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7 Tips for Clearing the Clutter from Your Closet

Clear your Closet: Change your Life

Discover 7 tips for clearing the clutter from your closet so you can make space for more of what you want in your life. In Feng Shui your closet represents secrets. Once you unlock the energy in your closet you could possibly find something beautiful coming your way.

Imagine you've written your life long autobiography and it didn’t flow well?  How do you fix it?

At my www.howtospeakinaweek.com seminar recently one of my clients was surprised to hear my recommendation:

"First you declutter your stories. You eliminate any phrases which doesn't sound right..... words, anecdotes, whole ideas. And even if you are left with only one short story, you've created space for something totally new to surface."

Does this sound familiar?

While working with a busy executive client the other day, we decluttered her closet - we took out two thirds of her clothes and gave them to charity. Within 2 days she found herself writing, day and night. She couldn't stop.

Four years earlier, she had started writing her autobiography and she'd got stuck. It had been on her mind ever since.

Now it was flowing out of her. She told me her family had a lot of secrets and she'd got stuck trying to write about them.

What she didn't know until then, was that closets represent secrets. Things hidden away. Once she freed up the energy in her closet, her writing energy freed up and she found herself writing about the secrets that had stopped her in her tracks years before.

So, how is your closet, and what do you think decluttering might free up in your life?

If your closet has clothes you don't wear, it's messy and disorganized and/or you have clothes that don't make you feel great when you wear them, this will create an energy block which will keep your life from flowing as easily as it might. As you're decluttering ask yourself these questions about each piece of clothing:

1. When was the last time I wore this? Sometimes you need to give things a rest for a while - but if your reason for not wearing it is that something else always feels better then perhaps it's time to let it go.

2. Does it fit? Keeping clothes you no longer fit into can really bring your energy down. Let go of them and focus on living in the present. It doesn't mean your weight might not change in the future.

Having clothes that don't fit is a constant reminder of the past. Consider promising yourself some new clothes if you clear out those clothes that represent who you used to be?

3. Do I look good in it? There's no point keeping things that don't make you look your best - even if you paid lots for them. You're not going to wear them. Take them to a consignment shop and get some money for them. Take a look at what inspired you to purchase them in the first place - how can you make a wiser decision next time? Now, go out and buy yourself something that makes you feel on top of the world.

4. Do I feel good in it? Given that your clothes are a reflection of who you are, why keep anything that doesn't make you feel good?

5. Does it fit my current or desired lifestyle? Do you have clothes from a past lifestyle still in your closet? Any corporate suits that are no longer appropriate? Anything you bought because it looked wonderful but it doesn't fit who you are? In Feng Shui it's important to surround yourself with things that represent who you truly are now.

6. Is it in good condition? You'll not wear old clothes, except to paint in and you only need one set of those. Throw anything out that's past its best.

7. Is it ready to wear or does it need repair or cleaning? Set it aside to do now so you can wear these things.

The clothes that will be most difficult to let go of will likely be those you paid a lot of money for. Giving clothes to charity can help move past those guilty feelings. It will make you feel good if you focus on the value you're creating in someone else's life.

Action Step: This week set aside some time to declutter your closet.

Just as in reworking a poem, the easiest way I know to declutter a closet is to take everything out, clean the closet, and only put back what you'd like to keep.

And once you've done that, do the same in a month's time - you'll find you can let go of even more.

When you unlock the energy in your closet, you might just find something wonderful coming your way. Perhaps you'll start writing again and get that book published.

3 Measurements to Increase Productivity

Walk into any thriving business, and you won’t travel far before you can see and experience what productivity looks like. It’s in the air—it’s contagious! The business vision, mission and core values play the most significant role in nurturing a culture of productivity and satisfaction.

The key measurements

What does productivity look like in your business? You will need to first find out your position when it comes metrics to create targeted goals for your business’s direction. Working with your staff or downline to explore and create new systems will radically increase your efficiency and skyrocket team morale. Set objectives and think outside of the box using the following three critical productivity measurements.

1. One success at a time.  Rather than focusing on total sales or volume, mastering one success at a time may be a more manageable goal. Determine your team’s current status; if  there's room for improvement in the process, if you're cutting corners, or unprepared for meetings, just imagine where you’ll land when you reach one success at a time. Another way to increase your success is to take into consideration what your ideal client looks like and use a checklist to go through the prospeciting and service of the client.  . When it comes to increasing your productivity and gross margin, systematically mastering your level of service can pay immense dividends.

2. Reward client rebooking, prebooking or going on autopayments. What is repeated is rewarded. Add incentives for clients who prebook their next appointments or go on auto payments.  In a direct marketing company, the team will most likely to be successful will be the one with the most customers on autoship.. constantly reordering products they need.. You may even find that certain clients prefer the convenience of prebooking all of their appointments. Create a buzz by offering any client who prebooks their next three appointments, consultations or orders, or more a chance to win a free gift each week. Announcing the weekly winner on Facebook is also a great way to engage fans talking about your brand. Your free gift may be a product you’re launching or a service with a new team member. Purposefully rewarding your clients will efficiently increase productivity.

3. Keep an 80% busy rate. Ask owners and team members how busy they wish to stay when working with clients and the answer you’ll most likely hear is 100%. The problem with having a 100% busy rate is that you become overly immersed in your business, which means you’re not taking time to work at your business.

It is tricky to balance your time, but when you put more time into strategically building relationships with existing and new clients, you will achieve greater long-term productivity. Consider writing personal thank-you notes to every client who came through your doors last week or for every person who you felt a connection.. That’s impossible, right? Wrong. If you set aside time for building client relationships, you will meet that goal and create raving fans along the way.  I used an automated card program to make this much easier.

Creating a plan that adds value, creativity and focuses on what’s in the client’s best interest will consistently trump being busy 100% of the time. It will also continuously give you a fresh business perspective.


Strategically rewarding your clients, letting them know you value them, will definitely boost productivity in your business.

Manage Your Inbox: 4 Tips to Take Control of Your Email

If your email inbox is out of control, you might need to rethink your methods for organizing your email and emptying your Inbox. Developing a new approach to handling your Inbox will help you to gain more control, improve your response time, and stay up with critical actions and deadlines.
This post details four important aspects that can help you process your email more efficiently-both at home and at the office. Although some of the productivity tools mentioned here are specific to Microsoft Outlook (Outlook 2010. Outlook 2007, and Outlook Web Access), most of the techniques-and even the organizational attitude described here-can help you to more efficiently process email and empty your inbox, even if you use an email application other than Outlook.

1.   Set up a simple and effective email reference system.  The first step toward an organized inbox is learning the difference between reference information and action information.

•   Reference information is information that is not required to complete an action; it is information that you keep in case you need it later. Reference information is stored in your reference area, email reference folder, your My Documents folder, or in the cloud on Google Drive, for example.
•   Action information is information you must have to complete an action. Action information is stored with the action, either on your to-do list or on your Calendar.
Nearly everyone receives plenty of reference information through email. It may seem as half, if not more, of your email is reference information. So it is essential to have a system that makes it easy to transfer messages from your inbox into your email reference system-a series of email file folders where you store reference information to ensure you have easy access to it later.

After you take care of filing your reference information, you can use the next three steps to handle the email that you have to do something with-your action information.

2.   Schedule uninterrupted time to process and organize email

How many times are you interrupted every day? It's nearly impossible to complete anything when there are constant interruptions from the phone, people stopping by your office, and instant messaging. So it's critical that you set aside uninterrupted time to process and organize your email.
Many email messages require you to make a decision. The best decisions require focus, and focus requires uninterrupted attention. Establish a regular time each day to process your email so that you can empty your linbox Of course. you can scan your email during the day for urgent messages or requests from your boss or clients.

Book yourself a recurring appointment for an hour a day to process email, and mark that time as "busy." During that hour, don't answer the phone or take interruptions, and work only on processing your lnbox. You can also turn off the audio alert that chimes each time you receive a new email-which can be a distraction in itself. In Outlook, click the File tab. Click Options. On the Mail tab, under Message arrival, clear the Play a sound check box.

At first, keeping these appointments will take discipline. But over time. the discipline becomes habit. And after you completely empty your lnbox, you'll see the value of this one hour a day and you'll stick to it like glue.

With today's technology, synchronizing email to your Smartphone, it makes it easier to keep this email appointment and to process your lnbox. This standard Smartphone technology means that you don't have to be at home or at the office to keep your daily email management appointment.

Conversation view in Office 2010 enables you to organize email folders by date and conversation. When Conversation view is turned on. messages that share the same subject appear as conversations that can be viewed as expanded or collapsed, helping you to quickly review and act on messages or complete conversations.

Also, improved search tools in Office 2010 make it easier to narrow your search results by using criteria, like sender or subject keywords, and other information, such as attachments. The Search Tools contextual tab includes a set of filters that efficiently focus your search to isolate the items that you want For more information, see Find a message or item by using Instant Search.

3.   Process one item at a time, starting at the top.  When you sit down to process your email, the first step is to sort it by the order in which you will process it. For example, you can filter by date, by subject, or even by the sender or receiver of the email message.In Outlook 2010, on the View tab, in the Arrangement group, click the arrangement option you want.


From the View tab, you can filter your email by date, category, sender or receiver, and more. You can also change the arrangement directly from your lnbox. To display the list of options, under the Search box. right-click the Arrange By: box. The Arrange By: box in your lnbox gives you convenient access to even more options to arrange your messages.

Tip: If you use Outlook 2010. enable the reading pane (called the preview pane in Outlook 2007) so that you can view your messages without having to open them. To enablP. the reading pane. on the View tab, in the Layout group, click Reading Pane. To enable the Outlook 2007 preview pane, on the View menu, click AutoPreview.

Resist the temptation to jump around in your inbox in no particular order. Begin processing the message at the top of your inbox and only move to the second one after you've handled the first. This can be hard at first, when you might have thousands of messages in your inbox. But as you reduce the number of messages over a few sessions, eventually you'll get to the point where you can process the 60-100 messages you get every day and regularly get your inbox down to zero.

4.   Use the "Four Os for Decision-Making" model

The "Four Ds for Decision-Making" model (4 Ds) is a valuable tool for processing email, helping you to quickly decide what action to take with each item and how to remove it from your inbox.  The expanded Ribbon in Office 2010 is designed to help you quickly find the tools that you need to complete your tasks. Features are organized in logical groups collected together under tabs. You can also customize the Ribbon to include tabs you personalize to match your own style.

The expanded Ribbon in Outlook 2010 replaces Outlook 2007 menus, giving you easy access to tools on conveniently organized tabs.

The Quick Steps feature, new in Outlook 2010, speeds up managing your email even more. This feature enables you to perform the multi-stepped tasks you use most often, such as moving email to a specific folder or moving a message and replying to it with a meeting request, with a single click. The Quick Steps gallery includes buttons for one-click file and flag, sending messages to your team, and other popular commands. For more information, see Automate common or repetitive tasks with Quick Steps.

The Quick Steps feature turns your most frequent tasks-whether forwarding messages to your co-workers or copying messages to a specific folder-into one-click operations.

Tip: Learning a few basic keyboard shortcuts in Outlook 2010 can make performing these tasks even easier and faster. Read our article on how to save time with quick computer shortcuts.
Decide what to do with each and every message

How many times have you opened, reviewed, and closed the same email message or conversation? Those messages are getting lots of attention but very little action. It is better to handle each email message only once before taking action-which means you have to decide what to do with it and where to put it With the 4 Ds model. you have four choices:

1.   Delete it
2.   Do it
3.   Delegate it
4.   Defer it

Delete it
Generally, you can delete about half of all the email you get. But some of you shudder when you hear the phrase "delete email." You're hesitant to delete messages for fear that you might need them at some point. That's understandable, but ask yourself honestly: What percentage of information that you keep do you actually use?

If you do use a large percentage of what you keep, your method is working. But many of us keep a lot more than we use. Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you decide what to delete:

• Does the message relate to a meaningful objective you're currently working on? If not. you can probably delete it. Why keep information that doesn't relate to your main focus?
• Does the message contain information you can find elsewhere ? If so, delete it.
• Does the message contain information that you will refer to within the next six months? If not. delete it.
• Does the message contain information that you're required to keep? If not, delete it.

Easily delete an entire conversation so that no new responses to it will appear in your inbox.
When a message contains all the previous messages in the conversation, you can click Clean Up to eliminate redundant messages. For example, as people reply to a conversation, the response is at the top and the previous messages in the conversation are below. Use the Clean Up command to keep only the most recent message that includes the whole conversation. For more information. see Use Conversation Clean Up to eliminate redundant
messages.

Cleaning up your conversations makes it easier to stay focused on the task being discussed.

Do it (in less than two minutes)
If you can't delete the email messages. ask yourself. ''What specific action do I need to take?" and "Can I do it in less than two minutes?" If you can. just do it.

There is no point in filing an email or closing an email if you can complete the associated task in less than two minutes. Try it out-see how much mail you can process in less than two minutes. I think you will be extremely surprised and happy with the results. You could file the message. you could respond to the message. or you could make a phone call. You can probably handle about one-third of your email messages in less than two minutes.

Instant message allows you respond to email messages faster. You can often view the availability of a person and instantly reach out to them using a variety of instant messaging methods depending on apps opened, ie., SKYPE, Facebook, or WhatsApp. Sometimes it's just easier to do a qucik message.  Caution, it will be more difficult to follow the thread as it will be in multiple places.  If the thread is essential, keep the communication in one place.

Delegate it
If you can't delete it or do it in two minutes or less. can you forward the email to an appropriate team member who can take care of the task?
If you can delegate it (forward it to another team member to handle). do so right away. You should be able to compose and send the delegating message in about two minutes. After you have forwarded the message. delete the original message or move it into your email reference system.

Defer it
If you cannot delete it. do it in less than two minutes, or delegate it. the action required is something that only you can accomplish and that will take more than two minutes. Because this is your dedicated email processing time. you need to defer it and deal with it after you are done processing your email. You'll probably find that about 20 percent of your email messages have to be deferred.
There are two things you can do to defer a message: Turn it into an actionable task, or turn it into an appointment. When you're using Outlook, you can defer emails that require action by dragging the messages to your Task List to turn them into tasks. Name the task to clearly state the required action so that you don't have to reopen the email message. The result is a clearly defined list of actions on your Task List that you can prioritize and schedule to complete on your Calendar. Or you can turn the message into a meeting request by dragging it to your Calendar.

One of my Favorite Tips on Outlook: Use the To-Do Bar in Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007 to drag an email message from an email folder to a date on your Calendar or to your Task List. On the View tab, in the Layout group. click the To-Do Bar. (i've yet to figure this out on Google.  Please comment if you know how to do as easily on Google on a desktop or even better on a Smartphone.)
When the bar appears, drag the message to your Calendar or to your Task List. This copies the message to the new location; it doesn't move it out of the original mail folder. so you'll still be able to find what you need.

Use the 4 Ds model every day
A concept I learned from an email management software, Orla (which I don't support anymore, although it was a brilliant concept).  Using the 4 Ds model on a daily basis makes it easier to handle a large quantity of email. Our experience shows that. on average, people can process about 100 email messages an hour. If you receive 40 to 100 messages per day, all you need is one hour of uninterrupted email processing time to get through your inbox. Our statistics show that of the email you receive:

•   Fifty percent can be deleted or filed.
•   Thirty percent can be delegated or completed in less than two minutes.
•   Twenty percent can be deferred to your Task List or Calendar to complete later.


Naturally, for those who a backlog of hundreds of messages, usually it takes time to get to the point where your daily routine keeps you up to date. It's important to get that backlog down, so I would suggest setting blocks of time aside to work through it. Then, you can really enjoy processing your messages every day using the 4 Ds.

Four Ways to Easily Market Your Business Consistently

As small business owners and entrepreneurs it isn't difficult to get into the habit of feeling you're too busy to promote or market your business. Of course, this can be compared to stating that you're too busy to invest in your ongoing success. Find out the key 4 ways to help you make time to regularly and consistently market ' so that you can experience long-term success and growth in your business.

I think it's human nature to forget about our marketing when we've got clients coming in but as soon as the flow slows down a bit (which it will), we panic and start looking frantically around for ways to get more clients coming in.

By making time on a regular basis and continually to market, you ensure that you continue to find and maintain your most profitable clients. This is just what will give you success in the long run and growth in your business.

So, just how do you make marketing the # 1 priority?

Here are 4 tips to try...

1. Make sure you have a marketing action plan

When you have a roadmap which tells you where you're heading and ways to get there, then actually doing it gets easier. When you have a plan of action, you don't have to waste time scrambling around every time you try a new marketing activity.

A marketing action plan allows you to spend less time with your marketing and be more focused in the process.

2. Create a marketing action calendar

Having a calendar that plots out each marketing action acts as a great visual roadmap. You can see instantly any "holes" or overlaps of approaches and timing. I plan almost everything on my marketing action calendar - from newsletter submission dates, blog posting schedule, social media postings, special email reminders, networking events, teleseminars and so on.

Having a marketing action calendar enables you stay on top of the marketing you've committed to.

3. Set up marketing appointments with yourself

Set aside at least a day a week to work on marketing your business. Schedule this into your calendar and don't break it! Consider it as important as client appointments . Take this time to evaluate and track your marketing activities, research new opportunities, adjust your sales goals, write an article or blog post, conduct a client survey, and so on.

By booking appointments with yourself, you MAKE your marketing a priority.

4. Do bite-sized marketing chunks during the day

You can deal with the more extensive chunks (planning, writing, tracking, etc.) of marketing during your weekly scheduled marketing appointment with yourself. Bear in mind, there are plenty of little bite-sized marketing tasks that you can do between appointments or when you need a break from working on a large project.

Here are some bite-sized marketing tasks that can be done in 5 - 10 minutes:

* call up a client and ask for a testimonial

* sign up for your next networking event

* call a program chairperson about setting up a speaking engagement at an organization you're interested in

* email a potential referral source to set up a meeting

* jot down an outline for your newsletter content

* call a new client to find out if they have any questions on their recent purchase

* send an article, with a note, to a client you know is interested in the topic

* order a thank you gift, on the web or by phone, to be sent to someone who just referred a client to you

* submit an article you've written to an article directory website

* send a handwritten note to someone you met at a meeting recently (you can automate this process.

* write up something for your blog and post it

* check out a company's website that you are interested in possibly doing a joint venture with

Incorporate these 4 tips into your everyday work schedule and you'll soon find it easy and profitable to make marketing a priority.

Dealing with the Loss of a Business: Recovery, Change, and Coping Strategies

Loss of a business is overall, quite like the "death" of a loved one. A great deal of a business owner's identity and hard work have gone into a business, that should tragedy strike, for any reason and the business is forced into bankruptcy or even close, the emotions felt by the business owner are nothing short of serious and all encompassing!  I know when I was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, I was faced with a few of the following stages as well.

Simply because losing a business or the threat of is thought as a "major life stressor", along with divorce and the death of a loved one, a business owner that loses a business can be just as emotionally devastated. With this in mind, it is befitting the business owner take into consideration the five stages of grief that show up in a major life event or "stressor". These stages are based on the work of renowned Swiss born psychiatrist, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:

1. Denial. This stage is a healthy stage when the individual asks the question, "Why Me"?, and develops strategies to develop defenses against the impending stress.  The first thing I did was hire an assistant to maintain my business consulting practice. 

2. Anger or Resentment. Blame occurs in this stage.  It was my case that I developed "a story".  Losing the story will help people see that you have moved on to the next phase of your business strategy.  Getting over this stage will show people that both you and your business are healthy.

3. Bargaining. This is a "truce period" where an individual makes "deals" in their minds, if "only" things don't play out the way they are bound to do so.  Creating alternative business strategies to compensate for the lost time or how to deliver your business model differently could be part of this stage.  For me it was relocating to a warmer climate, if I am in a more luxurious environment, I'll relax more and take care of my self better.  Rebuilding my business consulting in the Phoenix market was the deal I made.  Little did I realize the stresses of a new location, it was like starting over again. 

4. Depression. This is the real grief phase, and an individual will primarily feel discouraged and hopeless.  As a prideful person, I'd rather hide than admit this phase.  However it truly was a reality.  I actually labeled it more like PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder.  When it hit me about two and a half years later what I had been through, I went through a tail spin.  Irrational decisions, desperate phone calls to prospects, and losing my self care routine with diet an exercise.  All of which just exasperated the depression period.  Once you get a hold of your time management, business strategy and personal wellness, you'll move through this phase like I did.

5. Acceptance. This is where reality is dealt with and the process of "going on" begins. Withdrawal from others may occur temporarily here.  Change occured in this phase for me.  It was time to evaluate who, what and where I was seeing positive results of the cancer trauma.  Accepting your truth and new story in a positive perspective will allow you to be of greater service to others.  I know have amazing strength and experience to help others on their path as they rebuild their life and business.

Although Dr. Kubler-Ross developed the five stages primarily to be used when dealing with terminal illnesses that lead to death, her work can readily be applied to many major life stresses, including the loss of a business or in my case, cancer.  In addition, not all individuals go through each stage routinely in order, with some skipping stages, or staying in one stage longer than others.

Business owners that suffer the catastrophic loss of a business need to allow themselves the same flexibility and time for acceptance that other major life stressors require. They need to work through the five stages until the fifth stage, acceptance, is reached. They also need to put the loss into perspective if they can, and determine just "why" and "how" the business faltered and eventually failed.

With defeat, sometimes knowledge is attained, and if a business owner can work through the stages of grief successfully, and use the knowledge attained for enlightenment, then perhaps they can successfully start another business in the future, and achieve better results.

Business owners should make a list after they are on their feet again of exactly "what" went wrong, and methods of prevention in the future, as they can then use this to their advantages. The list can include such information such as:

1. Why the business failed overall: Was it the wrong type of business for the wrong type of clientele? Was it targeted incorrectly? Was it too unusual to succeed? Was the marketing of the business incorrect? Were the expenditures too great? Was the business plan and outlook faulty or realistic?

2. What mistakes led up to the failure: Did the business grow too quickly or too slowly? Were there actual methods in place for prevention, or was the business "reactive" rather than "proactive"?

3. What can the business owner correct/rectify in the future? This is the most important question, and a list of all methods that may be used as a measure against future failures should be made.

Business owners need to give themselves time to heal and sort through their feelings, though. Any loss is so emotionally draining, that jumping right back into the "business fire" with another business is not necessarily a good idea until the business owner has recovered their energy and worked through their feelings of grief completely.

Defeat can be a learning experience, and many successful business people have also experienced their fair share of defeats and loss of businesses. Turning the "negative" of the loss of the business into a "positive" learning experience will soon find the business owner recovered and moving onto the next positive step in their entrepreneurial lives!

How Organizing Your Life Increases Productivity

As our work loads and 'to do' lists grow so does the stress to keep up with the increasing demands and maintain our personal productivity. Eventually we will need to step up and embrace personal responsibility to master the best way to manage our crazy schedules. Read more to get a simple business strategy that will organize your schedule, save time and increase productivity.

Probably one of the greatest tips on how to increase productivity is to consolidate and better align your time and effort at each and every opportunity. Daily almost everyone is seeking solutions to make life easier and boost his or her own personal productivity. Surprisingly day after day more is added to our 'to do list' leading to a negative impact on our personal performance. This escalating frustration demands a necessity by all of us to assume personal responsibility for establishing a system or strategy allowing us to manage bigger work loads. Due to the fact we simply cannot produce more time the necessity to make better use of the time we have is the answer.

Time management is a fundamental principle for all of our productivity issues.  Listed here is a 5 step process just about anyone can use to better organize their time, efforts and improve their personal productivity.

Identify Daily 'Needs' 

Take all those tasks and assigned commitments you are presented with and figure out what must be done daily. Basically categorize these as part of your daily chores or tasks and move on to the next step.  I have a list of my social media marketing steps on a checklist and every morning I review and check off each of the steps.  That way I don't forget and I visually track what I'm doing as other thoughts, emails, or calls may interrupt my focus.

Determine Weekly "Needs"

Sort out the things you are obliged or perhaps aspire to accomplish that is a 'weekly' essential. You might have certain things that require attention maybe once within the week however, not everyday. Specify these tasks to their appropriate day and get started on the next step which is…..

Determine Monthly "Needs"

Sort and categorize any task that will only call for attention on a monthly basis. At this point you most likely will be contending with a smaller list of items from your 'to do' list.  Do you find yourself starting to breathe again?

Combine Any Related "Needs"

Finally go back into each category you have come up with above and evaluate each responsibility to see if any can be combined with another. For example you may need to be at a specific location to carry out a particular task. If some other errand or task can be handled at the same location also plan it together for completion which will really help boost your personal productivity. By 'batching' your tasks this way you will definitely make more efficient use of both your time and effort.

Flexibility

Take your newly organized work schedule for a spin and be flexible, change it as you see fit. Each time you make a slight adjustment you will simply be increasing your personal productivity and efficiency.  I always say that things don't' clutter, we clutter.  And when we understand why, we can make simple changes to improve the quality of our life at work and at home.

Considering the stressful lifestyles and work demands many people currently are facing there is a persistent need to increase productivity. As a result of these demands our personal productivity, as a result is diminishing which actually reflects negatively on our personal performance. The need to find a solution to this perpetual 'concern' falls directly on the shoulders of just about every one of us. By taking personal responsibility of the time we can have and organizing it we can easily make better use of our efforts.

As I am busy during the week with my business consulting clients in the Phoenix area, I have found that this 5 step process can be adapted and used by just about anyone to get back control of their time and improve upon their own personal performance.

Webinar Marketing for Newbies: 5 Steps To Creating and Marketing Your First Webinar

Business consulting takes on more than just helping people get organized, it also involves helping clients get more business through creative marketing efforts.  A method that helps expand your market quickly and inexpensively is with webinars.

If you have never produced a webinar before, the thought of webinar marketing can be very intimidating. You may be wondering...

• How am I going to work out the technical issues with holding a webinar?
• How can I give people access to the webinar?
• What platform should I use for hosting the webinar?
• What should the webinar be about, anyway?
• How do I get people to enroll in|participate in|enroll|take my webinar?
• Not to worry! While webinars are surely more technically complex than other types of content marketing, once you get the first one under your belt you'll be off to the races.

Here are five easy steps to creating and marketing your very first webinar:

1. Get hyper-specific on a niche topic
The phrase "go big or go home" does not apply to webinars. That is, you don't want to try and cover a broad topic in a single webinar, and leave your audience with a grand overview but no specific takeaways.

Since webinars are typically under an hour in length, it's important to deliver valuable, actionable tips and strategies within the allotted time.

Instead of holding a webinar on "speaking," for example, you might hold a webinar on a specific topic such as "How to Speak in a Week," or "Speak!  Connect!  Get Paid."

2. Choose a platform that's easy to use
When you publish a blog post or upload a video to YouTube, you have a certain amount of control over when and how your audience sees your content.
With a live webinar, on the other hand, you are 'on stage' in front of a live audience. The last thing you want is to be interrupted with technical problems, bad audio, a fuzzy video feed or some other tech nightmare.

Whether you choose GoToWebinar or Google Hangouts or another hosting platform, make sure you're 100% comfortable with the application long before the actual webinar takes place.

3. Promote to a warm email list
The biggest webinar marketing challenge is getting people to attend. Be sure to promote your webinar to a warm email list - prospects and customers who know you and your brand and are willing to give you 30-60 minutes of their time.

If you haven't been consistent in emailing your list, it's better to hold off on the webinar for a few weeks to a month and focus on re-engaging your audience. Doing so will allow you to reestablish rapport and prep prospects before asking them to take action.

4. Do a test-run before the webinar begins
Hold a practice webinar 1-2 days before the actual webinar begins. Make sure all audio and video components are working. If you're having a special guest join you on the webinar via phone or video, have them call in no less than 30 minutes before you begin. This will give you ample time to deal with any tech issues that may arise.

5. Create and share a recording of the webinar
After the webinar, be sure to share a recording of the presentation with those who attended and those who could not attend.

If you created a paid webinar, you may want to charge a fee to access to the recording as well.
In the days following the webinar, you can email your list a link to the recording and reinforce the Call to Action (CTA) made on the webinar (i.e., a product offer, a special promotion, etc.)

When creating and marketing your first webinar, it's important to choose a specific topic, use a platform with which you're familiar, promote to a warm email list, do a test run before going live, and follow up by sharing a recording of the presentation.  This business strategy is sure to improve your technical abilities, attract more clients and increase your revenue streams.

How Viral Marketing Improves Online Efficiency

As a business consultant, working with clients during the day, most of my marketing is at night and weekends at my computer.  I have found that viral marketing is a promotional strategy that has been in use for quite some time and has transitioned over onto the internet quite successfully. The strength behind this particular advertising technique is in its ability to help businesses spread their marketing message a whole lot faster and with less effort. In this way it helps to not only boost your exposure but also your ability to work much more efficiently as well!

Here are 3 significant ways in which any online business can expect to benefit by using this particular promotional strategy.

Time Efficient

Typically this advertising technique involves little more than sharing your marketing message with a relatively smaller crowd who then spread the word. As a time management technique, working online offers the advantage in many cases of automating your efforts even further resulting in greater savings of time! As any entrepreneur will tell you time is money and therefore a precious commodity that should be used wisely!

Cost Efficient

In most cases advertising in a viral manner online involves distributing free reports or leaving business links at social site, forums, bookmarking sites or even blogging. In every case there is little or no out of pocket expenses making this advertising technique very cost efficient!

Energy Efficient

With an organized office as a foundation to being efficient, your office organization is then improved by the flow of processes.  By leveraging the efforts of others you are able to channel the energy you have saved into other areas of your business. As an entrepreneur this is extremely important since most functions and/or business tasks are left up to you to complete. Avoiding fatigue in this way helps you maintain a mental alertness that can be use in more constructive and creative ways. Your mistakes will be minimized and your ability to produce more and stay motivated will benefit as well!

Remember when fatigue does set in your drive will obviously lessen and as pointed out and will also be very likely to making errors. What will happen here is that not only do your errors add business inefficiencies they also require more time and effort down the road to resolve!


Probably the most important aspect viral marketing provides business or person is being able to leverage the hard work of others to spread your marketing objectives. Whenever this advertising strategy is applied online the benefits it provides magnify because of the automation and global audience the internet can supply! The single biggest advantage this promotional strategy offers is the improve efficiencies a business can experience as assessed above. It so makes sense that if you can increase efficiency you will also boost productivity in doing so leading to more sales and profits. With that said there appears to be little reasoning as to why you would not want to include this powerful marketing strategy into your online marketing mix!

Keeping it Simple - The Four Agreements

Over the past few years, the principles of paring down the excess, simplifying and pulling apart the true meaning of integrity have become powerful personal themes. For many of us, there's a motivation to once again examine old habits that consistently work happily in the background regardless of years of self-examination. Perhaps under the direction of a new global energy, there's a feeling of having the ability to lovingly get rid of those things which have served us all comfortably on one level, yet have afforded excuses to remain small on another.

I discovered Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements recently and it powerfully resonated with this decision to whittle back; to simplify; in becoming more authentic as a participant on this planet and start operating in a more genuine way.

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don't Make Assumptions: Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.


4. Always Do Your Best: Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret. ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

By using these 4 simple principles, we can easily transform the way we as people operate in this world. How do they resonate with you? Please feel free to share your thoughts, we'
d love to hear from you.

How to Know if You Have a Toxic Boss?

Does your office look like an episode of The Walking Dead?  It may be because you have a Toxic Boss.

We all know them. The boss who constantly berates their people. The team leader who creates division within the team rather than harmony. The manager who condescends to talk to the individuals in their team, but rarely pays attention to their opinions. These are definitely toxic bosses.

I was called in a company recently to help with their customer service.  Very quickly I discovered that they had over 10 people in a customer service position in the last two years.  Upon investigation, I discovered that there were no procedures in place to support training, the office furniture and conditions of the office were uncomfortable and above all the boss/business owner was demeaning and a micro manager.  These toxic bosses create toxic environments.  If you're in one of these offices, you'll feel like you are among "The Walking Dead".

These people drain the energy of the individuals in their groups. They are belittling, trivial and obnoxious. They consider themselves superior to other people and they don't really care who knows it. All they are concerned about is "getting the job done". Or perhaps it's "straightening this place out". As part of their drive to accomplish their goal they dismiss or ignore the other members of the organization. And eventually it affects them too,

It is vital that you, as a hiring manager or human resource executive, to be able to identify these toxic bosses. They can severely diminish productivity while increasing cost. They can make a large company an unpleasant place to work, and they can destroy a small company.

How to uncover a toxic boss
Often all you have to do is walk around. Listen, employees might seek you out to point out their toxic boss. If that isn't going to happen it usually is due to the fear that the toxic boss builds in the organization. Then you'll have to get the facts some other way.

Consult clients, or even former clients, of your company. Pay attention to the side remarks they make as they answer your direct concerns about something else. Get them to talk about the managerial strengths of the organization and be sensitive about what or who they leave out.

Investigate overhead costs. One of the leading costs of a toxic boss is in personnel issues. Generally these costs are accumulated into overhead accounts as opposed to charged to operating units. Regardless if your company's annual employee turnover rate is within norms for its industry, check out the numbers.

Does one group have significantly more people quitting (or retiring) as compared to others? Have there been occasions where a few individuals from the same unit have left the company within a short time period? Does one department have greater overtime costs in contrast to others. Have the employees in a particular department used up all their vacation and more of their sick days than the average?

How to handle it?
Someone who can be described as a toxic boss didn't get to where they are devoid of being effective in something. If they weren't capable of some specific element of the business they would have been fired long ago. You'll want to evaluate the value of this individual to the company and weigh it against their cost to the company.

If the toxic boss has improved sales by ten percent in the last year the stakeholders will possibly not care if the employee turnover rate in that department is higher than average. However, if you document that the cost of goods sold has risen by five percent over the same period, because of increased training costs, fees to employment agencies, sick leave costs and increased overtime, you will get their attention.

Your strategies with respect to a toxic boss would depend on the circumstances. You can recommend coaching or advanced training for the toxic boss. It's possible that the individual should be transferred to a position without a lot of responsibility for people. Perhaps the goals set for the individual are unreachable, which has been responsible for their toxic boss management style, and should be adjusted.

Always document and quantify the measurements which you use to determine that a toxic boss is impacting the company. Use overhead expenses as well as direct costs to demonstrate true bottom line impacts. Finally, use the same measurements to quantify the benefit to the company when your actions resolve the toxic boss problem.
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If you have any questions or comments about this article, or if there is an issue you would like us to address, please visit www.strategizeandorganize.com or call for a complimentary strategy call at 480-442-2014.

Mental Health and Productivity

Eating healthy, exercise, reduce your stress!  You hear all of these mantras often, if not daily.  You have to wonder, how do people deal with it all.

Real life is not all wine and roses. The challenges life presents are all part of package of life. Coming head to head with adversity should not be viewed as a bad thing?  what matters is the way in which we deal with it. A positive mind-set is vital because positive thinking is proven to boost our overall performance and quality
of work. We are likely to think more dynamically and perform more efficiently when we are feeling positive and well.

As a business coach helping people improve their productivity, I find the most effective results are seen with clients who have a positive mind-set.  If you are in a good place emotionally and want to make a change, then it is time to make a difference today to take action,