What Is the difference That Makes The difference?

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to present my ‘Secrets of Effective Marketing’ talk to the Southsea Business Networking Forum. It was well attended and I really enjoyed delivering the presentation and connecting with the other women. Women united in a common goal: professional and personal empowerment


Surrounding yourself with positive and like minded women, I beleive is vital for the survival of your business. It’s amazing what happens when a group of women come together and are encouraged to share their tales and experiences.

I’m certain that as I revealed " The Top 12 Reasons Why Clients Aren't Buying" (and no mention of the recession either) there were several lightbulbs going on.

So is knowledge King?

What are your thoughts? Let me know what you think.

When opportunity Knocks Will You Be Ready to Open the Door?

The story goes that Frank Sinatra got his big break while working as a waiter. One day, as he was waiting tables, he noticed one of the biggest names in the music industry sitting in the restaurant. Old Blue Eyes did the most unbelievable thing. He cleared off the table next to the gentleman, climbed up on to it and sang! He knew he'd blown his job at the restaurant for doing so, but how many times would this door of opportunity open up? Needless to say, the rest is history.

I believe opportunities are waiting around every corner. You never quite know when that door of opportunity is going to open wide. I'm also a great believer in the Law of Attraction, one of the fundamental laws of the universe, which states, we bring into our lives a reflection of what we are attracting, be it negative or positive.

Consequently if you have a positive expectation you will likely open yourself up to more opportunities than if you just go through your days fault finding and complaining about how hard and difficult your life is. Please don't assume I live in a idealistic world, sure we all face stressful events, but sometime's what we perceive as life's ups and downs, can be seen as opportunities for us to achieve or understand something new about ourselves at a higher level.

Try this exercise. Take an A4 sheet of paper and draw a line directly down the centre. At the top of the left hand side write down a list all the opportunities you have seized, the list can include anything. Now on the right hand side, compile a list of missed opportunities that you can recall.

Now take a look at your list. Focus first on the missed opportunities and ask yourself, what stopped you from taking the opportunity? What did you have to lose? What have you learnt from not grabbing the opportunity? What would you do if the same opportunity occurred again?
Now focus on the opportunities you embraced. What was it that made it easy for you to take each opportunity? What did you gain? What have you learnt? How has it helped you? Where has it taken you? For each and every one of us who is ready to grab the next opportunity, there are thousands more who won't and don't.

The average person has 630,000 hours (72 years) to do with them what they will, watching TV, sleeping, working, playing, living, being, doing and having.

Will you be ready when opportunty next knocks?

Are You Following the Yellow Brick Road?

My good friend Wendy Dashwood-Quick, (who some you met last week at Winning Women) is launching her first book and has a fantastic special offer for you all.

She has taken 2 years, acres of paper and dozens of biros getting her book into print. She has literally poured everything she knows about coaching and helping people 'get out of their own way' into 300 pages.

Her book is already receiving rave reviews and making a difference in people's lives. She wants to make a big splash with this book and has a plan to achieve this, read on... Here, she outlines the publication day celebrations!

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"When you buy my book, "Discover Yourself On the Yellow Brick Road", at Amazon.co.uk on Monday 8th June, you are entitled to over £500 in free bonuses including e-books, memberships and services - but you have to act on Launch Day (8th June - not before) to claim them!

I won't go into detail here but if you love a bargain, would like to get well over £500 in powerful bonuses and want to either re-evaluate your career, change directions or move on after redundancy along with a step-by-step plan to help you get there then you will find this very interesting...


So here's how you can grab these valuable free gifts....

You see I'm celebrating the official publication of my new book "Discover Yourself On the Yellow Brick Road" in a big, BIG way.

It's the birth of this book but the gifts are for you!

How's THAT for a win-win celebration? You buy one £14.25 book on 8th June 2009 and you get £500 in amazing free products, business resources, downloads and books!

Best of all "Discover Yourself On the Yellow Brick Road" is a great buy for that person who's currently at the crossroads of their career, is facing redundancy and would like some strategies to discover what they want to with their career and how they're going to get there.

Inside the book you will find out how to:-
* Identify and celebrate your own uniqueness
* Smash through the glass ceiling and aim higher
* Package yourself to magnetically attract opportunities
* Power up your self-belief and create unwavering self confidence
* Clarify and strengthen your deepest values and purpose
* Programme your intuition to guide you in the right direction
* Stop following the herd and discover what success means to you
* Develop and work on your own personal success plan* and much, much more... including some interesting case studies, personalworkshop activities and your own personal action plan

So make sure you grab yourself a copy of "Discover Yourself On the Yellow Brick Road - 7 Core Principles of Success"

But don't do it now, diarise for the 8th June! Then all you have to do to get your free gifts is just complete the form at www.7coreprinciples.co.uk and I'll send your free gifts right over to you.

The ONLY way you can grab all these free gifts is to purchase your copy of "Discover Yourself On the Yellow Brick Road - 7 Core Principles of Success" and complete the form on 8th June!


With my book and the ton of free gifts you have everything to gain when you spend just £14.25!

All the best

Wendy Dashwood-Quick

Author of "Discover Yourself On the Yellow Brick Road - 7 Core Principles of Success"

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-YBR

Read a Sample Chapter Here: http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=7008PS:

Remember, to receive your £500+ in free bonuses you must complete the form at www.7coreprinciples.co.uk by midnight (GMT) 8th June 2009!

PPS: This book is also a perfect business gift for clients, friends, and family

PPPS: If you have received a similar invitation by email, I apologise for the duplication and congratulations on being well connected...!
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And a postscript from me! Don't forget to check out the bonus I'm offering as part of this promotion.

Now, can you see why I couldn't wait to spill the beans?

Allison

Winning Women Travel The Yellow Brick Road

Last Thursday evening Hampshire Winning Women were entertained by Wendy Dashwood –Quick, Author of Discover Yourself on the Yellow Brick Road.

Wendy had a difficult start in life, she overcame more obstacles than most of us would face in a life time and then at the age of 36 Wendy’s world fell apart completely. Going through a divorce she lost her home, nearly all her friends, most of her possessions and her car. Then she was bullied out of her job.

The only thing that kept her sane was one book on Personal Development. Rather than throwing herself in the river she decided to throw herself into Personal Development. Several years later she became a Coach and now helps others gain clarity and perspective in their careers, re-build their self confidence and point themselves in the right direction.

Listening to Wendy it is clear that she is passionate about making a difference and has found her purpose. Not only a coach Wendy is also a practitioner in both EFT and NLP and has drawn upon her own personal life experiences and her professional qualifications to write Discover Yourself On the Yellow Brick Road.

Winning Women all had such a fantastic evening with Wendy that I’d like to invite you to read a sample chapter here.

What Does Your Business Mindset Say About You?

It was about three and a half years ago when I first heard my mentor use the term ‘Business Mindset’ and it really made me sit up and listen.

She explained the difference between women who run their businesses successfully and those who have some intermittent success is simply down to their business mindset.

She described this as the difference between those who ‘play at having a business’ and those who go out there and really make it happen. It was the bit about those who ‘play’ at business that struck a chord with me. I resonated with that, I hadn’t taken things a seriously as I could’ve up until then, I had hoped that by coaching a few friends, they would refer me and my business would take off, I’d do a little bit of advertising (in all the wrong places I might add) and that would be sufficient. When my mentor talked about investing time, effort and money right from the start I knew I had to go back to basics, review my business plan, (at least I had that!) And start over like a professional and not an amateur.

So, what is the difference between a Business professional and a business amateur in this context? A business amateur wakes up in morning and thinks ‘Oh, I’m not feeling motivated, it’s a glorious day outside, I can’t be bothered to make those follow up calls today’. On the other hand a business professional will go to any length to do the things they need to do whether they feel like doing it or not. A professional will say ‘I am going to do one thing every single day to grow my business’.

Bear in mind that if that is the case, then over a course of one year - 365 days, imagine what a difference one small tiny step would impact on your business development. If your mindset isn’t right then you are only going to achieve limited success.

Every business decision you make today will affect your business tomorrow, next week, next month and in the future.

It’s so vitally important to get this mindset, this attitude in place right NOW.
Stephen Covey, author of ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, offers this advice, ‘Begin with the end in mind’. He advocates working backwards from where you want to be in order to make the choices that will lead you there.

Having a business mindset is about becoming more strategic in your thinking and getting clear on what it is you want to achieve before you invest in any business activity.

And if your mindset isn’t quite at the right place yet, what are you going to do to change it?

Entrepreneurs who do their homework increase their chances for

I have spent the weekend preparing for my family holiday, treating us all to some new clothes and making sure all the necessary plans are in place to ensure we set off happy and relaxed. When you add it all up it can come as quite a surprise exactly how much time we spend planning and preparing for our hols. You start off months before hand carrying out research to find the best resort, you compare prices and travel companies to find the best deal available and that’s all before you even make your reservation.

So, it makes sense that when planning something as important as
setting new goals for your continual business development you carry out research to determine if your ideas are viable.

Lack of sufficient research is one of the fundamental mistakes that many small businesses owners make in the early days of setting up and running their own business. Likewise, it is also one of the reasons many fledgling companies fail.

Let’s imagine you have created a new product or service that you are certain to be a winner. But how can you be sure?


Firstly , ask yourself, is there a demand for the product or service you will be offering?

How big is the market?

Will the product or service you plan to offer be profitable?

Who else is offering the same or similar products or services in your area?

What will differentiate you from your competitors?

How will you make your business idea stand out?

Who are your customers? How will you find them? How will they
find you?

It’s not enough to just ponder these questions, you need to set
aside some time to sit down and focus on the answers. There’s no
time like the present, so commit now to starting your research by
answering the questions above.

‘Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.’
Marston Bates

Are You making the most of Public Speaking

Have you ever found yourself watching someone and thinking ‘I could do that’.

That happened to me when I was sat in the audience listening to some of the UK’s top business strategists and speakers presenting on internet marketing and personal development. Having the ability to speak well in public opens up a world of opportunities, So what was stopping me?

I was keen to explore this with one of my coaches and it was interesting what came up. Being shy or lacking confidence surprisingly wasn’t the issue, for me it was a real fear of forgetting my subject matter when in front of an audience. I can tell you, an audience looks quite different when you are facing it rather than part of it.

So let me share with you some of the actions I have taken that will also enable you to take your public speaking to the next level.

1.Be yourself. You are an expert on you. No-one in your audience knows your subject better than you – at least not from your perspective.
When my coach drilled down on my fear it became apparent I was concerned about being judged. It was then that I realised my perspective, my experiences my opinions were the messages I would be sharing with my audiences I suddenly realised the fear wasn’t so bad. No-one can judge my perspective!

2.Prepare and practice. Brain storm, mind map or bullet point the main points and then run through your entire presentation as often as you can. Some people suggest you practice in front of a mirror but personally that just makes me laugh!
What I prefer to do is visualise the whole presentation, from arriving in the room right through to close of the presentation, being very careful to include every little detail, from starting with a bold statement, a question to get your audience thinking or by telling an interesting personal story, to making eye contact with the participants to listening to the sound of your voice, ( is there any passion there, are you speaking from your heart?) to noting how your audience responds to you – the positive outcome you desire. Really go to town on this and note whether you are associated or disassociated from the experience, or in other words in your visualisation are you watching yourself perform or are you actually in the picture seeing things with your own eyes? Play around with this and see what happens.

3.On the day. Aside from the practicalities, prepare yourself. Have you ever been at a seminar before and turned around to see the guest speaker make a flying entrance from the back of the room? This is a popular speaker trick to get the adrenalin pumping before going on stage. Remember to stand at the front of the platform, if you stand too far back you risk demonstrating you are nervous of your audience. Try to include humour in your presentation, it reduces tension and helps you build rapport with your audience.
If you are wanting to share new information with your audience the quickest way of doing so is to begin your sentence with ‘ you probably already know ……’ before you have even finished those words your audience will be nodding and their neural pathways will be ready to accept the new information.

And lastly remember like learning any new skill it takes time to perfect, so most importantly enjoy the experience and the opportunities speaking to an audience will open up for you.

Gerald R. Ford famously said: "If I went back to college again, I'd concentrate on two areas: learning to write and learning to speak before an audience. Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively."