The one thing that is most common in holding people back in life is doubt.

Doubt is a form of negative thinking. These negative thoughts stem from past experiences of your own or others you know of, from your analytical brain trying to predict the future and your own belief system.

Doubt is a form of fear and as I have explained in a previous post, FEAR is an acronym for False Expectations Appearing Real. 

We all face doubt every day and most of the time it is running below the surface preventing us from taking the necessary action we are capable of.

It may creep in when you set yourself a new goal or when you do something you have not done before. We face these situations all the time so doubt really does have an active presence in our day to day lives.

Doubt doesn’t like sleep!

So how do the best performers cope with doubt? How do they overcome it?

Personal Excellence

Hosted business email is about more than just employees having access to work email wherever they are. Hosting business email in the cloud offers significant cost reductions and workflow improvements (with their own cost benefits) over running an on-site server.

Initial costs

The cost benefits of hosted business email are apparent right from the start. Rather than having to make a capital outlay for a physical server, and the office space to store it, as well as hiring a third party to install the server (or take time out of in-house IT staff to do so), hosted business email outsources installation costs to the hosting company.

Simple Online Marketing

Despite what marketing people passionately believe most people don’t think about brands, they just get on with their lives. The coffee they buy, the supermarket they go to and petrol station they visit happen almost by accident. In Britain today we are too busy to think through these everyday inconsequential purchases, focused on saving time, not forgetting something or rushing from place to place on a tight deadline. So do brands matter and if so why and how?  Consumer Choice

Let’s start with the basics, the consumer has choices, endless choices if they choose to use them, but in many everyday cases as in my examples above, the consumer sacrifices those choices for simple expedience.

Do you have a vision or are you just a dreamer?

If you have a number of prospects hanging about in different stages of the sales cycle that never seem to get to the close you need to ask yourself some questions about each one.

This exercise might seem time consuming but can open your eyes as to where you and your sales team should be focusing in order to reach the sales targets required. I have heard on multiple ocassions that the length of the sales cycle is to blame for not forecasting correctly but I think it is often about not reading prospects correctly. Here are the questions I use which you might find useful

The Sales Formula

I’ve been working with some fantastic coaches and leaders recently in business and sport and I have become aware of something very powerful.

The difference between being good and being GREAT.

What is the difference?

My insight may not be what you expect.

I have discovered that the difference between being good at something and being GREAT at something is quite small. Let me explain.

I am not saying that you only have to do a little bit more work or put in a little bit more effort to become great.

What I am saying is that the difference lies in the smallest of details.

Great athletes, great coaches, great leaders… they all focus on every small detail no matter how small as long as they believe it will help them and their people to improve.

And I believe that the difference lies in those individuals who are willing to pay attention to every small detail and apply what they learn no matter how small it seems.

It is this attention to detail that makes the difference.

It is a mindset ultimately.

Personal Excellence

One of the biggest customer service frustrations is automated phone systems. Let’s be honest, very few of us enjoy dealing with them… press 1 for this… press 2 for that….la la la….. your call is important to us (honest!)….. In fact, it is often highlighted (by me and others!) as the most frustrating thing when dealing with a business!

Well, here’s a great story of overcoming that from Norway, and amazingly it’s from a bank! Apparently the Norwegian bank DNB sponsors the Norwegian Broadcasting Boy’s Choir and in December they got them to sing the call options, and balances when you rang them!

The impact was amazing and the result was over 2 million calls to the phone line in December – the population of Norway is only 4.9 million!

Compete Or Get Beat!

 My client proudly reported her two new client wins. Just as I was about to start celebrating, she then mentioned in a quiet voice that she had lost two new clients. They had apologetically told her that friends had just set up an accountancy practice, and so they were going over to them. But, if they mucked up they would be back very quickly. Some small crumbs of comfort!

The Effective Joined Up Networker

The computerization of the business world has not only given us tools to increase efficiency but through the day to day running of our companies has resulted in us collecting an enormous amount of data. Sitting in CRM’s, Accounting and ERP systems and on a collection of spreadsheets data grows organically giving us a wealth of information about our business, customers and prospects – data that in many cases is one of the most valuable assets a business has - an asset that is often ignored.

The Sales Formula

What does the word responsibility mean to you?

For me, it means how you respond to the events in your life. And it is your response that then determines your results.

For example:

You try something. It doesn’t work out. Do you try again? Do you give up? Do you become more determined to succeed? Or do you dwell in the disappointment?

Your Response – ability will determine every result in your life.

How would you rate your ability to respond to the events that happen in your life?

Realising that your response is your choice is the first step to improve your response-ability.

How can you start doing that?

Quit moaning about the weather, the economy, other people, your job, your circumstances – this is a virus that will just keep you stuck in a negative mindset. If you want to lead a successful life you cannot be spending any of your time focusing on the negative aspects of life – least of all constantly banging on about them!

Successful people are quick to find and implement a solution.

Personal Excellence

This is the first in a series of profiles of rapidly emerging technology companies in the NW. Author Malcolm Evans is a leading business angels specialist and a commentator on several sectors, including IT and advanced manufacturing. He says, "We are sharing company profiles as the scalability of bright ideas into real companies is absolutely key for economic recovery. This first profile is a fantastic company which will change the face of online marketing."

CANDDi is one of only two early stage companies in the Manchester area which we believe is currently creating significant and fundamental breakthrough technology within the commercial enterprise.

As such it is part of the new infrastructure, a key part of the jigsaw.

The company has just launched its first commercial offering into a major marketplace hotspot, instantly leveraging its software breakthrough with the raw commercial desire for its product.

Funding Enterprise: freeing-up money to help grow great British businesses