Tuesday, November 1, 2016

HOLD STEADY - FOCUS

NOW SMILE..

Holiday Season is already here! You haven't even bought the turkey,  yet Thanksgiving items, Christmas trees, ribbons, and wrapping paper are filling the center aisles at our local stores.

Some business people are not big fans of this early parading of holiday products – and I wanted to chime in, early on, to make a suggestion for us all:

I recommend we use this seasonal landscape as an effective reminder to keep our Focus on our businesses. If we do, then we’ll be the ones smiling when the holidays are over!
 As a Gold Star Referral Club member, you’re working to build and manage your own successful business, and to help your peers grow and enjoy their own businesses by referring buyers or clients to them. 

For all of us, our businesses need to stay profitable these last two months of 2016. If you follow trends for small businesses during the holidays, you’ll see that often small businesses suffer during these times.

·         One reason is that the buying public, people who would normally be utilizing our services and products, begins directing their thoughts and dollars toward making the holidays dazzling and exciting for their friends and family.

o   They sometimes put off or cancel purchases or services that don’t directly relate to this annual extravaganza.

o   Sometimes their budgets get so stretched that even services and products they normally buy or ones that would relate to their holiday plans have to be crossed off the list. It just happens.

·         And business owners, too, can get sidetracked.

o   Bills still come due during this season, even though we’d like to focus more on the fun times. We can lose sight of the fact that business must keep rolling, every day, in order to bring in the money needed for regular expenses.

o   We can forget to refer a friend or acquaintance to that relevant Gold Star member because we get caught up with all the conversation about what we’re getting our grandchild for Christmas or Hanukkah.

o   As we enter the holiday hype, we might subconsciously “take a break” from the referral priorities we normally carry out. Perhaps, in our busyness, we just don’t take time to follow through even if it occurs to us that what our acquaintance needs could be supplied by that Gold Star member who sat next to us at the last meeting.


The Cost of Forgetting to Focus on Our Business – and on Referring to Others’ Businesses

In the hustle and bustle of planning gatherings, shopping for food and gifts and sending our cards, it’s easy to get distracted from the business of … our business. We can stray from the proven path of constant, intentional investing of our energy, time and money into building this important part of our financial security.  If this happens, lean and sad times can be ahead when the holidays are over and we look for that harvest from referrals ourselves, or watching other members face hard financial facts due to their lack of referrals from us.

KEEP THE FOCUS PEOPLE!

As busy business people, let’s be determined to keep that necessary Focus on our business, and on referring others to Gold Star members’ businesses this Holiday Season. Having that intentionality and purpose for our community means that we can produce sparks that will become blazing flames of success – and make us all smile in the New Year of 2017!


Best of Success, 
Beth

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