Stop The Madness!

Many of us just love the holiday season – so many special events going on, so many memories from years past, so much good food and fun gifts!

The only problem is that all of these things are going on IN ADDITION to all the regular duties of your normal work weeks. And that can make it easy to get OVERWHELMED – which can lead to exhaustion, illness, costly mistakes or other business busters that leave you unable to carry on with your important business activities.

So here’s a word to the wise: When you start feeling overwhelmed, or too rushed, or desperate for a break – STOP.   

STOP THE HOLIDAY MADNESS!

• Stop in your tracks, or as soon as you can.
  
• Re-schedule! Go to your calendar, your scheduling book, and look for anything you can possibly re-schedule or cancel.
• Plan! If you’re going to holiday parties to network, realize that you are “working” and you will be “on” during those events. So plan your networking times as work events.
• Keep healthy! Keep your routines going, as much as possible. Eat well, exercise, and rest.
• Don't do it! Decide what can wait until life slows down a bit.

It’s far better to move that important meeting to another day when you’re not so busy, when you can come in refreshed and make your best presentation.

A huge benefit of having our own businesses is that we CAN control our schedules, to a certain extent. We can choose to tackle our tasks without feeling frenzied or pressurized. We are our own boss. And we’re responsible to avoid getting overwhelmed. 

You’ll find yourself with a better attitude when you build in time between appointments for a quiet, healthy meal, or even a quick cup of tea or coffee and a few deep breaths, before you jump right into that next call.

Let’s keep control of our lives and schedules this holiday season! Let’s build in time for self-care during the hustle and bustle, and feel the peace and confidence that comes from being at our best for each event and appointment we choose to put on our schedules.

You AND your business will reap the rewards of this decision!

My best – Beth

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