Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Don’t Let the “Shoulds” Get You Down

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shoulds

Note from Cathy: This is a good time of the year to make assessments of your business and your life. Too often, though, those assessments focus only on what is wrong or what is missing and we miss the big picture. I love the approach taken in this article by Robert Middleton. It is published here (with his permission) so you can learn from it, too.

This Saturday I called my youngest sister to wish her happy birthday.

We spent some time catching up before the conversation drifted to the topic of her art business and how she felt bad that she procrastinated a lot, didn’t have goals and overall wasn’t a success.

So, of course, being a coach, I started asking her questions.

“Is it really true you’re not a success?” I asked her. “Yes, you don’t make as much money as you’d like, but does that mean you’re not a success?”
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The Theme for a New Year

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create-2017

It is time to start thinking about where you will take your business over the next year. For several years, I have chosen a theme word to keep me focused on what I am trying to achieve. For example, one year the word was “Product,” when I was focused on creating lots of new products. That single word keeps me on the right track, and working toward my goals.

Your theme should be one or two words that relate to your most important goals for the year. Examples of themes might be Organization, Focus, Influence, Visibility, Service, Revenue, Involvement, Delegate, etc. Here is how you can choose your theme and use it to help you achieve more in the new year. [Read more…]

Setting Outrageous Goals

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If you believe that you do not have the success that you deserve, it might be due to the fact that you’re setting your goals too low. You might be aiming for too many low-hanging fruit when you should be scaling treetops instead. Your business might be held back by your low expectations. Sadly, your team might not be achieving all they could because so little is expected from them. What you expect from your staff and your customers might be so close to what they are already providing that there is a certain level of complacency that sinks in. Instead of getting dramatic results, you are forced to settle for incremental improvements.

By shooting for a small piece of the pie, you unconsciously settle for crumbs. If you want to break out of mediocrity, you need to start setting outrageous goals. A lot of times, to hit the moon, you have to aim for the sun. Here are some tips on setting outrageous goals.
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New Year’s Resolutions and Goals

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resolutions-and-goalsNote from Cathy: I found this post from Dan Janal interesting. It is a mixed bag of goals, action steps, aspirations and changes in attitude. Taken together, these things can certainly make a difference for Dan—or for you. Some of these are really vague (“Promote my services.”) and would be hard to measure, but others are very specific and actionable. If you want to make a list, I would suggest setting goals (such as adding 3000 people to your mailing list) and focusing on specific things you are going to do every day, week or month to make those things happen. Here is Dan’s list to give you some food for thought.

They say that to keep a goal, you have to go public. That creates accountability. Now it is your job to hold my feet to the fire. [Read more…]

Learning Goals vs Performance Goals

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whos-got-your-backWe are all familiar with performance goals:

  • Lose 10 pounds.
  • Earn $100,000 this year.
  • Make 20 sales this month.

Those goals have to do with specific accomplishments, and they can be motivating. They can also be frustrating. When you lose just nine pounds or make 17 sales, you feel like a failure.

On the other hand, learning goals are about taking the steps that will get us to our other goals. [Read more…]