It is always a challenge to balance your work and life, especially as a small business owner, but more often than not half done projects occupy our mind space. Here are few tips to help make 2010 a better year for you:
Make a list of everything in your life that drains your energy, diverts your focus, bugs you or even takes up brain space because it is not completed
Allocate time to each of these tasks;
Open Outlook and diarise each of these tasks over the next 30 days or even less if your 100% committed; and
Select a reward that should you complete everything you can reward yourself – even take a photo of the reward and make it the wallpaper on your computer and phone!
Final tip – select the most difficult, challenging, comfort zone expanding task and do it first! This will build your confidence. Good luck but trust me you will feel so much better!
A Win With APRA
Taken from the Fitness Australia’s e-news:
“Members of Fitness Australia's Operation M.U.S.I.C Taskforce recently met with the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) to discuss music licensing issues and to lay the foundation for the establishment of a stronger and more collaborative relationship. APRA collects and distributes licence fees for the public performance and communication of its members' musical works (in relation to the copyright in the song or lyrics, composition etc). At this meeting, the Director of Licensing Services for APRA, Jenny Gome, agreed to maintain the current APRA fee structure until 11 March 2011, irrespective of the outcome of the PPCA case that is currently before the Copyright Tribunal. “This is an excellent outcome for the fitness industry as it provides the industry with ample time to plan and prepare for any future revision of the APRA rate,” says Lauretta Stace, Fitness Australia Chief Executive Officer.”
Well done Fitness Australia!
Google Search Help
This month I stumbled across a great You Tube Video on how to help with your search engine optimisation:
Funny Thing Happened At The Gym
This year we are going to give away two 30 minute business sessions EVERY month! And to enter is easy...just email us a story about the funniest thing you have seen in a gym.
Make sure you include your name, phone number and preferred time for business coaching with your entries.
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Great iPhone App: Run Keeper
If you are runner or have a running program, then you need this application for your iPhone! Check it out: www.runkeeper.com. Let us know if you have any other great exercise and nutrition based iPhone apps!
Are You Linked In?
Waiting for a flight home in December, Skye rang me and said, “Can you help with our company wellness strategy?” My answer was of course “Yes” but after much discussion I asked her how she found me . . . “I found you on Linked In!”
Linked In currently has 51 million members and over 900,000 Aussies are already on this professionals site. I even heard that 95% of human resource managers are now on Linked In to keep up with trends and find staff, as there is a job listing service.
Unlike Facebook, this site is more about your professional life. It is ideal for membership consultants, personal trainers and club managers/owners and here are some reasons that I read from Dynamic Business in December:
Linked In Profiles appear at the top of Google searches – that is your name plus what you write in your summary;
Clients can recommend you, so testimonials can appear on your profile;
Many of clients or members may already be on Linked In, so by importing your contact list you can connect in a professional manner;
Increase your connections as this will help with introductions and growing your business;
Linked In Answers is a great tool to get answers on topics you are not an expert in . . . for free!
There is an advanced search to find experts to help you and connect with - this is how Skye found me;
Your competitors maybe on Linked In, so you can find out information out about them. If not then include your company and you can now own that space;
If you are looking for staff, not only using the job board will help but update your status and people will find you;
There are awesome groups for you to join to increase your knowledge about a variety of business issues.
I see this social media as a key element for your business and professional development and growth, so check it out: www.linkedin.com and you can even get linked in with me!
Three Presentation Sessions You Shouldn't Miss!
Later this month, I will be presenting 3 sessions at WAFIC:
Social Media Networking
E-marketing strategies
Developing & coaching a high performance team
It is not too late to register, so go to WAFIC and come and along!
I have now become a regular blogger and to be honest, I love it! It can be quite cathartic but also stretches my learning and experiences. Some of my blogs get a great response and other just mediocre and I have over 100 readers that currently subscribe to my blog. If you are interested check out JT’s Blogs and subscribe by simply entering your email address – that simple!
Up to the writing of our newsletter, my blogs last month were:
Making It Happen: A Practical Vision with Will Phillips
The decade began with 9-11 in 2001 and ended with the deepest and longest recession in your lifetime. All in all not the best decade! Now is the time to use something new and something old in making the next decade the best ever.
We always overestimate what we can accomplish in the short run and completely underestimate what we can accomplish in the long run. We seem to all have a SHORT TERM MIND, one that wants results now and we put all our planning eggs in the SHORT TERM BASKET. And when we don’t see results quickly we get:
Discouraged;
Distracted by the next new thing;
Frustrated with others…our ourselves,
Drift. Drifting is having a time horizon of NOW. We focus on NOW with our nose to the grindstone, head down and working harder at the same old things.
To help you do a better job in shaping the emerging future of the next decade, you might trip multiple planning horizons of 100 days, 100 weeks and 100 months. This gives you three complementary times frames to plan in of about three months, two years and a decade.
Now the most powerful place to start your planning is with the farthest time frame. This type of plan is called a Practical Vision. Here are some of the benefits:
It helps get you out of bed every day;
It inspires with specifics your whole staff and family;
It shifts thinking from fantasy to future possibilities and potentials;
It gets everyone pulling in the same direction;
It provides focus and direction for everyone.
Here are some tips on how to write a Practical Vision.
Set the scene by quickly writing down all the things you are proud of in your business. Review and star the top six. Keep these in mind as you now go into the future as far as you can, but at least 5 years if not 10.
From that future vantage point write down all the things that have happened say from 2010 to 2020 that prove your organisation has succeeded. Write quickly, do not edit, write from the heart include personal and business stuff. Focus on the result not the ‘how’. Write in a positive, specific and descriptive style. Don’t worry about what seems possible or practical at this point.
Now review what you have written. Notice the areas that evoke your highest interest and energy and turn up the “want meter” building on these parts.
Your Practical Vision is set of milestones that you achieve and pass on your trip into the next decade. The more detailed the more practical and powerful. A strong vision is often several pages long. I am calling this a ‘Practical’ vision because of the details and specifics that you build in.
Now share this with the other people you will need to help the vision become practical or realised-mainly your staff and family. Read it to them. Ask them to add to it. Ask them to expand it. Ask them if they like their part in it and if not encourage them to write their vision and share it with you. The more your share your vision and your passion and energy for it with others, the more you will attract committed followers.
Now that you have been thinking 100 months into the future; scale it back and start writing the indications of success will show up in 100 weeks to give you confidence you are on the right track to achieve your Vision. And now begin scaling the 100 weeks milestones into what steps or hows or actions you can take in the next 100 days to get underway on your journey. Your vision thus becomes the North Star which guides your steps today. This guidance is how human beings achieve extraordinary results in the long run.
This article was written by Will Phillips, the President of REX Roundtables and this is just an example of the type of information we share at Round Table. If you are interested in joining a Round Table or would like more info, click here.
The Solution to Your 2010 Marketing Conundrum
Market My Club is holding a BLOWOUT SALE on their entire library of marketing campaigns. For a limited time, you can purchase pre-designed pdf files that you or your print shop can import and modify using any graphics editing program. This is a great way to build your own mix-and-match ad library that you can use and reuse for years to come.
Campaigns vary but most include posters, flyers, email blasts, banners, staff badges and more! Choose any one campaign for $99 or purchase 10 for $799.
Hint: PDF files are editable by most graphic programs like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw. Your local print shop or graphic artist shop is likely to be very familiar with using these programs. Plus, all do-it-yourself campaign kits come complete with their fonts intact so that editing text is seamless.
IMPORTANT! This is a very limited time offer and exclusive only through Active Management. Visit MarketMyClub.com to shop for your marketing and tell 'em that JT sent you!
If you have any questions about your business or if you want more information about any of the topics discussed in this issue of Active Report, email
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or call me direct at 02 8007 0347.
The Solution to Your 2010