Are you a Pro? Part 1

In October's GrowthCLUB 90 Day Planning Session ActionCOACH Bill Gililand facilitated a great discussion,"What's a professional?" The context of the conversation was focused on how professional athletes get to the top and stay there. Fron there we transitions to what we can do in our businesses to make sure that we reaching our full potential. Here is part 1 of our discussion...

1. Practice- Ever hear "practice makes perfect"? Well it's true. Where would a professional be without practice. Without practice, you are no where close to being where you ought to be with your business. By starting your business you are already practicing and learning from your mistakes. The best way to learn is by doing.


2. 100%- A professional gives 100% in whatever they are doing. If they are working "on", not in, their business and they are completely devoted to it. When you are with your family, stay 100% devoted to it. If you are doing 50% of one and the other, they are both only receiving 50% of what you can give them at the time.


3. Visualize- Without knowing where you want to go or where you want to be, how can you get there? Visualize youreslf in 1 month, 1 year, 5 years, or even 10 years and what you want your life to be like and what you would like to accomplish. By visualizing, you are setting a pathway that will guide you to success.


4. Have a Coach- Even Tiger Woods still has a coach (actually he has several). Without a coach, you only have yourself to tell you what your doing right and wrong in your business. Sometimes you need someone to check up on you and see your work from another point of view, making sure you are doing the correct work to help you grow. Most importantly, we are often to easy on ourselves. A coach will help you push forward once you own self-discipline would have let you call it quits.


5. Equipment- Having the right equipment at your job is essential. Without the best equipment "needed" (you don't have to buy the most expensive with extras you do not need) how are you able to deliver the best service or product?


6. Get Paid- Make sure you pay yourself. What is the purpose of owning your business if you do not make money? If you believe in your product or service, do not be afraid to raise your prices. If you have loyal customers, they will be alright with paying a little more for your services.


7. Look Good- If you appear sloppy, people are going to believe your work is sloppy. To be taken serious, you will have to take yourself serious, as well as your business.

So, how many of these 7 do you need to make improvements. Take action NOW and make the changes you need to make. Next week we will have 7 more!

Make it a great day!!!

Coach Reggie

ActionCOACH Testimonial - Relax! Massage Therapy - Gretchen Rivas

Quite simply, I wouldn’t be where I am today had it not been for the incredible coaching I have received from ActionCOACH Reggie Shropshire. Under his guidance, I have been able to take my business in directions I never dreamed possible.

When I first started working with Reggie, I was content to book 10-15 massages per week. Then, Reggie worked with me on creating a budget, reviewing my expenses, and re-evaluating how much business I really needed to book in order to be successful. I set a goal of 20-25 massages per week, and have been consistently working in that range ever since.

Reggie also introduced me to lots of other incredible business owners with whom I’ve been able to create powerful alliances. Thanks to his introductions I now have strong relationships with a website firm, an advertising and marketing company, a copywriter, a video production company, a professional products company, and an acupuncturist with whom I do a lot of referral business. All of these people have helped to shape my own business and grow it into what it has become today.

From a personal perspective, it’s also been beneficial to share with other business owners--no matter our trade, we’re all in the same boat. I like to think of Reggie as the Captain of that boat encouraging us all to “Row!, Row!, Row!” Reggie is indeed a great Captain: he knows when to let you coast on the winds and when you need a push.

Like many busy professionals, I’m great at finding excuses for not getting certain things done. For example, my website needed work, but it just wasn’t my priority. Reggie pushed me to update and upgrade my website, and I’m so glad he did. Getting that project done freed me to pursue an entirely new venture with my business: I’ve recently filmed an educational DVD called How to Massage Your Pregnant Partner and guess what—I’m now building a second website to promote my new project, something I can easily do since my company’s main site is up-to-date. (By the way, my primary site, www.relaxwilmington.com, is at the top of the search engines for keywords ‘massage therapy’ in the Wilmington area, another milestone I’ve reached, thanks to ActionCOACH goals.)

When we entered this recent economic recession, Reggie wouldn’t let me use that as an excuse to let up on my business. While others in my industry closed their doors, he pointed out the potential opportunities for me. Not only has my business remained strong, I’ve now launched an entirely new revenue stream for the company! I birthed (excuse the pun!) my pregnancy massage DVD in just nine months, thanks to a plan of action and target date that I created with Reggie’s help. I’m so grateful for the abundance I’ve experienced thus far and so excited about the future of my business. Thanks, “Captain” Reggie for helping me navigate toward a life of smooth sailing.

--Gretchen Rivas, Relax! Massage Therapy

Couple of Noteworthy Events Next Week

There are a couple of great events next week that I wanted to make sure you were aware of.

#1 - Wednesday Morning Dec. 2nd - SunTrust Business Over Breakfast - 7:45 - 10:00 a.m. - Hilton Riverside Downtown - FREE - If you didn't attend last year this was a very well done event. The networking was good, the speaker was solid and the content was great! I would highly recommend attending if you can. The speakers topic is "How Fit Is Your Business." You need to preregister if you are going to attend. The website to register is http://www.breakfastleadership.com/.

#2 - Thursday Morning Dec. 3rd - Greater Wilmington Business Journal Power Breakfast - "Real Estate:Recovery, Recession, or More of the Same" - 7:30 - 10 am - Hilton Riverside Downtown - $35 - The GWBJ Power Breakfasts are always time well spent. Great content and who's who of the Wilmington Business Community is in attendance. With this events topic, if your target market is related to real estate this is the place to be Thursday morning. For more info and to register go to http://www.wilmingtonbiz.com/events/power_breakfast.html.

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving and hope to see you next week at one or both of the above events.

Make it a great day!!!

Coach Reggie

Our 1st Family Elf Yourself Video of the Christmas Season

It took a lot of practice and several takes but I think we have something that we can use.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

ActionCOACH Testimonial - A Creative Touch - Renee Jones

“Reggie Shropshire and I were members of the same business networking group. Each week, he talked about his seminars, but it took me several months to make room in my calendar to attend one. After all, I had already been running my business for five years; I wasn’t sure that he could teach me anything new…. I finally went to a 90-Day Business Planning Session, and I was sold! It wasn’t that Reggie presented earth-shattering material that I’d never heard, it was that he succeeded in getting me to spend an entire day in a setting where I was completely focused on evaluating my company’s current situation while setting goals and prioritizing action steps for the quarter to come. That planning session was so valuable for me and for the growth of my company, that I now attend this seminar regularly.

My husband, who runs his own small business, also attended the seminar. He encouraged me to start a one-on-one coaching program with Reggie, certain that we’d be a good fit for one another. At my husband’s insistence, I decided to give Reggie’s coaching program a try.

I’m a big believer in the old adage: “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself”, and one of the first things Reggie did was work with me to hire help and delegate low-level administrative work so that I could spend my time earning more business for my company. I thought I only needed part-time help, but turns out I needed a full-time assistant in my business. Reggie worked with me using his unique hiring format to identify my needs and select potential candidates. He also helped me fine-tune my leadership skills for this kind of management. Having been the national President of a 250,000 member non-profit organization, I didn’t think that I needed any leadership coaching, but Reggie gently helped me to see that motivating an employee who thinks of ‘work’ as a 4-letter word is a lot different than organizing a large group of passionate, committed volunteers.

I also appreciated Reggie’s numbers-based approach to prioritizing business demands and motivating myself. I had been dragging my heels on pursuing a government contract, thinking I was too busy with day-to-day business demands to carve out the time for the mountain of paperwork the proposal required. Reggie said: “Just figure out how much that contract will be worth to you on an annual basis and write that number down.” That certainly lit a fire under me—when I looked at it as a revenue-generator instead of a time-killer, I knew that working on that proposal was a must!

Through similar techniques, Reggie taught me how to make more money while spending less time working, and he encouraged me to reward myself for reaching personal sales goals. Once, I set the goal of making enough extra sales to pay off some revolving business debt; another time I promised myself a Herman Miller desk chair if I met a lofty goal. The debt is paid and my chair was worth every penny!

I now tell other business owners: “Invest just one day and a little bit of money to attend the 90-Day Planning Session, and I guarantee you that it will pay for itself over and over again.” I know. I’ve got the Louis Vuitton briefcase to prove it!

In all seriousness, the material rewards I’ve reaped from meeting my own goals mean very little compared to the satisfaction of running a healthy, growing business and leading a balanced life. It’s like those credit card commercials: Herman Miller desk chair: $1,500. Louis Vuitton bag: $1,100. Happy business owner with growing profits: Priceless.”

— R. Renée Jones, A Creative Touch, Incorporated, Promotional Products Division