Goals are very important when it comes to the success or failure of your business. Why are they so important? Goals act as a roadmap for you to follow. They let you know where you are going, and if you are getting there on time. You wouldn’t get in your car and start driving without having a destination planned out, so why would you approach your business that way?

All goals should have a few things in common. A goal should define what you are trying to accomplish and when you want to accomplish it by. Goals should be realistic and there should be a way to measure them. All goals should be written down and available for viewing on a regular basis. Simply writing the goal down will significantly increase you odds of achieving it and having it displayed as a visual reminder will also help motivate you.

Even if you have never taken the time to set goals for your business, you are actually very familiar with the process. At some point in your life, you have more than likely taken out a pen and paper and mapped out a plan for accomplishing some type of task. Writing out goals for your business is no different than writing out your grocery list.

By clearly defining your goal, you are telling yourself where you are going. Instead of having a goal of “I plan to spend more time promoting my Virtual Assistant business”, clearly define the goal as “during the next three weeks, my goal is to spend 10 hours per week promoting my Virtual Assistant business”. The second goal tells you what you are going to do and for how long you are going to do it.

Once you know where you are going and when you want to be there, you can figure out how you are going to get there. Using the example above, you know that for the next three weeks, you need to be spending 10 hours per week promoting your business. Now you can start defining mini-goals, such as writing articles and submitting them to reprint directories, emailing past clients and letting them know you are accepting new projects, sending press releases to the media, and so forth.

Goals can also serve as a great way to challenge yourself. Are there some things you have been meaning to do, but keep putting off? Start setting weekly challenge goals, such as blogging one post each day for a week straight or adding a new message each day to your auto responder or even writing an article each day and submitting it to a reprint directory.

Have fun with your goals and reward yourself with a gold star when you accomplish one of them. Once you have collected 10 gold stars, treat yourself to a spa day or some other indulgence. By setting and achieving goals you will find your business taking off and will feel a great sense of enthusiasm and accomplishment.

Do you want to set reachable and attainable goals for you and your business? If you’re ready to take your business to the next level get a copy of my FREE ebook: Goal Setting Made Easy. Get your goal setting ebook free now.

If you want to create customer motivation, one of the first places you should look is yourself. The way you speak and communicate with your customers plays a large role in how they feel about your brand, product or service.

The Infomercial Example

One prime example of how excitement can play a role in getting people motivated is late-night infomercials. If you turn your TV on late at night and watch these infomercials, you’ll find that every single person you see appears to be jumping out of their skin with excitement.

Infomercials are produced by professionals who truly understand how to motivate a market. If you or your spokesperson is highly passionate, your customers will feel that motivation and get passionate as well.

Passion Doesn’t Have to Look a Certain Way

Passion doesn’t always have to look like a person talking quickly or loudly. It can also take a very calm and controlled demeanor.

Take Barack Obama for example. Set aside his politics and just look at him as a public speaker. He’s calm and collected and very rarely displays much emotion. Yet people still describe him as motivational.

Felt Passion versus Expressed Passion

Have you ever seen someone speak as if they were passionate, but you thought they were just faking it? For example, if you went to a used car salesman, they might sound very excited about a car – but you just don’t feel it.

That’s probably because they’re trying to emulate what they think excitement looks like, without being truly excited.

The key to transferring passion is to first feel passionate yourself. You can’t just emulate passion; you have to actually feel it inside.

If you can muster up a burning passion as you speak, that’s what will motivate your customers.

Who You Are Can Be Intrinsically Motivating

Who you are, your past results and what you stand for can be intrinsically motivating, even if your voice isn’t.

Take Warren Buffett’s speeches for example. Warren Buffett isn’t expressive at all. In fact, there’s not much that’s motivating about the way he speaks. If you didn’t know who he was and saw him speak, you might even find him boring.

Yet people scramble to attend Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings just the catch a glimpse of the investing master. It’s perhaps the only shareholder meeting that actually has ticket scalpers.

It’s not because of his speaking skills, but who he is. His past results convey more than his actual voice tone.

Voice versus Technique

Voice tone and speaking technique are equally important. If you’ve ever attended a motivational seminar, you’ve seen techniques in action.

The speaker will have you jumping up and down, high fiving your neighbors and employ a whole host of other techniques to get you motivated.

Your voice is crucial, but so is understanding the mechanics of motivation. However, without passion in your voice, no technique will make a difference. Start with a fiery passion that comes from the inside, then add proof, results and techniques on top.

Motivation doesn’t happen through logic, but through emotion. If you want to motivate your clients and customers, you need to know exactly which core emotions to target to get your customers fired up.

These are five core emotions to target for maximum motivation. Not all five apply to every business, but most of them will apply in one form or another.

Emotion #1: Curiosity

This first emotion is crucial when your brand, product or service is being introduced to someone for the very first time.

If your main proposition doesn’t get them curious, then you’re done before you’ve even started.

The first step to motivation is curiosity. Catch their attention first, before anything else.

Emotion #2: Pain and Anger

There are two emotions that cause people to take action: the pain of how things are and the desire for things to be a certain way in the future.

Intense pain is often more powerful than desire. People might want to make more money for years without taking any action to make it real. However, someone who’s at risk of missing a rent payment is probably going to take massive action to prevent that from happening.

When you’re trying to motivate someone, start from the pain point. Why do they want to change? What’s not working about the way things are?

Emotion #3: Hope

Hope is an incredibly powerful emotion. It’s the reason people buy just about any product.

People buy a product because they believe that life has the potential to change. They have hope that their life can be better. They believe that your product can help get them there.

When you’re selling a product, build up people’s hopes for the future. Paint pictures for them about how their lives could be. Show pictures and videos from people who live the lives they want to live.

Emotion #4: Urgency

The greatest motivational speakers are people who have a strong, solid call to action. They get people to feel the urgency of the moment and act right away to take action.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re Martin Luther King Jr. or a corporate salesperson, or anything in between. Your message must start with a cause or problem that you want to solve and the solution must be solved with haste. That pinch of urgency is crucial.

Urgency gets people to act. Urgency gets people to call their friends. Urgency creates motivation.

Emotion #5: Appeal to a Higher Purpose

Finally, appeal to a higher purpose or vision.

This vision could be something as big as saving the world. Help the world by signing up to your cause.

It could also be the higher purpose or vision of a specific person. Instead of just making money to get rich, call on your audience to become wealthy so they can do what they were meant to do in the world.

Altruism and long-term visions are inherently motivating. If you can tie them into your vision, you’ll be able to greatly increase the motivational power of your message.

Do you have a solid system for your to-do list that captures everything you need to do? Or are you sometimes left with a vague sense that there might be something you’re supposed to do, without a clear sense of what that is?

Not having your to-dos sorted out in a clear system can be an incredible source of stress. You can’t ever know for sure whether or not you’re dropping the ball on something.

Conversely, having a great system for tracking all your tasks will relieve you of a lot of stress, make you much more efficient and make you more reliable professionally.

Here’s how to sort out your to-dos for maximum mental clarity.

Identify All Your To-Dos

Start by identifying each and every task you need to do, big or small.

This could be something as simple as buying new post-it notes to something as complex as raising your rates.

For every single thing that you need to do professionally, write it down somewhere. Some people prefer digital task lists, while others prefer physical ones where tasks can be crossed off.

Spend a good hour scouring your email, your desk, your inbox tray, your pockets and your folders for tasks that need to be done. Write everything down in one place.

Creating a System to Track To-Dos

Once you have all your existing to-dos in one place, the next step is to come up with a system that’ll allow you to add to-dos to this list from anywhere.

What happens if you get an email while you’re on your home computer? What happens if you come up with an idea while at the grocery store? What happens if you get a to-do via phone call while you’re at the car wash?

You need a system that allows you to add to your to-do list from anywhere. Perhaps the easiest system is to write these to-dos down, then get in the habit of adding them to your master task list once or twice a day.

Doing Your Tasks

Sort your tasks using some sort of system that makes sense to you. Two of the most common systems are chronological and by project.

With a chronological system, you just sort your tasks by when they need to be done. You delete tasks as you finish them and keep an eye on the tasks that are coming up the queue.

A by-project task system organizes all the tasks by the projects they belong to. When you’re working on a specific project, you can just open up that project’s to-do list and do the next item.

Having a systematic way of sorting your to-dos will take away much of the stress of not knowing whether or not you have unfulfilled obligations. It’ll also make you more efficient in general.

As an introverted business owner and as one who coaches others in the same position, there are many times that we need to take a step back and evaluate what we are doing in business. So many times I hear, “I don’t know how I’m going to get clients [or insert your pain here] because I can’t cold call or go to open networking meetings because I’m uncomfortable carrying on conversations with new people.”

If you don’t feel comfortable making a cold call, then don’t. There are many ways to fill your business that will match your personality and style. I am not saying that introverts can’t be great at cold calls, but it doesn’t fit every introverts personality. However, if you truly want to fill your business, you are going to have to network in some capacity.

If networking is uncomfortable for you, let me say that this isn’t uncommon. In fact while researching about intorverts in business, I ran across an awesome article called “HELP! I’m an Introvert!” by none other than Dr. Ivan Misner. Yes, that Dr. Ivan Msner, THEE founder of Business Network International. Talk about a shocker. You know what I find funny about the article? He was an introvert in denial. Because Dr. Misner was a public speaker and the founder of the largest networking association in the world, he firmly believed that he was extroverted. As we talked about numerous times before this is a common myth for many. Public speaking and introversion can go hand in hand. I actually love to speak in public, when I have something to say.

In the article Dr. Misner talks about when he evaluated what his wife was saying he couldn’t help but agree (although it was a process). When at networking events, he liked when people introduced him to others. This is common for many introverts and one of the main reasons why BNI groups are so successful. They consist of small, controlled groups.

If you’re uncomfortable networking at Chamber meetings or in large group settings, especially where there may be “competition”, I highly encourage you to check out BNI. Because of their rules, there is only one person from each industry allowed in each group. The groups are typically smaller, unless you live in a large city and even then, there are many different groups to choose from. Take some time to find a group that you sync with and that fits your personality and business style. You will definitely reap the rewards of your efforts.

There are days when working for yourself can be extremely challenging. You may be under a tight deadline and it seems that a new obstacle creeps up at every opportunity. Perhaps your business isn’t moving as fast as you had hoped and you’re ready to throw in the towel. Whatever has you ready to give up, don’t let it win. Instead, reach for your motivation station and get pumped up.

Your motivation station is your secret weapon against stress and anxiety. These are the trainings, the audios, books, emails, or pictures you keep stashed in case of emergency. Your station can be a digital arsenal stored on your computer or it can be an actual toolbox filled with tangible items.

Audio trainings are great to listen to for motivation. They are quite easy to find on the Internet as more and more people are embracing audio technology on their websites. Another benefit is that you can simply download the audio to your MP3 player and go for a walk, which will get your heart pumping and help lower your stress. There are many Internet Talk Radio programs to choose from.

Save the emails you receive from your clients that explain what a terrific job you performed for them. When you are having a bad day, take a moment to read through some of them. This will be a great confidence booster and get you ready to tackle your next project. If you have a mentor, save the emails that explain any hardships they went through and how they overcame them. You will see that everyone has “down” days and that pushing through them is the only way to get over them.

Looking at an inspiring picture or photo can also help stir up motivation. If you find a picture that inspires you, save it to your computer’s desktop. Perhaps it is a picture of an athlete winning a race or a completing a hike up a mountain. It could also be something personal, such as your high school graduation photo or a picture of one your grandparents in front of their first home.

Hand made cards or pictures that your children have created can also be a great motivator. You may not always feel confident, but in their eyes, you are the best at what you do.

There are many places on the Internet to find inspiring articles and motivational quotes. Reading these can help you find the inner strength you need to accomplish your goals. Everyone has different struggles and different situations, but you might come across the story of someone in a similar situation, or for that matter, someone in a worse situation. Reading about others who overcame their problems can help you think of solutions to your own problems.

Need help coming up with a motivation station in your business? I’d love to here from you!

Affirmations are great tools that can help you overcome fear, build your confidence, develop an abundance mind-set and more. The problem is that many people aren’t sure exactly how to write effective affirmations. Do they always have to be in present tense? Can they contain “negative” words like can’t, won’t, not, and so on?

There are plenty of differing opinions on the right and wrong ways to write effective affirmations, but the bottom line is that an affirmation can be considered effective if it works for YOU! The whole point of affirmations is to shift your thoughts and emotions to a more positive place so you feel more confident, happy, secure, abundant, or anything else you’re trying to accomplish.

Take a look at the sample affirmations below for starters and feel free to use them if they resonate with you. If not, try altering them slightly until they trigger the mind-set and emotional state you’re trying to attain.

Affirmations for Self-Confidence and Self-Belief:

- Fear is only a feeling; it cannot hold me back.
- I know that I can master anything if I do it enough times.
- Today I am willing to fail in order to succeed.
- I believe that I have the strength to make my dreams come true.
- I’m going to relax and have fun with this, no matter what the outcome may be.
- I’m proud of myself for even daring to try; many people won’t even do that!
- Today I put my full trust in my inner guidance.
- I grow in strength with every forward step I take.
- I release my hesitation and make room for victory!
- With a solid plan and a belief in myself, there’s nothing I can’t do.

Affirmations for Abundance and Prosperity:

- I open to the flow of great abundance in all areas of my life.
- I always have more than enough of everything I need.
- Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
- Today I expand my awareness of the abundance all around me.
- I allow the universe to bless me in surprising and joyful ways.
- My grateful heart is a magnet that attracts more of everything I desire.
- Prosperity surrounds me, prosperity fills me, prosperity flows to me and through me.
- I exude passion, purpose and prosperity.
- I am always led to the people who need what I have to offer.
- As my commitment to help others grows, so does my wealth.
- My day is filled with limitless potential in joy, abundance and love.

Affirmations for Life Purpose:

- The better I know myself, the clearer my purpose becomes.
- My unique skills and talents can make a profound difference in the world.
- Today I follow my heart and discover my destiny.
- I am meant to do great things.
- I am limited only by my vision of what is possible.
- My purpose is to develop and share the best parts of myself with others.
- Today I present my love, passion, talent and joy as a gift to the world.
- I need not know the entire journey in order to take one step.
- I fulfill my life purpose by starting here, right now.
- My life purpose can be whatever I decide to make it.

Affirmations for Inner Peace:

- All is well, right here, right now.
- Peace begins with a conscious choice.
- Today I embrace simplicity, peace and solace.
- A peaceful heart makes for a peaceful life.
- I trust the universe to deliver my highest good in every situation.
- By becoming peace, I create peace in every experience.
- I am filled with the light of love, peace and joy.
- Peace comes when I let go of trying to control every tiny detail.
- Where peace dwells, fear cannot.
- Today my mission is to surrender and release.

Affirmations for Opportunity:

- Today I open my mind to the endless opportunities surrounding me.
- Opportunities are everywhere, if I choose to see them.
- I boldly act on great opportunities when I see them.
- My intuition leads me to the most lucrative opportunities.
- An opportunity is simply a possibility until I act on it.
- Some of the best opportunities are made, not found.
- Today I see each moment as a new opportunity to express my greatness.
- I expand my awareness of the hidden potential in each experience.
- Let each of my experiences today be a gateway to something even better.
- Each decision I make creates new opportunities.

Affirmations for Healthy Weight and Body Image:

- Today I love my body fully, deeply and joyfully.
- My body has its own wisdom and I trust that wisdom completely.
- My body is simply a projection of my beliefs about myself.
- I am growing more beautiful and luminous day by day.
- I choose to see the divine perfection in every cell of my body.
- As I love myself, I allow others to love me too.
- Flaws are transformed by love and acceptance.
- Today I choose to honor my beauty, my strength and my uniqueness.
- I love the way I feel when I take good care of myself.
- Today my own well-being is my top priority.

Affirmations for Love:

- I am ready for a healthy, loving relationship.
- All of my relationships are meaningful and fulfilling.
- As I share my love with others the universe mirrors love back to me.
- I see everyone I meet as a soul mate.
- I trust the universe to know the type of partner who is perfect for me.
- Today I release fear and open my heart to true love.
- I am grateful for the people in my life.
- I am the perfect partner for my perfect partner.
- I deserve a loving, healthy relationship.
- I deserve to be loved and I allow myself to be loved.

Affirmations for Healing:

- I am strong and healthy.
- My energy and vitality are increasing every day.
- I open to the natural flow of wellness now.
- My inner guidance leads me to the right healing modalities for me.
- Abundant health and wellness are my birthright.
- Thank you for my strength, my health and my vitality.
- I am feeling stronger and better now.
- I love taking good care of myself.
- Today nurturing myself is my highest priority.
- Thank you for the opportunity to balance my mind, body and spirit.

Affirmations for Inner Clarity:

- Today I awaken to my higher wisdom.
- My inner voice guides me in every moment.
- I am centered, calm and clear.
- I always know the right actions to achieve my goals.
- When I know where I’m going, getting there is a cinch!
- Today I am completely tuned in to my inner wisdom.
- Harmony is always a sign that I am balanced from within.
- Thank you for showing me the way to my dreams.
- I trust my feelings and insights.
- I am detached and open to divine guidance.

Affirmations for Self-Love:

- I am filled with light, love and peace.
- I treat myself with kindness and respect.
- I don’t have to be perfect; I just have to be me.
- I give myself permission to shine.
- I honor the best parts of myself and share them with others.
- I’m proud of all I have accomplished.
- Today I give myself permission to be greater than my fears.
- I love myself no matter what.
- I am my own best friend and cheerleader.
- Thank you for the qualities, traits and talents that make me so unique.

Now that social media like Twitter and Facebook have begun to dominate internet users’ attention, is email marketing still an important business tool in the introvert’s arsenal? The answer is YES – a resounding YES. In fact, email may be more important today than ever before.

Why?

More Than Ever, Trust Is the #1 Currency

As more websites pop up left and right, people are growing more and more wary of internet claims. People know that websites will often say anything to try to get a sale, even if they don’t have the product quality or experience to back up their claims.

As an introvert, you know that building trust isn’t easy and doesn’t happen overnight. How do you get someone to think that you not only have the know-how to help them, but that you have their best interests at heart?

Email marketing is non-intrusive and is one of the best ways to send this message. Trust isn’t built overnight. Instead, trust is built by consistently providing value day after day, week after week.

If you can do this through email, people will come to trust you. Posting content on a website isn’t enough, because people often won’t return. With email, however, you can get high quality in front of your visitors regularly and built that all-important trust.

Greatly Increase Your Conversion Rate

The conversion rate of a first-time buyer on a website they’ve never heard of is dismally low. Even if everything on your website is geared towards making just one sale of one product, the conversion rates are usually below 1%. Realistically, it’s hard to even get half a percent if they’ve never heard of you before.

On the other hand, if you’re promoting a new product to an email list that trusts you – if you’re promoting to previous buyers or if you’re promoting you product through a recommendation on someone else’s email list – the results are drastically different. It’s not uncommon to get conversion rates at 5%, 8% or even higher.

By collecting the email addresses of your clientele, you’ll be able to market to them regularly. You’ll be able to build trust over time and make a sale eventually, rather than be forced to make one right away. This greatly increases your per-visitor value.

The Value of Attention

The value of getting your customer’s attention can’t be over-emphasized. Today, with so many sites clamoring and competing for your client’s attention, attention has truly become a rare and valued commodity.

Having your client’s email address allows you to do something that few others can do: get their undivided attention regularly.

The bottom line with email marketing really comes down to trust and attention, two critically important marketing factors that have become progressively rarer as the internet grew. Email marketing hasn’t shrunk in importance – if anything, it’s grown significantly and has become the introvert’s BFF (best friend forever)!!

Many people turn to a home business in an effort to be able to spend more time with their family while earning an income. While it is never easy to be a full-time working parent outside the home, it can be just as hard, if not harder, to be a full-time working parent from home.

When your family sees you at home, they may automatically feel that you are at their service. One child may need a ride somewhere, another child wants you to find something they are looking for, and your spouse wants you to run to the store and buy something for dinner. On top of all of that, you have clients expecting you to complete various projects for them, as well.

You may want to hold a family meeting and explain how important it is to your family that you have time set aside for your business. It doesn’t matter if you leave the house and work from an office, or if you work from the kitchen table, work is work. Your family wouldn’t come to an office outside the home and ask you to do all those miscellaneous tasks, working from home should be no different.

Of course, you will want to set aside time for your family, just as you would for your clients. Working from home will allow you to have a flexible schedule and that gives you the opportunity to attend school functions and other activities.

While it can be easy to procrastinate and not get your work done, it can be just as easy to over schedule yourself and spend too much time working. Your family needs to have some quality time with you; and you will need their support, too. Starting a new home business can be draining. It will be a lot easier with the support of your family.

You can also ask your family to help you with the household chores. Set up a schedule where everyone pitches in with various tasks. Depending on the age of your children, they may be able to help with things such as emptying the garbage, vacuuming, doing laundry, preparing their own lunches for school, or even preparing dinner for the family. If you have a spouse, make sure that they are involved, too.

Another option is to ask a young teenager in the neighborhood to come over and “entertain” your children while you work for a few hours. A younger teen without a lot of prior babysitting experience will charge less than an older teen. Since you will be in the house, you can take over in case of an emergency. Your young sitter can play with the kids, read stories to them, etc – and you can have three or four hours of uninterrupted work time.

Balancing work and family will never be easy, but with practice – and patience; it can be done.

I was recently asked to do a project on the subject of death for my Life, Death and Dying class at Luzerne. My assignment was to create a video that sold death as a product. Here is my parody of the typical infomercial entitled: Dial-A-Death.