What stops you, or your team, from achieving your goals?

You might be surprised by the answer.

Sometimes the biggest reason you’re blocked from achieving success is…you.

Do you scoff at the mere possibility that this is true?

First, think back on difficult times and experiences. Perhaps these were times when:

- You became overwhelmed

- Your work – or life – became excessively complex

- You fell short of your goals and expectations

Now, consider how, and why these things happened. These were probably some of the reasons:

      1. Your priorities weren’t clear.

      2. You didn’t make decisions based on your priorities.

      3. Others whose support you needed didn’t take your priorities seriously.

      4. Something changed, but you didn’t change your priorities.

      5. You hit a big setback, became discouraged and retreated.

If these sound familiar to you, you need to be able to address them the next time they occur.

Let’s look at each of these issues more carefully:

1 Your priorities weren’t clear.

If you don’t know what you’re driving toward, anything can move in to tap your money, time, energy and attention.

To solve this problem, take the time to clarify your vision of success.

Then create a vision statement or graphic representation of it.

Post it prominently, and check it regularly.

Once you know your main goals and priorities, competing demands can be easier to sort out.

2. You didn’t make decisions based on your priorities.

Maybe you knew what your priorities were, but you didn’t really follow them.

If this was – or is – the case, ask yourself: are your “priorities” really YOUR priorities?

If you’re not sure, take the time to figure out what you really want.

Goals you are really committed to make a huge difference in your motivation, plans and actions, and of course, your results.

3. Others whose support you needed didn’t take your priorities seriously.

Maybe other people didn’t believe you meant what you said. Maybe they were making assumptions based on times in the past when you said one thing and did another.

Or perhaps they were afraid that in changing your life, you were changing their lives too, and they hoped you’d change your mind.

Whatever the case, they’ll believe you mean what you say when they see that you actually do what you say you will, and continue to do so.

4. Something changed, but you didn’t change your priorities.

It’s easy for this to happen.

When big changes happen in your work or life, it’s easy to get busy with what’s new, without making adequate time and space to be successful.

What’s the way to solve this problem?

Take the time to get clear about what you really want NOW…not in the past.

Then figure out what you can, and will let go so that you can make your current goals happen.

You may have to free up time, money, energy and attention to be able to focus and get the results you want now.

5. You hit a big setback, became discouraged and retreated.

Things happen.

Even the best vision, strategy and action plan can’t foresee all possible barriers, burdens and surprises.

Be prepared that not everything will be known, or controllable, when you hit the road that leads to achieving a new goal.

Commit to yourself.

Be in your own corner.

If you don’t have your own back, really, who will?

So don’t pretend. Take the time to face the discouragement.

Feel it.

And then let it go.

Get back to your compelling vision (you do have one, don’t you?).

Adjust your action plan, based on what you know now.

And get going again.

There are great things ahead for you.

By: Jan Richards

The process of change is largely the same, no matter whether you’re trying to transform a company or just streamline one process or a part of your own life.

To make successful change requires that you also change:

- Expectations

The “story” you tell yourself about what’s likely to happen in the future has a lot to do with the opportunities you can even see.

- Focus of attention

If you believe change is possible, you’ll look for small but steady signs of progress.

And if you don’t think change can really be made, you’ll notice signs or “evidence,” of that.

Either way, what you notice and give your attention to consistently is a powerful reinforcement for the direction you’re moving. That’s true whether the direction you’re moving is the direction you really want to go or not.

- Daily actions or habits

Making a change means changing day-to-day habits in some basic but essential way.

Perhaps the way you spend your time, money or energy needs to change in order to reach the goals to which you’re now committed.

Somehow, some way, habits will need to change.

- Some relationships may need to change, as well

You may need to spend more time with some people and less time with others in order to make the changes you want to make.

It all depends on how substantial the change is, and how supportive your current environment is for the “remodeling” you’re doing in your business, your work, yourself, or your life.

Here are five steps to make successful change:

1. Make a clear choice

Decide specifically what change you want to make.

That sounds simple and straightforward, but often, it isn’t.

Sometimes people – or companies – know what they don’t want, but they don’t really know what they DO want, instead.

Be clear about what your target is, or take the time to find out what it is.

Otherwise, you’re just randomly shooting arrows into the air.

Get a clear target.

2. Believe

To make change that lasts, you have to believe the change is really possible.

And if you don’t?

Work on that.

Start by reading about, talking to, and learning from people or companies who have made the changes you hope to make – or dream about.

3. Reinforce

In simple ways, reinforce your goal, again and again.

Find a picture, create a drawing or mural, or select a simple phrase or theme song (or “rallying cry”) that captures the essence of what you think success will be like as you move toward it, and when you get there.

Use that reminder often to remind you of your target.

This goal reinforcement sounds simple—simplistic, even—but it works.

4. Review

Monitor your movement toward the goal.

And measure the positive impact of progress, along the way.

You’ll see positive results long before you reach your final destination.

Notice and appreciate them. They matter, in a big, BIG way.

5. Adapt

Pay attention to how the change is playing out.

Often the plan for how you will create change will itself require some changes.

Some things you thought would be easy may turn out not to be so. Other things you thought would require great effort, energy and sacrifice? They may turn out to be simple, after all.

Just be ready to adapt your plans as you move ever closer to your target.

By: Jan Richards

Connections can make you if you have them. They can make success take far longer to achieve, if you don’t. To connect for success and results, follow these four basic steps:

1. Strategize
2. Be creative
3. Be prepared to exchange
4. Plan ahead – things always take longer than you think they will

Let’s take a closer look at each step:

1. Strategize

You have a vision or goal (whether you realize it or not, you do).

Knowing that, what resources do you need for success? Of these resources that you need, which ones do you already have? What gap in resources is left that you must still fill?

Perhaps you need connections for these and other reasons:

- Build your market
- Find the right people to work with, or for, you
- Get the business or financial resources you need, in the right flow
- Find the right materials at the right price
- Get the right information easily
- Test and refine your product or service
- Figure out the easiest way to make your product or service

Once you know the reasons you need connections, you can start to plan where and how to get them.

2. Be creative

Remember a time in your life when you were especially resourceful, perhaps at a time when the odds seemed to be against you.

What connections did you need at that time to make success happen? How did you create or find these resources and connections?

You can be that creative and resourceful now.

3. Be prepared to exchange

There’s a big difference between reaching out and actually connecting with the people you need to know. And while you can attempt to make a connection, it’s not something you can control.

What’s in it for the person you’re trying to reach, to connect with, or help you?

To get their time and attention, consider what you have, or can offer, that can help them meet one of their goals.

Keep their needs as well, foremost in your mind as you try to create a connection that will serve both of you well.

4. Plan ahead – things always take longer than you think they will

Making connections, like many things in life, often takes longer than you expect.

For example:

- Someone you hope to meet and get advice from has a calendar that’s impossibly full.
- Another person turns out not to be the right resource at all, but knows someone else who may be able to help you.
- Still another person has a competing project, and can’t help you now.

You see how this goes.

Reaching, finding the time to try to connect, and then actually connecting in a meaningful way often takes far longer than you hope.

Start now to have the connections you need, when you need them.

Create the right conditions for connections to thrive. Your connections will grow when you’ve prepared and tended your grapevine well.

By: Jan Richards

The Fall 2010 WIC Mentoring Group is quickly taking shape, with just a couple of spots still available.

Again this Fall, WIC Members Desiree Lehrbaum and I will lead the Mentoring Group. We developed and piloted the program in 2009, and also led the Spring, 2010 group.

If you think a peer-to-peer mentoring experience may be right for you, take a close look at this opportunity.

We will meet by webinar (and have an in-person kickoff session, if we can) on Wednesdays, 10-11 am, starting Oct. 20. Our last session will be right before Thanksgiving.

WIC Members pay $125 for the fall session, and WIC Affiliate Members can participate in the program for $200.

The WIC Mentoring Group isn’t right for everyone.

Here are some of the ways to know if you’re a good candidate for mentoring in this particular program:

1. Do you work well in a peer-peer group?

The focus of the WIC Mentoring Program is a peer-to-peer mentoring approach.

Mentors who are experienced in their areas of expertise design and manage the group process, then teach, guide and give feedback to a group of peers, all of whom are learning and making improvements to their businesses at the same time.

When you think back on your experiences in peer-to-peer learning situations, how well did you do in those? Were you able to make your own progress in such a setting, as well as to support a successful group experience?

That will give you an idea of whether you would find the group learning and improvement experience valuable, again.

2. Can you set aggressive, yet realistic improvement goals for yourself?

Six weeks, the length of the mentoring program, isn’t a long time.

But it’s often exactly the right amount of time for you to:
- Look at your business, including what you do well, and areas where you can improve
- Prioritize and plan a few improvements
- Begin to make those improvements

3. Are you open to feedback?

A good part of the success of this program is in the sequence of exercises we guide you through.

Business is applied learning…not theory. And to really learn, you must do.

That means we have you do homework to apply what we’re teaching you. It helps you to lock the learning in, and to begin to make real, not theoretical improvements in your business.

4. Are you willing to take action to make the improvements you say you want?

Change takes more than just good intentions. It takes action, as well…outside of the homework, and beyond the six weeks of the mentoring experience.

You own the changes you make in your business.

In the WIC Mentoring Group, mentors and peers help to pace and support you through the initial stages of change.

Beyond that, it’s up to you. It’s your choice about what changes you want to make, and will see through to completion.

Six weeks isn’t a long time.

But it’s the perfect amount of time to get a great start on business improvements that can make a big difference in your success.

If you have questions about the WIC Mentoring Group, let me know. You can reach me at jan@jgrichardsresults.com.

If this style of mentoring program is right for you, we hope to see you in this, or a future mentoring group.

By: Jan Richards

Recently, I had a big ‘personal event’ in my life (I got married!) and for the week before and the week after the wedding, it was difficult to stay as focused on my work and my clients as I normally am.

I had every intention of working on client projects right up until the day before the wedding and to return to work the following Tuesday since we weren’t taking our honeymoon right away—I wanted to minimize the impact of my marriage on my clients. However the clients I had active projects with knew about my upcoming wedding and insisted on making adjustments to their expectations, meeting schedules, etc. so I could actually take off a few extra days to focus on entertaining out of town family, wedding prep details, etc.

What I hadn’t realized is the ‘stock value’ I had earned with these clients through the quality work I have done for them, and delivering on everything I committed to. I was thrilled to realize that I had earned some leeway and didn’t have to put myself and my family out unnecessarily from my concern of neglecting my customers due to personal issues.

I think that we all forget that we are constantly building up our own personal ‘stock value’ with our customers, especially those that we have repeat projects with. We run and run to meet their needs and anticipate needs they may have…we apologize profusely when there are little bumps in the road, even the ones we have no control over…we try to protect them from all of the obstacles that come up in the course of a project…we tend to move our previously calendared meetings to accommodate their calendars. All of these things constitute great client management and customer service…however, it also creates stress.

It’s important to also stop sometimes to acknowledge that you have built up credibility and trust with your clients. Knowing that you have ‘stock value’ with your customers will ensure that you come from a strong, confident place when you DO have to deliver disappointing news re: missed deadlines or problems that occur in the work you do with your clients. Or when you need to adjust the project schedule to accommodate personal emergencies (sick kids, ailing parents, technology issues, etc.).

In the past, I’ve partnered with other consultants who were constantly worrying about disappointing their customers and sometimes it felt like we were running around with our heads cut off vs. calmly, professionally managing the project to meet our goals. I believe that customers can smell that ‘nervousness’ a mile away. There WILL be problems or unexpected developments that arise in the course of a project and I think that it’s more impressive to address those with confidence and assure your customer that you can help them navigate the recovery process vs. apologize profusely with your tail tucked between your legs. It’s part of building up your credibility and professionalism in the eyes of your customer.

Your customers WANT to see you as a trusted partner vs. a ‘hired hand’ and the way that you handle the obstacles that may come up in your work with them can help reinforce that perception.

I encourage you to shift your thinking about the way you approach your work with your customers and let yourself acknowledge the ‘stock value’ you have gained with some of them…as a result, you may be able to alleviate some stress in your day-to-day client work…and that’s a good thing!

By: Jen Berkley Jackson

What do great project managers do that other people don’t?

That was one of the questions I asked the WIC Community list recently as I researched an article I was writing.

Knowing that WIC, as a community, includes many great project managers, I wanted to hear what WIC list readers thought about great project management skills.

I asked these questions, as well:

Can great project management skills be taught, or are they just natural for some people (i.e., “you have to be born that way”)?

If project management excellence can be taught, how do you think these skills can be learned and developed most easily?

The answers came flying in.

These were primary characteristics of great project managers that contributors identified:

- See the Big Picture, and shift easily between the Big Picture and detail of the project
- Strong people skills and emotional intelligence; able to build consensus and deal well with all members of the team, including the most challenging ones

- Set up a project well, such as by creating and communicating clear expectations, articulating why the project is important to customers of the work and to the business, and breaking big projects into do-able, assignable tasks

- Able to ask people to make commitments to achieve team and individual goals, and then follow up well to ensure that commitments made are commitments kept
- Align disparate people and resources to meet business objectives on time and within budget
- Synthesize multiple streams and sources of information effectively
- Knowledgeable in the type of project they’re managing
- Process-oriented
- Have good problem-solving skills
- Observant
- Adaptable
- Juggle well

Here are a few of the additional thoughts and observations that contributors provided about what distinguishes great project managers from the rest:

- Great project managers are very organized. They’re able to see and be guided by the “big picture” of the project.

“If you can’t ‘see’ the whole project form the beginning…it becomes just a series of tactics. Project management, when delivered most effectively, is strategic,” one writer explained.

- Staying calm and keeping the team calm in the face of deadlines and difficulties makes a big difference.

“A good project manager takes the ‘angst’ out of the process, calms down the players, steps in and lets them make their own contributions without worrying about how it is all going to fit together,” said one contributor.

“They have “grace under fire,” explained another.

- Great project managers communicate well with a wide variety of people with many communication styles.

“Great communication skills, high emotional intelligence, persistence, and a big ‘J’ at the end of the Myers-Briggs profile are key,” explained one person.

“They’re committed to the success of the project as well as the people involved. They develop strong and effective relationships with people – not just the project plan and milestones.

Answers varied when it came to my question about whether great project managers are born or made.

One person believes that all project management skills can be taught and learned. More typical of the responses, however, was the belief that some great project management skills can be taught, while perhaps 25% of great project managers’ abilities are innate.

What, then, did the WIC Community list contributors see as the best way to develop strong project management skills?

Most described this as being a combination of learning on one’s own, such as by reading or taking classes, and then supplementing this with coaching or mentoring.

By: Jan Richards

We created a new Women in Consulting member benefit late in 2009, the WIC Mentoring Program. Our successful six-week pilot run ended in mid-October.

The pilot included seven mentees who agreed to help us test the new program. These were WIC members who were interested in the program, but also ready to invest some time (and do some homework!) in order to apply the information we shared with them to help improve various aspects of their businesses.

Desiree Lehrbaum (Lumen Consulting) and I (J. G. Richards Consulting) worked together as a team to mentor the pilot group. We’ll also lead the spring session, which runs from March 24-April 28.

Desiree’s mentoring focus is on marketing and business development of mentees’ businesses. I lead the vision-setting, action planning and “optimizing your business operations” parts of the program.

Once again, the spring session will use a webinar format once a week for an hour, supplemented by a 30 minute 1:1 mentoring call between each mentee and each mentor in the final weeks of the program. We hope to hold our kickoff session as a group, in person.

So how did the pilot go?

I’ll let the Fall, 2009 mentees speak for themselves. Here’s some of their feedback, provided on the anonymous feedback survey we sent them soon after the pilot was over:

“The content was awesome! I can’t imagine it being better.” (This came from a participant during our follow-up call a month after the session ended).

“Not only did I learn specific skills, but I felt more focused on my business and more motivated to actually get past hurdles and get things done.

“A very practical way of approaching the steps of marketing for my business, and identifying and confronting issues holding me back.”

“The program was extremely well thought out, structured into a business development focus with actionable tips and tools to take my thinking to the next level.”

There are more participant quotes I could share, but I think that gives you enough information to know if this is a program that sounds right for you, too.

If you’re interested in the Spring, 2010 WIC Mentoring Program, send me an e-mail at jan@jgichardsresults.com to let me know. We’re finalizing the Spring 2010 Mentoring group soon.

By: Jan Richards

I had the pleasure of attending WIC’s general meeting last Thursday, where Kate Purmal shared insights into how we can make 2010 our best year yet…without breaking our necks! I particularly like that last part!

As part of the networking exercise, everyone was asked to answer the following question:

If you could choose between the following, which would you choose:

• You double your revenue in 2010 but work the same amount of time
• You keep your revenue at the current level but work half the time
• Your revenue and the amount of time you work remain the same but your projects are 2x more satisfying

That was a tough one for me. I want to keep my revenue at the current level and work half the time (I have a young daughter)—but I also want the projects to be 2x more satisfying. An overwhelming amount of Thursday’s attendees voted to double their revenue but work the same amount of time.

What would you choose?

Digging a Little Deeper

If you attended the meeting and would like a copy of Kate’s PowerPoint slides from Thursday’s meeting, email her at kpurmal@gmail.com, and she’ll send them to you. She’s also offering meeting attendees special deals on two of her upcoming workshops, geared to building sales and your thought leadership.  

Sales Boot Camp

If the presentation whet your appetite and you’d like to take your sales to the next level, Kate has an upcoming Sales Boot Camp on February 18, 2010. The one-day workshop is $495 for WIC meeting attendees.

In the workshop, Kate digs deeper on several topics from the WIC meeting:

-       Role-play to perfect the art of creating a “trial balloon” proposal in a single meeting
-       Create a phase 1 or Trojan Horse proposal for your business
-       Develop a phased model for your services
-       Build an action plan to fill your sales pipeline
-       And much more

For more information and to register visit http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=196613

Thought Leadership Workshop

Kate and her personal guru Mark Levy, author of Accidental Genius, are hosting a one-day intensive workshop where you’ll use private writing and exercises to develop a compelling thought leadership platform. You’ll tap into your creative genius to brainstorm high-level ideas and review them with the group to pick the most compelling and captivating concepts. By developing a platform for thought leadership you gain access to a wider range of potential clients and can charge more for your services.

The workshop is $495 for WIC meeting attendees.

For more information and to register visit http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=196828

By: Avery Horzewski

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)

By: Avery Horzewski

Welcome back to work, everyone…hoping that everyone took some good family time off over the holidays since it sure seemed like our clients did!

The great thing about taking a little break is that it gives perspective–and I come back optimistic and eager about the new year…I saw trends over the holiday that are quite promising…I was asked to submit 3 different proposals, which doesn’t normally happen…I have 3 projects booked for this month, which doesn’t normally happen.  With those kinds of things happening, it’s easy to forget about all that doom and gloom ‘R’ word talk…

But I’m not going to get TOO comfy even with such good signs–this is a year to go back to basics and to really get clear on my target customers and how I can help them…especially in times like these.

Some thoughts that I’m having and have already begun to implement:

- Update my website (it’s been awhile…and it’s looking dated, especially re: resources I have links to as well as my products/services sheet which doesn’t represent my most favorite new service I’m providing!).  Check out the topic of the S. Bay WIC Luncheon on March 9: 10 Tricks for Updating Your Website.

- Keep my eye out for news/trends that would be helpful for my customers to know about–and tell them (I did this over the weekend and got a big thank you from my customer for keeping them in mind–talk about immediate gratification!).  Check out www.marketresearch.com for inexpensive research reports or www.findarticles.com to find current news items for an industry, your client’s competitors, etc.

- Do some prospecting–I have been reliant upon the steady stream of referrals that I’ve gotten over the past 10 years to feed my business, but in times like these, doing some intentional, deliberate prospecting makes a lot of sense–it will expand my pool of prospects beyond my personal network which increases the odds of finding someone who needs my services incrementally.

- Partner up with others–I’m a broken record on this one (see my first blog entry!), but working closely with some of my trusted colleagues to brainstorm, share successes, keep one another focused on what we all need to be doing, looking for opportunities to refer one another, and looking for ways to help one another overcome barriers are all the benefits of partnering with other consultants.  There is never a BAD time for collaboration, but a tough economy is a GREAT time for collaboration.

Let’s hear from you about what you are planning to do differently this year–either to overcome the impact of the shaky economy or to get you to your next goals for your business…we have so much to learn from one another!

Jen

By: Jen Berkley Jackson