I can’t imagine my life without some sort of planner in it. For me, a good planner is practically priceless.
But when I started looking for a planner I loved and wanted to use…they just didn’t seem to have all of the things I needed in one neat package. I could get one that would help me keep my tasks organized but wouldn’t really help me take action. And I could find one where I could share my vision for my business, but there was no place for me to share what I’ve learned and the changes I wanted to make. So, can you guess what I did? Yes! I created my own planner – the Momentum Planner! And because I know so many of you are just like me, I wanted to share it with you! It’s really based on three simple principles: Vision, Focus, and Action. · Start with a clear vision. · Create your focus. · Take daily action. By doing these three things, you’ll be able to stay focused on your goals and reach that next level you’ve been working so hard for! Check out the Momentum Planner here and get ready to make the next 90 days your most productive ever! Please comment below. I would love to hear from you.
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What Every Business Needs to Know Right Now About Leadership, Consciousness, & Stress Relief6/24/2021 What is the one thing entrepreneurs need to start doing during these challenging times?
Of course, no one can tell anyone what they should be doing. I can only share what I’ve seen working for myself and my clients. And if that speaks to some of the people in the audience, then great, because I don’t pretend to know it all. But I think one thing that the pandemic forces us to do is to go inwards. And so, what does it mean to a business owner with so much activity and so much pressure and cash flow pressures because of the pandemic? And everything changing every day? It means that you have to be able to go inwards, which is to maintain the highest state of well-being to be able to go through it. I studied with HeartMath many years ago, and I’m a certified HeartMath coach. What I learned there is that you need to build resilience. Building resilience means whatever the activity is -going fishing, walking, being in the forest, meditating, yoga, and heart coherence, which many people know more and more about now – you need to put something in your life to stay well, to find your well-being from the inside and then affect the outside. The irony is it’s very difficult to do when circumstances are difficult. But at the same time, it’s the only thing to do because what impact do we really have on circumstances? A lot of business owners are trying to have control over everything. And one day, and it’s usually with age, we all realize that there’s no control of anything except for the way we feel. So, it’s our responsibility as leaders to offer a stable state to our staff. That being said, if I get up one morning, and I’m really not feeling good, I better walk the talk, which is to say, “Hey, guys, I’m not feeling good today.” I’m not going to go into the reason, but so they don’t expect me to cheer them up or something. It is better to do this as a leader than to try and maintain “everything is great” as an image. Because we get caught up with that notion that the leader has to be good, look good, and control all of their emotions. But that’s not what people – especially newer generations – are looking for. Now, they need authenticity. “Authenticity is huge. It’s a word that’s been used a lot in interviews, but being honest with yourself and those around you about how you’re feeling and what you can bring to that table is essential.” You’ve said that leaders need to be honest and authentic now, but how do they take that proactive step to shift and connect with themselves? A good example of exercise, which looks pretty simple at the beginning, but is so impactful, is to set your watch or your phone and every hour stop what you’re doing. Take a minute and ask yourself the following questions. -How do I feel right now? -What was I thinking about? -What were the thinking patterns? -Was I concerned about something? -Where was I in my head? -Where was I in my body and my emotions? -What is my need? We have many clients, who by just answering those questions every hour, shifted their life as a leader and as a manager, and then a business owner. Because they realize if they ask themselves a question when that clock went off, “Okay, how do I feel? I feel pressure, and I feel stuck somehow. And I’m in these conversations about cash flow again.” Then they can think, “What good does it do? What do I need to do? What is my need? I need to take care of this right now. I need to push everything aside and take care of this and start feeling better.” So, what are we doing with those questions? We are connecting with our three brains. We know now, I’m a neuro coach and studied neurosciences, that we have three brains – one in the head, one in the heart, and one in the gut. The one in the gut, we call it instinct. The one in the heart, we call it intuition. The one in the head, we call it reasoning. The three have to talk to one another so that you make really good decisions. And when you do that, and the more you do that, the more the brains speak to one another. And that is achieved, as an example, by stopping once an hour to reset yourself. The more you do that, the easier it gets. And then you start not so much reacting but responding. And it’s a fine line between the two. Reacting is automatic. And oftentimes, we’re not happy about our reactions. That often happens in the family; after a hard week, we go home, and then our son just does something stupid, and then we’re not the father or the mother we’d like to be at that point, and we regret it. The difference is being able to take a step back and react in an intelligent way. “I love the idea of constantly be re-centering and bringing your awareness back to the present moment with those questions. It gives you an opportunity to change your state and to be proactive instead of reactive.” 3 Action Steps 1. Maintain good personal well-being so you can get through difficult times. 2. Be authentic with those around you. 3. Take time to re-center and bring awareness to yourself as to how you are feeling at the moment by asking yourself questions. Connect with Luc Cardinal on LinkedIn or at Nuco International. Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has emailed me in the past couple of weeks. When you take the time to hit “Reply” and share your thoughts on whatever topic I’ve sent your way, it’s so appreciated.
Because so many of you have provided such positive feedback on the five things I’ve shared in my emails related to “Handling the Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship,” – I wanted to share one more! Let’s consider it a bonus – like when your children clean up their rooms without you asking. (Oh, wait…that never happens. #badexample) Anyways…my bonus thought is this: “Continuously refocus on the vision you are creating.” It seems so simple, but when’s the last time you did it? It’s been a while, huh? Well, it’s time to make it a daily practice. Daily?! Yes, daily…and here’s why. When you spend time refocusing on your vision, it is easier to even out the highs and the lows because everything you do is leading in the direction of your desired outcome. Every day I take a few moments, usually just 1-3 minutes, to envision the future I am creating. This process helped me navigate a move to Pittsburgh with a family of five in just forty-five days and to create and launch a new event, publish a book, and host another event with only two months of lead time. This small snippet of time in my day is a sanity-saver – especially when things get crazy. Now, I don’t want you to overthink this idea of reconnecting to your vision. It doesn’t require a 3-day workshop or hours of journal writing. It’s way simpler than that! In fact, I’ve got a few ideas of where you can do it – and a couple more great reasons as to why – if you click here! And remember, it’s easier to let go of the day-to-day ups and downs when you know where you are going and can see that outcome. Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. Did you get a chance to read or listen to Mary Czarnecki’s “What Businesses Need to Know Right Now” interview about strategic marketing? So much great information packed into 10 minutes – especially about categorizing your clients into three buckets so that they don’t have a reason to drop you moving forward.
If you kept reading until the end of the interview, there was a link to Mary’s LinkedIn and website where you can connect with her, but I did want to take a moment and share some FREE resources she has available on her website! She’s so generous that she’s got not one, not two – but FOUR great resources available for you! All you need to do is click here to gain access to her: · Social Content Sanity Plan · Mini-Course Creation Checklist · Profitable Personal Brand Creation Checklist · Simple Savvy 1-Page Marketing Plan Grab one, two, three, or all four of these resources – as they’re all extremely helpful and needed for so much of the work we do as business owners! Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. What is the biggest mistake businesses are making when it comes to building their audience?
I see a lot of common mistakes. Both small brands and solopreneurs and large brands have this one trap that they can fall into more often than any other mistake. I see that they lose track of their audience insights. Now, insight is one of these terms that people just kind of toss around. But when I say insights, I’m talking about something that’s below the surface. You’ve got some different things that you can learn about your audience. You can learn data points, and that’s the clicks that open on your list or the people that visit your website. You can learn different behavior from metrics and data. But the data is only going to tell you where to dig for these insights, and insights are well below the surface. Where I see the biggest mistake is that people don’t dig far enough to get truly vulnerable insights. Or they just assume that they hit it once, and then it’s there forever. Whereas I mean, it’s not like anything changed in 2020. But you have to keep up to date. Because sometimes, these insights that we’re identifying can be very ephemeral. They change over time. “How deep are you digging when it comes to insights? Are you strictly at the surface level of your data, or have you done a deep dive into what’s really going on?” What’s something where you might see a particular data point, think that you understand it, but need to dig a little deeper? I have a great story from the baby shampoo that probably everyone’s seen. But back in the day, they found a really interesting data point, which was that a significant percentage of their usage volume, not purchase volume, but usage volume was actually coming from men. They were like, “Well, that’s strange. Why are these men using this baby shampoo?” And so, they started asking questions – they started asking why. Below that data point, which was basically just an artifact of this behavior, they did get to a deeper level of insight – that kind of raw nerve, that kind of reason behind that behavior showing up in their data – that these men who were using the baby shampoo were terrified of losing their hair. And they figured it out, and they made their own personal connection. So, while they never put anything like this in their marketing communications, they made the connections in their head. The connection was that if I’m terrified of losing my hair, I don’t want to anger those hair follicles, and I’m going to use the most gentle thing. And if this shampoo is so gentle as not to make the baby’s eyes tear, then that’s what I’m going to use. And that’s the insight. The insight is something that if you feed it back to your target audience, you’re going to get a reaction. It’s going to be that raw nerve. It’s going to be the most compelling, powerful thing that you can tap into to change behavior. “I recently was talking to someone and had them say, “You know, the people who are unengaging from your list – who are opting out from your list – are actually people who are engaged, but they’ve read enough to figure out that this isn’t the content they want to receive.” “So often, we throw away that information as, “Oh, they don’t want to interact with me anymore.” But that insight really just flipped it on its head for me. And I thought, “Oh, okay. So, if they’re opting out, it means that I’m not connecting in some sort of way. But they wanted to connect with me at some point, and they are providing feedback and information.” So, there are insights coming at us at all times.” “Have you tried digging a little bit deeper to find out what the behavior is that’s driving the action?” How can businesses avoid getting “dropped” considering 75% of consumers have changed brands at least once during the pandemic? It’s a great start if you’re trying to get new people into your world, but it’s a bad statistic if you’re trying to maintain that loyalty. I think the key is to figure out how your current buyers lineup in three buckets.
Most businesses don’t know the three buckets. And if we don’t know, we don’t know how big of a risk we’re at. So, we need to first break down our group. And then, of those groups, really understand those people that are on the verge of leaving us. Where are the biggest dissatisfactions? Where are we falling short? Is it just that they’re moving on to something else, and we’re no longer a good match for them? Or has their insight changed, and we’re not providing the right content, or the right support, or the right communication at the stage of the journey that they’re at with us? The key is to really figure out, “Okay, how does my audience break down into those groups?” And then for each of those groups, really understand where am I falling short? What do they want? Or what do they need in order to decide to purchase from me again or to become an advocate for me? Many people forget about that loyalist group especially and forget to even ask them to refer you? Or how can they share their satisfaction or their excitement about having worked with you? Look at your metrics to figure out your groups. If you’ve got an email list, you can start to see who hasn’t engaged at all. You have some metrics that you’ve gotten with your business, whether you’ve got an email list, social media, YouTube channel, etc. You can dig into the activities and data points of all those different things to try and figure out, “Who are the people that somehow they’re just not seeing what they want to see from me? Who are the people that just aren’t very consistent in terms of engaging with me? And then who are the ones that I’m saying something to that’s resonating with them?” And learn from that to say, “Okay, if I want to attract more people like them, what is working?” And follow that kind of trail to figure out how to focus your content creation on something that’s going to be attracting people like your highest value audience. “You also don’t negate your highest value audience, the ones that really like what you do and want to continue working with you. We’re not always just attracting new clients. Our best sales come from repeat customers” 3 Action Steps 1. Go below the surface of the data you have available to you to find true insights. 2. Categorize your current customers into three buckets: Ready to Ditch, Happy But Not Completely Satisfied, and Loyalists. 3. Don’t discount the importance of “Loyalists” as a means of figuring out what’s working and attracting new clients. Connect with Mary Czarnecki on LinkedIn or at Mary Czarnecki Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. We’ve all heard that expression about finding your tribe…you know those people that really seem to “get” you.
And that’s what I want to talk about today because Part 5 in my article on “Handling the Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship” is about “finding a tribe where you can celebrate both the highs and the lows” Because guess what? As human beings, we do not exist in isolation. You need people – you need a tribe – that understands you and where you can talk about the highs and lows of your business without judgment. You may be thinking, “Well, I have my friends and family.” But do they really get it? They may nod along with you as you share the details of a particularly great day…or a particularly bad one. But they probably don’t understand that risks are necessary sometimes or that some decisions are monumental, or even why you’ve set such high standards and audacious goals for yourself and your business. In fact, your neighbor is not likely to understand what it means to you to bring on your first executive assistant. And your sister may think you are pretentious for sharing that you just secured a million-dollar deal. They’re not the tribe you need when it comes to your business. I have a tribe. Many of them I talk to on a daily basis. And I can share everything from launching a new program to frustrations with finding the next employee. No topic is off-limits, and no judgments are made. Make sure you’ve found a tribe that works for you and your business. Because you need them to help you celebrate both the highs and lows you experience as an entrepreneur. You can’t do it alone. Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. Quick question: Have you ever participated in a workshop, class, or challenge and found that it provided just the spark you needed to really reinvigorate you, your business, and what you’re doing? In fact, it may have been so great that you couldn’t help but share it with those around you, maybe even a few random strangers!
Well, I recently did – and yes, I’m sharing it! (No…not with strangers, but definitely with YOU!) You probably remember Mark Firth from his interview for “What Businesses Need to Know Right Now,” where he talked about what we all need to know about LinkedIn. His insights were extremely helpful and right on the money! Mark is now sharing his expertise in an amazing “2-Minute Video Challenge.” (You may have seen some of my videos that I’ve been sharing – because this class really got me pumped up about bringing you fantastic content using Mark’s strategies!) With that being said, enrollment for his next session is NOW OPEN, and I don’t want you to miss out on your opportunity to get involved with this challenge! It starts Monday, June 21st – and I encourage you to enroll now so you don’t get put on the waitlist. Go check out all of the details so you can learn to attract the right clients without ads, endless content, or a fancy website! You’re going to love what Mark brings during this class. “And if you want to learn more about my experience as a participant in Mark’s challenge, just reach out to me! You can reply to this email, and I’d be happy to share why I loved this so much!” Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. Where do you see the topic of life transitions popping up for people in business?
It’s really interesting because if you think about life transitions, you may have a promotion or get new job responsibilities in the professional world. Or, you may have a relationship status change, a family addition, or aging parents that you have to deal with in the family world. In the personal area, there are things like moving and medical, also. And the thing is, it affects all of our perceptions. It colors how we attack tasks and projects in all areas of life, not just the area that the life transition has taken place. This means it affects not only ourselves but also our staff, vendors, colleagues, and everybody we come in contact with. “Have you ever tried to prevent a life transition from affecting anything else going on in your life – like business? Were you able to keep it in a neat, little compartment? While we so often want to keep these things separated, it’s practically impossible. They tend to spill over into other parts of your life – no matter how hard you try” Can we separate personal and business in our decision-making? You really can’t separate them out. If you think of COVID, which is actually just one big worldwide life transition that’s happening, COVID itself as a health problem is affecting everyone. We were all thrown into it and didn’t have a whole lot of time to prepare for it, and we didn’t understand it. After all, there has not been a health pandemic like this since 1918, and most of us don’t remember that. Most people don’t realize that there is a grief cycle that happens with something of this nature. Most people think of grief as what happens when someone dies. And that it does, so I’m not saying it doesn’t. But if we look at grief in terms of its components, the daze, the shock, the denial, we all did that back in the February, March, and April timeframe. We may have faced it again as well as we got into a second wave. And then there’s the distress. It may be anxiety, insomnia, and things of that nature. And this is not a nice little progression where you move through daze and into distress, and then you go on to the next one. This is like ping pong, and you can go back and forth. And it means that your thoughts are ping-ponging, too. There are many different ways to look at grief, and the last one I talk about is discover. And that is the acceptance phase. This is the phase where life is functional again. So, that grief is a piece that a lot of people don’t realize. And the second piece that people don’t realize is the impact it has on your ability to do tasks. Your time is taken up. Let’s look at COVID in the beginning. We were all getting used to masks. This meant that we might have to go back upstairs or to a different room, or we may have to drive back home because we needed to bring a mask with us. We had to carry hand sanitizer with us. We had to wipe down groceries, which now doesn’t seem to be quite as important. But all of that took a lot of extra time and mental energy that we then couldn’t devote to the regular things that we do. “Having to make new decisions and create new systems takes a ton of mental energy. And it’s not something that people think about. Have you thought about it as you’ve faced new challenges or gone through a transition in your life?” What are some of the tools, tips, and ideas that can help you recognize that you are in a life transition and figuring out what’s next? I concentrate on those that are health-based, and it is often related to a new diagnosis. And that can be everything from the physical, such as a knee replacement, to a new autoimmune disorder that’s just been diagnosed. Or, it can also be something that you’ve had for a while that maybe is now causing new problems For example, people with ADHD, especially women who are often diagnosed later on, when they have either a job or children and some structure to their schedule, they manage their ADHD pretty well. But when either of those goes away, I help with that from an organizing productivity point of view. “Coming up with new systems in light of the diagnosis can be transferred to any transition that you may be making in life.” 3 Action Steps 1. Understand that you can’t compartmentalize the portions of your life (i.e., personal and professional). 2. Acknowledge that difficult transitions may leave you going through the various stages of the grief cycle. 3. Creating new systems and processes can help you through a transition. Connect with Janice Russell on LinkedIn and find out more about Life Transitions Organizing. Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. I don’t know about you, but I’m so happy it’s the weekend! The weekend is that time that we so often use to decompress after a hectic week. And this week was hectic!
Question – did you notice the theme in the emails I shared this week? This week has been all about wellness – and I hope they’ve served as a good reminder to you (I know they did for me). There was Dr. Roch Herold on Tuesday discussing worksite wellness and Geoffrey Blake on Thursday bringing us Grateful Sweat as part of his Global Gratitude network. And this all leads perfectly into #4 in my series on “Handling the Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship” as we talk about the need to…Take Care of Yourself. And I’m not talking about self-care here; I’m talking about taking care of yourself physically. When you care for your physical body, your mental health follows. And when you are in good physical health, your brain is supported, which means you are operating and making decisions from the best possible place. I’m sure you can think of times in your life when you weren’t taking care of yourself physically. Maybe your diet was not where it should be. Perhaps you weren’t drinking enough water. Or your physical activity was limited because you had so much on your plate. And…how did you feel physically? What kind of decisions were you making? What was your emotional health like? You may have held on for a while, but eventually, when you’re not taking care of your body – it stops taking care of you. For an entrepreneur eating well, sleeping, drinking water, exercising, and meditating are not optional. They are non-negotiable. Thursday of this week, I asked you to reply to my email and tell me one thing you did for your health that day, and I have to say, I was a little disappointed. I didn’t hear from many of you. Now, you may have been busy or thought that I didn’t really want you to hit reply – but that’s not the case. I do want you to share. So, let’s try it again today! What are you going to do for your physical health today? And if not today, what can you do this week? Can you…
Just remember, a healthy body leads to a healthy mind and a more even-keeled emotional state – and isn’t that what we all need and want? Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. Happy Thursday to you!
I hope you’ve been having a great week and had a chance to check out Dr. Roch Herold’s “What Businesses Need to Know Right Now” interview about worksite wellness that I shared on Tuesday. Often, we’re so busy working in and on our business that our health and well-being can sometimes go to the back burner – and that’s not where it needs to be. It definitely deserves a place up front – because if you’re not healthy, your business is going to suffer. And that brings me to another person you should certainly get to know – and that’s Geoffrey Blake. Some of you were introduced to Geoffrey in December when I shared his Global Gratitude Jar with you all as a way of bringing more intentionality and, yes, gratitude into your life on a daily basis. As part of his Global Gratitude initiative, Geoffrey also has Grateful Sweat! This is a group within Global Gratitude that’s dedicated to “Finding gratitude in the miracle of our bodies, our abilities, and our adaptabilities.” If you’re looking for support from like-minded people as you work to find time to move each day – then you just might want to check this out! Please comment below. I would love to hear from you. |
AuthorBeing an entrepreneur and business owner is hard! Once you have your business up and running it's not uncommon to hit a few snags: scalability, staff retention, launching growth projects, getting enough sleep! Archives
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