Imagine Your Reality

This week’s radio show is with Marie Daniels from Meoutloud. We will be learning about communication and how to present yourself better. Next week’s radio show will be a half hour segment from myself about the concept of Giving to Get (an apt one to consider as it’s just about time for the holidays).

The Importance of Following Up

Whenever I go to a networking event or do public speaking, I always make it a point to follow up with whoever is new the very evening that I’ve met that person. I don’t wait until morning, because chances are if I wait that long I’ll forget to do it and worse that person may not remember me. Afterall with networking you generally only have a few minutes to make an impression. Even with public speaking, or perhaps especially with public speaking it’s important to follow up while someone has a good impression of you. You want to make your impression extend beyond the time that person met you or interacted with you, for as long as possible.

The other day, I was meeting with a potential client and he remarked to me that the main reason he met with me was because I had followed up with him so quickly. My following up with him told him that I cared enough to want to make a connection, regardless of what the outcome of that connection would be. Accordingly he was willing to meet with me and learn more about my business and how it might help him.

Whether you run a business or have written a book, or do anything else, it’s important to follow up. It’s true that with all the social networking sites and email that people get it can be easy to get overwhelmed. And of course you do need to know when to filter out the extraneous emails which aren’t relevent to your business. However, taking time to follow up is important. It can mean the difference gaining some business or fading into the background and letting someone else do business with your potential client. This is also true for authors. I can’t tell you how many times writing back to someone to answer a question really made that person’s day and likely helped me sell a couple books down the line.

No matter what business you are in, the relationships you create in that business are what makes it successful, or makes it fail. Following up can make a big difference and show people that you are reliable and consistent!

Upcoming Teleclass

Setting your Business Goals for 2009

When: December 22^nd from 5:30 to 6:30

Where: From the Warmth and Holiday Cheer of your own home!

How much: FREE!!

Register for the course at http://www.imagineyourreality.com/schedule.html or call me at 503-869-0163

It’s coming to that time of year when you evaluate your life and the direction its going in. It’s also an excellent time to evaluate and assess your strengths and weaknesses in your business as well as what goals to set for the new year. In this one hour course we will assess your strengths and weaknesses in your business so that you can set realistic goals for the next year.

WHO is this class for: Anyone who is a small business owner or is someone who offers a service and needs a client base to support that service.

WHY do I want to take this class? Because I will help you get clear on your goals for the year ahead, help you create a vision board, and also provide strategies that get you oriented toward growing your business this coming year.

How do I know this class isn’t a waste of my precious time? You’ve got my three free coffees guarantee. I will buy for you and two of your friends a free cup of coffee if you haven’t learned anything new about setting your goals for your business this coming year.

Register today at http://www.imagineyourreality.com/schedule.html

My Interview with Abigail Doherty of Radiant Animals. This was a fascinating interview about the consciousness of animals, contemporary energy work techniques, and how animals can help us be more aware of our effect on the environment.

****** The role of Meaning in Attitude

I just had a fascinating radio interview with Laura Sherman, the Chess Coach for the Imagine your Reality radio show. It’s the first interview I did, but Laura and I had great rapport and I definitely plan on having her back on the show. She offered some really good insights about Chess and how it can be applied to your life. To listen to the show, please go here.

I really enjoyed this show, particularly focusing on a topic such as chess and how it applies to manifesting your imagination into reality. Among other things we discussed how chess can improve your reading ability, how it can help you strategize your life, and how it can even be applied to your understanding of space and time. If any of you find the radio show interesting, I have two other episodes I recorded: How to turn Imagination into Reality and how to turn re-action into action. I’ll be doing another episode on the connection between Language and Reality on Tuesday September 23rd at 9 Pm Pacific Standard Time. Listeners can call into the show if they want and I would definitely welcome listener in put and questions.

Here’s a summary of the upcoming show: In this show, we’ll be exploring the connection between language and reality. We’ll be focusing on how writing can be used to create reality, the value of affirmations, and how pre-writing exercises can help you not only write a good paper, but also plan how you’ll take your imagination and turn it into reality.

The Competition Blues

When I first started my coaching business, and ran into other coaches who did similar coaching and were doing really well in their business, one emotion or instinct I felt was a desire to compete. In some ways I felt a bit a threatened, because here were these people who were getting lots of clients and I was going to have to compete against them. It wasn’t until I went to a networking event at a local park and heard, “At this networking group, I learned I didn’t have to think about my relationship with similar businesses as competition because there’s enough work to go around,” that I began to think of competition in a different way. I realized focusing on who I had to compete against was taking away my energy and focus on who it should really be focused on: my clients.

As a published writer, I have sometimes felt competitive about reaching my audience and writing a book on a particular subject before someone else does. Just as with the networking situation, I realized one day that when I focused more on who I was trying to race against in writing a book, I wasn’t writing my book for my audience anymore, or myself. I was writing it to compete against someone else.

As I had these realizations about competition, I began to question what role competition should play in my business and in my writing. I know, realistically, that I do have competition. There’s no doubt that when I focus on a niche market and someone else also focuses on that market, there is some degree of competition. But how much of that feeling of competition is healthy?  How do we know when it becomes unhealthy and overblown?

I realized that my feelings of competitiveness became unhealthy when I was focusing more on trying to outdo someone and less on actually doing something meaningful for the people I wanted to serve. Feeling that level of competition told me something else as well, namely that on some level I felt insecure about the services I was providing people. If I felt I had to compete to outdo someone, I was likely comparing what I had to offer to what that person was offering and finding fault in my own services.

To get past the competition blues, and get back to a place where competition is healthy, but the overall focus is on your clients can take some work. First you have to deal with any insecurity you may have about your business or your role in that business. This means you really need to be honest with yourself about why you feel competitive as well as what it is that feeling is gaining for you. Ask yourself:

How am I choosing to compete with others?

Who benefits from this competitiveness?

Is my focus on the client or my competitor?

Am I missing out on good opportunities by being too competitive?

The last question is an especially good question to ask, because you could actually form a solid strategic alliance with someone you thought was a competitor who could actually help you find clients. In fact, the competition blues can sometimes cause you to miss out on great opportunities that can help you achieve your goals and help a potential business partner as well.

After you’ve answered the questions as honestly as possible, think about your answers for a bit. If you find that competition is the main focus of your business practice, it’s time to make a change in strategies and get focused on your clients again. They’ll thank you and you’ll thank yourself when you realize that you’re not spending so much time on the competition.

But is competition ever healthy?

Competition is healthy when you make yourself aware of what other people are offering to your clients. It’s healthy when you run some of your own specials or deals as a way to attract client interest. And it’s healthy when you can focus most of your effort on your clients, and very little of it on your competitors. Remember your competition isn’t your enemy, but they aren’t your best friend either. They are people trying to make their business work as best as possible for themselves and the clients they get.

The best thing you can do for your business is run it smoothly and focus on the clients you have, as well as the clients you want to get. Create strategic partnerships were you can and don’t worry too much about the competition, because who you’re ultimately competiting with is yourself, and to win that race you really have to be able to prioritize what’s important and let everything else go so you can build a thriving business and a happy client base.

Radio Show Reminder

My next show will be today, September 9th at 8Pm Pacific standard time.

Subject : Change your Re-Action to Action!

Summary: Sometimes, whether we intend to nor not, we sabotage ourselves with our reactions. A reaction is a pattern of belief or emotion that causes us to act in a particular way. In this show, I will show how you can change your limiting beliefs and reactions into actions that help you manifest your imagination into reality.

Listeners can call into the show at: (646) 652-2830