If you have a habit of putting things off… of not getting around to things… or waiting before you act…

you have an enemy.  That enemy is…

Procrastination

Procrastination is nothing more than a bad habit.

“Procrastination is an outward expression of an internal conflict preventing you from taking action.”

Cheryl A. Clausen - The Race to Success

I feel every bit as strongly about procrastination today as the day I wrote that excerpt in my book.  Procrastination is a success killer robbing you from all the good things you should already have.

As Julien Smith says, “Sometimes we wait forever on taking the next action.”  I see it happen every day to SBO’s, entrepreneurs, and SOHO’s who are stuck and not moving forward.

And it’s so FRUSTRATING.  You don’t like the way things are yet you can’t seem to get yourself to ACT.  So there you sit.

Not moving forward.  Not easing the frustration.  Working your tail off getting nowhere.

Kind of makes your head want to explode doesn’t it?

I hope it makes you feel at least a little better when I tell you procrastination isn’t a character flaw.  It has nothing to do with your work ethic or your intelligence.  You procrastinate because you:

• don’t fully appreciate the big “why” that provides the motivation to act and empowers your decisions
• know what to do BUT you don’t know HOW to do it
• have taken action and now you’re stuck AND you don’t know how to get yourself unstuck

Now that you understand the internal conflict you are experiencing it makes perfect sense.  You have a perfectly logical reason for not acting.

There’s no logical reason you can’t act like the super successful though.  So here is how the successful approach the same challenge.  Yes, successful people also get stuck and procrastinate… the difference is once they recognize it they commit to doing what they need to do so they can act.

1. Identify the big solution, outcome, or result you expect from acting.
2. Gather the current information you have to make a decision.
3. Identify any critical piece of information you must have to make a decision and set a date to get it by.
4. Set a deadline to make a decision based on the information you have.  Then stick with your decision once you make it.
5. Identify what you don’t know how to do and decide if you will learn how to do it or pay someone else to do it.
6. Develop a mind map representing everything that must be done to accomplish the desired end result.
7. When you get stuck quickly move from the work that you are stuck on and identify something from your mind map you can act on and take that action.
8. Once you’ve completed all the pieces you can successfully complete on your own if you are still stuck decide how you will either learn how to do it or pay someone else to do it.
9. Accept accountability and responsibility for both your actions and your inaction and don’t accept procrastination as an acceptable habit.

What’s one thing you are procrastinating on right now?  Make it your mission this week to use the 9 steps above to eliminate that enemy.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

photo credit: WhosThisValGirl

You aren’t alone.  There are 25,000,000 small businesses.  Each and every one frantically seeking ways just to survive today’s harsh economic climate let alone… make a buck!

While there’s some comfort in knowing you aren’t alone it doesn’t solve your problem.  If you could do just one thing to chart your course and set a path for prosperity I suggest it would be figuring out what you are really selling.  Then figuring out how to tell others what you are really selling.

Small businesses can learn a lot from the big boys… sometimes.  Realistically every big business that exists today was just a little business in the beginning.  There’s no reason your business can’t become a big business if that’s what you want too.

Don’t scoff at my suggestion that you figure out what you are really selling.  Let me make my point.  What does Nike sell?

You might tell me shoes, clothes, posters, etc.  And I would say, “Yes, they sell all those things but that’s not what they are REALLY selling.   Think about it.  What emotion is Nike pushing in every message?

WINNING.  Nike is selling winning, and they are persuading the buyer to open their wallet and buy because doing so fulfills the buyers internal emotional driver to WIN!

How about De Beers Diamonds?  What are they selling?  Diamond rings, necklaces, bracelets, etc.   What is the message in every communication?  A diamond lasts forever… meaning your relationship or commitment lasts forever.  De Beers is selling a lifetime commitment in your relationships.

Now I realize those are both tangible things and you are selling your service, but you can do the same thing.  What are the people who buy your service really looking for?  What’s the emotion connected with getting that?

eHarmony is an online dating service.  Aren’t they selling love?  Don’t they communicate in every message how their service made love possible for their users?

There’s no need to desperately search for an effective sales strategy.  Simply develop it.  Start by identifying the emotion that motivates your buyers to act.  Then communicate the connection between you, that emotion, and your buyers in every communication.

My buyers want financial success.  Success is the emotion that motivates them to act.  The message… “Gain an unfair advantage when prospects contact YOU“  Have you noticed where you can find that message on this page?

Why do you think I put that message there?

So… what are you really selling?

What’s the message that tells me that?

photo credit: El Grande78

Most business owners, entrepreneurs, and SOHO’s focus on selling their stuff.  You talk about the features your stuff has, what your stuff can do, perhaps how your stuff compares to your competitors stuff.  Legitimate points for consideration yet not what gets people to actually buy your stuff.

The key to successfully selling your stuff isn’t the stuff.  The key to selling your stuff is what your stuff can do.  A critical element required for a successful sales strategy is effectively helping your potential buyers focus on:

• the ideas your stuff lead to
• the experience of owning your stuff
• the future your stuff can help them create

Fear can be tremendously motivating when the thing feared is imminent and highly likely.  However, when it isn’t imminent or perceived as inevitable potential buyers are more likely to do nothing than something.  That’s why it’s so hard to sell the concept of prevention.  If the undesired fear can be prevented it can be delayed.  It may never happen so why act?

However, you can transform fear into a motivation for action when you help the potential buyer focus on a highly desirable future outcome, a desirable experience, or a captivating idea that could become a reality.

No one wants to focus on what you don’t want so you need to help them see the path to what they do want.  This empowers the potential buyer and helps them move from the state of fear they  don’t want to a state they do want.  The more real the more experience seems to them, the more potentially rewarding, the greater the motivation for immediate action.

photo credit: saname777

“The only way on earth to influence the other fellow is to talk about what he wants and show him how to get it” - Dale Carnegie

Zig Ziglar and Mary Kay Ashe would have said, “The only way to get what you want is to help enough other people get what they want”.

You’ve probably heard both of those quotes on more than one occasion.  So why aren’t you taking that advice and running with it?

Well, if you’re like most people you just don’t “get it”.  You’re thinking if you want to sell you have to tell other people about your stuff.  And that’s true.  However, it’s the way you approach it that makes the difference.

You see you can either open the door and open the connection by starting with what you have to offer.  Or you can start with what the other person is already looking for.  One way get’s you invited in the other gets the door shut in your face.  But you already knew that didn’t you…

You’re good and darned tired of doors slamming in your face and phones slammed in your ear.  So rather than starting the conversation about what you have to offer change it to what the other person is looking for.

I know most of you are afraid you’ll get it wrong.

You’re afraid if you don’t say the very thing they’re looking for the door will slam shut.  So you can’t help yourself.  You speak in terms of generalities because you don’t want to exclude anyone.  But generalities:

• are meaningless
• lack emotion
• are boring

So you aren’t any better off than you were when you opened the conversation talking about your stuff.  However, you’re missing an important link here in your understanding.

We could make Dale Carnegie’s quote a little easier to understand if we would alter it to read, “get him to talk about what he wants”.  Yes, that’s the big secret.  If you want to sell you have to get the other guy to do most of the talking - not you.

Do you know why introverts are more likely to be top sellers than their fast talking extrovert peers?  Because they know when to shut up and how to listen.  So let’s see how you make that work.

First, we’ve got to get the other guy to talk about what he wants.  How do you find out the things you want to know?  I’ll be you ask a question, don’t you?  If you opened with a question wouldn’t it be easier to find out what the other person is looking for?

So let’s say he tells you he’s looking for a way to get his sales people to get off their butts and get out there and sell something (yipes, this guy must be talking to your sales manager).  Wouldn’t you want to know what he’s looked into in the past to get his salespeople selling?

What if you asked?

You might wonder if he’d already tried some of those things.  You might wonder what he liked most about the things he tried and what he liked least.

Now if this guy is actually going to spend his money, getting sales has to be more important than the cost of buying the solution.  So… why not ask?

Now anytime I’ve spent money I always wanted to know what I was going to get from my investment.  So how will this guy know if his sales were better after the solution than before?

So maybe your sales success depends more on the questions you ask than what you say?

So maybe if you listened to what this guy says and helped him come to his own conclusions… when you did speak you could hit on the things that he’s already told you he’d base his buying decision on?

Click on the Gold Card to Discover the Step-by-step Solution to Increase Sales