Bill Baren Blog

Have you ever had this experience?

You learn a new word that you seem to have never heard of before and all of a sudden you start hearing and seeing that word everywhere.

Is the word being used more now that you’ve learned it?

Or…

Are you simply noticing it more because you’ve increased your possibilities by learning a new word?

When you open your attention to new things –> you increase your possibilities

When you’re stuck, it simply means that you’ve gotten into a rut of looking at the same things over and over again.

When you widen the range of what you pay attention to and then begin to change your actions accordingly, you shift.  You get unstuck.

I call this “The Perception Principle.”

This perception principle is at the heart of why certain business owners stagnate or fail and why others achieve success and create businesses that allow them to have financial freedom.

When you put your attention on “what works” in successful businesses, including your own… and you expand the scope of what you notice, learn and apply from what works… your business grows, your confidence soars and your stress disappears.

Here’s a list of areas that I find most business owners need to pay extra attention to:

• Your Audience – knowing your audience and their needs and being able to articulate it
• Your Promise to Your Audience – knowing what you’re promising your audience that they are actually willing to invest into
• Your Business Model – figuring the optimal way to set up the packages, offering and money flow in your business
• Your Marketing Flow – understanding and optimizing the entire flow of how you attract and retain clients
• Your Team – continually finding ways for you to do what you love and let others take care of the rest
• Your Systems – stopping the need to constantly reinvent the wheel by creating ways to get great results EVERY time
• Your Self – total commitment to mastery in your areas of expertise, including knowing yourself and getting better at being YOU

It’s not always easy to notice NEW POSSIBILITIES in each of these areas.  And it certainly is not easy to commit to devoting time and energy to working ON your business in this way.  Yet, the more you pay attention, the more you can see your business with new eyes, the more your business expands to include new opportunities for increased revenue, better teams, greater partnerships and making more of a difference.

My job, as a business coach, is to continue to expand your perceptions of new possibilities in each of these areas.  And I want to continue to find the best avenues to do that with you.

~Bill

I’ve got a wish.

I wish I could erase a word from your vocabulary.

That word is perfection.

I know I am being dramatic here and it’s not really the word I want to erase, but the baggage that comes along with it.

When we’re attached to perfection:
• We spend a lot of time learning… not much time implementing
• We procrastinate … and procrastinate…
• We spend too much time making it just right (and it’s still not perfect anyway!)

Here’s the thing – whatever you’re doing will never be “perfect” until you try it out in real life with real people!

So here’s my favorite motto:

Imperfect action is better than no action.

Taking lots of imperfect action is what gets us new clients and new business.

I want to share a success story to inspire you to imperfect action.

Last month in our Client Mastery Blueprint program, I was teaching the art of mastering enrolling conversations that result in increasing the number of prospects that say YES to working with you.

I gave a participant a basic script for what to say in a sales conversation.

Instead of waiting months to get the script perfect and after almost “wimping out in the last moment,” she leapt into imperfect action right away and used the script with a prospective client.

She stayed open and relied on her curiosity to get connected to her prospect.

And by the end of the conversation, it was her prospect who asked if she had any packages she could offer her! YES, this imperfect conversation turned into her client committing to working with her for the next 5 months.

This imperfect action not only resulted in a long-term client, but also renewed her confidence in her business and her ability to enroll other prospects into her business.

Here are a few lessons for enrolling new clients and overcoming your desire for perfection:

Imperfect Action Is Better Than No Action: Stop waiting for the perfect time, the perfect idea or the perfect package. Use what you have and “just do it”. You can always improve on what you have later but by if you don’t put it out there in the first place you’ll never make anything happen

“Perfection” Is Not A One Time Event – It’s A Process of Trial and Error: Try something out (such as a sales conversation script), learn from every time you use it, and make an improvement every time.

Be Honest: Honesty is always the best policy. During enrolling conversations don’t fret about following the right steps or losing the prospect. Be in your element, show genuine interest in your prospect and trust your instincts. When you are honest and passionate about who you are and what you do the rest will fall into place

Celebrate All Victories: By trying to be perfect all the time, we forget the small things we accomplish. Instead of just focusing on the things she forgot to do, I asked my client to celebrate the fact that her client ASKED for her services. What a great success!

ARE YOU READY?
If you’re a perfectionist and my ode to imperfect action inspired you, I’d like to ask you to share an imperfect action you’re willing to take in the next 7 days in the comments below.

What would you do if you could:
- eliminate the distractions and interruptions that are stealing your time and energy?
- say NO to low-priority tasks you shouldn’t be doing?

Here’s the SINGLE most powerful technique I’ve discovered for getting started with reducing the time wasters in your business (which could be stealing anywhere from 50% to 80% of your time!).

DOWNLOAD The Ultimate Time Mastery Technique (PDF)

Are you ready to take the challenge, and use this for 3 days?
(If not, perhaps this could be what is keeping the time wasters in your day.)

I guarantee if you use this resource (instructions are inside) for 3 days, the way you think about time in your business will be transformed.

It’s transformed my business and that of many of my clients.

And when you are ready to transform the way you’re using your time, join us at the The Big Shift Experience. We’re going to show you how you can use all of the time you can be saving to:

=> work with clients you love
=> develop higher value products and program
=> partner with a whole new group of big-vision positive-thinking business owners
=> create a business model that works for you
=> double your income goal! (if you were on my 5 Big Shifts teleseminar, you know what I’m talking about)

Click here to learn more about The Big Shift Experience

Let me know your questions, insights – and your results (!!) in the comments below.

Here’s a simple technique for making steady, daily progress on your most important priorities. I call it the “Power Hour.”
If you schedule a Power Hour every day, you can see a doubling in your daily productivity, because you’ll make time to spend a highly productive hour on your top priority.

How to Power Your Day with a Power Hour

· CHOOSE YOUR TOP PRIORITY: Select the project or activity that will have the greatest impact on your business. Something that will generate revenue or achieve a strategic goal. (For example, a block of time to send emails to prospective clients)
· CREATE A PRODUCTIVE ENVIRONMENT: Settle into a productive environment where you won’t be disturbed (example: a quiet office with the door closed). Have all of the materials you need to make progress on or complete your top priority project. Bring a glass of water or tea so you won’t have to take a break.
· ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS: Switch off your phone, close your email software, hide newspapers, etc. (The world will survive if you are off email for an hour!). If a to-do item occurs to you during this hour, write it down to do later.
· SET A TIMER FOR 50 MINUTES: Put a timer on your desk (an egg timer, watch with alarm, etc) and set it for 50 minutes. For example, if it’s 10am, set an alarm for 10:50am. This step is key, so don’t skip it!
· WORK WITH FOCUS FOR 50 MINUTES: During that 50 minute period, work only on the high-priority project you’ve selected. If the project will take several hours, then go ahead and finish off a 50-minute chunk.
· DON’T DO ANYTHING ELSE: Don’t check email, don’t make phone calls, don’t get coffee, etc. Instead, get some serious work done.
· REWARD YOURSELF: When the timer goes off, take a 10 minute break, something that will refresh you. Such as a short walk outside to get the blood circulating, enjoying a glass of water.

This is pretty simple, right? But after the Power Hour, you’ll have a major sense of accomplishment from getting a key project done (or a big piece of it done), rather than putting it off and having it hang over your head all day.

If you do a Power Hour every day, I think you’ll be amazed at what you can get done in a day and by the end of the week. When I first started doing this, I was blown away by how much more I could get done – especially on the projects and activities that bring in more clients and more income.

A couple of additional tips to make this success:
· Put the Power Hour in your calendar in advance. Ideally, you can have one scheduled for each day of the week.
· Schedule the Power Hour during the part of the day that is most productive for you. For example, many people are most productive first thing in the morning, when their mind is clear and fresh. So schedule your Power Hour before checking email, or getting sucked into the other activities of the day.
· After you get the hang of it, you can do more than one Power Hour in a day. I like to schedule two Power Hours in a row, then take a 1/2 hour break for a light meal or to talk a meditative walk. This gives me a productive block of time balanced out by a block of time to rejuvenate and refresh.

Give this technique a shot, and then leave a comment below to let us all know how it worked for you.

I usually give myself an hour to read blogs and write my own posts Monday through Thursday.

I have two different types of days of blogging:

1. I feel no pressure. I settle into the hour, read and allow whatever comes out of the time to naturally evolve. I enjoy my time. I am often happy with the result.

2. I begin the hour already worried that 1 hour is simply not enough time to read my favorite blogs and create a post worthy of my own inner critic. I feel rushed and often produce very little that I can even contemplate posting to my blog.

I am now in minute 21 of my hour. I am still feeling the pressure. My limiting belief is that I can’t get out of this pressure in this sitting. My desire is to simply write what is and allow myself to snap out of this mode.

Yes, our relationship with our constraints is the secret doorway to unlimited creativity. As that relationship grows, matures and becomes effortless, so enters our creativity.

Kathy Sierra has a take on it:

“What if you needed to build a powerful web app, but you had only ten hours a week for programming? What if you wanted to write a novel, but you had to do it in 30 days? What if you wanted to create a computer game, but you had only 48 hours? What if you had to write, shoot, and edit a short film in 24 hours? Constraints can be your enemy, but when it comes to creative breakthroughs, they can be your best friend.

Constraint-driven creativity is not just about inspiring (or forcing) creativity, it’s also about getting something done. How many of us keep planning to get around to writing that book… once we’ve got some free time? How many projects stay on the back burner forever because we just can’t seem to make it happen?”

We can look at our constraints as the walls of our prison cells or we can look at our constraints as simply borders of our canvas. So let’s pick up our brushes and let’s freely paint within the borders of constraints.

Yes, you can write that book in 45 days.
Yes, you can create this website for $5000.
Yes, you can build this widget with lighter materials.
Yes, you can run a successful business while working 30 hours per week.

This is what Jack White of White Stripes has to say about it (from Tom Guariello’s book — Work Different: Design For The Rest of Us)

“A lot about the White Stripes is about constriction and keeping us boxed in. Being extremely stripped down to the most minimal components, mostly revolving around the number 3. You see that [we use] three colors: red, white and black. But also vocal, guitar and drums, or vocal, piano and drums; and, keeping ourselves limited. I think there’s more creativity where there’s less opportunity. Instead of trying to bring more musicians into the band or more tracks when we record or more time spent in the studio, it’s best to explore the creativity with limited means. You get more out of it; something more interesting happens.”

(40 minutes to complete this post from start to finish)

Ask yourself this question a few times per day and stop doing what’s not important.

This post is inspired by Seth Godin.

I often find that when a great new idea pops into my head, I get super excited about it right away and then the excitement tends to decrease over time. It’s as if the air keeps getting let out of my idea the longer I wait to act on it and/or complete it.

Andrea Lee explains this phenomenon of completing quickly in this post regarding finishing her book in 45 days.

Here are my TOP 5 Reasons to Complete Quickly

1. Completing quickly gives you the opportunity to act on your next great idea
2. The faster you complete something the faster you can reap the benefits of it.
3. Completion gives you lots of energy and a great sense of accomplishment.
4. Completing a project quickly allows you to work on it at the peak of your excitement.
5. Allow completion to be your own de-cluttering of the brain. Once you are done you can give yourself permission to not think about it.

Have you seen this scene (or one just like it) on TV or in a movie?

The young detective really cares about solving the case. He is going above and beyond the call of duty to nab the killer. He doesn’t sleep nights. He is constantly thinking about what he can do to solve the crime. The pressure is starting to get to him. He makes a mistake, he cracks. The police captain call him into the office is says, “Take a week off. Clear you head.” “No, I can handle it,” says the detective. “This is an order not a request,” says the captain intensely.

When you work for yourself, who is going to tell you to take a vacation? How do you know that you need a rest?

I got that signal a few weeks ago, when my hard-drive crashed. Yes, it was time to take a few weeks off from thinking, from the routine, from my prioritization, from my systems, from my to-do list and from my email. Wow, what a time it has been!

• I learned how and where the automatic pilot way of doing things doesn’t serve me
• I learned how much of a slave to email I really am (and how much of my day it takes up)
• I learned how much more I can get done with out my to do list
• I learned how a 3-day backpacking trip is an amazing catalyst for ideas and for writing
• I learned that when I am in catch-up mode, I am much better at prioritizing and ignoring what’s not important
• I learned that I want to recommit to prioritization and my agenda consciously

This timely excerpt from Seth Godin inspired me to further look and change my systems and my agenda:

At work, where does your list come from? Do you answer emails by date received, by urgency, by sender? Who decides that? Which blogs do you read, which tasks do you do?

The biggest challenge, by far, is one of agenda. What do I do now? What do I do next?

What tends to get done is what’s urgent, not important–you’ve heard that before.
I think, though, that with the new tools and new leverage available to us, the decisions get even more important.

Because we do it every day, we tend to take it for granted. We assume our agenda is exactly the right one, and we tweak it, we don’t overhaul it.

_______________

How about placing the overhaul of your systems and of your agenda at the top of your agenda?