Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Leadership -- Can it be developed?

Can leadership be developed or do you have to be born a leader? As thriving, learning people, I believe that leaders can be born and can be developed. For some it comes easily. For others, it is work. The work and the journey there can be worth it and the outcome incredible. There are some keys to building your leadership skills:

  • Develop your confidence. Do things that build your confidence and ability to speak in front of others.
    • Coach a sports team
    • Join Toastmasters
    • Step out of your comfort zone through activities you choose
  • Listen deeply to the people around you
  • Share yourself with others, your knowledge, your wisdom
  • Study leaders, practice leadership
  • Read
  • Create your vision, share your vision, welcome input, and listen deeply.
  • Become a coach for your staff and your team.
Leadership that works takes courage, humbleness, wisdom and commitment to the shared vision and the team.

All the best,
Donna

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Creating a Breakthrough

building your success....

How do you create a breakthrough in your business or your life? it's hard to see the possibility, to see that you can create a breakthrough, especially when times feel hard or tough but what it comes down to is getting out of your own way. How do you stop your own success? Do you sabotage yourself? Jinny Ditzler, in her book, "Your Best Year Yet" outlines a process for shifting your paradigm. As a program leader of the Best Year Yet program, I have seen this shift happen over and over. What I have witnessed is people creating break throughs by looking at themselves, their beliefs and their behaviors. How do you do this?

First is understanding:

Beliefs lead to behaviors which produce results.

So often, when we aren't achieving what we want and need we change our behavior. Underlying our behavior are our beliefs. If those beliefs are limiting beliefs then we must shift and change the belief. Since we are in charge of our beliefs we do have the power and the ability to make this change. First, look at your behaviors. what are the behaviors that limit your success. Some limiting behaviors that I see with business owners are: procrastination, not following up with leads, not asking for referrals, The next part of the process is to look at the underlying belief. What do you say to yourself about the behaviors? In essence what do say to yourself, that inner voice, that justifies the behavior. The excuses for the behavior. Now, some of these excuses are things that you believe to be true. Perhaps you are telling yourself -- they are only going to say no, or I'm not good enough, or they won't buy. What are your limiting beliefs?

Shift the beliefs

The key to the breakthrough is to shift the belief. This is more than positive affirmations. This is taking control of your inner dialogue and changing it. Often our inner voice is saying things to us we wouldn't allow people to say to our children. The trick is to replace the inner dialogue with more empowering dialogue and stop the negative talk. if you are telling yourself you aren't good enough, then how will people believe you are? In Jinny Ditzler's book she recommends creating a new empowering paradigm that is positive, short, written in the present tense. A new paradigm for the example we have been working on could be: "I am more than enough".

How do you live the new paradigm? Because that is really the key. It is a great first step to identify how you are getting in your own way or sabotaging yourself. It's not enough. Creating the new paradigm is another great step. Living the new paradigm is the real key. Read the new empowering belief everyday, several times per day. use the new words for your inner dialogue when the old inner chatter appears. Take control of the inner dialogue. Post the new empowering paradigm where you can see it several times per day. You can also write about how it is impacting your life. Journal about how changing your paradigm produces different results. Always write in the present tense, as if those results are happening right now. Practice your new paradigm. You can also create a CD with a brief meditation that talks about your new paradigm and the changes that have taken place.

The bottom line is that you are in control of creating the breakthrough. A coach can help you figure out the paradigm, and keep it on track. Use the tools that you have to create your breakthrough results.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

10 Cool Ways To Attract People To Your Web Sites

1. Give people a free subscription to your e-zine. Almost everyone is publishing a e-zine nowadays so it's important to give something extra with the free subscription. You could offer a free gift or advertising when people subscribe. ( Subscribe to mine on the link above and receive a complimentary monthly tele-seminar)

2. Provide your visitors with free content. Your content will be more attractive to your visitors if it's up-to-date or original. You could also offer people the option to reprint the content in their e-zine or web site.

3. Offer a free online directory. The directory could be full of interesting ebooks, e-zines, web sites etc. If people find your directory to be a valuable resource they will visit it over and over.

4. Give your visitors a free ebook. You could also include your own ad in the ebook and allow other people to give it away. If you don't want to take the time to write one, you could ask other writers permission to use their articles.

5. Hold free online classes or seminars. They could be held in your web site's chat room. The idea of "live" information will definitely entice people to visit your web site. You will become known as an expert on the topic.

6. Give visitors a free entry into your contest or sweepstakes. The prizes should be something of interest or value to your visitors. Most people who enter will continually revisit your web site to get the results.

7. Let visitors download free software. It could be freeware, shareware, demos etc. You could even turn part of your site into a free software directory. If you created the software, include your ad inside and let other people give it away.

8. Offer free online services or utilities from your web site. They could be search engine submitting, copy writing proofreading etc. The service or utility should be helpful to your target audience.

9. Give free consulting to people who visit your web site. You could offer your knowledge via e-mail or by telephone. People will consider this a huge value because consulting fees can be very expensive.

10. Give your visitors a free membership to your online club. People want to belong to something, why not your online club. You could also give away a free e-zine for club members only.


All the best,
Donna

Saturday, February 03, 2007

10 Amazing Ways To Jump Start Your Sales

1. Find a strategic business partner. Look for ones that have the same objective. You can trade leads, share marketing info, sell package deals, etc.

2. Brand your name and business. You can easily do this by just writing articles and submitting them to e-zines or web sites for republishing.

3. Start an auction on your web site. The type of auction could be related to the theme of your site. You'll draw traffic from auctioneers and bidders.

4. Remember to take a little time out of your day or week to brainstorm. New ideas are usually the difference between success and failure.

5. Model other successful business or people. I'm not saying out right copy them, but practice some of the same habits that have made them succeed.

6. Take risks to improve your business. Sometimes businesses don't want to advertise unless it's free, sometimes you have to spend money to get results.

7. Include emotional words in your advertisements. Use ones like love, security, relief, freedom, happy, satisfaction, fun, etc.

8. Ask people online to review your web site. You can use the comments you get to improve your web site or you may turn the reviewer into a customer.

9. Out source part of your workload. You'll save on most employee costs. You could out source your secretarial work, accounting, marketing, etc

10. Combine a product and service together in a package deal. It could increase your sales. If you're selling a book, offer an hour of consulting with it.

All the best,

Donna

P.S. Mentoring Winners is a growing program. Join today!