7 Ways to Keep Going When You Feel Like Giving Up

lorraine — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:03:45 +0000

Do you ever feel it’s just too hard being in your own business? Are you sick of dealing with people problems? Do you worry about paying the bills?

Do you hope that new prospect will finally become a client? Do you wake up in the middle of the night stressing that the money you’ve invested in that special project may not work and you’ll be in more debt than ever? Are you concerned that nothing you do seems to be working or not working well enough to give you the results you want?

It’s during these times that you need to get the strength from within to keep going. As I’ve mentioned many times before, the gold is hidden in there somewhere and you just have to hang in there long enough to find it.

John owned a technology company. He was at the point of throwing in the towel. He was working his guts out …7 days a week! Even though he had 3 employees he was spending too much time helping his guys do their work. John would spend ‘after hours’ trying to catch up on his own responsibilities. He had many challenging times with staff being his main one. He didn’t realize it but he was the problem!

Because he was ‘too busy’ fixing their problems, he wasn’t training them properly. John was a highly overpaid worker. He did everything himself from invoicing, answering phones, pricing, ordering, client liaison as well as being a technician.

Imagine being in business for over 10 years and doing it all yourself? But that’s what you do when you don’t know any better and haven’t invested any money to find out. Whatever money was being invested was on learning about computer systems, not running a business. He didn’t have the knowledge to improve his situation. Anyhow, there was no need for that to happen. The solutions were simple, it was a case of knowing what to do then taking consistent action.

Here’s my 7 top tips for you, the next time you feel like giving up…

1. Don’t!
2. Get support from a mentor or coach
3. Try a different way but make sure you complete what you started.
4. Get some exercise…it makes you feel good
5. Take a break…have a holiday or just get away from the business for the day
6. Find people who believe in you and support you and talk to them
7. Listen or read stories from successful people (many of them have overcome many obstacles to achieve what they have)

And finally …

“When things go wrong as they sometimes will;
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill;
When the funds are low, and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but do not quit.
Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit-
It’s when things go wrong that you must not quit.”
- Unknown-

It’s so easy to give up when things are not going right in your business. Keep persisting and invest in a proven step-by-step system that will get you big results.
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Lorraine Pirihi, The Productivity Queen, is Australia’s leading Productivity Specialist and creator of “The Productivity and Profit System ^TM” the complete one-on-one training program for solopreneurs and small businesses that shows business owners exactly how to work less and earn more! To receive your F.R.E.E. CD & Report “3 Steps to Dramatically Reducing Your Workload and Stress While Maximising Your Profit$! ($77 value) go to www.productivityqueen.com.

5 Top Tips to Get Your ‘To Do’ List Done

lorraine — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:31:35 +0000

There are many business owners that no matter how hard they work, they just can’t get enough of the important tasks done. Is your ‘to-do’ list so long that it makes it near impossible to ever finish it?

Do you feel frustrated and totally overwhelmed because you know it is a never-ending battle that you’ll always struggle to overcome? By changing the way you do things, you can accelerate your results and achieve your bigger goals.

Daryl is your typical entrepreneur. He has an idea a minute and can only focus for extremely short blocks of time. You’d be lucky to keep his attention for 5 minutes. Daryl was always ‘gonna’. He was ‘gonna’ do this and ‘gonna’ do that. He had fantastic ideas however they were never ‘gonna’ come to fruition because he couldn’t focus long enough to take the necessary action. All his ideas were spinning around in his head.

If you want to avoid wasting time and getting nowhere then follow these 5 top tips that helped Daryl finally get the important tasks done.

# 1 Write everything down

Every time Daryl had an idea he had to write it down. If it wasn’t a high priority it was filed in his ‘Ideas’ folder.

# 2 Focus on the top 3 Priorities

These were his ‘must-do’s’ for that week. There was no point looking any further ahead than a week as Daryl was an ‘in the moment’ person. Once the top 3 priorities were completed he could then reprioritise his ‘to do’ list and choose the next 3.

# 3 Delegate

Daryl had to identify anything and everything that he could delegate to someone else. He didn’t have employees so it meant he had to pay other people to help him.

# 4 Defer anything that could wait

Tasks on his ‘to do ‘ list that didn’t have to be completed that week were planned in his diary to do at another time.

#5 Blocked time out to do the work

Most people mistakenly keep their ‘to do’ list separate from their diary. They only enter appointments in it and the ‘to-do’ list is somewhere else. Daryl blocked time out in his diary to get the work done.

The Final Word

It’s so easy to waste time and not get ahead. Inefficient systems, personal disorganisation, people problems and a range of other easily rectifiable problems.

‘How To Prevent Cash Flow Problems And Get Paid On Time’

lorraine — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:11:58 +0000

Do you ever experience undue financial stress because some of your clients are ’slow payers?’ Before working with me, one of my clients who has a pool building business, only asked for a 10% deposit at the start of the project and then invoiced the balance at the end of it.

The process of building a pool takes weeks! In the meantime her company would have to cover wages, equipment and all other costs throughout this time. What often happened at the end, the clients were slow to pay causing them even more financial stress.

It was easy to fix their cash-flow issue. 50% payment was made on the signing of the contract with progress payments made throughout the key stages. Final payment was made before completion.

Work would not continue until each progress payment had been made.
If they had waited for that last payment, chances are it would have been delayed. No payment, no work! It’s amazing how quickly you can get your money when you make these simple changes to how you do business.

Never deliver anything without some form of payment. Wherever possible get credit card details and partial or full payment up front. Avoid having to rely on your clients paying you by bank transfers, cheques etc. if you can. You want to have control over money owed to you. Allowing payments to be made by a bank transfer or cheque means you have to rely on your client to actually do this.

If you’re worried about the bank or credit card company fees, increase the cost of your products and services to incorporate them.

If you offer high priced services and products, consider setting up an automated payment plan over a period of weeks or months to make it easier for clients to buy from you.For instance, my Productivity and Profit Home Study System has the option to either purchase the system in full or 8 easy monthly instalments. If you were going to invest in this program, which option would you choose? I also apply the same policy to my personal and group coaching programs. All payments are made in advance.

Why be time poor and struggle in your business, when you can easily generate more income and have more free time. Click here to find out more.

Getting paid for your products and services on time is vital…that’s if you want to stay in business.Many small business owners simply do not know how to set up their systems so that this part of their operations requires minimal time and causes minimal stress.

Is Your Follow Up Losing You Business?

lorraine — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 02:36:14 +0000

Following-up is such a simple thing to do yet most business owners and entrepreneurs just can’t get it right.

Some time ago I used the services of a mortgage broker who in the first On Mobile instance was very prompt and appeared very efficient. He was referred to me by someone else I knew who had raved about him because he was so knowledgeable and could get the right type of deal across the line. Unfortunately, being knowledgeable about your products and services isn’t enough to get repeat business or have others successfully refer you.

Gary wasn’t proactive (when I called, he took action). He would often forget to call me back, even though he promised he would! This left me in a situation where I had no confidence in him. He needed to use a diary to write everything down so he wouldn’t forget to follow up. He had the latest technology yet couldn’t even do the basics like return a phone call or respond to an email in a reasonable period of time.

Gary was always racing off to attend some industry related seminar. In fact he seemed to spend more time doing that than servicing his clients. If only he had invested time in learning how to get himself organised, he would have been much more productive and profitable.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Gary has left the industry because he thought it was just too hard to make money in that type of business.

Final Word

Personally I find dealing with most business people, very frustrating. They tell you how good they are and will get the job done but the majority are hopeless! They do not follow up and provide a basic level of consistent service.

It’s time people got back to basics, followed up and use simple tools like a diary to get great results. There is a fortune to be made in following up, but only if you do it consistently. If you’re not sure what you need to do and EXACTLY how to follow-up and generate more income, then take action and invest in a proven step-by-step system that will get you big results.

Why be time poor and struggle in your business, when you can easily generate more income and have more free time. Click here to find out more.

How To Have An Additional Day Off Every Week

lorraine — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:32:05 +0000

Have you ever heard the saying ‘work always expands to fill the time available? So what does that mean? It means that the longer you have to get something done, the longer you will take to do it. save time

One of my clients recently committed to taking every Friday off. He blocked out the time in his diary and guess what? He gets the same amount of work done in the 4 days. Because we’ve been working together, his business is running much more effectively which has made it easy for Gary to step away.

I must admit that I used to always plan to have Fridays off myself and did for a Day-Off Calendar long time. Then gradually I let other things get in the way and found myself working on my business on that day instead.

Lately I realised that I had better take my own advice and have reclaimed that day back and feel much better for it.Let’s face it as a business owner there is always something to do.

Working harder is not the answer. We all need time off to unwind. As a business owner you need it more than anyone else.

So if you really want to have an additional day off a week, here’s what you do:

1. Decide which day you want off

2. Block that day out in your diary

3. Plan what you’ll do on your day off (very important otherwise you may end up working because you don’t know what to do with yourself)

4. Do it!

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