Thursday, December 18, 2008

Key things to remember this holiday season!


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Key things to remember this holiday season!

This past year I read some information that I would like to share with you this holiday season. The message speaks to the abundance that we have in our present lives.

Every day we deal with many pressing situations in our lives and for many of us we need to reflect on how thankful we should truly be.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people in this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthiest people.
If you woke up this morning with good health you are more fortunate than the million people who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of war unfolding all around you, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a place of worship, without fear of persecution, harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

At this time of the year it’s important to remember how fortunate we are to live in such a great country as Canada. Take time to remember all the things that allow us to prosper in our daily lives.

I wish you all the best this holiday season, and may this New Year bring you many rewards.

Happy Holidays from FloodLight Consulting,

Donald Robichaud
President
FloodLight Consulting
250-768-9415
http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/
http://donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/

Increase your Productivity - Sales Consulting - Kelowna

In the last couple of weeks I have been reading many books and one in particular has struck a key note with me.
Daily I deal with clients and friends who are slaves to technology, specifically emails, cell phones and their own struggles with time management.

The book "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss is about how to radically change your lifestyle or go from
'living to work' to working (as little, but effectively as possible) and making life as big as possible.
Here is a summary from chapter seven (Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal) that is focused on step-changing one's personal efficiency. With these tips you can get 15 times as much done in a normal workweek".

The key is to do things quicker, faster better and to enjoy the things that are really important in life. Interested?

Donald Robichaud- FloodLight Consulting

Eliminate time wasters:
  • Severely limit e-mail consumption and production
  • Turn off the audible alert if you're on Outlook or a similar program
  • Turn off automatic send/receive (which delivers e-mail to your in-box as soon as someone sends them)
  • Check e-mail only twice per day, once at 12:00 noon and again at 4:00 pm.
  • Never check e-mail first thing in the morning…instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 am to avoid using lunch or reading e-mail as a postponement excuse.
  • Before implementing the twice-daily routine, you must create an e-mail auto-response that will train your boss, co-workers, suppliers, and clients to be more effective

  • Suggested e-mail template: "Due to high workload, I am currently checking and responding to e-mail twice daily at 12:00 noon (PST) and 4:00 pm (PST). If you require urgent assistance that cannot wait until either 12:00 or 4:00, please contact me via telephone @ 626-321-4107. Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness. It helps me to accomplish more and serve you better."
  • Do the same type of template with your phone voicemail.

Create systems to limit your availability via e-mail and phone and deflect inappropriate contact:

  • Get the auto-response and voicemail script in place now, and master the various methods of evasion.
  • Replace the habit of greeting "How are you?" with "How can I help you?"
  • Get specific and remember – no stories
  • Focus on immediate actions and practice interruption-killing policies.
  • Batch activities to limit set-up cost. Where in my life can I create a routine in my life by batching?
  • What tasks (like laundry, groceries, mail, payments, sales reporting, etc.) can I allot to specific times each day, week, or month so I don't squander time repeating them more often than necessary?

Need Help?

FloodLight Consulting provides objective feedback about what you need to do to get your business on track. A healthy business coach relationship provides you honest ongoing assessment of your Business Development Activities, assisting you to focus your efforts in the areas that will have the greatest long term positive impact on your business and your life. If you need help creating your goal-plan Click here!!

Donald Robichaud - FloodLight Consulting

http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/

http://www.donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/

Sales Coach Kelowna

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Sales Consulting - Kelowna - Networking important to business development

This is a great article about the value of joining a Networking group posted by by Lori Welbourne of The Capital News.

Donald Robichaud
FloodLight Consulting

Three years and four months ago, I was invited by one of my clients to go to a meeting hosted by Okanagan Business to Business, a local networking group he belonged to.

He told me the group met every Wednesday morning at the Holiday Inn in Westbank at 7:00 a.m.

I immediately disliked the idea and explained that I was too busy at that time of the day getting my kids ready and off to daycare. Not giving up so easily, he suggested that I change my routine for one day so I could attend a meeting to see what it was like.

Being the people-pleaser that I am, I reluctantly agreed.

That Wednesday my husband tended to the children while I had the luxury of getting just myself ready for the day. And as relaxing as that felt, I still managed to arrive at the meeting five minutes late.

Sheepishly taking a seat in a room full of strangers, I observed something I had never seen before, an organized group of business people, all there for the sole purpose of helping one another out through networking and referrals.

It was the group’s first meeting back after a summer break, so there were only about 15 people there. But it seemed like twice that many when it was my turn to get up and introduce myself.

As much as I disliked public speaking, to my surprise, it also felt a little exciting to be out of my comfort zone like that.

But what I liked most about the experience was the obvious opportunity to build relationships with other business people in the community, perhaps some people that I wouldn’t normally have contact with.

Being an advertising consultant with this newspaper, I meet a lot of people and my job is to help them with the growth of their businesses. So I guess it’s no surprise I would be attracted to an organization that nurtured that.

The famous American author Napoleon Hill once wrote: “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” That quote always made sense to me, like the old saying: what goes around comes around.

Clearly, that’s what this group was all about.

I also saw potential for it’s growth and thought of at least a dozen people who would appreciate this kind of opportunity to build relationships with other like-minded individuals.

That night I went home and asked my husband if he could take care of our kids every Wednesday if I was accepted as a member to the group. He agreed and I applied for membership the next week.

After the strong connections I made in the initial few months as a new member, I felt grateful to the group and wanted to give back. So I allowed my name to stand for an executive role for the following year.

A volunteer position, it proved to be much more work than I anticipated.

But like anything in life, what you put into it is what you get back. And as much work as I’ve put into the Okanagan Business to Business, I’ve gotten so much more in return.

It has opened doors and created opportunities that would be impossible for me to fully describe in a column as short as this one.

After serving two years on its executive, I had the honour of serving as its chairperson this past year.

After an incredibly rocky start and countless hours of communicating with one another about the direction we wanted our group to move in, we finally found a unified focus.

Through adversity we have become a much stronger team, made up of 54 local business people who share the same goal of helping one another succeed in business, and in life.

Last Wednesday was my final meeting as chairperson.

Standing in front of this group of dynamic businesspeople whom I admire and respect, I felt so much gratitude for the experiences they gave me, the life lessons I have learned and the strong relationships I have developed.

If there’s a business person out there who doesn’t belong to a networking organization of some kind, I would encourage them to find one that suits them, and then join it.

Because no matter how successful you aspire to be, or already feel you are, in business, and in life, you can never have too many good people on your side.
Marketing Coach Kelowna - Sales Coach Kelowna - Branding Coach Kelowna

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

2008 is almost over; did you reach your goals?


Each year, people make New Year’s Resolutions for change, only to find that they didn't achieve their goals – and then they make the same resolutions again the following year. Regardless of the goal, one of the major reasons that people fail to achieve their goals is that they do not have a goal-setting process for success.

So what makes a good goal? Goal setting provides a target to aim for so that you can make better decisions about how to utilize your time and effort for both business and personal goals.

A good goal is one that is worthy of individual pursuit; that, of course, is highly subjective, so far be it from us to define what your worthy pursuit is.
All goals, no matter what they are, start with a plan!
So what is your Goal-Plan? A good Goal-Plan is one that when followed, offers a reasonably high probability of success, given sufficient time.

FloodLight tip of the month - Here are a few tips to get you started for 2009
· Identify areas of strength and weakness
· Create a vision statement for the year
· Determine which areas to focus on in order to receive the biggest payoff
· Set goals to achieve business and personal results
· All goals must be written
· All goals must be believable
· All goals must be challenging (moving you forward in your life)
· All goals must be measurable and specific
· All goals must have a deadline
· You must hold yourself accountable for all your goals

Need Help?
FloodLight Consulting provides objective feedback about what you need to do to get your business on track. A healthy business coach relationship provides you honest ongoing assessment of your Business Development Activities, assisting you to focus your efforts in the areas that will have the greatest long term positive impact on your business and your life. If you need help creating your goal-plan Click here!!

Donald Robichaud
FloodLight Consulting
250-768-9415
http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/
http://www.donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/

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