much easier to connect the dots and see the relationships between the different sets of numbers. 

The email service I use and recommend is Aweber (sign up for a free account here) which gives you lots of data about your subscribers. 

My shopping cart is ThriveCart which I highly recommend for its extensive features,  comprehensive business data and analytics and exceptional service and support.  

Now that you have your initial data collection set up, make it a habit to update the numbers regularly. This way you can see what’s working, what isn’t, and how much you’re growing as you move through the coming months and years.

And, most importantly, you can easily see what you need to be working on to improve your business into the future. 

Categories: Strategic planning, Your own business

Turning Your Vision into Reality

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More than 70% of people dream of becoming an entrepreneur: being your own boss, following your passion, living the laptop lifestyle.  Yet so few actually take the leap and have a go at turning their vision into reality. 

Are you one of them?

Do you dream of living your purpose, sharing your expertise and making a good living from it?

Are you stuck in a job that no longer fulfils you? Have you gone about as far as you can go in your current role? 

Are you ready to make a difference and be rewarded for it?

Are you ready to turn your vision into reality?

If you answered yes to any of these questions it’s time you thought about turning your vision into reality by becoming an entrepreneur. 

I’m confident you can do it, just like I did so many years ago when I set up my own business as a consultant, speaker and coach. 

But don’t try and do it on your own.  There are lots of tips that can shave disappointment, struggle and failure from your journey.  Today I want to share three of them with you to get you started thinking about your journey as an entrepreneur. 

Tip 1. Understand why you want to be your own boss

Different people have different reasons for starting a business and it’s important to be clear on what yours are. 

  • Some people do it to be able to take charge of their time so they can be more available to  their family.  
  • Others for the autonomy: being in charge of their own destiny and choosing what to do, where to do it and when to do it.   
  • Some recognise a unique business opportunity where they anticipate making lots of money. 
  • Some entrepreneurs seek to make the sort of social impact that employment rarely allows. 
  • For some it’s a matter of personal leadership.  They start out on their own to fulfil their personal destiny by being able to fully bring themselves to what they do.

It doesn’t matter why you want to become your own boss.  

But it does matter that you clearly understand why you want to do it.  

Each of these reasons will result in you building a different type of business, and the worst thing you could do as an entrepreneur is build a successful business that you hate! 

Tip 2. Evaluate whether you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur 

There’s no doubt hard work is involved in building a business for yourself!  But every successful business owner I’ve coached and worked with has loved the hard work. Be prepared for the hard work and for having to learn new things every day.  No one starts out knowing everything they need to know to succeed.  

You also need to believe in yourself and your grand vision of how things will eventually be.  Sometimes these things can be harder than they might seem. That’s why so many successful people have a coach or at least some willing supporters.

Tip 3. Teach yourself some essential skills before you need them 

There are lots of transferable skills that will help you succeed in your own business, but today I want to focus on three of them.

  • Focus – Running your own business requires dealing with a multitude of factors and distractions on any given day.  Successful business owners plan what needs to be done and focus on the specific tasks necessary each day.  
  • Long-term Vision – While it can be easy to focus on what needs to be done in the immediate days or weeks at the same time you need to be able to plan years ahead of time and still work towards that long-term vision every day as well. 
  • Learning – Successful business owners are lifelong learners.  They look for every new (or old) idea that might bring them more success.  They know one small tip implemented today can bring great results for many years.  They take course, buy books and learn from others at every opportunity. 

As Anthony Robbins says: “There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality.”

All you need is to discover your driving force and equip yourself with the right knowledge skills and mindset and you too can become an entrepreneur who turns vision into reality. 

Learn more with 101 Tips to Become A Successful Entrepreneur in The Entrepreneur’s Mindset at

http://kmginfo.com/go/em 

Categories: Your own business