Share this:

Technorati Tags: business acceleration, business development advisor, business development coach, francoeur, jean-guy, JG, Messy Manager, sales courses toronto

Share this:

Technorati Tags: business acceleration, business development advisor, business development coach, francoeur, jean-guy, JG, Messy Manager, sales courses toronto

Share this:

Technorati Tags: business acceleration, business development advisor, business development coach, francoeur, jean-guy, JG, Messy Manager, sales courses toronto

Brian sent me this email and I had to repost it because years ago I heard this very same advice and I put it into action. Today I have built up wealth because of this very advice and I had to share this post.

The most important point for me and where I started is just to understand that you can start with just 1% because you will build confidence and soon enough even though you can’t see how you will be putting aside 10% or more of your income.

Enjoy!
*typed on iPad ignore spelling errors

——-

The Law of Accumulation
By: Brian Tracy

The Law of Accumulation: how your financial fortune accumulates slowly over time and then becomes enormous, like a snowball. The Law of Accumulation: Every great financial achievement is an accumulation of hundreds of small efforts and sacrifices that no one ever sees or appreciates.

Develop Discipline
The achievement of financial independence will require a tremendous number of small efforts on your part. To begin the process of accumulation, you must be disciplined and persistent. You must keep at it for a long, long time. Initially, you will see very little change or difference but gradually, your efforts will begin to bear fruit. You will begin to pull ahead of your peers. Your finances will improve and your debts will disappear. Your bank account will grow and your whole life will improve.

Build Up Momentum
The first corollary of the Law of Accumulation says: “As your savings accumulate, you develop a momentum that moves you more rapidly toward your financial goals.”

It is hard to get started on a program of financial accumulation, but once you do get started, you find it easier and easier to keep at it. The “momentum principle” is one of the great success secrets. This principle says that it takes tremendous energy to overcome the initial inertia and resistance to financial accumulation and get started, but once started, it takes much less energy to keep moving.

Start Slow, Finish Fast
The second corollary of the Law of Accumulation says, “By the yard it’s hard, but inch by inch, anything’s a cinch.”

When you begin thinking about saving 10 or 20 percent of your earnings, you will immediately think of all kinds of reasons that it is not possible. You might be up to your neck in debt. You might be spending every single penny that you earn today just to keep afloat.

If you do find yourself in this situation, instead of saving 10 percent, begin saving just 1 percent of your earnings in a special account, which you refuse to touch.

Increase As You Go Along
This small amount will begin to add up at a rate that will surprise you. As you become comfortable with saving 1 percent, increase your savings rate to 2 percent, then 3 percent, then 4 percent and 5 percent and so on. Within a year, you will find yourself getting out of debt and saving 10 percent, 15 percent and even 20 percent of your earnings without it really affecting your lifestyle.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to apply this law immediately:

First, decide upon your long-term financial goals and then resolve to work toward them one step at a time. The first steps are the hardest and you must discipline yourself to avoid backsliding into old habits.

Second, practice the law of accumulation in other parts of your life as well. Resolve to master a subject one page at a time. Lose extra pounds one ounce at a time. Learn a language one lesson at a time. The cumulative effect can be enormous.

Share this:

Technorati Tags: Brin Tracy, Building wealth, pay yourself first

Get yours now! http://blackcardmarketinggroup.com/strategysession/

Share this:

Technorati Tags: business acceleration, business development advisor, business development coach, francoeur, jean-guy, JG, Messy Manager, sales courses toronto

The world of business development has shifted in a major way in the last six months and if you don’t adapt you may very well go BANKRUPT!

As my devout followers know I’m a HUGE advocate of marketing automation. Actually, I’d go as far as to say I’m FANATICAL about marketing automation because I’ve seen how it can help companies double their sales and triple their profits!

However, in the last six months, I’ve experienced first hand a shift in B2B and B2C sales… I can no longer rely heavily on email marketing to convert leads into prospects. I’ve had to integrate a multi-media approach!

Here’s the problem!

• Too many people are using ONLY email to market their business
• Too many people do not have strict enough spam policies and as such consumers are skeptical of email marketing
• Email open rates have dipped so low its ridiculous (industry wide, not just us)

Here’s the opportunity!

• If you integrate a multi-media approach to your marketing campaigns you will stand out beyond the clutter and it will impact your response rate (in a good way!)
• Use paper! Direct mail, if done properly, is showing to be very beneficial. Let me give you an example; we do seminars all over the world (I just came back from a world tour where we did 15 seminars in 20 days in 5 different countries) and in the past we would only rely on an email confirmation and email to send instructions for registrants. We have recently changed our approach to include a piece of mail and a phone call and we’re seeing this work very well because the correlation of those mailed and those attended is over 80% in some cases (I call that proof)!

The BIGGEST Opportunity

• Pick up the phone! My recommendation to all of my clients is to rely more heavily on the phone. If you integrate a good phone campaign mixed with paper and email marketing automation you will have a winning combination that is surely to pull better than just email!
• In our company, in the last two weeks and in the coming two weeks we will have dialed over 2500 phone numbers to keep our clients and prospective clients in the loop on what’s happening with us and how they can participate and grow.
• Yes using the phone is more expensive than automated email marketing but the question is not what is the least expensive you should consider the ROI instead of just looking at costs. If an email campaign will yield two clients and cost say $50 but a multi-media campaign will yield 20 new clients and cost $250… even though the costs at 5x as much, the yield of customers is also 10x as much creating a situation for exponential growth!

FINAL WORD

I would go as far as to say that if your sales department (if you’re a small business, you probably are the sales department, so that means you) doesn’t spend at least 80% of their time on the phone or face-to-face, they are being highly ineffective and YOU (the business owner) will pay the price!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post.

JG Francoeur
Author, MESSY Manager
CLICK HERE for a FREE copy of my book

P.S. You may be interested in a Strategy Session to find out how you can generate more leads than you know what to do with and have others pay all your marketing costs. Sells for $299 but you can have it for FREE!

.

Share this:

Technorati Tags: black card marketing group, business development, how to marketing, Jean-Guy Francoeur, JGFMarketing, lead generation, Messy Manager, small business marketing

Replace Fear with Faith
By Napoleon Hill

The first problem we have is to replace fear with understanding and faith in ourselves. To do this, let us examine the mechanism of fear and its relation to bodily function.

First and foremost, let me tell you that temporary, fleeting fear is a very important and quite normal function of the human mind. The fleeting fear of being hit as we cross the street only serves to make us cautions – it protects our life – by momentarily forcing our attention on the problem of getting across safely. Thus, fear teaches us caution, but the fear is forgotten as soon as we have safely crossed.

The second important purpose of fear is to mobilize the body functions in defense of our life against a threatening situation. Consider for a moment early primitive man, sitting warmed by his fire in the gathering dusk, and enjoying a meal prepared during the day. Certainly, this early man was at peace with the world and the toils of the day were forgotten. At this moment let us say, a twig cracked in the forest – a sign of danger. An enemy was near.

Frequently fear is no longer a reaction to a specific danger, but a thoroughly learned habit of response, perhaps learned in early childhood. Although the need of this response has long since been lost, the pattern of thinking may persist, and now is defeating your quest for happiness and effective living. We fear most the unknown. Seek knowledge and understanding of your fear, and it will be replaced by faith. One must cultivate and nurture a positive mental attitude to achieve that smooth, effectively functioning mind-body you are seeking.

Source: PMA Science of Success Course. Educational Edition., Pgs. 428 & 430.

Share this:

Technorati Tags: Napoleon Hill, success secrets

In my book Messy Manager I go into detail on the differences between a leader and a manager… If you’re currently a manager you want to rise up to be a leader. This great newsletter from Brian Tracy, whom I highly recommend, came into my email and I thought it would be fitting for my audience.

I highly recommend you do the action exercises… If you have issues, email me and I’ll help (everyone who has my book has my email, complete the form to the right and you’ll have my direct email)

–start–
Develop A Clear Vision
By: Brian Tracy

The one quality that all leaders have in common is that they have a clear and exciting vision for the future. This is something that only the leader can do. Only the leader can think about the future and plan for the future each day.

Take the Time to Think
Excellent leaders take the time to think through and develop a clear picture of where they want the organization to be in one, three and five years. Leaders have the ability to communicate this vision in such a way that others “buy in” and eventually see the vision as belonging to them.

Motivate People to Give of Their Best
It is the vision of the future possibilities, of what can be, that arouses emotion and motivates people to give of their best. The most powerful vision is always qualitative, aimed at and described in terms of values and mission rather than quantitative, which is described in terms of money and numbers.

Money is Important
Of course, money is important, but the decision and commitment to “be the best in the business” is far more exciting.

Keep Your Cool
Another key to leadership success is for you to “keep your cool.” A study at Stanford Business School examined the qualities that companies look for in promoting young managers toward senior executive positions, especially the position of Chief Executive Officer. The study concluded that the two most important qualities required for great success were, first, the ability to put together and function as part of a team. Since all work is ultimately done by teams, and the managers’ output is the output of the team, the ability to select team members, set objectives, delegate responsibility and finally, get the job done, was central to success in management.

Practice is Everything
The second quality required for rapid promotion was found to be the ability to function well under pressure, and especially in a crisis. Keeping your cool in a crisis means to practice patience and self-control under difficult or disappointing circumstances.

People Are Watching
The character and quality of a leader is often demonstrated in these critical moments under fire, when everyone is watching, observing and privately taking notes. As Rudyard Kipling once said, “If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, then the world is yours and all that’s in it”.

Your job as a leader is to have a clear vision of where you want to go and then to keep your cool when things go wrong, as they surely will.

#######################
Action Exercises
#######################
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, project forward 3-5 years and imagine your ideal future vision. What does it look like? What steps can you take immediately to begin turning your future vision into your current reality?

Second, resolve in advance that, no matter what happens, you will remain calm and cool. You will not become upset or angry. You will take a deep breath and focus on the solution rather than on the problem.

Share this:

Technorati Tags: Brian Tracy, How to be a leader, leadership vs. Management, messy manager book

This article was written by Seth Godin whom I don’t know personally but he writes good stuff. I’m not sure if he’s a ‘academic’ or if he’s a ‘technician’ (meaning he actually implements this stuff) but I can tell you that this information is applicable and relevant to you!

–start–
Not just the first one.

And not all three.

But you real ly need at least one.

1. Results. If you can offer a return on invest ment, an engi neer ing solu tion, more sales, no tax audits, a cute hair cut, the fastest roller coast er, a pris tine beach, reli able insur ance pay outs at the best price, peace of mind, pro duc tive con sult ing or any other mea sur able result, this is a great place to start.

2. Thrills. More dif fi cult to quan ti fy but often as impor tant, part ners and cus tomers respond to hero ism. We are amazed and drawn to over the top effort, incred i ble risk tak ing on our behalf, the blood, sweat and tears that (rarely) comes from a great part ner. A smart per son work ing hard er on your behalf than you’d be will ing to work–that’s pret ty com pelling.

3. Ego. Is it nice to feel impor tant? You bet. When you greet us at the door with a glass of white wine, put our name in the lobby of the hotel, actu al ly treat us bet ter than any one else does (not just promise it, but do it)… This can get old real ly fast if you indus tri al ize and sys tem ize it, though.

This explains why the local branch of the big insur ance com pa ny has trou ble grow ing. It’s hard for them to out de liv er the other guys when it comes to the cost effec tive ness of their pol i cy (#1). They are unsuit ed from a per son al i ty and orga ni za tion al point of view to do #2. And they just can’t scale the third.

Put just about any busi ness with part ners into this matrix and you see how it works. Book pub lish ing, for sure. Hair dressers. Spas. Even real estate.

The Ritz Carlton is all about #3, ego, right? And on a good day, there’s a per cep tion that the guys at Apple are hell bent on amaz ing us yet again, deliv er ing on #2, tak ing huge career and cor po rate risks on our behalf. As soon as they stop doing that, the tribe will get bored.

(There’s a vari a tion of ego, #3, that comes from being in good com pa ny. This is what gets peo ple to sign up for Davos, or to choose ICM as their agent. Your ego is stroked by know ing that only peo ple as cool as you are part of this gig. Sort of the anti-Groucho oppor tu ni ty. Nice posi tion, if you can get it, because it scales.).

It’s tempt ing, par tic u lar ly for a small busi ness, to obsess about the first—results—to spend all its time try ing to prove that the ROI is high er, the brown ies are tasti er and the coach ing is more effec tive. You’d be amazed at how far you can go with the other two, if you com mit to doing it, not mere ly talking about it.

–end–

It’s good stuff… Hope you enjoyed it!

JG Francoeur
Author, Messy Manager

Share this:

Technorati Tags: business development coach, expert, Jean-Guy Francoeur, JG, JGFMarketing, Messy Manager, Seth godin

Here’s an interesting article about Facebook and Google sparring (the fun begins)… Can’t wait to see what will be next!!

Facebook & Google Spar Over Google+ Invites

http://mashable.com/2011/08/17/facebook-google-invites-fight/

JG Francoeur

Share this:

Technorati Tags: facebook, Google, JGFMarketing, Messy Manager, social networking tips and news