Ahead Into 2013: What Can You Do?

Apparently none of us had the power to increase the number of days in 2012, hard as we might have tried and as much as we might have wanted or needed to; the year has come to an end.  If you are like me, you must feel initially that you didn’t make any progress but after you take time to reflect and reconsider, you realise that you had moved up in leaps and bounds.  Maybe not as far as you wanted, but you moved.

For me that 2012 is ending is not news, and it shouldn’t be even for you, I mean we all had a whole year's notice that this will happen today, so why are we so hung up?  I believe it is because after all is said and done, we realise that despite all the plans we made, none of us had what it took to make it this far, we still had to rely on Someone greater to make it all happen. Thank you Lord!

That tomorrow is the first day of January 2013 is also not news, so while we all will and should celebrate the New Year day festivities, what happens after the celebration?  I am thinking that since we had taken a few weeks to reflect on 2012, we should progress into how we will walk the 2013 journey.  

These points should be useful to you

1.       Go Pictorial – No matter what you intend to achieve with 2013, can you see the picture in your mind?  I was thinking about my life journey going forward and I am cutting pictures that speak to me.  You too should do a Vision Board it will help you see in your mind’s eye where you want to go and give you something to walk towards. (See Blog archive on Vision Board).

2.      Trust Your Instinct – As your life is what we are talking about, it will be really nice to trust your instinct, trust what your gut tells you next year.  I mean if it is your dream life why is everyone else telling you what to do and what not to?

3.      Truly Care about Your Customer – whether you provide goods or services, you will not be relevant without your customers.  So why not make caring for them a huge part of your business focus in the next year.  A happy customer will help you make bank every time you know.

4.      Bring Greater Value – No matter how well you do, there is always room for improvement. So to have a great 2013, why not find more ways to add value to the people you are serving?  Enhance your products, make your customer service experience exceptional. Bring more value!

5.      Partner or Collaborate – some of the things that will bring your dream to significance this new year may not be things you can do alone, so consider who you might need to join forces or collaborate with for the greater good.

6.      Enjoy The Ride – As you may well know, 2013 will have a December 31, just as 2012 and all the other years before have had.  So why not enjoy the ride?  Do your absolute best but make up your mind to enjoy the ride as you go on.

7.      Be Grateful – No matter what happens because some curves will definitely show up along the way, the valleys and the mountains will also be part of the journey… so be grateful.  For every experience be grateful!

8.      Stir Your Ship – In the final analysis it is your dream.  You cannot trust anyone else to get you to wherever you want to go, so take responsibility for 2013, think big, do your homework, get your hands dirty if need be.  Whatever you do, stir your ship! 

While these are not exhaustive, let them set the marker for how you start.  Thank you for being part of my life through 2013, welcome to 2013 and make the best use of your opportunity to be alive.

Happy New Year!

Hugs 

Sistar B

YOU ARE ONLY AS POOR AS YOU CHOOSE TO BE

Welcome to a new week, as I pray new Blessings your way in Jesus name!  Hope your weekend went well, mine was full and insightful, plus I had my children home for about six days and it was a joy to have a full house again even though for only six days.

Last week I was at an event and a lot of what we call “old school music” was played and the line “one is only poor only if they choose to be …”from Dolly Parton's Song, “Coat of Many Colours”, stuck with me.    the more I thought about this line, the clearer the truth became to me.  Yes, one is poor only if he chooses to be.  God has endowed us with so much in talent and experience that if we will take the time to consider what it is we have been given and find a way to express our gift, then we cannot literarily be poor.

The line also had me thinking about what poverty really is?  As for the song writers, being rich was not about how much money they had but about the attitude with which they viewed that which they had and by the use they were able to put that which they had.  So before we even continue the exercise from last week, let me encourage us to check our attitude.  Ensure that somehow, our attitidue is one of gratitude. Setbacks or no setbacks, we are still here, which means we have the opportunity to right whatever may have gone wrong.

So while I am asking that we review our year to ascertain what we can do to have a better next year, it will be great to ensure that we have the right attitude while reviewing.  Remember you are only as poor as you choose to be. Whatever worked this year can be better, just as whatever we may think didn’t work may appear different if we looked with the right attitude; one which sees every glass as half full rather than half empty. 

Today's question is; “what worked really well?”  What did you do in 2012 that worked? How did it positively affect your bottom line?  Take time out and replay it all in your mind, write out the high points, speak to members of your team ask them why they think that particular idea, principle, whatever it is worked.  Write it all down and then take it a step further and ask yourself, how you can adapt the process that gave so much success into next year’s running and operations.  The idea is to repeat what was successful, and find a way to adapt it where things didn’t work if possible, to ensure you have a blue print for next year.

For us at Effectual Magazine, one thing that has worked really well is how we have been able to keep our content fresh and impactful so that the magazine is it’s own chief marketer.  We want to take that same attitude of keeping it fresh into our marketing and hopefully our market share will increase considerably.  Something else that has worked in our favour is the collaborative efforts we have made to add value to both our work and our readers and we intend to do our best to keep them going and possibly forge more of such alliances in 2013.

The idea behind this series of posts is to ensure that we don’t walk into 2013 blindly, trying to find our way while others are off and running.  Part of what you may need to do might be to learn some additional skills to enhance your performance.  Now is the time to identify those courses and begin to put together a plan to enroll and follow through.

Every dream needs to evolve and it is my hope that with the right attitude and with the mindset that there is gold right where your mine is, you will be able to position yourself for a great 2013.  

No matter what happens, no matter how hard it is to go through with these reviews, never forget that you are only as poor as you choose to be and with that kind of attitude and doing the right thing, who says you cannot make it?  You can and you will make it NeverTheLess.

Hugs 

Sistar B

WHAT WILL WORK FOR YOU?

 

Welcome, I am feeling better today than I felt last week; I hope you are doing better too.  I want to take a moment to really thank all of you who stop by week after week, day after day on this page.  It amazes me how you all come from all over the globe to glean from here.  It has also come to my attention that my most popular post of all time is the post on Define Your Dream: Asking the Right Questions.

This past week, I have wandered into your space and your minds to find out what it is about this post that has made it the most popular one yet.  While I don’t have feedback yet, I assume that it is because for most of us, it is a huge issue, identifying and living our dreams.  The truth is that we all can tell when we come across people who are living their dreams, the issue is we just don’t think we belong in that group.

This can be because every dream but ours looks like the most attractive one, or because we are still in the early stages of our dreams and we are not sure how we look to others. It can even be because we are yet to gather enough momentum to begin to feel like we are actually making an impact; for some of us, it maybe because we know what we want to do, but are not sure if it will work or not.

Whichever category you may fall, I am sure you have also asked today’s question, ‘What Works?’  I have asked this question time and time again and no matter the answers I find, one thing keeps reoccurring, and I hope that it will help you see that you are peculiar and called to peculiarly live your dream, irrespective of what others are doing.

https://kaitsdaily.wordpress.com

When we started Effectual Magazine, www.effectualmag.com, we had two major issues we knew we had to get right or we might just close shop within a few months.   The first was the size of the magazine. Practically every magazine around was at least A4 size, and filled with more images of cloths and shoes, than content; though they seemed to be doing well.  When we started out we opted for the A5 size with more reading content than images, people kept telling us that we were not going to last in the market.  They also told us that we had too much reading content packed into each edition that customers will not be interested to buy.  Some self-appointed Consultant actually told me that the faith-based content is bad for business, as well as the passion with which we talk about our relationship with God.  We listened, but stuck with what was unique to us, because we recognized that because it worked for others didn’t mean it will work for us.

The other issue was marketing.  We knew that our size was not street vendor friendly so we opted to be a Subscriber-based magazine.  We decided to use direct marketing and to keep expanding our subscriber base.  Again, we were told that subscriber based magazines don’t work because they don’t get as much advertisement as the other magazines. 

So you can imagine how we were treading in our early months with these two issues hanging over our heads.  Even though this was the case, we were sure that there was a market for us, and that it may take us longer than every one else to corner our share of the market, but we were going to get what was ours if we continued to follow our convictions. 

It has been years and a lot has happened, one thing that has worked out perfectly is both the size of the magazine and the content that we have continued to deliver on. Slowly but surely, our subscriber base has expanded with each edition and our market share is still increasing.

The point of today’s post is simple, when you are living a dream you need to have your own peculiarities.  Be bold to chart your own course and do your best to stick with it as long as you are convinced it will work out in the end.  Even if it takes a while, be willing to follow through on what you believe.  If we had listened to everyone who complained about our size, we will be lost in the sea of magazines on the market, because we will be exactly like them!  That it worked for others didn’t mean it was going to work for us.  We had to find our own way.

If you are willing to find your way based on the convictions of your heart and the passion in your heart, it may take a while, but you will make it.  Nevertheless, I promise you will make it.

Hugs

Sistar B

The Value Of Connectors

Good morning!

How did your weekend go?  It was a very rainy one in Lagos, what was it like in your own part of the world and how did the weather affect living your dream?

On the last post we looked at expanding our client base where we outlined a list of things we could do to increase our customer base.  Hope the tips worked for you.  As one of the things I said we could do to expand our customer base, I remember that I spoke about using word of mouth as a cost effective way to advertise.

Today, I will like to expand further on a particular kind of person that we all must identify if we want to effectively take advantage of word of mouth advertisement.  This kind of person is referred to as a Connector.

Connectors, irrespective of what field of endeavor they are in, are people who have a knack for knowing people.  They genuinely love people and take great pleasure in introducing people to people.  A Connector believes in people, is bold, quick and open to learning, which makes her versatile in different fields. She is very appreciative of others and their gifts and most of all takes joy in introducing people to people.

What you gain by identifying your own Connector and approaching them to help expand your customer base is that, you gain access into your Connectors huge list of people.  I personally have, as Connectors right now, two people: Coach Anna McCoy whom you all know by now and my friend and Sister, Audrey Joe-Ezigbo.

Audrey, since I met her, has taken it upon herself to intentionally look for ways to expand the reach of Effectual Magazine and other things that I do.  She takes great pleasure in introducing me and the magazine to people she knows will appreciate it and probably take out a subscription for them.

I want to use the opportunity of this post therefore, to celebrate Audrey for her contributions in moving my dream forward.  Sista, you have been an absolute joy to me and a great enhancer of what I do.  May God bless you, and may He raise connectors for you and ensure you succeed in all you do.

Now what is your part in your relationship with your Connector? First and foremost, when they introduce you to someone, you must follow up on the individual, you also should give feedback to them as the new relationship progresses.  Ensure that you don't abuse the relationship they have linked you to and definitely never try to take their place in those relationships.

Give credit when the introduction is converted into something that has blessed your dream and always remember that your Connector does not owe you anything.

Again, Audrey, thank you for all that you do to bring value to me and my dream, you are loved and appreciated!

  Till next week, remember that a dream is nothing except you are awake taking action.  It's time to whip out your list and take time out to identify who within the list is your Connector. 

With each step you take your dream gets better and you will make it NeverTheLess.

Hugs

Sistar B

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A special shout out to Irene Olumese of Touching Lives 4 Good for celebrating me on her blog today. Thanks Irene. You are loved and appreciated.

Please click here to visit Irene's blog.