Showing posts with label five things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label five things. Show all posts

June 28, 2010

Five Things: Staying Focused

We are human. We get distracted by squirrels and unicorns.

The easy stuff is more fun than prospecting. Fear of success is often replaced by inaction.

Here are five things you can do consistently that will help you.

Network Socially

Despite our penchant to interact since the dawn of our existence, the social web is still in its infancy. This gives us a chance to connect to similar people from across the world or next door. Take your time, have patience, connect and contribute.

Meet and Referral

Coffee meetings are common as you start out. You need to meet people, practice, meet more people, ask for business and ask for people to refer you to others who may need your product or service. It is a community and a network that will help you best. Remember to reciprocate.

Turn It Off

With smartphones in our hands at all times, it’s difficult not to stay in touch. We return emails in an instant and we train ourselves and more importantly others that we are always available. Phone and email can be shut off once in while. It also stops others from wanting to make their emergency your priority.

Stay Off Social Networks

If you are on Twitter for eight hours a day, you may not be working on other clients’ business like what you say you will do for prospects. Block off your online time or it will consume you.

Start One. Finish One.

Do one thing, finish it, tell people to stop distracting you and get on to the next. Easier said than done but magic when you can pull it off.

Back to my five things.

What are yours?

@knealemann
Helping you integrate all you do with all you do.

Bookmark and Share

photo credit: nextup

June 19, 2010

Five Things: Changing Status Quo

Frog For Lunch

Brian Tracy coined the phrase eat the frog which points to how we procrastinate about the things we want to do the least.

Tracy's point is to look at those things and do them first. We have to eat the frog eventually.


Trust Your People

Trust your hiring practices, trust your coaching ability, trust your team to carry out your vision. If you feel you can’t trust people, don’t blame them, look at your leadership skills and communication practices. Trusting your people means trusting yourself.

Work Is Not A Location

Far too many managers take the attitude that you need to be behind your desk in order to be effective. If someone wants to work remotely, let them give it a try. If someone wants to experiment with some flex time, measure the downside of adopting it. Unless you're in an industry where people must be in the building, mix things up and see how creativity can flow in a different direction.

Hire Smarter Than You

This is not a competition of who has read the most books or has the most experience. Surround yourself with smart people, find those who know more about certain aspects of your industry than you and celebrate it. Get over your own self-proclaimed greatness and make it about them.

Be Uncomfortable

Unfold your arms, loosen up, drive a different way to work, let someone else run the meeting, do something to make work resemble being alive and not work, resist temptation to dismiss ideas you may not understand at first.

What will you challenge in your business?

@knealemann
Helping you integrate all you do with all you do.

Bookmark and Share

photo credit: freefoto

June 10, 2010

Five Things: To Run A Business

Ideas are everywhere.

This one is as simple as they come and is the result of a conversation with a colleague.

Five is a tidy number, it's an amount that is manageable and something we'll investigate once a week.

A Strategic Plan
A realistic and executable road map for your business and your career.


Honesty With Yourself
Know your strengths, be aware of areas to work on, no one knows it all.

Honesty From Others
Find a group of 5-10 trusted advocates who will provide clear insight and feedback.

Honesty With Others
Others can see right through dishonest business practices.

Constant Education
Learning is a lifelong endeavor.

Agree? Disagree?
What are your five things?


@knealemann
Helping you integrate all you do with all you do.

Bookmark and Share

photo credit: therulesofwealth
 
© Kneale Mann knealemann@gmail.com people + priority = profit
knealemann.com linkedin.com/in/knealemann twitter.com/knealemann
leadership development business culture talent development human capital