Doers and Talkers

I was talking to a friend the other day. He was asking me how my business was going. I told him how things were going. He then told me of the plans he had to start selling on eBay and then get a website built to open a full e-commerce site. I’d heard the story before. He first told me it two years ago. He was going to put some money aside and buy some stock before starting in business on eBay. He’ll still be telling me these plans in another year. And plans are all they will ever be because he lacks the motivation and confidence to act.

He’s not unusual. He falls into the category of people who dream but never take any action to make the dream a reality. They talk a good game but never actually commit to playing one. They’re always waiting to find the perfect product, or waiting until the time is right before they begin.

Well they’ll be waiting forever. There’s no perfect product and the time is never right. Deep down they know this. This is just an excuse to prevent them from taking action and committing themselves to a course of action. They are afraid. Afraid of what might happen, afraid to step into the arena and test themselves.

The people who succeed are action takers. They don’t wait for the perfect moment because they realise that it will never come. They know they’ll never find the perfect product at the perfect price. So they act with what they have.

They step into the arena armed with the knowledge they posses and see what happens. When they start to get real live feedback from the market, they adjust their plan. They realign themselves, regroup and move forward again. Constantly monitoring the feedback coming in from the market place.

If something fails they don’t drop their head pack up and complain to everyone who will listen that you can’t make any money on eBay or online. They analyse their results, take logical decisions under pressure and try another angle.

When I started my business on eBay, I bought products, which were very slow sellers. A hard core of my products sold frequently every week others hardly ever rang up a sale. I just adjusted my strategy. When the slow sellers had gone, I stopped selling them. I don’t want to tie money up for months in a product that’s hard to move when I could invest it in something that sells every week and give me a return on my investment fast so I could reinvest and build up wealth.

So I looked around for other products to replace the slow selling ones. You have to show courage and take some risks. You don’t know what products will sell. You can do some market research on eBay to see what’s selling but there’s no getting away from it, you will have to take a risk and invest some capital in a product that might not sell.

This is the fun of running a business. Where you are competing and making decisions that will affect your future growth. I’ve recently invested some capital in another product range. I don’t know if it will sell well, or even if it will sell at all. I’ve done some research and committed myself to a course of action that I will pursue with white-hot determination. I want to grow my business so I have to move on. I have to leave my comfort zone and move forward. I’m prepared to do this.

You can narrow the risk by just buying a few different products in the same line, putting them up for sale and seeing what happens. The point is you have to act. My friend will never take that final step. Things will never be right. They will always be “too many at it”. What he means is, he’d like to do it but he doesn’t have the courage to take the action required.

How To Become More Productive

We all know the feeling. It’s the end of the day and we are overcome with feelings of frustration because we didn’t accomplish what we set out to do. The day started well, full of the best intentions, we had a “to do” list and we intended to do them. But we spent an hour or two on mindlessly surfing the internet, we were diverted by other things. We engaged in unproductive activity, which meant we finished the day without accomplishing the goals we had set. This leaves us feeling annoyed and frustrated. Ok, stop beating yourself up, it happens to us all.

Over the last year, I have discovered how to increase personal productivity without working any harder. To begin with, let’s dispel the myth that productivity means working fourteen hours a day until we feel like dropping. It doesn’t. It can actually mean working fewer hours. What’s important is that we use the time we have to the maximum.

We do this by focused attention. Yes, that’s right focused attention. What do I mean? It’s simple. Think about when you are doing something, how focused are you really? Is part of your mind somewhere else? Are you thinking about what you’re going to do when you finish the task in hand? Are you thinking about tomorrow, or the weekend? If you are, you are diluting your focus and consequently your ability to do the task in hand.

It’s better to spend twenty minutes totally focused on a task than two hours half focused. Believe me you will accomplish more. In order to make your business successful you need to use the time you have available to maximum effect. The success of your business will depend on how well you are able to focus your time on it.

Learn to focus totally on a task. Start by doing it in thirty-minute bursts to begin with. Once you start a task focus totally on that task. Nothing else should come into your mind, if it does ignore it and continue with the task. I have at the moment, a number of things to do in my own business. I need to upgrade parts of my website, I need to engage in some SEO to promote my blog, I need to get some packages ready for posting and answer some emails. I know I have to do these things and more but now I am focused totally on writing this blog post.

Once the post is finished, I will edit it and check it for errors. When I am happy with it, I will upload it. Until I have accomplished this task, I will not do anything else. Forget about multi tasking. Doing two things at the same time. This results in neither of them been done right, and will eventually waste more time as you will have to rectify the problems caused by your lack of focus.

You need to adopt the Buddhist practice of present moment awareness. Give all your attention to the present moment. Whatever you are doing, do it with one hundred percent focus. Where ever you are be there one hundred percent. If you are making a cup of tea then make it with a hundred percent focus. When you are working on your business then do it with one hundred percent focus. This is not only the way to push your business forward and achieve your dreams; it’s also the way to inner peace. So the next time you sit down at your computer to answer some emails, do it with total focused attention and you’ll be amazed at how your productivity increases. Until next time….

Goals. There’s No Success Without Them.

Goals! Most people have vague goals of what they’d like to do or something they’d like to get. Successful people set specific goals and work to achieve them. There’s no secret to goal setting, it’s a simple but very effective process that anyone can do. If done correctly setting goals will raise your game and propel you forward, nearly as good as having your own personal trainer behind you urging you on. High achievers have certain characteristics in common; one of them is they all set goals. Top businessmen, sportsmen, artists and anyone seeking to propel themselves forward all set goals. So what’s the secret? The best way to set your goals is to use the SMART method. SMART is an acronym for;

Specific

The goal must be specific. No vagueness here. If you are unsure of what your target is you won’t hit it. Think deeply. What do you want to achieve. Don’t worry about how you will achieve it. That comes later. Just state what you want to achieve. Here’s a specific goal; “I want to earn £20,000 by December”, or “I want to lose 10 pounds by June”. These are two specific goals. If I say I want to earn some more money by December that’s a general goal. It’s too vague so it won’t hold your focus. Make your goal specific and give it a time frame. A time frame is crucial to forcing you to focus.

Measurable

You must be able to measure your progress. Put in place points you can measure. For example if I want to earn £20,000 by December I will break that goal down into smaller measurable ones. I could say I want to earn £1000 in January, £1500 in February. I am now creating measurable points that I can refer to. This will do two things. It will ensure I stay on track towards my greater goal. It will also give me a buzz when I achieve my smaller goal and instil me with confidence as I move towards the next goal. Each little goal you achieve will increase yourself belief. Make sure you can measure your progress as you head towards your big goal. This will keep your moral up.

Attainable

Make the goal attainable. Be realistic. When you have a goal that is realistic you will move towards it, and as you keep achieving the small goals that are leading to you main goal other opportunities will present themselves for you. This doesn’t mean that your goals should be easy. They shouldn’t. You should set goals outside of your comfort zone because this will raise your game, force you to excel and think of new ways to achieving it. For example, if I say my goal is to win the lottery on Saturday. It’s specific, it’s measurable but because it depends on factors well out of your control it’s not attainable even though it may be possible so it fails the criteria of a genuine goal.

Realistic

You must be realistic in your goal setting. You want to move outside of your comfort zone but the goal must be realistic. Set it high because this will force you to raise your game but keep it realistic. If I earned £15,000 from my business last year and this year I set my goal to earn £30,000, I’ve raised the bar, but it’s realistic. I then have to decide how I’m going to do it, I might raise my prices, employ new selling techniques, diversify my stock, the options are there for me to employ. If I say I want to earn ten million I’m not been realistic. You have to decide whether your goal is realistic. Make sure your goals are within your control. That they depend on your input to make them a reality.

Timely

You must put your goal within a time frame. This is crucial towards driving you forwards. If there’s no time frame there’s no sense of urgency. If my goal is to make £30,000 by December I will break that down into monthly goals. I will keep it all tightly encased within a time frame.

Check your goals against the SMART system, ensure they match the criteria and you will have more chance of success. Setting goals is a powerful way to propel you forward and energize you towards accomplishing your main goal. You will need to set lots of smaller goals. For example my goal to earn £30,000 through my business by December is broken down into twelve monthly goals. To achieve the monthly target I will need to increase my business so I will have other goals set to accomplish this. I will then break this down into a daily to-do list.

State your main goal then break it down into lots of small goals. Once you start achieving small goals you will become energized and more confident to move on to your next goal. Achievement feels good. By accomplishing small goals you are moving towards your main goal. By setting your goals this way, the main goal will not look so daunting. Get into the goal setting habit and drive your dreams forward.

Self development

When I started this blog my main focus was on middle-aged entrepreneurs. Now that I’ve been running my business for over a year and my blog for a few months I’ve realised that my blog is missing one major aspect of entrepreneurship. Self development. Entrepreneurs are perennial self improvers and information assimilators. Self development is such an important part of achieving a balanced life that I’ve decided to put a self development category into my blog.

I don’t know about you but for me business is not all about money. Of course money is important for us to achieve the lifestyle we want, the greatest thing it buys us is not trinkets but freedom. Freedom to make our own choices, to decide our own destinies. Entrepreneurship, even part-time, provides us with wonderful opportunities to grow on a personal level.

The characteristics required for running a small business are similar to the characteristics required to live a full and meaningful life. By starting a small business you are immediately challenging yourself. It shows instant self belief. Belief that you have the necessary skill set and confidence to jump into the ring and begin the battle.

When we first start we won’t have all the skills required for success, but we are willing to learn them on the fly if need be. If I have to spend a few hours a day reading to master some skill I will. I’ll also develop the skill of speed reading. Running our business will take us on a personal journey of self discovery where we will discover things about ourselves we never knew.

We will need the strength of character to ignore those who try to dissuade us from our path. We will need to stay positive in the face of negatives. To keep planning when things start to go wrong, to keep believing when others dismiss your ideas. To keep dreaming. And acting to make those dreams a reality.

We can’t control the external factors we have to deal with daily when running our business but we can control our attitude to them, how we react to the external factors. Whether we like to admit it or not our business will reflect our personality. The more we can improve ourselves personally, intellectually and spiritually the stronger and more effective we will be as we lead our ventures forward.>/p>
We will need strength of character to keep going when things get rough, the ability to keep thinking under pressure, the self-belief to break through negative thoughts. We will need to engage in constant self-improvement.

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