Is your story making or breaking you?
Everyone has a story to tell. It’s the way you tell it that counts.
Your story makes a difference to everything you do in your life. Whether that story is for clinching a new business deal, for securing a new job, or to negotiate something which is important in your life. Whatever the circumstance, your story has the power to impact your life, and others’ lives, in untold ways – but only if you tell it the right way.
It’s the way you tell your story and what you do with it that counts.
And when I talk about stories, I’m not talking about from the time when you were born, to now, and how you got here (although sometimes, dependable on the situation, that too can count but it’s outside the scope of this article!).
I’m talking about the results-oriented ‘stuff’ you have collected along the way and which is marketable or attractive to whatever audience you are targeting to.
What do you want to achieve in your life, your business, or your career? Firstly, it’s really important to define this; otherwise, your stories will not be relevant or, at the other end of the scale, you just won’t be able to define any stories at all that relate to whatever you want to do or whomever you wish to target to (and even if you’re applying for a job you’re targeting to someone or some particular function). To learn more about defining your purpose, click here.
So what do I mean by stories?
Stories are like a movie. Your own personal storyboard where you have achieved results for whatever it was that you were doing. Most folks have achieved quantifiable results or, if they can’t be quantifiable, they are classified as great nonetheless. Never discredit what you have done or are doing.
Stories are the proof that people need to determine whether they are getting a return on their investment from hiring you (whether you are an employee or a business owner). We all think this way – like it or not.
For a client, this is proof that your skills promise to do whatever it is that you do (i.e. your xyz service on average increases staff productivity by x%); and for an employee who is looking for a job, an employer can expect that your $___ salary is going to equate to an additional x% in revenues (or whatever the job function is).
The first step is to have a brainstorming session to unearth your stories. The second step is to re-work your story and ‘tell’ the story in an attractive, authentic, honest, and ethical way.
The first step is the most important step of all – even if you feel you don’t have the ‘storytelling’ skills to get it on paper. Do it anyway. I challenge you to be the Captain of your ship and take charge as, at this stage, it is the thinking process to discover your own unique stories that will steer your ship to success, not the initial words you write on the page. If you don’t have the wordsmith skills, you can always hire someone to do that for you (i.e. the second step). It is the first step which makes all the difference. If you would like support to unearth your stories, then consider enlisting the support of a friend or engaging the services of a professional coach.
When you have defined your stories and written them in a compelling way, your marketing material is geared toward your audience and results in more favourable outcomes and a win/win scenario for all concerned. For a business owner, your marketing materials may be a proposal or a flier or other advertising collateral; for a job seeker, your marketing materials are your résumé / CV, cover letter, portfolio and other strategies.
Let me give you a couple of examples:
For a business owner, you may be a consultant who provides online IT database solutions to small business owners in the xyz market. From feedback received from your clients, with the database solutions that you provide, on average you boost their staff productivity in xyz area by x%. One of your stories can be a case study where you provide some background information on a client. Describe what their pain was. What were their challenges? As a result of the issues they were having, what repercussions was it having on their business? What solution did you come up with? And as a result of implementing that solution, what quantifiable results did your client achieve? If you don’t know any of this, then make a commitment to start surveying your clients to find out the answers to these questions. This then makes a ‘story’ that you can tell to prospective clients to quantify the results they will achieve out of commissioning your services. This can be so much more powerful than simply stating in your advertising material that you help small business owners in the xyz market in gaining better productivity by deploying xyz database solutions. Anyone can say this. It is your story with the results behind it that make the difference. Always align yourself as a solution to their problem in your story. What opportunities are you missing out on because you are not aligning yourself as a solution to the client’s problems?
For an employee, you may be a Safety Officer with a background in assessing site conditions and designing new programs and strategies (and thus, lower accidents / incidents and mitigate risk to your employer). In your job seeking marketing material (i.e. your résumé / cover letter / etc), you would align the results you have achieved in previous employment with the pain (or expected pain) that your future employer will experience. For instance, within the industry your research may have revealed a high incidence of sprains and strains which accounted for 60%+ of injuries. You would therefore include your stories that related to this aspect; asking yourself of your current and previous employment: what type of sprains / strains did I identify? What were the repercussions to my employer if I didn’t identify it or do anything about it? What did I do after identifying the risk? What were the results after I implemented my new strategies (i.e. what reduction in injuries – % wise – did I achieve)? As an example: your story may go something like this: Reduced incidence of sprains and strains from a high 80% down to a low 32% by: – Analysing occurrences of incidents to determine cause. – Investigating the site to review job processes. – Undertaking a job redesign that involved modification of a task through mechanical assistance (this task alone equated to 80% of the incidents with half of those being back strains). – Delivering training to 132 staff in manual handling. – Implementing refresher courses for all staff. This is so much more powerful than simply stating that you have been successful in reducing sprains and strains on site (with no quantifiable results or the process on how you went about it). Always align yourself as a solution to their problem in your story. What opportunities are you missing out on because you are not aligning yourself as a solution to the company’s problems?
Again, if you need help don’t be afraid to ask for it. Enlist the support of a friend or a professional coach. Then when you have defined your stories and if you feel your wordsmith abilities don’t do you justice, engage the services of a writer – seek the help of a professional to make your stories shine. Your stories are important, deserve to see the light of the day, and market your true potential! They will take you on a journey that realises what you dream and hope for.
The way we tell a story is the most important of all. ~ Nullah, from the screenplay ‘Australia’.
What story did you tell in a compelling way that set you on the path of your dreams? How did you share it with others that gained results? Please share so others can learn and gain inspiration!
Generate Leads: how to generate free leads every day
The year was 1992, and I had just established my first business; offering PR, marketing and printing services. I was going to rule the world, make my riches, and go sunning on a beach in some exotic location. Or so I thought 
I remember thinking “Things would just work so much quicker for me if I had more leads!” I didn’t have an endless pit of funds to advertise, so I decided I would have to generate my own funnel of leads and new business – for free.
I created informative newsletters with marketing tips and other useful business information, hopped into my old Holden HQ, drove round to businesses (with the car coughing and spluttering!) and started connecting with business owners. I didn’t run into their business waving my business card and gushing about my services; instead, I introduced myself, gave them my free information (that they could start using straight away in their business), and advised they were welcome to call me with any questions they had.
Throughout the week I would collect interesting articles and other information I came across, then every fortnight I would drop by and re-connect. I became renowned as someone who genuinely cared. Before I knew it, I was receiving referrals and generating new leads from those same business owners who, at the time, hadn’t even used my services!
I discovered a powerful formula to generate leads and have applied it in my businesses ever since; and in both online and offline strategies.
So how do you generate free leads every day? Here is my 8-step formula for success:
- Align yourself as a solution to people’s problems. Ask yourself: What are their issues and how can I help?
- Provide value relating to their problems. Offer quality content for free. Life isn’t about holding your wisdom close to your chest; share and it will come back to you tenfold.
- Connect with others; build relationships. Relationships are the backbone of business, including lead generation and referrals.
- Demonstrate you genuinely care. If you come across something and someone pops into your head, why not immediately send it to them? You’re welcome to copy the approach I took early on in my business career, as outlined above.
- Position yourself as a leader. Put your hand up and adopt an entrepreneurial attitude as opposed to an employee attitude. Take initiative and innovate.
- Systemise, systemise, systemise. Utilise an automated attraction marketing system that works behind the scenes on your behalf. This frees up your time to work on income producing activities.
- Apply the WIIFM principle (What’s In It For Me). This is a critical question you should be asking yourself, from the leads perspective, in everything you do.
- Refrain from spamming your opportunity to the world. This isn’t a strategy to generate leads. You may be excited in sharing it with the world, but when approached in the right way, you’ll attract more friends and respect as opposed to immediately prospecting every new person you come across. Remember, your business should be viewed in a long-term light as opposed to a short-term, in it for a quick buck light.
When you consistently use the 8-step formula in conjunction with other free strategies, you develop an attraction marketing system that quickly compounds and results in quality leads for your business.
What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur: Do You Have It?
Throughout my coaching career I’ve had the pleasure of coaching entrepreneurs and start-ups, as well as individuals who aspire to get away from the 9-5 job and realise their dreams by going into business for themselves. However, for some, the reality of going it alone and making the transition from employee to entrepreneur is far more different than they thought.
Whilst the rewards are huge, the reality is that it takes a lot of hard work, sacrifices, and the capacity to step out of your comfort zone. As Zig Ziglar said, “The elevator to success is out of service. But the stairs are always open.”
So what is the Entrepreneurial success formula?
1) Take the Entrepreneurial Quiz to determine if you have the right personality.
2) Doing something you are passionate about
Have you ever heard of someone being really successful at something they don’t like? Whatever you decide to do in your entrepreneurial journey it should 1) be aligned with your values; and 2) be something you love with a passion. When you are building a business that you are passionate about, you are better able to handle the speed bumps in your entrepreneurial journey and climb the mountains that suddenly appear before you. When you are in a business which isn’t aligned with your values, or something that you are not passionate about, the speed bumps are harder to get over and the mountains appear insurmountable… this leads to a “this is too hard, I’m going to quit” outlook.
3) Thinking long-term, not short-term
As an entrepreneur, you are building something valuable, so it goes without saying that your entrepreneurial journey is going to be a long one. There are no short-cuts or get rich quick schemes. This is why it is also important to do something you are passionate about. When you are passionate about something, you WANT to be in it for the long haul. Map out your vision and clearly define your 1, 2, 3 and 5-year goals. With so many networking marketing opportunities popping up every day, it is vital you stay focused and committed, and not jump around from one opportunity to another. All highly successful entrepreneurs think long-term, not short-term. If you continuously have a new flavour of the month, how do you think you will build a profitable long-term business?
4) Making sacrifices and working hard
As Jeffery Combs stated, “you need to let go of situations or obligations that do not serve you, and instead have a profit consciousness and borrow your time from somewhere else”. 9 times out of 10, this will result in you making sacrifices in your personal life and doing the things that other people are not prepared to do to grow a successful business. 9 times out of 10, this will result in you working your butt off until you’re so tired you can hardly keep your eyes open. 9 times out of 10, this will result in you foregoing your favourite television program, or foregoing the day at the beach, or foregoing the trip to the movies. 9 times out of 10, this will result in you taking a risk that will have your heart jumping around all crazy. This is the trait of all entrepreneurs because they are thinking long-term, not short-term. Short term pain for long term gain. When you are doing something you are passionate about, when you have a vision or dream larger than life, then you have the capacity to break through the short term pain because you know, without a doubt, that it is all part of the journey and will yield far bigger results than taking the easy path in life.
5) Engaging in continuous learning and masterminding with others
Brian Tracy said it so well: “Your time and life are precious. The biggest waste of time and life is for you to spend years accomplishing something that you could have achieved in only a few months.” A successful leader understands the power and importance of continuous learning and masterminding with other successful people. You can not possibly know all there is to know. Make time to invest in your personal and professional development to enrich and expand your mind and you will reap the rewards ten-fold. Commit to reading at least 15-30 minutes a day; commit to listening to an audio whilst exercising or driving in the car. And importantly, apply the knowledge you have learned. Then take it one step further and mastermind with other successful entrepreneurs. Napoleon Hill, author of Think & Grow Rich, said “Success in this world is always a matter of individual effort, yet you will only be deceiving yourself if you believe that you can succeed without the co-operation of other people.” Successful entrepreneurs get out of the way of their own ego, and commit to learning and collaborating with others. If that’s something which excites you, then contact me to learn more about coaching and mentoring.
6) Realising that your business is a people business
It’s not about you, it’s about the customer. Learn to understand people and different personality types so you can better relate and build rapport. I highly recommend “Personality Plus” by Florence Littauer which takes you through the four personality types. After reading this book you will be able to ascertain, within a few seconds, which personality type a person falls under, and how to say things so you hit their hot buttons and get them on-side instead of off-side. If you are in a global business, take the time to learn different cultures and communication styles so you don’t offend.
7) Becoming a master at cold-calling and asking for the sale
This aspect feels many with dread, but if you look upon cold calling as presenting someone with a solution to their problems, then it’s not about you… it’s about the customer (or the prospect, if you are cold calling for your business opportunity). When done right, you are being helpful, thoughtful, respectful and credible. Cold calling isn’t about email spamming or hounding people.
When we stop looking at cold calling from the sales person’s viewpoint and from the customer’s viewpoint, and start seeing it from a business perspective, cold calling becomes a wonderful opportunity that any one can enjoy and optimize:
| how sales people typically see cold calling | how customers see cold calling done poorly | what successful cold calling should be |
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Obviously the aim is to move cold calling behaviours and methods into the third column, and definitely to stop anything which produces the feelings and effects of the first and second columns. (Source: http://www.businessballs.com/cold_calling.htm)
8.) Understanding that you can’t do everything
Your activities should be income-generating. Think about it: what’s your time really worth? How much do you generate per hour (or forecasted to earn)? Do you really need to spend 5 hours designing a flier when you could outsource it for $20? What has that 5 hours cost you in monetary, income-generating terms? Let go of controlling all aspects of your business and learn to outsource.
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With focus, commitment and passion, the Entrepreneurial journey is highly rewarding and satisfying. When you align yourself with the right business, the right mentors, and the right team, “there are no limits to what you can accomplish except for the limits you place on your own imagination. And since there are no limits to what you can imagine, there are no limits to what you can achieve.” (Brian Tracy)
Living A High Definition (HD) Life
As I was sitting at my desk this lovely Friday morning, I glanced outside and the sky was vivid blue, the sun was shining and this thought popped into my head… Read more
Your Entrepreneurial Mindset
Quantum physics has been spectacularly successful in verifying what eastern mystics have known for 2500 years. It is not our brain that gives rise to our consciousness, instead it is our consciousness, or mind, that creates everything that seems so real to us. Ref: http://www.justmindpower.com/
So what do you think of that statement?
You know, I can recall a time from way back when I got out of bed, the kettle wouldn’t boil fast enough, then the toothpaste flew out of the tube and landed with a big thump on the mirror, and the clothes I wanted to wear that day weren’t ironed…
And…
I would groan out loud, give a big sigh and just want to crawl back into bed. I thought to myself the day was a disaster and it couldn’t get any better!
You know what? It didn’t.
Simply because I let my mind create my reality for that ENTIRE day, and of course, true to the law of attraction, it didn’t get any better; in fact it got worse! 
I’m sure you can relate to this from some event in your life.
Thankfully, I learned about the power of our conscious mind and how I can so quickly, and easily, change my thought patterns to totally change not just that day, but every day.
So getting back to the little scenario I outlined above… if you’ve experienced something similar, wouldn’t you agree that the opposite is true?
If you can so easily turn a not-so-good day into a really bad day, then don’t you believe that you can turn an okay day into a fabulous day?
It comes back to your attitude, would you agree?
Which leads me into your entrepreneurial mindset.
To be a true master of your entrepreneurial destiny, it is so important that you cultivate a mindset of success. Think like an entrepreneur, act like an entrepreneur, surround yourself with your entrepreneurial vision and lifestyle.
So here’s a fun exercise for you… to feed your mind with your entrepreneurial vision, I’d like to challenge you in putting together your “Prosperity Board”. What is it?
Basically, it’s a pin-up board or whatever else you may choose and it’s a visual affirmation of you, as an Entrepreneur. A Prosperity Board is a powerful tool that appeals directly to the right side of your brain, which is the part of your brain that responds to feelings and images.
Include any pictures or words that symbolise your success and what you truly want in life and business. By focusing your energies on what you want to manifest in your life, your creative imagination will simply cause it to become a reality…
And that, my friend, is coming straight back to your consciousness that I mentioned earlier, where you are creating your reality.
Here’s some directions for creating your Prosperity Board:
- Get a medium size pin-up board or poster board – something you can easily pin stuff to and change whenever you feel like it.
- Then hang your board in a prominent place where you can see it EVERY DAY.
- Next, cut out pictures and words from magazines, newspapers etc that depict YOU as a successful entrepreneur. For example, you may be driving a really cool Lamborghini!! (Be creative if you want and doctor it in a photo editing program… put yourself in the car!) You may also like to list your goals and pictures that relate to health and prosperity, as well as pictures that represent a flourishing business.
- Then, cut out the elements and just stick it on the board. Remember, there’s no right or wrong way in doing this… the goal is to have fun and encapsulate YOU as a successful entrepreneur. If it makes you feel great when you look at it, then you’re speaking to your heart.
Looking frequently at your Prosperity Board cultivates your entrepreneurial mindset and reminds you of who you are… not in the future… but NOW. It’s so important you LIVE your future life in the NOW.
When you’ve achieved a particular milestone that’s on your board, take it down and in big letters write THANK YOU across the picture.
Have fun putting together your board.
