Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

The foundation for a powerful presence online is a compelling and engaging website. It is the hub for your brand and all of your online activities. With the right copy, visuals and resources, it can position you as an authority in your industry. Ultimately, your website must represent your message, personality and purpose.

Your homepage is the most important page on your site. Most likely, it is the first thing that someone will see when they find you online and you must immediately capture their attention. If you are using a tool like Google Analytics and find that a lot of people are bouncing from your site once they have viewed the homepage, then you aren’t being clear and engaging.

When creating an effective and powerful homepage for your site, you must ask yourself two very important questions:

1. What is the ONE thing you want visitors to do when they come to your site?
2. What is the outcome people receive from working with you?

One of the most important things is to capture a name and email address for your list. As service professionals, many of you are trying to grow your tribe and create a community around your brand. You want to offer an incentive – a special report, checklist, audio recording etc., for people to sign up with you.

You also want to be VERY clear about what it is that do, and most importantly, what is the outcome people achieve by working with you. Will they attract more clients, make more money, get more organized, create and implement a strategic marketing plan, etc.? This must be front and center and easily accessible on your homepage.

Here are ten points to remember when creating a compelling homepage:

What other tips do you have about making your home page (and website, overall) compelling to your community? Leave a comment on the blog!

Some years ago, a study revealed that the average human being is bombarded with over 1,000,000 bytes of information in ONE MINUTE! And that was before Twitter and Facebook became mainstream! No wonder it’s so challenging to get things done. Think about how many times you ended your day wondering how your to-do list didn’t even have a dent in it.

Most of our lack of accomplishment has to do with two things

• Thought patterns
• Behavior patterns

You will notice that your thoughts produce emotions that produce behaviors. You may have heard me say “The most important conversation you will ever have is the one you have with yourself about yourself, especially when no one else is listening.”

I have been working with entrepreneurs for over 10 years to help them get the “edge” in their game so they can easily surpass their own goals and expectations. The ability to “get more done” can easily occur when we tweak our thoughts and focus our actions – or as Stephen Covey would say, “sharpen the saw”.

Here are a few ways you can uplevel your game to accomplish more while doing less:

1)  Get organized.
Not being organized is a huge waste of time. With our rushed pace to fit everything in, many business owners have horrible time management, let alone a process to manage the flow of data. Three steps to increasing your productivity through organization:

*  When you join a new program, take 5 minutes to create an email folder and an automatic rule for all information to go directly into that folder. Or, create a binder, print your important materials out. and put them directly in the binder. That way you can find what you need immediately.

*  Immediaely schedule important phone calls, client meetings, conferences, into your calendar with: Name, phone #, details of the call, links to any important data. This will save you tons of time for the actual call (even better, have your assistant do this for you).

* Go through all the paperwork in your office right now (yes, right now), and divide into four piles: Handle today, For reading, For Filing, Discard. Then throw away, shred or recycle everything on the “discard” file. Then file away everything in the “for filing” pile. Then put your “for reading” pile in your bookbag or briefcase to take with you next time you take yourself to the bookstore, or are stuck in traffic. And finally, sit down with the “handle today” pile and HANDLE IT!

2)  Batch similar tasks together.

By doing similar tasks at once, you can create momentum and accomplish a lot more in less time. You are giving yourself focused blocks of time. Try batching your tasks by schedule blocks of time (or even whole days) for activities like client and prospect meetings, self care or exercise, writing or product creating, phone calls and email follow up, administrative tasks.

3)  Delegate mercilessly.

A lot of time is wasted doing a task that someone else could do better, faster or cheaper than doing it yourself. Now granted, when cash flow is tight, it’s really tempting to keep it all in house and do it yourself. But think about this: Those 10 hours a week you are doing billing and administrative tasks are 10 hours you are NOT meeting new clients, creating customer retention programs or even designing a new offering.

I want you to start thinking like a CEO – ask yourself, who do I need to have in place, doing what, for what end results, so that I can focus on revenue-generating activities? Here are a few delegation areas to consider:

* Managing incoming phone calls and emails.

* Data entry

* Online marketing

* Client communications

* Program management

I’ve designed an entire program on delegation ideas, productivity strategies and peak performance, but these are a few of the basics. If you’d like to see more, get your copy of “Get More Done in Less Time.”

4) Design your context.

Your context is the space in which you live. It’s the standards that make up your goals and desires, and the boundaries that you put in place to protect your ability to sustain those goals and desires. If you are constantly bombarded by distractions, energy drains, problems and other people’s toxic influences, it can be difficult to achieve new heights. So get started in designing your own context by:

* Create a disruption free work space.

* Communicate proactively about deadlines, procedures and needs.

* Eliminate time spent with negative people (yes, eliminate – not cut down on, cut out!)

* Turn off your phone or email when working on projects.

* Stop solving problems for your team by coaching them on how to solve them on their own (this includes husbands, children, and needy friends too!)

* Set up reserves for key resources such as money, supplies, body energy, etc.

5) Keep it simple.

Where could you simplify the way you are doing things so you can get more done while eliminating stress? Here are some tips:

* Use an online scheduling tool you can let others pick from available  appointment times and sync it right into your calendar. Two tools I recommend are www.genbook.com and www.timedriver.com.

* Use contact management systems or one-stop shop ecommerce. My favorite tool is www.ogandocart.com, which combines auto-responders, affiliate management, ad tracking, product management, and orders all in one.

* Billing and invoicing systems can suck a lot of time. Get Quickbooks. And then look for ways to stop the on/off payments and the need for invoicing. Consider packages and set up retainers. Eliminate invoicing altogether if you can.

Accomplishing more starts by making the decision to do what works, not what’s comfortable or familiar. Make a commitment to implement even just one of these five ideas and track how much more effective you are – and how much more quickly you accomplish your goals.

Do you have a “get more done” tip you can share? Post your comments below!

Happy Friday!

Every once in a while you have the fortune of meeting someone who up-levels your game just by breathing, just by being in your space. As a coach, I’m very conscious of being that catalyst for my clients, students and peers – and it is a rare treat when I come across someone who does that for me.

Have you heard of David Bullock?

With his background as an engineer, he is masterful at designing processes that work right the first time, and then every time. By applying his engineering background to his sales career, he was able to generate over $100 million dollars over seven years. Imagine being able to design and tweak your processes so that you can produce and reproduce the desired results over and over again. That’s the magic of synthesizing an engineer’s mind with the business processes of sales and marketing.

Fascinating.

Most recently, David is the co-author of “Barack 2.0” – where he explores how President Obama used social media to build his platform, create buzz and community, and essentially win the election.  And as a master business strategist, David then takes those presidential election social media lessons and translates them into how they can be used to build YOUR business. He has become a nationally recognized speaker and trainer and provides consulting services to millionaire businesses internationally.

Why am I telling you this?

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