by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Time Management/Productivity
To make more money is probably one of your goals. There are entrepreneurs whose business makes them $20,000 a year and then there are other entrepreneurs whose businesses makes them 2 million a year. Both entrepreneurs had the same amount of time and yet achieved completely different results.
There are two kinds of entrepreneurs — icons who whip through their day and always finish their to-do list and everyone else. The “everyone else” column holds an awful lot more mere mortals that the other one does.
It’s tough getting through the workday sometimes when you’ve got no one to tell you what to do or how to do it. Too often, this results in hours of sitting at the computer, not really accomplishing anything.
Savvy entrepreneurs try every tip they find, and use the ones that work in their daily routine to avoid the loss of income that dawdling creates. Here are 6 productivity tips to help you stop wasting time, so you can start to make more money this year as an entrepreneur.
#1. Decide to Unitask
Multitasking has long been held as the way to get a lot done in a small amount of time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. According to Forbes magazine, our brains don’t work that way. Concentrating on one task and doing it well to completion is the way to work most effectively.
#2. Schedule Your To-Do List on Your Calendar
You can’t get any work done if you don’t know what you need to do. Detailed scheduling will eliminate any question of what to do in any part of your day. Sit down the night before and write an hour-by-hour schedule for your work day, filling in the task you’ll complete in each time block. Do nothing during each hour but the assigned task.
#3. Try the Pomodoro Technique to Make More Money
Many people have a hard time concentrating even one straight hour without their mind wandering. The Pomodoro Technique of work training can help solve this problem. It’s a method of working flat-out for 25 minutes, then taking a 5 minute break. Use an online timer such as the Tomato Timer built for this technique or Instant Boss, and you’ll have audible and visual clues to keep you on track.
#4. Block Distractions
If social media and other fun sites are taking your attention away from work, get rid of them during your day. Download an app such as LeechBlock. These apps set a block on your browser that don’t allow it to load a list of websites. Create the list of sites from your personal distractions, set a timer for work hours and you won’t be allowed to goof off.
#5. Look for Recurring Tasks You Can Automate
There are lots of little tasks you have to do every day that could be done more efficiently. An easy one is automating your bill payments. Just as important is backing up your work on a regular basis. You can back up automatically with a cloud service like Mozy to not only secure your work, but access it from any device anywhere.
#5. Organize Your Finances
I find a lot of my clients spend upwards of 50 hours between December and January simply trying to get their business financial reports together for their CPA. That is completely unnecessary and easily avoidable. If you’re constantly searching for invoices and your taxes are a mess organize your finances by installing a simple bookkeeping program. Ones such as QuickBooks or Peachtree are designed for non-experts and have a very shallow learning curve. Make a habit of using this for a few minutes each day or just one hour per week and your finances will be much simpler to deal with.
#6. Improve Your Work Environment
Streamlining your work environment can help to streamline your work day. Get rid of everything on your desk that doesn’t absolutely need to be there. You should have as few distractions for your mind as possible, and that includes items off the screen as well as on. Create an organized work space, whether it’s a dedicated room or a corner in the den, and give it a neat and tidy look. The lack of distractions will help you keep your mind on your work.
Achieving your BIG goals starts with making a series of small changes in how you leverage your time. I challenge you to start implementing these 6 tips. Practice them on a regular basis and eventually they will become engrained as a part of your success habits.
QUESTION: What is the #1 challenge that is getting in your way to make more money this year? Please share your comments below.
by Yoon Cannon | Outsourcing and Hiring Tips Blog, Time Management/Productivity
You’re competing with nearly 22 million small business owners in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau. How quickly and efficiently you get something done for your customers can make the difference between earning their loyalty or losing them to the competition.
Managing your time well can get you repeat business and referrals, and these tools will help you be fast and efficient, no matter what your business.
(1) Manage Customers
Not long ago, only large corporations could afford to use sophisticated customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Now they are available through software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers on the cloud. A good CRM system lets you access and analyze customer information, get better visibility into the sales cycle and learn the business trend information that helps with forecasting. Zoho CRM is one such cloud-based tool. Use it to:
- Get reports on customer activity every morning
- Integrate your sales activity with customer contact information and have a complete record of how the sales cycle is progressing
- Access customer information on the road with the Zoho mobile app
(2) Manage Accounts Receivables (AR)
Your cash flow depends on getting payment from customers, and payment from customers depends on you getting your invoices out promptly. A cloud-based invoicing tool such as Intuit Quickbooks automates many AR tasks and lets you monitor customer account activity. Quickbooks can:
- Schedule electronic invoices for delivery and follow them up with reminders when payment is past due
- Find your slow-paying customers, so you can send incentives to get their payments in on time
- Generate revenue reports and tax statuses at any time
- Access customer account information whereever you are with its mobile application
(3) Manage Your Team
Whether you have one or 100 employees, you need to manage company and project information in a way that gives people access to what they need when they need it. Expensive and complicated collaboration tools such as Microsoft’s Sharepoint were out of reach for many small businesses. Evernote Business is a better option for small businesses, and it continues to add helpful features. With Evernote Business you can:
- Manage all company data and create notebooks that contain information for specific projects
- Easily search for data within all project notebooks
- Link team notes, so you can view the thread of activity and comments on any project
- Capture data from the Web and store it in a project’s notebook for future reference
- Access Presentation Mode, which lets you display team results and statuses directly from within Evernote without having to use other presentation tools
(4) Manage Your Social Media
If you are heavily invested in social networking for your business, use Hootsuite to manage all your social media campaigns from one place. All of the major players including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are integrated into one dashboard view. Use Hootsuite to:
- Track your campaigns, analyze results and receive customer feedback
- Access advanced analytics, including an integration with Google Analytics (Pro version only)
- Save time you would spend working on each platform individually
There are hundreds of excellent software tools out there today to help you manage your staff and your time. The place to start of course is to first identify which of your tasks are tedious or recurring and then find a software solution to improve the process.
Once you’ve shortlisted the time consuming tasks in your work you can then begin searching for the right software. Or, even better why not just ask our community right here and share what you’re searching for in the comment box below.
QUESTION: What is your favourite piece of software that has helped you manage your small business?
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Success Mindset
Could Discouragement Be Destroying Your Game Plan?
As football season is in full swing what I love about the game is how it challenges even the best players not to rely solely on the playbook. The football team, the coaches and even us fans know how much the athletes’ mental state of mind will impact how the game will play out. So, which is more important? The playbook or their mindset?
How can you choose one over the other? They’re both critically important to winning the game.
So, what about your game plan as an entrepreneur or a small business owner? Has your 2011 game plan been helping you achieve notable wins in your business this year?As a business growth coach I often see clients missing out on experiencing a winning season, not necessarily because they didn’t have a good game plan, but because they allowed themselves to fall prey to simple thing called discouragement.
Even though most of the clients I help are established Entrepreneurs and small business owners who have had many prior successes it seems that discouragement can still attack and destroy even the best laid strategic plans.
Here’s what some common voices of discouragement have sounded like:
1. The economy has dried up a lot of our business
2. People just aren’t in the buying mindset 3. I’m just not good at sales and marketing 4. People just don’t want what I have to offer 5. Everything I try just doesn’t work 6. There’s too much competition for me to succeedI’m sure you can fill in the blanks to add even more discouraging thoughts. Now, if you were to re-read the above 6 negative statements, and you were to say them out loud to yourself 30 times a day for the next 30 days, what would you predict might happen in your business? … Of course, it’s only common sense that the natural effect from playing this record of negativity over and over throughout the day, day after day, to anyone’s business would be nothing but a negative outcome. I’m not advocating that you trick yourself into believing complete non-realities — that the economy is suddenly robust, that everyone is in easy spending mode, that you are a wizard at sales and marketing (if you’re really not), that everyone will want what you offer, or that every tactic you try will work wonders, and that there is virtually no competition, so you will indeed succeed. So, how do you get out of the line of fire from discouragement?
Step 1: First, identify your thoughts. What are the actual thoughts that keep playing quietly in the back of your mind? You can’t change something you can’t name.
Step 2: Decide not to buy into destructive beliefs. There might be a grain of truth behind every one of your discouraging thoughts, but recognize that truth can be twisted completely out of context. Step 3: Re-frame those discouraging thoughts into statements or questions that will re-direct your focus on something that is useful and positive. For example: 1. The economy may have reduced the low hanging fruit we were used to getting, so what can I (we) do today to get better in our business growing skills? 2. People may now be more careful in their buying decisions, so how can I (we) learn more accurately what does motivate our target market to want to buy? 3. Sales and marketing doesn’t come naturally to me, so what steps can I take to improve my skills in sales and marketing? Who can help me improve those necessary skills? Writing down your discouraging thoughts and re-writing them with encouraging, empowering thoughts is a powerful way to get your head in the game, so you can win in accelerating your business growth in 2012. It’s natural to expect to plan on rigorous physical and mental conditioning exercises before you play in a high stakes football game. But, there’s so much more at stake for you in your business success, so why not invest in the very best coach to help you win this upcoming 2012 season? The missing ingredient to your business growth success may very well be that you are trying to play your best, but with no coach. I would like to be that coach for you where we can partner together to co-create your game plan and help you win over discouragement once and for all. You might just discover even one piece of feedback that will set the domino course for 2012 in a whole new direction for your business growth.
There’s only 6 slots, so call me direct now to schedule your complimentary session at 215-292-4947 EST.
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Success Mindset
Note from Yoon:
If your business is down it’s tough not to let it weigh you down. It can be even tougher to enjoy the upcoming holidays if you’re stressed out about the struggles in your business. To help you get your midas touch back I wanted to introduce my friend Nancy Sharp. Nancy is the Life Balance Expert for accomplished professionals, executives and entrepreneurs who want more work-life-family balance and a blueprint to realize the life they dream about. She’s share some useful tips on how you can get your midas touch back as an entrepreneur. Enjoy today’s guest blog article!
Lost Your Midas Touch? 4 Things You Can Do to Get it Back in Time to Enjoy Your Holidays!
Guest Author: Nancy F. Sharp, LMFT, Cht, LFYP-1
Do you remember the movie Groundhog Day (1993) with Bill Murray? Murray plays Phil Connors, an arrogant and egocentric Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Ground Hog Day event in Punxsutawny, finds himself in a time loop, repeating the same day again and again. After indulging in some pretty serious wrong solution cycle responses, he begins to re-examine his life and priorities (description from Wikipedia).
The tips you’ll find in this article will assist you in changing the way you respond to situations and decision making and will aid in your growth toward positive outcomes, and experiencing a happier, healthier life and work balance.
Sometimes we think we have our best responses to situations all lined up and ready to go…but sometimes the way we think we could respond is really not as effective as we might hope…leaving us with a result we wish we did not have to deal with… and we find life bursting into high pressure.
And so this is seen in 5 important areas of our lives:
Financially- glass income ceiling, stop trying, overspending
Professionally-lack of focus, ambition, not feeling as enthusiastic, performance
Physically-stress, anxiety, headaches, HBP, chronic pain or fatigue, food cravings
Emotionally-worry, resentful, sad, anxious
Relationally- when not feeling on top of your game you may isolate because you do not have enough energy to connect and it is not fun to be or be with a Debbie or Doug Downer.
One of my recent blog posts considered that if you crave maximum growth development there are 4 obstacles that demand one’s attention and breakthrough. These are obstacles that just about everyone has by nature, and it requires conscious decisiveness and effort to get rid of.
1. Unwilling to assume full responsibility. Each year, your growth is up to you and you solely. For certain, you have resources and ought to get assistance in achieving your goals, but ultimately YOU will reap the crop that YOU plant. Growth cannot come about until you take charge to make it happen.
2. Reluctant to take crucial action. All the knowledge in the world is unhelpful until it is put into action. Once you have determined to improve your life, make a plan and get going. Growth cannot come about until you embark on moving toward your unique growth path.
3. Reluctant to appear foolish. The quest for anything worthwhile will unquestionably demand you to take some chances. You’ll need to go beyond your comfort zone and in that growth period; you’ll falter, fall or look foolish at least one time- it’s almost guaranteed. The earlier you break free from worrying about appearances, the sooner growth can start.
4. Starting out with incorrect principles. Many of the things that we’ve come to believe about success, wellness and fortune merely are not true. A few have never been true, and some used to be true but they aren’t any longer.
These obstacles must be overcome if you want to respond differently and grow and the good news is that you definitely can overcome them. I could dish out dozens of examples of each category, and if you want to analyze some of yours, please schedule a no-obligation discovery session with me by clicking here.
The root of why we respond the way we do is extremely important to understand. That usually requires some shoring up of our “bedrock”. It provides us with the ability to change or update our response patterns so we can finally change our story…
I welcome you to take action now. Hesitant: Read #2 above again. For now, responding differently and growth cannot occur until you have an accurate plan of action. Click Here.
YOUR GOAL:
To live a life better than the status quo and notice the benefits financially (a feeling of greater security and control of your money), professionally (greater focus, ambition), physically (a greater sense of well-being), emotionally (feeling lighter, greater contentment, happiness, peaceful), and relationally (experiencing positive connection).
It really can be yours. So here’s a gift from me to get you started https://nancyfsharp.leadpages.net/mp3/
Author Bio: Nancy F. Sharp, LMFT, Cht, LFYP-1 is the Life Balance Expert for accomplished professionals, executives and entrepreneurs who want more work-life-family balance and a blueprint to realize the life they dream about. As a Licensed Psychotherapist, Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Yoga Therapist and Mastering the Energy of Money Coach she has built a thriving private clinical practice. Her ability to focus and organize her life has contributed to her success both personally and professionally. Read More
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Sales Coaching Tip – Overcoming the
‘Not Now’ Objection for High Ticket Items!
There are hundreds of sales coaching tips out there that offer clever but canned responses you can use for your prospects’ objections. I want to provide you something even better than that. I want to show you how you can set yourself up in order to have easy sales conversations without being “salesy”, so you can enroll new clients effortlessly.
One of the greatest sales skills you can have is listening. If you listen to your prospects long enough, they’ll tell you how to sell them. I refer to “selling them” not in a manipulative sense. “Selling” to me is about speaking in their language based on the way your prospect makes decisions.
Here are 3 effective sales coaching tips to help you overcome the “not now” objection, especially for the high-ticket items.
Sales Coaching Tip #1: Answer the “not now” objection BEFORE it comes up.
The best sales strategy to shorten your sales cycle is not to fire back with a stale, overused and gimmicky reply after the objection, but to eliminate the objection from occurring in the first place.
You may be selling a product or service that you think practically sells itself, but if it’s a high-ticket item you’re bound to be met with some hesitation and delayed decision making. Responses like “I need to think about it” or “I need to talk to so and so and get back to you” requires weeks and even months of added follow up that most people end up losing the discipline and motivation to properly do.
Very often eager entrepreneurs and sales professionals dive into presenting your products, services and pricing too early in the conversation without first properly qualifying the prospect. Here are 3 key qualifying questions you can be sure to ask in your preliminary conversations to establish the value they want to receive now:
- What is the result you are trying to achieve?
- What is your “why” for wanting to seek this outcome objective?
- What if you did nothing about it? What is at stake?
Sales Coaching Tip #2: Identify their level of urgency. Key questions to ask your prospect:
- Is your company (or are you) seeking formal proposals for this work?
- How soon are you looking to get started?
- Are you still analyzing or have you already made a commitment to move forward with the project?
- How much time and money have you already invested in addressing the problem?
If the answers to the above questions leave you with the conclusion that your prospect has no or little urgency, then you need to focus on creating that urgency for them.
Sales Coaching Tip #3: Find the economic buyer.
- Do you need anyone else’s approval on this?
- Who else in involved in making this decision with you?
- Who is funding this project?
- Who can immediately approve this project (or purchase decision)?
The reason I ask similar questions several different ways is because I undoubtedly end up uncovering that the prospect I am speaking to does actually have someone else who they will need to gain the final blessing from to move forward, particularly with higher ticket transactions. In those instances, be sure to schedule your appointments with both or all decision makers present.
Step 3: Understand their decision making process.
Similarly, if you want to avoid or eliminate the “I’ll get back to you” response, you need to ask them questions that will help you understand what they need to make their decision and how they make their decisions. Ask questions like:
- Are you seeking other proposals at this time that you’re waiting on?
- If I were to submit a proposal to you tomorrow how long do you need to make a decision yes or no?.
- What is your decision criteria for choosing the right ____?
Asking these questions during the preliminary stages will have your prospects telling you exactly how they buy and what decision criteria you need to match in order for a sale to occur. For those of you in the serving professions who prefer not to use words like “selling”, think of it as asking the right questions to help your interested prospects to decide if they should hire you.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Did you know that LinkedIn has proven to be 277% more effective at generating leads for your business than Facebook or Twitter? With more than 200 million users, LinkedIn is the most popular social network.
If you’re looking for ways to attract new clients faster and easier you need to learn how to maximize LinkedIn marketing for your business.
I have built my solo coaching practice on LinkedIn. What I love about LinkedIn marketing is that it’s free to use — can’t get better than that!
And, it does not require a huge amount of my time. In fact, LinkedIn alone has generated 6 figures in new business for me in as little as 30 minutes a day.
The thing I hear most often from solopreneurs is that while they have a profile on LinkedIn and accept connection requests, they have not been attracting new clients from their LinkedIn marketing.
Okay, that’s like saying you ordered the treadmill and got it set up, but you’re still not losing any weight. If that’s you my friend, I’d like to point out — you need to actually walk or run on that treadmill regularly to start seeing results.
Well, if you’re not on LinkedIn regularly, it’s most likely because you don’t know what you should be doing on LinkedIn to attract new clients. Here are 4 key actions you can take right away to get started.
1) LinkedIn Tip #1: Claim your vanity URL.
When you first fill out your LinkedIn profile the default LinkedIn address you receive will be made up of a garbled combination of letters and numbers. You want to make your profile look more professional and easier to share by claiming your LinkedIn vanity URL.
Instead of a URL like https://www.linkedin.com/in/hslegsbklbsekhb8, it will look a lot more professional as https://www.Linkedin.com/in/YoonCannon.
All you need to do is click “customize your public profile URL” down on the right-hand side.
2) LinkedIn Tip #2: Name your blog and website links.
Instead of using the default “My Website” you can help yourself stand out and be more memorable to your LinkedIn viewers. You will need to choose “other” in the 1st box in order to see the 2nd box where you can now write the name of your blog or website.
Then, in the 3rd box you can write in the url address of your website, blog site and/or landing page.
Each profile can display up to 3 website links like this, and they can be customized by editing your profile
3) LinkedIn Tip #3: Install applications.
LinkedIn provides a variety of different applications you can use to improve your LinkedIn profile. Check out the Application Directory, and consider linking your blog or applications like SlideShare to showcase your thought leadership and expertise platform. There are a lot of great applications available to help you stand out among your competition on LinkedIn.
4) LinkedIn Tip #4: Register for my free LinkedIn teleseminar.
There is so much more I can share with you in my 60-minute teleseminar than I can fit in the scope of today’s blog post.
If you want to eliminate the overwhelm of social media and discover how to attract new clients faster and easier let me help you during my free LinkedIn training call.
I invite you to join me on
Thursday, October 24th
1:00 pm EST, 10:00 am PST
To register simply click on
https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com/teleseminar
In this power packed LinkedIn training call attendees will discover:
• The reason why you’re currently wasting most of your time on LinkedIn
• How to quickly build your expertise on LinkedIn
• The 3 little known LinkedIn marketing secrets to quickly attract new clients
• Time saving strategies to profit from LinkedIn in as little as 30 minutes a day
* If you can’t make the exact date, register anyway and I will be happy to send you out the replay.
QUESTION: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to marketing yourself successfully on LinkedIn? Please share your comments below.
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
