I don’t know exactly what kind of legal impact this little copyright notice has, but to some people, it’s also an indicator of if you are maintaining your sites well. So ask your webmaster to update yours (or do it yourself) while you remember!

The first realization that really struck me was, as amazingly successful as they are, they still have the same kind of challenges as I. Yes, they are all super talented, but they still use the same marketing techniques as many of us use to grow their business. No magic pill. Very basic stuff over and over.

But I’ve also discovered they have some habits and mindset that the rest of us do not necessarily have, and I’d like to share the specifics here since they made a huge impact on me.

1. Successful entrepreneurs manage fears.
   We see successful people launch new programs and products, one after another, and it seems they are doing that very effortlessly, right? No, they do feel fears to do something new to take their business to the next level all the time, but they *know* that fears can easily stop them from growing. Successful entrepreneurs do not allow their fears to get in the way by recognizing and managing them.
2. Entrepreneurship is in their blood.
   I met a couple who just came out of their retirement. They had enough money from their last business to live on for years to come, but they were not satisfied with their life without running a business! When they talked about their plan for their new business, their eyes were twinkling with passion. I am convinced that it would not take long for them to get their brand-new business off the ground.
3. They never say, “I know that.”
   While it’s so obvious they have amazing expertise, they are always willing to learn from others. They respect others’ knowledge and experience so much.
4. Each of them works with a coach.
   We tend to think successful entrepreneurs must have “figured it out” already, but I found out that was not the case. They say they are still figuring it out, and seek guidance and accountability from their coaches.
5. Investing in themselves is a high priority.
   Especially in this economic climate, I often hear people say, “I’d love to do XXX, but I can’t afford it.” Successful entrepreneurs, on the other hand, will make every effort to make it a reality if they see the XXX is a great investment that would benefit them or their business in the future.
6. They constantly look one step ahead.
   I was trying to pick somebody’s brain about this idea of hiring some VAs so that I can help more clients while growing my business. His comment? “If you are going to have to supervise these VAs, you’ll end up spending time managing them, and at some point, your business will stop growing as long as you are stuck in that role. I would hire somebody who can manage them for me so that I would be able to grow more.” Speak of one step ahead!
7. They love to partner up with others for joint ventures and masterminding.
   They seem to have a habit of looking for ways to partner up with others. “Oh, you would be a great fit for this project that I’m working on!” or “Maybe we can do a cross-promotion.” type of conversation was taking place everywhere.
8. They make a commitment, and will not let it wear off.
   People go to motivational events or read great business books and say to themselves, “I commit to take action on this great thing I just learned!” But just like typical new years resolutions, the commitment very often disappears in the universe within a month. Successful entrepreneurs do not let that happen. They stick to it, and if it’s hard, find a way to keep themselves accountable.

Are you ready to start building these habits? We all know breaking old habits is not as easy as it seems, but it’s totally doable.

I know I’m ready.

It seems that many businesses do have systems without documenting any of the specific procedures. I recently wrote an article called “5 Myths about Procedures and Automation” to point out about some of the misconception I keep seeing among business owners. Since then, I have had several chances to speak to some business owners who were still feeling uncomfortable about creating systems, which made me realize this:

Many people out there are thinking it takes special skills to document procedures. And that is what’s stopping them from moving forward to create procedure documents. (Myth #3 in the 5 Myths that I listed.)

Come to think of it, I used to feel that way, too, until my boss forced me to document a procedure that I had come up with while working at one company years ago. And after that, writing policies & procedures somehow became a part of my job description, and the work got easier and easier as I created more documents.

So, this article is for those of you who are scared of documenting the very first procedure. Just follow these steps to create your first one, and I bet you will find that it’s not a brain surgery.

1. Let’s start with a simple recurring task that needs to be done on a regular basis. Write down all the recurring tasks you do every month or every week on a sheet of paper, or in a spreadsheet. It may have items like, “billing”, “monthly e-newsletter”, “bi-weekly teleseminars”, and “weekly call with client xxx”.
2. Choose one simple item from your list. Let’s take “monthly e-newsletter”, for example.
3. Start listing all the steps that are needed in order for the newsletter to be published. Leave some space (or one column) on the left when you do this. If more than one person is involved in the process, put the name of the person responsible for each step in parenthesis at the end. Don’t spend too much time trying to figure out every single step at this point. You can add more steps later, if necessary.
4. Then identify the critical path. On the left-most column that you left in the step above, write down the due dates for the items that need to happen on a set date. For example, in our newsletter example, you can write down something like “2nd Tuesday” on the left of “Publish newsletter” step.
5. Next, look at other tasks and work backwards to decide when each of the other tasks needs to be done. Keep these things in mind when you do this:
   
   • How long it takes to get it done.
   • Whether you should incorporate some cushion time to allow the reviews/revisions.
   • What can be done simultaneously, especially if more than one person is involved in the process.
6. Now you have all the dates, tasks, and who is responsible for each task. So let’s pretty up the document to make it easy for you/your team members to understand and improve the process. There are many different ways to do this, so I will share some that I use:
   1. Single-column straightforward procedure document/checklist
      Simply list all the tasks in the chronological order. This is good enough especially if you do all the tasks on your own. Every month (or however often, depending on the task), I would also transfer these tasks into my calendar to make sure each item is taken care of on the day specified in the procedure.
   2. Multiple-column procedure document with “responsibility” columns
      I love this format especially when I need to clearly show who is responsible for each step. Create a column for a date, and one column for each team member involved in the procedure. Then just fill in this chart with the name/description of the task in a chronological order under the corresponding responsible staff. This format not only allows you to clearly see who is responsible for what, but also shows the flow of the concurring tasks (ie. Very often, one can work on one task while the others are working on a different task, shortening the whole process.).
   3. Flowchart
      When your procedure can have variations depending on other factors, having a visual flowchart to show the procedure can be very helpful. This is a great way to find any flaws in your procedure as well. For example, you may have to include a special section in your newsletter when you have a product launch. Then you would add a diamond shape that says “Product Launch?” in an appropriate place to branch out the process to show what happens under each of “Yes” and “No” scenarios.
   4. Gantt Chart
      Gantt chart is known as a great project management tool, and I think it can be a great help when you create a procedure especially because it can show the milestones, task durations, and task dependency. I don’t think you can assign generic dates such as “2nd Tuesday of the month” in Gantt charts in packaged project management software, but you can just take the Gantt Chart concept and create your own on a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet, etc. as a part of your procedure document or as a preparation for writing down a more formal procedure. When I attended a Project Management seminar years ago, one thing I had to do was to create a Gantt chart as a wedding planner to figure out how many days it would take to plan a wedding from start to finish. If your procedure is as complicated as a wedding planning, I would strongly recommend creating a big picture flow with a Gantt chart, and then break it down to sub-procedures.

If you use any other document format for your procedures that works well, please share!

Oh, and now that you have written down all the recurring tasks in the step 1 above, you might as well create another procedure to transfer that data to your calendar every month, or however often you feel you should do that. Once you turn that into an official procedure, that would reduce the chance for you to miss those deadlines.

There you have it. See, it’s all simple stuff! Now all you have to do is to keep improving it for more productivity and accuracy. Again, forget a formal, corporate-looking Policies & Procedures, and just create something that would work for you and your team.

However, the reality is that many business owners are not taking their time to take care of that important part of their business for various reasons. Well, I’m here to say most of those “reasons” are actually myths.

1. Myth #1:

    

   My business changes all the time. If I create a procedure now, I’ll probably need to change it in a month. That would simply be a waste of time!

   I hear you, businesses do change over time. However, once you have a procedure, you can simply modify it as your business goes through changes. Writing up a procedure for the first time probably would be the toughest part, but it’s all worth it. Having procedures that really work for you could be a big time-saver, not a time-waster.

2. Myth #2:
   
   

   I can lose my personal touch if I start automating my work. Automating sounds such a lazy thing to do, and I don’t see why I need to do that.

   There are two big things that automation can do for you solopreneurs. It will save you time and minimize errors. Let’s say you sell some products on your website, and you take care of all the order processing and fulfillment as well. An order comes in, then you send out a confirmation email to your customer, enter the order in your book, update the inventory, pack and ship the product, make sure the customer is added to your list for your next promotion… There are so many tasks associated with just one order, and that also means there are as many chances when an error can occur. Automating your procedure would greatly reduce that risk, and your customers would appreciate that. Then, you can spend your freed-up time on better things to show your personal touch, if you’d like! Thanks to the technology, there are so many tools out there that would help you automate many business processes.

3. Myth #3:
   
   

   I don’t know how to write a procedure.

   You can make it as formal as you want it to be, but remember, you are writing a procedure for your business, not for your big boss. As long as you can follow it and use it to improve your business process, that’s good enough. To start, I would recommend just listing the steps of each task, including the timelines and responsible parties. If you are a visual person, use a simple flowchart. Writing current processes can also be a start point for a business automation.

4. Myth #4:
   
   

   I remember what I need to do every day. There is no reason why I need to write procedures.

   They say that the 3 most dangerous words are “I know that.” Well, I’d like to add “I remember that.” to the list. It’s a human nature to make mistakes when you feel you are so used to do a task. Haven’t you made a mistake, and later wondered, “How could I have missed such a simple thing?” Wasn’t that a mistake that could have been simply avoided if you had had a simple checklist? Think about that.

5. Myth #5:
   
   

   Automating business processes sounds so expensive!

   Just like writing procedures above, this is not a brain surgery. There are many no or low cost tools available that would help you automate. The services you are currently using just might already have some handy features you are not utilizing. If you have no idea where to start, just share your current procedures with somebody you know who is familiar with Internet Marketing. I know most people in Internet Marketing just love automation.

Happy systematizing!

With the technology today, it’s possible to do batch many common tasks. For example, I often write emails that need to go out on certain dates. What I do instead of writing those emails when they have to go out, I write some of them in advance and schedule them to go out on certain dates/times. Same with my blog articles. Here are some of the tools that I use to make batching possible:

Blog Platforms
Many blog platforms allow you to schedule exactly when your blog entry gets published. I normally write a blog entry (I use WordPress.), then schedule it to get published to suit my needs. For example, I normally schedule to publish my article right before my newsletter goes out so that my newsletter subscribers will be able to follow the link to read the full article at the right timing.

Email Tools
I use Outlook as my main email client, and I can easily schedule future email deliveries. The only problem is that my PC needs to be up and running when the scheduled emails go out. I also use Gmail to handle one email account that I have with one of my clients’ domain. I love Gmail for various reasons, but it does not offer any future delivery scheduling functions.

Then I recently came across a great free service that solves both problems above. It’s called LetterMeLater.com (http://www.lettermelater.com/). It does not only let you schedule emails within their interface but also allows you to schedule and send out emails from your own email client by using a special lettermelater address. For me, this service comes in quite handy.

Social Media Tools
There are several tools out there that let you schedule your tweets/status updates, but by far, my favorite is HootSuite (http://www.hootsuite.com/). HootSuite’s other handy features include updating your status on multiple social media sites, letting you see what people are saying about you or anybody you specify, and much more. It’s such a time saver and, oh so user-friendly, too!

Happy batching!

Did I get motivated by talking to these ladies? You bet! Did the conversations with them help me stand taller as a business owner? Absolutely!! It was like raising the thermostat setting for my business. I realized then that I had probably started feeling a bit too comfortable about where I was in spite of my desire to grow my business by leaps. We all know that changes are not always comfortable, right?

Now that I own my business, I realize the importance of surrounding myself with the right people more than ever. Here are some ways that I discovered to do so to keep raising the biz thermometer:

1. Network with the right people. There are many ways to network with other business owners, but it’s also easy to end up networking with people who will not really help you grow. You should try surrounding yourself with people who are already where you want to be, or whom you can grow together with. Great places to find these people include seminars of your specific interests, social networking sites, or very specialized meetup groups.
2. Join or start a mastermind group with like-minded people. While many people are revisiting the knowledge shared in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich these days, more and more mastermind groups seem to be popping up everywhere. I believe the key to joining/forming a mastermind group is to find members who are really willing to contribute to other members. Otherwise, it’s easy for the group meeting to turn into a “let me complain about my business” session, and that would simply be waste of time.
3. Find a coach. A coach will guide you to keep taking steps to get where you want to be. The right coach will always keep your best interest in mind and push you to constantly to raise your business standards.
4. If you are not sure about hiring a coach right now, start with finding an accountability partner. That could be your friend who is also trying to grow his/her business, or somebody who is a bit ahead of you in their business. Have a weekly call about business challenges and goals, and keep each other accountable for taking actual actions to get closer to those goals.

Then look into a mirror, and say to yourself, “I’m worth it,” because you are!

Naturally, I first thought I was going to buy the favorite tool among professional webmasters: Dreamweaver. Well, very long story short, that purchase did not happen, and instead, I bought Microsoft Expression Web, a successor of Front Page.

To be honest, I was not expecting much from Expression Web, mainly due to the not-so-great experience I had with Front Page years ago. Also the retail price ($250 less than Dreamweaver) told me I probably should be prepared for a little inconveniences. BUT, to my pleasant surprise, I found Expression Web to be a wonderful helper!

I’m still learning to become more proficient in CSS, but Expression Web’s CSS tools are very intuitive and easy to use. If HTML codes are not used properly or missing, Expression Web warns you with a short comment explaining what is wrong. I know “live view” is considered to be a fantastic feature with the latest version of Dreamweaver, but Expression Web’s preview feature works just fine to preview the page. Oh, and I found Expression Web loads faster than Dreamweaver, which I love.

If you are looking for an economical alternative to Dreamweaver, I highly recommend checking out Expression Web.

That sure was a very uncomfortable place to be! However, I knew I could handle the situation because that was certainly not the first time something like that had happened to me. There are many things you can do to get out of a funk. Here are the ten tips that I personally found helpful for myself.

1. Turn to a motivational expert: If you are like me, you probably have a collection of books and audios that have inspired you in the past. Revisit them. Or go to a library and pick up an inspirational book that you have been curious about. This is exactly what I did this time. The book was Happy for No Reason by Marci Shimoff, and it instantly lifted my spirits. Highly recommended.

2. Talk to other soloprenurs: It sometimes helps a lot to speak and open up with people who understand your business. I network with other solopreneurs and found that I could get motivated just by talking with them. Just yesterday, I had a chance to have a coffee with a friend who is also a solopreneur, and man, I was motivated after listening to his plan for 2010.

3. Change the posture to change the mood: More and more experts are now pointing out the strong connection between body and mind. If you spend most of the day in front of a computer feeling you are stuck in a funk, get up on your feet. Lie down in a couch to brainstorm instead. Or get out and take a walk. Instead of typing up a business plan, grab a pen and paper. Making physical changes could really help you unstuck. Just give it a try.

4. Get a good night sleep: Not so long time ago, while I was trying hard to be a good mom/wife as well as a successful solopreneur, I used to stay up until 2:00am on many nights. Sure, I was able to get a lot of stuff done, but after doing that for a while, I found myself tired and not very productive during the day. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that human beings are meant to have plenty of sleep! Lack of sleep is simply not healthy, physically and mentally.

5. Look at your eating habits: You hear many moms blaming sugar for their kids’ hyperactivity, but we rarely think about how foods could affect our mood (well, except for alcoholic drinks, I guess). Aren’t you taking too much sugar in your diet? Or, maybe too much caffeine just to get that perk, only to get exhausted afterward? Think about eating healthy alternatives that would give you some real energy.

6. Exercise: This is in line with “change the posture” above. Taking short breaks during the day to stretch yourself, or even better, taking a long break to get out and do some fun physical activities can really help you get out of the unmotivated state. You do not need to go to a gym. Just take a brisk walk or jog. Or even a Wii Fit (My favorite, LOL).

7. Meditate: I recently learned about the “happiest person in the world” Matthieu Ricard from one of my clients and have been fascinated about him. People have pointed out one of his big secrets to be calm, focused, and happy is his daily meditation. Your “funk” may be a sign that you should pay more attention to your mind, and meditation is a great way just to do that.

8. Watch a movie, read a book, sing a song… Entertain yourself: Have you watched a movie that made you smile for the rest of the day? Movies, books, and music all can have a great positive impact on our feelings. I’ve been reading Diary of a Whimply Kid with my boys every night, and boy, that book cracks us all up and helps us go to bed in a great mood. Just try it! (No, you don’t have to read the Diary, LOL. Choose whatever that would make you smile.)

9. Count your blessings: Acknowledging the things you are grateful for is a great way to empower yourself. Just this past November, I’ve participated in a fun project called “30 Days of Thanks” and blogged about what I was thankful for every day, which turned out to be a great experience for me. You do not need to blog, just keep a gratitude journal or put up a big sheet of paper on a wall somewhere and keep writing down what you are grateful for every day.

10. Surrender and go with the flow: I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. If none of your efforts to get out of the funk works, maybe you are meant to be in a funk for a few days or longer to grow bigger. It’s like that dreadful “Terrible Two’s” (that my youngest is going through right now, I might add) — It’s annoying, inconvenient, and frustrating to parents, but all kids eventually grow out of that stage, and when they do, they are more mature. And you know what they say… You often feel very uncomfortable when you are ready to go up to the next stage of life. Maybe it’s the same with business.

Day 30

Wow, it’s Day 30! And I sure haven’t yet covered tons of people and things I’m grateful for. I can’t choose what I’m going to write about… Now, how lucky is that I have such a long list?

So today, I simply want to send out my virtual hugs and kisses to everybody.

My family, my friends, people who directly and indirectly made an impact on me and on the world…

THANK YOU!!

Here is to awesomeness in every single one of us.

Day 29

I had a blog withdrawal for the last several days, LOL. Oh well, things happen, and I know sometimes it’s good to go with the flow.

Just yesterday, I received some touching comments from a few of my clients, both verbally and via email, thanking me for the work I do for them. Yes, on the same day! And of course, that put a huge smile on my face. Thank you all, for making my day in a big way.

“Thank you” is such a beautiful phrase. I do not do things just to get an appreciation, but still, a little thank you’s can give people such a wonderful feeling, and I think it’s so important.

I’m grateful for people who appreciate others. They make a huge difference in others’ lives.