Pajamapreneur Blog

Oct 14, 2008, ignore the economic gloom and doom

Economy-shlonomy. I don't listen to any of it. I do not have money tied up in the stock market and there is nothing I can do with more gloom and doom information.

There are no new strategies I need -- as a small business owner -- in "turbulent times." There is no information that can scare me into doing or not doing anything.

I subscribe to T. Harv Eker's concept of "create your own thriving economy."

Harv says: "More than ever before, having the right mindset and tools is key to financial success. While the markets continue to be volatile and the global economy is affected by the economic crisis in the United States, many people are rubbing their hands together with anticipation and excitement at the opportunities available to them."

To learn how to be even more extraordinary in the down times, I recommend the Millionaire Mind in Turbulent Times, an exclusive offering this fall season.

The words of T. Harv Eker have transformed the way I view and speak about money, about myself and my business. It is powerful, effective stuff. Go check it out!

Oct 14, 2008, made it to basecamp!

LOVING THIS! Can't believe it took me so long. I've been hearing about it, thinking about it, wondering if it was for me -- so finally I took the plunge.

Der, you can sign up for a free account, one project, unlimited participants, and just see how it all works. I am re-motivated, inspired and feeling incredibly organized.

Oct 14, 2008, Smart home business: Delegate, hire or outsource.

You may be saying, Why should I pay someone if I can do it myself? But when it comes to growing your smart home business, learn to let go and let others do the work.

Oct 14, 2008, Women starting a small business: Map your time and make your life work.

For women starting a small business, we often get caught up in the minutiae so the real "meat" of our business (making money) gets pushed to the next time slot. Here's what's working for me.

Oct 14, 2008, Steps to home business success

What does a successful home business look like? How do you define success for your home business? Ideas and insights here.

Oct 14, 2008, Work at home business success: Top 5 ways to build a great team.

For work at home business success, learn the secrets to building a solid, satisfied, top-earning team.

Oct 13, 2008, clean up time

It's a little bit feng shui, a little bit Law of Attraction and "internal" housekeeping -- I'm cleaning up my life. To make room for the amazing life that I want.

What I mean is, there's all this background noise. Some of it is in my closets (I just got rid of several years' worth of fat girl clothes now that I've lost 20 lbs and I refuse to ever gain it back!).

Some of it is in my friendships. Like something I've been harboring for about 20 years. I wrote to an old friend and told her the truth about some things. I don't know how it's going to go from here but I know I've cleaned up my side of the street.

Some of it is scheduling in all the things I say are important to me. I say they're important and then I don't do them. So now I've got a all these things in my calendar. Weekly calls with each member of my team. Weekly calls with my own mentor. Daily family time scheduled in. ME TIME. (Always the last to get put in, and the shortest amount of time as well, but at least now I've actually "insisted" upon it by scheduling it in.)

I'm looking around my life, going, What else can I CLEAN UP??! Because I'm ready for a shift and I know I can cause it by taking this kind of action.

So I recommend you take a look around -- at your environment, at your relationships, at your life -- and see where you could do some "housecleaning". Make way for something completely new.

And get READY. Because here it comes!

Oct 7, 2008, How To Make Money Online: Free tele-seminar sign-up.

Sign-up page for How To Make Money Online Free Tele-seminar.

Oct 7, 2008, Starting a small home business: Tips and advice

Want some personal guidance, good humor and encouragement for starting your small home business? Start here.

Oct 7, 2008, Starting a new small business: Establish your why.

So you're starting a new small business? Before you do anything else, get out a piece of paper and write the answer to this question: WHY? The answer is what will keep you going in tough times.

Oct 4, 2008, solution for the schedule snafu

Well today I succeeded in missing FOUR phone meetings. FOUR OF THEM! Unbelievable. I was working so diligently and intently I never looked at the clock.

And long ago I turned the "ding" off on my Outlook because it was way too annoying and it was going off way too much.

Solution? Reschedule, of course. But also looking at how my week/day is structured -- and what the benefit is of having certain time frames on certain days, dedicated to phone meetings.

I've structured the rest of my week to have my appointments (mostly) on Thursdays. I'm now looking at Monday and Friday mornings for team management calls.

Perhaps the breakdowns are needed to produce the breakthroughs. I'm oddly inspired by what happened today.

Sep 26, 2008, those days when nothing gets done

That's what yesterday was like. So today, while I'm feeling behind and unproductive, I could either make myself all kinds of wrong about what hasn't been getting done and what I SHOULD be doing, or...

I can just look at what I can do today. Not think about what didn't get done yesterday. Not be overly concerned about how much or little or quickly or slowly I'm reaching my goals.

They are there. My goals are written down. I'm clear about what I want.

But it's counter-productive to dwell on what/why I haven't reached them yet. The reality is, I have two small children I have to attend to, constantly, daily. And it's pretty well miraculous the amount of work that DOES get accomplished, and the goals I have achieved thus far.

So I grant you permission to give yourself some slack. Let's see if I can heed my own advice today.

Sep 24, 2008, ain't no stopping us now

In the last few weeks I've had a couple of partnerships not work out the way I had hoped. Disappointing at first, but totally okay. In the past I would have felt a pang of panic, which would have led to inertia and moping and hiding out.

Now it's just the cost of doing business. Sometimes there's opportunity and partnership, sometimes there's not.

At the very same time as these two partners pulled away, TWO NEW ONES stepped into place. Pretty amazing, but maybe not so. It seems the Universe is simply doing what it does. All I have to do is step aside -- and keep generating.

Sep 24, 2008, Easy to start home business: Ideas and inspiration

Personal advice, tips, helpful hints and resources for anyone interested in starting a home business. Short, snappy articles here.

Sep 24, 2008, Help starting a small business: Is your vision big enough?

Whether you need help starting a small business or you're taking your existing business to the next level, step away and ask yourself, "What is the biggest vision I can imagine for my business?"

Sep 24, 2008, Free home business advice: Personal tips for home-preneurs

There are plenty of sites with business forms and formalities. This one's a bit more friendly and personal - an online friend to support your new endeavor!

Sep 24, 2008, Advice for home business: 5 easy ways to promote your business.

Here's some advice for home business that is so easy to implement, you may as well apply it right now:

Sep 20, 2008, the be do have thing

Got a great lesson in "being" these past few weeks. Since we're so used to the backwards yearning of "If I only HAD XYZ, I could DO ABC, and then I'd BE the happiest human being on earth."

I usually DO a lot to make things happen. Major action, major flurries of activity which, admittedly, don't always produce great results.

So what if building my business could just be EASY? What if I didn't insist on the struggle?

I gave up some struggle this week -- in my personal life and my business. And you know what? Two amazing things came out of it. Someone said Yes to me after a year of saying No.

And in being generous with someone else, a business prospect, it looked like - in the short-term -- I would lose business. But almost simultaneously, increased business came from another, unexpected source.

I am very clear that it was who I was BEING that gave me these results. Not the DOING that I'm usually so zealous about.

Sep 6, 2008, who you are not who you know

Okay, sure, who you know always helps but I assert that it's who you ARE that gets you to who you know.

And it is who you are that determines the success of your business and whom you attract to your services, products or opportunity.

If you want to bring in more business, you have to be able to market YOU as well as anything else you have to offer.

When I look at the customers I have and the business partners I work with, I see RELATIONSHIPS with every single one of them. I tend to them like a gardener lovingly oversees her garden.

Even if your business is purely online, you have to build and tend relationships with people who have bought from you. You have to make them know you appreciate their purchases and you haven't forgotten about them. You'd like to keep them coming back for more...More of who you are!

Aug 29, 2008, Home business hints: Read wealth authors.

For me the wealth journey began with a complete change of consciousness. These are the authors and books that helped transform my views.

Aug 29, 2008, Home business hints: Adopt a wealth mentality.

These home business hints are for success-driven entrepreneurs who believe more wealth equals more freedom and greater contribution to the world.

Aug 29, 2008, Home business hints: Sell your strengths.

Think beyond the usual resume skills and tap into certain powers you possess that make you unique. Now see ways to profit from your "you"-ness.

Aug 29, 2008, doing the dirty work

I don't usually have a problem with most people. I tolerate personalities, I get along with most everyone, and I give most people the benefit of the doubt -- as in, we're all human and we do and say things we don't mean to do so let's forgive ourselves and each other.

So recently I realized I'd been holding onto something about someone I know from a networking organization. There had been an exchange, an interaction, which she and I had both been a part of, many months ago.

She rubbed the wrong way in a conversation and I felt very uncomfortable because it had an impact on other people who were also there.

Instead of speaking to her about it, however, I allowed it to settle in between us. Many months passed. I realized I was still holding onto this thing AND starting to talk about it to other people. That's called GOSSIP.

And part of my training is in communicating powerfully and in a way that moves conversations forward. So there's no room for gossip in a world where I make things happen and produce results that I want.

I knew I had to have the conversation with her, uncomfortable and awkward thought it felt after all these months.

So I called her up yesterday. I took responsibility for the fact that it was completely unfair to her to be harboring all this stuff against her -- when I hadn't even brought it up to her in the first place.

It had been so long in fact that I couldn't even remember the details of the exchange.

Rather than blaming her for how she had been -- which I could easily have done -- I just owned up to everything. It was all about me.

In so doing it gave her plenty of room to step forward and apologize for the way she had come off. It was a completely non-confrontational, powerful communication that happened between us. And it gave me confidence in my ability to create whatever relationships I want to have with people.

Whether you're sitting at home reading this in your pajamas, or you're going out into the world to interact with other human beings, you will have an impact on other people -- personally or professionally.

It's all related. It's all the same.

This example perfectly illustrates who I have to BE in order to achieve success in my life. I have to bring power and integrity and completion to my relationships...whether I want to or not.

Aug 22, 2008, Subscribe to Pajamapreneur Press: An ezine for unstoppable entrepreneurs

A monthly ezine with tips, technologies, tools and tactics for unstoppable entrepreneurs

Aug 22, 2008, when people say no

Alright, I know it's downright painful sometimes. We expect everyone to love what we have to offer as much as we do. But you know what? It just doesn't work like that.

And the good news is, you can actually rejoice when they say no. It means you can wrap things up and move on instead of being emotionally entangled with some anticipated outcome. As I learned in my Sandler training: Hope is not a strategy.

In fact, someone said no to me today. And I was really really REALLY okay with it. I used some Sandler technique and said, "Now that we've decided not to do business together, is there anyone in your network who might be interested in a product like mine?"

She still said no but the DIFFERENCE in the way the call was completed -- the way I FELT in the conversation -- was light years from what a no used to feel like.

I regained my power and equal stature with her, simply by asking that question. And in gaining that stature, I was able to complete the call very powerfully. What I had to offer was simply was not a good fit for her business and now we can both move on.

Aug 20, 2008, Help starting a home business: Sell products online.

Do you make or sell hard goods? Thinking about taking your business online and expanding your reach? Here's help starting a home business online.

Aug 20, 2008, Home business hints: Become an expert.

How do you make all those years of experience and wisdom pay off? Declare yourself an expert and start monetizing in multiple ways. Here's how it happened for me.

Aug 19, 2008, Home business secrets: What you need to know now

Sometimes the secrets to having a home business you love are unbelievably obvious. Others you'd never think of.

Aug 16, 2008, Success in home-based business: Top 5 home business success elements

What makes for success in home-based business is the way the entrepreneur thinks and behaves. Here are some of the characteristics you have to have.