Work from Your Strengths
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you already mastered, you will never grow.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
You have the opportunity to do what you do best everyday; but chances are you don’t because you are not working from your greatest assets, your strengths. Do you realize you have barely scratched the surface of your potential? Most people do not have a clue to what their strengths are and allow their weaknesses to take hold.
According to Tom Rath in his book “Strengths Finder”, you devote more time fixing your shortcomings than developing your strengths. If you always work … Read More
Customers make the heart of your business beat with their desire to choose products, services and experiences that meet their needs, fit their values, engage their emotions and respond to their desires. Your role is to transform prospects into customers and customers into fiercely loyal advocates. As your own marketer you have to be heard over the marketing noise that is everywhere, (TV, newspapers, on every street corner, now even at the movies). You then have to overcome the skepticism of the more sophisticated consumer.
Now that you have things sorted out and put together, put last year behind you, scrap the old plans and get ready for a new start. New things require new strategies, new tactics and new plans. There’s an old saying – if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Einstein may have put it better when he defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results.
Where is your business now in relation to this years goals and plans. Is your business thriving and surviving? As business owners we are all playing a high stakes game of on and done and it’s our responsibility to the hero of our business.
What is it inside of people that makes them willing to risk everything they have to be in business? Is it to join the league of greats like Ford, Carnegie, Hearst, Jobs, Gates or just to have the freedom of being in a business of their own?
Last week at Mind Masters I posed that question about generating referrals. It came out of one my own experiences that week from a member I had 30 years ago.
Here it is half of the year is finished. How many of you after these several months working day and night to achieve those goals you set in January to create a new service, introduce a new product or even design a new business model – all at once find all the drive that brought the initial motivation and excitement has melted away, the steam has run out, the place you are in is comfortable and the dream world has slipped out from under?
What is it inside of people that makes them willing to risk everything they have to be in business? Is it to join the league of greats like Ford, Carnegie, Hearst, Jobs, Gates or just to have the freedom of being in a business of their own?
Do you remember the song 
The question is always asked, how much should be spent on marketing and advertising. Some businesses start on a shoestring and grow rapidly. Others take hundreds even thousands of dollars and go at a snail’s pace. While I have never heard a hard and fast answer to how much you should spend, you need a strategy that will produce results for you. Good accountants do far more than prepare tax returns; they help you understand the tax impact of your business decisions and assist you in reducing your overall exposure to taxes. It’s important to consult them before making decisions