New Year's Cheat Sheet

Here we are in a brand new year! This one promises to be a very interesting year. One thing we know for sure. This year will be good for business owners and professionals that improve their skills and don't find excuses to avoid work. It will be deadly to the others. I want to make sure you have all the tools you need to succeed during the next 365 days, so I've prepared a cheat sheet for you.

Read carefully and apply to your business.

1. If you are serious about making money with information and deliver this information via online media, you need to study and try new things every day.
2. When you find something that works, use it consistently.
3. Check drawers and computer files with your old articles, sound files and video files and do something with them. Create new products, submit articles etc.
4. When deciding which media sources to use, think about your customers true preference. Don't make assumptions, always check and re-check.
5. Always think about the big picture. Answer to yourself: What business are you really in?
6. Invest in relationship building.
7. Everywhere there are potential customers. Make a list of influencers in your market and think about strategies to reach them and create a relationship with them.
8. Test every strategy you put in action.
9. Schedule time to consume relevant information. Do not whine about not having time or having too much information to go through. Did you know that Donald Trump gets up at 5am to read five newspapers?
10. List things you could do that would increase desire for your products or services.
11. Look for ways to create more involvement or pain of disconnection with your customers. Maybe you need to create another structure in your relationship with your customers.
12. The internet is great and inexpensive but as a business owner you need face time with your clients. Don't fall into the trap of only marketing online.
13. Keep in touch with clients and prospects. Review your follow-up strategies. Remember: implement multi-step, multi-media follow-up sequences. This is how wealth is built.
14. Hunt for opportunities to share resources, leads and customers.
15. Do not start the year without a marketing plan. You need to have written down your plans. You won't get there if you don't draw your road.
16. Don't be afraid of reinventing your business if you have to. Successful businesses do this often. Remember that airplanes fly out of route 90% of the time. What makes them get to the right place is the fact that the pilot makes corrections all the time.
17. Don't postpone and don't loose focus.
18. Market, Market, Market.

We for example, have several meetings at the end of the year to make sure we put all these steps in place. During the year we have other meetings to realign our strategies.

One tool we use for brainstorming is a mind map. We love to work with mind maps.

We have a system to manage our time. Two days a week, that we call buffer days, are used only to work on money making projects. We like to use a timer. We set it for one hour. During this hour, we don't do anything that is not a money generating activity. No breaks, no e-mail reading, no talking, no answering phone calls. We use the full hour to work on activities that will generate revenue. We call this "Power Hour". We focus on the things we are good at and try to outsource the rest. Even at the beginning where budget was a big issue, we managed to outsource things like accounting. It is not worth our time to struggle with things we don't do well.

Above all, have fun with your business. If it is not fun, it is a job, not a business. Go do something else.

Have a great 2009!

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