Friday, May 20, 2005

Ever notice how you often get what you wish for?

Life is funny at times!

More so when you are in business for yourself and have some control over where you invest your time. There are times when you are so busy you really don't know where one project ends and another starts and you wish for some breathing room.

Amazingly enough, you often get that wish. Why? Often it is due to your being too busy working in the business to work on the business.
  • By working on the business, I mean spending time in strategic planning and development of new service and profit areas.
  • By working on the business, I mean investing time marketing and promoting what you do to current and prospective clients.
  • By working on the business, I mean investing time and resources in your own skills development.
  • By working on the business, I mean investing time in strategic play and creative indulgence. This will energize your mind and your body.

When you are working in the business, your focus is on doing the jobs, engagements, projects that you have commmitted to doing. The result of not investing time to work on the business is the gigantic roller coaster of cash flow and client engagement.

I love to be busy and am at my best when I am working on a variety of projects. This allows me to more fully utilize my energy and creativity. I can switch from one project to another and often this change is an energizer. But I need to remind myself that some of those projects need to be focused on building the business by working on the business.

For example: We've just designed and launched our Ideas@Work! - Strategies for Success e-zine earlier this month and will be sending out our June issue at the end of the month. I'm already working on the July, August and September issues.

My plan is to have at least one issue completed a month in advance at all times. That way, should I find myself too busy or away from the office, I can still send it out on time. I can add breaking news as needed, but the majority of the ezine will be locked and loaded. I am also working ahead and eventually will take part of my 'mini-breaks' as creative writing sessions where I can work on issues as far out as 6 months.

Another area where we have taken some pro-active moves in expanding and working on the business is in the expansion of our websites. We have registered quite a few websites and are busy creating a series of mini-sites that will serve to promote or focus on specific services (eg: www.BusinessSuccessCoach.biz) or specific products (eg: www.couragetolead.info). These mini-sites will start appearing as early as the middle of June.

These mini-sites will also act as portals leading people to our main sites. With more people searching the web for products and professional services it makes dollars and sense to invest in creating opportunities for current and potential clients to find us and find out what we can do for them.

We need to work for a sense of fluidity or balance in our lives, careers and companies. We are never really in balance, but we can work to ensure we are not running full tilt, out of control toward a brick wall or cliff in our futures.

Investing time to work on your life, career or business is the best investment of your time and resources. The pay offs can be tremendous in better use of time, increased energy, enhanced career success, increased productivity and profitability.

If you need a hand, drop me a note at: bob@ideaman.net or visit one of our main sites: www.ideaman.net, www.leadersedge.biz, or www.trainersplus.com

If you'd like to be added to our monthly ezine simply send me an email with subscribe in the subject line at: bob@ideaman.net

Monday, May 16, 2005

Ideas@Work! - Strategies for Success e-zine launched

Dateline Egremont:

Finally we launch our new e-version of our Ideas@Work! - Strategies for Success newsletter.

Found a great local business www.mymailout.com who offer a cost effective, easy to use system which helped me create and launch the new ezine.

Reports back indicate it is being well received. If you would like one simply email me with 'subscribe' in the subject line and I'll add you to our list.

bob@ideaman.net is all you need.