A simple strategy - Create A Success Team to Accelerate In Business

The road to success for female entrepreneurs or solo professionals is rarely easy. But, know that you don’t have to go it alone.

You can utilise the same principle that has been employed by the large corporations and heads of government for the past 70 years. In fact, you can create your own board of directors.

The principle that emerged with the late Napoleon Hill during his time as he researched and interviewed hundreds of the world’s wealthiest men of the time for his major personal development and wealth creation work, was the practice of Master Mind.

You may recall that when Napoleon Hill researched and interviewed hundreds of the world’s wealthiest men of the time for his major personal development and wealth creation work, Law of Success and then Think and Grow Rich, he came up with the theory of Master Mind. This principle is in fact Lesson One of the Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons.

Hill’s definition of Master Mind was “a mind that is developed through the harmonious co-operation of two or more people who ally themselves for the purpose of accomplishing any given task”, and “is created through harmony of purpose and effort, between two or more people”.

Thus, you can make the same Master Mind principle work for you.

How?

Form your very own Mastermind or Success Team.

Let’s go back - to a time when you attended a live event or seminar and because of being amongst like minded, positive people, you were really excited about your potential for what you could achieve.

Perhaps in the midst of all your excitement you saw yourself achieving success, set some really big goals and maybe you even vocalised them, telling others about what you were going to do.

Sound familiar? If so, keep reading as the following may also ring true for you.

Later that week or even several weeks later, the goals you had set start to sound unrealistic or negative chatter rears it’s ugly voice inside your head. Whatever the reason, you got discouraged and you no longer feel so enthusiastic about your potential for success. It had all been wishful thinking.

Be aware, this happens all the time and is not your fault. In today’s society there is so much negativity, including discouragement, disappointment and of course distractions. These forces may be overcome with both strong belief and discipline.

Sadly when we do feel disheartened, we tend to doubt ourselves, say negative things such as we’re not good enough, we’re not strong enough, not motivated enough, not skilled enough and so on. However, the fact that we have become ’stuck’ on our way to achieving more is most likely that we lack one thing.

What is that? Support.

A common fact for the solo-professional, most female entrepreneurs or work-at-home people is that the journey can seem long and hard. On top of that, the road is often lonely. We become overwhelmed because now we are trying to do the gamut of tasks to run the business, whereas when employed, we concentrated on one particular role. Now, we are responsible for the marketing, the technology, the customer service, the creation and production of products, writing, meeting clients, accounts, record keeping, controlling databases … the list goes on. In this crazy world, we also miss the stimulation and support of other coworkers.

But remember as I said earlier - you don’t have to be a one person band all the time. You don’t have to go it alone.

You can easily gain help, assistance and that yearned for support by joining an existing or creating your own success team. This doesn’t mean you need to hire expensive consultants or professionals, but as the saying goes ‘two heads are better than one’. Imagine the difference if there were four or five heads!

What Is A Success Team?

This is simply a group of like-minded people whose goals are to help each other achieve their goals. It is important that each member agree to assist the others, and not just be on the ‘take’.

Working with this concept will really harness your potential, and enable you to reach your goals with a lot less stress, worry and doubt.

How Does A Success Team Work?

Members of your team provide each other with the support, encouragement, information, knowledge, contacts, and more. Many problems that were blocking your progress can easily be solved when discussed openly with the members of your team. It is not expected that others solve your problem or do the job for you, but instead you will be encouraged to discover the means to pursue and eventually achieve.

Generally, an appointed time and date is scheduled - either weekly or fortnightly for a period of about two hours. Each member is allotted an equal amount of time to present their task at hand, any challenges and any successes. As well as receiving support, they will offer suggestions, feedback and alternatives.

The two most powerful questions asked at Success Team meetings are:

1. What do you want to achieve?
2. What’s stopping you?

As each team member continues to ensure the other members of the team remain focused on their goals, progress is inevitable and success is achievable.

Why will the team members offer to help you?

Because you will do exactly the same for them.

- Your problems will seem less challenging when faced objectively in the group, as they are always worse in our own mind.
- Creative juices begin to flow as others seem to have better ideas than we do.
- Your courage is boosted as others are usually more brave than we are.
- Other team members may also be escaping their own feelings of loneliness

As the expertise of each member of the success team may be in a different area, when all heads are put together the results are usually amazing. Having the company, the collective ideas, the amassed expertise and the support will enable you to experience more success than you would if you were to ‘go it alone’.

When joining a mastermind group, or creating your very own success team, the ideal number of participants is four or five. Having fewer members restricts the expertise, the creativity and increases the chance of dropouts and meeting cancellations. Too many members will either make the meetings go on too long, or limit the amount of time each member has to present their case.

When creating your success team or seeking a master mind team to join, it is preferable that members be acquaintences rather than best friends, people you trust and ones that you know are willing to contribute.

To boost your chance of succeeding in business as a female entrepreneur or a solo professional, don’t continue to try to everything yourself. Avoid being disheartened, staying stuck or being filled with anxiety and doubt.

Find a master mind group to join. If you can’t find one - create your own Success Team.

Your goals will be achievable and your success inevitable.

Do you want to accelerate in business by being in a mastermind group or success team? - Check our Platinum Membership Program - become part of a monthly massive momentum mastermind group which will provide you with extraordinary knowledge, strategies and support to go for your goals

Danette Hibberd

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So, you say “I have a business idea” - but now what? Where do you start?

The following article outlines the steps providing the “What now” and “How to” get your idea off to the best possible start.

You’ve got four pre-planning steps to go through before you should even think about launching your company.

Prospective clients often ask this question: “I have an idea and I want to start a business, but where do I go from here?” Depending on their background, their proposed industry and what they have accomplished at the time the question is asked, my answer varies. However, one component of my answer never changes: I always advise clients to do some pre-planning. “If you’re going to take a risk,” I say, “why not a calculated risk?”

Here are four elements of planning that can help an aspiring entrepreneur move from point A to point B.

1. Personal Assessment
Ask yourself: Do I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? You must consider your willingness to endure these factors:

* The lack of emotional or financial support from family, friends and significant others. The road to entrepreneurship can be a lonely path. Be prepared to hear some negativity from the ones you love. Do you have the emotional stamina to handle this?

* The risk involved. Some people are risk-averse, and the thought of starting something that could fail is unbearable. If you are one of these people, business ownership is not for you.

* The long hours and holidays with little or no pay. Do you have any obligations that would hinder you from working the hours you need (e.g., a health problem, family obligations or school)? If so, you must analyze whether you can balance these competing interests.

* Working alone while having to be a self-starter and innovator. For some, this may be a daunting task. For an entrepreneur, it’s essential.

You must also have working knowledge of the industry and its patterns. In the book What No One Ever Tells You About Starting Your Own Business, Craig Hartman of Preferred Industrial Services admits that his lack of technical knowledge and business management skills significantly impeded his company’s growth.

2. Research
A participant in one of my workshops said she had no competitors because her business idea was unique. This is a mistake most startup businesses make. There is always competition, and that’s why research is important. Doing initial research about the audience you want to target means asking yourself several questions:

* Why do I want to start this business, and what pain would I be relieving? Compare your business to an aspirin. If your customer doesn’t have a headache, why would she take your aspirin? There must be some pain. Also, ask yourself whether you’re starting a business you love. If not, find something you are more passionate about.

* How does my target customer buy, and how do I conform my product or service to fit what this customer wants? If your product or service targets young people, you should study young people’s habits. Don’t be like the woman I met at a networking event who owned a consulting company geared to help high school seniors make the transition to college. She complained about not being able to grab their attention. When I asked for a sample of her materials, she handed me a traditional looking postcard with no website address included. Obviously she didn’t know her market very well.

* Who are my direct competitors, and what are their selling patterns? Learning about your competitors during your planning stage gives you some idea of the scope of the market and how you can position yourself and your business.

* Based on the above answers, how do I develop my concept further? Inevitably your concept will need revisions at this stage. The key thing to remember is that a business is only as good as its concept and its ability to woo its customers.

I had a client who wanted to start a private transportation service for the elderly. She was unaware that her locality offered services that already had forced private companies out of that market. Imagine what would have happened if she just dived in without doing initial research.

You can collect your data by surveying potential clients, researching at the library or hiring someone to conduct a feasibility study. Do whatever works for you, but don’t skip the research stage.

3. Finances
When my husband decided to start his own business, I was still working in the banking industry. He’s an attorney who hates to plan. With my financial planning and business banking background, on the other hand, I wanted to plan ahead.

I remember taking a piece of paper and jotting down all of our expenses vs. income. I asked how he proposed to supplement his income. He was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Well, with the sales coming in . . .” I interrupted him: “Well, yeah, but you can’t count on that, at least not for the first six months. So during this time, how do you suggest we pay the bills?”

He suggested the credit cards we had started to accumulate just for this venture. I quickly jotted down some figures based on potential credit card scenarios: If this balance is charged on the card using this interest rate and these finance charges, this payment will have to be made. Then I asked him how he planned to pay the credit cards after we charged them, plus pay business and personal expenses.

He had no answer just then, but it got him thinking. We finally came up with a budget strategy that involved saving some money and borrowing some money to ensure that we paid our bills on time.

If you’re thinking about starting a business, you need to seriously consider your personal and business finances before you make this leap:

* Start formulating a budget strategy based on an analysis of your current spending habits and income.

* Think about what you or your family would need to save for six months to one year to pay your bills.

* Analyze your personal expenses vs. any business-overhead expenses.

* Start the mental preparation for not receiving a paycheck for a year or two.

4. Professional Expertise
Start aligning yourself with professional expertise during the planning stages. You might need initial advice from an attorney, an accountant, an insurance broker, a business consultant, a marketing or sales expert and a business banker. Here are a couple of tips for reeling in these individuals throughout your planning process:

* Call and try to get 20- to 30-minute phone consultations. This gives the experts a chance to learn about your business and maybe give you some free tips. It could also be the first step to building a relationship for the future.

* Start attending seminars or workshops hosted by these individuals. This will help you gather valuable information that could prove useful in the long run.

* Skip the drive-through window at your bank. Go inside and start talking to your bank representatives–even if it’s only about your personal accounts. Building these relationships may prove advantageous when the dialogue about your business plans comes into play.

Once you’ve gone through these pre-planning stages, the next step would be to start the registration process and write your business plan. If that sounds too difficult, hire professionals to aid you in this task. Whatever you do, remember: If you are willing to take the risk, take a calculated risk.

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Cheryl Isaac is a startup business consultant and the founder of Isaac Business Services isaacbusinessservices.com, which helps entrepreneurs launch their businesses while keeping their full-time jobs.

Note to all female entrepreneurs, women in business and solo professionals.

To be a successful female entrepreneur, you need to understand the requirement to develop multiple streams of income today. The first step to financial freedom is the ability to create a passive income, and to achieve this, it is their ideas and their expertise which they trade, not just their time.

Women who take on the role of an entrepreneur, establishing a fully fledged or smaller home based business, and even those in the corporate world can learn how to turn their passions into profitable income streams.

So, how do you create an active income using your expertise?

For those solo professionals in the service industry, an active income can be achieved in a number of ways including conducting seminars and workshops, public speaking, and services such as consulting and coaching. In other words, your income is earned in exchange for your time. As long as you are ‘face to face’ or one-on-one with your customers, you have the ability to earn. Mother nature ensures that there will only ever be 24 hours in each day, therefore a ceiling is created on the amount of active income one can earn as it is relative to the input of hours at work.

Were you aware that you can also earn passive sources of income?

Fortunately, it is now so much easier to earn additional income passively. These avenues include licensing and selling your products and programs, reports, assessments and even selling someone else’s products or services, otherwise known as affiliate marketing. All these avenues may still utilise your expertise however and they give you the ability to create enormously profitable income streams without the need to trade your valuable time.

In other words, you have the ability to earn ‘while you sleep’.

Therefore, it is important to take a check of your life, and ensure that you continue to create wealth by freeing up more of your time and switching to ways where your income is earned from more passive sources.

We, as female entrepreurs know too well the feeling of being trapped in our business, not having enough time to take care of our career, our families, friends and still find time for ourselves.

With all the tools and resources available to female entrepreneurs today, it has become easier to redesign your business around your preferred lifestyle, freeing yourself from working in your business, and instead working ‘on’ the business. The perfect scenario is to work less, earn more and live your life on your terms.

Did you know that due to the popularity of the internet and especially the web2.0 marketplace, the most successful way to leverage your expertise into an extremely profitable business is turning your expertise or what you know into products and programs. In other words, you must create information products.

Information products will enable you to create instant passive income. With the right systems in place, your business can run on auto-pilot, being fully automated to let the money continually roll in even while you sleep. For your business to be automated, you will need the right technology, systems and support.

But where do you start? It all sounds easier than it is, right? As long as you have the desire to succeed as a female entrepreneur or a solo professional in business, it is important to position yourself in your micro-niche as an expert, then use your expertise to create your own information products to teach others what you know and help them solve their problems.

The following 7 hot tips will show how you, a successful female entrepreneur, the steps to model your business around your expertise, put your business on auto-pilot and create a lucrative passive income by leveraging your time, earning more whilst working less and live the lifestyle you desire.

1. The first tip is to establish yourself as an expert.
Use the internet to brand yourself and become known as the expert in your niche around the globe. This will raise your profile, and have others seeking your lead and your expertise. Because you are ‘the expert’, others will not only want to provide you with an active income through one on one leadership, but will be more apt to purchase your products and programs resulting in a great passive income and freeing up more of your time.

2. Design your passive income marketing funnel
The marketing funnel is a process whereby you establish trust with your many prospects in the beginning by offering free reports, newsletters, audios, videos or similar. Allow them to ‘taste’ what you offer with little or no risk or cost to them.

This process allows your prospects to become potential clients as they may move down the funnel where you offer higher priced products or services. As they progress down the funnel, it becomes easier to sell your high end services as by now they fully trust and believe what you have to offer will be of certain benefit to them.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to sell your high end products initially. This will more than often result in losing the prospect before you have a chance to let them know who you are or what your expertise can provide.

3. Learn the skills and info-preneur strategies to create passive income
Multiply your profits by creating information products with what you know and use the power of the internet to create instant passive income. Look around and see the many different ways you can package your information and sell it online. Learn about content development to leverage the content you already have from your presentations, articles and workshops. Learn marketing strategies such as article marketing, web 2.0 marketing, affiliate marketing, social networking, blogging and pay per click advertising to determine which tactics are right for you and your business.

4. Nurture your creativity
Both creativity and innovation are key to thinking about new ideas and what you can do for the future of your business. It is important to block some time out in your week specifically for creative right-brain, intuitive thinking. It is during these quiet times that you will get your inspiration. Sadly, when you are constantly busy, you have neither the time or energy to come up with new ideas for writing or creating programs. And how can you create a passive income stream if you don’t have the products?

5. Use systems and automate
The key to leveraging your time and expertise is the use of systems. Install a system for every function in your business to make sure that you do one thing only once, and then it should be either delegated or automated to be done in future. Systems and automation can be set up for such procedures as getting client referrals, for contact management, for delivering your newsletter, recording sales, taking payments, for your recordkeeping, for marketing, conferencing, teleseminars and for product development.

It is true that everything you do in your business can and should be made into a system. Reduce the day to day tasks that zap your energy and inhibit your creativity by leveraging the power of technology and the internet.

6. Delegate
Your business will plateau or even stagnate if you try to do everything yourself. Although often difficult in the beginning, it is important that you learn to delegate. Surround yourself with a great team to support and help you create your highly profitable business. Outsourcing has become a popular exercise where you can delegate those tasks you either don’t like to doing or those that take you away from doing what you are good at. Try to concentrate on the tasks that ‘earn you the money’.

7. Seek a mentor and support
In order to grow yourself and your business, to make more money and be as successful as your vision, you will need to seek the support of a mastermind group or a coach/mentor to motivate and drive you. Too often, female entrepreneurs are coaches themselves, and feel that this support is unnecessary. Oftentimes when their businesses are in the early stages, finances are continually being spread over to other areas and this important mentoring is ignored. Remember, even the very successful multi-millionaires continually use mentors to maintain their businesses on the cycle of success.

Finally, use collaboration with others and joint ventures to leverage your expertise. As long as you have a purpose and passion for your business, your success will continue and keep growing with your contributions and your followers.

Have a think about your business. Are you trying to do everything yourself? Are you giving yourself time to be creative? Are you making use of strategies and resources of experts that have done it before? Or perhaps you are continually trying to re-invent the wheel.

Fast track your journey and leverage your expertise to be the successful female entrepreneur that you desire to be.