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One thing that the New Year brings on is the desire to get organized, or reorganized, as the case may be.  Managing your business depends a great deal on time management.  If you are not managing your time efficiently you will tend to have lack of focus, scattered energy, projects never get completed, lack of follow-through, and not honoring commitments. Highly successful entrepreneurs have tools to organize their time, their activities, and their thoughts.

Here’s my short list of valuable tools to help you get organized and have more efficient time management.

1) Managing your appointments: TimeTrade.com & Google Calendar
The first thing you need to organize your time around is appointments.  Before I started using TimeTrade, I was going back and forth with emails 3 to 6 times trying to find a time that worked for both parties.  It was a colossal waste of time.  For a mere $56 a year you can save an enormous amount of time and frustration and you will also get a handy reminder for all your appointments.  It works in conjunction with several online calendars, including Google Calendar.

Google Calendar also gives you a reminder when an appointment is coming up.  You can set how long before the appointment you want to be reminded and choose between email or a pop-up (which won’t go away until you click on it).

2) Managing your activities: PlannerPads.com
When I started my business, there weren’t any type of planners that suited me, so I made my own.  It was organized via monthly, weekly, and daily.  But I had to print a new one out every year and that got rather tedious.  The closest planner I have found that is a viable substitute was Planner Pad.  This planner is organized so you can sort your to do list by categories, plan out your activities for the week, and set your appointment dates—all in one view.

This is a great way to not only plan out your activities in a coherent manner, but also organize your thoughts, ideas, and reminders.  It’s harder for things to slip through the cracks because you are planning more broadly and you can see the big picture at a glance.

3) Managing your business mindset: ESC 30-Day Plan
One of the best tools I discovered in my coach’s training and that I teach to my clients is called a 30-Day-Plan.  The idea behind it is that you plan out what you need to accomplish in the next 30 days and then get clear on the energy around those activities necessary to complete the plan.

For example, you would set your 30-day goal such as…
•    How many clients would you need for one month?
•    How many products would you need to sell for one month?
•    How many sales conversations would you need to have?
•    How much networking would you need to do?

Once you are clear about these kinds of specifics, you chunk it down into weekly and daily actions. Then you take a look at your own energy around those goals and what else may get in the way of achieving them, including any beliefs you may have about not getting them. Clients find that planning out 30 days at a time is less overwhelming and an easy way to get more organized.  And using the 30-Day-Plan’s inner and outer approach is a more efficient way of management.

These 3 tools will absolutely help you become more organized and will use your time more efficiently.  Better time management and more organization equals more productivity. And, more productivity equals more profit.

If you would like to start 2012 with additional tools that can easily help you with better organization and time management, please contact me for a strategy session on how I can support you with that HERE.

Happy New Year 2012!!!

January is usually the time when all the retailers put their merchandise on sale.  Why? Because sales always go down in January since everyone either spent their extra money on the holiday season or are paying their credit card bills from the holiday season.  So January usually is the slowest month of the year.  What can you, as a business owner do about it?

The most obvious thing you can do is plan ahead by making sure you have put aside enough extra money at the end of the year to cover the bills in the New Year.  But I want to tell you about 3 ways you can earn extra money in the beginning of the year so you can have consistent income not only in January, but also throughout the year.

Here are my 3 favorite cash flow strategies to jump-start your business in 2012.

Continue reading “3 Easy Cash-Flow Strategies to Jumpstart 2012” »

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The other day I was talking to a life coach who expressed a deep fear of failure.  This caused me some concern because I have run across so many life coaches who had the same fear.

Usually a coach has had a lot of experience in some area and has decided to go into business for themselves so they can help others, using their unique gifts and talents.  Or they have gone through some difficulty and made a transformation that they want to share with others who may be going through the same difficulty.

Either way, this person has had a good amount of experience in the area in which they coach.  When you know how to solve a problem that others need to solve, you are considered to be an expert.  So why would an expert fear failure?

In asking this question I have received the same answers:
The life coach is afraid of…
•    Failing to deliver results to their client
•    Failing in the ability to run a business
•    Failing to know what the priorities are in the daily business activities
•    Failing to attract enough clients to stay in business

These are all legitimate concerns and I want to address each one.

1) Failing to deliver results to their client
If you have experience in the area in which you coach, your expertise is of value to anyone who wants to know what you know.  Sharing your gifts will come naturally.  And remember, you are only responsible for delivering your service, not the client’s results.  Only THEY are responsible for that.

Continue reading “Overcoming the Fear of Failure” »

Thinking and reflecting on this year and all the goodness that it’s brought, I’m filled with immense gratitude and wanted to do something super special to support you moving forward in continuing to align with your biggest, brightest and wealthiest goals…in life and in business. So I have joined forces with my friend and colleague, Nachhi Randhawa, to bring you a VERY SPECIAL TRAINING that will powerfully set you up for attaining all of your goals and dreams in 2012.

Announcing the…“Virtual New Year’s Bash 2012”

This is an in-depth one-time 90-minute training with two experienced coaches to help you take some big leaps quickly and start attracting big money miracles into your life and business. And in light of the beautiful 2012 energy…we decided to also make that your investment. Yes, you can get this powerful, live training with us for only $20.12.

To spend an hour with us individually, you’d pay hundreds of dollars but this isn’t about money today! This is about you creating your big dreams and taking your heart work out into the world! And we want to support you with that and wanted to really make this a no-brainer. So join us on January 2, 2012 and let’s rock your business in the New Year!

See all the details right here and join us for this special one-time training to take your business to the next level and create BIG SUCCESS in 2012! We’re going to blow the roof off with this training and share how we each powerfully set up our year for MEGA SUCCESS. Continue reading “Virtual New Years Bash” »

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The Holiday season is already upon us and I love to celebrate the season.  Growing up in the Midwest, I except—no—require snow in order to feel like it’s the holiday season.  I love the music, the decorations, and the family get-togethers.  The excitement from being a little kid has never worn off!  AND, I’d like to celebrate with you by giving you a special offer:

Empowered Spirit Coaching will be having two Holiday specials for the month of December. (at this link)

1) Special price for “Wattles Wisdom ArtCards”   regularly $24.95, sale price $15.95

A set of daily reminder flash cards that pinpoint the wisdom drawn from Wallace Wattles’ book, “The Science of Getting Rich.” You can have, at your fingertips and in colorful graphics, the best of Wattles’ inspiring quotes from this classic book as daily reminders of Wattles’ Wisdom.  Read one every day to stay focused and become motivated and inspired to success.

2) Special price for “Business Breakthrough Session”   regularly $197, sale price $97

This 90-minute “Business Breakthrough Session” gives you a jump-start on your business needs. It’s a way to get answers to your most pressing issues and get a sample experience of my coaching. You can also use this session to tackle a project and leave with an outline, plan, product, or strategy for any current challenge that you are having with your business.

Order and schedule your Business Breakthrough session in December to get the special price. You can schedule it for January.

Both of these items make wonderful gifts for yourself or others.  Take advantage of this one-time sale for December only HERE.

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Energy Management may sound like a flaky New Age philosophy but if list building were strictly about mechanics then everyone would have a rapidly growing list.  The truth is some online marketers build their lists rapidly and others can’t seem to get their list off the ground. Why is that?

It’s because people with big lists have managed their energy around growing a bigger business and the others have not.  If you are having trouble building your list you might want to check on your energetic vibration around growing your business.  Here’s one area to consider:

You may be secretly harboring the fear of success.  Continue reading “Use Energy Management to Grow Your List” »

Recently I was going over my notes from Napoleon Hill’s book “The Laws of Success” and I came across the words, “Speak with conviction.”  It occurred to me that this was an area for some reflection and improvement.  Speaking with conviction involves several different areas of concern.

Napoleon Hill

First of all in order to speak with conviction you need to have confidence in yourself and your business.  You must know that you are in the right business doing what you should be doing.  Confidence is essential to having conviction.

Secondly, you need to have a healthy level of self-esteem.  How do you regard yourself?  Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe you can accomplish your goals?  You need to believe in yourself in order to speak with conviction. As Napoleon Hill stated, “Your only limitation is the one which you set up in your own mind.”  Clear your mind of limiting thoughts and your speech will be much more powerful.

Continue reading “Are You Speaking with Conviction?” »

The Spiritual Abundance Women’s Circle is presenting a free series of calls that run Nov.14 through Nov. 23. Spiritual abundance is about creating prosperity for others as well as yourself by sharing your gifts and living your full potential.

In this teleseries you will learn about leadership and how this fits in with the feminine; creating thriving businesses and discovering your inner brilliance to enable you to do so; how to get more clients; explore money, meaning and marketing through soul collage; create abundance and wealth in a life-expanding way; learn how your health affects your success; and discover your WOW factor.

These topics will help you create the business and life that you truly deserve. I helped organize this series and am one of the speakers. My topic is From Striving to Thriving: 6 Tips to Create a Thriving Business and Get More Clients.”

Continue reading “Spiritual Abundance Womens Circle” »

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There are so many self-help books on gaining wealth; some give you mental techniques, some give you practical skills.  The biggest secret to wealth is that it starts from the inside.  You can learn how to make all kinds of money, find killer investments, have multiple streams of income, but if you don’t have the right mindset, you probably won’t be able to hold onto your wealth.  Several issues are at stake when developing the right mindset.

One issue is belief.  Some soul-searching is often necessary to determine what you believe to be true.  Mahatma Gandhi once said, “My commitment is not to consistency but to truth; and truth changes.”

That means that even when you discover what you believe, it could change.  And many times it must change in order for you to change your life.

Continue reading “You Become What You Think About” »

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One of the best strategies for building a loyal following on Twitter is to share helpful tips with your own hashtag.  A hashtag is just a keyword with a # before it.  Twitter users read streams with hashtags that are relevant to their interests.  You want to create a hashtag that is unique to you and relevant to your offerings.

For example, my hashtag is #MindsetTip because that’s the subject that I want to share tips on and mindset is what I coach about.  So it’s relevant, unique to me, and of interest to my target market.

Here’s one of my tweets with my hashtag:
#MindsetTip: Start reminding yourself that wealth is on its way to you and be grateful for it.

The way to determine if the hashtag you want is being used is to do a search in Twitter for it.  If nothing comes up you can use it.  If tweets come up for it and it’s a big keyword for you, you can still use it occasionally in your tweets. Some general hashtags that I occasionally use are #mindset, #success, #life coach, #BusinessTips, and #LOA (Law of Attraction). But you still want to have one that’s unique to you so that twitter users can follow it and know that it’s you.

Here’s an example of using a general hashtag:
What is the one thing that only you can do today to increase your business revenue? #success

Some people put their hashtag at the beginning and others put it at the end.  My method is to use my own hashtag at the beginning of tweets and general hashtags at the end.

You can start by compiling a list of tips on your topic that are under 140 characters. If you want them to be retweeted you should make them even shorter.  They can be a specific topic within your field or your general topic. Whenever you think of more tips, add them to your list.  I recommend having a list of tips that are on your main topic and then other lists of tips on specific topics.

For example, I write tips for mindset principles and business skills, but then I also write tips on specific areas such as Law of Attraction, social networking, money management, and successful practices.

Another method you can use is to tweet a short tip that links to a blog post that explains the tip in more detail (like this one!). Be sure to use a URL shortener when you use a link in your tweets so you have plenty of room.

The next step is to schedule your tweets using one of the Twitter schedulers such as Socialoomph, Hootsuite, or Tweet Adder.  You can set them to run automatically and you can also connect them to your other social media accounts.

When you consistently share helpful tips and make it easy for your followers to find them with your own hashtag, your followers will begin to look forward to your tips.

I have a whole system set up for my tweets, which include tips with the hashtag as well as several other important categories. If you would like to have a social media  assessment and learn how you can set up a tweeting system for the whole year’s worth of tweets check out my Social Media Mastery VIP Day.