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February 5, 2012 By Kathy Colaiacovo Leave a Comment

Acknowledging Success in Business and Life

success red carpet 225x300 Acknowledging Success in Business and Life I have an accountability partner and we meet weekly to discuss our businesses and keep each other on track with our plans and progress. One of the things that I have been working on is my list of 100 Successes.

One of my biggest issues is allowing me to be okay and celebrate the good things in life I do. Like many of you small business owners, my specialty in business comes easy to me, so understanding how that skill can help others and the feelings that come from it, is something I easily brush off as nothing important. It may not be to me, but to the client or online friend who I help, it is a big deal – and they achieve their own success from my help.

This is just one small example of how success happens but doesn’t get celebrated. I bet you can all share at least another example or two!

My Success List has been making me stand back and look at some of the great things I have done in life and business, and really give myself a little shout out about my accomplishments.

I have been preparing to go to Myrtle Beach to meet with my Business Coaches. I have to bring along a PowerPoint about me, to share with the group. This time, I added something different to it… after each section about me, my business, how I help clients, my services etc… I added another slide – my Celebrate Success Slide.

On these Celebrate Success Slides, I included the info I was most proud about in that area. It was very exhilarating writing these slides out. I did the titles in all CAPS and bold to make them really stand out – and I plan to share them with the group in the same way, presenting them in all CAPS and Bold! (Okay I have been practicing what I am going to do, I always like to be prepared – I should have been a Scout!).

My plan is to really own the successes I have so boldly written into my presentation. But in preparing all this, I have really seen the boost my mood takes when I am in the celebration mode – all the more reason to keep filling in my list and get more than 100!

Am I alone in my unease at celebrating or are you the same? Have you ever written out a list of your successes? What experience did you have from doing this? I would love to hear from someone who has been through it too.

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December 30, 2011 By Kathy Colaiacovo 2 Comments

Make Changes to Improve your Business

Last week in an email, one of my clients, a General Contractor in Halifax Nova Scotia, wrote a sentence that really struck home for me. He said:

If I do what I do time after time, obviously the results will always be the same. Something has to change.

I think it was the word ‘obviously’ that really makes this statement stand out. Especially this time of year – the year end is always a time where I am looking back at what happened this past year and thinking and planning about changes to improve for next. And “Obviously” if nothing changes nothing improves, unless you have reached perfection already!!

change door 300x300 Make Changes to Improve your Business These are words that should ring true for any business owner. No matter what your business goals are, in most cases we all want to improve; to have increased sales and more business. Putting your plans and goals in writing, assessing where you are and analyzing past results are ways to make certain you are seriously tackling the issue of improving your business and not just keeping it at a standstill, a pipe dream.

The assessment and analysis is especially important. Without looking at what you did in the past you will have a hard time figuring out what worked, what didn’t and more importantly, what needs to change.

Here are a few simple steps to take you through the process of making changes in your business:

Know your results to this point – Financial results and overall Business Practices.
Have goals set in place and understand where your results have taken you with regards to these goals.
Have your goals changed? If so, look at the new goals compared to the results.
Look at what worked to achieve these goals – or what did not. Think about the obstacles (no matter how small) that got in the way of achievement.
Develop new plans to help you overcome the obstacles and plans to build on what worked this past year.
Set your goals for the coming year, taking into account all the changes to be implemented.
Communicate these plans to all who are involved in your business and all who will be affected by the changes.
Implement the changes and then re-evaluate during the year to assess results and make changes along the way (better than waiting it out til the next year end!)

This is my reminder to all you small business owners to take stock; Assess and Analyze yourself, and your business. Look at what your goals are and how you can meet them. What changes can you make to improve? Sometimes it can be simple things keeping us from moving forward.

I was talking with one client last month and her inbox was a big issue – and a really big time problem for her. My question was: ”Can’t the assistants in your office review the emails? Why not create a special private email for yourself and let the girls look after the main email. Most times you are passing the work on to them anyhow.”

Her response: “I … guess … they could.” With the hesitation on ‘guess’. Well, she thought about it some more… within 1 week she emailed me (from her new private email) that she had made all the changes I said, and she figures she has freed up about 1.5 hours every day – that is a full day’s work every week. 4 days a month! All from her emails. As well, the lightness in her voice told me the bigger story – less stress!

As I said, even the simple things can be getting in your way – look at everything. Soooo…..

How is 2012 going to start off for you?

Are you doing the same thing time after time – or are you ready for change – change that will boost your business?

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September 23, 2011 By Kathy Colaiacovo 1 Comment

Peer Support is Vital to your Success

I was recently listening to a CD on delegation for small business owners and one of the points the speaker made was one of the top reasons businesses fail. Support.

As a small business owner you are everything to your business. Sales, Marketing, Operations, Admin, bookkeeping and many other parts. Having peer support is one of the things that can help you build your business.

Connecting with people of like minds, in a similar industry can really help boost your own business. You need a sounding board, you need someone who understands where you are and what outside influences can affect how you run your business.

For the past couple of years I have met weekly with an Accountability Group. We started as two then built to four people. All Virtual Assistants, in some way or another. We met to discuss plans, goals, issues and more. Being in the same industry we never felt like competitors, but more like colleagues and collaborators. We understand the issues that affect our specific businesses and the support we provide each other actually helps each of us continue to grow and build our own businesses.

Last spring, we decided to take this group a step farther and meet in person to dig deep into our businesses and do some intense concentrated work on our businesses. A time to step away from the daily work and issues that keep us from going deep into our plans.

And this is where I am right now… locked away in a house in Ontario working hard on new plans ( and in some cases old plans that never made it to completion) with 5 other fabulous women business owners.

We are intense into our Mastermind Retreat weekend and have been working hard every day. We scheduled time and specific As a small group we have been able to take time and listen to each others issues; sharing ideas to help, techniques, tools and in some cases confirming beliefs that have been sitting in the back of our minds and needed reassurance that yes it is time to change. (one of my contributions was the lobster dinner – direct from Nova Scotia! An experience for two of the group who had never tasted lobster before)

Peer Support is soooo helpful to entrepreneurs and small business owners. The inspiration and information you will receive and share in a group like this should (and will) propel your business forward. And networking is how you will find your own support group.

Whether networking in person or online (as I do a lot of mine), you can look for and discover people that you connect with, you resonate with and ones who will also have a different opinion to share with you. They do not have to be clones of yourself – that won’t always be helpful… eyes that have a different view on your business are more helpful to you than a clone.

Take a look around your business world and circle of contacts – who there do you see that appeals to you as a peer? Can you bring something to the table to help them? These are a couple questions to help you find and start your own Accountability / Peer Group. Get out there and be the instigator and create your own group. It may take some time to grow and find the right people; but it really will be a help to your business. Having the extra eyes and ears will become something you enjoy and look forward to with your regular meetings.

My peer group support this week has been invaluable! Thanks to all the Gals who committed to themselves and each other to make this happen!

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August 4, 2011 By Kathy Colaiacovo 1 Comment

You NEED to OWN your own Domain Name

Please! I am pleading with any business owner or entrepreneur who is looking to get a website for their business.

You really need to ensure that your domain name is registered and owned by you – the business owner. I cannot stress this enough.

Yes, I know websites are not your forte, if it were you would be in the website design business. But you are not, you are a fabulous entrepreneur doing great business and with a nice website online that someone helped you setup. But, times have changed and now you need to up level and change your entire web presence, so you ask someone like me to work with you and on your website.

Trouble is… you discover really don’t have a lot of access to the site.

This following situation has happened 3 times in the last 2 weeks to people I know. PLEASE DON’T BE # 4.

We start checking into your present website setup only to discover that your other web guy (sorry boys, but 3/3 were guys) registered your domain name and nowhere in that setup is your name listed. This means that you in fact, do not own your own domain name nor have any control over it.

How bad can it be?

Let’s see…

The other person has access to the domain registry, not you.
The other person controls when your domain name gets renewed (hint, no renewal= no website online, also known as “Why is the website not working?”)
The other person controls changes and access to your Domain Name Servers (which are part of the setup on how/where your account is hosted and with a web hosting system, you will run into the same situation as in # 2 above, people asking: “Why is the website not working?”)
Worst of all, your website is connected to this! The website that people use daily.

BUY IT YOURSELF

Please make certain when you need to setup a new domain name or website that you take 5 minutes and go to Bluehost or GoDaddy and buy your own domain name. It’s as simple as buying anything else online. Pick out what you want and put it in your shopping cart, the cart with your name on it, then pay for it with your credit card or paypal account.

Guess what – now you own that baby! No one else.

After this you can always give your web person the access in your account. You can give your webperson the technical contact in the account, something you can change anytime. Please buy the darn thing yourself. And no matter what way you do this you remain the Registrant – the person who owns the domain name.

If I now have you scared and not sure if you own your present domain name? You can go to Whois.com and look up your domain name. Be certain whose name it is under and while sill in a good working relationship, get it transferred to your name by your web person! Right now, in all three situations we are having a hard time getting contact to get access and changes made.

You NEED to own your own Domain Name, I cannot say this enough!

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So? How many of you need to have a talk with someone now?

Technorati Tags: business plan, setting up a website for business, website planning, websites and domain names

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July 28, 2011 By Kathy Colaiacovo Leave a Comment

Look on the Bright Side of Life as an Entrepreneur

Kathy with Pamela Bruner at Transform 2011

Many of you know I was away at a conference last week. I headed to Fort Lauderdale in Florida to Transform 2011, an event hosted by one of my clients, Pamela Bruner who recently crossed the threshold to earning a 7 figure income (Very exciting for her!)

It was truly an eye opening conference for me as I came to some self realizations about my business, services and where and how I want to grow my business.

I met so many other entrepreneurs who were doing much of the same, based on my conversations and observations.

july2 070 300x168 Look on the Bright Side of Life as an Entrepreneur

Kim, Rita, Moira & Me visiting Fort Lauderdale Beach

It was definitely a good investment of my time and money to attend especially for all the people I met and the marketing and sales lessons I received from Pamela’s presentations.

One of the last lessons I learned was on my trip home, which as per the usual for me, was filled with many an adventure via my mode of travel, Delta airlines again.

Now I know many of you readers will be thinking, “Oh No, not again! Did she have to take a taxi back from Maine to Nova Scotia this time too!” (see Dec 2010 blog post for that adventure!)

No worries, this trip was not near that level of adventure…

So on to the “Bright Side” of my trip.The parts to my journey were filled with many a change, but I had just spent the week learning about changing my business, and change is good.

The morning I was to leave, it started with a note on my phone that my flight was delayed… making me a tad nervous to get started on my journey! (ie. flashbacks to lots of delays and an $800 Taxi ride in December)
Delta kindly rerouted me, through New York instead of Detroit because of the delays going west (lots of extra booked passengers helped as they were happy to take one off that flight to make room for someone else) and they managed to move me from that original plan to another plane, that was going to get me home about the same time. (Whoohoo)
The new flight meant a much later departure time and more airport waiting, but things move as planned, we get in the air with only a small delay. I am happy, comfy and fall asleep.
50 minutes into the flight, I am woken by some noise and commotion. I can tell something is happening and soon the Captain announces that due to a medical emergency on board (!) we will be taking a small detour to Savannah, Georgia to get the passenger some help. (nothing too serious in the end as he was able to walk off with help from the paramedics)
With a little more delay we head to New York with most everyone thinking they are probably going to miss their connecting flight if the time between was close, as was for me. (we landed 45 minutes after my next flight was to leave, and got stuck in a lineup on the tarmac.
The Captain announces the lineup is because there had been a quick storm that passed over New York which as it happens made many connecting flights later and lots of us managed to catch them, like me!
I catch the connecting flight, we wait again in the lineups to take off and uneventfully, I make it home. All told, I was about 4 hours later than planned, but home – which made my daughter a very happy camper! The more than two days to get home episode in December was still clear in her mind.

Now you might thinking – Bright Side, what Bright Side?

Well, here’s the thing about all the events that took place above, I gained some extra time while waiting in the airports and lineups. That time was very helpful in that I got out my notebook and refined all the ideas and notes from the conference and essentially created a new business plan, some new services and an entire new outlook on my business. All that time was a gift. I spent almost half a day writing and planning and putting the ideas on paper, refining them until I was clear on what my new vision was to be.

If all those delays had not occurred, that time would not have been available to do this. And if you are like me, once you get home from a conference there is a pile of things to take care of. Things that get in the way of finishing off your takeaways from the conferences, and making new plans that always come with new lessons.

The other parts to my Bright Side?

I got to visit Georgia for the first time, even if only for an hour and from inside the plane!
I met a lovely young couple from Turkey who were on their honeymoon
Also met a businessman from Seattle (who was Tom Hanks double, Hanks must have a brother with a different name!)
I even managed to give Bob a good lesson on using social media for his business!

As entrepreneurs we are always tackling change and when you do, looking for the bright side of these events can really give you a different outlook on life.
My advice?