Tag Archives: promises

Promises! Promises!

It is extremely powerful to implement the use of “promises” and “go for’s” as part of your business success plan. The use of these terms instead of the term “goal” is more potent and precise. Now, you may be thinking that I am parsing words and aren’t these terms kissing cousins at least?

Nope!

Here is what a goal is: something that you are trying to do or achieve. A promise is: a statement telling someone that you will definitely do something or that something will definitely happen in the future.

Think about it. As an entrepreneur are you trying to do or achieve something? If so all you do is try. Try does not indicate commitment to results. It indicates effort without commitment. Trying lets you off the hook. “I tried,” you can say to explain why you didn’t achieve what you wanted to achieve. This is why I say that thinking and speaking in terms of goals is ineffective.

Thinking and speaking in terms of promises on the other hand puts you on the hook for performing and reaching what it is that you want to happen. Promising trues you up to figure out how to reach that which you promise. In a business, we are usually talking about sales and profits. Promising to make X dollars in sales is way more powerful than a goal to try do the same thing.

When we promise to achieve something we are wired to produce it. Why? Our word is on the line. And anyone who is serious about business, honors their word. Our word represents that we mean business about business.

Last week, I talked about using whites boards to outline the future results of your business. I suggested that you create a promise and go for in a dollar amount and write it on the white board. When you do that you have put yourself on the hook or in the game. You begin to be intentional about what you say you are definitely going to achieve. And you begin to plan what actions you will need to take to get there. You see, having a promise and “go for” is the start point for being in action. I know. I promise you, it works.

The “go for” gives you playing room. It only makes sense that your “go for” is bigger than your promise. If you play for the “go for”, of course your promise will be met. It is simple math.

If you feel stuck or a little confused about making your business successful, please give me a call. I am here for you.

Call Me…

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Like most of us I like hearing good news, and I love hearing breakthrough news from coaching clients. Yesterday, I heard breakthrough news that is so exciting and over the top that I am sharing it with you. One of my clients just closed a quarter million dollar contract. She was excited. I was over the moon pleased for her.

This contract wasn’t just going to happen. This was not a lucky break. She made it happen. And she made it happen just like you can with taking the steps that are necessary to provide world class service to your clients.

Here are the qualities that produce breakthrough results:

A passionate belief in yourself and your ability to provide the services.
A clear vision of the core services you provide.
The ability to communicate clearly about your core services.
A continuing dedication to education about the latest developments in your field.
Knowing your target market like you know your best friend.
Keeping your word.
Planning your work and working your plan.
Communicating fully and honestly if you cannot keep your word. Renewing a new “by when” for keeping your word.
Being willing to create a measurement for your results which includes “by whens” and promises and “go fors”.
Being willing to fail and to learn from the failures.
A refusal to be a victim of failure.
An unstoppable tenacity and persistence.
Having someone you trust hold you accountable for results.

Again and again I see these qualities in clients. They are the people who have extraordinary results in their lives and in their businesses.

If you feel stuck. If you feel like you can’t reach high enough for the breakthrough results you are longing for, please call me. Together we can make your intention come true by clearing away what is holding you back from making that same kind of excited triumphant,” I did it!” telephone call to me.

I will look forward to hearing from you.

– Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s Free ….Is It A Fake-out Or Valuable?

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As you may have noticed there are a plethora of free offerings on the internet and coming into your in-box. It seems that June opened the floodgates of generosity coming from the most unlikely places. I say unlikely since some of the free offerings usually do have a price tag on them, or are some cleverly hidden come -on’s to buy a product or service. But, not now!

What I am noticing is that free means just that. It doesn’t mean free “if”. It does mean free. Some of the people making the offerings actually are up front with they will do if you take them up on their free product. Usually you sign up for the free item and the offer-er will be entitled to send you more offerings. The ones that are the most up front also say that you can opt out or cancel your membership in their campaigns at any time. I find it all very refreshing. I tend to be drawn to web-sites with authentic free offerings. I am betting you are too.

There are some internet marketers who are still playing games with all of this free offering stuff. I have noticed when you do “opt out” you have to read the message very carefully or you are “opting – out” of one thing but giving permission to be put on another list. I think that’s very tricky and I don’t like it and usually, mark the whole thing as junk and block the sender.

The offerings that I am taking right now are wonderful, value packed and exactly what I have been looking for to either move my career a little further or totally entertain and sometimes,even train me in something I am interested in. For sure, given the way the offerings are made and delivered to my in box, I will continue to look forward to hearing from these people.

I would love to hear from you! What is your experience of free offers on the internet?

One Easy Step To Becoming More Powerful

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Let’s continue the discussion we began last week, when I said, “ . . . to make keeping your word a moral issue saps it of much of its power and all of its joy.”

Look and see if you feel righteous when you keep your word, or especially when other people don’t. Do you get angry when people don’t? Disappointed? If so, then it’s most likely a moral issue. I did the right thing, or they were wrong. It’s been drilled in us since we were children; good people keep their word; people who don’t are bad, but such a stance is quicksand. If you are good, someone must be bad. The word good is meaningless without bad. Suppose that:

“There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.” John Steinbeck

And then consider this: When someone says to you, “I’ll do it,” and you accept his word, then you are a party to it; you have assumed a certain responsibility in the matter. Is this true? Not among ordinary people in the world. It’s true only for the truly powerful. The question is: “What is your intention? To be good? Or to be powerful?” (powerful: producing, or capable of producing, an intended result) This is the real value in keeping your word.

Generally, when we think of powerful people, we think of the rich, the famous, and and those in power; and yes, some of those people are powerful. But ask yourself: If the people in high places are so powerful, why does there appear to be so much effort involved in their lives? The people I know who are truly powerful don’t spend their lives in an effort to amass great wealth, fame, or importance. They seem to have a sufficiency of whatever they need, whenever they need it. When they say something, it happens. They don’t have to hammer other people; the people around them get to win too. How do they do this? By not setting other people up to fail. But, more important, powerful people don’t set themselves up by expecting—or worse, depending upon—unreliable people to keep their word.

Keeping your word is like using a muscle; it gets stronger and stronger with use. The outcome of this is that your word has power—what you say, happens. The place to start is right here, and the time to start is right now.

Does It Really Matter? Keep Your Word – The Challenge

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I suspect some of you will get a little huffy when I ask this impertinent question: Do you keep your word?

“Of course I keep my word. Why would you even ask me such a question? Harrumph!”

Well, let’s see. I offer you the Keep Your Word Challenge: For one week, make an ongoing list of the things you say you will do, and keep track of how often you actually keep your word. Give your self a rating for each day based on the scale 1-5. The scale goes like this: 1(never), 2(a little), 3( sometimes ), 4 ( usually ) and 5( yes, 100%). After a week of measuring for your word keeping ability, average your rating. You may be surprised at how often you don’t keep your word.

This harmless little test about word keeping, and seeing where you fall flat, will be a game changer for you. It will allow you to see how you operate in the real world, as distinct from the world of your thoughts and imagination, and it will give you a good look at how other people perceive you.

Back before I caught on to the cost of not keeping my word, I overheard one of my neighbors talking—about me—and it was not pretty. “I like Susan a lot,” she said. “It’s too bad she’s such a flake. She never does what she says she will do.”

What!! I huffed around a bit; but after I calmed down I created the Keep Your Word Challenge for myself. I did it to prove my neighbor wrong, but of course it didn’t—she was right—my average for the week was 2.5.

I would like to tell you that I immediately began to keep my word, but I didn’t. I did however begin to retrain myself. When I was about to tell someone I would do something, more and more I would stop for a moment and ask myself, “Are you really going to do this? Really?” When I saw that probably I wasn’t, I began to say so, rather than saying yes, and then not doing it. I began to be dependable. People began to find they could count on me.

And those things I promised to do and didn’t? I made it a practice to go to the person involved and set things straight. “I said I would do this and I didn’t.” That cleans things up.

Of course I immediately turned it into a moral issue, which it is not, unless you want it to be. But to make keeping your word a moral issue saps it of much of its power and all of its joy. Next week we will go farther into that.

Simply keeping your word and communicating when you can’t can be a huge game changer for you and your success. I would love to hear from you about what you see about promise keeping.