Jumat, 27 Februari 2009

18 Caveats on How Not to Change

Change is not simple. Why do we repeat behavior that doesn't work? Especially those actions that lead to stifling debt, disappointing careers, or stuck relationships? Then do it harder, yet expect a different result? Why is it not obvious that trying to exit an old story by simply writing a “better ending” only recreates the same story, and ensures that we remain in it? That a thousand better endings to an old story don’t create a new story? That the past cannot be changed and is a settled matter? That too often, we see ourselves as the victims of the stories that we author and the feelings we create?
18 Caveats on avoiding change:
1. Focus on the system. Devote special attention to the things that seem frustrating, out of your control, and impossible to address: politics, corporations, and economics. Systems must remain in focus as broad categories in order to feel distanced and disaffected.
2. Maintain a focus on theory. Avoid detail, singular aspects, and application. Remain theoretical about how to transform various systems, about what needs to be done, maintaining the frustration of what seems to continue out of your control.
3. Believe that the answer will appear when you step out of the box, or when you simply oppose the system.
4. Keep the point of reference external; keep believing that the antithesis of conformity is opposition; know that one or the other of these external points of reference of conformity or opposition holds the real truth.
5. Do not decide. Allow the urgency of a situation to decide for you. The gravity of a last-minute emergency forces action and avoids planning. Waiting for the deadline excuses responsibility for thoroughness and excellence.
6. Believe that the answer is more rules and further structure.
7. Debate the obvious, and give energy to the controversial.
8. Believe in experts unequivocally, and that expertise is authoritative. Dismiss any notion that expertise is perceived, processed, and filtered through assumptions, belief systems, and prejudices of experts.
9. Do not seek your own information or develop your own solutions when you have experts to listen to. Rather, find someone to provide a map for you and avoid anyone who wants to help you develop your own guidance system to navigate.
10. Always find some cause and effect relationship to explain things otherwise not understandable. Maintain a consistent external focus to blame someone, or find some tangible explanation that offers a specific, concrete focus on what is wrong. Warning: much work is required to maintain this caveat, as you must be certain that the obstacle can never be totally removed, or its causal effect would have to be confronted as inaccurate. The perceived cause must always be just beyond reach and remedy in order to remain as blame.
11. Keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. If the outcome doesn’t change for the better, do the same thing harder.
12. Be suspicious of new ideas.
13. New ideas, being perturbators of the existing system, must be curbed if not silenced.
14. Meticulously guard against mistakes; the best way to be sure to avoid mistakes is to keep doing the same thing again and again with perfection as the goal.
15. Maintain a focus on failure, giving it the proper respect of fear so that it remains ever in focus with its guiding principle of avoidance.
16. Be extremely wary of new strategies and solutions, and invest instead in enforcement of the existing approach.
17. When you make mistakes, focus on the mistakes and attempt to get them right.
18. Continue to hold prejudices because they are markers of emotional landmines.

By: David Krueger MD

Business Networking puts More Money in Your Pocket

Business networking puts more money in your pocket by helping you overcome the number one biggest problem facing new business owners. Prospecting for new customers. Business networking events can go a long way towards making the whole prospecting problem go away. There are two main kinds of networking opportunities available to the average entrepreneur. Passive networking and strong networking. Both have unique benefits and drawbacks.



The most well known example of passive networking is your local chamber of commerce. You can find a chamber of commerce chapter in almost every major city worldwide. Your local chamber of commerce gives you the opportunity to meet with many of the movers and shakers in your local business community. Through the many events they plan on a monthly and yearly basis, they offer you a chance to connect with a number of potential prospects for your products and services.

Weekly networking groups or clubs are an example of strong networking opportunities. These kinds of business networking events can be found in many major cities worldwide. A strong networking group will meet on a weekly basis for the sole purpose of exchanging business leads with one another and learning better ways of networking to grow their business. The most successful networking groups require your weekly attendance and insist that their members provide fellow members with referrals throughout the year. They also allow only one person from each profession or industry to belong to the group. This keeps the quality of the referrals high. One such group is Business Network International (BNI).

So what are the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of networking? They both have their place but strong networking groups represent a bigger commitment than passive networking groups. By belonging to a strong networking group, you are committed to be on the lookout for referrals for group members. Strong networking groups also usually meet on a weekly basis whereas passive networking groups usually meet monthly.

Passive networks can have multiple people from one profession or industry as members. They also have no requirements for passing on referrals to other members. Referrals do occur in a passive networking event but it is not facilitated by the meeting and is totally up to the business owner to initiate. You can belong to multiple passive networking groups. Any business you get from passive networking will most likely be a result of the amount of effort you put in.

Strong networks on the other hand restrict membership to only one person per industry or profession. This greatly increases the likelihood that you will receive referrals from participating members. Meetings are structured in a way to encourage referrals and there is a formal referral exchange that happens every week. It is strongly recommended that you only belong to one strong networking group in order to keep the quality of your referrals high.

In either case, it is important for members of these groups to see you as professional and competent. Referrals will go to people the referrer knows, likes and trusts.

Want more business? Start attending business networking events in your area.

By: David A. Bailey, Jr

7 Secrets of Successful Marketers

There are certain steps that must be taken if anyone desires to become successful
with an online business. When these steps are not followed , the growth of that
business is drastically impaired. However if the entrepreneur adheres to this plan
of action, the chances of great success are improved dramatically. Outlined below
are the "secret" things that every so called super guru with a six figure income
does to make all that money.

1) You must have a website that has your products displayed.
This can be a site of your own or an affiliate website. Both will work for your
purposes.

2) Your site must have a newsletter (also called an ezine)that you publish for the
purpose of capturing the names and email addresses of your subscribers in order
to build your list of prospects to whom you will send your sales offers .

3) You must write articles that you submit to Ezines for the purpose of Promoting your
particular business opportunity or your expertise. This establishes you as someone
who is knowledgeable as an internet entrepreneur and motivates other siteowners
to link back to yours, thus improving your link popularity.
Getting your article published is as easy as just submitting it to Article Directories
that can be found by just searching Google or any search engine.

4) Internet Forums are useful tools to help expand your knowledge of internet
marketing as well as networking with other marketers.You also have the op-
portunity to leave your business card in the form of a signature
file at the end of your forum posting.

5) A solo ad is a main avenue of generating targeted traffic to your site that is
ready to see what you have to offer. All successful Internet Marketers make use
of these guided missiles to increase sales.

6) If you intend to use every tool in your arsenal then the Pay Per Click search
engines are an essential part of your advertising campaigns. Overture.com is
the most widely known of these.

7) Getting your site listed on Yahoo will help tremendously if you can afford to pay
the submission fee of $299. Other than that, just keep plugging away and using
these tips outlined here and there will no doubt be an increase in your bottom line.

Here's wishing you every success !

By: Michael Reed