I’d like to share with you three incredibly powerful and liberating ways to get more done, achieve productivity breakthroughs and free up more time in your personal and business life. Yes, a tall order indeed, but let’s get started.
The Enemy of the Entrepreneur is Distraction!
Time blocking is a great way to achieve bursts of productivity and get the truly key projects and goals knocked out with pure, and focused attention. In the age of information overload distraction and interruption are lurking at every corner. The good news: you do have a choice in relation to defending your time and your mind. Far too many people allow the Internet, cell phones, emails, blogs and other forms of ‘instant messaging’ to control, distract and totally run their lives for them.
I’m often asked by others, “Tony, how in the world do you get all of your writing projects done for clients, your business, for magazine deadlines, podcasts, eletters and blogs with all of your other commitments including family and intense travel?” The answer is simple. I block out actual appointments on my calendar for getting deadline driven projects done. The article you’re now reading was written bright and early at 6:15AM on a recent Wednesday morning based on an appointment I made in my calendar the week prior to insure it made deadline and into this issue.
The Power of Habit Force
The second strategy to liberate your mind is the power of positive habit force. In his powerful book The Success Principles, Jack Canfield* discusses how habits, good or bad, shape our destiny along with proven ways to set and create positive new one’s for ourselves. If you have key items within your business that are mission critical – such as reading and listening to every issue of this newsletter as soon as you get it – your goal or aim should be to make them a habit each day if possible. For example, reviewing my top 10 one-year goals each morning is a non-negotiable habit before I begin the day. It’s now engrained as a powerful habit in my life.
If They Can’t Find You, They Can’t Distract You
The third and final idea regarding getting more done is what I call the black out strategy. This is simply the ability to shut off ALL forms of media or distraction during a certain period of time when you need to focus or do not want to be interrupted. I employ this strategy Monday through Friday when I review goals and write each morning at the crack of dawn with no one around to call, email or distract me. Yes, I even shut off my cell phone on many days – much to my wife’s chagrin - to avoid temptation and insure I get these two vital habits in motion and done. Unless it’s a scheduled call, family emergency, or I’m running through an airport at an early hour these two habits are never missed.
I hope these three productivity strategies serve you well. They’ve positively impacted my life and the hundreds of other high achievers and business associates I know directly who use them on a daily basis to improve their own life and the lives of countless others they serve and influence. Unlike other life forms on planet Earth, driven by instinct or necessity, we humans are incredibly blessed to have free will and the power of choice to govern how we proceed and use each day. In the age of information overload and digital distraction, this should give each of us peace of mind and a sense that we are in control of our own dreams and destiny!
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( 3 / 384 )Excerpt from the #1 Amazon Bestselling new book, Mind Capture: How You Can Stand Out In The Age of Advertising Deficit Disorder, visit: www.MindCaptureBook.com
I want you to imagine that every time you create a marketing offer or message that produces Mind Capture the prospect is thinking in their mind, Why in the world should I believe a damn thing you’re saying! As I point out in live seminars and in consultations I want you to imagine that when you meet a person for the first time, especially in a sales setting, that when you’re talking about what you do that the prospect is glancing up and reading a message written on your forehead in bright red lipstick that reads:
B.S. – Prove It!
Folks, we’re an incredibly skeptical society. In relation to advertising we’re for the most part jaded, and tired of hollow messages by people and organizations that all claim to be the best, provide superior service, lowest prices, blah, blah, blah.
An easy question: Would you ever plan a trip and attempt to drive the whole way with a flat tire? Absolutely not. What’s this have to do with marketing? Here’s the connection point. If we know that prospects are incredibly jaded in relation to marketing messages, what will you do differently to help overcome the mental concerns and objections they have when considering switching their buying habits or exploring a completely brand new product or service?
Ignoring prospect concerns and not making proactive changes to your marketing to address potential objections is like voluntarily jumping in the deep end of a swimming pool with a 100 pound bag of bricks that you tied to your back and then wondering why you can’t float. While obviously dangerous and dumb it’s nobody’s fault but your own.
A Few Mind Capture Guarantees Some Famous, Some
Not So Famous To Study and Learn From
*Hot, fresh pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less or it’s free
*Try it for 30 days. If you’re not completely satisfied, simply return it and pay us nothing
*The home of the 10 minute oil change
*Your home sold at a price acceptable to you within 180 days – guaranteed – or I’ll buy it
*If you have any problem within the first 12 months we’ll fix it or replace it for free
*Triple your money back
*You’re gonna like the way you look – I guarantee it
So How Do You Create An Irresistable Guarantee For
Your Product Or Service?
I do an exercise with audiences and one-on-one clients that quickly identifies areas of opportunity to craft a great guarantee. Here are three simple questions you can ask a new or existing customer either in person, over the phone, via email, or through a survey:
1. Why did you choose to do business with us?
2. If there were one thing about _______ (insert your industry, product or service here) you could change what would it be?
3. What were some of the reasons you left your former _______ (mortgage provider, bank, health club, etc.)?
Once you’ve uncovered key areas of strength or identify a consistent pattern of headaches for the customer, you can begin the formation of crafting a unique and powerful guarantee based on these findings to help position you differently in the crowded market you compete in.
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( 3 / 346 )What drives people to achieve? Seek a better life? Keep learning and growing each day? These are a few questions I ponder when I see people turning idle time into distraction to simply get through the day, versus investing this valuable moment of time to improve their life or situation. I recently witnessed something on a trip back from speaking in Phoenix that made me really reflect on these heavy, yet critical important questions that almost everyone of us thinks about at some stage or point within our lives.
A Mystery at 32,000 Feet
It was set to be another routine flight on a hot 90 degree August morning when I reached seat 8D. As I overheard bits and pieces of conversation from my seatmate and his friend across the aisle describe their recent golf escapades and funny moments from last few days, I reached below my seat and grabbed a new book on sales I’d purchased and tore into with anticipation and a hunger to gain new insights and ideas.
Call it psychic phenomenon, but as we took off and gained altitude I could have almost predicted exactly what my seat mate was going to do next. Sure enough, I nailed it. Not more than five minutes into the flight as we ascended over the Memphis sky he grabbed his laptop computer, headphones and plugged them in. A few minutes later I glanced over and noticed that he turned on the card game solitaire along with his music. Nothing out of the ordinary I guess. An hour and fifteen minutes later as the Captain prepared us for landing I couldn’t help but notice he was still playing the game on his computer
Are You Learning and Growing Each Day?
As we touched down on the ground I glanced up at the right hand corner of my book page and realized I’d clipped off 79 pages of a wonderful book by Chet Holmes. As I glanced back a few pages I noticed several action items marked up and underlined to review and aid me in improving my game and to share with key clients.
As soon as I closed my book an impulse of ideas hit me and I grabbed a pen and wrote down a few observations on a sheet of paper that was being used as a book marker related to what had just occurred during the flight. When it comes to creating your business, career, income, dream lifestyle are you focusing too much time on playing when you should be planning? Why does it appear that everyone’s stressed out, busy, yet they still find time to read the newspaper, burn time on the Internet or watch hours of TV or new movies each day? Is it a time conspiracy or excuses and distraction getting in the way?
The young man next to me in seat 8C couldn’t have been a day over 30, and seemed very nice. I’m not judging him as a person but I do wonder though, if this was his habit of dealing with time. Instead of planning out the next day, his career, and ways to improve his life, was he finding or creating diversions and distractions to kill time versus investing it in himself and others? I mentally asked myself these questions because I still see so many people walking around in what appears to be a daze. Oblivious to any thought, as if they’re in a coma like state. Going through the motions, uninspired, and looking for something to distract them from the negative news and self-imposed monotony their life has become.
Two Questions To Think About Each Day
1. Are you playing like an amateur or a pro?
2. Is most of your free time spent on distraction or are you investing some of it in yourself and your future?
In conclusion, I wonder if the man in seat 8C ever considers these two questions. This is a big challenge facing far too many people who’ll unfortunately reach the twilight of their life and careers and wonder, where did my life go? If only they had known about and asked these two questions earlier than later.
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( 3 / 354 )With the current challenges facing the U.S. economy I’ve been getting more and more emails, calls and requests for my speaking and training services but especially for ‘Mind Capture’ customer service related programs. This should come as no surprise as I always believe that when markets tighten up and people watch expenditures even closer, that investing in good customer service and making more value-added offers to your customers is a smart marketing strategy indeed.
With that in mind I’d like to talk about what seems to be obvious, but is often hard to find these days – thanking people for their business and referrals. I’m going to go back to the first Mind Capture book, which you should own and have dog-eared, for this marketing lesson and share with you a quick checklist of 10 simple ways of the 27 discussed in chapter 15, Creating Customer Loyalty, to not only thank your customers, but to keep them coming back again and again.
10 Great Ways To Keep Your Customers Coming Back
1. Be fun to do business with
2. Recognize special events within your customers lives such as birthdays, anniversary’s, awards or honors
3. Create and use a company newsletter or eletter to stay in touch
4. Utilize contests and giveaways
5. Send hand-written thank you notes
6. Offer additional products and services of value
7. Have a professional answer your main telephone line
8. Offer a strong guarantee – back up your claims
9. Survey your customers to discover areas of opportunity and improvement
10. Stay in front of them with a well thought out marketing system
If you treat customer retention as a marketing strategy you’ll accomplish three key things with your business or organization:
1. Solid reputation and higher customer retention
2. Increased sales and growth
3. More referral business
Until next time, keep ‘Capturing’ Minds!
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( 3 / 400 )September has been crazy and I thought I'd share with you a timely article from my offline paid newsletter, A Captured Mind, to inspire you and make you think about your present situation in a different light.
What drives people to achieve? Seek a better life? Keep learning and growing each day? These are a few questions I ponder when I see people turning idle time into distraction to simply get through the day, versus investing this valuable moment of time to improve their life or situation. I recently witnessed something on a trip back from speaking in Phoenix that made me really reflect on these heavy, yet critical important questions that almost everyone of us thinks about at some stage or point within our lives.
A Mystery at 32,000 Feet
It was set to be another routine flight on a hot 100 degree August morning when I reached seat 8D. As I overheard bits and pieces of conversation from my seatmate and his friend across the aisle describe their recent golf escapades and funny moments from last few days, I reached below my seat and grabbed a new book on sales I’d purchased and tore into with anticipation and a hunger to gain new insights and ideas.
Call it psychic phenomenon, but as we took off and gained altitude I could have almost predicted exactly what my seat mate was going to do next. Sure enough, I nailed it. Not more than five minutes into the flight as we ascended over the Memphis sky he grabbed his laptop computer, headphones and plugged them in. A few minutes later I glanced over and noticed that he turned on the card game solitaire along with his music. Nothing out of the ordinary I guess. An hour and fifteen minutes later as the Captain prepared us for landing I couldn’t help but notice he was still playing the game on his computer
Are You Learning and Growing Each Day?
As we touched down on the ground I glanced up at the right hand corner of my book page and realized I’d clipped off 79 pages of a wonderful book by Chet Holmes. As I glanced back a few pages I noticed several action items marked up and underlined to review and aid me in improving my game and to share with key clients.
As soon as I closed my book an impulse of ideas hit me and I grabbed a pen and wrote down a few observations on a sheet of paper that was being used as a book marker related to what had just occurred during the flight. When it comes to creating your business, career, income, dream lifestyle are you focusing too much time on playing when you should be planning? Why does it appear that everyone’s stressed out, busy, yet they still find time to read the newspaper, burn time on the Internet or watch hours of TV or new movies each day? Is it a time conspiracy or excuses and distraction getting in the way?
The young man next to me in seat 8C couldn’t have been a day over 30, and seemed very nice. I’m not judging him as a person but I do wonder though, if this was his habit of dealing with time. Instead of planning out the next day, his career, and ways to improve his life, was he finding or creating diversions and distractions to kill time versus investing it in himself and others? I mentally asked myself these questions because I still see so many people walking around in what appears to be a daze. Oblivious to any thought, as if they’re in a coma like state. Going through the motions, uninspired, and looking for something to distract them from the self-imposed monotony their life has sadly become.
Consider Yourself Lucky
As a reader of these blog posts I know a little more about you than most people do. You’re driven to learn, share, and improve your life. How do I know this? It’s a common and easily identifiable trait that I quickly pick up from pros that amateurs haven’t quite learned yet.
Two Questions To Think About Each Day
1. Are you playing like an amateur or a pro?
2. Is most of your free time spent on distraction or are you investing some of it in yourself and your future?
In conclusion, I wonder if the man in seat 8C ever considers these two questions. This is a big challenge facing far too many people who’ll unfortunately reach the twilight of their life and careers and wonder, where did my life go? If only they had known about and asked these two questions earlier than later.
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