Here’s how to do that:

P = Pinpoint Your Destination

Where is it that you are going? What will it take to get you there?

One client of mine is planning a series of mini-workshops throughout the year, leading up to a bigger event of the same name later in the year when she has built up a stronger following.  This client knows where they are going and how to get there. They have a great plan to follow and feel excited about their year ahead.

What’s your destination for this year? Write it down so that you are crystal clear on what it is you want to achieve. Bring it alive by adding projected income figures and how you will achieve those.

L = Leave Your Excuses Behind

“I don’t have a package to offer to people”. “I can’t plan because of the way I work … every day is different”. “Every client is different and I don’t know how long it will take me to deliver what they want”. “I don’t have enough contacts to plan anything constructive”.

Excuses! I’ve heard them all. There are FAR TOO MANY people all too happy to provide a reason why they cannot do something. Why they cannot make money. Why the entire world is in recession and no one’s buying anything. Everything is set against them.

Don’t buy into that sorry story. Write down all your “Yes” reasons and ignore those negative doom-sayers.

A = Steps

What action steps do you need to take to reach your destination? What milestones are you setting in place so you are clear when you reach each one? How will you measure your success? How will you reward yourself at each milestone (this is important so that you enjoy the journey and stay motivated)?

So many people do not bother to answer those questions sufficiently well, if at all. If you can answer them clearly and specifically, you’ll be amazed at the momentum you gain.

N = Narrow your focus

Too many people try to do many things and be all and everything to their clients. They are looking through a wide-angle lens. They have hope but little more.

Take a look around you and you will see this happens with regularity. Listen to some of the conversations when you network. Look online and cruise through a few websites.

Truth is, those doing well have a narrow focus. They concentrate on one product or one offer at a time.

Narrow your focus. Keep it simple. Offer one thing at a time.

S = Success is NOT an Accident

You’ve heard it before I’m sure and that is that success is not an accident. Your success is entirely up to YOU.

Your actions and what you do today will decide what success you achieve tomorrow. Success doesn’t just happen overnight (as many gurus or online get-rich-quick schemes try to have you believe). Success isn’t a matter of luck either. Most successful people work much harder and more consistently that they will ever have you believe.

But they are where they are because of their P.L.A.N.S. So what are yours for 2012?

Remember – Success is NOT an Accident! Write your P.L.A.N.S. so you can look back on 2012 and say “that was the one year that really made a difference”.
Wendy Howard

www.spiritofvenus.co.uk

Join me: www.linkedin.com/in/spiritofvenus & www.twitter.com/wendyhoward

This essential key is leverage. You have to look for ways to leverage what you do. Using technology allows you to do this brilliantly as you can automate your marketing. You can also have other people automate marketing on your behalf through joint ventures or affiliate marketing. So look for these relationships and how you can set them up.

Leverage is also about being ruthless with your time. I can re-call a conversation I had with a colleague a while ago about leverage and time. He’s someone who insisted on having his mobile on at all times and checking his emails incase his clients ‘needed him at anytime’. However, he was constantly being interrupted and feeling stressed that he never had sufficient time to do everything in his business.

Needless to say, his concentration was very low mainly due to the constant interruptions. I mean, did you know that it actually takes your brain up to 20 minutes to get back to the same level of concentration you had before you were interrupted? For him he never really got to concentrate at a higher level because of the interruptions.

On further questioning, many of the interruptions were non-emergencies and could have been answered at a later time in the day when all the concentrated work had been completed. This also proves a second point in that if you give out the message to people that it’s ‘okay to interrupt you and you will be at their beck and call’ then that’s precisely what happens.

So, switch your phone off when you want to do concentrated working. Check your emails at a set time each time and then switch them off. Work in time blocks on concentrated tasks. Aim to finish one task before you start with something else. This way of working really does make a difference.

The key message is to be ruthless. Leverage through other people and leverage the use of your time too. It will pay dividends.

This completes all seven of the keys to achieving a six-figure income from your business. I hope these keys have given you food for thought and that you will start to put these into your daily practice.

Is marketing, marketing and marketing! Many times people see marketing as an add-on activity to their business rather than something that needs to be an on-going daily activity.

I remember a few years ago sitting in a meeting with a number of different businesses. Each one was asked in turn what business they were in. And in turn each business owner stated ‘training’, ‘printing’, ‘computer design’ etc. The trouble was that each of these businesses were already experts in what they did but they were all also in a ‘marketing business’ as without it, they would not have had a business.

Those who complained on the state of the economy or not having any funding made available by the Government were being forced to the re-think that actually what they really should be doing is to concentrate on getting good at marketing.

So get used to as many marketing methods as you can. Try to introduce one new marketing activity each month of the year. You have to be obsessive with marketing activity.

Key number five is Internet Marketing. You really need to master this. Gone are the days when you set up a website and expected it to sell for you (did that ever really work for the majority of businesses?).

The purpose of your website today is to build a relationship with the end user. To do this you must have a big eye-catching offer to grab the attention of people landing on your home page. You want them to give you their name and email address in exchange for something of value.

So, look for something that will be of immense value and of great interest to your audience. Perhaps a free report, a video, a quiz. Anything that makes them think ‘I’ve got to grab this right now’.

There are things that you can add to your website such as a red flashing arrow directing people to your free item. A clear sign-in box making it easy for them to give you their details. And of course an auto-responder to make it easy to take their details and download the free report instantly as well as giving you the opportunity to follow up with numerous follow-on emails.

The big message is: Concentrate on building a relationship initially and give people an opportunity to get to know and trust you.

This key is relentlessness. Every successful person is relentless in wanting to make a success of their business. They will pursue success at every level regardless of whatever is happening around them.

Truth is that many people drop out when things get tough. When the pressure of the house being repossessed or the car payment is being missed. The fees for the school kids needing to be paid or the need for a much needed holiday and the begging from a partner to take a break. It’s understandable when the pressure builds up and things are not working out that the big dreams get slowly chipped away…and then they are gone.

Making the decision to have a six-figure income business (and beyond) is not enough. You have to be more than that. You need to be able to resolve things as they come up. Richard Branson has a great saying that “you have to grow bigger than your problem to be able to resolve it”.

Reality is that life, and the Universe, throws problems up all of the time for whatever reason. Maybe it’s trying to test us to be bigger than we are. Next time it happens see it as a challenge and when something comes up to throw you off course make a decision to resolve it…and to grow bigger than the problem.

The simplest way is to follow in the footsteps of other successful people. You know, everyone makes mistakes and I’m sure you will too (myself included). Even the most successful business people have made wrong decisions at some point. But there’s a difference because successful people learn from their mistakes and turn it into an opportunity to grow. They often become great mentors. And the best thing about that is that you can benefit from their experiences and knowledge. They can save you from making some expensive mistakes too!

Looking back, I did make some expensive mistakes myself too (probably too many to mention). But the good thing about this is that I’ve learnt some shortcuts, some ways to do things, and what things have the most impact on my business. I have experienced the highs, the lows and the mundane too. On my road to success I have had to overcome numerous obstacles. Each one has given me new insight, new perspectives and new strategies.

For you this is the good news. It means that you can learn from my experiences without having to make the same mistakes yourself. Everything I do is built on solid experience and this is reflected in the work I do and the programmes I now offer. They can give you results just as they have for many of my clients because they are tried, tested and proven.

Here are some of the benefits and ways you can profit from someone else’s success:

There is…

• Already a pattern, a process, and a system to follow step by step.
• A guiding light, imagine it’s like a plane on a well-lit run-way setting you up for a clear take-off.
• A success system that has been tried and tested which already saves a great deal of the time and money often lost in testing the market place.
• A mentor, who’s already been down the success path, knows the track well…and the pitfalls to avoid too.
• A way for you to speed up your business success…and piggy-back on the back of someone else.
• A ready-made system…making it quick and easy for you to get started right away.

Remember…even though you may be in your own business, you need not be on your own. It doesn’t mean you have to figure out everything all by yourself. Using someone else’s proven success can help you to get on the fast-track to achieving your goals and a healthy profit too.

Want to know how you can benefit from someone else’s success? Join me for a FREE Teleseminar on January 17^th and I’ll share with you how you can do that. Go right here: www.spiritofvenus.co.uk/grow

This might seem quite a simple step but often it’s one that isn’t given enough priority. This is to grow and double your database.

But it’s not that simple. Because people who are really successful in business (and I’m referring to successful businesses that grow using the internet as well as traditional methods) not only set out to grow their list but they set out to double their database several times over…and they aim to keep doing that.

They will move from 5,000 to 10,000. Then from 10,000 to 20,000 and from 20,000 to 40,000…and they will continue to do that so they have hundreds of people on their database.

Why would you want to do this? Well, when you have a ready made database of warm leads (people who know you and you’ve taken time to nurture a relationship with), when you launch a product then you already have people to market it too.

As with everything, there is a system and there is a formula to follow. The principle is to grow your business with multiple marketing methods. That is doing things such as teleseminars, webinars, working with other people, referrals, pay per click, speaking at events, social media, article submissions etc. etc. etc.

The short of it is that you have to develop a powerful referral strategy, implement a system and a process that works for you. And keep on doing it.

Set an absolute goal for you to double your customer database and concentrate time and effort to do so.

This key is on pricing. If you do your sums then you will not reap a million dollar business with average pricing (do the sums and you’ll see how hard that is).

There are three things to consider here:

1. The 80/20 rule which says that 80% of your income will come from around 20% of your clients. And 20% of your income will come from 80% of your clients (and be much harder work too).If you re-apply the 80/20 rule to the top 20% of your market then this means that the top 4% will be paying you up to 10 times what the others will. All successful businesses know how to work this out and consequently will market to attract their top income generating clients. This makes total sense as this frees you up to really deliver a top-notch service to these clients.
2. The second thing to consider is that people don’t actually buy on price (although many people think they do). People buy on ‘value’ based on what it will do for them.
3. Finally, everyone I know who concentrates on top fee paying clients find that they really appreciate your help a whole lot more than many people who only want to pay bargain bucket prices and then don’t implement the knowledge or appreciate the expertise shared with them. That can be a whole of lot of agro.

So take a look at your current customer base and work out your 80/20 to find out your top 4% of fee paying clients. Aim to market to these people.

Key No. 1

Key step number one is a shift in your thinking. This is a big mind shift and for many people it is an on-going battle with your mind as you progress. It’s also having a strong belief that you can ‘model’ success.

For instance, if you look at great tennis players, sports players, successful people, they all use modeling. They observe and model the actions, behaviours, psychology, mindset, sales behaviours and traits of successful people. They model people who are already where they want to be. They model it so they can do what successful people do and they aim to duplicate it.

Until you adapt this mindset that you can duplicate and model success, you fall into listening to all those other negative stories by the majority of people who aren’t doing well (because they don’t follow a model of success).

Here’s some of what very successful people know and follow as basic principles:

1. They understand that people, who earn lots of money, sell lots more than the average sales person. It’s a simple equation. They have a strategy to follow up with people 5, 10, 15, 20 times or more until they get the sale.
2. They know that if you basically follow other businesses that are generally around you, that you’ll get the same results. So successful businesses follow other successful businesses. If you look around you and most of those businesses you are associating with are struggling, then it’s likely you will be too. You need to move on and look to work with and model those businesses which are not struggling and are consequently very successful.
3. Similarly,  they know that with pricing, if you copy what most others do which is to look for what they think people will want to pay and what others are charging for a similar product or service, that’s all you will get – mediocre or average results. Pricing is very important. You need to set your price based on the value you deliver to your customer. Build on the value and increase your price – but always, always, over deliver.
4. They also spend a lot of time working on and observing people psychology and understanding your beliefs around failure and what that is. Failure is an integral part of success because failing implies you’re taking actions that will eventually lead to your success.

This is Key No.1 in the 7 steps to a 6-figure income. I will share the other 6 keys with you in the following articles so look out for these too.

We can’t live without them. It’s almost impossible to have a pro-active working day without one. But how often do we get round to completing them?

The thing is, to be a high achiever you do need to have a list to work from but it isn’t just about having a list of actions. That’s not good enough because in the majority of cases your list just goes on getting longer regardless of how much time you spend on it (or that’s how it is for the majority of people).

What REALLY makes the difference is to have a list that is made out in order of importance. Working in this way means that you are constantly prioritizing what needs to be done and by when.

So take your list of actions and prioritize all items as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.

Secondly, it’s really important to finish one task BEFORE you start on the next. So block out the time needed to work on that item preferably somewhere you won’t be interrupted or distracted.

Then go back to your list. But before you start on your next item, this is also a good opportunity to review your list as to the next priority task as sometimes things have change and what was once a number 2 priority may have changed or might even not be necessary at all. Then start on your next task.

Action Points:

1. Create a ‘Daily Do List
2. Prioritize in order 1, 2, 3, etc.
3. Do item 1
4. Re-check priority of list
5. Do item 2
6. Repeat … repeat … repeat …