Well, it’s that time of year again. The Back to School malarkey is upon us.

Whether you are a parent who is well organised and has everything ready well in advance, or are running round at the last minute like a headless chicken, for all of us our aim is the same:

To make sure our kids have everything they need for their school life.

Things such as new shoes, the correct school uniform, books, writing stuff, hair cut, nutritious stuff for their lunch box, getting them back into a bedtime routine after the late nights of the summer holidays, homework routine – the list goes on.

If you think about why we do this, it because we are setting them up to succeed. Giving them what they need to do the job of being a school kid as well as they can.

But how many of us do this for ourselves with our businesses?

What I mean is how many of us at any point throughout the year, stop and check we have set ourselves up to succeed?

For example:

• Are we getting enough sleep to maximise our effectiveness?
• Are we eating nutritious food that really fuels our minds and bodies?
• Are we getting enough exercise to boost our energy levels?
• Do we have the correct equipment to do the job the best we can and make us more effective?
• Do we have the right teachers/mentors to help us achieve our goals?
• Are we focussing on the right subjects to achieve our goals?
• Is there a timetable or schedule to manage time effectively?

The point is this:

If you don’t set yourself up to succeed then you won’t. Leaving it to chance or luck is not a good strategy to achieve success.

So here’s what I would like to suggest:

Whilst you are getting the kids ready to return to school, apply the same mindset to you and your business. Review if you have set yourself up properly to succeed.

Include categories such as:

• Equipment – pens, stationery, technology, uncluttered office, an effective timetable.
• Teachers – who is your support team to help you achieve your goals? Think mentors, coaches, consultants, networking clubs, mastermind groups, business buddies.
• Self care – sleep, healthy eating, exercise, meditation, down time.

Once you have brainstormed this create an action plan and start putting it in place. If you struggle to motivate yourself with stuff like this, buddy up with someone else and become accountability and support partners.

This is a great time of year for taking our own performance up a notch or two. So, what will you do to set yourself up to succeed?

Business Success Lessons from the Back to School Routine is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

I am just back from a fantastic five day camping trip with my family. We are big camping and outdoors fans so we all had a ball. This trip was made even more interesting by a decision I made before we left.

I decided to totally disconnect from all technology for the whole trip. No email. No Facebook. No Twitter. Even the mobile phone was switched off. Not a scrap of technology for the entire time. Zilch!

Interestingly, I felt quite liberated and actually enjoyed being totally disconnected from all things technology & online. Although I know some people who would feel their right arm had been cut off if they were totally disconnected even for a day!

This experiment raised some important questions:

Do we now live in a world where we are over connected?
And if so, what impact is that having on our business, family life and lifestyle?
Are you over connected?

3 ways being over connected is damaging:

1. Constantly interrupting business activities to check email and/or social media reduces productivity
2. Quality of family time and relationships is reduced if you are regularly distracted by your online activities
3. Having no controls, purpose or strategy over the frequency or duration of being connected means more important things get neglected.

The list could go on and on but the point I am trying to make is this:

Would you benefit from reducing the amount of time you allow yourself to be connected and contactable?

Not just to protect productivity in your business but also protect your family life and relationships.

Tips for setting “connection” policy

• Stop checking email throughout the day. Set times and duration for doing this. Sign out in between.
• Set times and durations for your social media activities
• Ensure you are clear on your social media purpose and strategy. Stick to it.
• Do not allow offline activities (eg business planning, creating new products, playing with kids etc) to be interrupted by online activities.

Being over connected can be very damaging to all areas of work life and personal life. Choose to manage your online activities effectively or they will take over and manage you.

Is it time for you to put a “disconnect” policy and boundaries in place?

Related post:Confessions of a Social Media Virgin!

Is it Time to Disconnect? is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Achieving Goals

I have a real interest in football.

Having spent my childhood in Liverpool it would be hard not to! I love the excitement, atmosphere, passion and buzz that it generates. Recently I have been enjoying the World Cup excitement with my family. Even with England (my home country) having a dismal start and Ireland (my adopted country) not even in it at all, it is already getting very exciting.

At half time each team has a chance to review their first half performance and work out their second half strategy.

I imagine their half time dressing room chats would include:

• Have things been going as planned?
• Are we ahead or behind on where we wanted to be?
• What worked well?
• What didn’t work well?
• What impact are our competition having on us?
• What do we need to do in the second half to have achieved our “goals” by full time?
• Do we need to make radical changes?
• In what areas do we need to up our game?
• What Mindset do we need to create to deal with the pressure, unexpected setbacks and to be our best?

This sort of review is also highly applicable to all of us Self Employed Parents, Sole Traders and folks running a business from home.

Why?

Well, because we are half way through the year.

If 2010 was a football match, how was your 1st half? What half time talk do you need to give to yourself?

We should all be scheduling a “drains up” half time review and asking the same sort of questions of ourselves that the managers and teams of the World Cup are asking themselves at half time (maybe the England camp aren’t asking these questions which might account for the shambolic performance on Saturday!!!).

So, schedule your half time review and analysis now (mine is later this week). Make sure you don’t just focus on the business. Think of every area of your life as a player in your team success. Include family life, lifestyle, relationships and so on. Take the World Cup question list above and apply it to all areas of your life. Then create an action plan and go do.

Where will you be by full time on 31st December?

PS Note to England Football Squad – READ THIS POST

It’s Half Time. What’s Your Second Half Strategy? is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

One of the things I hear most from Self Employed Parents is that they feel they can’t get everything they need to get done in the time they have. They feel they are running to stand still. This often results in feelings of frustration, guilt and failure.

There are all sorts of Time Management related subjects that can contribute to this. Things such as procrastination, ineffective planning, lack of focus, to name but a few (those are things for another post).

But what I have noticed is that one of the biggest contributing factors to that feeling of not having enough time to get everything done is this:

Self Employed Parents are trying to do more than is possible in the time they have.

It is not uncommon for parents to be trying to run a successful full time business, be the world’s best parent, be a domestic goddess, taxi driver to every family member – the list goes on.

That is like trying to do more than one full time job each and every day. So here is what I would like to suggest.

STOP. Yes, stop. I know this can feel impossible as I often hear “I don’t have time to stop”. But really, give yourself permission to stop and take stock.

Ask yourself “Is my perceived lack of time the result of trying to do more each day than is possible or reasonable?”

Because here is the reality – often all those feelings of frustration, guilt and failure don’t come from not having enough time. They come from placing unrealistic expectations on ourselves of what we can physically fit into each day.

Try this experiment.

Get a piece of paper and make out a timetable like you used to have at school. Days across the top and hourly slots down the side. Fill in for next week all your priority stuff giving them set time slots. ALWAYS put your most important stuff in first.

Now, if you are trying to stuff more in than your timetable is showing you is realistic you can see where you are actually creating that “I don’t have enough time” syndrome yourself. Run this experiment ongoing. It will help you to stop overscheduling and placing unrealistic expectations on yourself.

What strategies do you have for not overscheduling yourself?  Or do you regularly overschedule yourself? Please share your experiences and views below.

Related posts:

The Problem with Time Management

3 Myths of Multi Tasking

Are You Trying to be a Superhero?

Time Management – the REAL reason you don’t have enough time is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Many people go to networking events with the wrong intention in mind.

A lot of people still think the aim of going to networking events is to sell themselves and their products and services. Big mistake.

Here’s why:

How do you feel when, at a networking event, you feel pinned to the wall by some doughnut you have never met who is hellbent on getting you to buy their stuff? Horrible isn’t it? Personally I would never buy off these people. Nor would I recommend them to my clients or my personal network.

On the other hand, there are some lovely people who have great products but are paralysed by fear of coming across as “salesy”. As a result they act like wallflowers, skirting the room and not fully engaging or connecting with anyone.

And don’t get me start on speed networking. I’ll put it politely and say it isn’t for me! (if I wasn’t putting it politely I would say I would rather stick pins in my eyes than partake in this version of pimping yourself to as many people as you can in as little time as possible).

So let’s get one networking myth busted shall we?

Effective networking isn’t about selling your stuff or yourself

A huge sigh of relief for all of the wallflowers terrified of appearing “salesy” eh?

So, if effective networking isn’t about selling yourself and your stuff, what is it about?

Effective networking is about relationship building. Genuine relationship building.

Having said that, watch out for the networking groomers. These are the people who pretend to be building a relationship with you but really are only interested in getting something they want out of you. They are transparent. Avoid like the plague.

Always remember – People buy People

On that basis, who you are being is vastly more important than what your do. A powerful question to ask yourself is – How do I come across at networking events?

Effective networking habits

So, the thing to focus on is developing habits that build genuine relationships. Here are a few essentials:

• Listen more than you talk
• Engage
• Add value (with no strings attach)
• Be true to who you are
• Focus on others

What would you add to this list?

Networking – Busting the Myth is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

One of the most common issues I hear from self employed parents is that they would like to work less hours to be with their kids, improve the quality of their family life and to be the parent they want to be.

Even though they don’t have a boss dictating their working hours to them, they often feel unable to reduce their hours because of the demands of the business.

The first step to reverse this situation is to stop blaming the business. The business operates the way it was set up. So with the risk of over simplifying the task, it is a matter of setting the business up to operate a different way and for you as the business owner to operate differently.

It isn’t about working hard, it’s about working smart.

How to work less hours

Now, I am not suggesting you wake up tomorrow and decide you are working 50% less hours and just do it and to hell with the consequences. What I am suggesting is that if managed correctly, reducing working hours is possible.

Here are some points that will infuence how many hours you work:

1. Get clear on what you really want. Exactly how many hours a week and weeks per year would you ideally like to work? (Forget, “should” “must” and “ought to” – what is your ideal?).

2. How much revenue would you need to bring in each week if you only worked your ideal number of weeks?

3. Review your business model and revenue streams. Once you have the answers to question 1 and 2 brainstorm what changes you can make that will allow you to generate revenue more effectively to meet your ideal working hours. Get creative.

4. Increase your personal effectiveness. This factor is a significant contributor in reducing working hours so you can’t afford to ignore this area. Look for ways to upgrade the areas that directly impact your personal effectiveness.

5. Review your business processes and procedures. I know this subject bores the pants off many people, but like point 4, it is one of the keys to your ability to reduce your working hours. A great resource on this subject is a book called “The E Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber. You can also find useful articles and resources on their website and blog http://www.e-myth.com/

There are many more things you can do to get on the path to reducing your working hours but I hope these few points will provoke some thought and help you get the ball rolling.

If you have any tips and/or challenges around reducing working hours, please share them in the comments section below.

How to work less hours is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Most of us understand the benefit of reading high quality business books to learn and apply new skills to upgrade the way our business works. But are we as willing to embrace books that deal with how we are operate as a person and our mindset?

Many business people aren’t because they have a preconceived idea that personal development might be a bit “woo woo” and result in the need to hug trees. However, upgrading your mindset and developing yourself is the foundation to real success in all areas of business and life. So it’s a no brainer really.

The seven books listed below (all of which I have read more than once) really challenge the mindset. They are all very powerful in different ways.

A couple of tips

• Be open minded. Even if the books aren’t your bag look for what you can learn. Look for the habits you need to change in your own mindset that will influence your levels of success in all areas of your life
• Reading books doesn’t create change. It is what you do with the information once you read it that is the key. Ask yourself “what actions do I need to take to apply the lessons from this book”

7 Books to Challenge Your Mindset

1. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Provides a framework for a powerful code of conduct that is equally applicable to business, being a parent, relationships and living life.

2. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. This isn’t just about financial riches. It will give you valuable insights into the habits, characteristics and mindset of success.

3. The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. Not just about financial riches. This was written about 1911 so the style of writing might seem strange.

4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Great practical tips for creating success.

5. The Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute. Deals with conflict around relationships, both professional and personal. I LOVE this powerful book. It’s lessons have served me well in my business, my marriage, as a parent and so many other levels.

6. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. This book highlights the mindset that gets in the way of true financial independence.

7. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. A less conventional take on creating success. Be open minded!

If you have read any of these books, please share your review in the comments below. Are there any books that you would add on to this list?

7 Books to Challenge your Mindset is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Do you buy, or are you thinking of buying online products? If so, why?

It is an important question to ask because many people are buying online products that aren’t necessarily right for them or that they are unlikely to implement.

Not all online products are creating equally!

Now, before we go on let me state that I am not anti online products. In fact, it is something I plan to offer myself later this year (shameless plug!). However, as with all these things, there are high quality ones out there and some real crap too. So it is very important to know the reasons you are buying and what to be aware of.

3 Tips when buying online products

1. Buy with your business head on – people generally buy products from an emotional level. Look at adverts on the TV. They are designed to evoke emotions because that is how people buy. If you are thinking of buying an online product, use your business head to make the decision. Ask yourself:

• Why am I buying this?
• What results do I need to achieve for it to be a good investment?
• How will I implement this? (This is absolutely key).
• Where is the hard evidence that this product does what it says on the tin?
• Is this product offered by a high quality, high reputation business/person?

2. See through the Sales pitch – sales pitches are most often directed at emotions because people buy at an emotional level. Watch out for phrases such as “the secrets you must know”. By the way, there are no “secrets”. Everything you could possible need to know about being a successful business owner is already out there. Your job is to work out the best source/person to learn this from.

3. Beware the “I’ve done it this way and made a gazillion dollars and you should do it this way too” brigade – there are many ways to achieve business success and make money. Don’t be a sheep just following what someone else has done. Just because they did it that way doesn’t mean it is right for you, your business or brand to do it that way.

In summary, always make sure you use your business head to evaluate if on online product is right for you. Watch out for your emotions driving your decision making.

Do you have any tips and experiences to share on this subject?

Related post:

Hiring an Expert? Buyer Beware!

Buying Online Products? Buyer Beware! is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Is your business going to achieve what you want it to achieve this year? Is it performing and reaching the targets you have set? Do you have targets for your business that you are reviewing and actioning regularly?

If you don’t know the answer to these question, now is the perfect time to address this. As we come to the end of the first quarter of the year all Home Based and Small Business Owners should be preparing for an end of first quarter Business Performance Review.

Why is this Important?

It’s important because if you don’t focus on these areas how can you put action plans together for the next quarter and the rest of the year that will deliver the results you want? Measuring performance is a critical part of creating success in your business.

All business owners should be holding quarterly business review meetings. Are you?

If not, here are some things to do right now:

Planning Quarterly Business Review and Strategy Meetings

• Open your diary.
• Put a date and a time in your diary for the first week of April, July and October.
• These are your quarterly Business Strategy Review Meetings.
• Set an agenda for them. Include reviewing your business model, strategic plans, goals and action plans.
• Review in detail how every area of your business is performing – finances, marketing, sales, customer service, effective business operations and so on
• Ask yourself “am I on track to achieve what I want in the next quarter and rest of the year?”
• If yes, check your action plans are water tight for moving forward
• If no, what do you need to put in place NOW to get back on track?
• Set targets for every area of the business
• Hold your meetings away from your home office where you can’t be disturbed or distracted.

These meetings are essential because they are the steering wheel of your business. Used and applied correctly they will get you to where you want to be.

Tip: include your lifestyle goals in these meetings so that you can ensure your business is supporting living the life you want. Many people make the mistake of looking at business and lifestyle in isolation. There is a time and place for that, but in your quarterly review meetings look at them together.

Don’t put it off. Action this now.

Related post:

5 Days to Change for Success – Day 4: How to Avoid Failure

Is your Business on Track? is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Are you running a business from home, trying to do everything yourself?

Do you just think of it as one of the aspects that goes with the territory of being a sole trader and the only consequence is feeling a bit isolated, lonely and unsupported from time to time?

If you answered “yes” to either of these questions then it’s time for a re-think. You need to find a way to cure your Lone Ranger Syndrome quick, because it is a lot more serious than just leading to isolation and having to do everything yourself.

Lone Ranger Syndrome Can Kill your Business

Just in case you are thinking I am being just a touch alarmist, let me explain:

Look at people running successful small businesses. One of the common factors is that they don’t do it all alone. Now I am not talking about having staff on payroll here. I am talking:

• hiring help for areas of the business that aren’t their area of expertise, knowledge or skill set
• outsourcing stuff that bores the pants off them so they can concentrate on what they love and are good at.
• surrounding themselves with a support team to brainstorm ideas, strategise and so on.

The point is this:

Successful Business Owners don’t do everything on their own

So, if you are suffering from Lone Ranger Syndrome and doing nothing about it you are risking it killing the business success you want.

How to Kill Lone Ranger Syndrome Before It Kills Your Business

It’s simple – get help. If you can factor hiring help into your financial strategy, do it. Can’t afford to hire the help you need? That is no excuse for doing nothing. If you genuinely can’t afford it:

• seek out other home based business owners – share information, support each other
• meet up at regular intervals with the purpose of helping each other develop your businesses
• build a support team around you by building genuine relationships

Whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Lone Ranger Syndrome is a Choice. There are ALWAYS ways to get the help you need whether you can pay for it or not. Think creatively. Think outside the box.

Whatever you do, NEVER underestimate the damage that Lone Ranger Syndrome can and will do to your chances of Business Success.

Do you have any tips of dealing with Lone Ranger Syndrome on a budget?

Is Lone Ranger Syndrome Killing Your Business? is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom