heartharmony.com.au

One of the fastest ways to grow your business is by reading, studying with and being mentored by the best in their field. One of the people I regularly read is Alan Weiss. He is opinionated, I may not always agree with his thoughts, but he certainly pushes my thinking in a whole range of areas from life balance through to value based fees (one of the best books written on the subject) through to organisational consulting (and no, I don’t receive any affiliate fees from recommending him).

His Monday email this week for an area of focus was a beaut:

Ask how you can best help your target market improve during a recovery, and then demonstrate it. Typical high potential areas: hiring and rehiring; luring back past customers; rebuilding brand and image; rebuilding morale and loyalty; identifying high growth opportunities; professional development; financing; upgrading technology.

What can you do to help your clients improve during a recovery?

A few other words of his wisdom from his weekly e-newsletter:

• Solve it, decide about it, or cope with it. Don’t whine, don’t let it fester. Either correct what’s bothering you, make a decision about options facing you, or simply live with the issue. “To fret” is a rather archaic verb and a rather archaic response.
• Never allow someone to claim “an hour of your time,” or “20 minutes of your time” for that matter. Agree to talk to them, but don’t commit to arbitrary time frames or the conversation will ineffably expand to fill the void.
• Learn to say, “Sorry, no.” If someone says, “Got time for a quick question?” respond, “Sorry, no, bad time, try me later.” They’ll get their question answered elsewhere.
• Never schedule back to back social or business meetings. You need time to reflect, to allow for traffic jams or surprises, and to prepare yourself for what’s coming. Endless meetings form a cincture that can squeeze the life out of you.
• Do things when the spirit moves you whenever you can. If you feel like writing the article, or reading the book, or paying the bills, do it. You’re better, more motivated, and more efficient when you’re doing things “in the mood.”
• Act only on patterns, not random events. Once is an accident, twice a coincidence, three times a pattern. Whether positive or negative, don’t bounce around in the feedback pinball machine. There is usually a systolic cadence to reliable issues and events.

Who do you read to get that “whack on the side of the head?” for your business?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter