What is the best piece of advice you have received as an entrepreneur?

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If you could have support for 90 days to grow your business, what area/s would you focus on?

Would love to know what you think......Please take a moment to share your thoughts.

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How good are you at listening? Is it something you really think about? Is listening really that important to running a successful business? I think so! You spend time developing clear messages for your prospective clients to read and hear, how often do you stop and really listen to what they have to say?

Listening is an important to skill to learn, and one that requires practise, especially to listening empathetically. When listening at this level, you can have a dramatic impact on your sales conversion. But, lets start by looking at the five levels of listening:

1) Ignoring – making no effort to listen,
2) Pretend listening – giving the appearance you are listening,
3) Selective listening – hearing only the parts of the conversation that interest you,
4) Active listening – paying attention to what the speaker says, and comparing that to your own experiences or requirements, and
5) Empathetic listening – listening and responding with both the heart and mind to understand the speaker’s words, intent, and feelings.

What type of listener are you? Most people will either listen selectively or actively, but to really understand and hear what someone is saying we need to listen empathetically. Few people really listen empathetically, and not only does empathetic listening involve a deep shift in paradigm, it requires practise.

We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking, or preparing to speak. They are filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.

“Oh, I know exactly how you feel!”
“I went through the very same thing. Let me tell you about my experience.”

These listeners constantly project their own home movies onto other people’s behaviour.

To listen effectively we need to put our egos to one side and focus on helping the other person express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas. The important thing to remember is that listening to someone is not the same as agreeing with him or her. We often feel that we give our power away by listening to someone else, but in fact listening is empowering. Learn to listen with your eyes, your heart as well as your ears.

To support your move into empathetic listening, here are the four stages you need to consider:
· Mimic the content of communication: simply repeat exactly what is said.
· Rephrase the content: put their (the other’s) meaning into your own words; this takes
thought or mental processing.
· Reflect feeling: we listen and look to the nature of the emotion behind the
communication, observing facial expression, body language, voice (tone, intensity,
volume), etc.
· Rephrase the content and reflect the feeling: we put both the other’s verbal meaning
and emotional content in our own words.

So the next time you are in a conversation with someone, stop and think about what type of listening you are doing. If you’re not listening empathetically, are you really listening at all? Tweet

Do you see yourself as an Entrepreneur or a Business Owner?  Do you see a difference? 

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“I’m not sure where to start.” “What is it that I need to do?” “How can I get going and take my business to the next level?” These are a few of the emails that have been coming in since I spoke at the two events (St George/Sutherland BEC Sales & Marketing Forum & Sydney Women’s Network) last week. There’s a common theme running through the emails, as there was when I was speaking one on one with people after the events. The theme being: most people want to get running, but don’t know where they need to start. So....what's the first step to take?

Well, starting at the beginning is always good. But asking "What is it that I need to do?", is not what I have found to be the best starting point that guarantees you business success. I have found that identifying the core purpose and intention of your business is the very best way to start. This realisation should be your key starting point for all your business outcomes, which will ensure you build such a strong business that it attracts exactly the type of clients you want. By default, this will boost your bottom line - producing the financial results you desire, while maximising your use of time and resources.

Let me show you what I mean.

Ask yourself the following questions:

· How committed are you to growing your business?
· Is this something you really want or is it something that you think you want?
· What does a successful business look like to you?
· What is the reason you began your business? and,
· Could you clearly articulate this, if I was to ask you?

I’ve shared with you that the reason that I started my business was initially because I had a need and desire for freedom. Freedom allowed me to work how I wanted to work, when I wanted to work, and with whom I wanted to work with. As time progressed and things changed within my life, more needs evolved, which kept me focused on continuing to be successful in business. This need is to be a strong role model for my daughters, and to show them that they can do anything that they put their minds to.

If you are clear on why you're in business, then you will make sure you take steps that drive your business positively in the direction of success.

To assist you in achieving this success, let’s look at three of my very simple yet effective strategies to move your business forward:

- Commit to making your business a success. Let’s face it - business at the end of the day is about making money. How many hours do you work diligently to grow and build your business? I’m here to tell you that it takes work and commitment to really grow a business; there is no easy option here. So how much time and effort are you willing to commit to your business success? Decide on what this looks like, stay focused and don’t get distracted. Think about it, if you were working for someone else, would you step out to do your grocery shopping in the middle of the morning?

- Be clear on your Business Development Days (BDD). These are the days, where you work ON your business. Know exactly what day/s of the week you are dedicating to be BDD. Be clear on your outcomes, know what you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve them. Do you know what activities you need to include in these days? If you have been doing the same thing and nothing different is happening, now is the time to look at what you need to change, and plan how to do it.

- If you’re still not sure what to do….give yourself a kick-start and work with a mentor. Investing in my mentors has been the best money I have spent on myself and for my business. Not only am I constantly learning, I’ve committed myself to being strategic about how I work to develop my business further. When I get stuck in a place of: “What do I do next?”, I ask the question, work through this with my mentor, and then roll up my sleeves to achieve what is next for me.

So, let’s commit to stop standing still. Write down what you want from your business and then look at what and who you need to help you achieve it. Take a stand and make a difference. Tweet

I’ve been doing more running over the past few months and have inflamed an old back injury. So when it really starts to hinder me, off I go to my fabulous physiotherapist and she works her magic. During the course of our conversation, (well actually it was more like her reading me the riot act about over-running!), I mentioned to her that I need to go back to my lpilates studio to work on my core strength. I was surprised when she told me that they actually had an alliance with a pilates studio only a few streets away.

Now I’ve been visiting these guys for the past few years, so was surprised to hear that they had this alliance. It’s a great idea and I think a perfect compliment for their physiotherapy business. What I found interesting was that as a client of their business, I haven’t yet heard about this additional service they were providing.

It made me wonder how many other businesses have great products and services out there, and are losing thousands of dollars because their clients don’t know about them.

Do you have a product now that isn’t being used to its full capacity? Do you have a service that your clients don’t really know about? If so, ask yourself the following questions, so that your products and services aren’t losing you money:

1) What are you currently doing to make people aware of your service/product?

2) Have you developed a strategy to support the launch and implementation of the product?

3) Does your marketing campaign include all multi-channels of marketing or just the ones you are comfortable using?

4) Are you speaking the language of your clients and potential clients, so that they see and hear about the benefits your new products will provide them?

5) Are you telling them specifically what solutions this product will fix for them?

If you are not getting the return you thought your new product/service would provide, then one of the best investments you can give yourself right now is to work through the questions above. Identify what you need to do differently to put your product/service out there in the eyes of the public. Not promoting your services effectively and efficiently is bad for your business. Your clients want to know about all your products and services, as they have emotionally and financially invested in you thus far. Why would you want them to go somewhere else, when you may be able to solve their current challenge? Tweet