Tag: learning

Striving for more

“You’re really good where you are, but you’re way to good to stay there.” – Tom Ferry

Be happy with what you have, but always strive for more. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more, for wishing for a “better” life, but remember that your life is already really good!

Try to find the positive in any situation. Don’t make the mistake thinking that you’ll be happier when you have “X” or when “Y” happens. You can (and should) be happy now, and enjoy the process of trying to get whatever else you are striving for.

8 Tips to Succeed in Business

To succeed in business, you need to do the following:

1) Hustle for new clients…until you’re well-known and have a history of getting clients what they want, it will be very difficult for them to find you. Instead, you have to find them! Be on social media, attend local meetups, go door knocking, cold calling, etc. The bottom line is you have to work to get new clients.

2) Pay…this isn’t always true (depending on the level of “success” you want to achieve), but it is true if you want to be the top in your field. I’m not saying you have to spend frivolously on things that don’t matter, but you do need to pay for marketing and advertising, have a well-built website, etc. You’ll also have your normal expenses to account for (any licenses, utilities, repairs, or big ticket items like a commercial vehicle). Just like the saying goes, “you have to spend money to make money.”

3) Save…once you start earning money, you can’t spend everything you make. If you do this, you’ll soon find out that the government wants their cut. After all, they put a lot of time and money into this business venture and risked losing it all if…wait, no, that was you. Regardless, the government does do some good (update roads, pay firefighters and the police force, etc.), even if they waste a lot of taxpayer dollars.

In addition to saving for taxes, you’ll also want to save for “stormy weather” like a couple of bad months of selling, a slow season, etc. Many financial experts recommend 3-6 months of personal savings, but most recommend even more (12 months or more) savings for your business. Don’t run your margins so thin that you can’t save any money. If you don’t save money and there happens to be a pandemic (*cough* coronavirus) which includes a shutdown of “non-essential” businesses, you’re screwed.

But in order to save money, you need to…

4) Charge what you’re worth. Be fair with your pricing. But don’t confuse fair with free. You have to get paid. Any business that is still in business needs to make a profit, otherwise they won’t be around for long.

On the other end of the spectrum, don’t charge a premium for something you’ve never done before. Everyone needs to start somewhere, but if you’ve never done something and you act like you’re an expert, you’re misleading the client. Eventually come back to bite you in the butt (and with that will come negative reviews), which is why I believe you should always…

5) Be honest…telling the truth isn’t always what the client wants to hear right then and there, but in the long run it is what’s best. You are only as good as your reputation. If you destroy your credibility, you destroy any trust that you may have built up with your existing and potential clients. That is a much harder hill to climb than being truthful from the get go.

6) Show up on time for appointments…This is the easiest thing you can do to start off on the right foot! It takes no skill to show up on time. If you’ve never met with someone before (or even if you have), don’t disrespect them by showing up late. If they made it a point to be somewhere at an agreed upon time, you should be there too. When you show up whenever you want, you’re essentially telling the other person that your time is more valuable than theirs. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s the best way to win business.

7) Communicate…set expectations for them, keep them in the loop on what’s happening, and if you don’t have an answer to one of their questions, let them know you’re working on it. When something bad happens, tell them face-to-face or call them if you need to, but never text/email bad news. Yes, it will be harder to do in person, but once again, it goes back to respecting the client. It shows you care and if you were in their shoes, you would probably want them to do the same.

8) Be personable…when everything else is equal with the competition, people buy from people they like. If you can build rapport with them, make them feel like you actually like them/care about them (which you should), and they don’t think you’re being disingenuous, you will win over a lot of potential clients that were on the fence.

Those are my 8 simple tips to succeed in business. There are plenty of other rules, but if you’d like to add any of your own, feel free to add a comment below!

Patience with teaching

It takes strength to be gentle. Anyone can be rude, but it takes self-control, strength, and discipline to be patient and caring.

For example, do you get easily annoyed (and show it) when others aren’t understanding what you’re explaining? Be gentle with them. Try to explain it in another way. Whether that means using a different example (verbally) or using a different teaching method (they may learn better by reading or doing instead of listening), if you really want them to understand what you’re talking about, you need to adapt your teaching style to how they learn best. Regardless of whether your other methods work, at the very minimum you’ll become a better teacher by learning how to use different teaching methods.

Lastly, if you really want someone to learn something, you can be firm with them, but don’t be rude or make disparaging remarks. While that may motivate some people, it will make even more people “shut down.” Then, not only do you lose your chance at a teachable moment, but you also hurt their self-esteem and lose their respect (if only temporarily) in the process.

Protective parenting

Being a parent of young children, I finally understand why you have those overbearing, overprotective parents. As a parent, you never want to see your child hurting – whether physically or emotionally. But we have to accept that pain is part of life and we cannot (and should not) try to shield them from everything.

We want to protect our children, but the irony is that the best thing we can do is let them experience hardship. If you don’t let them experience any pain, they won’t be able to cope with facing more difficult circumstances.

One of the best feelings a person can have is overcoming adversity. Facing a stacked deck and still winning. Why would you want to take that away from them? There is no thrill in victory without the possibility of defeat. If you know that you can’t lose, what’s the point of playing the game? It becomes boring. The same goes for your children…

If you have children, let them struggle. Part of experiencing the highs in life is also knowing about the lows. Don’t jump in to try to save them from being able to know and understand both. Helping them right now can actually be hurting them in the future. But it’s important to start small and to start young. The more quickly they are able to stumble and fall, yet get back up, the better off they’ll be in the long run.

Competing and confidence

Be confident in your ability to compete. You don’t have to win every time. You won’t win every time. But you can always compete…Try your hardest, have a good attitude whether you win or lose, and make sure you learn from your experiences.

If you don’t like losing, keep practicing. Keep competing. Be a student of the game. What worked well before and what didn’t work? How can you implement what worked and reduce what didn’t to get more consistent results? Become an expert in whatever it is you’re trying to do. With competence comes confidence.