For many small business owners business blogging is coming up on their radar for its marketing and search engine optimization potential. But the owners and entrepreneurs who think these are the only applications of business blogging are cutting themselves short.

Blogs have dozens upon dozens of immediate applications for small and large businesses alike. As with any new technology, the real benefits are discovered when you get away from all the hype and begin to align the technology with the needs, wants, and desires of the people who can use it.

Business blogging is no different. It needs to be viewed as a tool that can be matched with your current operations and client communication channels for maximum leverage in all your business development efforts.

So why are blogs such a powerful online ally for small business owners?

Although there are a number of combined factors that make your blog a powerful online ally, here is what I consider to be the top five.

• Instant on-demand, online publishing.
• The ability to easily make entire blogs (or individual posts) private/password protected.
• The ease with which the technology can be used. (Only basic technical knowledge is required for the operation and maintenance of blogs. If you can use a word processing program and surf the net, you can use a blog.)
• Low cost of operation. (Your “hosting” and your “posting” are your only costs.)
• With the right business blog strategy, you get high impact benefits with both human visitors and search engine spiders.

As a 21st century entrepreneur, these five factors may have already peaked your interest in business blogging. But I’d like to help you take this even further by giving you some real-world, practical applications for business blogs in your company.

In this series of short articles over at our blog ALL about business blogging we’re going to look at 21 examples of how you can use a business blog to create high impact results for yourself and your company.

First we’ll look at 13 examples for the external use of blogs. Then we’ll delve into eight more examples for the internal applications of blogs.

In both cases, these practical examples will help make the useful application of business blogs easier for you to digest and apply.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for Advanced Business Blogging and stay tuned for a new application idea every day for the next 21-days!

John-Paul Micek
Click-and-Mortar Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club
http:/www.AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com

© Copyright 1999-2005 by RPM Success Group ®, All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without the express written consent of RPM Success Group ® is prohibited.

As you look around the net today, you’re starting to see more and more people talking about the positive impact that your business blog can have on your search engine rankings.

This blog entry turned into a full-fledged “how-to” article because I got tired of seeing some of the “internet marketing crowd” starting to creep into the blogosphere giving false information about the world of blogging. So I wanted to help clear things up a bit and remove some of the B.S. on blogging floating around.

I whole-heartedly agree that a properly planned blog can work wonders for your Search Engine rankings and your ability to attract clients more easily.

Contrast that to some of the so-called “marketing gurus” out there who are currently advising their clients NOT to blog, all the while, they’re busy blogging for themselves! (hmmmm… kinda makes ya’ think, doesn’t it?)

Either they’re so far off the mark, or they’re trying to keep the blogging strategy in order to beat their competition for “mind-space” on their potential clients’ news aggregators.

Boosting your search engine ranking with your business blog is an absolute fact. And it’s a pretty exciting thing when it happens to you!

But what the vast majority of people are missing (and perhaps the reason why some of these “gurus” don’t quite “get it” yet) is that there is more to having a blog than simply jotting down a few thoughts and posting it to the internet for all to stop by and read.

There are specific strategies a business blogger must plan, implement and follow through with, in order to harness maximum traffic, exposure and the ability to get in front of your potential clients on a daily basis.

A successful business blogging strategy is more than mere tricks, tactics, and formulas. There is no magic potion that’s going to transform you into a business blogging expert overnight, or rocket you to the top of the Search Engine rankings.

It’s about practice and experience combined with quality content, communication, and connection! (Not to mention a little accelerated knowledge that other blogging success stories can teach you.)

After all, you can get yourself into the top 10 rankings on Google.com or Yahoo and start driving a ton of traffic to your blog or web site.

But if your content is not of immediate value to the people that you’re driving there, all the traffic in the world will not help.

Many small business owners are making serious mistakes as they stumble blindly into the blogosphere. They hear how they “should be blogging” in the business forums they’re in, and then they go to blogger.com to set up their blog haphazardly, without a clear vision, purpose and plan to maximize their results.

The purpose of the article posted on: is to help you avoid those mistakes by sharing with you five critical keys to business blogging success in the form of an easy to remember acronym: V.O.C.A.L.

Here is the acronymn to get you started:

V stands for VISION
O stands for ORGANIZED
C stands for CONSISTENCY
A stands for ACTIONABLE CONTENT
L stands for LISTEN-TO and LINK-WITH

And if you’re ready to enter the blogosphere, you’ll enjoy this blog, AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com that’s completely dedicated to Business Blogging - from soup to nuts - where you’ll read about these five critical keys to a successful business blogging strategy in full detail.

Not to mention that you’ll also learn how to create your own blog, set up your own RSS feed, and much more - including Videos that walk you step-by-step on how to set up a blog that John-Paul created for his clients, and is now sharing with readers of AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com.

When I first entered into the world of business ownership, I still held onto my “full time job” as the Director of a Social Service Agency. As a result of wearing numerous hats in the same day, I had the tendency to bring my “non-profit” mindset into running my own business, and vice versa.

What I learned from the “for-profit” world, was critical to my success for large non-profit organizations and working with the government. The results in my career were transformational, helping me to climb “the corporate ladder” very quickly. The results in my own business revolutionized what was a “traditional” business mindset.

Often, when I’m coaching business owners, they are looking for “real-world” tools that will generate measurable results for their business. The following are three powerful tools that have proven themselves to be crucial in accelerating growth, often by nine-to-twelve months. I have shared these with clients in a variety of different businesses who will tell you how they have increased their profits as a result of thinking innovatively.

Now you can benefit from the same innovative ideas used by small businesses and Fortune 500 Companies alike. Whether you are a business owner, manager, sales professional or team-player you will benefit from these tools.

Just use your “figurative mind” so you can spawn an original idea of your own that will be the catalyst for your next promotion, or business venture.

1. Turn ONE into FOUR

Many business owners and sales professionals are guilty of leaving money on the table. If you’re going to spend the time / energy / effort into selling ONE item, you might as well sell 3 or 4. You may want to offer increased incentives and show people how they can SAVE $ MONEY $ by taking 4 items as a package the same day - while you increase profits and reduce overhead / marketing in the process.

2. UP-Sell

This requires no additional work on your part, yet you can often double your profits just by offering the suggestion to customers to buy something additional to complement their purchase. A perfect example is seen anytime you visit McDonalds. The next time you hear, “Do you want Fries with that?” Think about the concept of “Up-Selling”.

3. Create a System

If you do anything more than once, you should have a system behind it. This will allow you to streamline your efforts. When you do this properly you are guaranteed an increase in PROFITS and most importantly have more TIME for yourself and your team to focus on what’s most important.

As you are building your business or creating your business plan, keep the following principle in mind: Create systems along the way, so you can one day sell your business once it grows beyond the infancy stage. Public Companies are required to have systems throughout every aspect of the business. Run your small business just like you were running a public company. This is the best way to put your business on the path of increased profitability.

Take this concept one step further and run your life as though you were a public figure. Think of how you should act / perform as a positive role model that young people look up to and want to emulate. This will literally affect everything you do.

The most important thing about the above tools, is to have FUN thinking about them. Tweak them to apply to your specific business needs. Remember, this list is only the CATALYST toward innovative thinking.

You are the genius. Allow your mind to be as creative as it wants to be. And Enjoy your journey toward Huge Success!!!

A Certified Professional Behavior Analyst and Business Strategist, Deborah Cole Micek is the Co-Founder and partner in RPM Success Group. RPM Success Group works with business owners and entrepreneurs around the world to achieve superior results in business and in life. Deborah’s one-on-one coaching provides her clients with increased profits and energy.

Her goal: To provide innovative ideas and insights to her Clients and Students, helping them reach and maintain the top of their game in business and in life.

True sales professionals never have to “sell” when they’re doing their job properly.

A common misconception about a sales person’s job is that they should know “how to sell” in order to be a good sales professional.

Dangerous for a manager to think that learning how to sell merely means learning “how to close,” yet that’s the common philosophy behind sales trainings these days. Yet just being a “good closer” is exactly what will limit the potential of that particular sales person or team. Getting repeat business and increased profits in the subsequent years after the point of sale will suffer.

Study after study has been conducted on effective sales approaches to sell higher- end products and bigger-ticket items to the affluent and the results all come back with similar results.

Old sales techniques and tactics don’t work like they used to, and they rarely ever work on items or services that require a larger investment from a more sophisticated buyer.

Instead, focusing all your efforts on meeting the needs of your customers is the number one, most effective sales approach a true sales professional can implement.

Unfortunately, these research findings aren’t received too fondly by large corporations. After all, companies have been investing millions of dollars in training their sales forces in learning all the closing techniques and traditional, tired tactics that used to work – 50 years ago.

It is no small feat for a corporation with more than 50 employees to adopt a new approach to implementing divergent sales strategies. It means that management would need to acknowledge the need for retraining their existing staff, not to mention acknowledging their own need for new training.

But that doesn’t mean the sales professional within the corporation shouldn’t do everything possible to independently learn from the latest research in order to gain the edge over their competition.

If you’re working for a sales manager who isn’t teaching you sales strategies that work for the new millennium, don’t wait for your company to train you. Go out and seek the best trainings, books and coaches to give you the inside scoop on what’s working and what’s not in the marketplace of the new millennium.
Top sales professionals and sales managers know that anything they do to increase their knowledge and skills in the sales arena will give them the competitive advantage that puts them over the top in sales commissions.

According to a report conducted by Ron Volper Group Inc., one of the common habits of top sales professionals is to listen to motivational tapes in their cars and read inspirational books at home.

Don’t wait to be downsized to learn more effective approaches to do your job effectively. That will be too late.

Do it today, and stand head and shoulders above your competitors. When you act as a leader, and get results far above others in your company, who are simply going to “mandatory” trainings, that’s when you’ll prove yourself worthy of a promotion or raise.

Recommended Reading from your Coach:
Spin Selling, by Neil Rackham

About the Author: Deborah Cole Micek and her partner, John-Paul Micek, are Business Growth Coaches. They specialize in helping small-business owners like you, achieve profit-doubling growth in 60-80% less time than it would take to do on your own. With their strategic coaching programs, and the high-leverage membership benefits of the http://BusinessOwnersCoachingClub.com you’re guaranteed to reach more goals in 12 months than most owners do in a decade. You can reach Deborah directly at Deb@RPMsuccess.com or toll free at (888) 334-8151.

The music industry’s traditional model is falling apart. Revenues have been sliding downward for years now and many bands (along with the industry powerhouses) have chosen to fight the trend to “on demand” or “music by track” choice rather than embrace it.

So with all this going on, and most bands crying the blues (no pun intended :-)) — how did a jazzy improv/Grateful Dead sounding band from Boulder Colorado pull in $14.5 million last year?

What you learn from their success can help you blend on-line and off-line channels in your small business for incredible growth.

They did it through a solid Click-and-Mortar approach. Driving off-line consumers online to make purchases, and allowing online consumers to become fans of the band without ever seeing them in person.

The band has been touring nonstop for 11 years. The devoted following that they’ve developed have definitely contributed to this outstanding annual cash flow. But the money only really started rolling in during the last four years when they implemented their Click-and-Mortar growth strategy.

From 1999 to 2004, when the rest of the music industry suffered steep declines in revenues, String Cheese Incident watched their annual revenue rise from just about $2 million per year — to 14.5 million! Not bad for five guys who love what they do and play relatively small venues.

Client-Centric Service with Click-and-Mortar touch

String Cheese Incident recently battled Ticketmaster in a lawsuit and gained the right to sell tickets to their own shows on their web site. This further reinforced or credibility with fans and gained them more loyalty with their followers by offering tickets for their shows at 10% below Ticketmaster rates. With 50% of their revenue coming from their tour dates, this has had a huge impact on their bottom-line.

They also borrowed a page from the playbook of the Grateful Dead in the arena of recordings. Where most bands jealously guard every single note that emanates from their amplifiers, String Cheese Incident took the Grateful Dead policy of permitted taping of live performances to a whole new level. Just recently the band started selling downloads of its live concerts through a dedicated web site (sciontheroad.com) for about $10 per show.

Click-and-Mortar marketing at its best

Anyone it’s ever been to a concert before the knows that the big bucks lie in the merchandise and CDs for sale at the venue. But how many concertgoers don’t have the cash in-hand, or desire to fight the crowd to wait in line? By driving their off-line fans to their web site they’ve racked up some pretty impressive numbers.

CD sales rack up $2.9 million per year. Merchandising and ticket sales another $2.9 million per year. That’s another $5.8 million that most smaller bands never see.

And String Cheese Incident is not content with the traditional profit centers associated with bands either. They’ve taken Click-and-Mortar growth to a whole new level.

Recently they saw an unmet need in the marketplace and set up a travel agency with a partner that helps fans plan trips for SCI and 20 other bands on the road. That little “side business” is good for another $1.45 million per year — all of which is done online!

If a “Grateful Dead style” band whose fans thrive on live experiential concerts can use the Click-and-Mortar approach to create a 725% increase in gross revenues, what could you do with your small business?

Coaching Corner:

• How could you expand, extend, or multiply the benefits that your off-line clients experience by bringing them online?
• How could you make your clients lives easier (thereby increasing your goodwill with them and creating raving fans) through online ordering, scheduling, or organization?
• Primarily off-line right now … what products/services could you offer online that would complement your off-line products/services?
• Primarily on-line right now … what physical product/service could you off your clients (either yourself or through a strategic partner) that would add incredible value and lock your clients in for life?

When you take the time to develop a solid Click-and-Mortar growth strategy for your small business, you’ll be able to dominate your market niche no matter how badly your competition is floundering around.

Just remember String Cheese Incident’s 725% in revenues occurred at a time when arrested the industry was getting crushed. If they can do it, you can do it too!

For more information on String Cheese Incident, you can visit their site stringcheeseincident.com, or read David Kushner’s article in this months Fortune Small Business.

John-Paul Micek
Click-and-Mortar Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club
http:/www.AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com

You made a purchase online based on a “special guarantee” that was on a website, and now it’s six months later and the product has gone belly-up. You go to the website and the guarantee states 90-days! You could swear that it was one-year when you purchased it, but the customer service person you speak to when you call confirms it’s only 90-days.

You’re out of luck. Or are you?

If you’re lucky, one of several internet archive services saved that page and has it on file in their archive. For instance, the Internet Archive (www.internetarchive.org) saves 35 million sites every two months, totaling billions of pages.

So next time you run into a “disappearing guarantee” and an unscrupulous business — check out the Internet Archive before you throw your hands up in frustration.

Posted in these categories:
General Posts
Small Business & the Internet

The marketplace is moving, speaking, and shifting in ways that small business owners could hardly have imagined just three or four short years ago. The rise of blogs has spawned a new desire for immediate news, information, and communication.

A recent survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project showed that blog readers were found to be young, well-educated, net-savvy men and women with good incomes and college educations. (Women and minorities actually had a greater than average growth in blog readership.)

That means the brightest and most technologically interactive are actively seeking valuable information that will improve their lives or better their businesses. With six million Americans now using RSS aggregators* and usage on a severe up swing the trend is likely to accelerate.

That’s good news for small business owners who are looking to create their own Click-and-Mortar Growth Strategy. The average entrepreneur can now become a syndicated author in a matter of hours. Using this new channel for communication properly can mean:

• A deeper relationship with prospects and clients
• More trust and rapport
• And with the right strategy — more profits!

The study showed that blog readership has shot up by 58% in the last year, with 32 million getting hooked in 2004.

• 5% use RSS aggregators to get news and other information
• 12% of online Americans have posted comments on blogs
• Only 38% of online Americans have heard about blogs

For small business owners who want a better way to communicate with prospects and build greater credibility, now is the time to act. Bloggers were selected as “People of the Year” by ABC News, and Merriam-Webster declared “blog” its “word of the year.”

And with the recent tragedy in India and the additional attention that’s focused on blogs and blogging — you can bet the rate of participation is going to accelerate.

Owners and entrepreneurs who move quickly, learn how to effectively blog for business, and gain valuable experience now can establish a solid foothold of credibility and respect before the “followers” and “doubters” begin to crowd the arena of blogging.

Take action now and learn how to use blogging as part of your Click-and-Mortar Growth Strategy. The first thing you can do is learn how to be on the recieving end of this powerful new technology. Start using an RSS aggregator now to learn how it all works.

*( RSS aggregators are downloaded to PCs and are programmed to subscribe to feeds from blogs, news sites and other websites. To learn how you can use an aggregator to get your information quickly delivered and organized to save you time and aggravation — watch the FREE videos in the side column.)

[Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4145191.stm]

Learn how business blogging can boost your web site traffic, build trust and
win you more clients, check out www.AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com.

© Copyright 1999-2004 by RPM Success Group ®, All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without the express written consent of RPM Success Group ® is prohibited. You may use this article/post in it’s entirety as an RSS feed without previous permission, so long as it is published in it’s entirety with all copyright notices. Call RPM Success Group toll free at 888-334-8151 for offline reprint permissions, or by email editor@rpmsuccess.com.

About the Author: John-Paul Micek and his partner Deborah Cole Micek are Business Growth Coaches. They help small business owners like you, achieve profit-doubling growth in one-third the time it would take to do on your own.

In just 12-months with your membership in the www.BusinessOwnersCoachingClub.com you can bridge the digital divide and transform your small business into a click-and-mortar powerhouse that delivers the profits, personal fulfillment, and free time you want.

Posted in these categories:
General Posts
Small Business & the Internet
Blogging

Ahhhh… goals, planning, and action! Often misunderstood, sometimes mysterious and generally a difficult for the average small business owner to fully put to work because of their intangible nature. With a whole new year ahead of us, I thought it would be helpful for you to start the year off right by seeing how you can set yourself up to achieve more goals – and make it more fun too!

If you’re like most people, you know you need to have written goals to reach your maximum potential. But if so many people know the facts about written goals and the correlation with higher levels of success, why is it that so few people have clearly defined, written goals? And how can you remove many of the barriers to your goals achievement?

When I ask my new private coaching clients why they haven’t practiced what they know is true, many tell me how they were not really sure how to start the process. For some, making the goals-planning-achievement process fun, profitable and fulfilling seemed impossible. So they figure, “Why bother?”

Almost every client tells me that at some point in the past they’ve become frustrated, trying to stay on track once they got going. Instead of trying to go on sheer will-power, they gave up mid-stream and never started again.

I know the power of the Goals-Planning-Action (GPA) process very well myself, because I’ve experienced it over and over again. I know the process works - every time - if it’s done properly.

This process is what helped me start and grow three successful businesses in New Jersey, totally restructure my life at age 35 and even create my “ideal lifestyle” by relocating 6000 miles to “start over” in beautiful Hawaii. It’s my mission to ensure that achievers like you won’t fall prey to the deadly errors most people get dragged down by.

It all starts with the right mindset – especially for small business owners. Before you ever put pen to paper writing out your goals, you must have some key components of what we call the “Business Owners Mindset.”

There are five fundamental components of the Business Owners Mindset when it comes to successful goals achievement. Principles that will breath new life into your goal setting and help you achieve all you want over the next twelve months. Let’s take a look at those right now.

Principle No. 1: Accept change as inevitable

The silent killer of your goals and dreams is the wrong attitude towards change. Many people get tricked into thinking, “Why plan?” they say to themselves, “after all, something always happens that changes my plans anyway!”

But this attitude does more to rob people of their God-given destiny than any other. To illustrate how destructive this thinking is, and how it blocks achievement, let me draw you an analogy.

Picture this … You’ve just boarded a plane in Honolulu headed for Los Angeles. The captain comes over the announcement system in his cheerful voice, “Aloha everyone. Welcome aboard. I should let you know, I’m feeling pretty adventurous today. I want to try something new by flying to Los Angeles airport with no course corrections what-so-ever. I’m going to be pointing the plane at LAX, and hopefully we’ll arrive there in five or six hours-or-so. We have way more fuel than we need for the trip though, so don’t worry. Buckle up, and let’s have some fun!”

I have the feeling that you’d be off that plane so fast, the boarding ramp would be smoking, right? You know that to reach LAX successfully there are literally thousands of course corrections required for unexpected weather changes, wind shifts, and dozens of other variables.

So I ask you, “Should your life or business be treated any differently?”

If you have no goals, no target and no plan, how can you expect to reach your precise destination? How can you know how to adjust one way or other to get back on track, if you fall off course?

Don’t allow yourself to fall prey to this pattern of thinking. Shift your mindset now because change will just happen faster and faster in today’s Click-and-Mortar marketplace. Every day the three factors of information, technology and competition are compounding to dramatically increase how quickly your world is changing.

We can either ride with the waves of change, or be pummeled underneath. Either way, change is inevitable.

Principle No. 2: Maintain a positive attitude toward change, and make it your ally

According to a study from a group of psychologists, the feeling of being out of control and not being able to adjust to change is a major source of stress and anxiety in people’s lives today. Many people mistakenly attempt to control the changes going on around them and wonder why their lives feel so out of control and out of balance.

Don’t be fooled! Change cannot be controlled. The only thing you can control is how you respond to change. The other day I smiled when I read a bumper sticker that read: “Change happens. Whining optional.”

How you respond to the rapid changes in the 21st Century marketplace will determine how successful you will ultimately become. Your response to change will determine how wealthy, satisfied and balanced you are. And how you respond to change is rooted in your goals and planning.

In my coaching work with some of the most aggressive small business leaders around the globe, we’re constantly setting, planning and achieving increasingly larger and more complex goals. These achievers love the goal setting and planning process because they understand how to handle the inevitable challenges that life throws at them. With proper goal setting they know they can maneuver the direction of their life. Think of it this way…

Imagine you’re in a sailboat out on the open ocean. Can you change the direction of the wind? Of course not. But you can set the sails, adjust your course based on your destination and thereby direct the boat - right? Well, the action of setting goals and planning for your life or business is just like you being the captain of your own boat.

Your goals ensure you continually have a reference point to look for so that the “storms of life” do not knock you off course. Your plans form the sails that catch the winds of change in your life and harness that power to get you to the destination of where you want to be. Setting clear goals assures you that changes in your life can be used in a positive way, always taking you in the direction of your destination.

Coaching Corner: Change is exactly why you need goals. If you do not set goals and plan, you will never reach them except by “chance”. Pilots file a flight plan and follow that plan throughout the entire trip. Winds and storms may knock them off course, but they adjust (related to the original plan) and reach their target exactly on the mark. The same is true for your life and goals. Stop trying to control change and start focusing on how you adjust to those changes so you can still reach your goals.

Principle No. 3: Become a Treasure Hunter

Treasure Hunters know they are not going to find gold and diamonds just lying on top of the ground so they survey, scour and dig to uncover hidden jewels. It’s the same thing for you and the “natural resources” you need to reach your goals. You must become a treasure hunter to uncover the natural talents, skills and resources that you already have, and which ones you need.

Be careful though, your resources and talents may not always look like treasures. Sometimes they are like diamonds first appearing like dirty rocks until they are cleaned, cut and polished. It is the same way with your natural resources. You have to work at “polishing” those talents and skills. That takes some work, but the gem you will have when you’re finished is well worth it!

Once you’ve clearly identified your own diamonds and polished them to your liking, you’ve got a real advantage. Now you know what resources you already have that will “fund” the journey of reaching your goals, and what resources you still need to obtain. Think of it like a shopping list for supplies when you’re going on a long vacation or dangerous expedition. Without the right supplies, you’re likely to get half way to your destination and have to turn back -or worse - die in the wilderness.

Coaching Corner: Too many people start their journey to reach their goals without the proper resources. They never stop to line up their own natural gifts, talents and abilities with their goals. Since they don’t know what their own resources are, they don’t know what they’re missing either and who they need to help them reach their goals. So their efforts, no matter how diligent, fall short. Don’t become prey to this dream killer.

To get started thinking outside the box in your search for your hidden talents and skills, here’s some down and dirty questions.

As a small business owner, start by asking yourself:

• What type of client do I serve best?
• What am I doing that keeps people coming back?
• What does my team tell me they admire about me?”

The answers to these questions will lead you in the right direction to discover skills and talents that you can cut and polish to bring real value to your business and more fulfillment to your life.

Principle No. 4: Understand Your Behavioral Strengths

The next step is to thoroughly understand your behavioral strengths. What I mean by this is fully understanding the way you communicate, what motivates you and knowing the values/attitudes that are most important to you. If you take the time to identify and understand your behavioral strengths, you’ll know where to focus your energy for exponential results. The most successful people in the world know their weaknesses. But the most successful people in the world also put their entire energy and focus into areas that use their natural strengths.

If there are other areas that need to be addressed in order to reach their goals, successful people either delegate that to others better qualified (i.e. they “hire out” that responsibility) or, if they must address those areas themselves, they find a coach to give them accelerated knowledge / insight in that particular area in order to help them do it efficiently. They never fight an “uphill battle.” They know better than to “go it alone.” Thus the reason for their rapid success over others struggling to “do it on their own without any help”. Even the “loan ranger” didn’t succeed alone.

Coach’s Rapid Acceleration Tip: Successful business leaders take the necessary steps to accurately identify their own “soft skills” (communication style & driving values/attitudes) in an unbiased way. There are simple, accurate and inexpensive assessment tools available to help you accelerate your own goal achievement. Armed with this valuable scientific information, you can also accurately identify the “right” people to hire and build a powerful and effective team that will help you reach your goals even faster.

Successful business leaders don’t guess or leave anything to chance. They intentionally choose to work with people who complement their strengths by having strengths in areas they do not have. (Want to learn how you can leap ahead in your goal achievement by 6 -12 months? Check out the Starter Kits over at www.Science-of-Business-Success.com.)

Principle No. 5: Define Your Passion and You’ll Find Your Niche

Just as no one person can be great at all things, there is no one magical way to motivate all people to achieve their goals. Once you determine your natural skills and behavioral strengths, the next step is to match them with your passion and a niche where you fulfill an unmet need in the marketplace.

This will allow you to put your energy into something that is fun and self-motivating. A person who has matched their passion and behavioral strengths with well-developed skills in their niche will stand before great leaders, not before obscure men or women. Developing goals in a niche that you are passionate about and applying your natural strengths will catapult you to new and higher levels of success - no matter how successful you already are!

Coaching Corner: To find out if you have truly found your passion, answer this question: “If money was not a factor, and I was not getting paid for my work, would I still make the same choice(s)?”

If you’re excited to do something on a continual basis without the promise of a paycheck, it’s a good indication that you have found your passion. Align your skills and passion with an unfulfilled need in the marketplace and you will become unstoppable. You will operate consistently and naturally in a state of peak performance, reaching more and more goals. Work won’t be work anymore. It’ll be fun!

When you put these five principles into action you’ll develop a critical portion of your Business Owners Mindset. Get started today and put yourself of the fast-track to successful goal achievement.

© Copyright 1999-2004 by RPM Success Group ®, All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without the express written consent of RPM Success Group ® is prohibited. You may use this article/post in it’s entirety as an RSS feed without previous permission, so long as it is published in it’s entirety with all copyright notices. Call RPM Success Group toll free at 888-334-8151 for offline reprint permissions, or by email editor@rpmsuccess.com.

About the Author: John-Paul Micek and his partner Deborah Cole Micek are Business Growth Coaches. They help small business owners like you, achieve profit-doubling growth in one-third the time it would take to do on your own.

In just 12-months with your membership in the www.BusinessOwnersCoachingClub.com you can bridge the digital divide and transform your small business into a click-and-mortar powerhouse that delivers the profits, personal fulfillment, and free time you want.

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