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Jul 15 2017

Time Get Real

Okay, we’re halfway through 2017. It’s time to get real because there are goals that you set for yourself at the start of the year and now’s a good time to check on the progress you’ve made. I know that there were probably some rough patches and things you wish you had done better. The question is, what are you going to do differently in the second half to get the results you want?

It’s time to be as honest with yourself as possible. What habits are working for you and which ones are working against you? Most of us don’t have to think too hard to figure out the answers. Knowing what we need to change is one thing. Doing something about it is a completely different matter.

We face a similar challenge when it comes to the way we do things in our business. We need to take time out to analyze what’s working and what isn’t working. If you’re spending a lot of time on things in your business and not getting the results you want, then it is time to rethink the strategy. Either you need to hire out for the things that aren’t in your wheelhouse, or you need to take a course to gain the skills and knowledge to do those things in an effective and efficient way!

I know that tracking our progress is something that many of us avoid. We’d rather not face the reality that we’re not on track to reach our goals. If you’re fearful to take a look at your progress, you already have an idea that you’re not where you want to be. The opposite could be true as well though; you could be closer to realizing your goals than you think. You’ll never know for sure until you take the time to see where you really are.

Even if you realize that you’re not as close as you wanted to be to achieving your goals, the good news is that there’s still time! You have 5 months and a couple of weeks to make significant things happen. All you need is clarity on the vision, focus on the things you need to do to get you there and a willingness to take daily action to get you there.

What you have or haven’t accomplished in the last six months doesn’t have to determine your success in the second half of 2017. You can do anything you put your mind to! What are you choosing to focus on accomplishing in the next 5 months? I look forward to celebrating your successes in December, as we head into a new year get ready to see what else is possible!

 

 

Sandra Dawes is a certified life coach specializing in helping women who feel unfulfilled with their 9-5 follow their dreams and pursue their passions. She holds an Honours BA, an MBA as well as a certificate in Dispute Resolution. She has completed her first book,Embrace Your Destiny: 12 Steps to Living the Life You Deserve!

Connect:

www.embraceyourdestiny.ca

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestiny

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestinythebook

www.twitter.com/sandradawes

 

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Sandra Dawes · Tagged: challenge, clock is ticking, Embrace Your Destiny, GET REAL, Sandra Dawes

Nov 12 2016

5 Step Holiday Business Challenge

Are you ready to boost your Holiday Sales?
 
Join us on our challenge as we guide you through a simple 5 step process to boosting your sales this holiday season. These simple steps we will enable you to leverage your network and grow your income during the holiday season.
 
Over the 5 days, we will guide you through a process that will grow your brand, connect you with your customers, increase your profits and grow your customer base.
 
Now, before you join us, there are a few things you will need to prepare:
 
1. Get organized and get clear and what would you like to promote.
2. If you are promoting a product or product line ensure that you have enough of the product in stock. Ensure that you have enough packaging components and staff to assist during the season.
3. Accountability: find a accountability buddy for this process.
 
 
You must register to join: HERE
See you at the start line on Nov 20th.
Sign Up Now

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Written by Dwania Peele · Tagged: business, challenge, christmas, Featured, holiday, promotion, small business

Oct 07 2015

Creating Creativity on Demand

Sheralyn

It’s hard to be creative on demand and planning creative time is almost an oxymoron. How do you plan WHEN to be creative?  Sure a deadline can be a great motivator but getting creative on a timeframe is often a challenge. Many artistic people will talk about “when inspiration strikes” or about waking bolt upright in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea. But how do you manage being creative when you’ve only a limited amount of time in your schedule? How do you create creativity?

Your medium (whether it be art, music, the written word, website design or creating great advertising copy) and the team that surrounds you (or lack of team if you’re a solopreneur) will influence how you go about flipping the creative switch to “ON.”  Today, you can troll the Internet for inspiration and certainly you can look inwardly for significant events that might be turned into working material. Blogging for a consortium of dental professionals I was able to turn a recent uninsured $1350.00 dental bill into two separate blogs: one on how to negotiate the financing of treatment costs and the other concerning the various pain management techniques used during dental procedures. So, writing from life experience is one way to get the creative juices flowing, especially if you’re alone in running your business. If you’re part of a team however, you have the luxury of huddling with them behind closed doors – engaging in “free-thinking” or “thought-shower” sessions – talk about generating creative energy!

With either method, creativity, like almost anything else, requires work. You need to put the effort in to get the end product out. You need to invest time, you need to fuel your mind, body and soul appropriately and you need to practice it like you practice any other skill. That might mean that while your “brainwave” struck at 3am, you need to work at the process of refining your great idea during regular business hours.  When working, you also need to ensure you are properly rested, adequately hydrated and running on a “full tank.” Sound familiar? Whether you are an athlete or in advertising, you’re still a human being and we work best when we take the best possible care of ourselves. It may sound simple but it’s also true. It’s hard to be creative when the tank is running on empty!

How often have you heard “Practice, practice, practice?” One of the best methods for encouraging “spontaneous” creativity and improving your creative potential is to do EVEN MORE WRITING.  Take note of every idea you have and jot them down. You can always review each one later to flesh them out and see if they’ve got “legs.” Not every idea will have merit and some should die a natural death. However, that idea you typed into “Notes” on your iphone when you saw a trucker pull his air horn for a bunch of school kids? You might well turn it into a humorous “Back to School” article about the iconic things kids like to do while riding the school bus.  Whether you use pen and paper or an electronic format, keep some form of ongoing diary or recording of your many ideas and one day, when your stuck for inspiration, a search through one of your “old” notes might prove fruitful.

The idea of being creative can be particularly hard on the entrepreneur who wears multiple hats while supporting their business.  If you’re multi-tasking, coming up with good ad copy, blog material or website content might seem daunting. My simple suggestion here is to “write what you know.” Throw everything you know about your product or service at the screen and once all the words are there you can start the process of weeding out what you don’t need and playing around creatively with what you choose to keep. It’s a bit like planting a garden: you sketch the plan, dig out the border, plant, tend and water and then – you occasionally have to pull out some weeds. It’s work and it might take some time to see the results of your creativity. So you can create creativity, it just takes a little planning, a lot of tending and some careful culling.

As Owner and Principal partner of “Writing Right For You” Sheralyn is a Communications Strategist – working together with entrepreneurs to maximize profit through effective use of the written word. Looking for web content that works, blog articles that engage or communications strategies that help you get noticed?  Contact Sheralyn today. Sheralyn is also the mother of two children now entering the “terrible and terrific teens” and spends her free time volunteering for several non-profit organizations.

Sheralyn Roman B.A., B.Ed.

Writing Right For You

Communications Strategies that help you GET TO THE POINT!

416-420-9415 Cell/Business

writingrightforyou@gmail.com

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Sheralyn Roman · Tagged: artistic, blogging, business, Business Woman, Canadian Small Business Women, challenge, creating, creative juices, creativity, motivator, multi tasking, planning creative, practice, Sheralyn Roman, solopreneur, spontaneous, take notes, Writing Right For You

Jun 15 2015

Where’s your focus?

sandra

One of my most favourite quotes is by Dr. Wayne Dyer: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. It didn’t always make sense to me, but once I did, I totally got it! When you focus on what’s working, and on your goals, you find opportunities where they once didn’t exist.

As entrepreneurs, it can be challenging to focus on what’s working when there are times when it can feel like very little is. It’s in these times that we have to look at our glass as half full. If we focus on the failures and mistakes, we can be left unmotivated and defeated.

In expressing gratitude for the business we do have, we open ourselves to opportunities to gain more. Staying committed to the end result keeps us motivated to look for ways to make the goal a reality. Focusing on achieving the goal rather than how difficult the journey has been, empowers you to plow through the obstacles.

I know that staying positive gets a lot of slack as being a bit Pollyanna. I think that choosing to be positive is the only choice that makes sense. This isn’t to say that you should celebrate the difficulties you encounter. It just means that instead of letting the disappointment swallow you whole, find the lesson in the experience and move on. Choose to be happy anyway!

I can tell you from experience that persistence pays off. The only way you’re going to persist in the achievement of your goals is if you stay focused on the goal, and not on the past or current negative experiences. Opportunities exist all around us to bring us closer to successfully attaining our goals. When we focus on the wrong things it blinds us to the very things that can bring us out of the fog.

Haven’t you ever experienced moments where it seemed that your life was flowing in complete synchronicity? These things don’t happen when we’re bogged down in negativity. They appear when we’re in a positive mindset, excited about our goal and open to any and all options to bring us closer to its achievement.

In The 5 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey suggests that we begin with the end in mind. Keeping the end in mind is what’s going to give us that staying power regardless of what’s going on around us. Keep your eye on the prize, and it will be yours before you know it!

Sandra Dawes is a certified life coach specializing in helping women who feel unfulfilled with their 9-5 follow their dreams and pursue their passions. She holds an Honours BA, an MBA as well as a certificate in Dispute Resolution.She has completed her first book,Embrace Your Destiny: 12 Steps to Living the Life You Deserve!

Connect:

www.embraceyourdestiny.ca

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestiny

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestinythebook

www.twitter.com/sandradawes

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Sandra Dawes · Tagged: business, business plan, Canadian Small Business Women, challenge, change, defeated, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Embrace Your Destiny, entrepreneur, focus, gratitude, motivated, Pollyanna, positive, Sandra Dawes, small business, small business owner, Stephen Covey, The 5 Habits of Highly Effective People, unmotivated

Apr 15 2014

Establishing your dream team

sandra

Entrepreneurship can be lonely. Especially if you’re a solopreneur like me! You can be left feeling very isolated from the rest of the world, and if you work from home, it can make things that much more challenging. That’s why attending networking events is great. It’s an opportunity to get out of the house and connect with people in the flesh rather than doing it through social media from the comfort of your own home.

Sometimes, however, networking isn’t enough. When you’re at a networking event, there isn’t usually enough time to talk to someone about the challenges you may be facing and seek guidance on how to overcome them. Let’s face it; most of us are wearing a mask of some sort when we’re at networking events. I don’t think I’ve never heard anyone at an event talking much about what isn’t working in their business. Everyone’s “really busy” and business always seems to be “great!”

So if networking events aren’t the place to talk about the challenges and obstacles you’re facing, where can you go? I’m lucky to have entrepreneurs in my circle of friends that I can talk to, but that’s not always enough. Mastermind groups are a great way to establish a formal team where each member supports one another in the pursuit of their business or professional goals (or both), a sounding board for ideas and a knowledge bank when difficulties arise.

If you’ve read the book Think and Grow Rich you know that a mastermind is what happens when 2 or more people come together for a common purpose. A mastermind group is like your personal board of directors. It’s about bringing the skills and knowledge that you don’t have to the table so that each member has something to contribute and can benefit from the knowledge at the table as well.

Creating a successful mastermind group can be a challenge. Everyone has hectic schedules these days and finding people who are willing and able to commit to meeting on a regular basis isn’t always easy. The mastermind group also has to be a conflict free forum. There can’t be competitors in the same group and everyone should be asked to complete a non-disclosure form. You want the members of the group to feel safe to share whatever they want and need to in order to help them and the rest of the team achieve their goals.

Putting together your dream team won’t necessarily be an easy task; however, once you have that team together, you’ll be amazed at the magic that takes place. The reality is that we can’t do it all on our own. As cliché as it may sound, the reality is that we don’t know what we don’t know. Putting together a team of colleagues with expertise that you each can benefit from accessing allows you to get varying perspectives. The team will ask questions you never considered, offer opportunities you didn’t even know existed, or have access to people you need to connect with.

“No two minds ever come together without a third invisible force, which may be likened to a “third mind”. When a group of individual minds are coordinated and function in harmony, the increased energy created through that alliance becomes available to every individual in the group.” ~ Napoleon Hill

If you’re interested in becoming part of a mastermind group, contact me for more information!

Sandra Dawes is a certified life coach specializing in helping women who feel unfulfilled with their 9-5 follow their dreams and pursue their passions. She holds an Honours BA, an MBA as well as a certificate in Dispute Resolution.She has completed her first book,Embrace Your Destiny: 12 Steps to Living the Life You Deserve!

Connect: 
www.embraceyourdestiny.ca
www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestiny

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestinythebook
www.twitter.com/sandradawes

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Sandra Dawes · Tagged: board of directors, business, business development, Business Woman, Canadian Small Business Women, challenge, coaching, common purpose, Dream, Embrace Your Destiny, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, mastermind, mastermind group, networking, networking event, networking events, Sandra Dawes, small business development, small business owners, social media, solopreneur, Think and Grow Rich

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