Business 101

Hi All;

Well most of you know me well enough by now that I cut right to the chase and rarely mince my words, so here goes regarding business. Business success requires three simple steps: 1. Get more cleints, 2. Get them to buy more when they buy and 3. Get them to buy more often!

That's it - Do those three and you are successful!!! I should stop right here, it IS that basic.

But my experience is that we (humans) over-complicate this simplicity with our businesses. Partly because our "feelings and emotions" get invloved in the business making us do strange things, or worry, we have doubts and generally question everything we do as to whether it is "smart" or "right" to do in the first place.

I have many formulas for success on a variety of different topics that have come 90% from my life experiences, meaning failures, and business is that way too. In business use the familiar 80/20 Rule (Pareto's Law" Wilfredo Pareto-circo 1880) which, said my way, is spend a full 80% of your time Marketing (finding and creating prospective buyers) and 20% of your time on EVERYTHING else! Simple; follow that and you'll bank some ching! Don't follow that and you'll be subject to your past patterns of worry, doubt, fear, yada-yada!

My Friend T. Harv Eker is a "Marketing Genius" and he revoluntionaized the seminar industry and he did all that because Harv is a Marketing Machine. He taught me, Steve you have to focus on Marketing, Marketing, Marketing! With that focus comes energy, a buzz about your business, and the universe definately gets invloved to open doors and clear paths that all but were blocked when I focused on everything BUT marketing. There are tons of little things to tinker with in business, that create distractions and suck the time of day away very easily.

There are a thousand distractions in business and this is where the Lion's share of the day goes for most people. Whether it is tinkering with computers or websites (most people's favorite side hobby) or training, or banking or operations, you are taking your eye of the ball and that is the whole game! Take your eye off the incoming pitch and how do you knock it out of the park?

All the Marketing Guru's including Jay Abraham take you back to the basics of 1. Targeting, 2. Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), 3. The Message and 4. Creating Responses. Great! There you go, the perfect business plan, or marketing plan or success plan. The only pre-requisite would be a Competition Analysis to know who the enemy is and how to conquer them.

How much time have you worked in Marketing lately? A lot, we'll see. Last week, how many hours on Marketing? It should have been 32 hours, yup a full 80% of your 40 hour week, but I'll bet you spent less than 8 (20%) and some of you didn't spend any time on Marketing at all last week???

You say "I don't know anything at all about Marketing."Untrue! I just told you two paragraphs ago everything you'll ever need to know about Marketing and saved you $25,000, unless you want to call Jay yourself for 25 large to have him tell you what I just blogged to you: FREE!

The biggest reason that businesses fail is that NOT ENOUGH MARKETING FOR NEW BUSINESS IS DONE ON A CONSISTENT BASIS - EVERY WEEK! Sorry for the shouting, but it is that friggin simple. If you spend little or no time casting your net, you catch nothing. If you spend a significant time casting your net(S), the possibility of catching comething exists. There are no guarantees but just casting your nets (more than one), but worst case you'd at least learn from last weeks's mishaps, and you'd fish better this week, wouldn't you? Of course.

The reason you claim you know nothing about Marketing is you put no effort into Marketing that is A. consistent B. A System C. that works without you and D. works on auto-pilot! Get that in place and you'll have no time to tinker, no boredom to go create another business that has nothing to do with your core business, and you'll be busy as hell too!

I ofetn use the exercise called "Add a Zero", so for most small businesses 100 active clients keeps them afloat and for say an commodity business 1000 customers keeps them alive, now add a zero! 1000 clients for the same small business and 10,000 customers for the product house, what do you think would happen? Right, you'd be as I said "busy as hell", but isn't that what you "say" you want? So where is the dilema then? What's stopping you now buddy?

Okay, if you must, go out and buy four Marketing books for $100 and read for the next two months, or go to one or two Hotel based Marketing Seminars or Workshops for a couple of grand each, but the bottom line will be the same, you are better educated, but you still don't spend any time Marketing. I mean in the dirt, nitty-gritty Marketing to reach your existing customers and clients, get tons of referrals and create some new excitement in the form of new prospects.

New Prospects heal whatever ails you! If you think you are "suffering" from all the BS excuses like to US Recession, Gas Prices, The Sub-Prime Real Esate Scandal you are full of crap, get off you butt and start Marketing. And you don't need to spend thousands of dollars either, that is a total myth. I can tell you 10 ways to Market your business in 30 seconds that cost nearly zero.

If you business had an influx of say 25 new prospects right now, how would you feel? That's right; GREAT! And you'd be spending all your time, effort and energy to close those deals rather than worry about gas, real estate and other victimlike distractions. But what about "everything else" in the 80% Marketing and 20% everything else formula. Do you really believe that you are needed for all the other minutia? Be serious, it's non-money making crap that a chimp could do!

Here's my advice 80% Marketing and 20% delegating the rest and holding ONE PERSON 100% accountable, only because if you spent 100% Marketing the wheels would fall of the rest because you weren't delegating or holding peple accountable.

You get it - Marketing is the key to it all.

Business 101 and the formula for creating business growth and profits is..........

MARKETING, MARKETING, MARKETING!!!

Later...SLK

Trust Your Intuition

Do You Trust Your Intuition or Do You Miss Out on Opportunities?

It's a question that comes up a lot when I've coached people over the years. They gets these "feelings" or "thoughts" that the say "I'm not sure what to make about __________?" In other words, their intuition is receiving a message from their spirituality (within you) and they are not sure whether to trust it , question it, think it is a hoax, or cautiously believe it (in their brain).

Why is that?

That happens because people, when not at the top of their "mental inner game" question EVERYTHING. They feel the next ripoff of scam is just about to happen to them from this thought and tell themselves "Don't believe that.". They are living (not really living - just surviving) in a "cynical" world. I mean that their "come from", the place where they make decisions or judgments, is coming from a cynical place. It's tough to live that way and be happy.

Let me first let you know why you ALWAYS trust your intuition, and then we'll go on to why this happens and what can be done about it. First, your intuition is like a sixth sense. It is spiritual in nature because your intuition dwells inside you, it creations come from your thoughts and that is at your cellular level, so it is always pure in nature. When YOUR intuition speaks to you, it is ALWAYS pure, beautiful and creating for the best interests for your life.

What changes then?

Your intuition however can be manipulated. The thought is pure but then it can be FILTERED by your cognitive thoughts (negative or positive) and that is what changes the dynamic of the initial intuitive thought, morphing it into something else, perhaps something not so pure, not so beautiful or not in the best interest of your life. But that was YOU that morphed it, not your intuition! So rather than filtering or judging your pure intuition, negatively or positively, simply learn how to trust your pure intuition, observe what might be possible, and go for it!

I have had so many great opportunities by learning to trust my intuition, having filtered it in the past myself, and why I feel we can help you. Some of them have been small and some of them have been huge! Many of my lessons have been learned through coaching as I am a product of the product and know for a fact the impact coaching has on many people's lives!

In my nearly two decades (17 years) now of coaching people, what I have come to learn is that the folks who trust their intuition (and get the opportunities too) are those that are winning what I call the "Inner Game" or mental battle and those not trusting their intuition, and not trusting many other things for that matter, are those struggling to win the Inner Game of solid emotional maturity (at least for now). The good news is that struggle can be turned around for you to win. These conditions so often bring people to a stand-still in their lives. They're stuck. I highly doubt you'll be able to do this on your own, as the habit may be deeply en grained inside you and will require assistance to help you eliminate your negative orientation.

How?

First you must elevate your Inner Game. Your self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem must be very high and your self-doubt must be low or non-existent! Ouch, I know, that's why I said you may not be able to do this on your own. A full 50% of our work surrounds the Inner Game and getting people back on track with life, trusting their intuition, and many other trust related topics as well. There is a mathematical formula that we share with our coaching clients that has the light bulb go off about this, but it is too long for me to share in the small space of a blog. If you are interested in knowing more about this then go to my website and start by taking our complimentary self-esteem assessment and single coaching session and we'll cover that with you. There are many other tools and tips there too! My site is www.stevekeough.com.

Without fully understanding the interrelations of self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem really deeply you could be languishing with this for a long time. Once you understand the formula, poof, it is handled and handled quickly. It's been said "If the mighty oak tree were human it would only grow to be 10 feet tall." That's because humans are the only species on the planet that consciously limit themselves (It's almost that we are too smart for ourselves).

Again I ask why is that?

That has to do with a self-worth discussions, meaning that many people really believe "They are not worthy" to receive _______________. Again, this is a deeply seeded emotionally misunderstanding that once we help you get past it and you again have permission to pursue all your dreams your life will completely alter, and you'll start taking the steps to not only winning the Inner Game, but chasing all those things you dreamed about will begin to become possibilities again for you. You'll be free again as though you were 5 years old all over again! Living with scarcity in a world of abundance makes no sense to me, so don't!

Have the courage to take the first step of getting everything you want from life by learning the lessons you haven't yet, getting the information that may be missing for you that would make a huge difference and turn your life around. By asking yourself the "right" questions that move you forward, closer to your dreams, rather than doubting everything, including your own intuition. We'll help you get back on the fast track to living happy, healthy and free again!

Check the website for rebates and grants for coaching that provide financial assistance to you!

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