FM Walsh & Associates Inc.

I just finished a coaching call with a client who is running an extremely successful consulting business. She achieved all her revenue and business goals last year and is set up to have even bigger success this year. All of this makes my very happy. But there is one thing that concerns me and it is something I see with a lot of the women I coach and speak to. The constant focus on getting things done and never taking time to relax and unwind. Yes it is important that you be efficient at getting things done to run a profitable business. But as human beings we also need downtime to relax and recharge. To not do it is rather like trying to run your car without gas - sooner or later you grind to a halt. Unwinding and relaxing is not optional for a busy entrepreneur; running a successful business requires a ton of creativity, energy and passion. If you do not take the time to recharge your batteries, you will end up being a lot less effective.

Learn to increase your business success by:
1. Every week, take the time to review everything you have accomplished and reward yourself for the stuff you got done. Don’t keep all your focus on everything that still needs to be done. This is demoralizing and robs you of the joy of running your own business. The reward can be small - a special coffee at Starbucks, a walk to your favourite spot, a massage - whatever you want.

2. Clear your mind 3 times a day by closing your eyes and taking some deep breaths, holding them for 10 seconds and then releasing fully. This allows you to clear your mind and give your body a chance to relax. Research shows that regular mini-breaks of a few minutes duration during the day increase your productivity greatly.

3. Say no to doing things that are not that important. Only do stuff that fits in with your priorities. Keep asking yourself during the day: “Is this the best use of my time right now?”

Self-care and relaxation are important business goals - make sure you include them in your day.

You know you need to get out there and network to build visibility and make contacts to grow your business. The challenge is that networking takes time and money and all of us have crazy schedules already. There is nothing more frustrating than joining an organization and finding out that the fit is not a good one. And sometimes you want to go to more than one event before you put your money down!

Enter ‘The Observation Deck’ - the brainchild of Madeline Chapman, with the Orange County Chapter of National Women in Construction. She wants to attract more new members to their chapter so they can realize the benefits of membership for building business success, but she also realized how tight time was for many women. So she has created the Observation Deck - any woman can drop into any NAWIC Orange County meeting at any time and stay for as long or as little as they want. A separate table will be set aside for the Observation Deck and you can check out what the organization is all about without any pressure.

This is a great marketing idea and one you want to consider if you are looking to attract new members to your organization. I hope more groups follow her lead.

A well-read blog is a great marketing tool and a fun way to write about stuff that you are interested in. The challenge is getting noticed.

I get asked all the time about how to create an effective blog that other people will want to read. Click here to read a great article “27+1 Tips for Building and Maintaining a Blog Audience” by Jarrod Hunt. Easy to understand, it is written for non-techies like me and has already given me a few ideas to act on.

An acquaintance of mine runs a very successful business; she does all her banking – personal and business – with a local financial institution where she has been a customer for over 10 years. This company is well known for its extensive marketing program that points out that they are local and their primary aim is to support the local community with great products and services. Several months back she approached them about getting a mortgage and then she waited and waited and waited. After 4 months of being asked for more paperwork, talking to different people and being told they “were working on it” she walked across the street to the competition where they gave her the mortgage she wanted in less than an hour. The rest of her banking business followed soon after. Plus she has shared this story with other business professionals, which has prompted several of them to switch banks as well.

The reason I am telling this story is that as a business owner you have to ask yourself: Does your customer service deliver on the experience your marketing promises? If you create a certain expectation of quality, customer service or product, customers will expect you to deliver on it. If you don’t, you will piss off customers. And they will tell others. This particular local financial institution has a terrible reputation when it comes to business banking. They spend a lot of money advertising their business banking program but they don’t deliver.

There is no point in spending a ton of money on marketing unless you make sure you deliver on what you promise. If you don’t meet customer expectations, they will tell others and they will move over to the competition.

In my travels, coaching and speaking, I get the opportunity to meet with many successful women who are doing amazing things in business. So I have decided to add a new section to the blog: Women of Substance which will feature their stories.

And so I would like to introduce you to Lisa Watts who I recently met in California. She is the Operations Manager and Technical Adviser to the Vice President of the Digital Office Division at Intel Corporation. In addition to working at Intel for 14 years, she is also an entrepreneur and artist. She designs a line of artisan jewelry under the label L. Michele Designs and is an active partner is several Sacramento businesses, including Restaurant 55 Degrees and W Gallery & Studios. Plus she has two kids. This is one very busy, passionate lady! And she contributes to an interesting blog Damsels in Succes.

What made you go into IT? Before she went into IT, Lisa went to art school and did interior design. Then she tried accounting school and hated it, so she went into banking because she had a passion for business. She started playing around with software and thought it was interesting. She went to school in computing science and started her career at Intel in PC repair. Since then she has worked in many different areas of the company, gaining expertise. Her success is based on always stretching and taking on bigger and bigger responsibilities. Lisa believes in going after what you want; never worry about failing.

You work in a very male-dominated industry - what are the most common ways that women give away their power?

• They second-guess themselves.
• They don’t go for the high-profile assignments because they lack confidence.
• They focus on action, instead of results.

Words of wisdom for women on balancing family, work and life: Make sure you have a support structure in place - recognize that you don’t have to do everything yourself to be a good mother. Take advantage of technology - work remotely if you can. Chances are you will get more accomplished because of fewer distractions. Focus on what matters most to you; have a plan in place and only do the important stuff. Decide what you want and what’s important and go for it. Let the rest go!

Lets get something straight here first and foremost - I am female: I look like a woman and I sound like a woman but yet I have been called Mr. on two separate occasions recently.

The first was an e-mail following up on a booth I visited at CES - the e-mail actually mentioned how much they had enjoyed meeting me!.

The second was in a voice mail left from someone referred to me by a service provider. The person listened (but did not hear) my message and yet still called me Mr. To spare these people the embarrassment I won’t actually mention their names or company (although they probably deserve it for their blatant ignorance) but these occurrences served to remind me how important it is in business to know your customer.

What do you think the chances of me doing business with either of these companies are? I’d say somewhere less than zero. Not only did they offend me from the start but the first had the gall to blatantly lie in their communication (enjoyed meeting me indeed) - it did nothing for their credibility.

This was originally posted in the Out-Smarts blog.

It takes no time to pay a little attention to your customer, prospect or potential client and offending someone will be counteractive to your cause.

So next time you are planning an email or phone campaign or any marketing or sales activity for that matter, give a little thought to your audience:

1. Don’t dare to assume that the recipient is male when they could be female and vice versa. If you’re not sure if someone is male or female then its often best to avoid such a salutation.

2. If you’re not sure of the spelling of a contact’s name then omit it (you should see the collection of incorrect spellings I’ve collected over the years with a name like Mhairi).

3. If in doubt either don’t take the risk or take a little time to do some detective work to find out.

A little attention to detail can go a long way in helping you open the door to business so take heed and take time to know your audience. It will be worth your while.

I recently read a great article by Robert Allen that talks about a common mistake made by many beginning marketers . Although he specifically writes about internet marketing, his key points apply to any marketing program. There are three key questions you must answer in any marketing campaign:
1. Who is your target audience?
2. What do they want?
3. How can you motivate this target audience to act now?

As this article points out, many business owners spend 90% of their time creating the perfect product and only 10% of their time finding the perfect audience. I see this all the time – painstaking hours put into product development and minimal time put into marketing. This needs to be reversed to maximize your success – spend 90% of your time finding your market. Do research to answer the 3 questions above. People don’t just buy because you have a great idea – you need to market to a niche. Once you identify a hungry market – a market that is interested in what you offer - then use your marketing campaign to motivate them to buy. You have a targeted marketing effort which always gives better results.

You can read the whole article here: