When you think about building a base of business contacts you should be on the look out for those people who have a high likelihood of needing your services. Networking for referrals is great but you should focus on business contacts who present a direct line to potential work.

Business Contacts Most Likely To Hire You

The following types of companies have a definite need for IT services. Try to develop as many business contacts within these types of organizations as possible.

Advertising and marketing consultants
Architects
Catering Companies
Commercial Printers
Distributors
Healthcare
Doctors
Dentists
Engineers
Graphic Designers
Insurance Adjusters, Agents
ManufacturerS
Movers
Publishers
Residential and Commercial Property Managers
Recruiters
Restaurants with POS systems
Transportation companies

When you seek to develop business contacts, make sure you find out who the buyers or decision makers are. It is a good idea to have business contacts with people in administrative or financial occupations. These people are often at the center of IT hiring decisions. Seek to make business contacts with accountants, administrators, bookkeepers, controllers, office managers, and operations managers and sales staff.

The Bottom Line on Business Contacts

Business contacts are critical to your business development. While all business contacts have inherent potential, it is important that you hone in on those people who are in a position to hire you. Look to make business contacts with people in the administrative hub of an organization. Making in-roads with these people has a high potential payoff in terms of business generation.

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Business Contacts – Which Ones Will Hire You? is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

Business contacts fall into two separate categories. It is important for you to distinguish between the two and develop relationships with them accordingly. The two categories of business contacts are influencer/users and users.

The people who are both influencers and users are prime business contacts. These business contacts have the potential to use your services themselves and influence others to use your services as well. It is true, every client is a good potential referral source, but the real influencer/users are those who are in the referral business so to speak. These influencer/users also come in two categories:

Trusted Advisors to Small Businesses
Business contacts in this arena include:
Accountants
Bookkeepers
Attorneys
Business Managers
Consultants
Just like you call your accountant for referrals to other businesses, other small businesses are doing the same. If you happen to maintain your accountant’s network, who is he or she most likely to recommend?

Niche Technology Providers for Small Businesses
This is another category of business contact that is extremely influential. These are people who are in the IT industry but who are not direct competitors. They include:
Accounting Software Specialists
Industry Niche Software Applications
Phone System Dealers
Software Developers
System Builders
Website Designers
These businesses work for companies that will likely be in your sweet spot. If you develop business contacts with these people they will be in a position to recommend your IT services to their clients.

The Bottom Line on Business Contacts

Business contacts are all important. They do come in different categories and some should be focused on more than others. Those in the influencer/user category are very powerful business contacts because not only can they use your company they can refer you to others who could hire your company.

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Business Contacts – Find the User/Influencers is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

The business card is perhaps the best salesman that you can have. That is why it is essential that it contains much more than your name, address, and contact numbers and services. It should be designed keeping its purpose in mind – that is its being a powerful sales tool. So let’s start with the design. If you want to create a business card that contains a photo with gradient colors you can try using a glossy paper to ensure that the cards are printed as good as they look on the screen. Or else, you can get disappointed with the print out.

In addition, if your card design contains background color or images, you can use papers that have gaps between them as these gaps will allow you to make up for the unavoidable elusiveness of the printer paper feed system. However, most stock cards don’t have gaps so if you don’t want to have trouble with printing, make sure your photos, images and text are at 3mm off the edge of the card. This way the minor printer imprecision will not destroy your business cards.

When it comes to printing, make sure that the paper stock that you will use is compatible to your printer. As inkjet and laser printer uses different technologies, it is important that you only feed paper type that is attuned to your printer choice. So for instance you will be using a laser printer, using a paper with glossy coating can cause damage to the printer. Hence, the right choice of paper stock will greatly affect your business cards print out.

Now let’s come to the strategies you can utilize in business card distribution. Aside from the usual handing out of your business cards during tradeshows, conventions, meetings and the like, tucking them in your products before delivery can be a good idea. Say you are a florist. You can consider tying your business card around the flowers. Or if use bags in packaging your products, you can staple or tie your card on the outside of the bag. You can also include you cards in your letters and invoices. And if you are really crafty you can slip in your cards into your designs – you can include them in your greeting cards, emboss them with your rubber stamps or blend them with your other artworks.

There are endless possibilities when it comes to designing and handing out your business cards. You just have to know how to utilize these possibilities to your advantage. Remember that your business cards can be your best salesman, so make them represent you effectively.

Business Cards Are Excellent Salesman is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

This isn’t easy, to say the least. A major culture change is required for most community banks when it comes to selling. Bankers have long been of the mindset that banking is a business built when prospects come to the bank and request the service they want. Unfortunately the consumer has developed a slightly different mindset lately.

“Yes, my banker and I have a good relationship but that doesn’t mean I will only consult them for financial needs and services. There are lots of other options. ” Friends are friends but when money is involved there is a different emotion involved……greed.

The CEO of First Bank in Ketchikan, Alaska, Bill Moran, decided something new must be tried when he started planning for this new year. “I realized that to meet our growth goals we must be more aggressive about taking business from our competition and improve our “unfair share” of our market. There wasn’t sufficient  market expansion to maintain our historical growth and profit levels.”

First Bank launched its’ new effort with a 120-day action plan in January 2006 for its’ six branches. The intended focus was to be solely on gaining new customers and establishing new relationships.

“Some of the participating officers found it very difficult to break away from the familiar clients to concentrate only on prospects that had no prior relationship, “said Eric Bjella, VP and Program Manger.

The first step was to assess the sales strengths of each team member. It was important to know who were likely to make calls and build relationships easily (Hunters) and those with good processing and service-related skills but less confidence in their abilities to communicate with prospects (Farmers).  This was followed with a professional sales skills training session which included each member identifying from 5-10 prospects.

“The individual assessments and audience reactions to the training were very informative,” said Bjella. “Some of our people felt they never could be successful at making cold calls to strangers. But were they surprised!”

The training showed how to: qualify prospects, make impossible appointments, start building respect and trust from the first appointment, getting to real pains/needs and overcoming objections for desired actions.

The First Bank team met every 10 days in groups of 12 to report progress against their specific targets. While slow at first, calling activity grew and success was gradually achieved. Through coaching and confidence built on successful experiences, sales meetings progressed from a reluctance to report to lively dialogues between members, sharing helpful prospect insights with each other.

One member reported being devastated on her first call, to the point of tears. Executive Vice President Jack Vaughn reported this prospect had also called him to complain, only to contact him later, inviting him to attend a competitor’s bank sponsored business owners meeting. ”Wonders never cease to amaze me, Jack said. I didn’t think we would ever get any where with this prospect and then she did a complete turnaround.”

At the end of the 120 days First Bank captured several new customers, representing over $300,000 in new income to the bank’s bottom line. Less the training expenses that gave a 30-to-1 ROI, income vs. expenses. Other contacts made during this period are expected to move to First Bank in a few months through continued follow-up activities.

A different success story comes from a bank holding company in Iowa. Bank Iowa Corporation felt it was time for a sales culture to be started within at each of its 6 independently chartered banks, serving 17 communities.

“We never had any sales training in our Company’s history, said Michael Thompson, VP and Program Leader. Our CEO, Stan Honken, challenged our presidents to have an officer calling program in place by year-end. I contacted some firms who might help us start a sales culture. After reviewing four, we selected Wemmers Consulting Group from Atlanta. Their program impressed us with its’ accountability factors, experience in bank training and real world application following the skills training.”

Bank Iowa’s Calling Teams intermingled Hunters and Farmers and all branch locations. Their program’s primary goal was to get Bank Iowa folks from behind their desks and out calling on prospects. Sales progress meetings were held every two weeks. A sales progress report, prepared by Amy Armitage, was updated and dispersed to all concerned.

“As Rick had alerted us, calling activity was slow at first but picked up as calling frustrations and excuses were addressed and resolved in the weekly meetings. “We all learned a lot about the process of business development. This will be quite helpful as we continue forward with this program,” Michael said.

It is estimated that Bank Iowa’s 60-day effort helped bring in some $13 million in new business or about $400,000 in new income. Subtracting the sales program expenses this resulted in a 23% ROI.

Building A Financial Services Sales Culture is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

Most of the small business owners that I talk to keep almost all of these things in their head. I ask them where their business plan is. It’s in their head. I ask where their employee training manual is. It’s in their head. About the only thing that’s written down is their calendar of appointments. Even a lot of their to-dos are in their head. Here’s one simple and powerful way to get out of overwhelm—write it all down.

Your overwhelm is in your head because most of how you run your business is in your head. Start writing it down and you will start having less overwhelm. Start taking a little time each day to document your business processes. Make a list today of the processes that you haven’t recorded. Cover marketing, production, training, accounting, etc.

Then take one of these areas and document it in detail this week. Each week, for the next few weeks document another area. Within a fairly short period of time, you should have at least the basics of marketing procedures, production procedures, client follow up procedures, and employee training procedures in place. In other words, you’ve now got business processes. Processes that you can rely on. Processes you don’t have to think about. Processes that you will use to grow your business without all that overwhelm now that it’s not all in your head.

Best Small Business Idea – Overwhelm – Get It Out of Your Head is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

Whenever I talk about Getting Past the Palace Guard, the secretaries, receptionists, assistants, voice mail, anyone and/or anything that blocks access, I’ve taken to pointing to Donald Trump. The question I ask: “If Donald Trump were to call your prospect and that prospect’s secretary were to say to him, ‘What is this in reference to?’ what do you think Donald Trump would say?”

This question always occasions much conversation. The general consensus of opinion, however, is that Donald Trump would probably say, “This is Donald Trump. Is she there?”

Another example: If Barbra Streisand calls Steven Spielberg at DreamWorks and Steven’s secretary says to her, “What is this in reference to?” here is what Barbara will not say: “I’m a singer and an actress and a producer and maybe you’ve seen some of my movies?” She would probably say, “This is Barbra Streisand. Is he there?”

I know that many of you will now say to me, “But Wendy, I’m not famous.” It doesn’t matter. I’m willing to bet that Donald Trump and Barbra Streisand would have said exactly the same thing 30 years ago before they were famous. I’m willing to bet that 30 years ago they had almost the same self-confidence, assurance and sense of entitlement that they have now. It was that self-confidence, assurance and sense of entitlement that helped them get to where they are now.

Let’s switch gears for a moment and talk about your prospects. What type of people are they? They are bosses. What does it mean to be a boss? How does a boss behave? First of all, bosses are decision-makers. That’s what we call them and that’s what they do. They are used to making decisions. They also have at least some authority to be able to implement their decisions. They give direction and expect the direction to be followed. More than likely, at least in their business persona, they have self-confidence and assurance. These are all traits that bosses or leaders share and these traits influence how a boss or a leader behaves.

There have been many, many books and articles written about the art of creating rapport with prospects. Usually what it boils down to is being as like the prospect as you can be without mimicking or imitating them. When you are able to do this well, your prospect will see you as being like them. That prospect is then more likely to feel comfortable with you and want to spend time with you and do business with you.

Let’s take that a step further and talk about secretaries and assistants. If you behave like a boss, i.e., with authority, self-confidence and assurance, the secretary will see you as being a boss. Other bosses are peers with her boss. The secretary will give more value, importance and urgency to your call when she believes you to be a peer of her boss.

Here is my recommendation for speaking with the Palace Guard: Go into Boss Mode. Speak with authority, self-confidence and assurance. Give direction to that secretary, “Please tell (your prospect) that (your name) from (your company) is on the line.” And give direction as if you were speaking with your own secretary. (It’s alright if you do not have a secretary or assistant today. One day you very well might. Look at this as practice.) Be polite and firm. Give your directions in a manner that says you expect your direction to be followed. (How do you think Donald Trump would say it?)

I know that I will get some e-mails here, from people who will tell me this approach is rude. It’s not rude to speak with confidence and self-assurance. And, if you use this approach, you will find that your ability to reach prospects will rise significantly.

If you find that you need more help Getting Past the Palace Guard, please visit http://www.wendyweiss.com and buy the product with the same name,
Getting Past the Palace Guard.

© 2006 Wendy Weiss

Boss Mode or Getting Past the Palace Guard is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

From this point of view, salespeople view their success based on the kind of sales training that they have. Of course, no one could instantly exert expertise without the proper training that he needs in his career.

Hence, many salespeople are more than willing to submit their selves to sales training. They know that it would be one of the best ways to earn and achieve success.

So for those who cannot understand why sales training is important in a salesperson’s career, here are some of the advantages of engaging into such sales booster activity.

1. It is a great help

Based on its basic concept, sales trainings are especially created to help the salespeople hone their skills and improve their craft. Their ability to create more sales is improved through the acquisition of advanced marketing strategies.

2. Molds better attitude

Another best thing about sales trainings is that they do not mainly focus on improving the skills and abilities of the salesperson as far as selling are concerned. Through these trainings, the attitude and behavior of the salesperson towards sales are improved.

Sales trainings teach them how to deal with the clients properly, how to handle objections, and how to persuade people. These things are not commonly taught on ordinary training programs.

3. Teaches good interaction

Through sales training, the seller will be able to identify the right strategy in dealing with his clients. It provides the right combination of language, perception, attitude, and the art of selling in order to interact with the client in the most favorable method.

The focus of this activity is to make the seller realize that selling should never be hard, or what most salespeople believe as hard selling. The point here is that with proper interaction, selling becomes an art, where the words and emotions are interlaced so as to lure the client to buy the product.

The Upshots

If sales training had been effective and was properly explained, chances are, sales will grow. But if it was done otherwise, more than a few unconstructive results may happen.

One of which is the lack of communication or miscommunication. Without proper orientation on the job and proper comprehension of the nature of the job, both the management and the employees might have difficulty in communicating the correct ideas and concepts.

Also, without sales trainings, salespeople will be less confident in distributing their products. This is because they are not fully aware on how to face their clients and how to persuade them into buying.

And last, without proper sales trainings, the people will not be enticed to do their job and advanced on a higher level of enthusiasm. This is because they are not aware of the possible compensation they will get ever they have performed better.

Indeed, sales trainings are not just any ordinary program and not just like any other training program designed just for the sake of having it. It has its purpose, and its results will definitely reap more income.

Boost Your Sales Through Sales Trainings is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

The challenge is that almost every marketer is using bonuses, so customers are wearying of the hype. What you need to do is offer them bonuses that do add genuine value to your product, and off them at the right place and time, and in the right way.

Some examples of good bonuses are:

*your product is an ebook about how to buy a used car, and your bonus is a report on how to check to see if a vehicle has sustained damage.

*your product is software designed to simplify obtaining reciprocal links, and your bonus is a report about how to create search engine optimized website title, description and keywords.

A bonus with genuine value:

*can be put to use immediately and is directly related to your product.

*provides motivation that is a match for the motivation to sign up for the newsletter or buy your product, and serves to add to that motivation, not detract from it.

*can allow you to put a price on a product that others give away for free.

The right placement of a bonus is:

*immediately before your prospect makes the last click to complete a sale. This will eliminate any last minute hesitation and will reinforce what you are asking for your product.

A bonus works well if you will only be selling your product for a limited time:

*If you can tell people that if they order by July 15th 2006 they will get a discount or free bonuses, there will be a sense of urgency compelling the customer to buy now rather than risking missing the bonus.

Here are examples of appropriate free bonuses:

1. Physical Product
If you are selling a physical product, it’s easy to slip in a free sample or free gift. Anything with your logo, url and/or contact info reminds your customer to return to your website. Pens, mousepads, coffee cups, and refrigerator magnets all get used frequently.

2. Special Report
Information in a condensed form that relates to what you’re offering and would be very helpful for the customer makes a great bonus. If your product is information explaining how to do something, your bonus can be a detailed description of some aspect of that. A great bonus to add to Opt In Master Course would be a report outlining how to get the most out of your favorite traffic exchanges or safelists; or, how to write a good email advertisement.

Titles that are exciting and include numbers, such as “10 Killer Steps to Writing Email Ads that Sell”, are proven to be highly successful. An easy way to write your report is to write it in Microsoft Word, format it so it looks professional (using white space, highlights, and bulleted lists, for example), and then use Adobe Acrobat to save it as a PDF file for easy downloading. Be sure to promote your business, website, and relevant affiliate programs in there too – remember it may get passed around. If you would like to make your report available for rebranding, then use pdf995 instead of Adobe Acrobat. Rebranding rights encourage other marketers to pass it around. You can offer your report for free, and sell rebranding rights.

3. Resource List
Compile a list of your personally recommended resources, websites, books, and vendors that will help your list grow their lists and run a successful business. You can set this up as a PDF file as well, or create a password-protected area of your website that your list can access.

4. Checklist
Are there any checklists that would be a good tie-in to what you offer? That help people do what you’re teaching them to do, better or easier? A checklist of a daily traffic exchange surfing schedule, or weekly website promotion activities, would help your list members run their businesses more efficiently. A common question I receive is, do you really use ALL the resources in OMC? Your answer to that could be your checklist of what you use.

5. Collection of Articles
My favorite way to advertise my site and add valuable content is to write articles and post them to article directories and on my website. Your list of article directories, or a collection of your best 10 articles, would make a valuable bonus ebook.

6. Workbook
Since OMC includes marketing principles, strategies and tactics, put together a separate guide to help your list members do assignments, stay on track, and document their progress. A workbook is something people recognize and appreciate because it infers step by step guidance, with measurable results. This would be a step up from a checklist.

7. A Coaching Session With You
A consultation is a great bonus to offer, for several reasons. First, it helps you get to know your list members and their questions will
help you decide on the direction your website should take. Second, it’s a great opportunity to add backend sales to your free products. For example, if they appreciated the coaching you provided, they may be interested in buying an ebook that expands on this info.

Digital or Physical?

If you’re offering printed material as a bonus, don’t go nuts spending a ton of money making it look great. “Good” is okay! A simple printed-on-demand report from Cafe Press fits any budget and is fine. First you sign up for a Basic Shop for free. On the ” My CafePress” page, click on the “products” link under Shop Management. Next, click on the “add products” button at the top of the page. This will direct you to the product list where you can select the products available for you to choose from. The book is the last product in the list. The system will then walk you through each step of creating your book.

What’s most important is the cover — even if you only produce a digital report or audio product, having a graphic of it will help
increase your response and make you look more professional.

Give Your Wallet a Bonus This Month

So get some bonuses together, make note of your sales so far, and then add some bonuses and watch how your sales rise.

Bonuses: How To Raise the Value of Your Products is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

Good time management for salespeople has been an obsession of mine for more than 30 years. In the last decade, I’ve been involved in helping tens of thousands of sales people improve their results through more effective use of their time. Over the years, I’ve seen some regularly occurring patterns develop – tendencies on the part of sales people to do things that detract from their effective use of time. Here are the four most common time-wasters I’ve observed. See if any apply to you or your salespeople.

1. Allure of the urgent/trivial. Salespeople love to be busy and active. We have visions of ourselves as people who can get things done. No idol dreamers, we’re out there making things happen! A big portion of our sense of worth and our personal identity is dependent on being busy. At some level in our self image of our selves, being busy means that we really are important. One of the worst things that can happen to us is to have nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nothing going on. So, we latch onto every task that comes our way, regardless of the importance. For example, one of our customers calls with a back order problem. “Oh good!” we think, “Something to do! We are needed! We can fix it!” So, we drop everything and spend two hours expediting the backorder. In retrospect, couldn’t some one in purchasing or customer service have done that? And couldn’t they have done it better than you? And didn’t you just allow something that was a little urgent but trivial prevent you from making some sales calls? And wouldn’t those potential sales calls be a whole lot better use of your time? Or, one of our customers hands us a very involved “Request for Quote.” “Better schedule a half-day at the office,” we think. “Need to look up specifications, calculate prices, compile literature, etc.” We become immediately involved with this task, working on this project for our customer. In retrospect, couldn’t we have given the project to an inside salesperson or customer service rep to do the leg work? Couldn’t we have just communicated the guidelines to some one and then reviewed the finished proposal? Once again, we succumbed to the lure of the present task. That prevented us from making sales calls and siphoned our energy away from the important to the seemingly urgent. I could go on for pages with examples, but you have the idea. We are so enamored with being busy and feeling needed that we often grab at any task that comes our way, regardless of how unimportant. And each time we do that, we compromise our ability to invest our sales times more effectively.

2. The comfort of the status quo. A lot of salespeople have evolved to the point where they have a comfortable routine. They make enough money and they have established routines and habits that are comfortable. They really don’t want to expend the energy it takes to do things in a better way, or to become more successful or effective. This can be good. Some of the habits and routines that we follow work well for us. However, our rapidly changing world constantly demands new methods, techniques, habits and routines. Just because something has been effective for a few years doesn’t mean that it continues to be so. This problem develops when salespeople are so content with the way things are, they have not changed anything in years. If you haven’t changed or challenged some habit or routine in the last few years, chances are you are not as effective as you could be. For example, you could still be writing phone messages down on little slips of paper when entering them into your contact manager would be more effective. This is a simple example of a principle that can extend towards the most important things that we do. Are we using the same routines for organizing our work week, for determining who to call on, for understanding our customers, for collecting information, etc.? There is no practical end to the list. Contentment with the status quo almost always means salespeople who are not as effective as they could be. My book, 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople, discusses the use of the “more” mindset as an alternative to the status quo.

3. Lack of trust in other people in the organization. Salespeople have a natural tendency to work alone. After all, we spend most of the day by ourselves. We decide where to go by ourselves, we decide what to do by ourselves, and we are pretty much on our own all day long. It’s no wonder then, we just naturally want to do everything by ourselves. That’s generally a positive personality trait for a salesperson. Unfortunately, when it extends to those tasks that could be done better by other people in our organization it turns into a real negative. Instead of soliciting aid from others in the organization, and thereby making much better use of our time, many salespeople insist on doing it themselves, no matter how redundant and time-consuming the task is. The world is full of salespeople who don’t trust their own colleagues to write an order, to source a product, to enter an order in the system, to follow up on a back order, to deliver some sample or literature, to research a quote, to deliver a proposal, etc. Again, the list could go on and on. The point is that many of these tasks can be done better or cheaper by someone else in the organization. The salespeople don’t release the tasks to them because they, the salespeople, don’t trust them to do it. Too bad. It’s a tremendous waste of good selling time and talent. Chapter 10 of my book “10 Secrets” describes a system to nurture helpful relationships.

4. Lack of tough-minded thoughtfulness. Ultimately, time management begins with thoughtfulness. That means a sufficient quantity of good quality thought-energy invested in the process. I like to say that good time management is a result of “thinking about it before you do it.” Good time managers invest sufficiently in this process. They set aside time each year to create annual goals, they invest planning time every quarter and every month to create plans for those times, they plan every week and every sales call. Poor sales time managers don’t dedicate sufficient time to the “thinking about it” phase of their job. Not only do good sales time managers invest a sufficient quantity of time, but they also are disciplined and tough-minded about how they think. They ask themselves good questions, and answer them with as much objectivity as they can muster. * “What do I really want to accomplish in this account?” * “Why aren’t they buying from me?” * “Who is the key decision maker in this account?” * “Am I spending too much time in this account, or not enough in that one?” * “How can I change what I am doing in order to become more effective?” These are just a few of the tough questions that good sales time managers consider on a regular basis. They don’t let allow their emotions or personal comfort zones to dictate the plans. They go where it is smart to go, do what it is smart to do. They do these things because they have spent the quantity and quality of thought-time necessary. Of course, there are hundreds of other time-wasting habits. These four, however, are the most common. Correct them, and you’ll be well on your way to dramatically improved results.

Biggest Time Wasters for Salespeople is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

I once attended a job interview where I was asked by members of the interview panel how would I organize and set up a telephone conference. I replied that I would email/telephone the IT guys with dates and times and have them do it.

To my horror, I learned that apparently I was the one responsible for this task and would have to arrange this telephone conference myself. Gee that sucked! Needless to say I immediately lost interest in the job (nor did I get it, for some strange reason). Whenever I retell this story I still manage to laugh at my reaction “What, I have to organize what?” Thank goodness for my attitude readjustment!

Over the years I’ve had many job and career changes and with each role someone would always be available who I could count on to help me out. Always, without fail!

Never having to worry about all that other ‘stuff’ kept me a prisoner of my own comfort zone. There was always someone else who did that ‘stuff’ while I got on with other work I was responsible for, there was always a safety net.

Back to the advertising leaflets, I tried, with the help of others to find personnel to do that ‘stuff’ (handing out leaflets while I would be doing something else I was responsible for) for me.

I quite simply couldn’t find anyone who was okay with doing ‘stuff’ for me.

Then an amazing thing happened.

As I was telling my sad and pitiful tale to a friend of mine, my friend cheerfully offered to help out. I was stunned and thought to myself “if my friend is willing to go out on a limb for me, what was my hang up?

The hang up was easy to identify. It was the fear of doing something for the first time. It was once again time to step outside my comfort zone. Sigh.

After I gave myself a stern silent talking to, like “What on earth is up with you?”

“You know you’ve been running away from having to do this that’s why now you have to do this, you need this experience!”

“Becoming fearless will set you free!” Reply to self, “easy for you to say!”

Once I worked out exactly what my strategy would be in overcoming this fear I became peaceful with a new attitude of “Let’s do this, it’ll be fun and you never know how many nice people I’ll meet today?” and “This is the perfect excuse and trade off to do lunch in town with my friend”

Remember back to when you first stepped outside your comfort zone. Maybe you were scared and fearful because you were unaware of what would happen next or you were fearful of being rejected by others of what you had to offer (for example: advertising leaflets)?

Now recall the second, third (or more) time you did the same thing. What was your experience like after several times of doing the same thing? My wild assumption is that you learned something new every time and you adjusted your strategies accordingly.

Your mind remembers all that you do (whether consciously or unconsciously). The more you do something outside your comfort zone, the easier it will become to adjust to your new comfort zone.

Whenever you try on something new know that it does get easier with time and as you continue to learn, grow and as you continue doing, you’ll become an expert before you know it.

Michaela Scherr

Become Fearless Doing the Doing is a post from: Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com