DeBorah Beatty’s Systemic Business

Are you one of these women who has put her business first? It happens to us all, unfortunately. We seem to be so conditioned to put others first, it sort of naturally extends to our businesses once we begin focusing on those.

We need to remember why we started our businesses in the first place – as a means to achieve a dream.  None of us (I don’t believe) created the things just to be in business.  We saw a possiblity; a dream or a lifestyle we wanted and we set up a means to achieve it.  However, as time passed, our vision of that goal got a little fuzzier and further away as we got caught up into the day to day chores.

It’s time to stop that.

It’s time to return the “u” or the You to your B*siness.

As women, we have a tendency to give birth to things and then commit to them  150%. Whether it’s a child, a relationship, a business or even just an idea, our willingness to give of ourselves to have it grow and flourish is hard wired into us at a cellular level. Scientists are looking to identify the giving gene in women (just kidding, but you see my point here).

This is a gift; don’t get me wrong. This is what makes us great, but sometimes we have to be careful and not give so much that we lose ourselves in the process. It is not being selfish to look out for ourselves in a business situation. This is probably one of the hardest lessons I have had to learn in all my years as a solopreneur or one person business owner. As a third-generation entrepreneur, I watched my parents give their all to their business until it used them up and there was no life left once the business was sold. I don’t want this to happen to me or to you.

Your business needs to be relegated to the position of being a tool not a life. Life is what happens outside of an in spite of business – children are born and need attention, groceries need to be purchased and cooked, rent or mortgages need to be paid, etc. You might just want to revisit why you started it in the first place and see if that dream is still in place. Sometimes the dreams change, too, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s your dream, anyway.

So how do you get back in touch with that dream, especially if it has slipped beyond the horizon? Several ways:

1) Take 1 day off from everything business.

Pick one day on your calendar – a whole 24 hours. Let your customers know you’ll be closed that day.

Now, on that day, get out of bed when you feel like it, not when you have to. Have a wonderfully decadent breakfast (or even go out for it!) Do something you normally would not do for yourself  and just take the time to enjoy it.  You have nothing else to do but pamper yourself.

Leave the business cards at home, sign off Twitter, ignore your business email, go sit somewhere and just be. Dream a little – ask yourself what you want out of your life. What is the lifestyle you’re aiming for? How close are you? What are you grateful for? (We’ll discuss gratitude journals in another post).

Once you have spent time dreambuilding, it’s a lot easier to get back to work with a renewed focus, a different point of reference. You can then begin pursuing the dream in earnest using all the tools at your disposal.

2.  Begin to keep business hours (if you don’t already)

If you haven’t already started to do this, you need to. My husband and I learned the hard way that living a 24 hour business life doesn’t do great things for a relationship or anything else for that matter. If you eat, sleep, breathe and work your business every moment, you’re missing the point of having one.

3. Take time for yourself occasionally

Don’t blow off social engagements that have nothing to do with your business. They provide balance. Take time to explore new things, take a workshop now and then just for fun. Go to the movies some evening.

4. Return to enjoying your life.

You may think you’re really happy with your business occupying the forefront of your consciousness. It may be really fun, it may be the expression of your primary passion, but if it’s burning the candle at both ends and you’re considering cutting into the wax in the middle to get at the wick, you’re in trouble and need to revisit things.

You have your idea, your business license, and now you need to create your company. What does it look like to others? Do you want a professionally designed corporate identity? Do you even know what that identity should be?

seedling

Here are some steps to follow in the very beginning:

1) Imagine your company 5 years down the road – what sorts of things do you want it known for?

Imagine it however you want to – What I usually recommend is that you imagine yourself sitting down to your desk and reaching for a prospectus on your company that lays on top.  What does it say? How does it say it? Does it sing? Is it tightly worded for maximum effect? How well does it reflect what you originally set out to do?

2) Is there a symbol or a phrase that sums up exactly what you’re up to?

Is it displayed prominently on your paperwork? Your business cards, your website if you have one?

3) Before you settle down to the fun part of designing a logo, color scheme and office space, you need to figure out your primary message or even what used to be called a mission statement.

Is this something you can tell folks as an elevator speech? Does it succinctly embrace your market, your business and your goals?

4) Once you get that part, the rest is easier since everything you do needs to reflect what you’ve just figured out.

Just posted the news in my other blog, Disconnect Your Oughta-Pilot, but no reason for you not to know, too!

My newest project, DYOP, will be rolling out on April 3. It’s a series of 5 teleclasses for $197 ,but there’s an early bird special on my site, and I’ll be offering a special deal to those who attend the preview call on:

March 17, 2009

1PM PST/3PM CST/4PM EST.

Register here for the dial in info.

Oh, and if you can’t make it, register anyway and I’ll send a link to the recording.

Now, let me establish first of all that I am three years older than dirt. I’ve been around the block so many times, there’s a permanent ridge carved in the sidewalk. For most of my years, I’ve been an entrepreneur, mostly on my own, having to figure out the who, what, when, where and why and for how much by trial and error.

For the last five years I’ve been working on learning how to do eBusiness; with websites, blogs, social networking, and all that jazz. Here is what I have come up with. One one side:

• It’s very easy to get distracted by all the “need to do’s” out there; need to learn html, need to get a blog, create a website, get into Twitter and Facebook and all the rest of it.
• It’s very glamorous to be touted as an online expert, an impressive force, in the new web-based world of high tech and fast tracks.
• Info-products are great tools and they’re easily published and acquired

However, business is business and there are certain undeniable concepts to doing business that will never EVER change (nor should they)

• There are buyers and sellers to every concept, whether it’s a physical product or an idea
• Dedication to putting the “other guy” first will always get you further
• A basic tenet of doing business is “Find a need and fill it”
• What is now called a “niche market” used to be called “area of specialization”
• The first step to communication is relatedness, learn about the person you’re talking to – do a little research before you meet.
• What sells, has sold and will continue to sell and that’s YOU, not your product
• People love to buy, but hate to be sold
• You can’t hide behind the internet – you need to make personal contact!

I don’t think these things will ever change. The concepts and practices that built business and sales still apply and still are benchmarks to strive for.

Hello, my name is DeBorah and I’m a Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin/insert your social network here, addict.

But I’ve been dealing with a rising frustration over the past 10 days or so of feeling like I’m getting lost in the shuffle. Social networking has become such a competitive game lately, list building, followers, friends, subscribers, whatever you call them, are being pushed into feeling inadequate if their numbers are less than 1000.  Mine are not that high, and that’s okay with me because I do not auto-follow, that is when someone on Twitter follows me, I don’t automatically follow them back. I want to know who they are, what they do, and whether we have anything to communicate about first. I follow with the intent of conversation.

What is the use of creating a network if there’s no dialog? I have 300+ folks I follow on Twitter at the moment, and I, confess, I’m addicted to watching the messages come up on Tweetdeck, but the quality of the messages is deteriorating any more. In the last week, I’ve seen the tweets from the “big kids” (those with 2000+ followers) deteriorate into nothing more than empty ads, not even hand-sent but instead obviously bunched on aggregators and released 15 minutes apart. It’s really too bad, too.  These are leaders you want to listen to and see what they’re doing, but constant ad copy is not pleasant to be bombarded with either.  That or a list of people they’re meeting at events but no comments about content.

With Facebook and Linked In, I’m deluged with requests to join groups that have nothing to do with my profiled interests so I know they’re just looking for the numbers.  Not for me.

It saddens me to see tools with such potential missing the mark. Have you ever tried to get a word in edgewise in a conversation? Or ask a question and actually have it answered? Even requests directly to people are ignored lately.

I was under the impression that one of the premises for social networking was to encourage conversation and to meet new people.  When someone requests to be my friend on Facebook, or asks me to join a network on Linked In, or follows me on Twitter, I do my best to personally respond to acknowledge them. What do the rest of you think about this?

Until next time,

Work well, play well, be well

db

(c) 2009 DeBorah Beatty

Want To Use This Article in Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete notice with it:

“DeBorah Beatty publishes innovative tips and resource information in her blog, “Opportunity’s Knocking, Open The Door” and is a trainer, speaker, and business coach.
If you’re ready to move to the next level, check out her website, DEBORAHBEATTY.COM “

I’ve been reading about this meme started by Andy Wibbels (@andymatic on Twitter), and an incredible blogmaster. He’s the author of the GoBlogWild blog. Then Suzanne Falter Barns of GetKnownNow picked it up on hers, and I thought it sounded like an awesome thing to join in with, too!

So here goes:

Five ways I will not screw up 2009

1) I will not stop just short of success – I have had a habit in my life of bringing brilliant ideas to life, busting my hump to make them happen and then just when they’re on the brink of becoming reality, I find another bunny rabbit to chase. I will follow through and complete at least one idea all the way.

2) I will not try to do everything myself – This year I will learn to ask for help when I need it and give up the ego that makes me think I have to do everything myself.

3) I will follow my heart instead of my head – My head is where my Oughta-Pilot lives in the voice of my mother telling me to do this or that.  My heart knows better and I need to trust it more.

4) I will create a plan and stick to it - one of my mentors had me do a 3-month plan. What a tough exercise for an entrepreneur – I tend to like to chase bright and shinies, but the first week has worked so far and I’ve gotten a lot more done. I will also create a plan to make the move to Portland, OR that I promise to follow.  Once I get there, lots of things will change for the better with audience demographics and my personal happiness.

5) I will work the tools I’ve started, re-evaluate them and discard the ones not working – Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and all the other social networks where I have created profiles. Too many, I fear, since it takes me so much time to manage them all. I will choose the top 4 performers and work them effectively.

So, that’s my five, want to play and add your own? Just add my permalink to the list and go for it.

http://tinyurl.com/a739ay

http://icanhaz.com/5wfu09

Until next time,

Work well, Play well, Be Well

db

(c) 2008 DeBorah Beatty

Want To Use This Article in Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete notice with it:

“DeBorah Beatty publishes innovative tips and resource information in her blog, “Opportunity’s Knocking, Open The Door” and is a trainer, speaker, and business coach.
If you’re ready to move to the next level, check out her website, DEBORAHBEATTY.COM “

Try this – I watch it often.

Enjoy

When I first saw this on one of the blogs I frequent, I thought it was just a waste of time, but then I started getting into it. Matt’s energy and joy was contagious! Enjoy on this second day of the new year.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Looking forward to 2009 for me is almost like looking through a looking glass.  One one hand, there’s a reflection of myself, of everything that has gone into the me I am in that moment and yet, on the periphery there’s more, a little out of focus.

So many people I’ve spoken with, the blogs I’ve read, and the conversations I’ve overheard are discussing how they want to change who they are in 2009. Resolutions to lose weight, get fit, change relationship status, or all sorts of things that require a huge transformation in mental, emotional and physical lifestyles are made and discarded the first week of the new year.

Kaizen is a Japanese principle that says, basically, that you take small steps to make big changes over time. It’s the “when a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the planet, it causes a typhoon on the other” kind of thing. What I’m planning on doing in 2009 is making small changes, but lots of them. I find it interesting that all the so-called experts being interviewed on the morning tv shows are all recommending that you make only the changes you know you’ll be able to stick with.

My goals:

Get healthier

Get wealthier

Get wiser

I’ll let you know how it goes. How about you? Care to share your 2009 goals with me?

Until I hear from you, I hope your New Year’s holiday celebrations are safe and happy.

As we close our year and look forward to the next one I wish you nothing.

Now hold on, this is not an insult or a bad thing.  Nothing is really the best thing I can think of to offer people such as yourself who are creating a new life, new business, new world and here’s why;

When you visualize nothing, what do you see? A black hole sucking up all light and substance? An end to all you know? Lots of people feel this way.  I used to, but I don’t any more.

What is Nothing to you?

Try this on for size – if you were in a room full of nothing, what would it look like? Would there be walls? A ceiling? A floor? How would it smell? Would there be a sound or a lack there of? Create an image in your mind of what nothing would be for you. It will be different for everyone. Got it? Good.

Now what if instead of nothing, you made it Nothing/Everything? Instead of a place of lack, a place of possiblity, of creation, of inspiration? A beginning instead of an end? A place of no limits instead of no things?

Maybe it could be a space where everything is possible, where all the tools you need to create a project, a business, a goal or a dream are within your grasp because anything you can imagine within the Nothing is also possible.

What would that mean? How would you proceed with your day? Who would you contact and why? What would you DO? And more important, Who would you BE? Who COULD you be? What sorts of things could you create in that space?

Do you see where I’m going with this? Are you getting excited yet?

What if you could disconnect your Oughta-Pilot; that little voice in your head that keeps telling you “you oughta do this”, or “you oughta do that”? How far could you fly? What would you do? What COULD you do?

There’s really only one answer: “Anything I want!”

So as we draw this year to a close, I wish you a Happy New Year, full to overflowing with Nothing today, tomorrow and always.

See you next year!

Work well, Play well, Be Well

db

(c) 2008 DeBorah Beatty

Want To Use This Article in Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete notice with it:

“DeBorah Beatty publishes innovative tips and resource information in her blog, “Opportunity’s Knocking, Open The Door” and is a trainer, speaker, and business coach.
If you’re ready to move to the next level, check out her website, DEBORAHBEATTY.COM “