While I was driving around yesterday and thinking about some things I wanted to do with this blog to make it better for you, the readers, it occurred to me that I needed to take a bit of my own advice from Monday’s post about the new rules for business, the 3 Cs: content, connection and conversation.

I realized that while the content I’m writing seems to be striking a chord with readers (thank you again for all your support!), and while I’m conversing with you all when you leave comments, I haven’t yet provided a place where we can all connect.  I realized I needed to remedy that as quickly as possible.

Now, call me lazy if you like, but I’m not inclined to take on the responsibility of creating and managing a Ning site right at the moment.  So, I opted to create a Facebook fan page for the blog instead.  A couple of clicks later, it was all done, and I’d like to invite you all to join in the connections and conversations over at the Motivation 101 Blog fan page.

Here’s what I’d like to see on this page: your ideas, suggestions, links, tips and tricks for getting and staying motivated to press forward in your businesses, careers and lives.  I’d like for this to be a place where you can come and ask questions and get advice on how to be a better salesperson for your business.  I’d like to see everyone helping each other in the true spirit of community.

That said, it really doesn’t matter what I want; this page was created for YOU, the readers of the Motivation 101 Blog.  So do what you like.  Engage, interact, tells stories and jokes: whatever.

So let’s have some fun.  Click here to join the fan page, and I look forward to our conversations!

You’ve probably heard before that, in order to really have success in business, you need a written business plan.  Trouble is, most small business owners and entrepreneurs don’t take the time to create one.  They see it as something that’s only important if you’re looking for a loan or trying to raise venture capital.  That’s a fatal mistake in many businesses.

I recently co-authored a free report called 6 Mistakes That Could Destroy Your Business - And How You Can Avoid Them (110).  Please click on the link to get your copy now.  And don’t worry: there are no strings attached. 

I hope you enjoy the report and, more importantly, I hope you take some action on it.  Just like you can’t build a sturdy house without a well-drawn blueprint, you can’t build a successful business without a well-thought out, written business plan!

I have to admit: I’m a bit of a megalomaniac.  As such, I have a tendency to be a bit of a control freak.  And I think I’m good at it.  I honestly believe that I have everything under control.  My condition is so bad, I once won a few hours of free administrative assistance from my friend Todd Lay, but never used it, even though I was juggling a full-time job and my own business at the time.  It’s a sickness.

I don’t think I’m alone in this.  Many people,especially entrepreneurs, have a tendency to want to “do it all”.   I think we all believe the old adage that “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself”.  Leaning on others doesn’t come naturally, perhaps because we’ve been jaded by past experience but more likely because we just haven’t learned to trust yet.  If there is one skill the entrepreneur needs, though, it’s the ability to delegate.  It can literally be the difference between success and failure in your business.

Think about it for a minute: how much time do you lose, each and every day, procrastinating and stalling when you have a task you hate that needs doing?  One of my hated tasks is making changes to my website, mostly because it involves looking at HTML code (who came up with that garble, anyways?).  Ugh!  I’d rather have a root canal.  I can do it, though, and that was my hang-up.  I thought that if was able to do it, there was no sense spending the money to hire someone else to do it.  So I would sit down to tackle the project and immediately find 10 other things that “needed” my attention (you know…YouTube, Facebook, Twitter), and the website never got done. 

Then, I met a great web designer who was willing to do what needed to be done in trade.  So I thought, “What the heck?  I might as well give this a try.”  And I learned an incredibly valuable lesson that day: there are people in this world who, believe it or not, actually like looking at and monkeying with HTML code.  For them, it’s a joy, a delight and, as a result, they’re really good at it.  My eyes were suddenly opened to a whole new world, populated with people who were thrilled to engage in all the tasks I hated.  There are virtual assistants who actually enjoy bookkeeping and transcribing and all the administrative tasks that make me cringe.  And there are even people who get their kicks from taking the content I create and blasting it out to the thousands of sites in the social media world, another task I dread.

All of this delegation is allowing me to focus on doing what I really love: creating content and sharing it with others.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed and de-motivated by a bunch of tasks I hate, I feel excited and motivated about doing what I love for a living.

So how does a wannabe world conqueror tame the DIY impulse and learn to delegate?  I’ll tell you what’s working for me: start small.  Don’t jump in and hand off a big, mission-critical task right out of the gate.  Start with something minor and relatively unimportant to you, then work your way up to bigger, more critical tasks. In short, though, do whatever it takes to get out of the way of your own success!

OK.  So I stole the title for this post from my friend, Joel D Canfield.  He’s a pretty forgiving guy, though, so I’m sure he’ll let it slide.  Especially when I flatter him by saying that is, quite literally, one of the most brilliant phrases I’ve ever read.

Take today, for example.  As you may or may not have already read, today started off pretty badly for me.  I was having one of “those” days, and I wanted nothing more than to just call it quits and spend the day wallowing in my funk.  I decided, instead, to take some of my own advice by getting out of the office and seeing some prospective clients.  When I got back, I had a conversation with Joel in which I mentioned to him that the minute I talked to my first prospect and she said “No,” I immediately felt 100% better.

Joel was a little confused by this, so I explained that the rejection was validation that I was in “action” mode.  And that, so long as I was in motion, I was buiding momentum.  That’s when he uttered the phrase that became the title of this blog post.  And I agree with him wholeheartedly.

You see, even though I didn’t sell anything today, I got engaged in the process.  As I’ve said before, you don’t make an orange by magic or positive intent or even by trying to force it to happen; you make an orange by planting a seed, by starting and then supporting the process that will eventual lead to an orange.  The same is true in your business: you never, and I mean never ever get results by wishing for them or trying to force them.  You only get results by taking the first step, planting the seed, then supporting the process that will lead to the outcome you’re looking for. 

I learned a valuable lesson today.  Actually, it was more of a reminder than a lesson, since I talk about this all the time.  I was reminded that the best way to solve a feeling of negativity is to change your state, to conciously choose a different reaction…to do something, no matter how small or insignificant that something might be.  Go out and risk a little rejection. Trust me; it feels a whole lot better than doing nothing.

Jerry

Well, it’s official: Ben Bernanke and, more impressively, Warren Buffet have declared that the recession is officially over (of course, my friend Raj called it a couple of days ago, but we won’t quibble over details here…).  Don’t get out the party hats and champagne just yet, though; Buffet and Bernanke are both predicting a slow recovery for the economy due to the continued ‘lack of confidence’ on the part of consumers.  That’s you and me, people.  We are the consumers’ whose lack of confidence is going to drag this thing out, if that’s the choice we make. 

Is that the choice you want to make?  I certainly don’t.  I, for one, am tired of being in a recession.  I’m ready for a change.  And I think I speak for a lot of people when I say “Enough already!”  I’m willing to bet that you feel the same way, don’t you?  So then, what can we do to change (as in ‘elevate’) consumer confidence, including our own?

Well, start by asking yourself what it would take for you to be more confident and resume things like going out to eat and buying new clothes on a regular basis?  What level of income would you need to feel comfortable buying a new car?  How about a home?  It’s not likely that there will be a better time in the next decade or two to buy things on the cheap. In fact, it would seem that the entire world and everything in it is on sale, so what better time to buy?  Of course, I’m not encouraging you to be reckless or to spend money you don’t have…just consider what you could do right now if you did have the money.  And pick a number that would make you feel confident enough to do it.

Next step?  Figure out how to get to that level of income so that you can once again join the ranks of the confident consumer.  How?  Well, the first thing you have to do is believe you can (and you certainly can); then, you have to believe that you must!  In other words, you have to have a compelling WHY, a reason that will drive you to do whatever it takes to correct your own financial situation and get your life and business back on track. 

To help you (and others like you) to find your WHY, I’m making a concerted effort to get a special audio program into the hands of as many people as possible over the next few weeks.   It’s the first section of my audio program ”Motivation 101: Five Steps to Activate Your Potential In Any Economy”.  It’s called ”Step 1: Ask Why?”, and is available for download absolutely free at my website.  And by free, I mean 100% free, no strings attached.  I’m not even going to ask for your email address.  Why?

Well, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’m an evangelist for change, a prophet for the end of the recession.  As such, I’m interested in getting this information to as wide an audience as possible.  I figured the best way to do that is to start by giving it away.  Now, I know that doesn’t make the best business sense, but that’s the great thing about being an evangelist: ‘good business sense’ is secondary to the message.

Now of course, I’d also like to sell some of these programs eventually, so there’s a way for you to buy the whole program if you like; consider your purchase as a declaration of your belief that the recession is over, if that helps.  Frankly, though, I’m far more interested in you downloading just this one section, listening to it, doing the accompanying exercises, applying the suggestions and seeing the results.  Then, I hope you go tell some friends.  OK…lots of friends.  And co-workers.  And neighbors, family members and associates. 

I’d really love to give away 10,000 copies of this 10-minute audio by the end of the month.  I’d really, really like to see this message go viral, not to serve some crazy ego-based need for attention (although it’ll certainly do that), but to see the effect that it will have on the lives of the people it touches.  I can’t do it without help, though, so I’m asking you: if you enjoy the program, if the message resonates with you and you see the benefit of applying the information, please pass it along.

Thanks again for reading, and please share this post with anyone you think might be interested in getting on the “Let’s Quit the Recession” bus.  Together, we can end this mess quickly.

Happy Monday, everyone!

After a brief (OK, so it wasn’t so brief…sorry!) hiatus, the Motivation 101 Blog is back and better than ever.

I’ve been spending the last couple of months exploring this wonderful device we call the World Wide Web and all of the powerful things it can do. I’ve been studying social media and Web 2.0 and Facebook and Twitter and all of the leverage they can provide to businesses who are paying attention and learning how to adapt to the new world and the new economy we find ourselves living in.

Most of all, though, I’ve been exploring my own life and business and trying to make sense out of all the advice I’ve been getting from business associates, mentors and friends.  And I’ve had an epiphany. More on that later, though. For now, I want to let you know what’s going to be happening with the Motivation 101 Blog here at it’s new home. 

First of all, this blog is going to be the home of the best content I can write.  I truly believe that the only way the current ‘economic crisis’ is going to end is if we all decide to quit playing along.  I’ve said it before, and I’m going to keep saying it: this recession has nothing to do with a lack of money or resources.  It is the result of a lack of confidence and trust.  In other words, it is a psychological  recession. 

I realize that, to the person who has lost his or her job and is depending on unemployment to make it through, that may sound a little callous or overly simplistic.  After all, that person’s problems really are the result of a shortage of money.  But trace their situation back to its roots, and you discover the loss of the job was due to the fact that nobody was buying the product or service the company they worked for was selling.  The root problem is that many, many people have stopped spending money because they have no confidence that there will be more to replace it, creating a downward spiral of anxiety and negative thinking that is causing more shrinkage, more lay-offs, and even more problems.  We’ve got to put an end to the downward spiral, and the only way to do it is through education and awareness.

And this is where the epiphany I mentioned earlier comes in.  You see, for months I’ve been getting advice from folks on how to set up an effective, profitable online business.  It was all great advice, and I trust the people that it came from to an incredible degree.  Here was the weird thing, though: little, if any, of their advice resonated with me and almost none of it inspired me to take any action.  I was getting a little frustrated with myself.  OK…a LOT frustrated. 

I had a message to share, and I needed to figure out the most effective way to get the message spread, yet everyone was telling me I needed to focus on being a big fish in a small pond, charge more for my products, and settle for massive success on a small scale.  I didn’t like the sound of that.  At all.  And yet, I knew the folks who were advising me were pros at building businesses, both on- and off-line.

And that’s when it hit me, like a load of bricks or a bolt of lightning from the sky: I wasn’t trying to create a successful business.  If I was, all of this great advice would have made perfect sense to me and I’d be doing it and making tons of money.  But that wasn’t what I was trying to accomplish.  I was trying to change the world.  And in that moment, everything clicked.

I could focus all my efforts on cultivating a niche (or even a micro-niche) and be wildly successful as a business owner, or I could focus on spreading the message and allow the business to be a by-product of the message.  I realized that I was, first and foremost, an evangelist.  In order to achieve my goal of changing the world and helping people unlock their potential and ending the global recession, I could never settle for being a big fish in a little pond, or a little fish in a big pond, for that matter.  I had to focus all my efforts on becoming a BIG fish in a really, really big ocean.

So that’s what I’m doing now.  I’m evangelizing, focusing on the message that we each have the potential to change our situation and, by so doing, to change the world around us.  And I need your help.  If you agree with what I’ve said, if this message resonates with you, if you truly believe that each and every human being on the planet has the potential for greatness locked within them, please help me spread the word.  Blog about it.  Comment on this blog.  Tell your friends, family and peers.  Point them to the tools that will help them unlock their potential and, while you’re at it, be sure to work on cultivating your own potential for greatness.

There are specific, daily actions that you can take to unleash your power.  I talk about them in my training programs.  I’ll talk about them here.  Hundreds of other teachers are talking about them as well.  But talking about them isn’t enough.  It’s up to each and every one of us to do something with the information.   Are you ready to take some action? 

Great! 

It’s good to have you along.

This week, I had the chance to be a guest blogger over at The Sales Bloggers Union. These guys are great! You can check out the article I wrote by clicking here. The article discusses the need for selling professionals (and remember, that includes all you entrepreneurs and small business owners) to focus on their process instead of on “closing deals”. I hope you enjoy it!

Jerry