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Posts Tagged ‘Business Development’

Change

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Today we hear from Master business coach, Ray Hutchin of Action Coach www.actioncoaching.com.  Ray is a regular guest blogger for us here and we are really looking forward to his words of wisdom at the forthcoming WPE ‘10.

Over to Ray:

I have just finished presenting a two day workshop for business owners, packed with great practical ideas to grow their businesses and a big learning for me from the attendees was, as usual, they will struggle to find the time to plan and put the new ideas into action (their words not mine).

Which is a huge shame as we all need to change, otherwise, as you know, if we keep on doing the same things we keep on getting the same results (if we are lucky, because now quiet often you don’t even get the same results, they tend to be worse).

I believe planning also has a big part to play in changing, I have spoken about planning before; check out the July Archive which covers the 9 Steps to Success. I will also be running through this at the Annual UKAWP Wedding Planning Excellence seminar http://www.wpe.ukawp.com/, with lots of practical advice and a fun exercise to lock in your learning’s, so don’t miss this event.

I also know that Bernadette has covered the importance of time and using a default diary (March 2009 Archive), which if you haven’t read or implemented I suggest you go back and read.

For me the biggest thing we need to do to change is to have a compelling reason to change, otherwise things conspire against us. Like staying in your comfort zone, not being able to break old habits, not being able to create new habits, not have the motivation to change, finding change too hard and not persevering, etc.

So we need to take time out every once in a while to understand what we want to achieve, what we need to change and what desire (compelling reason) we have to do it. The compelling reason will always be tied back to an emotional reason, so understand this and you will achieve far more.

And one last question regarding change, “have you kept your New Year Resolutions or didn’t you set any, because you knew what would happen?”

We can all change, we just need to understand ourselves better and have a compelling reason to change. So for me three of the key ingredients to change are Planning, Time and a Compelling Reason. Try it and see what happens!

WPE 10

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Please remember the dates for WPE 10 (Wedding Planning Excellence), our annual seminar for established trading wedding planners. Please put the dates of Friday 26 and Saturday 27 February 2010 into your diaries if you haven’t already done so. We will be based at the beautiful Fawsley Hall in Northamptonshire. This event promises to be even bigger and better than last year’s (and a little longer being over the two full days this time).

 

Speakers continue to be recruited and the programme put together, based to a great degree on feedback from this year’s seminar. Bookings will be taken soon and we are offering early bird discounts for booking before the end of September, so watch this space for further information and booking details.

 

We are very excited about WPE 10 and look forward to another intense, informative and action-packed two day event.

Venue for WPE 10

Venue for WPE 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 Steps to Success

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Today we hear from one of our regular guest bloggers, Action Coach Business Coach, Ray Hutchin. Ray wants to share with us a  simple 9 step process to achieving success - sounds good!

To achieve success in life I believe a simple 9 step process will help us all and here it is:-
 
Dream It
Goal It
Plan It
Task It
Action It
Measure It
Review It
Achieve It
Celebrate It

The first seven steps are all vital in achieving what we want to achieve, I don’t believe any one of them can be missed out (in fact we all go through this process subconsciously, but I believe we achieve far quicker and better results if we do it consciously).
 
So let us look at each one very quickly (as we could write a whole book on each one):-

Dream It – this is our roadmap, if we want to get anywhere we need to know where we are going and the same is true in life and business. The only thing that can hold us back is our imagination and fear.
 
Goal It- we need to turn our dream into a smart goal or goals, which gives us some focus and a timeframe.
 
Plan It – we need to break the dream down into smaller steps (sometimes called milestones) otherwise a goal can seem so daunting that we never get started on it. In fact most business owners actually spend more time planning their annual holiday than they do on planning where they want their business to go.
 
Task It - This is a very important part of the process and a part that most people never do, this is where the plan is broken down into tasks, when this is done all you have to do is then carry out the tasks to achieve your goal. Easier said than done though in most cases.

Action It- this is where a default diary comes into its own, allocate time to do the tasks and ensure they get done and you are a step closer to success.
 
Action It – This is about sticking to the plan and carrying out the tasks as scheduled and not letting anything distract you – because if no actions are taken then nothing will happen.

Measure It – You must measure the results you get from the tasks, I have seen far too many business owners make assumptions about the results they have got, only to find out when they have been measured that they have been way out.

Review It – One of the hardest steps to do, taking time out to reflect and think about the progress and what has worked and what hasn’t, so that changes can be made and if necessary go back to a high step in the process and make adjustments to the plan.
 
Achieve It – if all the above is followed and you persevere and the goals were SMART you should achieve your Dream over time
 
Celebrate It – once achieved celebrate – enjoy the feeling of achievement, so amongst other things, it helps to motivate you to achieve your next dream.