Defining What to Stop, What to Start, and What’s Possible for 2010

This month on Startup Princess we’re focusing on PLANNING: How to Plan EVERYTHING, so you’re equipped to Make LOTS of Wishes and Make them Happen in 2010. Watch for lots of posts in our Startup & Grow and Life Balance categories on the subject. Here’s my personal strategy for how I define what to stop, what to start, and what’s possible. Read more

Use 15 Minutes Every Day to Grow Your Business

Fairy Godmother Erika Wilde of highly successful drop-shipping floormat business (featured in Real Simple last year!) Stop Dirt, writes: As a kind-of early New Years resolution to myself, I started last fall to dedicate 15 minutes a day to “pro-active” work on my business.

I spend hours every day taking care of the business “must do’s” that are time sensitive. With the demands of kids, church and the lure of my other hobbies, I found myself working only “in the business” and not working “on the business.” I was not spending enough time proactively growing my business.

So I committed myself to 15 minutes a day, dedicated solely to proactive work on my business. Not re-active work like answering emails, processing orders, or making price quotes. But proactive work on new projects that will expanding my existing business.

Many days my 15 minutes turn into an hour. But other days, when my patience and energy is thin, I tell myself, “It’s only 15 minutes.”

Here’s how I’ve made it work:

1.    Throw every plan, task, dream or scheme into a master list. And I mean everything. If an idea pops into your mind, add it to the list.
2.    Break each item on the master list into manageable 15 minutes jobs.
3.    Each day, pull up your list and choose a project.
4.    Let a larger task remain unfinished. There is always 15 minutes tomorrow.
5.    Don’t go to sleep until the 15 minutes are done.

Here is an example pro-active tasks I’ve done on 15 minutes a day:

1.    Research one competitor’s web site and product line.
2.    Make one extra phone call.
3.    Look at the day’s web analytics and compare to the previous week.
4.    Write one more “FAQ” or short article for my website.
5.    Update or “freshen up” one page on my website.
6.    Edit one photograph to make it work better online.
7.    Email one supplier with a quick thank you note.
8.    Solicit a couple of repeat customers for product reviews.
9.    Search online for one related product to add to my line.
10.  Start work on a press release.
11.  Add internal web links on keywords in one article.

Then there are the really big items on my to-do list like, “Make new color chart for Classic Carpet mats” and “Re-build Grand Impressions logo mat page,” which will take at least an hour. So I tackle that project on a night when I have more than 15 minutes to devote.

It’s been amazing what a big dent I’ve made in my very, very long to-do list with only 15 minutes a day. With just 15 minutes a day, I find myself being more inventive, more motivated and more receptive to flashes of business inspiration.

Schedule an Appointment with Yourself and Your Favorite Cafe for Business Reflection and Fun

Today’s Post was written by Fairy Godmother Laura West of Center for Joyful Business

One of my favorite life pleasures….Creative Bagel Time!

Each morning I head out to a cafe somewhere nearby and start my day with a bit of reflection time, which I call Creative Bagel Time (cbt for short). It has become a life changing and business enhancing structure for me. Read more

How to Find the “Sweet Spot” in Your Business

Imagine the feeling of having everything in your business flow easily, effortless and abundantly…. where your ideal clients are happy to pay you for your products and services and Read more

When Life Has Other Plans-Is Your Business in Order in Case of an Emergency?

Fairy Godmother Laura West of Center for Joyful Business writes today’s post:

Well, I started off 2008 very excited and pumped about the new year, new plans…new possibilities. I kicked off the New Year with a Business Planning Retreat with my friend and colleague, Wendy Watkins of PassionFruit People Growers. We went to the beautiful mountains in North Carolina and holed up in a luxury timber home – spoiled ourselves while we marinated, planned, brainstormed, calendared, blew up, and blew out plans for 2008. Talk about coming back and being revved to go!

Well, my intention was that I would be writing you a blog entry about our retreat, what we did, how we did it, etc…and give you some ideas and inspiration for your own.

Life had other plans.

Within two days of returning I had a high fever and severe abdominal pains, my Dr. sent me directly to a surgeon who put me in the hospital. Long story short…two and 1/2 days in the hospital, fortunately no surgery, just dehydration and eventually they discovered a lung infection. Sent home with antibiotics and an order for lots of rest.

Hmm, this wasn’t how I planned to spend the kick off month! Right now I would be in Las Vegas with David Neagle, at his workshop, “Experiencing the Reality of Success”. Cancel plans.

I like to look at these life turns and see what arises for a message. What is my body trying to tell me? My biggest question that keeps arising is “Am I fully en-joying life while I grown my business?”. I absolutely love my work and the amazing people I work with. It fills me up creatively and provides lots of stimulating, creative conversation. But what about personally? It’s had me tweak my calendar and add in some time for massage and spa time and also I’m looking at taking some personal fun & creative classes. I think life gives us these little wake-up calls to see if we are paying attention!

It also had me thinking about my business emergency plans. I needed to call and let clients know, rearrange teleclass plans, change cafe conversations, etc…at one point I even was talking my 10 year son through writing an email to a client so she would know I wouldn’t be on the call.

It’s inspired me to create – or start creating since I’m still recuperating – some back up plans.

Here’s a few of my ideas (please feel free to comment and add your suggestions):

1. Keep my Virtual Assistant up to speed with all current clients and contacts (or even better share my calendar) so she can contact them in one fell swoop.

2. Give my husband my Virtual Assistant’s contact information so if anything really traumatic should happen he can talk with her and keep folks up to date.

3. Get that new SmartPhone so I can have up to date contact information instead of having to call people to call other people. (obviously wouldn’t worry about this in a life or death situation, but in minor emergencies it streamlines a lot of effort)

4. I also spoke with my VA about updating our Policies and Procedures Manual. What if the emergency isn’t with me? She lives in Colorado and we sometimes joke about if a “bear gets her” what do I do. (Not that we are sending any intention or energy there, but she did have a close call last summer) My Policy and Procedures Manualoutlines all my online programs – the how’s of how to log-in, where we keep things, passwords, access codes, explains the different client lists, products, etc… Ours is out of date since we have grown so much over the last year so we are planning time to update.

All of these are just in case. Then I can rest comfortably knowing that my clients and readers would be taken care of and that I could take care of things if my support gets in a crisis.

How about you? What are your Emergency Back-up Plans?

En-joy!

Laura

Do You Ever Get Frustrated by Your Startup?

I do!! Bah Humbug! I sound like Scrooge, sorry! I ask this question because I can’t be the only entrepreneur out there hitting my head against the wall trying to move to the next stage, unsure what that stage should be! Today I’m frustrated by our darn business model (revenue stream). I know we’re getting close to figuring it out so I’m trying to be positive that there’s a way I can make full-time income for myself and my partners here while serving women entrepreneurs… What’s frustrating is that it seems I can easily figure everyone else’s strategy but my own. It’s always more challenging to look within!

For the past few weeks we’ve been in research mode. Peter Tennis, our strategic advisor has us doing a lot of research and it’s been very helpful to consider the possible business structures, “non-profit”, “paid-membership organization”, “professional organization”, “franchise”… we’re going through each scenario and asking the questions so we can identify which is the best fit for us. We’re also doing branding and marketing research.

Another thing we’re doing is requesting members to participate in a survey. (I realize it’s a very busy time to ask people to participate, but if you could take a moment and help us out…here’s the survey link. Bless you!!!) The survey results tells us what our members want from our community and how we can serve them better. So far the request for more networking is high (online forum, contact me email buttons on profile pages) and also a weekly podcast has been popular. It’s great to get feedback so we know what your experience has been and what your needs and interests are.

I’m excited to evaluate our survey results, our research, and create our action plan, so we can start 2008 with a solid focus and enjoy business because we’re clear about what we want and where we’re headed.

Today’s Magic Wand: Be honest. What frustrates you about your startup? Consider an action plan so you can move ahead and start loving your startup again. What a great Christmas present to yourself!