People With Attentional Challenges are 300% More Likely to Be Entrepreneurs

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People with attention challenges are 300% more likely to be entrepreneurs

People with attention challenges are 300% more likely to be entrepreneurs

Turns out some of the characteristics of ADHD are some of the same ones that make a good entrepreneur. That’s the message Laurie Dupar, ADHD Coach, imparts in her interview for the upcoming This Is The Year Biz Telesummit. I loved interviewing Laurie because I learned so much – and I know many of my clients will too!

The trick, as always, is learning how to compensate for the challenges of ADHD (like follow-through) while maximizing the strengths (like creative thinking). Laurie has a terrific free gift for This Is The Year Biz Summit Participants: her e-book Unlock the Secrets to Your Entrepreneurial Brain Style & Discover the Innate “Success Secrets” of thriving entrepreneurs!

What’s fascinating to me is how many people hear the checklists of characteristics of ADHD and say “That’s me!”. And it may be … but I asked Laurie to define what separates ‘normal’ from ADHD. Her strategies for coping with ADHD challenges are helpful to all of us – because we all are challenged with the same issues from time to time.

Remember, Laurie is just of  21 experts interviewed for the telesummit. Grab the recordings here.

 

 

 

Filed Under: business management, personal organization, time management Tagged With: ,

How to Finally Go Big In Your Biz in 2014 – FREE Telesummit

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How many times have you said to yourself “THIS is the year my business will finally take off”?

But time flies, and life gets in the way. Unproductive days can turn into weeks and months of a business that flounders or flatlines.

But THIS YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT FOR YOU AND YOUR BIZ when you start it off right–by listening to 21 experts share their very best secrets to building a profitable business without sacrificing your sanity and your personal life.

No travel required. Listen and learn from wherever you are by phone or computer.

You are invited to the event of the new year…

“THIS IS THE YEAR!” BUSINESS SUCCESS TELESUMMIT

When: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, January 10-12, 2014

Who you’ll hear: the smartest experts, authors, coaches, and strategists—all handpicked for their expertise in areas like social media, mindset, networking, and sales.

What you’ll get: practical takeaways, real strategies, step-by-step guides…plus gifts and bonuses galore.

What you WON’T get: sales pitches. This is pure training…and tons of it!

Cost: $0.00

Click here to RSVP now

The THIS IS THE YEAR Biz Success Telesummit is for you, if you are…

  • Keeping busy all the time but not generating the income you want.

  • Networking like crazy but not sure how to convert relationships to revenue.

  • Spending lots of money on marketing without knowing which tactics are actually bringing in new clients.

  • Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and stuck.

  • Toying with the idea of giving up and getting the dreaded J.O.B.

  • Sacrificing your relationships and your health for your business and wondering if it will ever be worth it.

Let the experts help!

Click here to RSVP

We know you’re eager for all this knowledge—you started your business so you could serve people, make money, and be in charge of your own life. But the reality of being an entrepreneur often means not enough clients, not enough money, not enough freedom…UNLESS you’re getting trained and mentored by those who have been where you are and know how to bust through and GO BIG—not in 10 years, but THIS YEAR.

Our 21 experts are bringing out all their best stuff for this telesummit and being super generous with their time and knowledge.

Listen in during this info-packed 3-day event on January 10, 11, and 12.  RSVP now to the FREE _THIS IS THE YEAR!_ BUSINESS SUCCESS TELESUMMIT

It’s fun, easy to sign up for, super convenient, and FREE… Listen by phone or computer, wherever in the world you happen to be.

Click here to RSVP

Consider the This Is The Year Biz Success Telesummit to be your front row pass to the information, tips, and secrets of 21 entrepreneurial experts giving you secrets and strategies for going BIG with

  • using social media

  • generating sales

  • networking

  • earning passive income

  • speaking

  • branding

  • fighting overwhelm

  • and so much more!

These professionals in their fields have all graciously offered to donate their time and expertise to help you on the path to your ultimate wellness and self-esteem. Each fun, lively interview is a full hour of valuable information and will be available for listening until the end of the day of its presentation.

Click here to join in

P.S. What do you have to lose? Just frustration, overwhelm, and worry. Learn from 21 experts FOR FREE, get tons of gifts, and make THIS YEAR the year you GO BIG…without losing your sanity!  Click here to reserve your spot and receive your bonus gift as soon as you register. Then, make sure to pass this information on to anyone you think would like to attend, too.

P.P.S. This call series costs exactly $0.00 and there is no obligation to buy anything ever, but if you ever do, know that I’m an affiliate of this event–which means I believe in the value of what we’re creating together–and I may receive a commission from any sales generated.

Filed Under: business management, small business marketing, System Development, time management

The Complete Beginner’s Guide to CRM

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????????????????????????????????Let’s start with the question ‘What is CRM and do I need it?’ Why you might need it is covered in this question that arrived in my inbox this week:

I was wondering if you had any idea what kind of programs are out there that track appointments, client info and purchase history.  I work for a salon part-time and they use www.booker.com which does MOST of that but  my business is not spa related. I’d love to have something that sets up appointments, allows me to track what we talked about and then track what they bought and what they are interested in for future. Is this a program or is this just good note taking in my contacts?

And here is my answer:

What you are describing is Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) software. You may need to integrate it with Quickbooks for total purchase info, but you can certainly track purchases in the CRM software. Act and Salesforce are the two most popular CRM programs. ZOHO also provides a CRM you might want to check out.

Let me give you a quick example of how a CRM program differs from Outlook, for example. In Outlook, you would schedule an appointment and manually add your contact’s name to the calendar. If you wanted to see information on that contact, it is stored in a different part of the program (your contacts), and you would need to go search in your contacts for that information.

In a CRM program, you could schedule an appointment directly from the contact, and if you were in the calendar, clicking on the contact name would instantly open that contact information, including any notes you had made, and past history (any event or phone call scheduled in the past would show up in the contact history).

There are many other features of CRM programs, but it is the integration of all client data that make these powerful programs, especially for salespeople, or business owners who contact many current and prospective customers.

Some questions to ask yourself include:

  • How much does it cost? Many CRM programs are cloud based only (Salesforce) and have a monthly charge (which you may pay annually). Act still has a program you install on your computer, which may cost less if you don’t upgrade frequently.
  • Are the benefits worth the cost (i.e. will I get a good ROI on the time-savings and/or productivity gains)?
  • How easy is it to use? Is there a long learning curve?
  • Do I need to share this database with an assistant or VA? Does the software allow this? Is there an additional charge if more than one person is a user? Does my assistant know how to use/what training will they need?
  • Is there a free demo? In most cases, the data entered into a CRM demo can be downloaded before your trial ends, so you will not lose data you entered into the program. The exception is any notes you added to the CRM – those don’t export. Most programs will also easily import and/or sync with your current contact info.

Make sure to check out online reviews, such as http://www.salonsoftwarereviews.com/spa-booker/. Simply enter ‘CRM reviews’ into your search engine of choice to find more review sites.

If you want help quickly sorting out the pros and cons for your specific situation, I can help you determine if CRM software makes sense for you in a short phone call. Call me at 805-616-2466 to set up a phone appointment.

Filed Under: business management, System Development, time management

Are You a Sucker for Irrelevency?

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Clifford Nass died last week.  His legacy is his multitasking research. A professor at Stanford, his studies found that the heaviest multitaskers — who often said they could focus like laser beams — were terrible at various cognitive chores like organizing information, switching between tasks, and discerning significance.

“They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” he said. “Everything distracts them.”

And the effects are long-lasting; people who regularly use four or more information streams at a time (listening to music, checking email, talking on the phone, and typing a document, for example), had a tougher time focusing on just one thing even when they weren’t multitasking. [source: Los Angeles Times]

Here’s a video of a TED talk he gave a few years ago, where he describes more of the results from his multitasking research. The most important points are in the five minutes from 6:26 to 11:32, so if you want to save a bit of time, move the slide on the video to start about 6 minutes 30 seconds into his talk.

Think you are the exception? Try these two interactive tests to Test Your Focus and How Fast You Juggle Tasks. And get ready to weep.

What does this multitasking research mean to you?  Be honest, you recognized yourself in the example I gave before the video; someone listening to music, checking email, talking on the phone, and typing a document at the same time. For most of us, myself included, it should be a wake-up call to resist doing two (or more) things at once. It may take some re-training, but it is worth it; the studies show that you will actually be more productive when you focus on one task at a time.

 

 

Filed Under: personal organization, time management Tagged With: , ,

Information Overload: My Favorite Tips

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Young and attractive business woman in stress“Went through my email this afternoon, ending up with 40+ tabs open in Firefox.  Every email that had a link I wanted to read or a webinar or ebook I wanted to check out, I opened in a new tab.”

If this sounds familiar, you’ll want to read Michelle Shaeffer’s blog post with eight terrific tips to help you battle information overload. I especially liked these two:

  1. If I watch/read this now, do I realistically have the time to implement it within a week?
  2. Often we’re avoiding doing the work by staying in “learning” or “research” mode.  Don’t do that.

Could not have said it better myself … so I’m not going to try; I’ll simply link you to her post Why You Must Have Information Filters

Filed Under: time management

Focus Matters: What Steve Jobs Can Teach You About Loving Your Business

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The first topic discussed in my upcoming tele-class is the power of Focus. Serendipitously, as I reviewed my material one night, my channel surfing hit on a Steve Jobs biopic.

Here’s his quote on focus:

Steve Jobs focus quote

Jobs said that “focus and simplicity” were the foundation of Apple’s ethic.

As small business owners, his quote is especially important! I’m willing to bet that you have an overflow of good ideas; the challenge is to pick one to three of them to work on now, and let the others go (or at least table them). If you don’t, you’re going to feel perpetually overwhelmed, overworked, and your ability to implement your ideas will be crippled. Have you ever had the experience of seeing someone else promoting an idea you just never got around to? I certainly have, and it is not pleasant to be kicking yourself and thinking ‘I could have done that if I had only focused on it instead of flitting from idea to idea and not accomplishing anything’.

Filed Under: business management, time management Tagged With: , ,

Streamline Your Blog Maintenance

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Writing a daily blog post is time-consuming! There was one tool I used that definitely made this challenge easier: a simple spreadsheet. Without this tool, I would find myself writing posts without a plan for how the posts related to each other; with the spreadsheet, I was able to create a cohesive theme, and make sure I included a call to action in each post. I explain how it worked in this video:

Filed Under: business management, Delegation, System Development, time management Tagged With: ,

Fatigue Does NOT Make You a Better Business Owner!

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photo of fatigued woman I’ve been thinking a lot about fatigue this week. Let’s start with muscle fatigue – defined as a progressive decline in performance from repeated, intense use of muscles. A college physiology lab made this an indelible lesson for me. If you stimulate a nerve in a frog’s leg with an electric probe, the leg will twitch, due to the release of special substances (neuromuscular transmitters) from the nerve. If you continue to stimulate the nerve, however, the twitching slows, and eventually stops altogether, as all the neuromuscular transmitters have been used up.

The good news is that muscles largely recover after a period of rest, once the body has a chance to make more of the neuromuscular transmitters.  But, until then, the over-stimulated muscle is essentially paralyzed.

Do you see how this mimics a common entrepreneur problem?  When you consistently forego sleep to work just a little longer, eventually you reach a state of fatigue and paralysis. In fact, one study showed that people who worked  50 hours/week for 7 weeks were no more productive than people who worked 40 hour weeks for the same 7 weeks. There was an increase in productivity at first, but it quickly tapered off as fatigue set-in. Read Why We Have to Go Back to a 40-hour Work Week to Keep Our Sanity if you want to see more productivity comparisons.

It may be great to be your own boss, but you can push yourself so hard that you are also your worst enemy. What’s the solution? Number one is recognizing the problem, and setting a ‘stop’ time for work. Number two is developing the systems that allow you to automate, delegate, & outsource much of your work. That’s how I can help you, as explained here:

Are you a ready for this program? Schedule a call to find out.

Filed Under: personal organization, time management

The Myth of the Paperless Office

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Finance concept: optical glass with Energy Saving Lamp icon and“Paper is the enemy” Most of us can relate to this quote from a local attorney. He would rather email a powerpoint presentation than create a hefty handout.

Then there was this headline in the Los Angeles Times Business Section:

“Software is making the filing cabinet obsolete for some big clients”

The idea of all our paper magically disappearing into our computers is certainly appealing. Magical is the key word. Unless you can dictate that all incoming data is digital, you will spend about the same amount of time scanning your paper as you would to file it. So when does going digital make sense? Here are two instances that come to mind:

  • If you can dictate that all incoming data is digital
  • When you must keep huge quantities of contracts

At least one large insurance company insists that all claims, body shop estimates, photos, etc be sent to them digitally. If you want to be paid, you need to follow their rules. Paper still creeps in, but it’s mostly created by people printing out data. Of course, even digital data can overwhelm; I had a client at this company, and we spent time creating systems to manage her email overload.

The contract issue is huge with government contractors. The documentation the US government requires could easily fill several rooms if it was left as paper.

But for most of us, I believe learning to keep less is a more efficient solution. What do you think? Add your comment.

Filed Under: personal organization, System Development, time management

Creating the High Points In Your Life

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Maura on summit of Mt. Katahdin My husband and I met in a basic mountaineering training course offered by the Sierra Club. He was one of the instructors, I was a student. Many of our dates involved hiking or backpacking, and hiking has remained an important part of our lives. In addition to a shared interest, it provides us time together to talk about our week, and, of course, exercise.

A number of years ago, I heard about the HighPointers Club. The members share a goal of attaining the high point of every state. This sounded great!  We started by trying to fit in hiking a state highpoint whenever we vacationed, and one year decided to attend the annual convention (proving the point that there is an organization for pretty much any interest). We were hooked, and our highpointing efforts stepped up considerably.

Some of the high points are ridiculously easy (Florida is basically a mound in a small roadside park); at the other end of the spectrum is Alaska’s highpoint, Denali. Regardless of the difficulty, one of the beauties of this goal is that you see every state, and some beautiful scenery. But the highpoints are typically not in the most easy to get to locations, and Maine is a good example. It’s a full day drive from anywhere, and closer to Canada than it is to most towns in Maine. Which means that you have to plan your trip carefully to allow sufficient travel time and hiking time, especially if you are traveling from southern California just to hike this peak.

We learned this the hard way eight years ago, when we planned our trip so tightly that we only allowed one day for our hike. That was the day the tail-end of Katrina hit the Northeast, and the park closed all access to the mountain. Four years ago, we tried again. It was raining heavily when we left the trailhead at 6 am, and my husband had had a bad night after eating something that did not agree with him. We turned around after a mile.

So you can imagine I was determined to get this peak on our third attempt. I planned 2 hiking days, so one could be a back-up in case of weather. Fortunately, the weather cooperated, and we attained the summit last Tuesday – state highpoint #42 for me, and #44 for my husband. We’re already planning our next highpoint adventure.

Make sure you create your own highpoints- It’s important to plan time in your week for those activities about which you are passionate. It’s too easy to allow other things to co-opt your time if you don’t. As a start, acknowledge what you love to do but aren’t. Then schedule time this week on that activity. Make it a commitment by commenting what you will do below.

Filed Under: time management Tagged With: , , ,
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