Choose Effectiveness

Life gives us choices; we can either move up the ladder of success or we can hang on to the rungs and fail to move. Holding on is always safe and secure, while climbing is rough and uphill.

Many of the small business owners I work with are seeking greater success but often fail to follow through with the resources needed. The depth of real success is not a flash. It doesn’t happen overnight and it isn’t always a matter of doing and having. There has to be time to grow; an effective business requires nothing less than personal effectiveness.Read More

The Slight Edge

This can be the year of your dreams, the year of great accomplishment, the year you realize and utilize your untapped potential; the year you achieve long sought after goals in all areas of your life. This year will be exciting and rewarding only if you make it so.  You ask how can I determine to make it such a year?  The year will hold accomplishment, realization and achievement only if you expect it to happen; only if you enter and live each day with an understanding of the slight edge. Let me explain.

For ten years, I worked with Read More

The 11th Hour – Decision Time

We are in the 11th Hour – November 2016- decision time to end with a bang or whimper!

Our newsletter last month was a full on wake up call to make sure your financial records are in order before taxes are due and to know where you are overall from a profit and loss perspective.  Hopefully you have taken some time to review and catch up.

This is also the time to assess some other aspects of your business and yourself. A strategic analysis is directed at looking at where your business is positioned in the present market. But … Read More

Time to Start Preparing for Year-End

By Jane Gilpin, CPA

With the fourth quarter well under way, it’s time to start thinking about the end of the year.  This is a busy time for everyone, especially for you as a solopreneur or small business owner.  A new tax filing season looms, so this is the perfect time to focus on the following tasks to help you get your taxes in order and your business planning off to a good start.

  • Get Your Financial Books in Order
  • Review Your Business Position
  • Gather Tax Documents and Consult with Your Tax Preparer
  • Plan for the Coming Year. 
  • Get
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Ten Step Annual Checkup for Business Owners

Financial Advice for your small businessMy friend Steven Leibold, San Diego Business Advisors, is an experienced tax accountant whose Ten Step Annual Checkup for Business Owners was our topic for last week. See what you may need to work on.

  1. Review all systems, policies, and procedures – Basically take a look at your business and see what is working and what is not working for you. If there are pieces of equipment, or procedures you are following that are out dated or not being used, no reason to keep them around. Improve upon what is working well, fix items that are worth fixing, and
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Review…Resolve…Re-Energize Your Marketing

sept-news-graphicAs business owners it is important as each quarter comes to a close to look at whether your marketing has produced the results you set out to accomplish.

If you haven’t sent a marketing message to your customers in the last 90 days, then you’re no longer top of mind. Without an effective marketing strategy, and the budget to execute it, your business is missing the necessary tools and direction to grow.

Let’s stop and take a pulse on your game plan with some basics that must be in place before anything happens.

  • How up to date is your database
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Mind Masters is celebrating 25 years in September. So what happened in 25 years?

25yearsAfter having made the leap into entrepreneurship I have had the privilege of working with people who form the backbone of small business in America. Large corporations had Boards of Directors and CEO organizations to advise them. The small service business sector was out there on their own, often working alone.  I wanted Mind Masters to become their Advisory Board – they needed a sounding board, a forum, a support system for their ideas, a resource not often available because these are very small businesses. I too struggled with that feeling of “aloneness,” so it is what attracted them to … Read More

Are You Going for the Gold?

Gold_MedalHere we are in the second half of the year, the summer Olympics will start in a few weeks and I am working to open our minds to getting in the “GAME”. Of course some of us play the game differently. Maybe it is time to change the way we are playing

How can you play in a BIGGER Game? What would it take to “Go for the Gold”?

We have been watching the trials for getting on the Olympic Teams, these athletes spend hours practicing for that one chance to win a place on the team. We know they … Read More

Use the Butterfly Effect: Step-Up Your Game

JUNEAs June winds down, and we rethink and refocus the next six months I like to make sure my readers and my Mind Masters members are as excited to move forward as you were in January when you set goals for the year. It is so easy to tell ourselves that we missed the mark, or to even give up on some of the goals.

One of the most challenging things I have seen as I work with small business owners is falling into the trap of seeing what wasn’t accomplished or achieved instead of taking stock of achievements. Certainly Read More

Create a Business that has a Lasting Foundation

foundationIn last month’s newsletter I shared a program, BUILD A BUSINESS YOU LOVE: Build Your Business, Protect Your Assets & Leave a Legacy presented by one of our Mind Masters members who is a Business Broker. The premise of the program is to get you, the business owner thinking about making sure you are building a business with a smart foundation. In order to do that, you must create a systematized business. It’s absolutely critical to the future growth and success of your business.

Why? Well according to the Michael Gerber organization (The E Myth),” systems are essential to:

  • Build
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