Rituals Vs RICHuals

Do you ever have those days where everything appears to be against you? No matter what you try to do, you feel as if you are banging your head against a wall.

Alternately, do you ever have those days where everything seems effortless? A hot knife through butter day.

Ever find yourself asking the question, “How do I have more of the effortless days?”  The answer may well be closer than you think….

Imagine:

After a lousy night’s sleep the alarm rings out and you think to yourself “Here we go again, another day in paradise, another lousy night’s sleep and I don’t deserve that,” so you reach over and hit the snooze button or reset the alarm clock. Eventually, you get up and because you are now against the clock, everything has to be done at twice the pace. Coffee, breakfast and getting dressed on the run. A lot later than you anticipated, you get into your car and as you are driving off your drive you realise you have left important documents on the kitchen side. You make your way back into the house to find that in your rush you left your coffee cup on top of your now stained documents, and you think to yourself “It is going to be one of those days!”

You get under way again and it is now 30 minutes later than the time you had planned to leave and you suddenly remember at this time, every day, it’s school run time, which means the roads will almost certainly be busy and will no doubt delay you getting to work. Guess what, you’re right and to add to your woes there is roadwork’s as well.

By the time you arrive at work (50 minutes late), you are not in the best of moods; the whole world seems to be against you and you just know that for today at least it isn’t get any better…..

What’s happened here is that because of a poor night’s sleep, you have put in place a set of rituals that just do not serve you, sure they are easier at the time and seem perfectly logical, but you have allowed your ego to take charge and now you are having to deal with the consequences.

How could this have been prevented? How could this have been one of those knife through butter days?

Changing Rituals into RICHuals…Now imagine:

Last thing before you left work the previous evening, you checked in with your 90 day plan (I am going to presume that you are a very savvy business owner and understand the importance of having a plan, if you don’t have one you can get one here… ) and you have taken the information from your plan and set a ‘to achieve list’ for the following day. You have also prioritised your list taking into account any important meetings, calls you need to make, etc.. With work put to bed you now head home for a nice relaxing evening which will include some reading of either a business or a self-development book because you understand the effect that growing your knowledge has on the outcomes in your life.

Nice and relaxed you head off to bed. You set the alarm on the other side of the room or maybe you don’t need an alarm your passion will get you up nice and early. Because you have planned the next day you are able to enjoy a relaxing night’s sleep and upon waking, you leap out of bed telling yourself what a great day it is going to be.

You then proceed to do some form of exercise for half an hour, maybe take the dog for a walk and all the while you are telling yourself how lucky you are to have such fabulous people in your life and your business.

You sit down for a relaxing breakfast with your family, clear in the knowledge that you have plenty of time because you have planned everything in advance.

Leaving home nice and early, allows you to listen to a motivating CD, perhaps the autobiography of someone you admire, to top up your knowledge and provide inspiration because you believe in the value of turning your car into a travelling university.

Because you arrive at work early, you have the office to yourself so there are no disturbances, which allows you to get on with some of the mundane tasks that later in the day could get in the way of you completing the important stuff. All this means that before most of the other staff have arrived you have cleared a great deal of your ‘to achieve list’ and you know that once again that by having put into place some RICHuals and being disciplined in following them you have set yourself up to have an exceptional day.

You might be asking why I have changed rituals into RICHuals; truth is what we are talking about here are habits and, as you know, some habits work well for you whilst some work against you. Having a daily set of good habits/RICHuals will help you have a RICH and fulfilling life/business.

Quite often when life isn’t going the way we like it we tend to blame other things for conspiring against us, when in actual fact it is ourselves that is at cause. The fix although not easy, is really simple; take a look at your daily habits and ask are they empowering me or working against me? Then put in place a plan to change one or two habits at a time. Attempting to change everything in one hit rarely works because it takes us into overwhelm. As the new habits become ingrained and working automatically add another new habit from your plan.

Slowly but surely you will notice changes taking place until suddenly the effect of all your new habits/RICHuals will reach a tipping point and your life/business just gets easier, RICHer and more fulfilling.

Give it go you know it only works.

Thoughts:

”Constant dripping hollows out a stone.”…Lucretius

“Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time.”…Marabel Morgang

“Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting”….Christopher Morely

“It’s never crowded along the extra mile.”….Dr Wayne Dyer

“We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.”…John Dryden

Kevin Gallagher 

Business Performance Coach

Our Next FREE Seminar 'Learn The Secrets to Unlocking the Success In Your Business' is on Thursday 11th September TO REQUEST YOUR INVITATION Simply email info@mpcforprofit.com and we'll do the rest.

Telephone 0151 348 1202 / 07802 434 782
Growing Your Profit, Transforming Your Business, Changing Lives
www.mpcforprofit.com

Mirror mirror on the wall.

Have you ever had a problem and you weren’t sure of the best way to overcome it, so sought out some sage advice from an expert?

A number of years ago, having recently returned from a much needed holiday, I found myself searching out such advice.

Having had three relaxing weeks away from my business, I returned refreshed and motivated. That all changed the moment I set foot in the door; to say I had returned to chaos would be a bit of an understatement. Numerous customer complaints, cash missing from the safe, a number of staff working their notice and a whole lot of the systems that I had put in place either ditched or not being put to use. What could have gone wrong? As far as I was concerned I left a perfectly happy ship just a few weeks before, so how could things go so wrong, so quickly and more importantly who was to blame?

I was due to have another weekend off the following week to attend a family event, but made the decision that I just couldn’t trust the team, so would have to cancel. That decision led to me having to have a conversation with my Dad, a conversation that would change my outlook on business and life for the rest of my days.

As I explained, to Dad the mess I had returned to, he asked me, “What are you going to do about it?”

To which I replied, “I feel like sacking the lot of them!”

“Really…” Was his reply, “Then what you will do?”

“I will go and employ some new people who will do a far better job.”

What he said next was the best piece of business (and indeed life advice I have ever been given).

“You want to know the best place to start looking for the people you need?.......in the mirror, your people, your business, your life are a reflection of you!”

Well that really hurt the ego; according to Dad all my woes were my fault and if I wanted to put them right, I would have to put me right first. So much for sage advice!

But over the following weeks and months as I reflected on his advice I came to realise that he was, as usual, right.

Why do I feel the need to share this story? In recent weeks I have had a number of meetings with a number of business owners who are, at present, are in a similar place to where I found myself all those years ago. Problems with cash flow, problem staff, problem customers to name but a few.

When I offered the suggestion that they need to look in the mirror, some were deeply offended which I could understand, I had been all those years ago. But what I came to understand and what these business owners came to understand during the course of our conversation is that if we address problems coming from the frame of mind of looking for who’s to blame for this, we become disempowered. The problem is outside ourselves and that means it is up to someone else to fix it.

A much better approach is ask yourself better questions, for instance:

“What is my part in this?”

“What do I need to put in place so that we never have this problem again?”

“What 3 things do I need to start, stop and continue doing in my business?”

“What would a great leader do when faced with this problem?”

“What do I need to change about me, so that a solution for this problem is found?”

These questions are solution focused rather than blame focused and will therefore provide better answers. Answers that will allow you to solve the problems you may presently be facing and putting you in a far more empowering position.

One of the best quotes ever really sums this whole concept up:

“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job. Never wish life were easier, wish you were better”….Jim Rohn

I would suggest that as business owners we have that quote tattooed on our eyelids because whenever we have a problem the answer is right in front of us. Or we could always just take a look in the mirror.

You may be wondering what the outcome was for me in my business all those years ago. Within twelve months the same team of fifty people were on the front page of industry magazines and winning awards because of the contribution they had made to one of the fastest growing businesses in the North West.

Thoughts:

“People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude”…John C. Maxwell

“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude”…Zig Ziglar

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens”…Khalil Gibran

“The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up”…John C. Maxwell

Kevin Gallagher
Business Performance Coach

Our Next FREE Seminar 'Learn The Secrets to Unlocking the Success In Your Business' is on Thursday 11th September TO REQUEST YOUR INVITATION Simply email info@mpcforprofit.com and we'll do the rest.

Telephone 0151 348 1202 / 07802 434 782
Growing Your Profit, Transforming Your Business, Changing Lives
www.mpcforprofit.com

Let me introduce you to AIDA

It has been estimated that every single day we are bombarded with between 3000 and 30,000 brand names and ads. They are delivered to us on variety of platforms; billboards, radio, TV, social media and texts, to name just a few. What that means to every business owner is that your marketing message has to work extremely hard to grab our attention.

It is not just advertising messages that have to work hard it is every employment ad you write, every email you send, every presentation you deliver, every newsletter you write…they are all competing for your audience’s attention.

Over the years the world of advertising has become more and more sophisticated and yet despite this the basic principles of producing compelling copy that an audience will not only be attracted too but also feel inclined to take action on, remain the same. Your message needs to grab their Attention, Interest them in how your product or service can help solve a problem they are having so build their Desire to contact you by taking some sort of Action to contact you.
As you can already see AIDA is an acronym for

• Attention/Attract
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

These are the four stages you need to take your audience/target market through if you want them to contact you, buy your product, apply for a vacant position, or get them to read you email.

How you can put AIDA to work in your business.

Whenever you write anything that you want to result in others taking some form of action use AIDA to transform your responses. Here is a brief explanation of each of the elements of AIDA:

• Attention/attract

With so many messages reaching your target audience you need to do something to grab their attention really quickly. The use of powerful words in the form of a headline is normally the best way to raise people’s attention. Consider when you are flicking through a magazine or newspaper what is it that normally pulls you in? In most cases, it is the story headline or a picture.

It has been estimated than 5 times more people read the headline than read the body copy.

With that in mind you need to invest some time writing compelling headlines that will perk your reader’s interest. For instance:  an email subject line of Attend this Seminar will probably get a lot less opens than: By Attending this seminar you will transform your business results. Guaranteed!

• Interest

Once your headline has had the desired effect you now want to engage them so that they feel compelled to read on. Focus on your readers needs by making it easy for them to pick out any relevant messages quickly. A way of achieving this is the use of subheadings and bullet points to break the text up so that your points stand out.

• Desire

The aim here is to help them understand how what you are offering will meet their wants and needs. This is where you engage them on an emotional level sell the sizzle and not the steak. Henry Ford once said “If I ask people what they want they will tell me they want a faster horse” his next question will then be “What does a faster horse give them” in other words what are the benefits to them. Your readers are tuned into WIIFM (what’s in it for me) so the focus here should be on the benefits to your reader and not the features of your product or service.

• Action

In the planning stage a question you should be asking is what do I want people to do as a result of reading this piece? It could be visit your web site, buy a product, watch a video, sign up for a newsletter or phone now for your FREE financial healthcheck (The word FREE is one of the most powerful words in advertising). The key thing is to give them something to do because with so much information coming at them on a daily basis, they will quickly forget about your message.

Using AIDA could be one of the most important strategies your business can use to help it grow. It will ensure your message gets read more often keeps your readers and prospects hooked and drives them to take some kind of action.