5 Ways to Take Back Your Power With Awareness

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Jan Moore

More and more people are feeling powerless today in the face of all the bad news in the media, the economic situation, world conflict, the politics and so on. When we feel powerless and out of control of our lives it affects us on many different levels – we get stressed, our relationships suffer, we lack energy, we get scared about the future, our health can suffer, we get depressed, angry and overwhelmed. Does that sound familiar?

Well, you’re not alone and we’re here to help you with the solution to all that and it starts with Awareness.

Our lives have got so busy these days – running as fast as we can just to stay in the same place. We need a way to slow things down so that we control our circumstances instead of finding ourselves in situations we don’t want and don’t like.

Awareness is one of the most powerful tools we can use to Take Back our Power. It works on many levels but today we’re going to look at 5 ways you can start the process of regaining control and moving along the path to the life you want to live.

Start by taking some time to take a deep breath, slow everything down, calm yourself and relax so you can get a proper perspective on life. Raise your head and look around. Become an acute observer.

Awareness is important on many levels, from the general to the specific, awareness outside yourself and within yourself, awareness of people and situations, awareness of your emotions, feelings and sensations, awareness of the messages that are being transmitted to you, awareness that everyone has their own perspective and that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

Taking Back Your Power means making conscious choices to take action in a way that creates a positive outcome. Each level of awareness adds power to your choices.

So, here are the 5 ways you can use awareness to make you a more powerful person:

1. Be Aware of Yourself.

Get to know the real you. Review your life experience and list your strengths, skills and talents. Then be honest with yourself about your weaknesses – we all have them!

Your life is shaped by your belief system, which is the product of your upbringing, social influences, education and life experience. Make a list of your beliefs, especially those that influence your behavior. Try and identify any negative beliefs about yourself as it is your limiting beliefs that stop you from achieving your goal and limit your potential.

Being empowered means you have confidence in yourself, appreciate your strengths and accept your weaknesses. Do these exercises at home by yourself and really spend some time discovering who you really are and how you can improve yourself.

2. Be Aware of Your Feelings

Pay attention to your feelings and emotions and observe them with detachment. If you feel angry, annoyed, upset or experience any other negative emotions, acknowledge the emotion, and ask yourself why you feel that way. Think about what you need to do to resolve the situation that has caused you to feel that way. This enables you to make decisions and take effective action while being in control of your emotions, rather than your emotions controlling you so you achieve the outcome you want.

Being aware of your feelings also enables you to tap into your intuition – how you feel about something is an indication of whether something is right for you or not. As you start to pay attention to your intuition and trust it, you’ll find you’ll become more intuitive just by using it – as you would with any skill.

3. Be Aware of Other People

Observe the people around you – your spouse or partner, your friends and family – how do they make you feel. Are your relationships positive, supportive, and bring you joy, or are they negative, destructive and drain you of energy? The people around you can have a profound effect on your energy and your attitude to life, the level of your ambitions and your ability to achieve them. Surround yourself with positive, supportive people. Be selective about who you befriend – quality is better than quantity – and nurture relationships with people who have a positive attitude to life as well as similar interests.

How do you respond to other people? Do you have a short temper and find it difficult to control your anger? Do you give your power away by reacting emotionally and losing your cool? Do you give support to others or do you constantly try to undermine other people and prove you’re better than they are? Ask yourself why you feel that way and if it hides an underlying insecurity and lack of self-confidence. Be honest with yourself and make a commitment to tackling those underlying issues and investing in the right relationships that are mutually supportive.

4. Be Aware of Your Situation

Where are you now and where do you want to be? Are you satisfied with your level of achievement? Are you lacking direction? What aspects of your life would you like to improve? Spend some time writing down your goals and dreams and describe them in detail.

Do you take responsibility for your current situation or do you blame other people or circumstances? Victims blame their environment, the state of the economy, anything or anyone but themselves for their circumstances. Victors take full responsibility for their circumstances and take action to change what they aren’t satisfied with.

5. Be Aware of Your Environment

“No man is an island” – a quote from John Donne’s poetry, meaning that no-one acts in isolation unaffected by their environment. We are working within society, our culture, our immediate family, friends and relatives, and the political and economic system. We need to be aware of the conditions we are working in so that we can take advantage of opportunities and take appropriate action to avoid being affected by adverse conditions. This is a very different approach from that of the victim we mentioned above. There are numerous stories of people who become very successful during recessions and depressions, for example. Compare that to those who focus on the problems rather than looking for opportunities.

Awareness of your environment means you can take positive action based on conscious choices. Ignoring conditions because they are negative makes you powerless to act and prevent them from harming you or causing problems for you. If you turn your back on a train speeding towards you it will run you down – face it and you can see it coming and move out of its way. Being aware of what is happening in the world around you gives you the power to act – knowledge is power, applied knowledge makes you powerful.

You can read more about these aspects of awareness in our latest book ‘Take Back Your Power – How to Survive and Prosper Through the 2012 Shift’ available at http://www.successfrequency.com/take-back-your-power.html.

You can also listen to our Blog Talk Radio Show on the subject of Awareness.

Listen to internet radio with Take Back Your Power on Blog Talk Radio

Be Sociable, Share!

Jan Moore

Jan Moore teaches people how to take back their power and become 'forever powerful'. She is the creator of the Consciousness Code and The Success Equation, a simple process which empowers you to achieve your goals so you achieve lifelong freedom, fulfillment and happiness. To find out more about how The Success Equation can change your life and your business, sign up for our FREE newsletter with inspirations, ideas and updates.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

Why Motivational Products Can Reinforce Failure (Part 2)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Jan Moore

In Part 1 I explained how motivational and self-help products can reinforce failure – opposite to the effect they are meant to create

Lasting success is dependent on 3 critical elements, that are as simple as abc:

Action
Belief
Commitment

Of these three elements, only Action originates from the conscious mind – Belief and Commitment both originate in the subconscious mind and the ability to take action effectively and persistently depends on those other two elements.

As I explained in part 1, Motivation stimulates the conscious mind and its effects are only temporary so when the euphoria wears off and the old habits take over, it makes you feel even more of a failure because your life still hasn’t changed even after this latest ‘secret’ to success.

Transformation

Transformation occurs when you reprogram your subconscious mind to replace negative self-sabotaging beliefs with positive supporting beliefs that propel you forward to success.

Without transformation you continue to suffer the symptoms of your negative beliefs such as procrastination, lack of focus, discouragement, causing you to give up on your goals when the inevitable challenges crop up.

Self-help experts agree that it is our self-doubt, lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence and so on that get in the way of our success, yet few have a method of accessing those subconscious beliefs and changing them.

The method we teach in the Success Equation is a 100% effective method of reprogramming your beliefs, and it is one you can learn to use yourself.

The added advantage of the Success Equation method is that it not only reprograms your existing beliefs, it also provides immunity against the creation of new negative beliefs, and instills the positive mindset you need to carry out empowered actions to achieve your goals.

Identify & Change Your Beliefs

So your first job is to identify the negative beliefs that are holding you back. You can do this one by one, identifying them as they arise and then deal with them on the spot. The other way is to tackle them all at once. Think back over your life history and recall situations that left you with bad memories – incidents you associate with unpleasant emotions when you felt humiliated, stupid or embarrassed. It’s best to write them down so you can express them fully and review them one by one.

When we work with our mentoring clients we use both approaches. We start by getting you to write your life story, concentrating on the memories that have emotional significance for you. Then we work through each situation using Awareness and the Power of Neutrality to look at different interpretations of the same situation. This not only gives a positive view of that situation but we also identify positive qualities that you have overlooked. The result is that we replace the negative interpretation with a positive one, turning your negative belief into a positive one, reinforced by the new positive qualities we’ve uncovered.

Any issues that haven’t been uncovered in your life story are addressed as we work with you, week by week, over the course of the mentoring program.

Hey presto, the outcome is a new ‘empowered you’ with self-confidence, high self-esteem and self-belief that is not only sustainable but continually reinforced by using the same techniques of Awareness and the Power of Neutrality in your day to day life.

Be Sociable, Share!

Jan Moore

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

Where is the love? (and not just for Valentine’s Day)

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Jan Moore

I was very moved when I watched this video about what is really going on in the world we live in – the death, the destruction, the hatred and deception that is dominating our current global reality.

On 14th February millions bought into the commercialism of Valentine’s Day while we have lost sight of what love really is. Romantic love is meaningless when we don’t love ourselves, our fellow humans or our planet.

We have been brainwashed from birth to believe in an illusion that has been constructed to put us in fear and to dis-empower us so we lose control of our life and allow ourselves to be manipulated through fear and greed.

Anyone here remember being under our school desks while the civil defense sirens wailed and teachers cried… here in America that was the Cuban Missile Crisis… in many countries that is the last thing the children hear before they die from the bombs while the fat cats shove another wad of money in their pocket!

The worst is yet to come as the collapse of the dollar and World War 3 become the next strategies for justifying the removal of our freedom, mass reductions of the population and the imposition of martial law, with people meekly complying out of the misplaced belief that they are being protected by the very people who are the cause of these man-made disasters.

Some of you may choose not to believe this – it is too far from your perception of the ‘real’ world to be true. Unfortunately, that’s what the Jews in the ghettos of Warsaw and Krakow believed before they were shipped off in cattle wagons to the gas chambers.

Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement have said that the streets of New York have become like Nazi Germany when peaceful citizens are not allowed to pass without showing their ID cards and infiltrators incite violence to discredit peaceful protesters and justify police brutality.

So, in the light of all this, what can we do? What does ‘success’ mean in this context? Does it have any meaning at all?

Success has become synonymous with money, which is how we have become slaves to the system. Look at the misery of many so-called successful people – fame and fortune has become our holy grail and yet it claims so many victims who sink into self-destruction. The latest unfortunate victim is Whitney Houston who sadly died on Saturday at only 48 after a tragically short life of fame, fortune and substance abuse.

In my book, success is about courage, empowerment, responsibility, self-control, fulfillment, happiness, being true to who you really are and making a positive contribution to the world. It is about being conscious – aware of what is happening in the world and giving a sh–… it is about having the guts to say enough is enough and boycotting the system that is driving this fear and greed agenda… It is about realizing when attempts are made to manipulate you emotionally and remaining immune by staying in control of your life. Standing firm. Doing what you believe is right.

If you’d like to know more about our version of success, that brings you inner strength, empowerment, self-control, courage and the ability to stay that way in the midst of turmoil, able to make conscious choices that benefit others as well as yourself, then please join us for our free teleseminar on Thursday 16th February at 8pm CST. Register at http://www.successfrequency.com/webinars.htm

When we commit to making you successful for life, able to deal with anything that life throws at you, we mean it.

Be Sociable, Share!

Jan Moore

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

Why Motivational Products Can Reinforce Failure (Part 1)

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Jan Moore

In a previous post I talked about personal development junkies and how people get hooked on looking for the next silver bullet that is going to be the sure-fire route to their success. They’re on a roller coaster ride of highs and lows as they become serial consumers of self-help and personal development products that fail to deliver the successful outcome they are searching for. The story is the same regardless of the area of life they want to improve – career, business, relationships, money, health etc.

Not only do these products (seminars, books, courses, coaching) fail to deliver the desired results, but they actually set us up to fail even more!

Why? Because they are motivational not transformational.

Let me explain.

Our present circumstances are the product of our subconscious belief system.

(Note: Here the terms subconscious and unconscious are interchangeable. Personally I prefer the term subconscious from the Latin word ‘sub’ meaning beneath. Like an iceberg, the subconscious is below the surface and represents 90% of our mind power – far more than the conscious mind which is like the tip of the iceberg.)

Our Subconscious Programming

From the day you were born you have been programmed in a way that completely strips your power away. Most people are brought up using negative reinforcement – in other words you are punished if you do something wrong – rather than positive reinforcement which praises you when you do well. Even if your parents approached your upbringing in a positive way, the school system operates to create subservience, conformity and obedience.

We build our self-image based on our experience. So, if we repeatedly hear bad boy/girl, stupid boy/girl, you’ll never (fill in the gaps), you’re not good enough to (fill in the gaps again) and more negative remarks, we start to believe what we hear as the truth. So our subconscious mind is programmed with negative self-beliefs and we develop low self-esteem and self-doubt and create exactly what we believe in – our own mediocrity.

Our upbringing and the school system label us as smart or stupid. Is it any wonder that the most successful people didn’t finish school but left the school system as soon as they could?

So, if our present circumstances are the product of our subconscious belief system, it follows that to change our circumstances we have to change our subconscious beliefs. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

The Conscious/Subconscious Mind

Here is a diagram showing the different functions of the conscious and subconscious (or unconscious ) mind. The conscious mind is where we do our planning, make decisions, and where our will power lives. Now look at what the unconscious mind controls – habits & patterns, long-term memory, emotions, creativity and our protective mechanism. Our conscious thoughts bubble up from our unconscious mind, the product of our long-term memory, our established habits and patterns and our self-protection. That is why our head fills with negative thoughts when we try to step outside our comfort zone – ‘danger, that’s hard, I can’t do that, I’m not good enough’.

The problem with motivation is that it only works on stimulating the conscious mind. You go to a motivational event, you get fired up to set goals, take action, be like the motivational speaker. What you also hear is the message that not setting goals and taking action is being a loser. At the time, you are determined you’re going to do everything the motivational guru tells you. Then you get back home, and within no time you’ve slipped back into the normal routine because your subconscious still believes you’re not good enough, its too hard, they can do it but you can’t. Plus, the old patterns of behavior are firmly established while the new intentions have got little more than a toe-hold and it takes a lot of conscious will-power to replace the old habits, which most people don’t have. The trouble is that you’ve now labeled yourself as a loser and reaffirmed your negative self-belief because that’s what the guru labelled the people who don’t follow through, take action and achieve success!

It works like a shot of illegal stimulants – you get a temporary high and then the crash takes you lower than when you started.

Become Self-Motivated

Now don’t get me wrong, we all need motivation to get us moving towards our goals. But, think about how you would describe yourself in your resume if you were applying for a job. You would describe yourself as self-motivated, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t say I need daily doses of motivation from someone else. That would immediately move you to the bottom of the pile!

So, to change our circumstances we need to change our subconscious belief system. How do we do that?

First of all we have to identify our beliefs, and then we need to ‘transform’ them from negative beliefs into positive beliefs so we become truly self-motivated and capable of taking empowered action.

I’ll be telling you how we do that with The Success Equation™ in Part 2.

Be Sociable, Share!

Jan Moore

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

Structuring Business Creativity For Maximum Profit

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Bill Moore

That Statement Is More Than A Mouthful…

but you need to chew on it because it will make you money!

Creativity is far more than learning to finger paint in Kindergarten.

Business Creativity creates profits and causes lives and businesses to thrive and become exciting.

Creativity even saves lives!

About 30 years ago (or more) I adapted a phrase that graced my letterhead and evolved onto my earlier web pages as well. That phrase was ‘Looking Beyond The Obvious‘ and that phrase (and concept) are still with me today partly thanks to my CCIM (Commercial Real Estate) instructor who was so creative that he had managed to put together a 28 way exchange in the Real Estate business. That means he had 28 different clients and 28 different pieces of Real Estate being traded back and forth. I will never forget him saying ‘the best part of that exchange was getting paid 28 times‘!

How many of you would like to be paid 28 times (or more) by any given customer who would only normally buy once? If everyone who is in business and reading this does not hold up your hand and agree, get your keys out now and lock the door because you should not be an entrepreneur. Okay, maybe you were conservative and wanted to see where I was going with this before committing, but if you did wait, you need to get over that hesitation (remember – Ready, Fire, Aim).

STOP SELLING – GIVE IT AWAY!

When you start ‘Looking Beyond The Obvious‘ (meaning being creative, in this context) you will find that, as in all manifestation, you will attract more and more creative ideas and actions. Let’s think of an example together… I’ll go first. Let’s say that I own a coffee shop and I want to sell more product so knowing that a cup of coffee costs me 4.8 cents to make and it sells for $2.49 how do I get more people in to buy more coffee….

First (and obvious) thing is to make sure the coffee is really good but, looking beyond the obvious, I realize that to sell more I need to stop selling coffee. That is right! Stop selling it and give out coupons for a free cup of coffee with those fantastic muffins we also sell at $2.49!

“Whoa”, you say, but the muffins cost 24.3 cents to make! That makes no sense! However, it does make sense because once you have lured the customer in and they know the muffins and coffee are great they will come back. More importantly, when they pop in next time to pick up a coffee and the well trained staff upsell asking “would you like a tasty muffin with that?”, they will recall how good the muffin was and buy both... again and again!

There is an endless number of creative ideas for your business and the more you come up with, the more you will come up with, so start thinking now! That is the key: think (creatively)!

By the way, when you think of the word think (in a customer service context) look at it this way:

Take Her (or him) Into (a) New Kingdom! After all, most of us have heard the saying that the customer is king… what good is being king without a kingdom (wink).

Be Sociable, Share!

Bill Moore

Bill Moore works with business leaders to build exceptional teams, deliver first class customer service and achieve major sales growth resulting in increases of 40% or more in gross profits. To find out more about how the Success Frequency Business Program can change your business (and your own life), sign up for our FREE newsletter with inspiration, ideas and updates or contact us for a free consultation.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

Are You A Personal Development Junkie?

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Jan Moore

You buy all the latest books, you watch the videos, you go to all the guru’s seminars. You’re hooked!

Valued at $11 billion in 2010 and predicted to grow by 6.2% each year, the self-help industry is one of the few markets that is still growing despite the downturn in the economy.

Why? In stressful times, more and more people are looking for ways to make themselves feel better – they’re looking for hope. If you ‘borrow’ your self-esteem from external factors – the size of your house, your car, the latest gadget, your job, your ability to spend and consume (based on your disposable income) - it means that when those things are at risk, or lost, the level of your fear and anxiety increases dramatically.

The root of the problem is a dependency on ‘stuff’ to represent your value as a person. As our economy collapses so does our self-worth, because it is based on ‘net worth’ – what we own, not who we are. The only lasting way to ‘feel better’ is to let go of attachment to material things and to believe in yourself regardless of what you earn or own.

The statistics for the growing self-help market indicate that the majority of people don’t find the answer in the books they read, the movies they watch and the seminars they attend, or they don’t implement what they learn to achieve lasting change.

The reason the success rate is so low is that you must have self-discipline and commitment to change, because you not only have to learn new ways of thinking and behaving but you also have to undo the old persistent behaviors, deeply embedded in your subconscious and linked to your belief system.

Sadly, many providers of self-help products have a vested interest in perpetuating this problem to maintain and increase their market.

One purveyor of high-end life-coaching services (who, for obvious reasons, wished to remain anonymous) has been reported as saying, “In our line of business, we have a saying: ‘Don’t fix the client.’” In other words, if you fix the client you lose the potential for further sales. (There is a flaw in this argument though, as we’ve found from clients who have come to us from ‘famous name’ coaching programs. Sooner or later people get fed up when they realize they aren’t getting the results they want and that their coach has no real interest in them other than as a source of revenue.)

So, like the drug addict, self-help consumers get a quick fix from the latest personal development product or service but when the ‘high’ wears off, they’re hooked on finding the next ‘silver bullet’ that will change their life. But like the drug addict, the most effective way to kick the habit is to go through rehabilitation to fix the underlying cause, otherwise the likelihood of relapse is extremely high.

Now I’m not suggesting that anyone will get to a point where they no longer need any kind of personal development as I believe learning is a life-long activity, but it should be progressive; not repeatedly looking for a solution to the same problem.

The most effective way of creating lasting change is to be made accountable for your actions, and to be supported in what you are trying to achieve.

In a survey by the International Coaching Federation, 98.5% of coaching clients said their investment in a coach was well worth the money, and the outcomes that clients most often attribute to their coaching include:

A higher level of self-awareness: 67.6%
Smarter goal-setting: 62.4%
A more balanced life: 60.5%
Lower stress levels: 57.1%
Self-discovery: 52.9%
More self-confidence: 52.4%
Improvement in quality of life: 43.3%
Enhanced communication skills: 39.5%
Project completion: 35.7%
Health or fitness improvement: 33.8%
Better relationships with boss or co-workers: 33.3%
Better family relationships: 33.3%
Increased energy: 31.9%
More fun: 31.9%
More income: 25.7%
Stopped a bad habit: 25.7%
Change in career: 24.3%
More free time: 22.9%
Increased profitability of business: 17.1%
Started new business: 12.9%
Empowered employees: 11.0%

However, I believe that coaching doesn’t go far enough in achieving lasting transformation because of its basic principles. It focuses on drawing out what is already there rather than adding to a person’s knowledge and understanding, so fails to deliver the benefit of valuable wisdom, knowledge and experience. I have even heard one coach say that they are not allowed to build a relationship with their client. Unless you develop a trusting relationship with your clients they won’t feel comfortable being totally honest about their experiences and feelings which is essential if you’re to get to the root of their problems and resolve them.

Often when people are struggling with their issues, they ‘don’t know what they don’t know’ and can’t find the solution themselves. Having someone with the knowledge and experience to guide them to understanding and self-realization not only speeds up the process but also makes them feel better knowing that other people have been through similar issues too, and resolved them.

Matt M. Starcevich, Ph.D., CEO Center For Coaching & Mentoring, Inc conducted a survey on the differences between a coach and a mentor. The survey found that ”Mentors in either a formal mentoring program or informal relationship focus on the person, their career and support for individual growth and maturity while the coach is job-focused and performance oriented” and “In summary, the mentor has a deep personal interest, personally involved—a friend who cares about you and your long term development. The coach develops specific skills for the task, challenges and performance expectations.”

In other words, a coach is focused on taking action and achieving current goals. But if a person is unable to take effective action because of their subconscious beliefs or emotional issues (which in our experience is the most common problem) coaching will not help them.

So what’s the solution?

Find a mentor who can help you work through the underlying issues to tackle the cause not just the symptoms. Look for someone with real life experience and who is prepared to guarantee results. You might have to invest a lot more in the short term than you would spend on books and seminars but if you find the right help, the results will pay for themselves.

In the same way that you would invest in a good car to avoid continually paying out for repairs and maintenance, investing in a good mentor will save you money in the long run that you would otherwise spend on a series of personal development products that don’t produce the results you want.

To your success,
Jan Moore,
Making people powerful and businesses profitable.

Be Sociable, Share!

Jan Moore

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

How To Hire The Right Employee

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Bill Moore

Why A College Education May Spell Trouble

One of the greatest disasters in corporate history was

the advent of the HR (Human Resources) Department…

As companies grew they started needing a better means of record keeping and better means to work with employees without taking up the time of managers on personal issues with the employees thus the birth of the personnel department. This worked fairly well for many years until it evolved into the ‘Human Resources Department’ which has little if any ‘human’ consideration.

Human Resources was a nice ‘politically correct’ way to build a wall between the company and employees in order to ‘protect’ the company from all of the more and more expansive laws concerning employees. Worse yet, HR is often staffed with people who have some serious personality issues and a complex that make them ‘controlling’ in nature. This is the general nature of the departments (not to say that all people in those departments are that way, just enough of them to put then in the majority of that group).

HR Departments started using their time to determine who makes the best employee (a robot to their system). Armed with tests, ideas on how to interview etc they are becoming worse and worse at getting quality employees. Oh, yes, they are doing a better job of getting subservient robots but they are not getting the entrepreneurial spirit into the team. The Entrepreneurial spirit that builds great companies (as mentioned in part one – read ‘Built to Last’ by Jim Collins).

Hiring Rule 1: Do Not Predetermine What Is Needed To Fill A Role

By this I mean do not say you require this or that (such as a college education) merely lay out the details of the job and have your candidate tell you how they can fill that role. Intelligent business people in charge of hiring know that a college education means you will follow instructions but they also know that real leaders are people who most often never finished college. I am all for education, in fact I participate in life-long learning but life-long learning is more powerful in business (by far) because it is not designed to make you a robot to the system.

Check the above out and you will find most great leaders in corporations made it through possibly some college but seldom to degree level. Most people hire followers… smart business people hire people they feel are better than themselves. If you need a doctor or a lawyer hire a graduate… otherwise hire the person who demonstrates creativity and leadership (whether or not they have a degree or not) – this could well make or break your business.

Hiring Rule 2: Do Not Predetermine What Is Needed To Fill A Role

This is not a typo!

I repeat Rule Two as the same as rule one but this time in a different context…

Above I was speaking about breaking out of the non-productive way ‘HR Departments think and work’, here I am referring to breaking the pattern of hiring people who are like ourselves. Hiring someone like yourself is another disaster waiting to happen… usually on your profit and loss sheet. If you want a productive team hire team opposites on the Wealth Dynamics model and various Myers Briggs personality types.

Next week: CREATIVITY THAT MAKES THE CREATIVE LOOK STRUCTURED

To your success,
Bill Moore
Making People Powerful and Businesses Profitable

Be Sociable, Share!

Bill Moore

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

Blogging For Business (and Make Money Doing It)

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Jan Moore

Blogging is a fantastic way to promote your business and as an added benefit there are lots of different ways you can make money from writing blogs. The biggest growth area on the internet is information and people are searching every day for good information to help them solve their problems. Writing blogs on subjects related to your business is one of the most effective ways of building a relationship with your customers and prospects, and it can also add an additional income stream to your business.

Blog About Your Products and Services

Use your blog as a showcase for the product or service you sell. Write informative blog posts for the benefit of your readers that focus on solving their problems. Don’t write sales copy – give them some really juicy content that will genuinely help them and build a trusting relationship. If you do this on a regular basis you will develop a following of people who will start to look to you for help and advice on your subject and you will start to become an expert in their eyes.

Write a short sharp bio that will appear at the end of each blog post so that they know what you sell and when they’ve read your informative blog posts they will be prompted to look into your products and services and be much more receptive to your message than if you just presented a sales pitch.

When you’ve written a series of blog posts you can package them up into a free report or an e-book which you can use to give away in exchange for your reader’s email address and then keep in touch with them through a regular newsletter.

You can add instructional videos to your blog which you can store on your own YouTube Channel (more about video marketing in a later blog post).

Make sure you include a capture form on your blog so you can build a subscriber list for additional marketing. My personal choice is aWeber (www.aweber.com) as it has many marketing tools not available in other email marketing systems.

Affiliate Programs

You can earn money from affiliate programs by mentioning a product in your blog and using a special link that identifies you as the source of the click through. You get paid when someone clicks through from your link and buys the product.

The best way to earn money from affiliate programs is to write a blog on a subject that relates to the affiliate product so that it gives useful information rather than just being promotional. That way you can mention several products in that niche in the same blog post which gives you multiple opportunities to make money. Alternatively you could just write a review of a single product which highlights the benefits of this product and why you recommend it.

If you’re going to add affiliate programs to your main company blog, it’s best to stick to related (but not competitive) products and services so you don’t confuse your message (or your readers!). If you write random blog posts just to make some affiliate fees you are more likely to lose readers and lose the consistency of your overall message.

Write sincerely – this is much easier if you write about products and services you use and can endorse. This is also helpful for your readers who will feel they are benefiting from your advice.

There are many sources of affiliate programs – www.cj.com, www.linkshare.com, www.tradedoubler.com which promote products and services from well-known household name companies. Google has also just launched its own affiliate program at www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork. www.clickbank.com is the largest affiliate network for digital products – e-books, information products, home study courses and is the favorite of internet marketers.

There are many more affiliate programs on individual websites so it’s a good idea to check out each website you visit for their own scheme, especially if it is a product you buy and can personally recommend. Scroll down to the bottom of the web page and if they have an affiliate scheme you should see a link in the footer menu.

One thing to bear in mind is that recent legislation dictates that you now have to declare if you will receive an affiliate payment from a product you promote or review. This is known as an FTC Compliance Statement. You can get your own pre-written policy at http://www.disclosurepolicy.org.

Advertising

Another great way of making money from blogging is to include ads in your blog. The difference between making money from ads as opposed to affiliate schemes is that you earn money when a person clicks on the ad whether or not they go on to buy the product. Google adsense is the leader in this field and targets the adverts it displays based on the content of your web page. This means that ads will appear that are relevant to your blog post. You can display ads as text links, images or videos. Ads can be placed at the top and bottom of your blog post and are particularly effective if placed within the body of your blog post.

You can also use CPM Advertising Networks which pay you for the number of page views your blog generates – so your visitor doesn’t have to click on the ad OR buy for you to get paid. Use a larger format and position these at the top of the page to maximise your revenue. Leading CPM networks are http://tribalfusion.com/, http://www.cpxinteractive.com/ and http://www.burstmedia.co.uk/.

Banner Ads

Once you’ve built up a following you can sell ad space on your blog. Google adsense has a way of making your ad space available to buyers, but this will only be an option once you have a large audience.

Sell Your Own Information Products

The more you establish yourself as an expert in your niche, the more people will want information from you. Create your own e-book, e-course or video series and promote them on your blog.

Host a Live Webinar

A great way to put you in direct contact with your readers is to host a webinar in which you can present a live session on a subject of interest to your readers and you can make it interactive by taking questions from your audience at the end. My favorite platform is www.instantteleseminar.com – it is one of the least expensive platforms and has lots of instructional videos on how to maximize revenue using webinars as a marketing tool. There is also a free platform you can use at www.anymeeting.com.

Amazon Associates

Sign up for Amazon associates (www.amazon.com & www.amazon.co.uk) and you can promote their whole range of products to your readers. It is particularly good for seasonal targeting – Christmas gifts, Easter pressies,Valentines Day as well as being a great vehicle for selling via book, music and video reviews.

You could do a series of book reviews on titles related to your product or service that provide useful information and indirectly promote sales.

These are just a few ideas for how to monetize your blog. Build your content regularly and your following will grow, and your earnings too.

To your success,
Jan Moore

Be Sociable, Share!

Jan Moore

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

New Year – New Profits

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Bill Moore

How To Sell More And Make A Greater Profit In 2012

Rule #1: Resolve Not To Make Resolutions

It is that time of year when most everyone wastes their breath and energy on ‘Resolutions’ that almost always fail to succeed in the long run. Since Jan and I have a very successful track record in empowering people and businesses to success we feel obligated to tell you that resolutions generally fail.

A glaring example of resolutions failing is a look at politics. After all, politicians are always resolving to do this or do that and now they have the whole world collapsing down around them (and us).

The reason resolutions generally fail is the same reason that people remain locked into living in fear, enslaved to debt and blindly following a system designed to rob them of their personal power… they fail because they do not have the right help in removing the ‘core’ programming they have learned from childhood. That programming is for suppression and failure. The same is true of business.

Breaking Free And Making Money

If you study all of the requirements of the ‘system’ in which we operate in the western world it is structured in a way that keeps business locked into success for the system not for the business itself. The really successful businesses all know how to beat the system. I do not mean illegally but I do mean in areas such as having accountants who can be sure that the more money they make the less tax they pay. Also, by having financial officers who can beat the banks at their own self-serving game.

You too can beat this system no matter how large or small your business. It is just the same path as personal empowerment… breaking down the (false) core beliefs and teachings you have learned about business. For example… Cutting costs!

**RULE #2: CUTTING COSTS DOES NOT MAKE YOU MORE MONEY!**

In almost all business cases cutting costs only saves a little in the short run but is devastating in the long run. The reason this is true is that usually the wrong area is the first cut… Staffing! If you had a poor employee (which, by the way, is usually management’s fault not the employees) you might replace them but do not cut them out of the head count. Many companies buy into the ‘lean and mean‘ philosophy and in time it will kill them, no matter how big and powerful.

There are two major profit centers in your company: the money you spend on staffing and the money you spend on operations. (A great book you should read in this area is ‘Built To Last’ by Jim Collins) Let’s look at a couple examples of spending wisely (unlike the USA government!):

If you were to go online and look at the company history of Target (stores) from day one to the present day you will see why when you walk in a Target store anywhere that they are laid out in the same general format, have wide aisles, and employees (almost always) ask if they can help you and/or ask at checkout if you found everything alright. They also were one of the first in the USA to invest in bar code scanning to help the staff speed up the customers waiting time.

Another example of correct investment is our local ‘Chic-Filet’. The Franchisee has a Customer Experience Manager who is on the floor through the rush hours helping people with things they need and delivering their orders (even taking away their trash with a big smile and a ‘thank you for coming in‘) – the experience here is like a five star restaurant even though it is a fast food restaurant. The place is always packed and the team works like clockwork, happy and smiling with happy and smiling customers… the cost of the ‘Customer Experience Manger’ is no where near the increased sales and profits taken! Yes, there is more staff there than most fast food restaurants at rush hour but there are also more customers, more sales and more profit.

So, when you invest in the ‘right’ people, give them the right training and invest in the right operational costs you will always ‘hit a home run’ on more sales and profit. If you would like more details of how this works subscribe to our newsletter (to the right or below), as this is going to be the focus of 2012: Breaking down the falsehoods of business and making more profit!

Next week how to hire the right employee! A college education may spell trouble!

To your success,
Bill Moore
Making People Powerful and Businesses Profitable

Be Sociable, Share!

Bill Moore

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Share and Enjoy

Achievements Not Resolutions for 2012!

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Jan Moore

Did you know that 80% of people don’t stick to their new year resolutions beyond the first week of January. WOW! I knew the failure rate was high but that really surprised me.

Do you make New Year resolutions? What’s your rate of success – any better than this?

If you struggle to stick to your New Year resolutions, here are some quick tips that will help you commit to them more strongly, stick to them for much longer and actually achieve them!

Goals not Resolutions

The trouble with resolutions is that they tend to be a bit vague which makes it much easier to let your good intentions lapse. If you set specific goals, with clear targets for what you want to achieve and when, it will be much easier to stay on track. Plan out the steps you need to take to get you to your goal and make them action orientated.

Make Your Goals Easy to Achieve

Breaking down your goals into simple steps makes them much easier to achieve for several reasons.

It is easy to get overwhelmed when you look at the big picture – once you break it down into steps you have a roadmap to follow.
Make each step easy to undertake and complete. If you make each step too big you are creating barriers that will make you likely to procrastinate or avoid it completely.
Every time you are able to tick off one of the actions towards your goal, it will add to your motivation and spur you on to the next task.

Don’t Overstretch Yourself

Don’t set too many goals at once. The temptation is to put together a huge list of all the things we’d like to achieve and be over-optimistic about how long it will take us to get there. (I know because I’ve done that too!) If you want to create a long list, break it down into manageable chunks and set realistic timescales that take into account all your other commitments.

Stay Positive

If you find yourself slipping from your plan, don’t beat yourself up. Look at why this has happened – review and revise your plan if necessary and pick up where you left off. Just because you’ve lapsed for a few days doesn’t mean you have to give up completely.

Be Aware of Your Strengths and Weaknesses

The best way to make sure you stick to your goals is to play to your strengths and to find a way to compensate for your weaknesses. The more you try to consciously overcome the things you find difficult, the easier it will become and you will get much more satisfaction from achieving things that are challenging than from the things that come easily to us. Isn’t that why we set goals – to stretch ourselves outside our comfort zone?

Some of our weaknesses are due to sub-conscious programming which makes them much more difficult to overcome and we need to look at the cause not the symptoms. It’s no good someone telling you to stop procrastinating – you need to get to the reason WHY you procrastinate and cure it once and for all.

Be Accountable

You are far more likely to stay committed to your goals and on track if you are accountable to someone else. This is the advantage of having a coach or a mentor who will support you and help you develop the right mindset rather than being critical or judgmental. Alternatively buddy up with your partner or a friend so you can keep each other on track. Make sure you choose someone you feel completely comfortable with so you can be honest about your issues and challenges.

Commit to following these steps and you will get the outcome you want in 2012. Guaranteed!

To your success,
Jan Moore
Making People Powerful and Businesses Profitable

Be Sociable, Share!

Jan Moore

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook