HOW TO MAKE 2009 THE BEST YEAR OF YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR LIFE

Regardless of The Economy or Any Other Challenges You May Be Facing

Are you concerned about how the economy might affect your business and your lifestyle in 2009?

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could have one of the best years of your business and your life in 2009, despite the economy?

I believe you can have a breakthrough year - one of your best year's yet, possibly even THE best year ever, if you follow my step by step system. When I say "best" I mean most profitable and most enjoyable.

I've coached hundreds of small business owners over the last six years to triple their profits and double their time off. In the process, I've developed a step by step system. Here are some guidelines to help you make 2009 the best year yet:

KNOW WHAT SUCCESS MEANS TO YOU

Be clear about what is most important to you. What do you really care about? What would really make you happy? No fooling yourself or chasing dreams that aren't really YOURS. Do the soul searching necessary to create deep alignment between your most authentic self, values, goals, and actions.

CLARIFY AREAS OF FOCUS FOR 2009

Don't try to do everything this year. Simplify. Focus. Choose 2-5 areas to focus on and improve. Which areas of your life and business, if you made major improvements, would make this the best year ever?

DECIDE TO MAKE A CHANGE

Decide that you won't settle for less than a fantastic breakthrough year in 2009. Decide that you will no longer tolerate mediocrity and that you're going to break through any obstacles this year and make it happen.

CLARIFY YOUR VISION FOR 2009 AND BEYOND

The more clearly you can picture where you're headed, the more powerfully you can align your thoughts, choices, and actions to manifest that vision.

MOTIVATE YOURSELF WITH FEELINGS

Emotions are what drive and sustain action. What will it feel like to achieve your vision this year? What would feel like to have the best year of your life and business?

MAKE A COMMITMENT

The land of "good intentions, hopes and dreams" is very far away from the land of "commitment - no kidding I'm going to do whatever it takes". Fortunately, which land you live in is simply a matter of choice. Commitment accelerates your progress, increases your effectiveness, and it makes you more attractive to people and resources that can help. You may be waiting until you don't feel any fear your doubt before you commit to your vision. If this is the case, you will probably be waiting forever. I invite you to be bold and powerful. Make a potent decision and choose to go for it!

DO A NEEDS ASSESSMENT

This may be seem obvious but most people skip this critical step, or gloss over it on a surface level. What obstacles or challenges are you facing now? Make a list. What challenges might you face later in 2009? Make a list. What are your personal or psychological blocks to success? Identify any limiting beliefs, lack of self-esteem, resistance to receiving, money hang ups, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking bad, weak boundaries, relationship issues, emotional wounds, health challenges, resistance to change, self-criticism and doubt, addictions, etc. What's missing? What skills do you need to learn this year? What support do you need? Now go back over each challenge or obstacle you identified above, and come up with at least three key actions you can take to face the obstacle head on with courage and determination to TRIUMPH over that obstacle.

SET A FEW KEY GOALS FOR YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR LIFE

Goal setting can be a confronting process. It takes us from the abstract to the concrete. Rarely are we specific enough about what we want that effective strategies can be easily discovered. Clarity is a powerful thing. It gives both your conscious and your subconscious mind something to focus on. It's a way of setting priorities. From the moment you set your 2009 goals you will be more focused, efficient, productive and on track with what really matters to you.

CLARIFY YOUR STRATEGIES

A little bit of smart strategy is worth way more than a lot of dumb hard work. Don't get me wrong, I believe in hard work too, and there is a time for hard work. However, we've all been taught the myth that hard work is the answer to everything. When faced with a challenging situation, most people's first impulse is to work harder and longer hours, doing more of the same stuff that wasn't working very well in the first place. Sometimes this works to some degree, but there is a heavy price to pay. The most successful people take the time to develop effective strategies before applying the hard work and effort necessary for great achievements. What strategies will you apply to achieve your vision and goals? You may need to get input from a mentor, a coach, or other business builders in order to fully develop effective strategies.

MAKE A MASSIVE ACTION PLAN

I'm a big fan of working smarter, not harder - of being strategic and efficient; however there is no replacement for taking massive action. There is a time for taking massive action, and when that time comes you have to step up, take the bull by the horns and get it done. Taking massive action on a regular basis builds massive momentum. Massive momentum leads to massive results.

One of the most powerful things you can do to optimize your probability of success is to make a "massive action plan". This simply means thinking about your outcome and brainstorming every action you can think of that would possibly lead to that outcome. You don't need to commit to doing everything on the list. In fact, you will want to focus on the highest priority items. However, having a nice big list is like having a menu of items to choose from. You'll never lack good ideas for moving forward on your project, and whenever you have time to focus on your outcome, your menu of action possibilities will be handy.

PRIORITIZE

Your level of success is a direct result of your ability to set and follow the right priorities. Make the effort to set accurate priorities and you're well on your way to getting results. Neglect this critical step and you'll spin your wheels and waste a lot of time and effort.

The 80/20 rule states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the actions you take, while 20% of results are produced by 80% of the actions you take. If you tracked it for a while, you would probably find this to be true for most of the outcomes you are working on. The mistake most people make is to spend a lot of time doing the 80% that gets only 20% of the results, and they never get around to doing the most important actions. If you do the most important actions first, you will get results faster, and with less effort.

CREATE HABITS OF SUCCESS

Small constructive actions done on a routine basis can quickly give you a sense of accomplishment and forward momentum. These habits (or success practices) form the foundation on which major changes take place. What action, if taken on a regular basis, would make a difference for you? These habits can be related to either your professional or personal life.

PLAN THE TIME TO PLAN

The busier you get the more challenging it is to take the time to plan, but the more important it becomes to be using your time wisely and strategically. I strongly recommend that you establish a daily and weekly planning routine. Schedule the time to plan. It should take 10-15 minutes per day, and 10-20 minutes each week. I also recommend that you plan out your year, setting important milestones and timelines, especially around the key factors that drive the profit of your business. Also, plan your vacations well ahead of time. A 12-month Year-At-A-Glance calendar, posted on your wall, could create a breakthrough in your business and your life.

WORK ON YOUR BUSINESS AND ON YOUR LIFE

There is a key distinction between working in your business and working on your business. Working in your business or in your life is what most people do most of the time: returning phone calls and emails, making sales calls, taking out the trash, feeding the cat, etc.

Working on your business are those things like working with a coach, creating a 5 year strategic plan, systematically evaluating your current strategies, setting goals for the day or the week; while working on yourselfincludes activities such as taking a workshop, reading a book that increases your knowledge in a useful area, etc. These kinds of things are usually not urgent but very important.

These activities are usually the most important factors of success. They are too often neglected because the urgent (and often not important) activities dominate our schedules. Spendingmore time working on your business or on your self will increase your overall effectiveness dramatically.

WORK YOUR PLAN

Working your plan will require you to be more proactive and less reactive. I work with most of my clients to support them in becoming more proactive. Most people spend the majority of their time being reactive. They react to emails, phone calls, the needs of clients, co-workers, friends, children, significant others, family members, deadlines, relationship breakdowns, technical challenges, and whatever life puts in front of their nose. Filling your days with reactive activities leaves little room for proactive activities.

This reactive way of being is habitual for many people. You might even take pride in how quickly and effectively you can react to the many things coming at you, putting out fires left and right. While having the ability to react quickly and capably is a useful skill set to have, if you are not also cultivating a proactive skill set, you are not manifesting your full potential. Take charge. Set new and stronger boundaries with yourself and with others that will allow you to be more proactive.

IMPROVE YOUR SALES AND MARKETING SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE, AND SYSTEMS

Every successful business owner embraces sales and marketing as the primary profit engine of their business. If you see sales and marketing as a "necessary evil" or a dreaded task that you do only because you have to, then you're destined to struggle. You need to flip this around and learn to make sales and marketing into a fun challenge.

There are ways to market your products and or services that are aligned with you values, and therefore enjoyable and satisfying to engage in. Sales and marketing can be an opportunity to make a contribution to others, and to connect with people in meaningful and satisfying ways. You may need to redesign your marketing strategy so it aligns with your values.

Read, study, get mentored, and do whatever it takes to get good. If you join my coaching program I'll help you to design your marketing plan, including 1) Filling the Pipeline (meeting new prospects), 2) Following Up (being in communication with them & building the relationship), 3) Getting Presentations (setting up presentations), 4) Closing the Sale (turning a presentation into a sale).

I will also help you to design your marketing funnel, which should include a free product or free trial of some kind, which leads to the purchase of a reasonably priced product or service, which leads to higher priced product or service, etc. An intelligently designed marketing funnel is essential if your business is to thrive and reach its full potential.

FOCUS ON WHO YOU'RE BEING, AND NOT JUST WHAT YOU'RE DOING

On the road to success, most people put a lot of attention on "doing" and not enough attention on "being". If you get the qualities and characteristics of "being" handled, the "doing" will often take care of itself. A very powerful question to ask yourself is, "Who do I need to be in order to achieve my goal?" In other words, "What kind of person tends to be successful with this goal?"

The right actions will naturally flow out of who you're being. Learn to control your state of mind and emotions, this is a fundamental skill of all highly successful people as thought leads to emotion, emotion leads to action, and action leads to results.

GET ORGANIZED

The state of your physical environment tends to reflect your state of mind and your state of mind tends to reflect your environment. Sometimes it's difficult to tell whether a disorganized and chaotic state of mind led to a cluttered physical space or a disorganized and chaotic space led to a cluttered mind. In any case, your mind and your environment have a powerful unconscious influence on each other-one that is probably greater than you realize.

When I refer to your space or your environment I am referring to your office and or work stations, home, car, and storage spaces. You can optimize these spaces so they are most supportive of your success in business and life. Making changes in these areas can have a very powerful effect on your level of focus, productivity, sense of well-being, and ultimate success.

SET UP SUPPORT STRUCTURES

Set up support structures that will keep you inspired, provide accountability, facilitate ongoing strategic thinking, provide input from mentors and peers, and support you to overcome your specific internal blocks and external obstacles. It is usually necessary to set up effective support structures to achieve a big goal or vision. This critical element of success is frequently neglected. You could have truly inspiring goals, and great strategies for achieving them, and yet many things (both internal and external) could sidetrack or sabotage you. Support structures will prevent this from happening. However they will do more than that. They will support you to live into your potential, and to operate at your best in an ongoing way. Ultimately, support structures lead to sustainability, which is necessary to achieve your long-term visions.

LEARN FROM SUCCESS

Success leaves clues! Whatever you want to accomplish, chances are someone else has already developed some excellent strategies for getting there. Don't try to reinvent the wheel! Learn everything you can about what has already been proven to work in your specific situation. Study successful people. Get mentors and role models. Befriend them. Take their trainings. Learn their strategies. Then get to work and implement those strategies. Test them and see what works and what doesn't. Create your own strategies and improve upon the ones you have learned from others.

REGULARLY EXPOSE YOURSELF TO EMPOWERING INFORMATION

If you are not yet reaching the level of success that you desire, chances are high that you could benefit from developing your knowledge. I encourage you to adopt a humble attitude that recognizes that there is always more to learn. No matter how masterful or knowledgeable you are in a particular area, you can always learn more. Keep an open mind. Regularly exposing yourself to powerful information will keep bringing your attention to new areas for learning.

These days you can find information in many forms: seminars, books, eBooks, audio & video programs, classes, teleclasses, web pages, one-on-one mentoring, group coaching, etc. Exposing yourself to powerful information on a regular basis will keep you inspired and keep you learning, growing, and evolving your strategies.

GO ON A MEDIA FAST

The news media is full of negativity these days. It always has been negatively focused, but it's become even worse lately. The media companies profit from our collective fear and hysteria because it makes us tune and watch. Yes, there are real problems with the economy, but the level of fear and paranoia is way out of proportion to realty, and it serves no good. I strongly encourage you to unsubscribe from all newspapers, and stop watching news on TV or the internet. Seriously, go on a total fast. I guarantee it will lift your spirits and make you more positive and successful. If anything really important happens in the world, you will hear about it from your friends.

HIRE A COACH

A coaching relationship is an ongoing relationship that will help you produce extraordinary resultsbeyond what you could have done on your own, or at least more quickly than you could have done on your own. A coach can also help you get there in style, having more fun along the way.

I believe in coaching. I hired my first coach six years ago and my life and business went through some major changes and improvements as a result. The coaching relationship brought out my highest potential and supported me to keep pushing the edge of my limits. As a result, I made more money, had more fun, and kept growing and evolving in important ways. There is nothing quite like having a personal coach to help you clarify your values, vision, goals, strategy, and obstacles, and then to hold you accountable to take action in alignment with what's most important to you. It can literally change your life.

Even the most successful people have coaches. In fact, the most successful people usually have coaches and that is probably one of the reasons they are so successful. All top athletes have coaches, and so do most top business performers these days. Even coaches have coaches.

GET A SUPPORT BUDDY

Meeting with a support buddy regularly is one of the most powerful support structures you can establish. It can help with inspiration, keeping focused on your vision, goals and priorities, staying in action, breaking through resistance and breaking through playing small. My coaching programs include matching you up with a support buddy who is also in the program and wants to meet as frequently as you do. I teach you a specific process to follow which will make your support buddy meetings as efficient and powerful as possible. If you don't join one of my programs, I encourage you to find your own support buddy and set up a structured process for meeting regularly, either in person or on the phone.

START OR JOIN A MASTERMIND GROUP

A Mastermind Group as a synergistic community of supportive colleagues who work together to help each other attain new heights. Your peers help you brainstorm, give you objective feedback, create structures to maintain focus, provide support and act as catalysts for growth, all the time maintaining confidentiality, respect and complete honesty. Through the group synergy, you gain tremendous insights which will improve your business and personal life.

My coaching program, The Best Year of Your Business and Your Life, includes a Mastermind Group of enthusiastic business builders. We meet on the phone once per month for an hour and fifteen minutes. Each person gets a turn to have the full attention of the group. You start by stating your goal, challenge, or question. Then the group works to support you breakthrough to the next level. Because we all have so much in common, you get value from listening to the group's coaching of each member. I invite you to either join my coaching program, find another Mastermind group, or start your own.

LEARN TO MAKE QUICK, POWERFUL DECISIONS

A little known common trait of all highly successful business owners is the "Speed of Implementation" factor. This can be defined simply as the distance or time between getting a "great idea" or "great opportunity" and making a decision to follow through with tangible action.

How many times in the history of your business have you had a great idea or opportunity, but you didn't follow through? Instead you switched yourself into "research mode" or "waiting mode" and never switched to decision and action. Later you simply dropped the idea.

The sooner you choose to put your ideas into action, the sooner you'll get results-both positive and negative. The important part is you get solid feedback that will help you to steer your business in the right direction. Excessive thinking, research, reading, and waiting will not give you the answers you need to boost your business.

JOIN A PROGRAM DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO HELP YOU GET THE RESULTS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR

Most small business owners don't get support. Most small business owners don't invest in a coaching program. Most small business owners struggle. Most businesses fail within the first three years.

Most small business owners try to do it alone, as if they should already know everything to do, and it would be somehow admitting to some fundamental inadequacy to pay for support from a coaching program. This is ridiculous! Even the most successful people have coaches. Fortune 100 CEOs have coaches. The Michael Jordan's of the world have coaches. If you study the top 1% performers in your field, I would be willing to bet that the majority of them have coaches, or at least had good coaching and mentoring while they were building their business.

You can have a great year without the support of a coaching program, but can you have an over-the-top outrageous breakthrough year? You simply can't reach your full potential without support.

With support you can reach your full potential, speed up your path to success, have more fun, prevent getting derailed by your own limiting beliefs and patters, and ensure your success.

Claim your FREE audio seminar and workbook on How To Make 2009 The Most Profitable and Fun Year Ever at http://www.ryaneliason.com/bestyear With a few clicks you can get FREE INSTANT ACCESS to this powerful, proven step-by-step system for creating more profit and more time off.

Ryan Eliason has been a professional, full-time Life and Business Coach since 2003, successfully supporting hundreds of clients to produce extraordinary results in their businesses and personal lives. An entrepreneur since a young age, Ryan has founded several successful businesses and a non-profit. He developed his unique approach through 18 years of business consulting, designing and leading workshops, and working with both coaching and therapy clients. He received his formal training with the renowned Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, California. He is also a certified Master Hypnotist, massage therapist, polarity therapist, and Transformational Therapist through the Heartwood Institute. There are literally hundreds of client success stories on his web page.

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Coming up with ideas for projects is pretty easy. Just think about how to make something cool, better, or easier. Now you should spend some time drawing up your idea. The most productive method for doing this is using a CAD software. CAD stands for computer aided design and is much better that using a pencil and paper. The best CAD software to use is TurboCAD. It is the best because it is the easiest to learn and use.

Once you have a drawing of what it is you wish to create you will need to build a prototype of the idea or device. You have many options to do this. Most are pretty expensive or time consuming. The best method for build parts is to let the computer make them for you. This is know as CAM or computer aided machining.

A CNC router is like a printer but instead of using ink it uses a cutting tool to make the desired parts. A desktop router is easy to use and very convenient. If you decide to make a change the new part is just a few minutes away from being made. The results are a very precise component for you to use.

A CNC router is very flexible and can be used in a verity of ways and do many different tasks. You can just as easily use a picture or drawing and have the CNC make a 3D carving or simple engraving of it. I have heard of one person using the CNC for automated circuit board testing for his company.

Let's say you have an idea for making a walking robot and you want to make it a reality. You first spend some time drawing it up in CAD and then when it looks great you get it ready for CAM. You use a CAM program to generate the tool paths. The best program I have found for this is DeskCNC. Use the tool path files from the CAM program to run the CNC machine. This is much like sending your drawing to the printer but instead the output peripheral is the CNC router.


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Worry is permeating almost every industry and every business in America. You can probably think of several people you know who are worried about losing their job or a top client. There are most likely numerous people in your neighborhood who are scared about paying the bills each month. We all know that worrying doesn't solve any problems, but what can we do to reduce or even eliminate worry from our lives?

Identify and Isolate the Problem

The first step to reducing financial stress is to identify and isolate the problem. Identifying the problem is pretty simple. Perhaps a top client is going out of business and you do not have anyone in the pipeline to replace your potential revenue loss. Maybe your company is cutting jobs in your department. Whatever the case may be, identify your problem and clearly define it.

Isolating the problem is just as important as defining it. Don't let financial stress boil over to other areas of your life. It's not your spouse's or kids' fault that business is struggling right now; so don't take it out on them. Keep your financial worries separate from the rest of your life and work on the problem at the appropriate time.

What Caused the Problem?

Step two to reducing financial worry is to identify the source of the problem. If the problem was generated from something outside your control - maybe the stock market drop or a corporate downsizing - then don't obsess over it. If the source was something within your control, analyze your part in it and be gracious enough with yourself to admit your imperfections.

What Are My Options?

The next step is to identify several, if not all, of the options available. Take the time to brainstorm as many solutions as possible. Do not dismiss any of the ideas, no matter how ridiculous they may seem at the time.

What Is the Best Solution?

Finally, research your options to find the best solution. Some will be too costly while others will take too much time to implement, but you will come across at least a few reasonable solutions.

Take Action

The most powerful way to reduce your stress is to take action towards a solution. Don't waste time second guessing yourself or debating whether or not you made the right choice. You've taken a positive step by making a decision. Now is the time to move forward.

Bill Tamminga is the founder of Goal Revolution LLC. GR corporate training offers reasonably priced leadership, management, sales, and marketing courses. Our course texts come from leading institutions including Harvard Business School, the University of Southern California, the Gallup Organization, and others.


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