Work Better, Not Harder

I make a lot less money now than I did ten years ago. Back then I was single, living in Toronto and climbing the corporate ladder. The lifestyle I enjoy now is much slower paced and I certainly wouldn't have considered it successful or goal-worthy then. It’s too bad our younger selves aren’t better at predicting what our older selves will want! Our personal success factors will change over time. Last year in January I had an epiphany. I was attending  Debi Hartlen MacDonald’s Bootcamp  for the 2nd year in a row. We were all busy planning our strategies for 2010. It was my fifth year creating the same plan. The strategies and plans got better year after year. Did I get better at executing them? No. I was tired of doing only ‘OK’ at the same thing 5 years in a row. I had an emotional reaction to something I knew intellectually all along: in order to be successful at training and development consulting, I needed to be selling 80-90% of the time. And selling is not some...

One of my personal success factors is being able to afford to have someone come in and clean for me every two weeks. It started 15 years ago when I was single and living in Toronto. I was flying all over North America and my housekeeper would come in while I was away. An empty apartment accumulates more dust than a lived in one. I was making plenty of money to be able to pay someone to do something that I really dislike… and go play. Each person has their own definition of success. Yours probably has nothing to do with housework. Understanding your own personal success factors is important because it keeps you from chasing after goals to which you are not emotionally tied. Goals that don’t feel authentic will be much harder to achieve. Success is externally evaluated but internally experienced. Behind all of the outward signs, the essence of success comes down to our own personal sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. Evaluate annually. Now is the time of year that we are con...

Should you take the time to set up a good process? Whenever you think “If only…” with regard to your work, you have an opportunity. Consider it from an economic perspective: How many minutes would that “if only” save you each time it occurs? How many times per month does it occur? Multiply the answer to #1 by the answer to #2. Now consider, how much time would be involved in putting the “if only” in place? (in minutes) Divide the answer to #4 by the answer to #3. The answer is the number of months it would take for the time investment to pay off. If your answer is 3 or less, you should consider making the change immediately. If the answer is between 3 and 12, it’s a worthwhile investment of your time. If your answer is greater than 12 months, perhaps what you’re doing now isn’t so bad, but there’s still an improvement opportunity. A good process is a beautiful thing if designed right. It takes the think-work out of more routine tasks. It helps ensure quality. It als...

"Why do I care if I get along with my co-workers or not?" This bold statement came from a young woman participating in a workshop I was delivering at a Halifax cosmetology school a couple of years ago. It was more of a statement than a question. Oddly, it actually shut me up for several seconds. Not because I didn't know the answer but because I was surprised that she didn't. That day we brainstormed 6 key reasons why getting along with other people is critical to any success. Working together, we can achieve these things that we cannot accomplish alone: More creative solutions. When we bounce ideas off each other, we arrive at better solutions than we would alone. Implementing complex plans and strategies. Because the work can be divided, together we can tackle complex projects more effectively than we can alone. Learning from others' skills and experiences. When we work with others, we also learn from others. Endurance. If one person is resp...

I am fortunate to be good friends with a sales and marketing consultant. After years of advice, some things are definitely sticking. One of the most useful has been the P-O-S formula: Pain - what is your clients' pain? Outcomes - what will be the result of working with you? Solutions - how do you achieve that? I use this formula for all of the marketing writing I do. If I'm having trouble getting started, it helps me focus and draft my thoughts. If I had no problem writing, I use it as a checklist to edit at the end. It's quick, simple and memorable. Give it a try! Thanks to Debi Hartlen MacDonald of New Life Business Solutions ! Click to Tweet this Article

I have clients and potential clients that want to start e-marketing campaigns. They are stuck at the step of putting together their first mailing list. In an effort to help, I decided I would give them a specific list of things they can do to compile their initial list. To add to my own ideas, I did some online research. An article called “How to build your mailing list” sounded promising. The skill level required was listed as ‘moderate’. Good so far. It went on to say: Step #1: Create a well-optimized website… Hmm… I’ll get right on that. It’s hard to get motivated when we start with BIG tasks that are really more like projects. That article sure didn’t move me to accomplish anything. I didn’t read far before I felt overwhelmed. When I seek ‘how to’, I’m looking for a task list that I can check off as I complete things. Being able to check things off gives me a sense of accomplishment and motivation to continue. If the first thing on my list is going to take days, w...

I am fortunate to be good friends with The Phone Lady. There are many important things that I have learned from her - the most difficult has been to stop using the word 'just'. That insidious little word just wants to sneak in everywhere. The problem is, once the word 'just' pops in, it diminishes the rest of the message: "I'm just calling to follow up..." (but it's really not important) "I just dropped in..." (but I didn't care if I saw you or not) How about...? "I'm calling to follow up..." (because it's important to me) "I dropped in..." (because I wanted to see you) It's definitely a struggle to keep that little 4-letter word out of my vocabulary! Here's Mary Jane's message about this - I encourage you to read it. Click to Tweet this Article

My business is all about making things easy for my clients. What I’ve learned is that making things easy isn’t the only secret to success. My clients need direction and motivation too. Getting the right mix of all three can be a challenge but, when it comes together, wonderful working relationships result. Chip and Dan Heath, in their new book “Switch”, use a wonderful metaphor – of riding an elephant. The book is all about creating change, in ourselves and in others. Here are 3 basic ways to do that: Direct the Rider : appeal to our brain Motivate the Elephant : appeal to our heart Shape the Path : make it easy While I’m all about shaping the path, I still have to direct the rider and motivate the elephant – both for myself and for my clients. I tend to try directing the rider first. Clear instructions should yield results… or so I think. Then I wonder why nothing happens. I have to remind myself… it is one thing to “get it” intellectually but quite another to “get it” em...

As an entrepreneur, it's often difficult to find time and energy for back burner items like... setting up, figuring out, checking out, gathering new ideas or starting anything new. Particularly when the item is computer-based and it's a sunny summer day! It's easy to get overwhelmed online and stray from your goal. The best approach is to find a small amount of time to do something on your list each week and then put the list away until the following week. You will find it will not even matter if you finish a single task each time. Each short session will add up to accomplishment over very few weeks. My time is Saturday morning with a coffee. A great quote that Mary Jane Copps likes to use is:  "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little." (Sydney Smith) Click to Tweet this Article

My friend and colleague Jane Veldhoven posted a blog today about the time management challenges attached to social media. From that perspective, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc. are definitely the culprits in stealing our time. It’s where the line between work and play overlap. We can spend hours online and enjoy it, but leave feeling like we’ve wasted time. Being a small business owner, that line is already easily blurred. I try to get past the guilt by thinking to myself that I just had a nice, well-deserved break, and then get on with my day. Like Jane, I like Linked In because it's all about business – so it’s easier to stay focused! Click to Tweet this Article

Put your most recent blog posts on your Linked In profile using either of these applications: They will display the title and first paragraph of your most recent blog post on your Linked In profile.  Find these apps:  from the Linked In main menu choose 'More...', then 'Application Directory'.   Click to Tweet this Article

Stay front of mind by updating your status on Linked In frequently.  Updates are the first thing that pops up on the Linked In home page for all of your contacts.  If your contacts are also clients and prospects, it's an easy way to remind them about you. Update your status with information that may be of interest to your contacts, such as website updates, new blog posts, new products, events you are attending, good books you've read, sales and promotions... you get the idea.  It takes less than a minute to update your status!   Click to Tweet this Article

I should be able to find anyone online these days.  I often search for specific people or company names to get product or contact information.  Sometimes it's fast and sometimes it's very frustrating.  Three times in the past week I failed to find websites (that I knew existed) for local companies.  What business owner doesn't want to be found? If you search my name on Google , the second entry is my Linked In profile . This leads people to a wealth of information about me and my company, including my phone number, website and blog - even if they aren't on Linked In themselves. Take advantage of this prime search ranking!  Complete your Linked In profile.  The more complete and compelling your profile is, the more people will take it seriously and visit links you have posted. Click to Tweet this Article

One problem with the current social media soup is the high noise to relevant signal ratio. The most effective way to deal with this problem is to find accepted and popular experts in your field of interest and subscribe to their feeds. This will lead you to relevant online communities from which you can find and share pertinent advice and draw new customers. This approach will work much better than broad monitoring of many social media services because it will greatly reduce the noise you will need browse and therefore, the time you need to spend building your online reputation. Click to Tweet the Article

Some of you may be blogging to drive readers to a target post of the day but for those of you blogging to have your readers browse your blog much like a magazine, you will want to make sure you are making full use of tags or labels. Tag and label tools are used to put your blog posts in category buckets that are easy to search and browse by the reader. You may want to consider adding a search tool on your front page that searches only your blog posts or a menu list already categorized with links to specific posts. The easier you make it for your reader to browse, the higher the possibility they will linger. Click to Tweet this Article