One of the questions I am asked quite a bit is, “Who needs a business or life coach anyway?”. And the answer may surprise you. “NO one  needs a coach”. Blasphemous, right? But it’s the truth! Nobody needs a Coach. Just like nobody needs a personal trainer, or nobody needs a financial advisor.

Hiring someone in a support profession is a CHOICE. It is a choice that you make in service of your very best interests. It’s as though you are saying to yourself, “I am really SERIOUS about what I want to achieve in my life, and I want to give myself every opportunity to follow through and finally DO it”.

For example: It’s one thing to know intellectually that you’re supposed to go to the gym and do a little cardio and do some strength training. And it’s another thing to actually show up for an exercise class. But it’s a whoooole different animal to have a personal trainer waiting for you at an appointed time, who knows you and knows your body, who will push you, challenge you, encourage you and plow through your excuses. Hiring a personal trainer generally suggests that you mean business – and you usually see results much faster.

By the same token, it’s one thing to know that something needs to change in your business or life. It’s another thing to feel as though you’re making a little bit of progress here and there. But it’s a whooooole different animal to have a Coach waiting to talk to you 2-3 times a month, who knows you and knows your goals, who will push you, challenge you, encourage you, and help you question your excuses. Hiring a Coach is a way of saying that you are READY to see and feel some results in your life – and soon.

But do you need a Business Coach? Nope! Hiring a Business Coach has nothing to do with being needy. Having a coach is something that you WANT because you are ready to start achieving more in your business and life – and faster. It’s something that you CHOOSE because, no matter what your goals or circumstances, you are ready for things to shift.

Have any other questions about what Coaching is – and isn’t? Please leave them here.

1. Start with the end in mind.

Develop a clear picture of what you want to accomplish. State the end results in one sentence that even a child can imagine, understand and remember. Consider the power of President Kennedy’s goal “to send a man to the moon and bring him safely back home within this decade”. Thousands of people did very detailed work and spent billions of dollars based on this simply stated goal.

2. Develop a written plan.

Get it on paper (or on the computer). Make the plan as specific as possible, in terms of what will be done and by when.

3. Enlist support of others.

Let them know what you are doing, and how they and others will benefit from the results you want to produce. Invite them to lend their support however they can.

4. Set up milestones and reporting systems.

Break the job down into segments, and set target dates for finishing each segment. Develop a reporting system on paper or via a good software program. Send regular reports to people who are working on your team, or who have an interest in your project.

5. Have a support system.

Set up the supports you need in your work and in your personal life. Have one or more advisors that you meet with regularly to report progress, and get advice and encouragement. Your personal coach can be one of these key people.

6. Monitor progress and make adjustments.

Realize that even the best plans need to be adjusted in the heat of battle. Make adjustments quickly and respond to new opportunities or short cuts along the way that help you reach your destination faster. If you find it difficult to get around or through certain roadblocks, get help and advice promptly.

7. Form mutually beneficial alliances with others.

Find out what other people or groups are natural allies and team up with them so you can help each other reach your objectives more easily and effectively.

8. Work your plan regularly and continuously.

Maintain a high focused activity level yourself, and get help when you need it. Don’t try to do everything yourself. Delegate as much as you can, and follow up with those to whom you delegate work.

9. Keep your allies on your side and your enemies at bay.

Inform your allies about progress you are making and problems you are having. Thank them for their help. Protect yourself from important enemies by setting up and maintaining boundaries between yourself and your enemies. Recognize that enemies can be within you as well as about you. When you find that you are doing things that impede your own progress, replace that activity or habit with a better one. Ask your advisors what you personally can do better. Then put the corrections in place.

10. Celebrate progress along the way.

Share your wins. Recognize and thank the people who have helped you produce results.

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For immediate assistance call 760-930-9604.

Networking is an essential skill for most business people, but especially for entrepreneurs. The strong association between the entrepreneur as a person and his or her business demands that entrepreneurs get out into the world and create and maintain business relationships.

If it is your first time networking, then it can seem very overwhelming and uncomfortable.  Keith Ferrazzi is a networking expert who’s written a book entitled Never Eat Alone, and gives you some great advice for anyone that feels uncomfortable in a networking situation. Watch this video

The most successful networkers adopt a mindset and attitude that focuses on the person sitting across the table from them. Most entrepreneurs I know, myself included, think about and consider themselves first. So it’s a bit unnatural to try and think of another persons needs first.

Tip: Think “How could I help this person?”

Somewhere on your road to success, you’ll begin to understand that you are really never alone.  There are amazing sources of strength and help everywhere you look—you just have to use them.  You’ll have to look to find them and then know how to use them, but it beats the heck out of not having them at all!

A team is incredibly important as you walk along your path.  You may reap the benefits of success in your world, but you don’t get there alone.  The fallacy of the “self-made man” is just that—because everyone is influenced directly and indirectly by scores of people.  Let’s look at a list of those involved:

• Parents:  if they were there to raise you, they had the greatest influence on your life.  Feelings of love and security are established early—as early as birth.  Children who have parents who love, care for, and protect them gain enormously both psychologically and physiologically.
• Teachers:  chances are there is a teacher who has made an impression on you that you remember to this day.  Positive or negative, there are teachers in our lives who have the power to mold us and shape us.  Sometimes we choose paths in response to a negative example a teacher has left us; more often than not, we choose paths that are due to the positive influence they’ve left in our lives.
• Friends:  the happiest and most successful people tend to have a wide range of friends from different walks of life.  They encourage us, lift us up, and are part of an inextricable support system in our lives.
• Mentors:  smart people who truly desire success find mentors that will walk with them as they traverse their road.  Mentors can point out pitfalls and potholes in the road that we might otherwise miss, and their experience and willingness to teach us is an invaluable gift.

• Spiritual Leaders:  ministers, priests, rabbis, pastors, etc., are in an amazing position to contribute positively and significantly in your life.  Their ability to see past the circumstances and share life and light is unparalleled.  Having a spiritual leader doesn’t guarantee that you’ll never feel despair, but it does guarantee that you won’t have to go through the dark times alone.

Just as you have a team as you work towards success, you can be a part of someone else’s team as well.  Be a friend to someone who is just starting out on the road to success—encourage them, mentor them (if appropriate), and commit to be there for them when they need you.  Do the right thing (remember your integrity), and have compassion in all situations.  You’ll build your team and your success as you do these things!

Need some help navigating your business or life?

Call now for a free initial coaching consultation.  760-930-9604

Cash in on keyword domination and get top ranking in search engines like Google by using social media, blogging and local search strategies. I created this quick video to show how easy it is to literally blow your competition away with proper online marketing strategies.

This video was shoot on Friday afternoon and still there was over 2 million page views with lots of paid advertising all competing for the key word phase “Professional Business Coach and Life Coaching”. As you will see on this video I ranked in 3 different places on the first page of Google using a Facebook Fan Page, WordPress Blog, and Merchant Circle for local search.

Interesting that the day before I made this video there was over 10 million page search and I still came up with 3 different positions on the first page of Google.

Remember keyword domination equals more clients, customers, sales and profits for your business.

Need help putting together a keyword rich domination strategy?

Call me for a free initial consultation at 760-930-9604.

Here is a great resource for doing keyword research. Helpful Keyword Research Tool For Busy Marketers - Micro Niche Finder is an amazing keyword research tool for anyone looking to start business online or affiliate marketing. Claim your FREE Micro Niche Finder videos! Micro Niche Finder

Business owners, professional and entrepreneurs are often wondering what can I do to get more clients now. Well here is a list of ideas to get you started.

Do at least 25 of these.

1. Give your service away.
2. Give your services away to three clients who can get you all the clients you need.
3. Lead a workshop for your current clients and don’t charge them for it.
4. Lead a workshop for your friends, clients, prospects and the public for very affordale tuition.
5. Ask five key clients for five referrals each.
6. Host a weekly luncheon or monthly party.
7. Tell clients that their referrals are one of the ways you are paid.
8. Join three clubs or organizations where your ideal clients would likely be members.
9. Deliver a measurable 20% more than what your average client expects.
10. Open an office that inspires you to do your best work.
11. Offer to help three people in trouble who cannot afford your fee.
12. Become a known resource by having or getting to know 50 highly qualified people who
provide services that your ideal clients need.
13. Orient at least 25% of your business around your special gift.
14. Host gatherings of your competitors.
15. Train your clients how to speak about you.
16. Become known as unconditionally constructive.
17. Write an article on something new in your profession.
18. Mentor an apprentice in your profession.
19. Hire an appointment setter.
20. Know and articulate your three basic messages.
21. Tell people the 10 thing that you want for them.
22. Set your business practice standards high and honor them.
23. Clean out your closets.
24. Send out a monthly newsletter.
25. Speak to groups at least once per week.
26. Send birthday and holiday cards (look into send out cards).
28. Write a book that breaks the rules.
29. Send “request letters” to colleagues.
30. Become known for three special things, but deliver all you can.
31. Invest 10% of your revenue in training, coaching and development.
32. Dress better.
33. Be a professional.
34. Know what you are attached to and get released.
35. Know your vision and be able to share it.
36. Establish yourself as a center of influence.
37. Deepen your relationship with 10 centers of influence.
38. Make your clients and others right even when they aren’t because they are.
39. Raise your fees.
40. Get your personal needs met outside of work.
41. Give the right gift for each referral.
42. Master the skill of converting leads to clients.
43. Immediately acknowledge a referral.
44. Do not offer your business card; rather ask for permission to call.
45. Get clear how much business is enough.
46. Ask, don’t plead, for more business but do ask.
47. Be interested, not interesting.
48. Under promise, but get the client anyway.
49. Package your materials to stun people.
50. Have something worthwhile to say.
52. Have referrals call you; don’t chase them.
53. Acknowledge others don’t compliment them.
54. Do more work for current clients.
55. Know what services you cannot or will not offer.
56. Expect a lot from your clients.
57. Package your services to create an annuity stream that pays you forever.
58. Upgrade your clientele.
59. Drastically cut business and personal expenses to be 25% profitable right now!
60. Be coached.
61. Speak benefits, not features.
62. Speak from the “you”, not the “I”.
63. Take the initiative. Don’t wait.
64. Don’t gossip.
65. Put the relationship ahead of the result.
66. Establish a value on your time. No more errands.
67. Don’t hide behind a brochure or website.
68. Advance your profession.
69. Take a vacation each quarter.
70. Have something to look forward to each evening.
71. Be straightforward, but don’t spill your guts.
72. Offer to help when you can do so without such help “costing” you.
73. Know exactly what you can do for others and let them know it!
74. Invite key people out.
75. Tell people what you want them to do.
76. Disqualify prospects.
77. Take rejection like an angel.
78. Be fully caught up.
79. Have time slots open, blank files prepared and be ready for business.
80. Decide to embrace attraction marketing versus promotion-based.
81. Align your goals with your values.
82. Find out why people have not been referring to you.
83. Make a list of your top 10 clients and who sent them to you: the referral tree.
84. Introduce yourself in 10 words or less.
85. Know what would make you irresistible to your ideal clientele.
86. Serve, don’t sell.
87. Cut out the distractions.
88. Identify the 20% who can get you the 80%.
89. Believe in the work you do.
90. Be responsible for how you are heard, not just what you say.
91. Dress well even when you don’t have to.
92. Deliver the message; let people self-select.
93. Fully inform, don’t hold back from your clients.
94. Have a self-introduction that engages people.
95. Meet with your mastermind team or advisory board weekly.
96. Write at least one thank you or acknowledgment per day.
97. Be more interested than interesting.
98. Value your time at $100 – $300 per hour.
99. Make one unscheduled call to a client each day.

Please leave your comments below and let’s see if we can come up with 1000 ways to get more clients, customers and business.

What Would Life BE Without Friends?

Living Truth also know as Thursday Night Group would be best defined as a spiritual community.

We all long to be part of something greater than ourselves. Left on our own it is easy to fool ourselves and the people around us. Participating in spiritual community is how we deepen our understanding of who we are and what is really TRUE for us.

I have had the honor of hosting weekly gatherings for many years. The things that I have learned and the many people I have meet along the way has been life changing. I went through a series of personal awakenings in the early 90′s followed by a growing interest of people wanting to learn from me. I became recognized as spiritual madman who was able to create massive movement in peoples lives. What happened shortly there after was both exhilarating and frightening. Almost over night I become a self-realized spiritual teacher. I became passionate about helping others heal, wake up, and break free of there years of conditioning. My passion for helping people opened Pandora’s box.  It seems that most students actually wanted to remain little children and idolize me as their holy daddy instead of taking full responsibility for their life. As much as I tried to lead them to there own inner wisdom and be their inner guru they continued to seek my advice for decisions and actions to take in their life.  Learning how to deal with this student-teacher dynamics was both  my greatest challenge and biggest gift.

After 9 years of teaching and leading groups I need to step back from everything and re-examine what worked and what didn’t work and come up with new ways of working with people. I spent 3 years contemplating my previous 9 years and now spend Thursday evenings sharing what I have learned. I feel that a ripening has taken place within me and a renewed passion for being with others in the world.

Today, Living Truth is a refuge for seekers, a safe and loving environment to reconnect with yourself, others and the divine.

Each evening has it’s own unique flavor which may include meditation, dyads, dharma talks, life coaching, guide imagery, spontaneous wisdom teachings,  group exercises and more.

It is a spiritual community which is defined by each members willingness to embrace truth teachings and spiritual practices.

I hope you will join us sometime.

In love and service,

Greg

REQUEST AN INVITATION

If you could like to join us one evening please SUBMIT your information below and you will be sent an invitation with time, dates and location. For immediate assistance call 760-930-9604.

What are strategies, and how to use them to become more successful.

I am a believer that the right strategy ensures a successful outcome, and that the wrong — or outdated — strategy wastes valuable resources and needlessly delays the results. The trick is to select the perfect strategy — or have the ability to create it from scratch. In my view, the right strategies are what makes a person or company a success or failure today.

In the old days, hard work, commitment, effort, dedication and “following the rules” were how you succeeded. It worked, but it was very, very costly in all areas: physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

But as we approach the next millennium, it’s clear that smart people are no longer willing to suffer for success — not even a little bit. The answer? Strategies. Creative strategies. Customized strategies. Clever strategies. Strategies are the keys to success, no matter what the goal.

But you have to know these strategies. A lot of them. And some that you’ve never heard of or never considered. And you have to learn how to craft, adapt and synthesize them to fit your situation or that of your company or clients.

Strategizing is a skill, and it’s a skill that you can benefit from forever in your career, business and in your personal life.

1. A strategy is *HOW* you get something accomplished, whether it’s you doing the work, someone else doing the work, or the strategy itself that does the work.

People sometimes get strategies, plans, goals, outcomes, purpose, vision and action steps confused. Briefly, here’s the difference:

A PLAN: A plan is what you develop in order to identify, organize and schedule your time, resources and energy. A plan consists of a list of resources needed, actions steps to take, a timeline of events and progress milestones.

PURPOSE: Your purpose is why you are doing what you are doing, why you’ve set a goal, why you’re going for an outcome.

VISION: Vision describes a possibility. A vision is what you see that perhaps others can’t see as well. It’s about an improvement, a betterment, sheer possibility, yet it’s not pie-in-the-sky.

OUTCOMES: An outcome is what occurs after you reach your objective or goal. The outcome includes the results, but also the benefits of those results, both tangible and intangible.

STRATEGY: A strategy is HOW something gets done, not just what you do. A strategy is your approach. It’s your positioning. It’s your smart way of reaching the goal with the least amount of wasted effort or cost. With a strategy, you aren’t always working directly on the goal itself, but rather on improving or positioning the environments, relationships, resources, flows, systems or even yourself. So strategies are very different from a plan. In fact, when you devise the right strategy, the plan becomes obvious. But without the strategy, the plan is merely a set of linear action steps (read: lots of work and often stoopid).

2. The first reason to develop a strategy is to save yourself time, money, effort.

In other words, by using a strategy, you are using your intelligence and creativity to be clever, instead of just focusing on action steps. Anyone can recommend action steps, but it’s the effective coach, professional or executive who always designs a strategy BEFORE embarking on the action steps.

3. The second reason to develop a strategy is to expand the outcomes.

The right strategy ALWAYS expands the goals and the outcomes. ALWAYS. Think of Amazon.com. Their original goal was to be the largest seller of books and their strategy to achieve that goal was to use the Internet as their storefront. But the strategy of using the Internet has proven so brilliant, it has expanded their goals, so now Amazon.com offers music, videos, gifts, software and who knows what else! Their strategy became ‘even more important’ than their original goal (more on this idea below).

4. Every goal, then, deserves a clever strategy.

Goal-setting, without an accompanying strategy, is fairly impotent and usually expensive. Sure you can accomplish goals without having a strategy, but why not use the power of strategy to help you reach the goal more easily? Why not use your mind, wisdom and creativity to make life occur more easily for you? Why slog through life?

5. There are many viable strategies available for virtually every situation.

Here’s a brief list of the types of things that people and companies want to focus on:

• Personal Development
• Professional Development
• Personal Financial Success
• Lifestyle Improvement
• Business Marketing
• Business Performance
• Problem-Solving
• Customer Relationship Improvement

Did you know there are at least a dozen distinct strategies to help a person reach goals in EACH of these areas?

Let’s take the Personal Development area for a moment. To help a client (or yourself) develop personally, you can use any number of strategies. You can use the Integrity Strategy, the Personal Foundation Strategy, the Attraction Strategy, the Personal Evolution Strategy, the Spiritual Strategy, the Healing Strategy, the Extreme Self Care Strategy, the Integration Strategy, the Evolution Strategy, the Beliefs Strategy, the Bodywork Strategy, the Acceptance/Detachment Strategy, the SuperReserve Strategy, the Overrespond Strategy, the Awareness Strategy, and the Self-Esteem Strategy.

Each of these strategies helps a person to develop themselves. Wouldn’t it be nice to know something about each one of them? Wouldn’t it be helpful to know enough to be able to play chef and craft the perfect combination of ingredients from all of them and whip up a customized strategy for a client, within minutes?

THAT’s the power of strategy, but to become a masterful strategist, you need to know the strategies themselves and how to build custom ones to fit exact needs.

6. Strategies are key to business success as well.

There is not a single business today that isn’t using a strategy of some kind to grow or manage that business. But are they using the BEST strategy? Are they using the most CURRENT strategy? Are they using a CUSTOMIZED strategy?

Let’s take one of the areas of focus listed above — Business Performance — and list a dozen strategies that could be used to help a company improve their performance. You could use the Creating a Gap Strategy, the Incentives Strategy, the Vision Strategy, the Coopetition Strategy, the Coaching Strategy, the Leverage Strategy, the Customers-As-R&D-Team Strategy, the Internet Marketing Strategy, the Automation Strategy, the Eliminate Delay Strategy, the Virtual Management Strategy, Intrapreneur Strategy, the Reinvention Strategy, and/or the Creativity-Skills Strategy. Oops, that’s 14 strategies. See how easy this is!

Some of these you are already familiar with, some of these are probably new for you. But wouldn’t it be helpful to be familar with ALL of them? Would that make you wise? Would that make you highly effective with your clients, with your company and/or in your own personal life?

7. You start the process of creating a strategy by asking yourself some questions.

“What’s the smartest, cleverest, most creative and easiest way to make X happen, without having to do it like everyone else is trying to do it? What’s a better way? What’s an unconventional way? What’s MY way?”

One of the most fascinating aspects of strategy is that the process of developing strategies is a highly creative one. True, you can use off-the-shelf strategies. But it’s also important to be able to craft and customize strategies. You do this by first learning the basic strategies for personal and business success (there are 160 of them, and counting). And THEN when you ask yourself the questions above, you’ll have enough raw material to invent something new that fits perfectly for your situation or a client’s.

8. Strategies evolve you, in addition to helping you achieve your goals faster.

In any personal or business situation, there are 3 elements: the person, the goal and the strategy. I call these the Who, the What and the How. In an earlier point, I mentioned that the strategy affects and expands the goal, using Amazon.com as the example. But did you know that a strategy can also expand who YOU are? Think about it. I bet Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon.com) is a bigger/more expanded person since he began implementing this strategy to reach his initial goal. In some ways, the original goal expanded Jeff, meaning that he began to think bigger and got stretched as he launched Amazon.com. But as he developed his strategy of using the Internet, I say that this strategy expanded and evolved him as well.

In other words, what I am saying is that our goals and our strategies have as much to do with our personal evolution as to do with our direct efforts in that area. Or to put it another way, if you REALLY want to evolve yourself, find a goal, create a clever strategy and watch the evolution occur. Strategies are a catalyst for personal evolution. It sure beats willpower.

9. Strategies let you achieve in the middle of chaos.

There’s a lot that’s been said about ‘change’ and ‘change management’ during the past 10 years. And with the development of the Internet, the rate of this change is changing. In fact, the rate of time is also changing, given an Internet Year is about 3 months, not 12 months. And with the millennium approaching, we are all re-evaluating what it is that we really want and how we’re going to achieve it. Like fast.

I think it’s fair to say that we’re moving from a rational world (predictable, logical) to an irrational world (unpredictable, illogical). If this progression is true, then it means that chaos had better become our friend — and fast — instead of us trying to control or limit the chaos (how 80s!). But how do we, as humans, ‘hold’ chaos, given it brings up fear and stimulates us in ways we cannot predict?

The answer that I’ve found for myself is to become an expert on strategies. I find that when I focus on strategies, I can handle — and actually enjoy — chaos. I DON’T NEED TO KNOW THE OUTCOME. After all, as chaos increases, outcomes become less and less predictible. More about this in my final point, #10.

10. It is as important to be an expert in strategies as it is to be dedicated to results.

Earlier in this Top Ten list, you may remember that I said that the right strategy will expand the goal in very cool ways? I used Amazon.com as my example. Now, I have nothing against goal setting and goal achievement — that makes the world go ’round. But I feel that it’s as important to learn the skills of strategy design as it is to learn how to deliver results. Why? Because if you only deliver results, it means that you’re using older strategies, not inventing newer ones. It means that you’re good at running a Barnes and Noble Store, but ignorant that the majority of books will soon be purchased online. (Nothing against Barnes and Noble — they are great and they have barnesandnoble.com)

Put it another way. If I was your coach, I could help you reach your goals, using coaching and communication skills, and you could benefit from my experience of having helped a hundred other people reach that same type of goal. But I’d just be giving you ‘fish’ instead of teaching you how to fish. So part of what I do with my clients is that I share strategies with them, not just action steps. And I teach my clients how to strategize, so that they can devise their own strategies, far after they’ve stopped coaching with me.

Teaching a client how to strategize is the ultimate in empowerment. You are giving them the tools to empower themselves. And that’s an ‘annuity of value’ that the client will benefit from for a lifetime.

Call or write to schedule a  complimentary coaching consultation. I may be reached by phone at (760) 930-9604