Yesterday, I joined The Women’s Conference community. Part of the registration process included answering “What is your favorite empowering quote?” I have so many that I like…

• Live well, laugh often, love much, which comes from a quote by Bessie Anderson Stanley
• Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive, well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming “WOO HOO, what a ride!” (not sure of the author)
• Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. —Joshua J. Marine
• Minds are like parachutes, they only function when open. —Thomas Dewar

…it was hard to choose one. I ended up going with lyrics from a song. I’m much swayed by lyrics and melodies. Music itself inspires me, lifts my mood, gets me going. So, I suppose it only fitting that I selected lyrics for my empowering quote.

Finding Joy and Success Being a Consultant

The lyrics I chose are from “What Did I Do With My Life” by Lenny Kravitz. The words are about life—and a good way to approach life in general, I think—but they are also good words to live by when running a consulting practice or small business.

You can live any way you wanna
All you have to do is dance
Achieve anything you thought of
You just have to take the chance
You can fall in love with your life
‘Cause that truly is romance
What did I do with my life?

Did I learn what I came to learn?
Did I listen with my heart?
Did I do what I came to do?
And how did I play the part?
Did I see the beauty?
Because living is an art
What did I do with my life?

To me the lyrics are about taking changes, about being fully engaged, about embracing the events in your life and living to your full potential. What a great way to approach business as well, yes?

Instead of being mired in the muck — whether that muck is a pesky client, a bad economy, an unfinished business plan, a career that feels stalled or less than fulfilling, or some similar challenge that befalls most consultants and small business owners  at some point — look for lessons and opportunities in each situation. Learn from them. Use them to your advantage. Let them be your inspiration to dance, to do something different if that’s what your heart tells you. While our mind is important to a successful business, so is our heart. Listen to it.  

These lyrics inspire me in my life and my work, speaking to me in ways that I can’t express in words. And maybe that’s why I chose them as my empowering quote over all the others. 

What inspires and empowers you? I’d love to hear.

As I mentioned in my last post, Work-Life Balance: Finding Inner Peace Despite External Turmoil, Simma Lieberman shared many pearls of wisdom at the last Women in Consulting (WIC) meeting. As I was going through the business cards from that meeting, I came across Simma’s. On it was eight steps to stress management. I thought I’d share them with you. Make sure to check out her site and blog for more stress management and work-life balance advice.

1. Breathe. Remember to breathe. Start each day with five minutes of deep breathing. Take five deep breaths when feeling stressed or anxious.
   Me: the key is to remember; maybe I should add it to Outlook, following step # 6.
2. Visualize. Stop negative/obsessive thoughts by visualizing a positive scene, e.g., the beach, mountains, fishing.
   Me: right now, bed with at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep is a positive scene for me.  
3. Process. Decide when you can control, and take action. Change the things you can. Learn to let go of the things you can’t control.
   Me: I go, I go, I’m going to learn to let go. This is a new mantra I’m going to work on following. It’s that one-step-at-a-time thing I referenced in my last post. I’m sure I will fall at times, but like the toddler learning to walk, I’ll just get up and keep going.
4. Stop worrying. Change destructive self-talk to constructive self-talk.
   Me: Whew! At least one of these is easy for me. I tend not to be worrier. I find it a waste of energy. But for those times when I do worry, I’ll change the destructive tapes.
5. Schedule. Put yourself on the calendar for fun and relaxation. If you don’t write it in, it won’t happen.
   Me: I’m scheduling a massage first thing tomorrow morning — once it’s a reasonable time to call! Actually, I like this one, as it’s not uncommon for me to let this go. I’m also going to figure out another time to workout besides 5:30am, as it’s not ideal when I’m getting to bed late due to work. Plus, it’s not my favorite time. I feel better when I work out. It helps me relax. It reduces stress.
6. Support. You don’t have to do it alone.  Create a support system of friends.
   Me: this is where WIC is great. All of my WIC colleagues understand better than anyone what I’m going through when it comes to work stresses and work-life balance.
7. Accept. You’ll never be totally caught up in your work. If you were, they wouldn’t need you.
   Me: okay, I’ll accept it. I guess I have to let go of that day dream. As a consultant, I definitely want to be needed!
8. Breathe. Remember to breath!! End each day with at least five minutes of deep breathing.
   Me: I’m off to breath!

In my first “Skeptic’s View” post, I admitted to signing up—grudgingly—for many of the social media tools because they simply aren’t the way I prefer to communicate. However, as a consultant who helps companies develop and implement effective customer communication strategies, it’s my job to understand the various mechanisms by which users want to interact—and more and more users want to interact using social media.

Since diving into the various social media tools, I’ve discovered a lot of value. In addition to giving your clients something they want and expect, you have the potential to gain incredible customer insights and see a side of them that might otherwise remain hidden. I didn’t think I would, and I did—and that stands true for every tool that I’ve tried thus far.

LinkedIn: A Multifaceted Networking Tool

Of all the social media tools available, LinkedIn is the one that I entered with the least amount of skepticism. I “got” the value that it offered, because it was clearly developed for business people. But it wasn’t until a February 2006 Women in Consulting (WIC) meeting that I really started using LinkedIn.

I implemented a number of best practices from that meeting and started benefiting almost immediately; and I continue to benefit today. The single greatest thing about LinkedIn is it offers so many ways to connect with your network and stay on top on of what everyone is doing.

LinkedIn: What’s the Big Deal?

If you’ve never tried LinkedIn or you created a profile but you’ve not done much because, quite frankly, you “don’t get what the big deal is,” here are a just few reasons to consider tapping this resource:

• It’s expected. A LinkedIn profile is pretty much the status quo now. Not having one is considered out of place if you’re a business professional. That said, assess the need for a Linked profile based on your client base (there’s that audience thing again), your professional connections, and your business. If nothing else, this assessment should drive how you build your profile. If it’s deemed not appropriate right now, then at least you know you’re basing your decision not to join on factors that matter most to your business.
• Project and job offers are a real possibility. If you stay top of mind, employ marketing and networking best practices, and you “know your stuff” (in other words, you’re good at what you do), your first tier connections will recommend or even use you. You may even find work via referrals when a second or third-tier connection solicits their network, asking if anyone knows of a good “fill in the blank.” I know I have received project offers via LinkedIn, simply by following some of the basic LinkedIn best practices.
• It’s a way to stay top of mind. LinkedIn is a lot more than an online rolodex. You can easily keep your network up to date on what you’re doing, with numerous tools for staying top of mind.   
  1. Twitter-like status update bar. Your connections do read these. Maybe not everyone, and maybe not every day. But people do read them.
  2. Connection updates on your home page. Not only do your connections see what you’re up to if you update your status, but your home page contains a flow of what your connections are doing. I love this feature. I quickly and with little effort know what my connections are doing and feel more connected than I do with quarterly emails or calls. If offers opportunities to reach out to them. The key is being authentic and sincere. I regularly look at my home page feeds and respond when I have something to say related to what a connection is doing. Sometimes it’s encouragement and congratulations; other times it’s a suggestion; and yet other times it’s just to say “hi,” it’s been a while since we talked. The opportunities for connecting are as varied as your connections.
  3. LinkedIn update emails. LinkedIn also sends (if you elect to receive them) regular updates of what your connections are up to—this is the same type of information that appears on your home page. So, you don’t even have to go to LinkedIn to stay up to date.
  4. Multiple interaction points. The home page and email updates don’t just filter status bar changes. They track new connections, when you answer questions, when you join a group, when you update your profile or recommend someone. All of this is fed to your connections’ LinkedIn home pages and email updates (if you allow it).
• You can demonstrate thought leadership. There are so many opportunities to demonstrate your thought leadership and join the conversation in LinkedIn, including:
  1. Let your network know when you’ve written an article/blog post, presented at a conference, wrote a book, gave a talk, etc. using the status update text box.
  2. Answer questions posted in LinkedIn Answers. There are a host of categories from which to choose. Remember, whenever you answer a question, your response is posted in your connections’ feed (at least they should be—you control what’s sent).
  3. Pull your blog posts into your LinkedIn profile.
  4. Start and join discussions in your groups (join groups, too, if you haven’t). By the way, Women in Consulting (WIC) has a LinkedIn group.  

LinkedIn: Best Practices (Tips & Tricks)

• Complete your profile:
  1. Spend time considering how you want to present yourself, how prospective connections might view you when reading your profile.
  2. Gather the information you’ll need to complete your profile (if people are interested, I’ll include this in a subsequent post).
  3. Edit your public profile settings—remember the more you show, the more people outside of your network can learn about your services, expertise, and skill set.
  4. Add connections. I don’t advocate being a LION—LinkedIn Open Networker; be selective. Your connections can reflect on you. You can also open yourself up to people who are a bit “spammy” in their communications. In fact, with every social media tool, I advocate quality over quantity—but I also advocate using these tools to build relationships, too.
  5. Build your recommendations.
• Join groups related to your areas of interest and expertise.
• Spend time on your home page reviewing what people in your network are doing.
• Review the applications that LinkedIn offers for ones that might benefit you.
• Participate:
  1. Post status updates on your home page.
  2. Answer questions posted in LinkedIn Answers.
  3. Interact with other group members, asking questions, answering questions, sharing information, joining discussions
• Don’t make it all about you and your products and services.
• Don’t SPAM
• Request introductions form your network, or send InMails if you have a premium account, to people you’d like to connect with. (See “Working Those LinkedIn Connections” for more on InMails and how to use them.)

LinkedIn: Bottom Line

If you’ve not joined LinkedIn yet, check it out and see if it’s right for you. But don’t show up for the party half dressed. You’ll likely send a negative message.

If you’re on LinkedIn but only half dressed, put on some clothes. Complete your profile. Give some real thought to the best way to do it, looking at it from your audience’s perspective. Be authentic—can’t stress that enough—and don’t be “sales-y.”

And remember, why you should care. LinkedIn is a great way to:

• Build brand awareness, promote events, demonstrate thought leadership, and disseminate information
• Stay in tune with what others are thinking
• Increase your visibility and community size
• Collaborate online
• Keep your database current
• Recruit volunteers, employees, and resources

Last Thursday, at the Women in Consulting (WIC) meeting at Michael’s at Shoreline, I had the pleasure of listening to speaker Simma Lieberman discuss work-life balance for consultants. Given all that’s happening in my life, this was a timely topic indeed — one that I was looking forward to with great anticipation. I was not disappointed.

Simma (www.simmalieberman.com) shared many pearls of wisdom that evening. One that really struck a chord was the idea that real balance comes from achieving an inner peace regardless of what’s going on in your life.

Sure, I’d heard it before — but you can never hear it enough. It’s true. It’s not easy (for most of us anyway). It takes a conscious effort. And it starts with paying attention to the negative tapes that are part of our everyday dialogue; that are our automatic response to life experiences — especially stressful ones.

This appeals to me because, for the most part, I can’t control what happens around me. And if what’s happening around me is seriously stressing me out, I’d sure love to be able to control or influence something. And my response is the only thing I can control. Doing so may even influence all the “stuff” happening around me. BUT…how do I control those pesky thoughts? The same way I learned to walk — one step at a time.

Taking It One Step at a Time

The thoughts that follow didn’t come from Simma in this exact form. Some she specifically said. Some I’m inferring. And some have come from other readings. But, they’re all first steps that we can take towards inner peace.

• Be aware of your thoughts and stop negative statements in their tracks.
• Rephrase your response (even if it’s just an internal conversation); come up with an alternative possibility or explanation or statement.
• Cultivate a spirit of thankfulness.

Understanding the Power of Gratitude

I’m a big believer that our thoughts can help manifest our realities; it’s been shown in medicine a lot of times. Cultivating a spirit of thankfulness is a good example of that. I was thinking about it a lot over the past couple of days and then in my inbox today appears an email about a new book, Learning to Dance in the Rain: The Power of Gratitude by Mac Anderson and BJ Gallagher. You can preview the book at http://www.simpletruths.com/flash_files/ibDITR/ibDITR.html if interested. (NOTE: I’m in no way related to this book, nor do I benefit from the sale of it.)

Here are a couple of key things from the book and a short video about a companion poem, “Weather Report” by BJ Gallagher (http://www.danceintherainmovie.com/) that underscore the concept of changing your thought patterns:

• “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain!” Vivian Green
• “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie

Some would say that it’s pretty stormy for many consultants right now. Waiting for it to pass isn’t going to make it better. As Gallagher writes, “we all face adversity in our life. It’s not the adversity, but how we react to it that will determine the joy and happiness in our lives.” According to the recent WIC Compensation Survey, many consultants are adopting this positive mindset, such as “I decided to opt out of the recession. My attitude has kept my business growing and moving forward.”

For those of us who are fortunate to be busy with work while trying to juggle parenthood, aging parents, family health issues, and/or other daily life experiences, we face another set of challenges. I fall into that group. And I choose to be thankful.

When I’m working until midnight for weeks on end, instead of bemoaning my fate, I’m thankful that I have work.

When I have a day where I’m constantly moving between consultant and mom with barely a moment to rest, I’m thankful and honored to have such a beautiful, special daughter who loves me unconditionally and keeps me in the moment at least some of the time.

And when I’m faced with the challenges of running a consulting business that require me to wear multiple hats and sometimes deal with stressful situations, I’m grateful for WIC and all the support, insights, and friendships it offers. It would be impossible to maintain the success that I’m experiencing — not to mention my sanity — without this wonderful organization.

As consultants, we often capture short interviews with clients or leave ourselves digital messages on our smart phone. If your smart phone is an iPhone, there’s a nifty application that allows you to capture those short audio messages (up to five minutes) and share them: AudioBoo out of the UK. Now, thanks to integration with the Spinvox API, a voice-to-text company, users will be able to automatically convert these audio files to text.

I just love handy little tools like this and can’t wait to test drive it out. So, I thought I’d share this with other like-minded consultants.

Read, “AudioBoo Adds Spinvox to Auto-Transcribe Speech to Text” by Mike Butcher on TechCrunch (July 8, 2009)

You just never know what’s going to happen when you walk onto the field, metaphorically speaking.

You might end of the game having won or lost. And if you’re the victor, you may even produce a performance that’s one for the record books.

Jonathan Sanchez, a San Francisco Giants pitcher, pitched a no-hitter Friday night – the first for the San Francisco Giants since 1976 and the first at home since 1975.

Any superb performance, no matter what field of play in which it occurs, is a thing of beauty to be part of, and to observe.

These are some of the “how to get your own no-hitter” guidelines that occurred to me as we watched and listened to this rare feat on Friday, and listened to the extensive post-game analysis:

1. Prepare in every way you can, ahead of the game.

Do everything you can to be mentally, physically and emotionally ready for the work, the challenge at hand.

2. Learn from the masters.

Jonathan Sanchez had, apparently, listened a lot to Randy Johnson, a legendary pitcher in the final years of his career.

The odds are, he learned many things in those talks – mental, physical, and emotional preparation for the challenges he might face as a pitcher.

3. Be open to the moment.

Once you’ve prepared, in all ways, then you have to be open to whatever may happen. You can’t control what will happen…you just have to be ready to freely, fully respond.

4. Be in the moment.

Respond to what is happening now, right now. You’re not in the next inning, or the last one. You’re not in the next game. You have no business worrying, at this moment, about the full season, your career, or dreaming about the next vacation.

“Be here now.”

5. If someone has a no-hitter going and it’s a guy, LEAVE HIM ALONE.

And if the “no-hitter” is underway in a different field, and it’s a woman who has excellence unfolding, take your cues from her about what would help.

On Friday night, no one would talk to, look directly at, or go ANYWHERE NEAR Jonathan Sanchez when it was the Giants’ turn at bat, and they were in the dugout.

The dynamic was fascinating to me, never having seen a no-hitter before. My husband and son knew right away what was going on. The commentators, one a former major league pitcher himself, talked at length about not wanting to be the one to “jinx” the streak, or break Sanchez’ concentration.

6. It takes a team.

For Jonathan Sanchez, it took many players and advisors to create the nearly perfect game, and no-hitter.

It took a catcher, Eli Whiteside, with whom Sanchez had great communication, and in whom he had great trust to make the right calls about which pitch to throw. It also took Whiteside’s calming presence to keep Sanchez focused at crucial times.

It took a patient and persistent pitching coach, Dave Righetti, to coach Sanchez for days or weeks to adjust his pitching mechanics, bringing out his full potential, at that time, in that moment, under the pressure of history in the making.

It took an outfielder, Aaron Rowand, who could catch a ball that might have turned into a double, a triple – but certainly would have taken the no-hitter down if he had missed the ball at the wall.

It took a manager, Bruce Bochy, who believed in the pitcher to do the job.

7. It takes serendipity, too.

It took a few serendipitous changes of plan for the unlikely combination of Sanchez and Whiteside to be working together on this night. Veteran and legendary pitcher, Randy Johnson, who was scheduled to pitch that night but could not. And catcher, Bengie Molina, was scheduled to catch but his wife went into labor, so he, too, was gone from the line-up.

8. It takes a personal support system.

The final detail that “made the moment”?

Sanchez’ father flew in to see his son for the first time as a major league starting pitcher. We’ll never know what impact that had on Sanchez’ no-hitter, but it was a beautiful experience for them to share, and to observe.

9. It takes getting out of your own way.

All the raw talent and diligent preparation can be there. But you also have to get out of your own way to let success happen.

If you start questioning your luck, ability, or belief that it can happen while the action is underway and the opportunity for success is at hand, that might be all it takes for the potential to become a would-be, should-be, could-have-been-if-only story.

There’s more, certainly, that goes into creating excellence.

If not, no-hitters and their counterparts in each of our own fields of work would be more common.

For now, these are just a few places to start if you’re going for your own “no-hitter.”

What ideas would you add about how to produce a “no-hitter” in your field?

Our family just became one of the millions of U.S. households that have gone Wiiiiiiii…!  That’s Nintendo Wii…we got one…and all three of us are hooked!

Since I have never been hooked by video games, I pondered what was different about this console.  Nintendo has figured out a way to grab a part of the market that wasn’t spending $$ for consoles/games: Boomer Families.  Ingenious!

By focusing on making fitness fun and providing an experience that seems very customized (and also allows for good healthy competition), they appeal to people like me who need a workout buddy, a coach…in the comfort of my own home.  Ingenious!

And they have created experiences that allow families with kids of all ages, or even couples without kids, to use technology to interact with one another instead of zoning out in front of their computers or TVs.  Ingenious!

According to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Rachter, “over half of Wii households are nontraditional, meaning that they would not have bought a console but for the novelty of Wii.”

Not unlike their key competitors, Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo did the traditional ‘limited supply’ thing to work up frenzied demand when they launched their Wii for Christmas 2006…we are all used to that and still get sucked in by wanting our kids to have the coolest new thing. NOT so ingenious…

By going beyond that traditional ‘create demand’ marketing move, however, and actually offering a device that appealed to an entirely different market, Nintendo has been able to go from one of the lesser players in this $7B+ annual spending market for gaming hardware to being market leader, projected to sell 26 million units this fiscal year ending March 2010.

They were able to do this by finding a niche beyond what they were known for: kiddie games.  Hard core gamers dismissed Nintendo as not a serious alternative to the PS3 and XBox…but Nintendo didn’t sit in their comfort zone…they must have done some research and found a new market…with money…Boomers!  Ingenious!

The other thing they did was innovate their product by introducing an entirely different controller…a device that almost brings virtual reality into our homes…no more memorizing buttons to make things move around the screen…you move and your online ‘Mii’ moves…Ingenious!!

Their next marketing move looks to be reducing the price of their consoles by $50 to $199.99 for Christmas this year…watch for that…PS3 (drowning behind the Wii and Xbox currently) will try to regain its place in the market by cutting prices also…

If you haven’t checked out how the Wii could transform YOUR household into a place where people play games together vs. sequestered in separate rooms…think about it…I’m a convert!  I still chuckle at the pride my 15 yr old son had in helping me set up my Mii profile (customizing my hair and facial features and all!) and then seeing how good my balance and posture were compared to his, based on the original fitness tests the Wii administers to establish your baseline ‘fitness age’ and BMI…we were INTERACTING!

More important than all of those revenue and unit sales figures, Wii may have figured out a way for technology to bring families together vs. isolate them…Ingenious!

WIC Members, are you interested in:

- Mentoring other WIC members as they grow in their practices?

- Being mentored by WIC members from whom you can learn and improve?

We’re creating a new member benefit, the WIC Mentoring Program, and we’re starting a pilot program. This new program falls within my area of responsibility as a 2009 WIC Board member.

The pilot will be a six-week mentoring program where groups convene once a week by phone. Each group will be focused on one area of business, such as marketing, sales, operations, or other areas of interest.

Each group will be led by a mentor who is a specialist in that field.

Here’s our plan for the pilot program:

- We’ll create three or four mentoring groups of approximately 6 people. They will meet as a group, by phone, once a week for an hour. Each group will meet for six weeks.
- Each group will be led by one Mentor and will focus on a specific area of being a consultant and managing a consulting business.
- If we have more Mentees interested in a subject area than we have mentoring spaces available, we’ll create a waiting list. The people on the waiting list will go on the list (in the order in which their names were received) for the second round of the Mentoring Program, which we anticipate will happen this fall.

Here’s more information, if this pilot program sounds interesting to you:

Mentors:

1. We need WIC members who are successful, experienced managers of group processes, and who are comfortable leading a group mentoring process by phone.
2. We need Mentors in some of these areas, where the Mentee interest is enough to convene one of our first pilot groups:
- Starting a consulting business
- Marketing
- Sales
- Social media
- Financial management
- Operations
- Life balance
- Other (please explain the area where you think mentoring is needed)

3. We’ll match Mentors and approximately six Mentees to form pilot groups.

4. I’m creating a few basic guidelines and tools for our Mentors, working with several WIC members who are personal coaches.

5. We’ll refine the Mentoring Program based on pilot program feedback, before we expand it further this fall.

Mentees:

1. We need WIC members who are interested in being part of a group mentoring process that meets by phone once a week for six weeks.

2. We don’t know in which of these areas interest will be high enough for us to create a pilot program, but these are the ones for which we anticipate WIC members may be most interested in receiving mentoring:
- Starting a consulting business
- Marketing
- Sales
- Social media
- Financial management
- Operations
- Life balance
- Other (please explain the area where you think mentoring is needed)

3. We’ll match Mentors and approximately six Mentees to form pilot groups.

4. I’m creating a few basic guidelines and tools for our Mentors, working with several WIC members who are personal coaches.

5. We’ll refine the Mentoring Program based on pilot program feedback, before we expand it further this fall.

Here’s the next step, if you’re interested in helping with this pilot program:

If you’re interested in being a Mentor, e-mail me and let me know:
- What experience you have leading group processes, and if you have any experience leading mentoring or other group processes by phone.
- What group you’d be interested in leading.
- If you can be a Mentor in more than one area, give me your first and second choices.
- What week/s in July and August, if any, you will be unavailable to be part of the program.

If you’re interested in being a Mentee, e-mail me and let me know:
- What group you’d interested in joining.
- What week/s in July and August, if any, you will be unavailable to be part of the program.

If you’re interested in the program and have questions, please let me know.

Thanks, everyone,

Jan
—–
Jan Richards
J. G. Richards Consulting
Turning Business Goals into Great Results

jan@jgrichardsresults.com
www.jgrichardsresults.com

What happens to marketing your business when you get busy?

Since most consultancies are 1-person businesses, it’s good to make sure that you address this question and make a plan to handle it. One person businesses can reach their manpower capacity pretty quickly, and you need to make sure that no matter what, you’re still marketing consistently.

Whether you’ve gotten busy with client work or personal matters, it can really help your business to have a few marketing pieces at the ready. These can also be helpful strategies when you go on vacation – to make sure your marketing is uninterrupted while you are gone.

- A couple of pre-scheduled blog posts. Your blog allows you to set up posts before it’s time for you to publish them. You can either save these posts as a draft or you can actually set them up to be published on a certain date, automatically.

- Some pre-written articles. This is especially important if you publish a newsletter. Just having an article or two set aside means that if you get busy, you can release that to your list without a huge investment of time. If you’ve really got some time and space to set these up, consider pre-formatting the newsletter too so that it’s all ready to go.

- Make your website answer some of the most frequently asked questions you get from your clients. If your website can field basic questions, like your getting-started process, or who you typically work with, or what clients need to have at the ready to maximize the effectiveness of working with you, then you can refer people there to really learn more about working with you. This can help protect your time, keep your business running when you’re busy or out of town, and keep clients happy.

I was reading the July issue of Success magazine today when I came across an article that really resonated with me.  The article, Isn’t Life Terrific? by R. Todd Eliason is about a man, Ed Foreman, who has made it his mission to help people enjoy life.

Ed came from a poor background, had many successes (and failures) as an adult, but he lived by a simple philosophy…have a terrific day, every day.  For years he has been a motivational speaker for a positive-attitude-development training program that he created.

I think Ed’s philosophy is a good one to live by and is a great example of how we should all be living the good life.  So ask yourself…Isn’t Life Terrific?