This post you are about to read sets the tone for your business for 2011.  My coach Kadena Tate, posted this on her blog this morning and I just had to share it with you. Make sure you visit the Trackback link, and listen to the audio that accompanies this post.

We need a different perspective on business, brands and marketing, than what we are normally used to seeing.  This article gives me goose bumps and I think she is talking about me, (how cool).

Please enjoy and then take the next 15 minutes browsing her blog.

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Author: Kadena Tate

Trackback Link: This Is NOT the Business I Ordered! http://post.ly/1VvAl

Brand Heaven and Hell Graphic courtesy of David Armano http://darmano.typepad.com/

One aspect of business model innovation is to translate your business plan into the daily processes needed for sustainability.  I have a client who is a marketing strategist that supports business moms who work from home.  Prior to us working together, she was constantly being bombarded with questions about a wide range of topics from meal preparation, parenting skills and home schooling to marketing, copywriting and entrepreneurship. Frankly, she was all over the place, trying to fulfill every client need and she was on the edge of burn-out.

Like myself, she is a recovering perfectionist, therefore to get back on track, she had to stop, breathe and gain clarity.  Together, we worked on her corporate mission and vision, discovered her core strategic excellence position, designed a strategy surrounding her business , marketing and branding activities. We looked at her business through a holistic lens, taking into consideration the fact that she is a wife and mother. We included trips and relaxation time and incorporated play, fun and laughter back into her life. She developed a “Fabulous 50 List” of vendors, suppliers and partners to refer.  Her website is being redesigned to align to the business that she dreams about, not the one that she screams and cries about.  She is a happy woman because her communication is now uncluttered and she can joyfully assist the client in a persistent pursuit of excellence.

Assignment: Please take a moment and answer the following 3 questions:

1.      What is your core competency?

2.      What tools would you like to utilize to ensure that you maintain top of mind awareness with your customer?

3.      What impact would you like to make in the areas of social, economic, environmental and technology?

Author: Kadena Tate

Trackback Link: This Is NOT the Business I Ordered! http://post.ly/1VvAl

Set Boundaries for your family

One of my favorite parts of working from home is that I don’t have an office outside our house to go to. What is one of the most stressful parts of working from home?  Yep, you guessed it.  I don’t have an office outside our house to go to.

While I usually love showing up to work in my pajamas, taking a nap in the afternoon, and being able to fix myself my favorite mid-morning snack, working from home can be very stressful when my family doesn’t realize that I am not available during normal business hours.  When my family wants me to deliver forgotten items, wait for the cable man, or let the kids play Club Penguin on my laptop, I find it, frankly, a little disrespectful.

I’ve found, though, that with proper training, your family will happily (most of the time) adhere to your work rules, if you follow these suggestions:
Make the rules concrete.

Set specific guidelines. These can be simple to understand guidelines like “You may not come in Mommy’s office when the door is closed” which even the youngest children can understand.  You can set a more specific schedule for older children such as “I am not available between 10-2, Monday through Friday.” The more specific your rules, the more readily everyone will abide by them.
Reward them for compliance.

Bribery works! In extreme cases, I will readily agree to play a despised board game, take the gang for ice cream, or let someone else control the TV remote in exchange for an hour of uninterrupted work time. Don’t be afraid to reward your family for a job well done. If you have a specific project that you need to get done, remind your family of the rules, and let them know that you appreciate their understanding by giving them something to look forward to. Help them be a success, too!
Refuse to break the code.

No means no, not maybe. If you give in to whining or pleading, you’re only training your kids (or spouse) to whine and plead. Not a good thing. Before you give in, ask yourself what you’re training your family to believe about your ability to set limits. Then act accordingly. Teaching children to respect the rules, your rules, is a lesson for life.
Hold up your side of the bargain.

If you tell the kids you’ll be off the computer at 5 PM and spend some time playing Duck Duck Goose, then you’d better be goosing it up at 5:01. Pushing out the timeline or going back on your agreement is no good. This only sets the stage for an argument. The next time you insist on a specific rule regarding your office time, you will have much less leverage as you try to defend your position. Your word is your bond – keep it.
Be available when you’re off the clock.

If you want your family to respect your work time and space, then you need to respect family time. No checking the BlackBerry at the dinner table. No taking business calls in the middle of Junior’s school play. No sneaking off to your computer to send a few emails when the rest of the family is gathered around the TV, watching SpongeBob. When you’re “away” from the office, make sure you’re really away. You set the rules – you need to follow them, too.

Share, Tweet, Re-post….ship this one to the nearest biz mom.

Take a look at your inner circle and see who needs a 72 hour eviction notice. Start drafting up your notices this week. We cannot move in action if we allow squatters to take up valuable space.

As women on the move, women in action, women of power of mothers of this earth, we have to be careful who we allow to stay and occupy space in our home, our minds, our business’s, our relationships, our life in general.  We allow people to fill vacancies that need to be left alone. We are growing and need to have room for abundance and prosperity.

I barely watch TV but, I turned it on and wanted to see what the big hype was about with this new show called Hoarders.  Well to my surprise that was one of the worst and gross shows I have ever seen.  These people have allowed the past and the present situations and circumstances cloud their minds and their homes.  They allowed so much stuff to pile up externally that the real work was needed internally, to really be healed.  Many of those hoarders were covering up space with things, and the people around them have just adjusted to the lifestyle and did not attempt to make any changes.  In my opinion they are worse off than the hoarder themselves because they were taking up space as well.

Let’s begin to flush out and clean up the mess we have inside and out.  I always direct the question back to myself.  Where can I begin to clean up in my life? What do I need to do to get my business in order? What do I have clouding my path to success? Is it my inner circle that is taking up space like a squatter or my outer circle which are people who I feed into more than I feed into myself?  How much longer am I going to allow people, things and past situations take up space in my life?

If you have BIG dreams and aspirations and you know you have a destiny to fulfill you must begin within.  I repeat you must begin within.  Who do you need to give a 72 hour notice to? Could it be you? Getting out of your own way your friends, your family, your spouse, your job? Think about it and begin to hand out notices that in 72 Hours you will no longer have room for squatters.

Make sure you sign up for my newsletter so that you can get the first dibs on CMD is on a mission called Operation: M.I.A. Moms in Action.  You can support us by telling 10 women/moms to connect with us here.

Too many mompreneurs hold a pistol to their heads and give the revolver a good spin when trying to get their businesses started and keep them going. They have what I call shiny object syndrome. Any little thing can pull them away from business job one, starting their entrepreneurial life and making sure it brings in the income and keeps the customer satisfied. Getting distracted will surely harm the business.

Trying to balance family, the most important people in your life, and a business isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes drive and desire and focus and plans. If you feel in your deepest soul and in your head that you must have your own business, then go for it. But don’t go off in every direction at once. Make a business plan and make sure you build in the right amount of work time but also children time and significant partner time. Remember you left the rat race because you didn’t have enough time for the people who make your life worthwhile.

Don’t get sidetracked from your goal. If the home phone rings during business time, don’t pick up even if it’s your best friend. It’s business time now, and you can call her during non-business hours. That’s what answering machines (and even all the gizmos on cellphones) are for. Just because you work at home doesn’t mean you’re available to everyone, and that includes the older kids. Of course, if your son just fell out of a tree (which they seem to do with regularity, well, yeah, you have to take him to the hospital). Otherwise, you’re at work; don’t lose your focus and stay directed.

Keep your eyes on the prize.