Struggling with a choice or decision can be very difficult especially when it involves your business. I had just completed a major goal and it was time to decide which goal I would tackle next. There were many possibilities and never enough time.

As the woman behind Gypsy King Software games I had several game related goals. There were older games that hadn’t been moved to the new millenium but could be. There was one game in particular I’d been wanting to bring forward.

Then there were the brand new games that were part way done that needed to be finished, two in particular that were tugging at me. In addition there was a game update that I considered important.

In addition to games, there were books. Now that the door had opened to allow me to publish my books, I had half a dozen already written and just needing to be polished and edited, and half a dozen more in my head wanting badly to come out.

On top of that there were websites to be updated, blog posts to be written, t-shirt designs to be released, marketing to be done, and the list goes on. With so many choices how on earth do you pick one to focus on?

The answer turned out to be quite simple once I knew how to approach the decision making process. I was spending the afternoon at the doctor’s office reading Les Brown to pass the hours. If you’re not familiar with Les Brown, you should be. He’s an amazing motivational speaker and writer who I first encountered on public television and he can set you straight.

I was reading his book called Live Your Dreams and like a magical genie called forth to answer a question, I came to a segment about making decisions. He said to close your eyes and imagine each option, moving forward with the option as if you had chosen it. Imagine yourself completing the goal or moving forward in that direction. How does it make you feel? What emotions do you get from success with this option? Then move past the emotions and beyond, what do you see as the result of choosing this option?

Do this mental exercise with each choice and see if it clarifies the decision making process. I was skeptical. I’m not good at foreseeing which option will be the most successful when it comes to business. Back in the day when I had released several different shareware games, I would have put my money on the political game to be the most successful. I was so wrong. A more common game that I didn’t expect to do anything at all turned out to be the dark horse which took off and left all the others eating dust.

Knowing my track record, how was I supposed to trust my imagination to fill in the blanks? Nevertheless I closed my eyes and followed each option mentally, seeing it finished and released, following it into the beyond. I was amazed at the answers that came.

The option I was leaning toward was a non-fiction book, already written and needing just minor changes. I knew the book presented useful information and could be finished quickly. From that logic it made perfect sense to pursue it. However, when I followed the book mentally as Les Brown had suggested, I discovered that my emotions on completing and releasing the book were not joy and elation, but embarrassment! The subject had been so overdone by so many different people, the entire topic had somewhat of a bad rap.

The next option on my list was to bring a game forward into the new millenium. I really believed this game would be well-received and I’d already undertaken the task of updating the graphics. I closed my eyes and followed this game to its re-release and beyond. Again, the result surprised me. Instead of feeling joy and elation, I felt like I’d just wasted several months that should have been focused elsewhere. I’d had this conversation with myself many times before and always I came to the same conclusion: If I were going to work on a game there was only one game it should be and that wasn’t it. This realization nixed another option that had been high on my list as well.

That left two other prominent options, both of which would bring joy and elation to finish and release, and both of which I felt had a good chance for success with the primary difference being which one could be done quicker. The answer was immediate. One was already near finished. The decision was made.

There are two morals to this story. The first being that the next time you have to choose between several options, especially in business, try this technique. The results might surprise you. The second nugget I hope that you take away from reading this is to acquaint yourself with Les Brown. If you’re needing direction, motivation or just a swift kick in the pants, Les Brown is your man!

Tags: business, choices, decision making, decisions, goal, goals, les brown, live your dream, live your dreams, mental exercise, mental exercises, motivation, motivational book, motivational speaker, power of the mind, power of your mind, tough choices, tough decisions, visualization

Category: Moneybags, Pay It Forward

by Shari Coxford

If you want to grow your business, there are three simple concepts that will propel you toward success: set action goals and success goals, reward yourself, and follow the money. While it may sound cliche, it really does work.

Set Action Goals and Success Goals

In order to reach the big goals you need a road map to follow. If you were driving from New York to California and you didn’t have an actual road map, you’d blindly drive southwest and hope that sooner or later you’d arrive in California. It would be easy to miss the goal if you weren’t familiar with the roads.

That’s where your road map comes in. It tells you which road you’re on at any given time and you can see when you’ve steered off course. Road maps also tell you when you’re near an interesting place that might be worth a detour.

Action and success goals help you in much the same way. Deciding that you want to make $100,000 a year is an excellent goal but how do you get there? The first step is to create a series of action goals and success goals. Action goals are actions you can take. Success goals are markers that you’ve moved closer to the big goal.

Here are a few examples of action goals: distribute 100 flyers, call 10 potential new clients, place an ad in a newspaper, add a web page to your website, create a Google Adwords ad, or create a referral program that offers an incentive to existing clients who bring you new clients.

Sales and giveaways are a different type of action goal. If you sell a product, put it on sale for a week or offer a freebie with a minimum purchase and make sure to get the word out.

Success goals break the ultimate goal into smaller success points. An ultimate goal of $100,000 a year breaks down to $8,333 per month. Set a success goal of $1,000 a month and once you achieve it, up the goal to $2,000 a month then $3,000.

Set action goals to move you from $1,000 to $2,000. An action goal is like stepping on the gas pedal to propel you forward to the next success goal. Every success goal you set is another location on your road map.

Reward Yourself for Goals Achieved

Once you’ve set up your action and success goals, the next step is to implement a reward system for yourself. For every goal achieved there should be an associated reward.

Set up small rewards for an action goal such as distributing 100 flyers. Set a bigger reward for a success goal such as earning $1,000 a month.

A reward might be to treat yourself to 10 new songs for your MP3 player from iTunes or Amazon.com. Perhaps you’d rather take yourself out to lunch, a movie, a trip to the beauty salon, bowling alley or ball game. Splurge on yourself. Buy a new shirt, book, plant for the garden, necklace, stamps for your stamp collection or a $30 bottle of liqueur that you wouldn’t normally treat yourself to. These are all ways to reward yourself.

Rewards can be very motivating. The most effective rewards are treats that you wouldn’t get except as a reward. In other words, don’t buy yourself a new book except as a reward for a goal you’ve achieved. If it’s just another book and you’ll get books anyway, the reward is diluted. It loses the power to motivate you.

Follow the Money

Sometimes the concepts that bring the most profit aren’t the ones you originally counted on. The best way to determine which aspects of your business are paying off and which are wasting your time is to divide your business into departments and then analyze the profits from each department.

Virtually any business can be subdivided into departments. For example, an appliance business might have the following departments: appliance repairs, washer and dryer sales, kitchen appliance sales, small appliance sales such as vacuum cleaners and toasters, and possibly even outdoor appliance sales such as BBQ grilles.

Perhaps you envisioned making a bundle selling refrigerators but if you keep track of the individual departments of your business, you might discover that you’re making a lot more money repairing appliances or selling outdoor BBQ grilles. You’re near an interesting detour that might be worth investigating.

Profits help you to navigate forks in the road. A departmental analysis might tell you that outdoor BBQ grilles are profitable and refrigerators are just old inventory taking up space. You’ve reached a decision point, a place where you must decide whether to go straight or take a turn.

The straight road will most likely take you off course, away from the $100,000 success goal. You know that refrigerators aren’t selling. The side street of BBQ grilles offers more profit potential so turning onto the side street makes the most sense. Start selling BBQ utensils, cookbooks, sauces and other related merchandise. Give the BBQ section prime real estate in your store and on your website. Try a few related side streets and offer a small selection of patio furniture. Move the refrigerators to the back, perhaps offering a refrigerator clearance sale.

Profits are your navigation system. Divide your business into departments and the profits will guide you. Other business departments might include different product lines, corporate customers versus individual customers, repairs versus new sales, selling products as an addition to a service business or vice versa.

Even internet businesses can be subdivided. Affiliate income, selling advertising space, selling your own product, designing web pages for others, all of these are separate portions of an internet business. Affiliate income can be further subdivided by the actual companies you do business with. Google is a single affiliate. So are Amazon and Commission Junction. If you find that one affiliate is more profitable you can focus your time and energy on that affiliate, making them more prominent on your website.

Product sales on the internet can be tracked regardless of whether the product is yours or affiliated. Which products bring the most commissions? This is a more important question than which product sells the most. If selling bumper stickers brings a profit of 50 cents each versus one e-book at a profit of $2.50, you’d need to sell 5 bumper stickers to equal the profit from a single e-book.

If you regularly sell 20 bumper stickers a day for a profit of $10 and only two e-books for a profit of $5, then you should focus on the bumper stickers. Try to sell 40 bumper stickers a day. Add more slogans and increase your marketing for bumper stickers. However, if the e-book wins out then you should consider adding other e-books on similar topics.

Set action goals and success goals so that you have a road map to follow. Set up a reward system for goals achieved. Analyze which aspects of your business bring the most profits and then follow the money. Expand the profitable portions of your business. Consider dropping departments that just aren’t paying off. Success might be found down a side street you never would have dreamed of.

Tags: action goal, action goals, build a successful business, business, business goals, business success, follow the money, goals, grow your business, reward yourself, set business goals, set goals, setting goals, small goals, smaller goals, success, success goal, success goals, success in business, successful business

Category: Moneybags