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This one of my favourite posts that was originally published early last year.  Now updated and edited to be even more good-er.  Enjoy!

I was cleaning the shower the other day.  This is something I do regularly.  Once a year is regular, right? Just kidding – I clean it a lot more often than that.  While sloshing water around and scrubbing the tiles it occurred to me that cleaning the shower is in many ways like marketing your home business.

Read through and let me know what you think.

Firstly it needs to be done regularly. I once lived in a house where we thought the bottom half of the shower door and side was frosted glass, and that round bit on the floor was anti-slip coating.  About a week or so after moving in, I cleaned it.  Yes, it was ordinary clear glass underneath and plain tiled floor.  Yuck.

If you clean your shower regularly, it’s easy.  If you market your business regularly, it’s easy.  Consistency in small efforts is a lot easier and yields much greater rewards than neglecting it and having to put in hours of backbreaking, gut-wrenching work.  It’s much easier to keep up than to catch up.

If it’s done wrong you could end up with a greater mess. Sloshing buckets of water around may be great fun, watching it splash, however it has a tendency to, well, splash.  And go everywhere, generally all over the bathroom walls and floor – outside of the shower.   Or it just rinses the walls and floor and doesn’t actually clean anything.

You can spend as much money and time as you have on marketing, but if it’s not directed to the right people, if it’s not solving a problem for them, if it’s not compelling them to buy, then it’s a waste of time and money.  Know why you're using a particular marketing tactic, do it right, be focused and see the benefits. Make sure you're marketing to a niche and not a demographic.

Use the right tools and know why you’re using them. You wouldn’t go to clean the shower with the vacuum cleaner would you?  Or with a leaf rake?  Of course not, they’re tools for other tasks.  You go into the shower with some kind of cleaner, cloths to wipe, some way to rinse off the walls, bleach to clean the tiles if needed, maybe a squeegee.  You know precisely what you’re doing (cleaning the shower) and the appropriate tools that you need to do that.

This is where you need to know your target market intimately and thoroughly, inside and out.  Why do they buy?  Where and how do they buy?  What solution does your product provide?  How do you market specifically and directly to these people?  What medium do they use (online, magazines, forums) to find out about products and ask questions?  There’s no point putting an advertisement in the financial times newspaper if your target market loves parenting forums.  Don't put money into any form of marketing just because someone says you should.  Know how it relates to your market and what result you expect from it.

It takes work and planning. You clean the walls before the floor.  Put bleach on the tiles (my apologies to the environmentalists here) and let it start working before you begin to scrub.  And no matter what product you put on the glass and tiles, it still needs some elbow grease to be spotlessly clean.  With cleaning, as with marketing, you need to plan the best order to do things.

You can’t sell a product and then tell the customer why they need it.  The customer needs to be educated about what it does and why they want it.  You, the business owner, need to make this happen.  Customers don't come up and say “I want to buy this widget, what does it do?”.  Nuh uh.  Customers see your marketing, which tells them how your widget solves their problem and world peace at the same time.  And then they come to buy.

And lastly you need to be committed. If you just give the shower a quick swipe over with a dry cloth once a month  then you might think you can call it ‘cleaning the shower’.  But is it really?  If you put an ad in the cheapest magazine once a month, is it the ads fault that no one buys?  I have a friend who often tells me that she wishes she could have a profitable online business.  And then goes on to tell me how she's not interested in writing blog posts, or going on forums, or spending money on upgrading her website.  She’s not committed to the process or the work required.  If your business isn’t profitable, or not as profitable as you’d like, check your own commitment and activity levels first.

What do you think?  Are you using the right tools in the right way to clean your shower as efficiently and effectively as possible?

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This is a Guest Post by Catherine Caine

I once worked in technical support for a webhosting company, supporting 200,000 small business customers over the phone. I learnt a lot.

• I learnt how to configure every email program ever.
• I learnt how websites work.
• I learnt that a LOT of people are scared of technology.

Ten times a day I’d hear the line: “I’m just not any good at that technical stuff!” Sometimes it would be said with an embarrassed laugh, sometimes with weary despair. One woman sobbed over the phone because she didn’t know how to use FTP* for her plumbing supplies website. (* FTP means File Transfer Protocol = how you upload files to your web site/server)

Does that seem strange to you?

We’re not worried about admitting we know nothing about photography or mechanics or aerospace engineering. Why does computer-related ignorance fill us with shame? Why do we label ourselves as “not good at that technical stuff”, when we use a hundred technological devices every day with no problems, from programming the TV to updating our status in Facebook? (Note from Melinda here: I call in my 12yo daughter when it comes to programming the tv.  LOL)

I’m going to share with you one of the most powerful things I learned to combat my fear.

Websites 101

Do you know what a website is? Can you describe it? For the longest time I couldn’t. I visited dozens every day, checked my email and did my banking on them and I couldn’t tell you what I really was using. It was scary and overwhelming! How could I learn anything about websites when I didn’t have the faintest idea of how they worked?

But I learned. Here’s my definition:

Websites are a tool for conveying information across networks. At one end, a powerful computer called a web server stores a number of files. When I want to visit a website, my computer (my iPhone counts as a computer in this case) sends a request to the web server that stores the files for the website. The web server transmits the requested information across the internet (the largest network in the world). When the files arrive on the my computer, I can see and interact with the website using my web browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer or Safari). If I click on a link in the website – say, to look at a different page – a new request is sent to the web server and in return more information is sent back to my computer.

Too techy? I have a non-tech version.

I want to know whether that new movie is any good; my friend Steve always knows about movies. So I look up his number in the phone book and give him a call. I ask him who the director is and he tells me. I ask if the acting is good and he tells me. When we’re done, I hang up the phone.

In this case, Steve is the web server: he contains the information on the movie. We need a connection to exchange the information, which is the phone. (Without the phone, I can’t ask Steve anything.) He also has a unique identifier, the phone number, that reaches him alone. And each time I ask a new question he provides more information.

For me, that is a good mental model of how websites work. It explains a number of other ideas intuitively:

• I can’t visit a website when I have no internet connectivity because there’s no way to make a connection between my computer and the web server.
• But, if I recently visited the website, the files might still be on my computer. That’s why I can see the page I visited most recently, even when I’m offline.

And I can build on it to make bigger ideas:

• Right, HTML is a way to wrap up the information so I can read it in my web browser.
• Oh, IP addresses are an identifier to tell all the web servers and computers apart from each other. Like a phone number.

Once I had a mental model, learning about websites became much easier. I could add more information and it had somewhere to slot into. And that’s good, because there is a LOT of complexity with websites!

The wires and boxes

• Servers: the powerful computers that store all the files of a website
• Networks: the hardware and software that allows servers and computers to communicate

The geeky code bit

• Languages: Languages like HTML, PHP and CSS that encode the information and its display
• Software: Pre-written packages, written in those languages that perform complex functions like managing your content. Like WordPress
• Design: Altering the look of a website with images and layout

The business part

• Social media: Content that changes as visitors interact with it
• Marketing: Selling, persuading and informing people over the internet
• Content: The words, video and images that you provide

Sound overwhelming and scary? If you look at it all together it is!

But 95% of the individual components are as simple to grasp as the idea of me calling Steve to ask whether the movie is worth watching. Once you have a good mental picture of the relationship between the parts, learning about websites is simple.

Just focus on adding one piece at a time. It gets much easier as you go along.

And in no time, you’ll never say, “I’m not good at that technical stuff!” ever again!

Catherine teaches people how to grow an awesome website and then high-fives them. Today is the first day for her new resource, Awesome Fear-Wrangling: tame your website fears, grow your kick-ass website. Ironically, she’s petrified about it.

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We all need to market and sell our stuff, right? That’s the whole point of being in business. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to sell.

Sell something the right way and the person is happy they dealt with you and everyone is pleased by the whole transaction. Sell the wrong way – or try to – and it ends up a bun fight.

How Not to Cold Call

A few weeks ago I had the dubious pleasure of receiving a business cold call. By the time the call finished I was so angry I rang my husband at work to vent – the venting took longer than the call. (Hubby ended up being late for a meeting, and told his boss “She was way angrier than you, and I have to live with her” LOL)

Normally cold calls don’t bother me. We’re on the Do-Not-Call register so if we DO receive any cold calls it’s generally for my business. Usually it’s enough to tell the person very clearly “Nope, not interested, thanks for your time” and that’s the end of it. Not this call. Here’s how NOT to cold call someone:

The one thing they did right

They rang during the day. Ring me in the evening and you’ve got me offside from the second I pick up the phone. Business hours people, that’s what they’re for.

I love you forever, what’s your name?

The salesperson introduced herself and told me the name of the person she was calling for – I slightly know this business owner from a couple of forums that we’re both on. Her script, after the intro, went something like:

Our business helps other small businesses just like yours to grow and make more money. Tell me about your business, what do you do?

Huh? You rang me, you help businesses just like mine, but you don’t actually know what my business does?

Imagine you’re in a bar and a complete stranger comes up to you, takes you in his (or her) arms, looks into your eyes and says in complete seriousness “I love you and want to marry you, have kids with you and be together until we die. Oh, and what’s your name?”

You’d be like “Get away from me you freakin weirdo!”

That’s what this call was like. First you tell me your business is to help small businesses just like mine to grow – and then you ask me what my business is? If you don’t know what I do then how do you know that your business can help me?

Do some research. Look at my website – it’ll tell you. That’s what it’s there for (ok, one of the things). Or at least reword your script so it’s not so contradictory and doesn’t make me think you’re ignorant.

Pushy Pushy

I told the salesperson a very brief and general description of what I do. She suggested that I needed to narrow down my niche. I said it was a lot more focussed but my description would do for now. That didn’t please her at all. Did she really expect me to discuss my business in detail with a stranger who called me?

And then she started on her spiel. She was selling a course on creating info-products. I’d seen some details from the business owner on a forum, so I knew what she was talking about.

“No thanks, I’m not interested at the moment”

You know how in sales books they tell you that a ‘No’ is only an objection? Well, this person had been reading those books.

She began on the marketing questions that are designed so you either have to sound like a complete idiot to turn it down or you open the door for more selling. Her question was something along the lines of:

“Do you want to learn how to sell more effective and higher priced information products to your customers?”

Well, what am I supposed to say? “No, I like being broke and not selling anything” how stupid would that answer be? But if I say “Of course I do” then she’s got an open door to keep pushing the sale.

So I didn’t answer. I pointed out that it’s a typical marketing question designed to either open the door or make me look stupid, and I don’t appreciate being manipulated.  And said again “No, I’m not interested in this product”

The pushy got worse

I’m sure she took my ‘No’ as a personal challenge because she continued to try and sell to me. I ended up saying ‘No’ at least three times, very clearly. I told her “I’m not interested and I’m not your ideal client” and she kept on pushing to sell!

At this point I was interrupting her and talking over the top of her. Rude, yes, but it was the only way to let her know I wasn’t interested short of outright hanging up on her.

It ended when I told her (again) I wasn’t interested and was going to hang up. At that point she agreed I wasn’t their client and we said a rather terse goodbye.

Do unto others….

How many of us enjoy having someone disrespect us and ignore us when we tell them no? Who wants to get off a call feeling they’ve just been manipulated and sold something they didn’t really want? Why are these sales techniques still being taught?

A few years ago I read “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by John Cialdini. In it he discusses the brain conditioning and instinctive responses that we’re all wired with. Marketers hook into this brain wiring and structure their questions so we’ll give them the answer they want rather than look a fool.

Marketing or a Used Car Salesman?

Cold calling works – I won’t deny that. But at what ethical cost? Do you really want to sell to someone knowing that they bought because you twisted their responses? That’s why Naomi and Sonia created ‘Marketing for Nice People’ last year, because everyone is so fed up with the manipulative, sleazy sales techniques that are being used. (Marketing for Nice People is no longer available unfortunately, but if you’re looking for a marketing course try the Marketing 101 – great course!)

The point of marketing is to make the customer be panting to buy the product, to be standing there with their wallet in hand throwing money at you. Not because it’s the only way to get rid of you, but because they can see how that product is going to change their life forever and THEY MUST HAVE IT NOW!!!

Pt 1, the end

After the call, when I’d calmed down reasonably, I sent a message to the business owner to let her know that the call went badly and that I hadn’t appreciated being pushed and manipulated by a hard-selling salesperson. Tomorrow I’ll show you her response, and we’ll have a chat about receiving feedback. Let me just say, her reply was even more entertaining than the cold call!

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Today’s post is reprinted with permission from Psychotactics by Sean D’Souza.  This particular article is one I keep coming back to, otherwise I’d be rewriting, re-recording and editing for ever.  Enjoy!

The 70% Principle

Have you got eleven seconds to learn a simple principle? A principle that will radically change the way you do things?

You do, don’t you?
Ok, tick, tick, tick….here’s the principle.

It’s called..um…the 70% Principle

So what’s the 70% Principle?

If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing 70% right.
You can always come back to do the 20% later.

Yes, read it again, and no, the math isn’t wrong.

If you’re going to build a website, a 70% effort is fine.
If you’re going to do a presentation a 70% effort is fine.
If you’re going to bake a cake, for that matter…do you need all the ingredients?

The perfect cake? With all the perfecto ingredients? Or the cake with ’70%’ of the ingredients?

The ‘perfect’ wording on a website? Or the ’70% perfect’ wording on the website?

And nope this isn’t a case for mediocrity

No one is telling you to do crappy stuff. No one’s saying that you need to keep your project unfinished. But in the quest for perfection, most of us never start.

The 70% principle is about getting your best effort out and into the hands of your clients. That you don’t need to start off with a 100%-kaboom-wow-start.

So let’s tell you about our ‘who pushed me?’ start in 2002

We started Psychotactics,in the year 2002, with a 16 page booklet. We called it the ‘Brain Audit.’ And indeedy-doo, it started with just 16 pages. Those 16 pages, we cheekily sold for $20 or thereabouts.

And you know what?

We weren’t trying to keep the pages down to 16 pages, but we certainly weren’t trying to pad up the contents of the book either.

The 16 pages of information were all we knew at the time. And yes, we could have made it 100% perfect, but decided to put our 70% effort out anyyay.

Did I say, put it out? I meant, I got ‘pushed’

You see, I wasn’t keen to sell the Brain Audit. I wanted to get the e-book just right. But I was forced into putting it on the market.

I was forced to putting it on a sales page, by another marketer who promised to promote the book to his audience.

And he never did promote the book

I reminded him. Gently. Then became a bit of a nag. But that promotion never, ever happened. What did happen was that the ‘Brain Audit’ began to sell.

And as it turned out, I was able to add the next 20%,
and the next 20%, and the next 20%.

And yes, the math still adds up

Because all along, that ‘so-called incomplete’ product was selling. And when you think about it, which product or service of yours is ever complete?

As your knowledge grows; as your customers ask more questions; as you apply the concepts in different ways, your product or service gets better all the time.

And today, the Brain Audit is a comprehensive document that not only helps you understand how the customer thinks, but is also the basis for being a member of 5000bc; for doing any of our courses like the copywriting course, product-creation course.

What started out as a ‘who pushed me?’ product, now helps us get thousands of customers. And helps us grow our business considerably from year to year.

Kinda like the iPod, you see

When the iPod came out at first, it was just 10GB (yeah, pathetic ten gigs).

Then it went up to 30GB. And hey, we got video too. Then whoopsy-doo, it was 60GB. And uppity up it keeps going, both in size, features and ease of use.

Where’s the market for the perfect iPod?

There’s no market for the perfect product or service. The product or service that your customers want, is the product or service you have now.

That 70%-perfect product/service, will do fine for your customer.

How can I be so sure?

Could this article have been at least 30% better?
Couldn’t I have found more examples? More case-studies? Put in more details, perhaps? Tweaked my words just so to make it richer, more vibrant?

Sure I could. But you’ve got the point, right?

If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing 70% right. You can always fix the 20% later.

©2001-2010 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Article written by Sean D’Souza.
Wouldn’t you love to stumble upon a secret library of small business ideas. Find simple, yet electrifying ideas,on website strategy, marketing strategies, copywriting, public speaking, article marketing, sales conversion, psychological tactics and branding. Head down to http://www.psychotactics.com today and judge for yourself.

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I feel so alone

At some point, pretty much every single one of my coaching client says “I feel so alone”. This aloneness, this isolation, takes a few different forms but comes down to two different causes:

You’re trying to run your business all by yourself;

You alone.

You have no one to bounce ideas off and synergise with.

Brainstorming isn’t effective when it’s just you.

You’re trying to do every single task yourself, from your core business that only you can do to your bookkeeping to your filing. Every single task.

It’s easy to get stuck in a business problem and be unable to get your head around a solution

Or

You’re not looking after yourself

You’re always working, not taking time off for your kids or partner. You know you should, but there’s so much work to be done!

You’re a single parent, which means you’re mum, dad, breadwinner, business owner, everything. The last person you have time to look after is yourself.

You’re trying to look after young children and run a business at the same time. This is why you started a home based business, right? So you could be home and look after the kids and still contribute to the family budget.

Feeling guilty about taking time off when you ‘should’ be working. There’s work to be done, and you’re the one who has to do it. How can you take a break when you can see what you need to be doing?

When you’re trying to run your business all by yourself

If you’re in the first group then the solution is relatively easy. Do any or all of the following:

Get a Business Coach.

Join a Coaching Group.

Find an online Business forum, such as Business Mums Network.

Look for someone in your industry who is willing to mentor you.

Hire a real life assistant or a VA.

Take a break to clear your head.

Become part of an online group of work at home mums, such as Mom Entrepreneurs on google groups.

When you’re not looking after yourself

Getting out from the thought patterns of the second group can be a little harder, because the best answer is to get out of the house and around other people. That takes time and effort, also it’s time away from your business.  And it’s the best thing you can do for yourself.

Where do you find the time? Something has to give, and it’s better if it’s some part of your business rather than your sanity or family. So, decide what HAS to be done by you and do it.

Streamline everything you can.

Outsource where possible.

Look for faster ways to do things.

Become more organised and streamlined in your working.

‘Batch’ your work – do emails twice a day, paperwork once a day/week, group like tasks together.

But doesn’t that take time to set up?

Yes, all of this takes time initially. You have to invest that time in order to free up time. Any task we do will expand to fill the time we have. If you have only one hour to do something that normally takes two, then you’re likely to work your butt off and get it done – in one hour.

Give yourself time off and hold that time sacred. Take time out for yourself. It doesn’t have to be a day at the spa, it doesn’t have to cost anything in money. Go for a walk or a bike ride. Leave the kids with your partner or a babysitter for a couple of hours. Bake cookies and catch up with girlfriends at someone’s house.

Make a connection

As human beings we’re designed for connectedness. We were never intended to live and work in isolation, our psyches aren’t designed to work best alone. No matter what some people will say, we ALL work better when we’re connected to others, be that on a business or personal level.

As women especially, we’re designed to congregate and socialise. Whether that’s talking with other mums about your business or your child’s latest toilet training accident, we all need and crave that connection. Denying that need starves you of emotional oxygen and slows you down.

Go out. Make a connection. Grow. Work well and profitably.

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Have you got a million ideas running around your head and need to get nail them down?

Do you know what you’re doing but have so much to do that you don’t know where to start?

Have you got several projects running at the same time and need to schedule your work so they all get the attention they deserve and none are forgotten or neglected?

Are you a Visual learner and need a way to track past, present and future tasks?

If any of these sound like you, then you need a Project Board.

So…. What’s a Project Board? It’s a large piece of cardboard, butchers paper, or similar that you use to plan and track the tasks and timeline for a project. I use Excel for mine, firstly because I find it easy to sort tasks; and secondly because my handwriting is so messy it’s the only way I can read what I have to do. I have clients who hand write it on butchers paper, whatever works best for you is great.

Once you start using a Project Board you’ll never look back. My only complaint with it is that I haven’t worked out a way to put it on my phone yet – but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

A Project Board is a simple tool to get your ideas out of your head, to provide structure and a logical sequence for all the tasks involved in a particular project. It provides an at-a-glance update on how something is going, what’s been done and what still needs to be done.

If more than one person is involved in the project then it can include Who is doing What and When.

I start with listing all the tasks required for a project on an Excel spreadsheet. It’s a huge brain dump, where everything you can think of that needs to be done is written down. Larger or complicated tasks need to be broken down into the smallest possible task. Then working backwards from the completion date, I put a date for the task to be done next to each item, and who is to complete it if that’s needed.

My spreadsheet is set out with a row at the top labelling the project and the required completion date, in very large letters.

Then the columns are organised into: Date (for the task to be done), Task, Who by, and Done (or Completed).

When I’ve listed all the tasks and put dates on them I like to leave it for a few days to think about it. There’s always something that I remember later that needs to be included, or a task that I realise has to be broken down into even smaller tasks.

When I’m ready, I use the ‘Sort Data’ function on the spreadsheet to sort the tasks in ascending date order. Have a look at them and make sure that everything is in a logical order. Check to see that there isn’t a task that HAS to have something else completed first. If there is, edit the dates, add in the task if needed, and re-sort the data.

When you’re happy with it, and certain everything is included in the correct order, print it out on the largest sheet of paper you can find. Put it on your wall where you can see it easily.

From here it’s easy to start at the top and work down through the tasks. The ‘Done’ column is there to be ticked off when the task is completed.

If you’ve got more than one project on the go then I prefer to use a separate sheet for each project. If you wanted to, you could include all the tasks together, different coloured fonts for each project, and then sort them all by date. I find this hard to tell how far a single project has progressed, although I know people who use this method.

An alternative to this would be to have a master list with the tasks for all projects and a separate sheet for each project and tick them both off as tasks are completed.

When you’ve completed the project, don’t throw away your Project Board. Add a page to it, or write on the side, how well it worked, feedback you received, what you learned and what you would do differently next time. File it away somewhere safe, and next time you need to do a similar project you have it already more than half planned.

If you’ve written it on a computer as I do, you can simply add your comments to the file and save it in a particular folder for ‘Completed Projects’. You may never use it again, but if you do then you won’t have to repeat all your work and you’ll have your feedback from the first time around.

This is my way of keeping track of tasks and projects, what do you use? What works best for you?

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Time management around kids… I can hear every mother who reads that laughing hysterically. Because when you’re a mother you know that time management and kids tend to be two things that don’t work all that well together. Every time you think you’ve got your time well planned, the kids manage to throw a spanner in the works and upset all your carefully made plans. And since I posted recently about how time can’t be managed, we’re going to look at how to use the time you have available around your kids.

In that post, I mentioned a few ways to plan your work so you were spending your available time on the highest priority tasks, however that post was based on the assumption that you had undisturbed time. Baby’s asleep, kids at school or pre-school, they’re in bed at night, etc. What do you do when you’ve got kids at home all day though? And by the time your kids are in bed, you’re a physical and mental wreck from dealing with them all day? That’s when you start doing your housework, yes?

I’m fortunate in that my daughter is at school all day, so I have seven and a half hours of peaceful bliss, alone at home, able to work relatively undisturbed all day. Lest you think that I have no idea what it’s like for other mums though, let me tell you that I didn’t always have it this easy. When I started my first business – bookkeeping – I was working three days a week, running a business from home, studying and single mum to a three year old. So when I was at home, so also was my daughter. Working around her taught me a lot, which I’m about to share with you.

1. Prioritise your work so you know what to work on first. As I mentioned in the previous post on Time Can’t be Managed, the most effective action you can take is to work on tasks of high importance.

2. There’s a sewing book that is titled “Five, Ten, Fifteen Minutes to Sew” and the premise is that you divide your sewing into tasks that will take that long to do. When you have five minutes, grab something from the five minute list and so on. This technique is brilliant for work at home mums. For those moments when you don’t have enough time to work on your high priority tasks, know what you need to do that will take only a few minutes. Or can be picked up for a few minutes and then put back down. Filing, writing lists, planning posts, can all be done in short spurts of time.

3. Plan your work around your child’s schedule. There’s no point attempting to work your kids around your business schedule. You’ll drive yourself crazy and end up with cranky kids. Know when your kids are most active, and when they’ll quiet down. Know what tasks you can do while they’re in the room – not high concentration tasks – so you can keep an eye on them while you work. If they’re crawlers, put them in a playpen with some special toys that don’t get used too often. Plan your work around their sleep and waking schedules.

4. Plan the time that you spend with your kids. Make the face-to-face time that you have with them valuable. If you have to go with Quality over Quantity then be sure it’s high quality time. Also, when you’re with your kids BE WITH THEM! Don’t spend your time with them distracted, thinking of work, or only half there. They deserve your time and full attention more than your business does.

5. Older kids can be involved in what you’re doing. Running a business from home is a great way to develop the entrepreneurial mindset in kids. Set them jobs and pay them for it. Shredding, simple filing, tidying, stuffing envelopes, kids from about age eight (depending on the child) are quite capable of simple tasks. Melissa from Business Mums Network has produced a AUD$5 report on Job Lists For Kids if you want to read more about this and get more great ideas.

6. Know your own natural rhythms. Night owl or early bird? Knowing when you do your best work is invaluable. Take a look at yourself over the next few days, when do you find it easiest to do the hard thinking work? When do you work best on tasks that require physical work like packing products? When do you need to do something that requires movement but not thinking such as filing? I know for myself, that hour between 6.00 and 7.00am is my best writing time. I get more done then, and better quality, than at any other time of the day.

7. Include school holidays in your business calendar. Know in advance if you’re going to send them to holiday care, have them home, or at a friends house. Schedule your own work around that, and do as much in advance as you can. Alternatively, I know a couple of work at home moms who simply take the school holidays off work. If you can afford it then this can be a great solution. I cut down my work days during the holidays, so I work less days and shorter days. Find a balance that works for you.

8. Recognise that there are going to be days that just go totally cattawumpus. The kids are sick, the washing machine floods the laundry (and hallway and bedroom – yes, really), your husband has a day off unexpectedly and wants to spend it with you, one of the pets has to go to the vet (happened here yesterday and ruined my entire day). There are going to be days when life just smacks you upside the head. If you had an office job you’d take the day off and forget about work. Just because we work at home, for some reason we try and keep on with business as usual. Give yourself permission to take the day off when you need to.

9. Turn your answering machine on to pick up calls when the kids are around. You’re a professional, it’s just that your office is at home. When the little darlings are crying, playing, or talking, you can’t hear nor concentrate well to talk to a client on the phone. And we all know how as soon as we’re on the phone the kids get louder and try to get our attention. Save your sanity and look professional at the same time. Turn on your answering machine and return calls when you’re alone.

10. Be realistic about how much time you have to work with. I’ve said it before and I have no doubt I’ll say it again many times over. Know how much time you really have to fill with work. If you don’t have enough time then something has to change. Generally work at home moms tend to give up sleeping first, or time with their partners. Both of these have very bad consequences. Sleep attrition makes everyday life so much harder to handle, and divorce is a horrible thing to go through. Your family has to come first, know how much time you have to work with and keep it in sensible perspective to your family.

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Last Friday I attended an ICF Coaches networking meeting. There were about twelve of us there and we all had a great time, except for when I discovered that someone had mistakenly picked up my notebook and taken it home with her. Oops…

And that’s why you’re reading this post now rather than last week – my notebook has all my mindmaps and notes that I use when writing posts in it and I wasn’t able to get it back until yesterday. The lesson in that is to always make sure your notebook looks different to everyone else’s, or at the very least has your name and phone number in it…

Moving right along… one of the things that was shared at the meeting was a great tool that one of the Coaches (coincidently the same one who stole picked up my notebook) shared with the rest of us. I thought it was great, and so I’m now sharing it with all of you.

The tool is called “Above the line or below it” Have a look at the diagram below:

Above the line are three words : Ownership, Accept and Responsibility. Taking ownership, accepting and taking responsibility for your attitude and actions.

Below the line are another three words: Blame, Excuses and Denial. Not taking responsibility, not accepting your responsibilities and actions, and blaming others.

Above the line is OAR – the mindset of champions – Row your boat where YOU want it to go.

Below the line is BED – the victim mentality – Make your bed and lie in it.

Next time something happens to you, ask yourself: Am I above the line or below it?

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It’s August. New month = new goals. As business owners we all have ‘business goals’ but how many of you have those goals written in an emotionally compelling way, and how often do you revisit them and think about those goals? If you’re like the majority of business owners, then the answer is ‘not much’.

A lot of the time, the reason we don’t revisit goals or think about them is because they’re too far off, too big and scary or too vague. We want to earn $150K, however we know that that is still a year or two away, and so our focus is distracted by the gap between then and now.

Tei over at Men With Pens wrote a post recently about setting stupid-small goals on the way to achieving the scarily huge stuff. Like getting just one more subscriber on your list, or being hired by just one person. That’s how far you may need to break down the big goals – not so scary you can’t do them, but not comfortable either.

The other thing about goals is that often they’re written down (you DO write your goals down, don’t you???) as a simple short statement. Now tell me, what’s compelling and interesting about a simple short statement? That short simple statement may well be a real goal, however if there’s no emotional involvement in it then you’re not going to achieve it.

We’ve all been given some great talents to help us achieve our goals. One of the best tools, that we all have and we all use to some degree or another, is our subconscious. (here’s where I go all Life Coach-ey on you, stay with me, it totally relates to your business) Within coaching circles the subconscious is mentioned a LOT within the context of Life Coaching, however it’s curiously absent in the business field. And that’s crazy, because it’s so important.

Most people have heard about SMART goals, which is an acronym for:

Specific
Measureable
Attainable
Realistic
Timed

I personally prefer a slightly more in-depth version, called SMARTIE goals, where the last two letters stand for Inspirational and Emotional. The more inspiration and emotion behind your goal, the stronger the drive will be for your subconscious to work towards achieving that goal.

Inspirational – In life we do things for one of three reasons; to avoid pain, to gain pleasure or because we are inspired and motivated. To be inspired is to be living your dreams, to be aligned with our own inner values and loves. You will be motivated towards that goal. Ask yourself “How attractive is that goal to me?” Your answer should be “very” and you should also be able to explain what it is about it that you find so attractive and inspirational.

Emotional – Emotion creates motion and action. Consider how your goal will make you feel, and write that down into your goal. Imagine feeling that you’ve achieved your goal, feel the sense of achievement, the pride in having done it, as well as how you will feel when you’ve got that goal.

It’s the beginning of August. What goals are you going to set, both bit and stupid-small, to achieve by the end of this month?

For me, I’m looking at taking on 2-3 new clients, writing out a current marketing plan, write and run a workshop here in Canberra (may not be run until Sep), and pre-launch an info product that I’ve been working on (want to get it at a discount? Sign up for our VIP list to be notified when it’s released).

All these goals tie into my bigger business goals, they’re all written in my diary with a short paragraph for each goal. Each one have been checked against the SMARTIE requirements. Each goal is looked at every workday morning to keep it fresh and motivated in my mind.

What are your goals for this month? Leave a comment and share your August goals with us!

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The hardest part of dealing with overwhelm is realising we’re in it and being able to get out before everything collapses into total disaster around us. Often we know we’re feeling overwhelmed – and for most of us it’s something small that is the final straw – however we’re also overwhelmed with trying to work out how to get out of it. Which adds to the overwhelmed feeling, makes us feel worse, makes it harder to try and work out how to get out of it… and we can all see the downward spiral from there.

There’s two issues involved here. Either you have way too much to do, or you don’t have enough time. Normally it’s a mixture of both. You need to work out how much time you have available, and what needs doing the most in that time frame. Then you have to decide what is to be done, delayed, delegated or dropped. The four D’s.

Here’s what you need to do the next time you feel that familiar feeling creeping up:

(don’t skip any of these steps, even if you think they’re unimportant. They’re not. Every step here has been tried and tested and this is what the majority of people have found works best)

Stop what you’re doing, close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths.

Go for a short walk, just five to ten minutes, to get a mental break and a little physical distance. Try to make it a brisk walk and get your blood moving and your heart beating a bit faster. (Truly, try it.)

Have a drink of water and then grab a pen and paper.

Write down everything you need to do. Forget about any order or logic, just get everything out of your head and onto paper. Name it and Tame it. Writing things down captures them and frees up space in your mind that can be used to work out how to do it all.

Is it a huge list of things that need to be done? Don’t panic. Take a few more deep breaths and go for another walk if you need to. It’s only a five to ten minute walk. Relax, if you’re still feeling overwhelmed then it’s likely you wouldn’t be using this time anyway. Take the time to calm yourself and get organised and you can use your time better.

Have a look at the list and work out what needs to be done first. “Everything” I hear you cry. Well, I have bad news for you. ‘Everything’ can’t be done at once. Not possible. Have another look. What needs to be done the most? What will have the biggest effect? What affects most people?

Take another four sheets of paper and title them respectively Do, Delay, Delegate, Drop. Then go through your list and put each item on your list on one of the sheets of paper. Resist the temptation to put everything on the Do and Delay lists. SOME THINGS ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BE DELEGATED OR DROPPED! You only have 24 hours in one day, something has to give and it’s better to be a few tasks rather than your sanity or your family.

With the delay list, put a rough time of when you expect to get to that task. And no, they can’t all be labelled ‘Tomorrow’. Be realistic. If you only have six working hours in a day then you can’t fill them with ten hours of work.

The second to last step is to begin working on your most important task on your Do list, and keep going until you have everything done. Hand over everything on your delegate list. Tear up and throw away your Drop list – you don’t need it because those tasks aren’t going to be done.

The very last step, once you’ve recovered sufficiently to have some form of balance back in your workload, is to look at WHY you became so overwhelmed. Are you taking on too much? Are you trying to do everything yourself? Is your middle name Superwoman? Was it a one-off because of outside influences? Is your business growing to the point you need to hire staff? Are your processes working or do they need to be looked at and changed? Do you need to automate some processes for your business?

Whatever the reason is, you need to work out how to prevent it happening again. Living permanently in a state of overwhelm and stress is not healthy for you, your business or your family.