Can you believe it? This year is already half over. Wasn’t I just in Chicago, at my daughter’s graduation? Now summer is almost here. We all feel it. Time moves so quickly, we become absorbed in the routine of our busy lives, and some things fall through the cracks. Do you remember what your business goals were that you set for yourself at the beginning of the year? Even a few weeks ago? If you intended to grow your business, amp up your career, make more money and attract more clients, how is that going?
You probably had specific things you were going to do to reach those goals—create a new website maybe, write and post more blogs each month, take a class to sharpen your tech skills. Whatever your intentions, now is a good time to check in on where you are and where you’re going.
In my business as a career coach, I help my clients become successful by setting realistic but exciting goals and staying on target by implementing them in small, action steps. (We use other tools as well.) One of my clients, a creative entrepreneur, shared her plan in a message to me:
” It’s so hard to not to fall into old habits after the first few weeks of the year! To help me keep my momentum I adopted a staggered approach to business change and growth. I have weekly, monthly and yearly goals. My January goal was to update my blog weekly and to take a course to improve my skills so that I can provide a better product for my clients. February’s goal –maintain the blog update schedule, complete the course I’m taking and finally, update my site—for real this time! March and April will look similar with the updates continuing but with more frequency, keeping the website current and increasing my marketing saturation through various means… I think you get the picture.”
Beate’s Best Tips To Stay On Target
Monitor your time in professional forums, LinkedIn Groups and other places where you hang out and chit-chat with your peers. Your friends and peers don’t hire you. Cut this time down in half.
Double the time you are investing on the phone, networking events and LinkedIn Groups and forums where you can actually market yourself toward clients. You must go where your clients are because they hire and pay you. Focus on building those relationships.
Practice your elevator pitch. You are more than just an expert in your field with great technical skills. Aside from your specialty (in your niche), you help alleviate a person’s problem with your product or service. Unless you make what you do sound interesting, a prospective client won’t bite. It is a commonly made mistake to focus on the features, but not on the benefit that the end user gets by using you.
Know your numbers. Are you on target for the next two months? What is the number you want to reach by December? If you are there, celebrate, if not – get on the phone or hit the pavement.
Every time you read a piece of negative literature about your industry, ask yourself: Is this article helping or hurting me? If it is the later do the following: ignore or delete.
Do something that makes you feel good every single day. Even a 10-minute tea or coffee break, go for a quick walk, talk to a good friend (especially one who makes you laugh.) Clients like working with happy professionals, so become one.
Please share with other readers what you do that keeps your spirits uplifted or focused on what’s ahead. I’d love to hear your positive thoughts and ideas.
Beate Chelette is a respected career coach, consummate entrepreneur and founder of The Women’s Code, a unique guide to personal and career success that offers a new code of conduct for today’s business, private and digital world. Determined to build a community of women helping each other, after selling one of her companies, BeateWorks, to Bill Gates in 2006 for millions of dollars, Beate launched The Women’s Code to reach women everywhere.