The best part of working with entrepreneurs is their energy and their ideas. Great entrepreneurs are like idea machines – constantly coming up with new ideas for business, new ideas for marketing, new ideas for customers and products.

And sometimes the worst part of working with entrepreneurs is all their ideas. It is what I call the “shiny penny syndrome”. They come up with a strategy for business development, they start work on it and then they get distracted by another idea and head off in a new direction. This is a killer for business. Yes, you do need to come up with new creative ideas to keep your business fresh and growing, but you also need to keep focused on your priorities, otherwise time slips by and you are not where you would like to be.

Having too many ideas can be costly. Successful entrepreneurs have developed the ability to take all these ideas, identify the best ones and then actually make the best ones happen. Many great business ideas have languished on the sidelines because no one gets around to taking action - there’s just too much other stuff to get done.

So if you are overwhelmed with ideas, here’s what you do. Grab a notebook, label it Ideas, and start writing down every brilliant idea you come up with. Carry it around with you so it’s there when inspiration strikes.

Once a month, review all your ideas and decide which ones are action-worthy. Which ones will contribute significantly to the growth of your business? Be very picky – only choose the ones that are going to have a big impact.

Then, for each of those ideas, outline all the action steps that have to happen to make this idea come to life. Be thorough. Write down everything that needs to be done – research, design, resources you need, meetings, promotions, etc. Now assign a deadline for each action step and decide who is responsible for getting it done.

Using this simple system keeps you focused on where you really want to use your resources and stops your great ideas from being derailed.

“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.” ~ Kimberly Johnson

I love this quote. Too often I hear women saying sorry and then tacking on a long explanation as to what happened. We all make mistakes, we all drop the ball at times. Saying sorry is sufficient. There is no need to apologize mulitple times or provide an excuse or explanation.

Making mistakes is part of life - it is the way we learn. If you doubt that, watch a child learning to print. When did we as women become so obsessed with being perfect and not allowing ourselves to make mistakes? If you find yourself saying sorry several times in a sentence - stop. If you feel the need to attach an excuse to every apology - stop. You are giving away your power. A simple apology - “I’m sorry, that should not have happened. It won’t happen again.” - is powerful enough.

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.

My column in this month’s edition of Make it Business talks about how branding can drive sales for any company and it doesn’t involve spending tons of money. I talk to a branding expert who defines 3 key things to consider when building a brand:

1. Define who you are.
2. Stand out.
3. Be clear on who wants what you have.

Read the whole article.

A lot of business owners put their focus on growing sales which is a good thing, but it is not the part of the equation for success. The other equally important part is managing your cash flow. 82% of business failures are actually due to poor cash flow management. I admit cash flow is not very sexy and doing a monthly cash flow statement seems optional, especially in the beginning when your sales are low. But businesses can be generating revenues and still go broke due to poor cash flow management. Tim Berry, President of Palo Alto Software, and a writer for Entrepreneur.com has written a great article - 10 Critical Cash Flow Rules - a good review for every business owner.

In Peruvian culture, life is much simpler. Much of life revolves around the planting and growing cycle for corn – their main food staple. They have a saying: “If it doesn’t grow corn, don’t do it.”
I got to thinking about how that principle also applies to business. To be as successful as possible, you have to always be aware of where you focus your time, your energy and your money. We all have limited amounts of each and those who are most successful in business are masters of focus.

Look at everything you do on a daily basis. If it does not make your business more fertile (i.e. more profitable), if a prospect or a marketing tool does not provide a yield (a return on your investment), if you find yourself doing things that do not nurture you as an entrepreneur, stop doing it.

Running a successful business is like growing a good crop of corn – only focus on those activities that will help you achieve your goal. As for the rest, hire someone else to do it, or (gasp!) just don’t do them at all! Get focused on what you want and then only do things that are going to support those accomplishments.

Came across this great article today about perfectionism. I see a lot of women in business who hamstring their success by their insistence on making things perfect before moving on. Perfectionism is demoralizing and wastes a lot of time and energy. If that is a path you find yourself walking down, check out this short article then make a commitment to toss perfectionism out the window - focus on getting things done and reward yourself for your victories.

If you don’t set a baseline standard for what you’ll accept in life, you’ll find it’s easy to slip into behaviours and attitudes or a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve.”

~ Anthony Robbins, (author and performance expert)

This quote caught my eye because I saw a client today who was struggling with growing her business and she acknowledged that she does not manage her time efficiently. She allowed herself to get so busy doing stuff in her business that she did not raise her head above the desk to see what else needed to be done to accomplish her goals. Now at the end of the year, she is beating up on herself for not accomplishing what she wanted to. My suggestion to her for success in 2008 was rather than read another book on time management or effective goal-setting, she instead focus on building self-discipline. Set specific times for handling email and only look at it during those times. Return all phone messages within 24 hours, mark off time in her calendar for business development activities, and commit to attend a set number of networking events every month. And then stick to these standards, no matter what. No excuses, no procrastination – just understand that this is what you expect yourself to do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Make it a habit, like brushing your teeth. Setting a strong baseline standard for yourself is a good way to reduce your stress because you focus on what is most important to you to achieve what you want. Get rid of the time wasters and go for what you want.