tshombe

I’ve dubbed Wednesdays “Gratitude Wednesday” on Facebook. Every week, my first status of the day on Wednesday is something like “Hooray! It’s Gratitude Wednesday, again.  For what or whom are you grateful today?” A little tardy one week posting this status, I knew people had come to expect and appreciate this question (and the answers others posted) when a friend messaged me with “Uh, Tshombe.  It’s Wednesday.” My Facebook friends keep me on my toes! Another friend of mine sent me an... Read Full Story

Being a magnetic entrepreneur isn’t limited to attracting clients. In fact, you may find that you are doing more repelling than attracting. Why is this? Well, there can be many reasons why the magnetic poles between you and your ideal clients are all askew, but a foundational piece may be a focus solely on what YOU want, rather than what your (potential) clients want . Of course, you want to sell your products or services.  As an entrepreneur and/or sales professional, that is one of... Read Full Story

Halloween has never been a truly scary holiday to me. For one thing, it’s my mom’s birthday, and that’s not very scary (Happy Birthday, Mom!) This year, I spent a large portion of Halloween Day at Kinko’s (now called FedEx Office) working on a project. Having taken the light rail, walked downtown, spent time at Kinko’s, and finally going to the grocery store before heading home, I realized that the way costumers were dressed for Halloween is basically what I see every day in this... Read Full Story

I met a man at a small business social who — after I had been introduced to him as a business sales coach — commented that the whole entrepreneurial business community seems to be full of coaches and consultants. At every networking event he had attended in the last several months, he’d met at least one or two coaches or business consultants. For the coaches and consultants in the room, this might’ve been a frustrating experience. How many times have you gone to a networking event... Read Full Story

This past weekend was the Washington Auctioneers Association annual meeting, and I had the privilege of addressing them on Sunday morning. That evening, they had the NW Auctioneers competition, where the auctioneers competed against each other! Have you ever been to an auction? It was THRILLING (to say the least)!  Just thinking back on it gives me chills. These professionals are amazing.  Each in their unique way create magical experiences with this fun, masterful method of selling... Read Full Story

I know many of your reading this are struggling in your business. You have a service that can really help people to improve the quality of their lives. You’re working hard. Because you are not seeing fruit from your labors, you are naturally discouraged .  Maybe you start to wonder whether this selling thing is really your thing. Maybe you just aren’t cut out to be an entrepreneur. Yes, we get discouraged, depressed. But, don’t lose heart! We need you to keep on keepin’ on.  The... Read Full Story

Growing up, I had a bad case of trying to be perfect.  Even today, I sometimes catch myself going down that once-familiar path. That’s all fine and dandy, except that “perfect” is impossible. And pretty depressing when you never quite reach the bar. A few years ago, Seth Godin addressed this situation in one of his customarily pithy articles:   The problem of perfect .  This problem is no more in-your-face than in the competitive world of work: “As the quality of things go up, and... Read Full Story

Being “The Best” in your industry is only a value proposition when someone else says it. When YOU say it, in most instances it comes off as either self-serving and therefore unbelievable, or the messaging is ignored because it just isn’t perceived as relevant to your audience. Which, by the way, is why advertising as it is typically employed rarely works for the solo sales professional or service-based business owner. So, how can you influence your audience to do the bragging for you... Read Full Story

I was listening to a Brendon Burchard CD where he described how shocked he was to discover that many entrepreneurs in the Expert Community were pretty disorganized (and a little bit inconsiderate). For example, it isn’t unusual for one of the “gurus” to contact him to ask for his support to promote their new product launch just a day or two before the launch was to happen! Or, they sit down to figure out what they are going to send to their newsletter list the day the newsletter is due to... Read Full Story

Having just completed several days away working on my business, it took me a little bit by surprise the (very strong) suggestion that declaring your goals publicly decreases the chances you will actually achieve them. Like me, you’ve likely heard that the opposite is true. In fact, I have espoused the virtues of creating accountability structures to support goal achievement and actively facilitated workshops that included exercises that encouraged public goal declaration. Have I been... Read Full Story