Are You Passing Judgement on Your Clients?

 

P.S.

Picking Up Where I Left Off…

It’s been a while since I have posted and I bet you are wondering where I have been…well, let me tell you. 

Part of my 2011 goals included reforming my business structure to include the different aspects of what I offer clients and to grow my speaking and writing.  As a life balance coach for women entrepreneurs and a skilled business strategist it made sense to “house” those offerings on one site that linked to other sites specific to that offering while having the space to incorporate my speaking and books.  

My plan included stream lining the back end of things by having one main newsletter through the Kate Powers parent site while continuing to offer business strategy offerings through my Small Business Success Strategist site  

It was a good plan in theory and on paper but I was continually blocked in the implementation of it. 

Now if you have been following me for any amount of time you know I have an unusual relationship with any and all forms of technology.  I love technology!  I respect how powerful it is and what it can do for our businesses. 

Technology, on the other hand, is not always fond of me.  Programs that work perfectly for the rest of the world some how come to a screeching halt in their functionality when I log in.  Whatever it is about me and technology it extends beyond myself and onto those who are working on technical tasks on my behalf which my dear friend Alyssa Avant recently discovered as she was putting together my power point for my 7 Steps To Start Up Success presentation last month at the Inspired Women Event for the National Association of Christian Women Entrepreneurs in Dallas, TX.

I have found it frustrating to not be implementing my great plan! 

So I had to let go of it… the plan, my expectations, and how I thought things should move forward.  Clearly, there was another plan I am supposed to be following.  So I stepped back from the technology. I stopped fighting with Aweber and wordpress (usually very easy to manage platforms) and I sat quiet in my business for a bit. 

This is not what I would suggest as a success strategy.  This is against everything I tell my clients most of the time.  I felt unproductive and lazy.

The truth is some very big things have been going on around here such as actively pursuing my writing with the release of a workbook on Tools For Living A Balanced Life and on 7 Steps To Start Up Success, becoming a contributing author in a Chicken Soup for the Soul style book authored by Diane Cunningham and Jo Ann Fore titled Inspired Women Succeed which released May 18th

But guess what happened…

I spent the time I was not “busy” in my business on thinking, planning, learning and giving my mind the quiet space to think beyond my next blog post or ezine blast.  I gained clarity and insight into a bigger vision of what my business is supposed to be.

By doing the exact opposite of what I SHOULD be doing, I was able to see where I need to be headed for the big picture. 

So I am picking up where I left off…

I am jumping back on this train where i hopped off, chugging along! 

My hope is that you learn a valuable lesson from my experience.  When things seem to be fighting you, struggle envelops an area of your business, taking a step back and surrendering the struggle might just be the perfect solution!

If would like to look at how to identify and eliminate the struggles in your business and life email Kate at Kate@askcoachkate.com .  I am offering a special Saturday Strategy option this Saturday …click here to see if it’s right for you!

Balance As A Business Owner

Do you feel you overwhelmed by moving forward in your business?

Do you question “WHY” you are in business?

Are you simply putting out fires most days?

What if I could share with you ways to stop the chaos in your business…

Join me tomorrow, Monday, March 14th at 11:00 AM EST to learn the 7 Steps To Start Up Success and learn about

• Building a solid foundation for your business to grow.
• Understand how to align your business with your values for greater success.
• How to share your gift in a profitable way.
• The importance creating a plan.
• How to create that plan and begin implementing.
• How to budget for your business.
• Marketing strategies that work.
• and more…

If you are new to the world of the entrepreneur or have been in business for year, it can all seem overwhelming, even daunting .

My goal during this info packed 60 minute call is to take the mystery out of being in business, give you some action steps you can take today to move your business forward, and strategies to get more YES!

So, if this sounds like what you’ve been looking for SIGN UP HERE for this free call and I’ll “see” you on the call.

Snow Days vs. Work Days

Old Man Winter is at it again here in New England as we prepare for another 7″ -12″ of snow tonight after just coming out of first deep freeze of the season with sub-zero temps.

Of course all this snow means lots of snow days!

School has already been called for tomorrow and Friday was a scheduled training day for the teachers. Including this week – the kids will have been home 6 days in the past 3 weeks!

Now that can put a wrench in your work plans!

Many of you are finding yourselves dealing with snow days and keeping kids busy while getting some work accomplished so I thought I would share some tips on how to help yourself .

First, be realistic about when the kids will be home and how much you can expect to accomplish with them house bound.  It is probably not a great idea to plan a new project or schedule a full day of client sessions when the forcast calls for a foot of snow. 

Secondly, figure out what you can accomplish with the kids help.  You may be surprised at how much can get done by including the kids.  Don’t forget the power of a paycheck either… your children may become very motivated to assist you if there is a monetary reward attached to the job. 

Third, work side by side.  This may be you working on your schedule book or planning out your business events for the year while your children are coloring or building with legos at the kitchen table. 

Finally, make the kids your business partners.  If you have client calls or work that requires your full attention and a quite space while the kids are home, you can explain to the kids that you need this window of time for work.  Of course if you have very young children your quiet time is restricted to nap time.

Explain that you need their help to get this work done – you need them to be quiet and to not inturrupt you.  And because you appreciate their good behaviour you will spend time prior to the work time focused on getting them set up with a quiet activity and will spend quality time with them following your work time focused on them.  This can be you setting them up with an independent craft project then playing a board game, cooking/baking together or spending some girl time doing nails or hair just for fun. 

The most important thing to remember is that you can make both your business and your family cohabitate with a little give and take and a bit of thoughtful planning. 

If you would like more information on working your business while being available to your family email Kate@askcoachkate.com or click here to sign up for your free 30 minute consulation.

Will You Follow Through?

January is a month full of resolutions, good intentions and falling off whatever wagon you happened to have hopped on.

We all have our goals for the year laid before us so why is it that so many of us won’t follow through? Well, I think this is due to several factors, a few being;

- A lack of planning
- Unrealistic goals
- Inconsistent action

Let’s look at a lack of planning first. Most people say “I want to do xyz by the end of this year” and think that is all they need to do to achieve the goal. They think having the desire is enough to make it happen. Well, sorry to break it to you but desire to change/achieve is not enough on its own. You also need a solid action plan if you are serious about making some lasting changes.

It’s not too late – you can create your plan NOW and achieve your goals for 2011!

So how can a plan help you stick to your resolutions and achieve your goals? Here is a very simplified way of working out a plan.

First, decide what you want to achieve. Be very specific and include as many details as possible. The more clarity you have about your goal the easier it will to achieve it because you will have thought through what you truly want.

Second, determine the steps you need to take to make your resolution a reality and how long each step should take. Every finish line was crossed by putting one foot in front of the other over and over again so take the time and figure out what your steps to success are. If you are not sure, ask someone who knows.

Now you have all the pieces needed to create your plan so take a note book and sketch out your plan.

Next, decide when you will start (today, next week, and next month). Today is always a good choice since you’ve already started by working out the plan. Keep the momentum going! Then count out how long the first step will take you and determine your first milestone deadline. Do the same for each step needed to complete your goal.

Now you are ready to fill in your weekly to do list that will get you to your milestones. What do you need to do each day/week/month to get to each milestone and to your ultimate end goal? How long will each task take you? When do you plan on completing those tasks? Now write it in your planner or calendar.

I suggest once you have a rough sketch of dates, milestones and weekly tasks that you sit down with your daily planner or calendar program to schedule in these items to your work week. Commit the time needed to make your resolution a reality!

If you need help making your 2011 plan or need some support along the way, email Kate@askcoachkate.com and we will get you on your way to success!

Work/Life Balance Lessons for 2011

Guest Post by Allyson Piper of Marketing in Bloom

Does work/life balance really exist? I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately. Last summer I celebrated my third year as a small business owner. It was exciting and exhausting at the same time. Keeping up with the pace of a growing and changing business is difficult. Add to that the demands of running a household and family obligations and you are left with very little time to have a life, let alone stop and breathe.

I’ve worked as a solo-preneur where I did everything myself and grown my business to a team of two full-time (myself and my husband) with support from part-time virtual team members across the country. But somehow instead of slowing down, even with this extra help my life seems more hectic now than it was before. Go figure!

I keep coming back to the question about work/life balance because I know I cannot continue this way. Not only am I not taking care of myself, but I’m also not serving my clients well if I’m tired and stressed out all the time.

The key – it is all about creating boundaries. In fact, a very wise woman recently said to me “the balance is in the boundaries.”

But how do you create boundaries when your life is ruled by your business? Here are the 5 simple steps I use.

#1 Figure out where your time is going so you can make a positive change. Simply track how many hours each day you’re working and how many hours each day you’re spending on fun, friends, family and yourself. Note: if you’re cleaning the kitchen or picking kids up from school, that’s a third category. Somewhere between work and pleasure. Track that information too.

#2 Assess your happiness and that of the people around you. Realistically, take a good look inside. How are you feeling about your business and personal life? Are you happy? Satisfied? Fulfilled? Now, take a look at your friends and family. Do they feel they’re getting enough of your attention and time? Do they make comments about the fact that you’re always working? Do they seem to resent the time you spend on your business? If so, chances are there’s an imbalance here.

Now that you have both the data and your and your family’s emotions recorded, it’s much easier to see where you can make changes. You can see where you’re spending more of your time and you can see how it’s affecting you and your friends and family. Now comes the tough part – making changes and sticking to them.

#3 Create a vision for your ideal life and figure out what is most important to you. You could create a vision board or write a story about your ideal life. I thought long and hard about what I wanted and I created a mind movie. Now, I watch my mind movie on a regular basis to remind me of my priorities.

I found Kate Power’s information about core values incredibly helpful while creating my mind movie. That’s why I invited her to join me as a speaker during the Your Brand in Bloom Telesummit January 3-7, 2011. If you’re ready to stretch yourself, I hope you register for this FREE virtual event and learn as much as you can from the 11 fabulous speakers on how to create the life you want, the business that supports it and thrive.

#4 Translate your vision into a realistic schedule. Put it on your calendar and stick to it. One of my biggest issues has been working late at night. To combat this, I’ve recently set an alarm on my phone for 7pm each workday to remind me to get out of the office. You can also create lists, prioritize your tasks and focus on the most important, high impact activity first.

#5 Finally, learn to let go. It takes practice but it is possible to focus on what you’re doing right now and to let go of the fear, guilt and stress related to what you think you should be doing. Once you can accomplish that, you’re better able to produce and to enjoy the moment. When you’re with your family, be with them. Don’t think about what you should be doing for your business and vice versa.

You control your life. You’ve created a fantastic business and you deserve the best of both worlds. You can have it. It takes a plan, commitment and an honest look at reality. If you’re living an unbalanced life, make changes. Live the life you want. It’s all in your control.

The New Year does afford a perfect opportunity to start fresh. With that in mind, remember I will be hosting a special Free weeklong telesummit called Your Brand in Bloom January 3-7, 2011 and you’re invited to attend.

About Allyson PiperAlly works with small business owners and mangers to turn napkin notes into marketing plans and bring big picture marketing into focus with achievable steps and results. Learn more about how to take charge of your marketing and grow your business at http://www.marketinginbloom.com.

Your Brand In Bloom Telesummit

I am participating in the Your Brand In Bloom Telesummit which runs from January 3-7, 2011. There is a great line-up of presenters scheduled for the 5 day event and topics range from marketing to life balance.

The is a FREE event and by signing up you will have access to join any of the calls live!

I will be presenting information about Creating Life Balance as a Small Business Owner on Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 7:00 PM EST. You can register by clicking here!

Here is the full line up for this event!

Event Schedule
Please note all call times are EST.

Attendees can access recordings for 24 hours following the call.

Monday, January 3 at 4 pm Allyson Piper of Marketing in Bloom
Big Vision: Set Your Direction and Goals

Tuesday, January 4 at 1 pm Nora Richardson of Spot-On Branding
Branding 101

Tuesday, January 4 at 4 pm Michelle Salater of Sumèr
The Power of Your Brand Story: 5 Tips to Create Content That Sells

Tuesday, January 4 at 7 pm Kate Harrington of Return to Happy
Creating Abundance: The Essential First Step That Has Nothing To Do With Business

Wednesday, January 5 at 4 pm Lee Heyward of Charleston Style Concierge
Create a Business Image that Turns Heads and Profits

Wednesday, January 5 at 7 pm Janet Savage of HandTales
What are your favorites “Yes-Buts”? Making peace with your resistance on the path to success.

Thursday, January 6 at 1 pm Tiffany Jackson, ND of EcoHealth & Wellness
Nutrition & Wellness for Women Small Business Owners

Thursday, January 6 at 4 pm Sarah Hays of YuDu Concierge
Delegation: The Key to Entrepreneur Life Balance

Thursday, January 6 at 7 pm Kate Powers of Ask Coach Kate
How To Create Life Balance As A Small Business Owner

Friday, January 7 at 2 pm Allyson Piper of Marketing in Bloom
Pulling it All Together: 5 Steps to Build the Marketing Plan to Get You Noticed

I would love for you to join me for this free event! Click here for more info and to register!

Good Enough VS. Perfection Paralysis

Are you a perfectionist? 

Are you paralyzed by this need to be perfect? 

If so, this could truly be a major barrier to your success in business.  Part of developing a successful business is to actually develop that business through the services, programs, products and events you offer to reach your market.  Perfection paralysis is a sure way to limit your success.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in producing quality products, events and programs but if you NEVER actually offer anything because it’s “not good enough” then how will your business grow?  Anyone can create a JOB for themselves but to develop a business that gives you the income and freedom to live your life in the style you desire is what most businesses owners want but never achieve.

And what makes the product “perfect” anyway?  Who knows?  And most perfectionist couldn’t tell you either.  The next time you are stuck in a rut by perfection paralysis, ask yourself these questions then push outside your comfort zone and decide it is “good enough”. 

• Is the product of use to my target market?
• Will the content solve a problem that is common for my target market?
• Is the information written so my market will easily understand?
• Will the participants leave my event with great clarity on the subject?
• Are my events on relevant topics to my target market?
• Are my offerings free of major technological glitches?
• Is my info product/eBook etc easy to read (font style and size)?
• Is the presentation of my information laid out well?

If you can answer yes to these questions then you are probably ready to release your program, offer your free eBook or start promoting your event.

Notice I didn’t say “is the eBook the best eBook on the market”.  It doesn’t have to be the best.  It has to be clear, well written or presented, easy to follow and of value to your market.  So do yourself and your clients a favor, give yourself a break and give your awaiting public the products, programs and events they want to say yes too!

If you would like to learn more about how Coach Kate Powers can help you break through the barriers in your business email her at Kate@askcoachkate.com for free consultation.

Do You Bookmark Your Blog?

What is bookmarking all about? Bookmarking is a way to list and tag your articles, blog posts and other content on social bookmarking sites allowing for higher search engine ranking and more visibility for your content and website.

Here is what wikipedia.com says about bookmarking…
“Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren’t shared, merely bookmarks that reference them.”

So what does this mean for your business? Well, if you are not bookmarking, you are missing out on getting your article or blog post ranked in that search engine.

The more search engines your articles are listed in, the higher rankings your content will receive when your key terms are searched within that search engine. I know most of us think of Google when we think search engine but many search engines that are not Google exist and social bookmarking is a great example of this.

Some advantages of a social bookmarking system over traditional automated search engine spiders are:

- All tag-based classification of Internet resources (such as web sites) is done by human beings, who understand the content of the resource, as opposed to software, which algorithmically attempts to determine the meaning of a resource.

- People can find and bookmark web pages that have not yet been noticed or indexed by web spiders.

- A social bookmarking system can rank a resource based on how many times it has been bookmarked by people. This may be a more useful for users than systems that rank resources based on the number of external links pointing to it (although both types of ranking are vulnerable to fraud, and both need technical countermeasures to try to deal with this).”

There are many bookmarking sites out there and each has their own style and feel. The one I like best is http://socialmarker.com since I can bookmark my article or post with a good number of other bookmarking sites through this one site. This helps streamline the bookmarking process allowing for more time efficiency and productivity and what entrepreneur doesn’t love that. The initial set up for this service takes some time but then it goes quickly each time after that. An hour of set up time is a good investment for free listing of your articles in just minutes each time thereafter.

Of course this is a snipit on social bookmarking but you should have enough to understand what it is and why you should get started bookmarking your content. If you are doing the writing anyway, you want to make sure you are getting the maximum benefit from your efforts and social bookmarking is a great way to do that!

If you would like additional information on this or other business topics contact Kate by clicking here or email her at Kate@askcoachkate.com.

Finding My Niche

As the end of 2010 is fast approaching it is time to take stock, own where I am today and decide where I want to be for my tomorrows. The last few months have been a whirlwind for me with my business relaunch. Through working with a variety of clients, I better understand how I can use my gifts to the greatest benefit of others while feeling energized and passionate.

Up to this point I was split in my offerings, like many entrepreneurs who are good at more than just one skill. My offerings were generalized and now they will become very specific. There is safety in being generalized but the opportunity to help others in a more profound way is not there. So, I am letting go of safe and stretching myself. I am excited for the personal growth that comes along with stretching. Actually, a growth spurt has already come thus allowing for the clarity and stretching.

With this new clarity, I have finally declared my niche, so I am stream lining my offerings. Things will be changing here and there but I know you will appreciate the changes. They will help you get more out of your business and your life.

Of course, I will keep you updated reguarly here on the blog. I am taking the steps now to ensure a powerful 2011 for me and you. You see, the more targeted my offerings are FOR any specific group, the more powerful my offerings are TO that group.

I am excited for the shifts that are occuring and look forward to offering you more specific programs that serve you better.

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