How to Avoid Costly Mistakes
Even when you’ve planned and double checked everything, sometimes things happen that are out of your control.
We had a big turn-out for my teleseminar on “How to Unleash the Hidden Profit in Your Business” this week which also previewed my upcoming group telecoaching program “The Productivity and Profit Virtual Bootcamp”.
When I went to press the ‘record’ button on my phone… nothing happened! My heart was racing and I had to think quickly. I had over 70 expectant people on the line waiting to hear from me.
The recording of the event was crucial as most people would download the file afterwards and listen to it a few times to pick up the tips, tools and strategies to help them boost their own businesses. More importantly hearing the interviews I had with some of my clients on their personal successes would have been invaluable to them.
Fortunately I was able to solve the problem (it’s too long a story to write about here) and we got underway a few minutes later and had an extremely valuable call.
So what did I learn? Take nothing for granted, even if I’ve done it many times before, always do a practice run beforehand with my guests and admin. assistant and check everything was working.
Has this ever happened to you where you’ve planned a meeting or event down to the last detail only to find a major challenge or obstacle comes up?
When these situations arise do you panic and race off immediately without giving yourself a chance to think things through? It may only take a few seconds or minutes to work out the solution if you just stop, breathe and focus.
As entrepreneurs we are always overcoming challenges … and the biggest challenge is ourselves. We’ve got plenty to do and it’s easy to slip-up. With so many ideas and distractions to take us off track from our real purpose, sometimes you end up running out of steam and lose the motivation to keep going. Or because of the speed we go, we can be too impulsive without thinking the situation through.
If you’re disorganised as well, you’ll constantly experience headaches and frustrations which will cost you dearly in:
§ Money
§ Credibility
§ Clients
§ Relationships
§ Energy
§ Stress
§ Overwhelm
§ Always feel behind
§ Always feel like you’re forgetting something
§ Doing everything last minute
§ Being unprepared
§ Focus
Yet when you’re organised, you so much more productive. You’ll feel it and know it.
Here are just a fraction of the benefits:
§ More time for whatever you want it for (business or personal family time)
§ More money
§ Credibility (you’re always prepared and can be trusted)
§ More clients (you now have time to work with them and follow up with them)
§ Improved relationships (you now have time, energy and focus to be with your family and friends)
§ Lots more energy (it’s not wasted trying to find things anymore)
§ Less stress (you know you’re on top of things)
§ You feel in control
§ You know exactly where you are and you’re on track
§ You know you’re not forgetting anything because you have a reminder system in place
§ You get things done in plenty of time, no more last minute rushing
§ You are always prepared and appear confident and on top of things
§ You can focus and achieve so much more
§ You’re happy (and isn’t that a good thing!)
The Final Word
So next time all hell breaks loose, instead of racing off to ‘fix’ it… take a few deep breaths, calm yourself then do whatever you need to do to rectify the situation. After the emergency has been resolved, review the situation immediately afterwards and ask yourself:
1. What did I learn from this experience?
2. How could I have handled this better or prevented it from happening?
3. What actions will I take?
… and ensure you follow through.
Unfortunately many small business owners, will rush off and put the next fire out which most likely could have been avoided, if they would just slow down, get the fundamentals right in their business first, then they would reap the rewards.
OK, so you are so busy, stressed, overwhelmed and need help to get on track to run your business much more smoothly and profitably but what if you don’t have the time, don’t know where to begin or what to do first?
Then it’s time to take action and invest in a proven step-by-step system . The Productivity and Profit Home Study SystemTM avoids all the unnecessary stuff and instead gives you the most important things to do to give you more time, organise your systems and master your marketing, so you consistently make much more money, with less headaches and enjoy more time off…
It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done wit h that, you move on to step two, and so on. So easy. All the proven tips, tools and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. You can get it at www.productivityqueen.com/profit.html
Lorraine Pirihi, The Productivity Queen, is founder of http://www.productivityqueen.com/, and creator of The Productivity and Profit SystemTM … the proven step-by-step program guaranteed to free up your time, organise your systems, master your marketing so you make much more money and have a life! To receive your F.R.E.E. Audio CD by mail and weekly how-to articles to increase your productivity and your profits, visit http://www.productivityqueen.com/
November 21st, 2008 at 9:46 am
Oh yes, that’s happened to me too. I was doing a virtual organising seminar in 4 stages with participants.
The recordings were not appearing on the page afterwards. Fortunately I’d clicked “yes” to record through my Pamela Recorder but unfortunately, only for 2 of the 4.
To make it up to them (because I sold the seminar with the MP3 links included) I gave away a free product on email as that was one of the sessions that was not recorded.