Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Telling Your Business Story: Or Spinning It!

We each have a story to tell. Generally our business products or service story...We try to present our story in the best possible way. Here is a sad, yet difficult story, presented in 2 ways...your going to love it.

Version 1:

Remus Reid horse thief sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887,robbed the Montana Flyer (train) six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.

Version 2:

Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad.

Beginning in 1885, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Dectective Agency.

In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.

Two ways to look a given situation. How do you tell your story? Would love to hear ways to look at different situations and stories.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

How to Identify Your Goals

Love receiving emails like this one...enjoy it!

By Brian Tracy

Here are seven goal-setting questions for you to ask and answer over and over again. I suggest that you take a pad of paper and write out your responses.

Question Number One:

What are your five most important values in life?
This question is intended to help you clarify what is really important to you, and by extension, what is less important, or unimportant. Once you have identified the five most important values in life for you, organize them in order of priority, from number one, the most important, through number five.

Question Number Two:

What are your three most important goals in life, right now?
This is called the "quick list" method. When you only have thirty seconds to write down your three most important goals, your subconscious mind sorts out your many goals quickly. Your top three will just pop into your conscious mind. With only thirty seconds, you will be as accurate as if you had thirty minutes.

Question Number Three:

What would you do, how would you spend your time, if you learned today that you only had six months to live?
This is another value questions to help you clarify what is really important to you. When your time is limited, even if only in your imagination, you become aware of who and what you really care about.

Question Number Four:

What would you do if you won a million dollars cash, tax free, in the lottery tomorrow?

How would you change your life? What would you buy? What would you start doing, or stop doing? This is really a question to help you decide what you'd do if you had all the time and money you need, and if you had virtually no fear of failure at all.

Question Number Five:

What have you always wanted to do, but been afraid to attempt?
This question helps you see more clearly where your fears could be blocking you from doing what you really want to do.

Question Number Six:

What do you most enjoy doing? What gives you your greatest feeling of self-esteem and personal satisfaction?
This is another values question that may indicate where you should explore to find your "heart's desire." You will always be most happy doing what you most love to do, and what you most love to do is invariably the activity that makes you feel the most alive and fulfilled. The most successful men and women in America are invariably doing what they really enjoy, most of the time.

Question Number Seven:

What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you would not fail?
Imagine that a genie appears and grants you one wish. The genie guarantees that you will be absolutely, completely successful in any one thing that you attempt to do, big or small, short or long-term. If you were absolutely guaranteed success in any one thing, what one exciting goal would you set for yourself?

Action Exercise

Study the pad of paper that you used to answer these questions. This paper represents your future goals. Look at what you wrote every day and shape your life the way you see it on that paper.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Three Principles for Great Success

Received by e-mail...worth looking at.
By: Brian Tracy

Get Better Results than Ever Before
There are several principles of military strategy that you can apply to your business, every single day. These can help you to think better and get better results than ever before.

Do the Unexpected
One really helpful military principle that can be applied to business is the Principle of Surprise. The principle of surprise says, "do the unexpected!" In sales and marketing, this means to be continually seeking ways to out-flank or upset your competition.

Do the Opposite of Before
Sometimes doing exactly the opposite of what you have been doing up till now can turn out to be the perfect solution. The natural tendency for a person, when they find themselves in a hole, is to dig deeper. In many cases, the solution is to go and dig somewhere else. Remember, the first law of holes is, "When you find yourself in one, stop digging."

Follow-up and Follow-Through
A second military principle that applies to business is the Principle of Exploitation. The principle of exploitation emphasizes the importance of follow-up and follow-through. In business, this means that, when you get an opportunity, you exploit it to the fullest extent possible. If you have a great promotional idea or product or service, you sell all you can. You take advantage of your idea or breakthrough and use every opportunity to capitalize on it.

Work Harmoniously With Others
The third principle of military strategy that applies to personal and corporate thinking is the Principle of Cooperation. In business, this is often called the principle of synergy. In military terms, this is often called the principle of "concerted action." In business terms, your ability to work effectively and harmoniously with other individuals and groups is more responsible for your success than any other quality.

Win the Cooperation of Key People
A key part of strategic thinking is for you to identify the individuals, groups and organizations whose cooperation you will require to achieve your goals. Make a list of them and then organize the list in order of importance. Then ask yourself, "How am I going to win their cooperation?"

Answer Everyone's Favorite Question
Everybody wants to know, "what's in it for me?" The effective executive is always looking for ways to help or assist others knowing that this is the only sure way to create within them a desire to help you to achieve your goals.

By doing the unexpected, by following up and following through, and by constantly looking for ways to get other people to cooperate with you, you will accomplish more in a shorter time than you might ever have imagined.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to apply these ideas in your business and in your work:

First, look at your job, especially the areas where you are experiencing frustration, and question whether or not there is a completely different way of approaching your problem or situation. Do the unexpected. Perhaps you should be doing exactly the opposite of what you are doing today. All success in business comes from surprising the competition in some way.

Second, identify the people, groups and organizations whose assistance you will need to achieve your goal. Continually look for ways to earn their support and cooperation by thinking in terms of what is in it for them.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Two Rules for Business Start-ups

Great Article I received by email...
By: Brian Tracy

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. Every successful entrepreneur, every successful businessperson has been a person who has been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before somebody else did. Here are the five rules for entrepreneurship.

Find A Need And Fill It
First, find a need and fill it. Ross Perot, when he was working for IBM, saw that his customers who were buying IBM computers, needed help in processing their data. He went to IBM with this idea and they said they weren't interested, so he started his own business. He eventually sold it out for $2.8 billion dollars. He found a need and he filled it.

Find A Problem And Solve It
The second rule is to find a problem and solve it. A secretary working for a small company began mixing flour with nail varnish in order to white out the mistakes she was making in her typing. Pretty soon, her friends in the same office asked if she could make some for them. So she began mixing it on her kitchen table. Then, people in other offices started asking for it, and she eventually quit her business and worked full time creating what is today called Liquid Paper. A few years ago, she sold her company to Gillette Corporation for 47 million dollars.