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"Six Breakthrough
Strategies for Your Business"
Here is a brief synopsis of the
following article (1699 words):
“Six Breakthrough Strategies for Your Business” by Gary Lockwood
While business people generally expect they will take more time off and worry
less about money as their business grows, they currently work long hours, spend
little time with family and suffer from dangerously high levels of stress.
Successful business people "break through" existing boundaries and
move their business and their lives to a higher level. This article reveals six
Breakthrough Strategies to achieve a quantum leap - extraordinary breakthroughs
- in your business and personal life..
Six Breakthrough
Strategies for Your Business
Wealth.... Quality of Life.... Satisfaction...
Fun....
Are you:
* getting all you want from your enterprise?
* progressing in your professional practice as much as you desire?
* satisfied that your job/career gives you everything you want?
Many of the business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals whom I coach have
come to me because of that feeling that "there must be more than
this". Most are successful, yet have the feeling that they are working
harder and are less satisfied. Many were trying to develop a balance between
their personal and professional lives.
If you're having these feelings, join the club. A gap exists between
expectations and the reality of the workplace today. While business people
generally expect they will take more time off and worry less about money as
their business grows, they currently work long hours, spend little time with
family and suffer from dangerously high levels of stress. These are the
challenges of working in a time of transition.
The bad news is there is a great gulf to bridge between reality and
expectations. The good news? There are ways both individuals and corporations
can change to improve both workplace quality and the level of productivity.
What are the possibilities? How would you like to just leap over the mundane,
step-by-step progress you have been making? You do not have to settle for
incremental improvements. You CAN achieve extraordinary breakthroughs in your
business and personal life if you know how.
Interestingly, YOU already have the answers for more success! They are just
locked away inside you. Unlock the creative power inside you and focus it on
turning your dreams into reality.
In my twelve years of coaching and training, I've observed how successful
business people "break through" existing boundaries and move their
business and their lives to a higher level. I have identified six aspects of the
enterprise where it's possible to achieve these breakthroughs.
To get breakthroughs, business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals must
systematically examine and develop the six integrated principles of success.
These Breakthrough Strategies are:
STRATEGIC VISION SYSTEM:
This is the process of surfacing and clarifying the areas of significance to you
and your business. You will establish meaningful goals in each of these areas.
This assures that you stay focused on the outcomes you desire.
In times of great change and ambiguity, how do we set meaningful goals? And how
do we keep our businesses moving forward and on target? This is what strategic
thinking is all about. For this breakthrough strategy, identify the 8 or 10 key
areas that are important and essential for your business and your personal life
- cash flow, customers, employees, family, friends, spiritual growth, health and
so on. Write them down.
In each of these areas, develop a crystal clear vision of where you are going
with this. What's possible. What does it look like when you're living up to your
best expectations in each of these areas? Describe as best you can, in writing,
what it looks like and what it feels like when you have reached the point in
each of your key result areas where you are happy with each. This represents a
picture of your future as you prefer it to be.
These processes have been designed to take advantage of the way your mind
actually learns and the way entrepreneurs actually work. With clear purpose and
direction, your efforts will be laser-focused on the results you want.
TACTICAL ACTION SYSTEM:
These processes ensure that your actions and decisions are aligned with your
values and vision. You will set critical milestones, success yardsticks and key
tracking indicators so you will achieve your goals faster and easier.
To be goal directed, we need goals. Set aside a couple of hours this week to
contemplate your 3 or 4 or 5 major business goals for the remainder of the year.
Don't get hung up on the small stuff. Look beyond today and this week and this
month. Picture yourself on December 31 reflecting on the significant
accomplishments of the year. What will have had to happen to make you happy with
your progress, professionally and personally?
Don't forget to include your personal goals in here. They may be family related
and growth related (preferably both). When your monthly goals are in sync with
your long goals, and your daily activities are leading toward your monthly
goals, you achieve "Goal Congruence".
QUALITY OF LIFE SYSTEM:
In our high-demand, knowledge-based economy, issues such as free time,
happiness, satisfaction and peace of mind are not just nice-to-have. These
things are crucial to your ability to operate an enterprise at peak
effectiveness.
The emergence of creativity, ideas, and information as our most valuable
resources, and the pervasiveness of the global, 24-hour business world have
changed our concept of "time equals money". Now, it's "results
equals money". And we all know that more time at the office does not mean
more results. In fact, it often means less results and more mistakes.
What's the answer? The solution is to take time away from your business. Free
time makes you sharper. Free time provides the rejuvenation you need to restore
your confidence and sense of well-being. You come back from time off with a new
perspective, a higher energy level, increased creativity, and often, a
breakthrough idea. Take one vacation a year, get one break-through. Take two
vacations, get two breakthroughs. Take three, get three.
Getting and keeping a superlative quality of life is best done systematically,
not just when convenient. By consciously attending to the balance in your life,
you can create a rich quality of life most people only dream of ever having.
LEVERAGING SYSTEM:
Here, you will regularly examine the results you get from the investment of your
time and money. Leverage to produce high-impact results is attained through
support people, automation, outside specialists, smart delegation and shrewdly
managed priorities. Many entrepreneurs are still operating under the mistaken
belief that results are in direct proportion to how
hard they work.
This is why it's so important to make wise decisions about how we invest time
and energy. Why do you feel that there's more to do than you can possibly do?
Because there is more to do than you can possibly do. You must make choices.
Often very difficult choices.
It is imperative that we are doing the right things, every bit as much as doing
things right. You've heard of the 80/20 rule -- 20 percent of all activities
will produce 80 percent of the meaningful results.
What are your 20 percent? What are the handful of activities that produce the
results that you want, that will make a difference, that will take you in the
direction you wish to go?
Remember, you are rewarded only for results.
STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIPS:
Inevitably, the largest share of your income flows from a relatively small
number of key economic relationships, generally your top clients and referral
sources. Identify these special relationships that require nurturing and create
action plans around retention and developing maximum potential from each.
Truly effective business people succeed because they are genuinely curious and
concerned about people in general - and customers in particular. Their desire to
understand the customer takes priority over their desire to sell their products
and services. The delightful irony, of course, is that the very
reason they are successful at selling is because they have made their desire to
sell a secondary issue. The primary issue is the relationship they have with
their customer.
In too many cases, entrepreneurs focus on current transactions rather than
relationships that will sustain and grow the business over the long run.
LEARNING AND CONSTANT IMPROVEMENT:
When you are proactive about learning and improving instead of just letting it
happen, you accelerate your capabilities, expand insight and experience
startling advances in your thinking.
Effective learning must be conscious vs. unconscious, active not reactive. It
must be something we seek, not just "let it happen". If learning
ability is not conscious, it can't be improved. It just becomes "another
habit" without effective application to the circumstances in our business
(and personal) lives. We already spend too much of our day "doing
things."
How do we become good learners, and subsequently, good change masters? The
answer is surprisingly simple. Become an active, conscious learner on a daily
basis by creating a diary or log of your most important daily experiences.
Set aside time daily to consciously learn from your experiences. You will
discover a little-known secret that will put you on a course to life-long,
continuous learning and improvement.
Bottom line.... these Breakthrough Strategies provide
a practical, systematic way to achieve remarkable results. This approach, once
mastered, becomes a habit that enables you to continue your program of
extraordinary accomplishments over the remaining course of your lifetime.
Here is how you get started. Pull out your appointment calendar and start
blocking out three or four hours each month where you can be uninterrupted ( if
you can not do this, you are in trouble already). Use this quiet time to think
seriously about your personal and professional life. Use the Breakthrough
Strategies as your guide.
In each planning session, focus on one or two of the Breakthrough Strategies,
articulate the desired end results, map the possibilities, and create an action
plan for the coming three-month period. Refer to this action plan as you plan
your time each day or each week.
What can you expect to get out of using these Strategies? The benefits you
experience from using the Breakthrough Strategies will depend on the specific
nature of your goals. The most common results for entrepreneurs include:
* significant increase in income
* a goal achievement process that works
* a more satisfying lifestyle and workstyle
* elimination of non-productive activities in favor of value-adding activities
that propel you toward your goals
* a more predictable future
* peace of mind and increased confidence in your ability to accomplish your
goals even faster and easier.
We have found that entrepreneurs desire
continuous growth in their business and personal lives. They are impatient to
reach expanding visions. Regular attention to the six Breakthrough Strategies
helps satisfy this basic desire for endless growth.
© 1997 - 2005 BizSuccess All rights
reserved. No duplication
About the Author...(for online pubs)
Gary Lockwood is Increasing the Effectiveness and Enhancing the
Lives of CEOs, business owners and professionals. (951) 739-7444
Email: mailto:Gary@BizSuccess.com Web: http://www.BizSuccess.com
About the Author...(for print pubs)
Gary Lockwood is Your Business Coach. Contact Gary for a FREE report
on "Getting Breakthroughs in your business".
(951) 739-7444 * Fax: (509) 695-1017
Email: Gary@BizSuccess.com * Web: www.BizSuccess.com
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