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Extensive Research On How To Build Wealth From The Comfort Of Your Own Home.
Focus On Success Now – Think And Grow Rich Audio Club
Nov 1st
Success Audio Package Of Think And Grow Rich, The Master Key System, Understanding The Law Of Attraction, And Building Self Confidence Plus Audio Club Of Monthly Success Audios Of Books, Entraintment, NLP Audios, Subliminals, And More.
Focus On Success Now – Think And Grow Rich Audio Club
18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done
Oct 29th
This is the third day in a row where I’ve started no less than three activities within 10 minutes and made little progress on any of them. I am distracted, I am frustrated and I am falling behind.
That’s the moment that I glance at my nightstand and see the book 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done buried under a pile of books. ”A-ha!” I think, “This is exactly what I need to get back on track!”
As I rifle through the book, it becomes clear to me that I’ve gotten trapped in the detailed tasks that make up my day instead of keeping my eye on the overall goals that I’ve set out to accomplish through the year. I quickly realize that I have been the thief of my own time and the main obstacle to not achieving what I’d set out to do.
If that sounds like you, then read on, my friend, and let’s see how we can transform our daily to-do list monster in 18 minutes.
18 Minutes is a brand new book written by Harvard Business Review’s most popular online columnist, Peter Bregman (@peterbregman). It offers a plan for getting the right things done in business and in life.
There are four primary sections to the book:
Section 1 – Pause – The examples in this section will prepare you for the rest of the book. You will get into a mind-set that will help you to see the possibilities of getting the most out of your time.
Section 2 – What is this year about? I’m a big fan of Chris Brogan’s “three words for the year” exercise where you pick three words that will symbolize your priorities and efforts in the new year. This is very much the same idea. In 18 Minutes, Bregman shows you four elements around which you should focus your efforts over the year:
- Leverage your strengths
- Embrace your weaknesses
- Assert your difference
- Pursue your passion
Part 3 – What is this day about? – this is where you learn how to translate what your year is about into a daily 18-minute plan. This isn’t really a new concept. The Franklin Planner folks had this figured out, as do most people who are on a mission to achieve something.
I have a friend who likes to say that most people know more about what they want on a pastrami sandwich than what they want out of life. Bregman is saying the same thing. Figuring out what your year is about is huge, but keeping that goal in focus day in and day out is even more challenging for most people.
In this section, Bregman delves deeper into how to combine those four elements of who you are into a more powerful, more fully self-expressed version of you. He relates a wonderfully telling story of how he repeatedly fell during a mountain biking trip because he found himself slowing down at a rock instead of plowing over it. I could immediately see his point and thought of how I become sidetracked by certain events in the day because I didn’t plan ahead and acknowledge potential obstacles and how I would handle them.
There is a terrific list outline in this section that you can use immediately. Just use those four or five things that your year is about as list categories; then put your tasks underneath. Bregman also recommends creating a category called “The other 5%- Mine.”
When I saw this, I had an epiphany! I’ve been using Google Tasks to keep track of my to-do lists and had created lists by Clients. Now I see that I can create my lists by these four categories.
In fact, if you read my review on Karmic Management, you’ll find Bregman’s system works just as well with the 6 time lists mentioned there.
An interesting benefit you’ll get from this arrangement of your lists is the ability to quickly see which categories have an abundance of tasks and which ones are a little thin. This is a terrific visual barometer that you can use to see if your day is the way you’d like it to be. If it isn’t, you can quickly make a change.
Part 4- What is this moment about? I’m sure you see a pattern unfolding in this book. Focus on who you are, what your year, day and moments are about, and keep your tasks focused in those areas–then you will certainly get where you want to go.
This section is all about being present moment by moment and noticing when you are about to get distracted. Bregman discusses tactics for managing distractions – those shiny objects that clutter our day, those siren songs that ultimately steal us away from our mission in life.
18 Minutes: advice that’s easy to adopt
Granted, my current situation motivated me to read 18 Minutes out of frustration. But I found the book to be engaging and Bregman to be a likable narrator. He didn’t come off as better or holier than thou. In fact, quite the opposite.
In the Mastering Distractions section he talks about going on an bike ride in the pouring rain because that was his exercise time and if his focus was on exercise, this was the only time he could do it. He shares his constant inner voice trying to convince him that he should retreat to the warmth and comfort of his apartment, and then he tells us how he stepped out into the rain and even then was thinking bout turning back, but only five minutes into the ride, the rain that seemed like an irritant turned refreshing.
I was inspired more by his “weakness” than his determination in this story. It showed me that I get to choose how the day goes and those choices determine how my life goes. That was a powerful moment for me.
Integrity about who you are in the world trumps distractions
Chapter 33 is titled “Am I the Kind of Person Who…” This is an incredibly powerful chapter because it brings to light that who we are in the world drives what we do, what we focus on and ultimately what we achieve.
Create a good story about yourself, and the actions you take throughout the day will flow easily and naturally.
Things I loved about 18 Minutes
18 Minutes is really well written. Bregman is so engaging, real and open that his time-saving and life-managing techniques are like that spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down. He uses personal stories, many of which are somewhat self-deprecating, to show you that he’s struggled with the principles he is writing about.
After giving it more thought I realize that 18 Minutes has the magic combination of qualities I like in a book:
- Fun to read
- Short
- Practical
- Immediately implementable
Who will benefit most from reading 18 Minutes?
If you’re a type A personality who wants to squeeze the most out of your day, this is a book that will feed your fire. And if you find yourself ending each day tired and feeling like you didn’t get to where you wanted be, then reading this book will help you pinpoint the time takers that leaves your days and spirit unfulfilled.
This book is an ideal holiday gift for business owners who don’t want to make New Year’s resolutions because they know that nothing ever happens as planned.
If you’re dedicated to living your life and running your business in a way that makes a difference n the world, then this is a terrific, easy and fulfilling read.
18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Become a Provider of Choice: Shift Your Focus to Customer Experiences
Oct 14th
Griffin Hospital earns customer loyalty, and accolades, by creating customer experiences. Griffin Hospital’s efforts to understand the lives of patients and their families has earned them extreme customer loyalty. Their goal was to imagine what it would be like to be the patient so they could improve the experience for both patients and their families. But Griffin Hospital hadn’t always received this type of accolade.
Back in 1982, Griffin Hospital was very far from enjoying extreme loyalty. At that time, one-third of the local community named Griffin as the hospital they would avoid if they could. That rude awakening pushed them to rethink their purpose and literally everything they did. The hospital wanted to create an experience to remember.
Music in the Parking Lot and a Piano in the Lobby
Being told that it was avoided whenever possible pushed Griffin to rethink the purpose for their hospital, physicians, and caregivers. Their goal was to become the hospital of choice in the community. Griffin knew that if “choice” was the goal, then they had to readjust their purpose; they needed to move from being healthcare providers to being service providers.
Griffin had to stop executing required tasks and determine what experience they would deliver, what patient and family emotions were involved. They found that the emotional journey of going to the hospital begins in the parking lot. So Griffin provides free valet parking and concierge services. Music in the parking lot and lobby welcomes visitors and takes away the sterile “hospital” feeling.
Says Bill Powanda, Griffin Hospital vice president:
“It doesn’t matter if you have the shortest emergency room wait times around and deliver the greatest care in the nation; if parking is a nightmare, your patients won’t be completely satisfied.”
Griffin Hospital Enjoys a 99 Percent Recommendation Rate
Understanding the customer emotions involved in “coming and going” from a hospital visit prompted actions that made Griffin stand out. Those bookend experiences are part of the magnet that pulls people back to Griffin. No longer considered the “black sheep” hospital of the community, Griffin grows through customer referrals. Inpatient admissions grew 28 percent from 1997 to 2009, compared with a state average growth rate of 10 percent. And outpatient services grew 92 percent from 1998 to 2009.
Griffin Hospital has become the hospital of choice not only for their community, but for surrounding communities as well. One-third of Griffin Hospital’s customers come from outside of the community where it’s located. Ten percent of administrators of U.S. hospitals want to visit Griffin Hospital to learn from them.
Do you think about how you punctuate your moments of connection with customers? First impressions last the longest. Is yours purposeful? Does it create the ideal first opinion of your business?
What Are Your Customer Experience Bookends?
Griffin Hospital decided to eliminate the fear of hospital visits with music in their parking lots and a concierge in their lobby. The memory of these “experience bookends” bonds visitors to them. Ask yourself:
- Do you have a purposeful beginning and ending to moments of customer contact?
- Are you creating memories or just executing tasks?
- How would you rate your intent and ability to create purposeful moments of customer contact?
- How would your customers say you are doing?
- Do customers rave about a memorable experience?
- What are the marquee moments in your customers’ experiences with you?
- Do your decisions for creating memorable bookends earn you “beloved” status today?
Become a Provider of Choice: Shift Your Focus to Customer Experiences
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Teamly Review Is a New Way to Focus on Priority Tasks
Jun 29th
Focus. We can talk about it all day, but it’s hard to do with the many things you face as a small business owner wearing too many hats. You can create a grand plan and fancy to-do list, but if you don’t focus on the important stuff and do it–well, then, it’s just a list. Teamly is a new type of task management tool–one that forces you to stay focused on priorities.
Teamly is an individual productivity tool, but it also serves as team performance management software. It has sharing and reporting aspects that make it useful for individuals, managers and directors (meaning those who manage multiple companies as an active angel or venture capitalist).
What I really like:
- I like that I can quickly enter a bunch of tasks, in traditional to-do list fashion, and later prioritize them for myself or my team.
- The ability to drag and drop priorities into next week or next month is sweet. Plans change.
- It’s elegantly simple. Enter a task. Mark it started or complete.
- I can set reminders for each day’s priorities and for whenever a team member suggests a task.
What I would have liked to see:
- Since I have managed many to-do lists in a spreadsheet, I’d like to be able to mass upload them in a batch and then edit and organize them within the Teamly dashboard.
- Downloadable help documents instead of just video and posts. Many of the small, distributed teams I know would share these documents on a collaborative file system.
All in all, Teamly gives you a great ability to keep yourself focused. You don’t have to go any further than the basic dashboard to see what you’ve committed to do that day. They offer a free starter plan (ad-supported), but also have a special 3-month discount offer (good until June 30) that is only $2/user per month instead of the usual $8/user/month. It is so simple, elegant and useful that I had to make this a super-short post, so you could get right into it yourself and start focusing on priority one!
Learn more about Teamly.
Teamly Review Is a New Way to Focus on Priority Tasks
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
The Power of Focus
Jan 25th
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
This Local Color video, featuring creative small businesses around the globe, is part of a marketing series sponsored by HP
When it comes to growing a business few things have more power than a narrow focus. Too often business owners want to be many things in order to capture as much business as possible. That seems to make sense, but what happens in most cases is that the business brand gets so diluted that the only way to capture any business is to compete on price – say it with me – there will always be someone willing to go out of business faster than you if you compete on price!
In this episode of Local Color sponsored by HP I showcase a Kansas City based wine merchant – Cellar Rat. Cellar Rat has been able to thrive, even during a down economy by focusing very narrowly on wines – mostly under $30. They’ve coupled this approach with a commitment to education and by building and consistently communicating with a community of enthusiastic customers.
Meet Ryan Sciara – cofounder of Cellar Rat – and get focused as a total marketing strategy!
View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
Putting the Focus on B2B Blogging
Nov 5th
If you’re responsible for marketing or business
communications at a B2B company and you’re still on the fence about incorporating
a blog into your business-aligned communication strategy, this should be of
interest. HiveFire, a Cambridge, Mass.-based internet marketing software
solutions company, has released the results of a marketing research survey that
suggests many business-to-business companies don’t fully grasp the
business opportunities associated with blogging. Some, in fact, see it as a
resource drain.
But the survey, which was administered to more than 100 B2B marketers this past summer, shows that companies that adopt a robust content marketing strategy inclusive of blogging reap benefits twofold. First, they see a marked improvement in search results. In addition, blogs create the perception that the company is staffed with thought leaders (subject matter experts) in its respective industries. And companies see both of these as critical components in the B2B sales process.
The problem is, only 55.3 percent of the companies surveyed have a corporate or industry blog in place. That leaves a full 44.7 percent who admit they have no self-published content marketing program. That doesn’t mean they aren’t making big plans. The survey shows that of the companies that don’t, nearly 82 percent say they plan to have a blog at some point in the future.
As everyone should know by now, blogging won’t do much good if you don’t publish unique content on a regular basis. Of the B2B companies surveyed by HiveFire with a blog already in place, only 11 percent publish new material daily, with another 42 percent indicating they publish new blog posts only once a week. Shockingly, approximately 48 percent of those companies surveyed said they might post one new blog entry — or even less — per month.
Part of the problem with frequency of posts, according to the HiveFire, is that nobody’s really clear at B2B companies about who’s best qualified to produce blog-related content. A third of the companies say they rely on the vice president of marketing, while another 32 percent give that task to the online marketing manager. The rest are split among outside contractors, PR staff and other internal resources.
“In many companies, the individuals who can create the most insightful blog content are often outside of marketing,” says Pawan Deshpande, CEO of HiveFire. “For example, the best blogger could be the CTO, but these people are very busy.”
According to Deshpande, B2B blogging often fails in part because the editorial calendar relies on individuals outside of marketing — despite marketing being accountable for the upkeep of the blog. “Many B2B marketers start blogs to project their companies as being on top of their industry with fresh content, but instead they end up with stale and out-of-date content.”
So what’s a B2B company to do? In my professional opinion, B2B executives, like all business organizations, must link their blogging activities to their company’s business goals. And the way to do that is by creating a business-aligned communication strategy that clearly identifies the company blog as the primary vehicle for driving dynamic messaging and content distribution. Anything less and a B2B blog — as well as any business blog — is destined to stew in mediocrity and do more harm to the business than good.
View full post on Entrepreneur.com – Daily Dose
China’s Focus Media Sells Internet Division To Silver Lake For $124 Million
Jul 30th
| Focus Media, one of China’s leading digital media groups, this… of its Internet division, Allyes, to US-based private investment firm Silver Lake. |
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View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Prime Focus a good buy, wait for EIL: Devang Visaria-Views/Recommendations-Stocks-Markets
Jul 30th
| Times Syndication Service This site is best viewed with Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher; Firefox 2.0 or higher at a minimum screen resolution… |
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Transform Your Online Green Marketing by Focus on the Boring Stuff
Jul 23rd
| I would recommend that you plan every aspect of your internet marketing campaign very carefully and test each part separately and also in conjunctio… |
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Google UK Chief Speaks Of Focus On Mobile, Social
Jul 6th
| Social Media Benefits for Search As the interest in social media continues to grow, it’s fascinating… |
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