Useful Tips 4 : What’s your vision for the New Year

Winston Churchill famous quotation to the beleaguered Britain from a near defeat : “never give in, never give in, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour, and good sense!” Obstacles are inevitable, quitting is optional. If you encounter Obstacles, it means that you are moving forward and that you are thinking of solutions to overcome your obstacles.  Your solutions are all around you. Break the obstacles into small chunks, i.e. chunking down and it will help you to see what the obstacle is and then you can identify the steps to overcome the obstacle.

Before you can do strategic visioning for your business, you need to write down your goals and ensure that it meets the outcome criteria. As Steven Pierce, world #1, Internet Wealth Advocate, says :

“Goals are compelling magnets that move us relentlessly through life – Guiding One Actively to Living Successfully (GOALS).

Goals allow us to greet each day with great anticipation.  To realize your goals you need to move from setting goals to achieving goals”.

Recommended Steps:

1. Set your vision. “A Vision is a picture of a better future”. It will describe the new services, new products, new processes of your business. It describes the end state not the journey.

2. Set your goals.  Goals are tangible and it must be measurable. Write it down.

3. Complete your Vision Board. Translate your Goals into pictures and stick them onto a Cardboard that you can see it daily.

4. Complete your Strategic Visioning.

4.1 Looking through your own eyes, hearing the sounds around you and feeling the feelings of being right there inside of it, you step into your goals.

4.2 Adjust your submodalities – if it’s black and white, change it to colour, adjust your brightness and make your goals so compelling to you.

4.3 Step out of the picture, but you see yourself in the picture. Rise above the time stream, and see in your mind’s eye (visualise), the date that you have achieved your goals.

4.4 Complete the picture of your future, fill it with colours, brillance, excitement, people that you care and loved, a sense of fulfilment and completeness.

4.5 Knowing in your mind’s eye, that everything is out there waiting for you to succeed and prosper, move forward to 2010 with hope and expectation for success.

Apply simple Project Management principles in running your business

When you are managing your business as a small business owner, you are often wearing many hats. You could be the person planning the budget, marketing, sales, technician, and bookeeper, etc, therefore it is essential that you follow a simple methodical approach to handle your day to day business activities. Running a successful business requires a lot of planning and organisation to shape it to what your goals and vision for your business or the questions is : Do you have a vision of what you desire for your business?  If you don’t you should be!!!

Some simple project management principles that you can adopt are:

• Create a weekly task list in an A4 exercise book. As you complete each task, you give it a tick. Put some dates on each task so that you have created a schedule for yourself.
• Try to delegate tasks that can be done by someone else. All administrative duties should be delegated.Identify the role that you play in your business and focus on activities that will generate sales. Look at your sales figures nad break these sales figures by product groups/services.
• Do some risk analysis, i.e. be on the lookout for competitors, watch the local supply and demand for your products/services and its impact on your business, be alert to the businesses around you, talk to your clients.
• Look after your clients.  Provide regular updates of your services /products via newsletters, special offers, educate your new clients on your products/services.
• Systemise your processes, so that a consistent way of doing things is followed by your staff.