START WITH THE FUN STUFF

In a few pages, you will be choosing your Main Course selections, those actions that will directly bring you business. It’s a good bet that the process of making those choices may bring up some fear and resistance for you, so let’s start with the fun stuff: Appetizers and Dessert.

Appetizers are action items to move you forward in the process of creating or acquiring your chosen Success Ingredients. By putting one or two Appetizers on your list of Daily Actions, you are making a commitment to do what it takes to get those missing ingredients in place. If you chose only one Success Ingredient, you probably only need one Appetizer, but with two or three ingredients to create, you may want two Appetizers to help you along.

The Appetizers on the Action Plan Menu are suggested actions for you to choose from, but you can also design your own. Remember that the time frame and quantity are up to you in either case. Here are some ways you can use the Appetizers on the menu:

Spend 1 hour each day on my Success Ingredient projects. Good for projects like “lead sources” or “publicity venues” that may take a while to ferret out.

Complete 1 item each day from my Success Ingredient project list. Use this for projects such as “website” or “contact management system” where you may have a list of many steps to complete.

Practice my skills or script once per day. An excellent choice for ingredients like “telemarketing script/skills,” where you need to practice to make progress.

Spend 1 hour each week doing research. Appropriate for ingredients such as “speaking venues” or “competitive research.”

Read or write every day for 1 hour. Use this for information-gathering projects like finding “advertising venues,” or creative work such as writing an “article or query letter.”

Interview 1 person per week. Good for projects such as researching your “market niche definition” or discovering how to find “better-qualified prospects.”

Collect 3 new facts per day. Another useful method of quantifying your progress in research or information-gathering.

Observe how it’s done once per week. A great way to improve your skills in areas like networking or selling.

When you have chosen one or two Appetizers, write them down as the first two Daily Actions on your Action Worksheet. See Figure 5-2 for an example.

Next, look at the Dessert selections. The Daily Actions on the Dessert menu are suggested ways in which you can be more effective and productive in everything you do. Choose just one. To make the right choice, ask yourself what is likely to get in the way of your success this month. Have you identified any habits or behaviors that tend to sabotage you? Is there something you need to do for yourself to perform at your best?

Use these descriptions of the Dessert selections on the Action Plan Menu to help you choose one or design your own:

Plan my day each morning. If you often come to the end of the day and wonder where it went, this Dessert may be a good choice for you. Planning your day in advance will take only five or ten minutes. You could also make your plan the night before.

Do all my “A-list” tasks first each day. Not everything on your personal to-do list is of equal value. Try giving every item on the list a priority of A, B, or C, then take care of all the A-list items first each day.

Write in my success journal each evening. It’s easy to get caught up in failures and shortcomings, but every day has successes in it. Start a success journal, where you write each day only those things you enjoyed, felt good about accomplishing, or for which you received recognition.

Exercise 3 times per week. If you find that regular exercise gives you more energy, it may be just as important to effective marketing as a good telephone script.

Get 8 hours of sleep every night. Depriving yourself of sleep is not good time management, and will backfire quickly. Not everyone needs eight hours, so substitute the best number for your needs.

Meditate for 1/2 hour per day. Meditation, drawing or painting, listening to music, gardening, and needlework are just a few of the many activities that allow for relaxation and quiet reflection. Just plain wool gathering is fine, too. The idea is to give your overworked brain a rest.

Schedule a day of fun each week. Relaxation takes many forms and you may need some pleasurable activity more than a rest. Scheduling fun time in advance will ensure it happens.

Add up my income and expenses each week. Think of this as a motivational technique. If you know you need to make another $500 this week, you may want to pick up the phone on Friday afternoon. If you see your hard work paying off, you may be inspired to do a little more.

Spend 1/2 hour each day organizing my office. Keeping track of where each prospect is in the marketing cycle can be crucial to closing sales. Time spent looking for important information that has gone missing is time you don’t have available for marketing.

Visualize success daily. This is a proven technique for improved achievement. Spend a few minutes each day visualizing yourself succeeding at marketing, selling, and earning the rewards that are important to you. You may even want to do this three times a day.

After reading these descriptions, you may be tempted to choose more than one Dessert. Yet you do need to leave enough room for the Main Course, so limit yourself to just one. If one of the Desserts on the menu caused you to say, “That would really help me,” that’s the one to pick. If you have a self-sabotaging habit that none of these Desserts addresses, make up your own to help you start changing that habit.

Record your Dessert as the last Daily Action on your Action Worksheet (see Figure 5-2).