4 Simple Ways to Build Consistent Success

If you are like most business owners, you are striving to do things better this year. You want to make more money, you want more bottom line profits and I can also probably guess you want all this and more without having to work longer hours, with less overwhelm and zero headaches.

So how do you build a more efficient and consistent business? Well the answer to that question is quite simple. It’s about doing the right things in the right order and taking consistent daily action.

Here are 4 areas you can focus on quite effortlessly to ensure you build more momentum over the next 12 months.

Create your outcomes

Now I’m sure you are all familiar with the tradition of goals setting. We follow the smart criteria we learnt in our management and business training and then we hope that when we review those goals we have achieved them. Well if you want my honest opinion, for the majority, goal setting just doesn’t work. It’s a bold statement but true. Your focus should be on achieving your goals not just setting them, so that’s when I changed the acronym to SMARTA to include that all important element – ACTION. Unless you take the required action, your goals will simply remain your wishes and desires. So how do you CREATE your outcomes so you can move closer to where you want to be? As Peter Druker once said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

The first step is to decide what you want. It may sound simple but most don’t even get this far. I believe success starts with a decision. Regardless of whether you have small or big goals you must decide what you want.

How you write down what you want is very important so as you begin the first step of wiring down your goals, make sure your outcomes meet the CREATE criteria

C- Clear and concise in other words be specific about what you want to achieve

R – Realistic Remember we don’t – get what we want, we get what we expect. So set your outcomes in alignment to what you expect you can achieve. Once you start achieving your goals, stretch your expectations and yourself.

E- Ecological – running an ecology check on your goals is always a good idea. This simply means looking at the consequences of attaining that goal. You may ask yourself, is this outcome good for me and good for others etc.

A- As If Now – it is vitally important you write your goals in the present tense. This is because once the mind has fully imagined something, it makes it far easier to accomplish. So your goal must be written in the present-tense language, as if you are achieving the last step right now in this moment.

T-Timed and Toward What You want – even though you are going to write down your goals in the present tense, you must put a future date or time to your goal to indicate when you wish to achieve this outcome.  The T also stands for toward what you want; this just means it’s important to express your goal positively rather than including negative language about what you don’t want.

E- End Step – evidence Procedure – always include the final step that lets you know you have actually achieved your goal. This is the event, situation or result that would occur in order for you to have attained your outcome. 

Take Consistent Daily Action & Improvement

They say success is in the follow through and therefore Action is an essential element to success, but how do we maintain that action on a daily basis and focus only on the high income and high impact activities that will help us move to achieving higher levels of success.  The average person over estimates what he or she can do in a day, a week or a month, and they under estimate what they can do in a year, five years and a decade.

Most of us associate action to taking big leaps and bounds which is not always possible to maintain every day. So to get started with building more consistency in your efforts, try focusing on achieving consistent daily improvement. We all think we have to improve by 20% or 50% or 100% in one leap. Why not make the decision to commit to improving your business, your sales, how you interact with your customers, your staff etc. in fact everything you do, by only 1% – but do this every day. At the end of every year you will be at least 3665% improved in many areas of your business and your life. Think about how much closer you will be to achieving your goals and outcomes if you are achieving those kind of results consistently.

Develop a prospect mindset & keep them for life

When you develop a “prospect mindset,” you’ll begin to understand what your customers want… specifically. You’ll understand how to clearly identify the problems, frustrations and concerns they typically experience when they buy what you sell. These frustrations, concerns, problems and fears are what we call HOT BUTTONS.

If you can discover what your ideal customer wants, and then provide them with solution to their wants, they will buy from you each and every time.

Once you completely understand how and why human beings make decisions, you can then begin to create persuasive and compelling marketing messages that are so powerful they practically force your prospects to buy what you sell.

Become an Automatic Smart Networker

Though it may be hard to grasp, networking is much easier than you think. Forget the myth that

you need to be an extrovert to network well. You don’t. Or that you must network nonstop.

Absolutely not. Or that networking is all about working the room at a big event with a big fake

grin plastered on your face. Far from it.

You might be waiting for a bolt of confidence to strike before you get up enough courage to put

yourself out there, but confidence doesn’t magically appear. Instead, confidence comes partly through knowledge, being able to see what the process looks like, trusting yourself and taking a deep breath and plunging right in. It also comes from knowing what to say to people when asked …”what do you do”

In short:

AVOID Telling People WHO You Are

  • I’m an accountant
  • I’m a plumber
  • I’m a florist
  • I’m a business coach

Tell People WHAT You DO & Show Them How Your Solutions Matches Their WANTS!

  • I help people become financially successful
  • I help people with all their plumbing needs
  • I bring joy and happiness to peoples day
  • I help business owners get more from their business

Once you have the experience of communicating this well and find that networking is not so daunting after all you will wonder why you ever waited so long to get started

Remember you must network the smart way which will include both face to face networking and online social media. Not enough people view social media as a form of networking, but it’s a must if you want to leverage your opportunities through your connections.

Smart networking

ü  Is driven by purpose. It starts by defining your goals. These goals should then determine whom we ought to have in our network, which in turn, should help us decide where best to meet them. This means you are just not wasting time at the wrong events or in following up when it’s not the right fit.

  •  adds value and removes pressure as it places a deliberate focus on the needs and feelings of other people first.
  •  leverages tools that multiply our productivity. Rather than meeting people and interacting with them one-to-one, smart networking takes advantage of online tools and services that help us reach people on a one-to-many basis.

Time to Take Action

Remember success in in the Follow Through so take some time right now to

  • Decide what you want & create your outcomes for the year.
  • Commit to consistent daily improvement
  • Match your solutions to your customers wants
  • Become an automatic smart networker

What Do You Really Want To Achieve This Year?

Now we are in the New Year, it’s really important to start the new year on the right foot.

A good way to start is by reviewing the past year, what you achieved, what you didnt, and where the gaps and obstacles were.

I put together this short video message for you – alternatively keep reading this post below!!

 

Moving into the new year it’s then extremely important to decide on what it is you really want for the year. Be sure you are clear on each area of your life including some of the following:

  • Health & Fitness
  • Money & Finances
  • Business & Career
  • Relationships
  • Spirituality
  • Community and
  • Contribution

Once you know what it is you want, it’s easier to put a plan of action in place to go about achieving it.

Be sure you follow the SMARTA™ system when setting your goals.

  • Specific  – be sure you are specific when defining what it is you want
  • Measurable – it’s important to be able to measure your progress to ensure you are moving closer to your goal and not further away
  • Achievable  & As If Now-  your goal has to be achievable – don’t let yourself down if it’s not.  Be sure you also state your goal in the present tense – as if it’s in the NOW.
  • Realistic –  now this is a huge one. sure we all want to double or triple our income, but if you never have then perhaps it’s best to start off with a small goal. once you have achieved it, then raise the bar.
  • Time Bound –  be sure you place a deadline on the goal. Look how fast the year has gone, put a time frame on what you want to achieve.
  • Action –  This one is the most important by far. You must take the necessary action in order to achieve all that you want and more.

 

 

 

Hit Your Targets and Maximise Your Potential

Hit Your Targets and Maximise Your Potential

Have you set a revenue goal for the year? Have you prepared a cashflow forecast for the next quarter, six months and twelve months? Whether you’ve formalised your revenue goal or not, you would have by now a number in your head for where you want to be at the end of the year.

Its very important to start the year off knowing exactly where you finished last year and exactly where you want to be by the endof the year . Without knowing this number if will be almost near impossible to deliberately set your course of action on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis.

When we speak of goals we at Vision Alliance speak holistically, so that you include your business and your life. There are six areas in your life for which you must define goals:

  • Finances
  • Relationships
  • Contribution
  • Health
  • Spirit
  • Business

Most people don’t achieve the goals they set not because they lack motivation, but because they don’t know how to define attainable goals and keep working consistently to get there. As every successful business coach will tell you, that’s the difference between successful people and the ones who must struggle to survive. Successful people know how to define and attain goals. Surround yourself with successful people and you will see the patterns unfold before you. I am forever remind people that over the past two decades of helping businesses grow, I have found there are two types of people in this world. Those who are committed and those who are just interested. Which one are you?  If you haven’d heard me speak of this let me expand on this a little. Those who are interested will do what is convenient to them. Those who are committed will do what ever it takes to achieve their outcomes. So are you interested in success in 2011. or are you truly committed?

Goals setting starts with setting SMART –A Goals. Im sure you have heard of SMART goals but how many of you have heard of a SMARTA goal. A SmartA goal is one that is

  • Specific
  • Measureable
  • Achievable
  • Realistic
  • Time Bound and
  • Actionable. 

That’s right it’s absolutely no use setting SMART goals if you don’t take the necessary ACTION to get you closer to where you want to be.

It’s always a good idea to start off small. Remember you eat an elephant the same way – in bite size chunks so don’t start with increasing revenues by 200% when you haven’t yet reached a 25% increase. Once you get to 25% start reaching for 50% and then 100%. Most of us think we have to increase our results by 100% overnight. You can no more double your revenue this year by simply saying you’re going to work harder and sell more than you can lose 10 kilos in a week or two by saying you’re going to eat less and exercise more.

You need a plan and you need to follow that plan daily. By focusing on the small bite size chunks and on improving just 1% every day,  you will dramatically increase your overall results over the course of one year.
As a friend of mine always says, nothing changes if nothing changes. Keep doing the same things you did last year and you will be guaranteed to produce similar results. Do something different, take consistent action, test and measure your results, make changes when and where necessary and you will be guaranteed to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be in a shorter period of time.

Here are the six requisites one of my mentors taught me that every successful person meets to attain his or her goals:

  1. Know Your Why I added this one in here as it’s so important. Without knowing your why it will be more difficult to align yourself with your overall vision, values and product and or servic offering. Start speaking a different language by communicating Why you do what you do rather than What you do.  You will be amazed how quickly you can affect change in your business.
  2. Dream big
    Think out of the box and establish ambitious goals. Do not set goals thinking that there is a limit to what you can achieve. The only limit is yourself and the past conditioning you allow to stop you from getting what you want.
  3. Write down detailed goals
    Successful people know that writing down their goals initiates the process. This is why you have to be specific, because what you write down is what will begin to happen. Your achievements will be as accurate as what you wrote, because you are appealing to the universal laws and are setting your mind to work as focused as possible. So don’t write down that you want a new car; explain that you want a new full extras, silver BMW, with black leather seats, a full warranty and full service for life.
  4. Your goals must be in harmony with your values
    You will attain your goals easily if you are working on something you value, because it means you are aligned with your purpose in life, your WHY. First, define your WHY, then define your values and thirdly, base your goals on and around them.
  5. Your goals must include two things:
    a. A specific plan to attain each
    b. The correct beliefs and mindset
    Without these, you will never attain your goals, thus, clarify your beliefs and think about what actions will lead you to attaining your dreams.
  6. Check your goals daily
    Before you get out of bed, before you eat your breakfast, review your list of goals. Visualize your life having attained them: how does it feel? It’s always a good idea to review your goals also before going to bed at night. What you are doing is programming your brain to work on your goals subconsciously, and to expect them to become a reality.
  7. Never lose hope- remember everything is possible if you put your mind to it and then take action.
    You never lose, even if you don’t get what you wanted. In case your dream doesn’t become a reality, remember that you still have what you learned in the process. Experience is crucial to advancing in life. As long as you focus on what you want, you will find the way to get there, in spite of the challenges or setbacks you may encounter along the way.