Posts Tagged ‘self made millionaire’

What is in your business tool kit? No, I’m not encouraging you to become a carpenter or a plumber. What tools do you currently possess and use in your business tool kit? Yes, the key words in the prior sentence are “possess” “and” “use.” You can’t use the tools if you do not possess them and there is very little value in possessing the tools if you do not use them.

How many of you have ever attended a conference? Sometimes we even paid a significant amount of money to attend the conference. We paid attention and even took notes. Fess up – how many of you have a stack of notebooks with notes from various conferences? How many of you have never opened those notebooks since the conference and consequently have never read those notes? There are various statistics out there saying over 80% of the people never read the notes after they left a conference. Granted it is difficult to obtain accurate statistics since many who did not read their notes either did not want to admit it or did not read the email asking for feedback.

My point? Attending the conference, taking notes and possessing the tools of success are of minimal value unless you USE the information. Without taking action on those ideas, they are one more thing to dust.

As a business development coach and mentor, I see many individuals who profess the goal of becoming a self made millionaire. Unfortunately, a far smaller percentage develops a success plan and takes the focused action to follow through to victory.

Good intentions are an excellent beginning; however, they are only a beginning.

In 1985 when I first conceived the idea of a property management company specializing in single family homes, the discouraging remarks, the emotional ice water, flowed freely. The goal became more powerful than the discouragement. Mt. Castles was born due to the focused action following the formation of the idea. Without the action, that idea would have died. That beautiful fledgling idea would have been one more item in the stack of conference notebooks; never seeing the light of day or the massive success it became. What was the most productive and profitable, the idea or the action? Without the idea, the action would not have been implemented. Without the implementation, the idea would not have generated any results. Remember the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? In this case, the idea absolutely came first.

Your success plan begins with an idea and comes to fruition with focused action. Your business tool kit contains knowledge. Until you implement that knowledge with focused action, it is of virtually no value. How many ideas do you have stacked away in those dusty notebooks? You probably have a fortune waiting for you at your fingertips. Your idea may be crying out to you for action right now.

Jim Rohn, noted business philosopher, reminds us,”Lack of money is not the problem. The problem is lack of an idea to create money.” I agree. Lets take it one step further and consider that you may already have the idea; you must take focused action to bring that idea to life. As a business development coach, I implore you to revisit your flashes of genius ideas. We can work together to assist you in taking your idea to the development of a success plan. Implement the success plan and start realizing your dream of becoming a self made millionaire.

Hire Elaine Love to speak at your next conference. Hire Elaine Love as your personal coach and mentor. Join me at www.ElaineSpeaks.net or www.Elaine4Success.com

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Engage the page. Whether you are writing an article, a web page or a love letter, be totally present and engaged. Your objective in writing the first sentence is to inspire your reader to at least read the second sentence.

You have less than 90 seconds to capture the attention of a reader to your web page. No, I’m not advocating flashing text, wild colors and provocative pictures. The mere thought of those will cause me to race to the back button. I would never even open the page. No need for the delete button; I would not even consider opening the site.

What would inspire you to click on the site? Yes, an ad which appeals to your interests would be one factor. If you are searching for a great home based business, you would type words into the search bar which indicated the type of business which matched your interests and talents. If you were interested in health, you might type the word “nutrition” or “eating healthy foods.” If you were seeking the perfect home based business, you might type “making money working from home” or “work from home business ideas.” If you were seeking financial freedom, you might type in the words “wealth accelerator” or “vertical research advisory” or even ”self made millionaire.”

When the ads appeared on your screen, you would see the top 10 choices matching those keywords on page one. You would pick an ad whose words resonated with you and click on that link. When the image on your screen shifted to the page in questions, you expect the message on the page to match the words in the ad. In the early days of the internet, that was not always the case. Thanks to the strict guidelines of Google, the ad message is much more likely to match the web page message now than it did five or six years ago.

Your colors, banner headline and opening sentences must be appealing and consistent with the ad or your viewer will be gone faster than you can say “internet scam.” Today’s internet surfers are very savvy. Since there is a plethora of information and sites available, they will not hesitate more than a millisecond at a bad site.

What makes a good site besides the page message matching the ad message? Learn which colors match your product and personality. Refer to the article “Psychology of Colors” for more in-depth color analysis. Your banner headline should be captivating but not so large as to take up too much space. The most valuable internet real estate is what appears on the screen when the page first opens. That area is termed “above the fold.” It is the information shown without requiring the viewer to scroll down on the page. Be certain it is appealing enough that the viewer desires to remain on the page. Adding a short video helps.

Darren LaCroix, 2001 Toastmasters World Champion Speaker, recommends less than 90 second videos. Most videos, including mine before I read this information, were closer to 4 minutes. Now I have work to do to re-record all of my web page videos.

Content is king; however, presentation is queen. Ask any man and you will probably hear, “If mama isn’t happy, no one is happy.” Make the presentation at least as important as the content. If the presentation is not attractive, they will never stay to read the content.

Hire Elaine Love to speak at you next conference. Hire Elaine Love as your personal coach and mentor. Join me at www.ElaineSpeaks.net or www.Elaine4Success.com.

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When your attitude shifts, your life follows suit.  Everyone reaches that magic “decision time.”  You know the time.  You look at your life or a situation and determine “that’s enough; something is going to change NOW.”

A firm decision results in an attitude shift.  Your attitude will get you everywhere.  The relief associated with a major attitude shift is phenomenal.  The trauma and stress are all previous to the decision.  Once the decision is made, the attitude turns positive and progressive.  The stress comes from the “should I” or “shouldn’t I” dilemma.  Stop shoulding all over yourself and get with the program.

So many people spend so much time getting ready to get ready that they never actually make a decision.  What is it in your life right now that is holding you back from making a progressive decision, a progressive attitude?  Wealth builders and  self-made millionaires all make decisions.

Self-made millionaires possess decision oriented habits and positive attitudes.  Wealth builders know that a positive attitude will get you everywhere.  It starts with a dream and builds to a goal.  A plan forms designing the process to reach the goal.  Absolute laser focus is applied to the implementation of the plan.  Frequent benchmarks or checkpoints are established to insure the plan is on course.  Will there be adjustments? Yes.  Even a jet airplane does not go from San Francisco to New York without a few minor tweaks and turns.

The entire process starts with a firm decision and an attitude shift.

If your life or plan is off target, check your attitude.  Queasy attitude probably means there is a decision in limbo.  Clear the roadblock by determining what decision you have procrastinated about making.  Make the decision.  Feel the relief and the positive attitude shift.

You can never make forward progress and remain sitting on the fence.  Make the decision.  Establish a positive attitude.  Set the goal and the plan to achieve it.  Establish the course correction checkpoints and prepare to celebrate victory.

For more positive attitude tips and techniques, join me at http://www.elaine4success.com/

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Would you order a truck load of building materials, a backhoe to dig the foundation, and no blueprint for the structure?  Of course not, that would be foolhardy.  No one in their right mind would spend thousands on materials and equipment without a specific blueprint for success.  Most people spend months designing the perfect structure.  Building departments and homeowner associations need to approve the plans as well.  The blueprint details exactly what materials are needed and exactly how they will be assembled.  The larger or more complicated the structure, the more elaborate the blueprints.

Unfortunately it is quite common for people to start a business without any blueprint for success whatsoever.  The more common delusion follows a pattern of:

1. Buy a business on emotion.  Most people buy on emotion rather than logic.  Accountants and engineers are more likely to buy on logic and analytics; however, it is generally accepted that most people purchase on emotion.  Frank Rumbauskas of “Sales Tips and Advice” declares that “People buy on emotion and justify with logic.”  The fact that emotions overrule logic explains why experienced sales people sell based on benefits rather than selling based on features.  “Don’t tell me what it does.  Tell me what it will do for me.”
2. Now that I have a company, what do I do with it?  It is like the dog chasing cars.  It seems like fun at the time but they have absolutely no idea what to do with it if they ever caught it.

My suggestion is set your goals.  What income do you desire to make?  Set a specific blueprint for success to map out the road from where you are to your desired goal.

1. One of the major elements of your blueprint for success will be your marketing plan.  What funds do you have available for your marketing budget?  What marketing skills do you possess?  What marketing skills do you need to learn?  Marketing either requires time or money.  A small marketing budget means you had better plan on spending much more time.  Which do you have more of, time or money?  A larger marketing budget means that you can advertise in more expensive but less time consuming venues.

Social network marketing, web 2.0, is quite inexpensive financially but extremely time consuming.  Google pay per click requires far less time once it is all set up and rolling; however, it is one of the most expensive forms of marketing.

1. Once your business has been purchased, your exact path to success determined, your marketing established, and your leads flowing, you need to follow up with those leads.  Until you are consistently making 10,000 per month, I recommend following up with every leads.  Personally, I like to talk to my people so I still call every lead possible within the time frame available for prospecting.  Each lead also receives both a personal email and a series of autoresponders.  Any lead, potential business partner, who attends a business presentation also receives another follow up call and email. The serious individuals are then taken to a 3 way call for third party validation; the 3 way also assures the new individual that they will not have to answer questions when they get started.  The removal of the fear of answering questions eases many nervous minds and sweaty palms.

The blueprint for success is simply a step by step focused plan to take you from initial idea all the way through to money in your bank account.  For more specific tips and techniques or for assistance in designing and finalizing your personal blueprint for success, join me at http://www.elaine4success.com/.

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