Can You Have Too Many Goals?

Do you ever feel like you’re spinning in circles with too many goals? Are most of them conflicting? Most likely you have too many goals - too many things you are trying to accomplish at the same time. I htink this is very common among small business owners - we all want to do everything and do it now! The good news is, you’re not the only one who feels that way. It's very common, and you can solve the problem.

Here are some things you can do if you’re overwhelmed with goals.

Look for overlaps.

Sometimes there is a natural and logical relationship between goals. Suppose you want to get healthier and to have more leisure time. Making time out for active leisure like tennis or running will accomplish both goals at once.

Sometimes two goals seem to be in direct opposition to each other, like wanting to grow your business and having more time at home. In this case, write out both goals and next to each of them write out why you want to do each of them. You might find that what you really want (need) is to work less hours. In this case, your real goal might be to hire an additional team member. Or, you might discover that you can satisfy your desire for more time at home with some long weekends. Get to the root of the goal, and the rest will work itself out.

Make the time.

We tell ourselves there are "only so many hours in a day," and that we're "too busy" to take on anything else right now. Your time is precisely that – yours.  When you're running a small business, it often feels like the business is running you - I get that. Start small by blocking out an hour or two each week to work exclusively on the tasks needed to achieve your goals. It's amazing what progress you can make when you set aside small amounts of time to check things off your list!

Bottom line: We find the time for the things that matter.

If you feel overwhelmed, you may be trying to achieve too much at once. Step back and look at your goals. If you're doing too much, it's time to reprioritize.

Lauren Mackler

Be flexible.

It’s a good thing to put a timeline together and have definite dates and time-sensitive goals. But remember that life happens, and often it even gets in the way. There is an ancient Greek saying that goes: “If you want to make the gods laugh, tell them your plans.” Having milestones and plotting points along the timeline is good, but don’t hold yourself to it so rigidly that you cannot adapt to the occasional curveball. Don't abandon the whole plan when you hit a snag - regroup and pick up where you left off.

Find What Matters Most.

If it feels to you like you have too many goals or if the ones you do have are fighting each other, then find the true importance of each one. That will help you determine what’s most important to you right now. From there, narrow down your list to no more than five goals to work on. The rest can wait. Then work on one goal at a time. By concentrating on the ones that mean the most to you right now, you’ll put those goals into perspective, until they don’t seem like so much anymore.

To your success!

Laura

Do You Have A Growth Mindset?

Do you have dreams and goals that you haven’t achieved? Are you frustrated and overwhelmed? If so, you’re not alone. Sometimes, it feels like there are a select few people who reach great heights – and then there’s the rest of us.

What separates the people who realize their aspirations from those who always seem to struggle? The difference is that successful people are in control of their thoughts, beliefs, and the way they view the world.

They have mastered the key mindsets essential to success. No one is born with this success-oriented attitude. You can achieve it by uncovering the way you think, mastering new skills and techniques, and taking control of your outlook.

Before you start setting goals for your business, it's important to make sure that you have the right mindset to successfully achieve those goals!

What Is a “Mindset” and How Can It Help?

A mindset is a set of related beliefs that shape how you see the world and function in it. For example, if you have a positive mindset, you focus on the good things and stay optimistic, rather than dwelling on the negative.

Mindset is important because it influences how you act. Your behaviors are based on what you think and believe. We all operate from a certain mindset, even if we’re not aware of it. Mastering these patterns of thought is a matter of choice.

An important thing to remember about mindsets is that they’re learned. You’re not born thinking a certain way, you pick it up from others and from your experiences in the world. This is great news. It means that anyone can purposely transform their mindset.

The Benefits of Having the Right Mindset

Making a mindset shift can have a huge impact on your personal and professional life. Benefits include:

What is a Growth Mindset?

A Growth Mindset is the foundation for all change. Without it, you’ll have difficulty adopting other positive mindsets. If you have a growth mindset, you tend to believe that your talents, intelligence, and skills can be developed through a combination of hard work, effective practice, and guidance from others.

How to Develop a Growth Mindset

Here are 5 ways to build your own growth mindset:

  1. Determine where you are now and where you want to be. Be honest with yourself about your current state of business. Write it down - let your imagination and desires take flight to visualize where you want your business to be.
  2. Be a daily learner. Find people you want to emulate and follow them on social media, subscribe to newsletters and blog posts from people you want to be like. Identify the skills you need to develop in order to achieve your goals and make a commitment to learn that skill.
  3. Step out of your comfort zone. This is hard - very hard - especially when you're already busy doing what you do every day. However, real growth only comes when you find the courage to step out of that comfort zone and do things differently.
  4. Start using time blocks. Growth is an ongoing process and requires regular planning, review, and adaptation. Find an hour or two a week in your schedule where you can be alone and quiet to work on the tasks that will lead to growth for your business.
  5. Persevere. Growth doesn't happen overnight; it takes patience and continued diligence to stay on track. You will probably have bad days or even bad weeks - we all do. Don't spend too much time beating yourself up if you get off track - go back to where you left off and start again!

Mindset = Success

Do you set goals and then wonder why you didn't achieve them? Maybe you have the wrong mindset. Having the right mindset is the first step to finding the success you desire!

Collaborate for New Customers

Here’s an easy way to double your income: Put yourself in front of twice as many people who are interested in what you have to offer. Of course that is easier said than done. Getting traffic and exposure is one of the hardest things to accomplish as the internet grows and expands. Sure, you could throw a lot of money at the problem and accomplish it with well placed ads, but that’s not a viable option for most of small business owners.

One of my favorite low-cost marketing strategies is to find other small businesses who work in the same niche as I do and form collaborative partnerships.

A great way to get in front of a new audience interested in what you have to say is to find someone else who’s doing something similar to what you’re doing. In other words, find other small businesses in your niche, or closely related niches and start to collaborate. For example, let's say that you are a massage therapist and have your own spa. You may want to partner up with someone who does health coaching. Your customers are interested in their health and take advantage of the healing benefits of massage. Her clients are also interested in improving their health and are interested in new or different strategies for achieving wellness. Cross-promote each others events and offers, tap into each others mailing list. Co-host an event. Do you see how this could work?

Start small.

Start by opening conversations with the other small businesses who work with the same target audience that you do to brainstorm ideas about how you can work together. A great place to start is to offer to share something of theirs with your readers first. If the business sells a product, ask if you can interview them, or see if they have a special coupon you can share with your readers. By making the first offer of collaboration, you are putting yourself out as someone who wants to collaborate and is willing to give of your time and resources.

Make sure they will reciprocate.

Next, ask if they would be interested in sharing you with their own audience. This is always your end goal! While it is nice to promote other businesses and shows that you are a good community partner, you are also trying to grow your own business and should receive as much as you get. Depending on your business model, there are several different ways to accomplish this. If you have a paid product, or offer an introductory service of some kind, sharing your information with their audience should be a no-brainer. You can also offer to create unique content for the other person’s audience. If they aren't willing to reciprocate by sharing your business with their audience, don't be afraid to move on and research other possible strategic partners.

Keep it simple.

No matter what you decide to do, make it as easy as possible and do whatever you have to do to get your fellow small business owner to email his or her list for you. Using our example from earlier... a health coach could provide a downloadable article or ebook with simple tips for improving your health; the massage therapist could offer a coupon or special service upgrade for the health coach audience. Mentions on social media and blog posts are great, but your ultimate goal should always be to get them to email for you. When they do, your next goal is to get these people on your own list and to turn them into paying customers.

You Have To Know Where You're At Right Now To Figure Out Where You're Going

Are you ready to take your business to the next level and watch some explosive growth unfold over the coming months? Great! Before you start to plan what you want to do to make that happen, it’s important to stop and look at where you’re at right now.

Business planning for future success is all about data. You can work most efficiently and spend your time and money most effectively if you know exactly where you are starting from. By recording data, you can start to see what’s working, what isn’t, and what trends are starting to play out. And it all starts with recording where you’re at right now.

Let’s take a look at some of the things you want to record. First though, you should decide how you want to record this information.  You can write it down by hand in a notebook, open up a Word document to do it digitally, or use a spreadsheet. I prefer a spreadsheet because I have the option to have it calculate fun additional information like weekly and monthly averages and even map it all out in graphics to help me get a clearer picture.

How Much Traffic Are You Getting?

To grow you need to expand your reach. That means getting more traffic, but also engaging the people that come to your social media profiles and website by encouraging them to click around and read more. On your social media, you want to keep track of the reach and engagement of your posts, and the analytics of who your followers are. On your website, look at total visitors, unique visitors, bounce rate, and of course where the the traffic is coming from.

The Money Is In Your List

Your next goal is always to get these people on your list. Here you want to track total number of subscribers, conversion rates for each of your opt-in forms and pages, open rates for your emails, and also unsubscribes. As you start to collect and review this data regularly, you’ll get a much better picture of your subscribers.

Who is Buying?

Subscribers are great, customers are better. Start by keeping track of how many total customers you have and how many purchases per day, week, and month. Other good numbers to look at are total lifetime value of your average customer, repeat purchases, and refund rates.

What Do Your Financials Say?

Last but not least, look at your bottom line. This is your typical accounting data. You want to keep track of your income as well as your expenses. With those two sets of numbers, you can easily calculate your overall profit. I find it helpful to look at profit for the month, but track income on a daily basis.

Yes, you can look at most of this data in various different places like Google Analytics, your CRM, and your autoresponder service for example, but it’s important to have it all in one place. This makes it much easier to connect the dots and see the relationships between the different sets of numbers.

What Does All of This Have To Do With Marketing?

The best Marketing Plans are data driven. When you know WHO your customers are - their level of engagement with your business through your social media and website, their buying habits, and the profitability of the products or services that you sell, it is much easier to define the strategies and tactics you will use to replicate your ideal customer into new prospects and customers. You will know what content will most appeal to them, when the best time to communicate with them is, how to reach them cost effectively, and so much more.

Now that you have your initial data collection set up, make it a habit to update the numbers regularly so you can see what’s working, what isn’t, and how much you’re growing as you move through the coming months and years. Let the data drive your marketing decisions, adjust your plan accordingly, and watch your business grow!

To your success ~

Laura

Why Planning Is The Secret To Success For The Coming Year

Do you set aside time regularly to plan what you want to do in your business? If it’s not something you currently do, I strongly encourage you to embrace it for the remainder of this year as well as the one coming up. Setting aside time at the end of the year, to plan out what I want to do and more importantly what growth I want to achieve in the coming year has been crucial to my own success. Once I have a clear picture of what I want to accomplish in my business, it's time to put those goals into a marketing plan that will guide the strategies and tactics that I will use to achieve my goals.

Sounds great, right? It is - but it is also hard. Most of the small business owners I meet don't have either a business plan or a marketing plan, even though they know that they should. Here are a few of the reasons I have heard over the years:

• "I don't have time to focus on my marketing."
• "I'm not sure what to do to get in front of my ideal clients."
• "I'm overwhelmed and struggle to be consistent."
• "I don't know where to start."

All of these marketing challenges can be fixed by creating a plan.

Why Planning Is So Important

Let’s start off by taking a look at why planning is “the secret” to success. There are a few different factors that come into play here. The first is efficiency. When you go in with a clear plan, you can focus on what’s most important. Instead of spending time trying to figure out what you should be working on, what pieces of the puzzle are missing from your sales program, or what you need to do to break through to the next income level, you know exactly what needs to come next.

With a clear goal in mind and a plan for the year, it becomes easy to walk backwards to create effective and efficient daily to-do lists. Work on what needs to get done each day and you will reach your goals.

Get Outside The Box

Next, setting a big goal for yourself helps you think outside the box. If you don’t believe me, try it. Decide on a big income goal for the coming month. Write it down. Keep it in front of you. Then get to work and start to notice what happens next. You start to think of things that didn’t occur to you before. You come up with creative ways to get more traffic. You decide to run a fun promo that adds dollars to your bank account. The same happens when an important deadline comes up unexpectedly. Think back on that time in college when finals rolled around, or the last time your in-laws told you they would stop by later in the day. You got very creative about studying and cleaning respectively.

Planning Is The Key To Business Growth

To put it very simply: A marketing plan is the bridge between where you're at now and where you want to be. Planning and setting goals is important because it helps you grow faster. That means you end up with more time and money for yourself and your loved ones while spending less time slaving away at your desk and wondering what to do next.

Help Is Available

Need some help? Visit the Next Level U Resource Library and download my Marketing Plan Template. Don't want to tackle it alone? Call me at 316-223-1921 or email me (laura@nextlevelad.com) to start a conversation about how I can help you through the process of creating a simple strategy, effective tactics for how your business will accommodate growth, and a set of action steps to get it done. I'll walk you through the whole thing.

To your success ~

Laura

Choosing an Email Service Provider: You’re Asking the Wrong Question

Here’s the question that’s on everyone’s mind when they start thinking about mailing lists: “Which service should I use?”

You’ve probably wondered yourself, and maybe even spent a few hours (or days, or weeks) researching your options.

Stop!

This is not the question you should be asking (yet). And it’s exactly why so many entrepreneurs get stuck in the planning stage of list building. Making the wrong decision on your ESP can leave you with a service that doesn't meet your needs, wasting both time and money. To find the provider that is right for your business, you need to do a little homework.

The First Step In List Building

Before you need to think about tools, you must ask yourself this:

“How can I best serve my market?”

It doesn't matter what type of business you have. Your customers and prospects have a need that only you can fulfill. And when you discover what that need is, you’ll have two valuable pieces of information:

  1. What incentive will be a true no-brainer for your ideal client to opt-in to your list?
  2. How can you use your mailing list to provide the best value for those who join your list? 

Don’t over-think these questions, though. Your opt-in incentive can be as simple as a resource guide or a short how-to video that answers a common question. You don’t have to go overboard with dozens of downloads and a 100-page eBook. Rather than providing value, these massive downloads are more likely to overwhelm your reader than encourage them to learn more.

And when it comes to providing value to your list members, keep three things in mind:

  1. Regular communication is a must (consider an autoresponder series if you’re not good with scheduling email updates)
  2. Marketing is second to information—too much selling will cause your opt-out rates to soar.
  3. It’s your responsibility as a thought leader in your market to distill and provide the information, tools and products your audience needs.

What is your list-building goal?

How will you be using your list? Will you:

The answers to these questions will help you determine not only the right tool for your list-building needs, but will also determine the path for your ongoing mailing list content, promotions, and growth.

There are many choices in Email Service Providers. Do your homework (above) and then do your research to make sure that the ESP you choose will make it both easy and affordable to reach your goals.

To your success!

Laura

P.S. I personally use and recommend Constant Contact for both email and social media management. Click here for a free trial.

Tips for Staying Positive in Tough Times

Most of us can agree that positive thinking is important. It tends to make us feel better, be more productive, and reduces stress.

The problem is, our lives aren't always rosy. Crises happen - be it on a personal level or something more widespread. That reality is a part of everyone's life, and it makes keeping your spirits up tough.

If you are struggling to stay positive and hopeful when going through these challenging times, try following these nine tips. I have also included three actionable steps you can take right away and a list of suggested reading for those people who are looking for even more information.

Don't Put Your Head in the Sand

No matter what you are dealing with, ignoring it is rarely the answer. While ignoring problems might feel good in the short-term, it will sap your long-term positivity. Plus, many of the other tips listed here require you to acknowledge your circumstances first.

This Too Shall Pass

When you are in the midst of a crisis, it is nearly impossible to keep things in perspective. That said, you need to recognize that your circumstances are temporary. Things might seem dire at the moment, but try your best to remember that "this too shall pass." As my mom would say, it may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass!

Make a Plan

One of the single best things you can do to maintain positivity during tough times is to make a plan on how to deal with it. When you focus on the solution rather than the problem, you will naturally feel more positive. You will feel like you are rising to the challenge. Now is also a good time to be planning for your business after our current crisis has passed.

Think About the Things You are Grateful For

Even during great personal turmoil, you still have things you are grateful for. When things get tough, it is vital to remember that there is good in the world, and more importantly, in your life. When you are struggling, take some time to list the things in your life you are grateful for. Don't forget about the people you are grateful for - there has never been a better time to tell them how much you appreciate them!

Reach Out for Support

Support in and support out! Reach out to loved ones and offer your support. Reach out if you need assistance too. When things are dire, it is always reaffirming when people pull together and help each other. There are new resources popping up in every community across the country to meet our current crisis - there is no shame in taking advantage of those resources if you need to!

Take a Break

Sometimes our circumstances are so dire that we are forced to think about our problems constantly. It is OK to take a break. You can take a break from the news, social media, or other people. It might not be easy but taking a break from external stimuli can help keep you positive. Go for a walk, play with your pet, sit outside in the sunshine, find a quiet place to meditate or gather your thoughts, or just go for a drive - it will refresh your spirit and give you some new perspective!

Journal Your Feelings

Journaling is a powerful tool in so many ways. By simply giving you a place to express your fears and concerns, a journal helps you maintain positivity outside of its pages. Do you know how good it feels to vent to a friend? Well, consider your journal as your best friend. If you have never kept a journal, now may be a good time to start - even if it's just for a short period of time.

Focus on Things You Can Control

When your world seems like it is spinning out of control, you may feel helpless. One way to address this and stay more positive is to focus on the things you can control. Instead of fretting about things out of your control, focus on making sure you do your best job on the things you can control.  Remember this? "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Embrace Distractions

Distractions are usually the worst. We are often trying to learn how to avoid or deal with them, and distractions in our work day bring on aggravation and frustration. They aren't that bad when you are struggling to stay positive in tough times, though. No matter how silly they seem, you should embrace distractions that bring you joy in tumultuous times. If you're currently staying at home during the current crisis, you may want to consider actually scheduling some distractions just to keep yourself positive!

ACTIONABLE STEPS

Here are three things you can do RIGHT NOW to get yourself back on the positivity track!

1 2 3
Write down your feelings. Think about everything you are dealing with and how it's affecting you. Write it down. Don't worry about grammar or spelling; just focus on getting your feelings out of your head and onto paper. Reach out. Whether you are reaching out to offer support or request it, reaching out will help you feel like part of a community. When we all work together, we can overcome anything. Make a plan. Think about what your biggest struggle is right now and devise a plan to tackle it. Set some goals and deadlines. You will feel more positive by just having the plan, and even more positive if you act on it.

FURTHER READING

Looking for some additional reading on the subject of staying positive? Here are some of my favorite options:

Stay Positive:  Encouraging Quotes and Messages

  Staying Positive in a Negative World

Positive Thinking Every Day

The Power of Positive Thinking

The One Minute Gratitude Journal

To your success!

Laura

Create Your Ideal Client Avatar in 3 Easy Steps

When you started your business, did you put any thought into who your ideal client would be? Or did you just open your doors and accept anybody who needed help and was willing to pay? Did either of those scenarios work out well for you?

Any business will struggle trying to be all things to all people. You just simply can’t be good or great at everything without something being forgotten. Often times, people will say they’re being stretched too thin when they try to accomplish too much, which is a telltale sign that you either need to hire help or rethink your business model.

What is a Client Avatar?

Quite simply, your ideal client is the person you most want to help; the person who needs your specialized experience and can benefit from what you have to offer. This ideal client is also someone who recognizes the value of your services and is willing (and able) to pay the price of your product or service.

Your client avatar is a very detailed description of this person’s characteristics - their demographics. Before you can find your ideal client you have to identify the characteristics of this perfect client so you can target your marketing efforts. Think about the answers to these three exercises and develop your ideal client avatar. Keep track of your answers in a journal or computer document so you can reference them later.

1. What are the demographics of my ideal client? Include their sex, their name, their age, their marital status, where they live, whether they have children, the ages of their kids, their employment history, etc. Get as detailed as possible in identifying these demographics so you can create an accurate picture (aka avatar) of this client in your mind. Maybe you know a person in real life who is your ideal client; use those demographics and modify them if needed. Or maybe you are your own ideal client; use your own descriptions to identify others in this market.

2. What is my ideal client’s biggest struggle or pain point? In order to best tailor your services to your ideal client, knowing what they struggle with is very important. This may change over time or you may identify multiple struggles but rather than producing a product that doesn’t resonate with your market, start off with this market research first, then offer the services or products that will resonate with your ideal market.

3. Where can I find my ideal client? You will likely have multiple answers to this question and you should be extremely specific with your answers. If you ideal clients participate in a particular Facebook group, join that group yourself and be active, offering advice and answering questions. If your ideal clients reside in your home town, participating in community activities will help bring awareness to your name and to your services. Determine where your clients are, then create a marketing plan to reach those clients.

Need some help? Download the FREE Ideal Client Profile Worksheet from Next Level U! It will take you through all the steps to build your client avatar!

To your success!

Laura

P.S. If you are a small business owner (or want to be one), whether you are just starting out, or have been in business for awhile, I hope you will become part of the Next Level family.  Visit our Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/NextLevelAd) for tips, tools, and resources to help grow your business.  We now have a Facebook Group, Next Level U, for those who are interested in joining a private community of small business owners and marketers.

Build A Business - Not Another Job

Many people dream of working for themselves, being their own boss, and having the freedom to only take on clients and projects they love.

What they don’t realize, though, is that there is a huge difference between building a business and being self-employed.

Business owners scale their income. Self-employed people trade dollars for hours.

Business owners leverage the skills and talents of others. Self-employed people rely only on their own skills.

Discouraged yet? Don’t be. Every business owner started out self-employed. Just don’t stay there. These tips will help you build a sustainable business instead of just another job.

Don’t Try to Do It All Yourself

Building a sustainable business requires that you leverage the talents and time of others. While it might seem cost-effective to simply do everything yourself—especially in the start-up phase when you likely have more time than money—it’s a path to burnout and stress.

Instead, separate your tasks into those that you love and are especially suited for (such as marketing or client services) and those you dislike and aren’t good at (such as bookkeeping). Then make a solid plan to get those that you aren’t good at off your list of things to do. If you feel like you can’t afford to outsource it all right now, start with what you tend to procrastinate the most on, even if it’s just a few hours each month.

Don’t Allow Yourself to Work All the Time

When it's your name on the door, it's hard to walk away at 5:00 or on the weekends when there is always so much more that could be done. For home based businesses, the trouble is that you live at work. And that means that there’s no clear line in the sand between your work day and your home life.

Since there’s always work to do, it’s easy to find yourself working every available moment—often to the detriment of your family relationships, and eventually your health.

You can help avoid this by:

Vacations and Downtime Are Important

Don’t create a business that requires you to be “in the office” every day. At the start, you may need to be available more, but you should definitely be planning for the day when you can be “off the grid” for extended periods of time.

While you might not be able to hit the road with no internet access for weeks at a time, at the very least you should be able to reduce your workload to a daily check-in.

Sound impossible? It’s not. With some forethought and planning, you can create a team—and the systems they need—to successfully run your business without becoming overwhelmed and overworked.

To your success!

Laura

P.S. If you are a small business owner (or want to be one), whether you are just starting out, or have been in business for awhile, I hope you will become part of the Next Level family.  Visit our Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/NextLevelAd) for tips, tools, and resources to help grow your business.  We now have a Facebook Group, Next Level U, for those who are interested in joining a private community of small business owners and marketers.