Monthly Message from the Editor

Recommended Resource – Marketing Train

 

Have you been in business for a few months or a few years, yet you still find yourself struggling? You may be marketing randomly, or find yourself stumbling upon the occasional client since you really have no marketing system in place.

Or, maybe you are starting a new business and want to ensure your marketing efforts are effective, efficient, and more importantly, achieving results?

No matter what your reason, without a marketing system, you and your business have very little chance of surviving.

Scott Shane, author of Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths that Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By, states in his article featured in Small Business Trends, (http://smallbiztrends.com/2008/04/startup-failure-rates.html): 

* 25% of businesses will fail in the first two years.
* By year 5, over 50% have failed
* By year 10, only 29% have survived

Sadly, when looking at these numbers, after 10 years, only 29 out of 100 people, (who started their business the same year as you, in the same industry), will still be in business. Do you want to be one of those 29 people? I do! I will be – as I move into year 7 of my business!

Let me help you make sure that you achieve year 10 in your business as well, without the fear and confusion marketing tends to cause business owners. I have developed "The Marketing Train" system, which I designed as an intensive training program to help you have your marketing train in place in as little as 3 - months. In this program, you will define your marketing into a concrete system that will make marketing simple, automatic, and do I dare say it, FUN! To learn more about how you can join this program go to http://everywomansnorthstar.com/pc/marketingtrain.html. (2010 schedule now posted!)

View our past suggested resources at http://professionaladminteam.com/nl/suggestedresources.html

Quotes

Coaches Corner – 2010: A Vision of Success?

If you ask ten people the definition of success, it's safe to say, you will receive ten different responses. While success is so much more than wealth, titles, and degrees; planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

Origin: Who you are

A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most women when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Claire, wife of Arnold and work from home mom of 4.” It does not tell you about who Mary is; it only tells you her present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Once Mary took a good look at herself, she realized that she was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. She was the happiest when she was helping others and she believed that life was precious and everyone had a purpose.

Destination: A vision of who you want to be

“Who do you want to be?” this is your vision. It is important that you know and understand yourself so you have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you don't know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Once Claire defined her beliefs, values, and principles in life, she decided that she wanted to have a life dedicated in serving her battered.

Vehicle: Your Mission

A vehicle is the means by which you can reach your destination. It can be analogized to your mission or vocation in life. To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Based on Claire's self-assessment, she decided that she was suited to become a counselor, and decided to become one. Her chosen vocation was a crisis counselor. Describing her vision-mission fully: it was to live a life dedicated to help battered women in low-income areas learn to accept & love themselves.

Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude

When traveling, you pack clothes, skin care items, make-up, and other necessities. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. Given such, there is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks (measures) of success. Claire realized that she needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on human behavior in order to become a counselor. She knew that she was a bit impatient with people so she realized that this was something she wanted to change.

Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives

Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track, while the route determines the travel time. In planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. You cannot set two major landmarks such as writing a thesis on a topic you know nothing about and completing your Bachelor's Degree in a week. Looking at Claire, she identified the following landmarks in her life map: completing her Master's by the time her youngest finished elementary school and having a counseling practice of her own within five years of completing her Master's and opening a shelter for battered women with a full-time staff five years later.

Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes

The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. Oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to life happenings, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, you will encounter turns, detours, and potholes as you go about your journey and therefore, we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly.

If you properly plan this adventure, you will be able to fulfill your own definition of success by the end of this year.

Dolly Norris Hooker, a busy wife, mother and entrepreneur, understands the demands of family and career. For over two decades, Dolly has successfully run her own business while raising a family. She has been coaching since 2005 and as the Co-Founder and Coaches Director of The Missing Piece, LLC, she not only teaches others to be coaches (go to http://everywomansnorthstar.com/pc/jtccoachtraining.html for more information), but provides her students with the foundation to build successful practices.  You can learn more by going to her blog at www.fromawomansheart.com.

© 2010
You have permission to reprint this article electronically or in print, as long as the text and byline remain unedited. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

Upcoming Trainings

Check out all the awesome free and paid new classes we have coming this month!  Also - support us as we start reaching out to reach 10,000 women at outside speaking engagements!

You can always view our current teleclasses and speaking engagements at http://everywomansnorthstar.com/wkshps.html

Individual Coaching
Not everyone's missing piece fits perfectly in the puzzle, and sometimes you may just need support and guidance on an individual level. We make this affordable to all Virtual Professionals! Go to http://www.everywomansnorthstar.com/individual.html for more information. 

Complimentary Consultation

Sign up at http://www.professionaladminteam.com/consult.html for a complimentary consultation to find out how we can help you!

Article – Critical Success Factors for Earning Your Goals

Patty Benton is a teacher who has taken her teaching abilities and created a coaching practice like no other. She began as a Virtual Assistant, building an amazingly diverse and professional team providing support to Coaches who are looking to take their business to the next level through teleseminars, providing web and graphic design, as well as newsletter services (JERPAT, LLC).  She became passionate about helping other women who desire to work from home, achieve their dreams.  She partnered with Dolly Norris Hooker to bring a complete coaching program, The Missing Piece, LLC, designed to reach virtually every woman where she is at, and help to find her missing piece(s) to a fulfilling life.  You can learn more by going to her blog at www.fromawomansheart.com.

© 2010
You have permission to reprint this article electronically or in print, as long as the text and byline remain unedited. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

Computer Tips from the Computer Guru – Bluetooth Technology Defined

Jerome Benton is the owner of JERPAT, LLC a Web Designs and Virtual Assistance company, http://www.jerpat.org. He specializes in web design and has partnered with his wife's virtual assistance business to give every company the quality services they need at an affordable price. You can learn more about Jerome at www.professionaladminteam.com.

© 2010
You have permission to reprint this article electronically or in print, as long as the text and byline remain unedited. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

Thank you!!!

We invite you to send us an email at editor@professionaladminteam.com and let us know your thoughts, opinions, questions, and ideas in regards to this newsletter.  Please be sure to reference which issue you are speaking about.  We will publish your comments here with your permission.  Thank you!

Designed & copyrighted by JERPAT, LLC www.professionaladminteam.com
To use any of the content presented in this newsletter, please contact the authors directly. All statements made in this newsletter are not legal advisements. All information provided in this newsletter is strictly opinions and suggestions of the contributors. The North Star, our sponsor, and the contributors cannot be held liable for any outcomes on behalf of the reader.