“I have had a great idea for years now, but never had the opportunity to do it!”

Does that statement sound like one you could make?  Then it’s time to stop talking and start doing!

I know, I know… you don’t have the time, the money, the resources, the whatever.  But I’m here to tell you those are all excuses!

If everyone waited until there was enough time, money, resources or other stuff, no one would ever move to a new house, get married, start families, open a business, etc.  Instead, we’d just leisurely sit around in rocking chairs on our porches discussing ad nauseum what we WOULD and SHOULD do… but definitely won’t.

I’m not saying that your “great idea” is going to be a success, of course, because I can’t predict that.  Who knows?  It could flop miserably.  (Hey, the same thing happened to Walt Disney a few times before he got it right…)  Still, if you don’t go for it, how the heck will you find out?

People rarely end their lives by saying, “I wish I hadn’t…”; instead, they typically say, “I wish I had…”  Keep that in mind and make your next bold move!

If you’re like most business people, you spend a lot of time performing tasks throughout your day.

But are you getting the most mileage from each and every thing you’re accomplishing?

For instance, let’s say you have a blog. You write a post. You make it go “live”. Then you move on.

Do you ever go back to that post? If not, you’re missing tons of opportunities!

Truth be told, the essence of that one little, itty, bitty blog post could morph into a dozen different things, including:

- A guest post at another blog’s site
- A full-size article
- A press release
- A tweet
- A Facebook entry
- A comment in an online forum
- A newsletter snippet
- Another blog post on your site months later
- A segment of your first ebook
- The source of a vlog

Now, this takes planning, of course. And I’ll be the first to admit that it’s much easier to just let that blog post you wrote sit and collect cyber dust. But what good will that do?

The trick to being successful without continuously reinventing wheels is to strategically figure out how you’re going to squeeze the possibilities out of every action you take.

If you’re struggling to do this, I encourage you to give me a call. I’ll help you come up with a marketing plan that focuses on being efficient, not being redundant. That just might mean you can start taking a little time for yourself once in a while instead of constantly burning the midnight oil!

Hot on the heels of spooky Halloween comes a rather strange (even morbid) pseudo-holiday:  National “Plan Your Epitaph Day”.  And while it might sound completely bizarre, there’s probably a nugget of inspiration there.  After all, who wants their epitaph to be dull?  Certainly not most entrepreneurs!

Now, I’m not going to ask you to write your epitaph (although I’ve heard people say that it’s a life-changing experience to seriously sit down and write their own epitaphs or eulogies), but I am encouraging you to start writing down something else.  Namely, I want you to consider which three adjectives describe the way you want to be perceived in business? 

For example, let’s say your adjectives are “professional”, “creative” and “knowledgeable”.  Using those three words, you have all you need to know to move to the next step, which is evaluating whether they are REALLY what your clients would say about you.

See, many times, what we wish were reality simply isn’t.  (Or it is, but only sort of.) 

Our fictional entrepreneur who wants to be remembered as “creative” may be anything but!  Sure, he wants to appear creative, but what if he actually comes across as very dull?  His website could be tragically boring.  His logo might not be innovative in the least.  Even the way he works and talks with people might seem downright plain and uninspired.  He wants to be thought of as “creative”, but he’s not projecting a creative image.

So the thousand-dollar question:  What are the three adjectives that best describe how you’d like to be remembered by clients?  How will you make sure every experience your clients have with you project one or more of those adjectives?

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I’m starting a new series called “Ask Julie!”  If you have a question regarding business coaching, entrepreneurship or marketing, please write it in the comments section or, if you’d prefer, send it to me at julie(at)jadcc(dot)com.  I’ll answer questions one at a time in later posts!

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