“The marketing mix is a business tool used in marketing and by marketers. The marketing mix is often crucial when determining a product or brand’s offer”
The term “Marketing mix” was coined in an article written by Neil Borden called “The Concept of the Marketing Mix.” He started teaching the term after he learned about it from an associate, James Culliton, who in 1948 described the role of the marketing manager as a “mixer of ingredients”; one who sometimes follows recipes prepared by others, sometimes prepares his own recipe as he goes along, sometimes adapts a recipe from immediately available ingredients, and at other times invents new ingredients no one else has tried.
The Marketing Mix is made up of 7 P’s, they are
Product
When we talk about the product, we are focusing on things like technical specifications or features, design, quality and packaging. Also including are things like guarantees and after sales service along with product range considerations.
Place
When we consider Place and its part in the marketing mix we’re focusing on channels of distribution, promotional partnerships, stockists, location, stock levels and delivery arrangements and those types of things.
Price
Price includes things like retail pricing versus trade pricing, special offers, instalment terms, general price levels within the market, discounting policies, credit policy and overall pricing strategy.
Promotion
Promotion involves advertising, sales promotions, selling methodologies, advertising spend, advertising copy, media channels, and advertising schedules.
People
People involves any contact your employees may have with the customer from the CEO to the cleaner and everyone in between.
Process
The Process goes right across your business from the pre-purchase stage which includes things like contactability and purchase options, through the purchase stage and includes payment methods such as layaway and finance deals through to the post-purchase stage and includes delivery process and customer support and complaint procedures.
Physical Presence
Physical Presence includes things like premises, vehicles and staff uniforms and dress code.
So you can see how the marketing mix forces you to look at every aspect of your business and how it relates to the customer experience of your business.
Originally the Marketing Mix was made up of 4 P’s these being product, Place, Price, Promotion, but have since been increased to the seven we use today.
Use the Marketing Mix to gain advantage
Decide which P or combination of P’s is the most important and relevant to your business and heavily market this to keep the edge on your competition.
For example if you’re selling based on the quality of your service, this means emphasising People and Processes, if you’re selling based on “technology superiority” you would be emphasising the Products edge over competition.
Customer touch points
Identify the touch points between your business and the customer, everything your customer sees, hears, touches, tastes, uses or otherwise interacts with. Each customer interaction, contact or exposure is what is called a touchpoint. Use the 7 p’s to test these intersections and ensure your customers are getting the right impression about youyour businessand aim to build customer interest and loyalty, if you are not currently doing so.
Get Results: the seven P’s
Summary
The Marketing Mix and use of the seven p’s is a valuable tool and allows you to carefully analysis how you interact with your customers in a structured way. Aim to improve every customer touchpoint and market your business in a much more immersive way, not just through your advertising but through the way you do business and your business culture. The end goal is to make your business much more attractive to prospects and keep your existing customers coming back for more.
Are you frustrated that you’re not getting the results you want?
Are you working hard producing content but nobody’s paying attention? Are you wanting to get out of the nine to five rat race and liberate yourself with a location independent online business, but just can’t get any traction?
This article is based around “getting results” from an internet business perspective, but many of the points can apply to such diverse goals as losing weight and becoming wealthy.
You’re not getting the results you want because of one or more of the following:
You have no defined goal – you don’t know what you want, in this circumstance you need to decide on a clear goal.
You’re doing something wrong but you don’t know it’s wrong (assuming you wouldn’t knowingly be doing something wrong). If you’re not getting the results you strive for then you can be sure something is missing, something in your understanding. You need to find what this is to make any further progress.
You don’t know what to do or how to do something that is important, you may not even know you need to know or do it. This is a difficult one but ideally you want to look to role models – people who have trodden your path before you and got the results you are looking for.
You’re knowingly not doing something that’s important, Got to take action here, simple as.
or a combination of some these.
There are two components required to getting the results you want these are:
knowing what to do
Doing what needs to be done
Looking for relevant information to help you
If you don’t know what to do to get the results you’re looking for, it will be nothing more than a matter of luck if you achieve them. If you’re looking for online success you need to know the options open to you and the best practices in doing them in an effective manner. So for instance, if you’re at the start of your online journey, some of the options open to you are:
Affiliate Marketing
Running an eCommerce store selling physical products
Blogging free information (monetise with ads)
Running an Amazon store
So lets take affiliate marketing as an example. If you want to know how to go about getting results as an affiliate marketer you can search for a book on the subject, check out any reviews about it and buy. The problem with books on the subject of affiliate marketing is they quickly go out of date. The internet is evolving at such a pace, printed books can be old hat as soon as they hit the shelves, this is why self published kindle books or ebooks are very popular because they contain more timely information.
Alternatively you can start searching the major search engines for “becoming an affiliate marketer”, or similar searches. Then you have to start sifting through the vast amount of results which come in the form of blog posts, video tutorials, podcasts etc. In fact I have just done such a search and found nearly 300,000 results.
The explosion of the internet has resulted in us having access to unparalleled amounts of information about any topic we turn our attention to. The problem with this situation is not all the information has been created equal. Some of it contains gold nuggets while some of it can only be described as mis-information and trash.
If marketers are motivated to get you to buy their latest product, they will frame the information in such a way as to encourage you to buy that product rather than giving you balance or accurate information.
But let’s be fair, you ain’t ever going to go through all of these 300,000 results, probably just a few on the first page. So lets look at the criteria you need to use to find the golden nuggets of information that will help you get the results you are looking for.
First thing is to make sure you are only taking advice from people that know what they’re talking about. Look at the business models, systems, and habits and relationships they use and try them out yourself. It isn’t guaranteed you will get the same results they have, but until you try them out you will never know. Look at what they sell, how they sell it, who they sell it to, how they find their customers, how they drive traffic to their sales funnel etc. Then try to use their system as the basis for of your own. Don’t just duplicate them, but try to understand why they do what they do and use this as a guide. Check out a few models and see what they have in common. This will most certainly help you understand the process more clearly.
With affiliate marketing specifically you need to find a product to sell, ideally one you use yourself, that you like, find valuable and would be happy to recommend to someone else, then offer it to your audience. Find your own angle, don’t just blindly follow others, but think about what value you can bring to your audience and build a brand around this point of difference..
Get to know the right people
It’s not always about what you know, often who you know can help move mountains. So whatever area you want to get results in, look for people in the know, the influencer’s, and the thought leaders. Join relevant network groups, Facebook groups, and forums and get involved in the conversations and make contacts. If you aren’t getting results and are already in some groups and forums, leave and join others. Check out other blogs, listen to different podcasts, read more books. If you’re not already getting the results, then make a change, but don’t give up.
Make sure you have set yourself a Goal(s)
If you want to get results you need to start with a goal in mind, otherwise how do you know if you’re making progress. If you’re not heading somewhere specific then you’re like a rudderless boat, at the mercy of the tide.
Make your goals big and specific, check out my post all about goal setting for more information on the topic. In a nutshell. Have smaller goals which lead to your bigger overall goal, lined up like domino’s. Smaller goals can be daily, weekly, monthly. Keep your overall goal in mind at all times, and don’t be scared of thinking too big. Ask yourself, “If I couldn’t fail what would I want to do”. It’s okay to have big goals, but be realistic about how difficult they are going to be to achieve, don’t let the difficulty aspect de-motivate you. Use your success in the smaller goals to build momentum towards your overall goal.
Have a sound plan and take action
Your plan is “how” you get the results you want. It’s how you get to achieve your goal. When you’re formulating your plan you need to think about what gets done and when. Start with a basic framework and fill in the details. I find it easier to start with my goal and work backwards to the present time. A simple reverse framework might look like this:
Sell £x worth of X product
Email sequence – demonstrate the value I can bring and allow visitors to get to know me before I try to sell them something. To sell £x of product I need Y number of email subscribers
Lead Magnet in exchange for opt-in
Lead Generation – my customers spend most time on Facebook so use Facebook ads to get leads. It’s important to think about who your customers are, and how to best reach them.
Remember this is currently in reverse order because I find it easier to think things through in this way, but do what works best for you. I’m not going too much into the details about planning in this article, I just wanted to mention a few points and to stress the importance of actually making one, which I’ve now done.
If you find you’re not following your plan then find out why. If you’re:
procrastination
burying head in the sand/denial/ignoring/making excuses/keeping busy doing something else and justifying it
doubting your own ability
being indecisive
feeling overwhelmed
or anxious – perceived imbalance of “ability” and “necessary requirements/skills”
these are usually a manifestation of some fear you have
Avoiding fear of…
Failure
Ask “what’s the worst that could happen?” you’ll realise the consequences of failure are not as scary as you might have first thought. Each failure is a learning experience, and with each failure we take out another obstacle. Ask yourself “What would I do if I could not fail for next 24 hours.” This will help you focus on what needs doing immediately to achieve your goal(s) with the fear of failure removed.
You can not fail until you give up. “Winners never quit and a quitters never win”. Winning often follows losing, remember everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. For winners, losing inspires them, for losers, losing defeats them, winning means being unafraid to lose.
Don’t let failure put you off, failure is a great teacher and helps you become more focused on what is needed. Your plan is the journey that you intend to take to reach your destination, and sometimes your way might be blocked, but reassess your options and take a detour. Just make sure you don’t forget that you need to get back on track at the earliest opportunity.
Don’t fear:
Rejection – if others say “no thanks” they are rejecting your proposal not you personally and are just protecting themselves. You need to convince them of your reliability and trustworthiness. “Profit from criticism”
Disappointment – each hurdle is a step closer to the finishing line, learn from each disappointment, change your mindset and learn from any disappointment.
Doing the important things productively
When you’re taking action, make sure you are doing the important high value tasks rather than keeping busy shuffling paper around your desk. It’s not about working hard or slaving away for long hours, its about working smart and effectively and making your work matter. You should make doing the important things a priority and doing them in a productive manner. In his book “The One Thing” Gary Keller advocates living with:
Purpose (determines who we are. It sets our priorities.)
Priority is our focus
Productivity are our actions
If you align your purpose (goal), your priority and productivity should easily fall into place, and motivation should be easy, because you’re doing something that really matters to you.
Get an accountability buddy
If you’re finding it difficult to maintain motivation, then look for help from someone else as an accountability buddy. Make your progress reportable to them and have them give you honest feedback and push you to hit your deadlines.
Avoid Distractions and Temptation
Many people love social platforms, but they can be a real “time drain”. Enticing headlines can easily encourage you away from the task-in-hand and off at tangents, usually on to pointless trivia sites, if you’re anything like me. Avoid such distractions, generally avoid anywhere where you will be distracted, they are killing your productivity.
Temptation is another goal killer, particularly with regards to weight loss and dieting. The same applies here, avoid being in situations and places were temptations exist, unless you have an incredible amount of will-power, and most of us just don’t.
It doesn’t have to be perfect
If you’re bringing a product to market then the best thing to do is get it out into the marketplace. It doesn’t have to be perfect, get the minimal viable product out there and use customer feedback to help you improve it. That way it evolves into what the customer wants and is likely to be more successful in the long term.
Taking Risks
We have come to something that is greatly variable from person to person and is heavily dependant on financial circumstances and pre-disposed tolerance to risk. The bottom line is every new action you take has some element of risk connected to it. You’re moving from the known to the unknown and usually outside your comfort zone, which feels scary.
However to get more in life you need to grow, and to grow, you need to do new things that you haven’t done or tried before. Self-belief is also a big component of risk taking. If you feel you have the skills necessary, you are more likely to take action. Fear will hold you back, re-read the section about fear, above.
Risk taking requires a mind-shift, and unless you make it, you will find yourself stuck in the same situation. However don’t be reckless. Don’t invest thousands of pounds in something that you know nothing about. Any idiot can lose money. Build up your knowledge first and only take calculated risks. (“Risk benefit analysis” is a useful tool for this).
Embrace Change
Taking risk feeds directly into the ability to accept change. Being open to new experiences or new ways of doing things is a crucial skill in a rapidly changing world. If you fail to adapt you will almost certainly get left behind. The days of learning a skill that would see you through to retirement has long gone, think of the steel industry, and mining industry to name just two. Whole towns lay derelict in the USA as testimony to the necessity to accept change as a part of life. Aim for skills that will always be needed, such as the skill of “selling”, businesses will always need to sell products and to employ people that are good at it.
Learn and never stop learning, be a master of what you know and an apprentice of what you don’t know. Don’t be satisfied with doing things the best you can do them, but the best that they can be done. We talked about it earlier, but use role models, and the systems, models, habits and relationships they have developed to get their results.
Additional Points
Just a few additional points to consider:
Have drive, be consistent and adopt good habits, if you think you lack the mental strength to lead others, then you will need to toughen up.
Don’t use failure as an excuse to fail bigger, be critical of yourself and strive for better results.
keep it simple, if you don’t understanding it you can’t control it,
Never give up, persevere and do whatever it takes.
Summary
You’re not getting the results you want because:
You have no defined goal – you don’t know what you want,
You’re doing something wrong but you don’t know it’s wrong,
You don’t know what to do or how to do something that is important, you may not even know you need to know or do it,
You’re knowingly not doing something that’s important,
or a combination of some these.
You must:
know what to do
Do what needs to be done
Sounds simple when it’s put like this but of course the devil is in the detail. However I am all for simplifying complex issues wherever possible. It allows me to go back to basics and helps me understand the underlying key issues with all the surrounding noise removed. This structure of analysis can be used for all goals, such as losing weight, getting fit, earning more money, finding success online, or in your career.
Hopefully you have found this article of use, if so, please share it with your friends, family and colleagues.
This is a piece I posted in 2015 on a different website, I thought I would include it here. I lost 3 stone within a few months, and continue to maintain the same weight today, so I consider that a success.
Originally posted 18th June 2015
Are you feeling frustrated that you’re not getting the results you crave? Disappointed with your poor results? Ongoing failure can lead to chronic anger, where you become difficult to be around in other areas of your life, snapping at others for the least thing. Often this state of being causes many to give up with a deep feeling of failure remaining in the background of their mind.
Wouldn’t life be so much better if you could take control of your destiny, without feelings and other things getting in your way. We all want to be high achievers, successful and consistently able to get results even if we fool ourselves into thinking otherwise.
Knowledge
I recently decided to lose weight and knew that a combination of exercise and diet would be critically important. knowing what I should be eating, and when, as well as knowing the best type of exercise to be most effective for my weight loss being key to success. I want to lose a lot of weight in fact. I’m currently 19 stone, which is the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life, and I’ve decided it has to go, I’m aiming to get down to 15 stone over the next 12 months or sooner if possible. Below is what I think I need to do to lose weight
Exercise
Build muscle – resistance exercise rather than cardio
High intensity exercise, with low impact on joints
Don’t sit so much at my computer and have regular breaks in between, walking around and standing more
Burn more calories than consume on a daily basis
Diet
Low calorie intake
Regular intake throughout the day rather than binge eating late at night
More calories early in day and less at night
Less snacking of fatty foods, instead fruit and veg snacks if at all
Drink less fizzy drinks and consume more water
This is only a brief overview of my plan of action based on the little bit of research I’ve done so far, I won’t bore you with the details, the important thing to know is it’s vitally important you find a good source of accurate up-to-date information to enable you to succeed in your endeavour. There is so much conflicting information out there about subjects such as weight loss, fitness, business, on-line business and the like, it can be really difficult to know for sure that you have the right information you need. Most of the time I go with the view, if it makes sense give it a go, but if I’m honest I’m forever reading and improving my knowledge bank and searching out more information. knowledge is power or the potential for power, but without action it’s useless.
Motivation
Well for me, this is a biggie particularly when considering the subject of losing weight. I don’t need to work on my motivation levels for business because it just comes easily to me, but cutting down calories and exercising are not my favourite things to do. I have an inner conflict which stops me doing what I should be doing and keeps me doing what I shouldn’t (cognitive dissonance)
What I mean by that is I eat too much fatty foods because I love the taste of it (doing what I shouldn’t be doing) and don’t do what I should be doing (eating healthier and restricting my calorie intake). This is double negative. When it comes to the exercise part of the equation, I’m just as bad, not exercising, instead sitting watching the TV or working on my laptop.
So what’s going on here. I want to do something I shouldn’t be and don’t really want to do something I should. The end result is I pile on more weight and move ever further from my goal of losing weight.
This is what’s going on in a lot of us I suspect. Lack of motivation and cognitive dissonance (inner conflict) is not just killing us but killing our chances of getting the results we crave.
There is no silver bullet I’m afraid. Gonna have to make a change mentally and physically if I wanna achieve my goal.
Get Results – Make the changes
I recently came across this quote or similar but I remember like this:
“What you do in this moment shapes all your tomorrows – make it count”
Get Results: what you do in this moment shapes all your tomorrows. make it count
It helps me to think from a “this moment perspective”. If I eat something fatty it’s not okay, cause I’m sewing the seeds of failure for all my tomorrows. It’s a zero tolerance approach. All we have is this moment, nothing else really exists, so aligning my now with what I want tomorrow is the only way to do it in my eyes and even though it’s early days…it seems to be working for me.
You might find taking a longer term view works best for you – the point is, you do what works for you and the way your mind works by default.
Alternatively you have to break bad habits and destructive thought patterns and replace with more empowering ones. This is harder to do than the previous option, requiring a great deal of “will power” but is greatly rewarding and can certainly be achieved with purpose, determination and perseverance.
The important thing is to get results, and that brings me back onto the purpose of this post, to help you get results, not just in weight loss but whatever you are trying to do.
So you’re here at the beginning – frustrated, disappointed, angry and ready to give up, right?
You want to be there (your goal) – achieving, successful, consistently getting results?
To get from here to there, you need to know:
What to do – this is the knowledge bit – What to do, How to do it, When to do it – this is all about doing your research and answering these questions. Find good sources of reliable information, study it and understand it thoroughly. Secondly
Do what needs to be done – this is mainly about motivation – doing what needs doing, and not doing what’s counter productive. This is often the hardest part of the equation. Most of us have inner conflicts where we find ourselves wanting to do something that is counter productive to our goal. Using the example I used early where I find myself enjoying eating tasty fatty foods while also wanting to lose weight. I find that changing the way I frame the situation in my mind helps, so focussing on eating well rather than the discomfort of not eating junk (re-framing the issue). Also I would suggest getting yourself an accountability buddy who will hold you to task if you don’t follow through on your plan. I am kind of doing this with you, my audience because if I haven’t lost weight within 12 months of writing this article, than you will know I have failed to practice what I preach, and with that, I’ll lose any credibility on the subject.
Fear is a big de-motivator that can trap you in your current situation and prevent you following your goals. Fear of failure, rejection, disappointment, change, embarrassment, of the unknown can all be dream killers. Often such fears manifest themselves in the excuses we give ourselves for not taking action, procrastination, buying your head in the sand, denial, avoidance, keeping busy doing other things, over-complicating situations, insisting on perfection before taking action, giving up without a fight. Facing fear head on and moving past it, although scary to think about, is often easier to overcome than our imagination would have us believe. Jim Carey said it best “Know the difference between a dog that is going to eat you in your mind, and an actual dog that is going to eat you”.
Use as much help as you can elicit from others especially people who have experience doing what you’re trying to achieve. From a knowledge perspective, consider hiring expertise where appropriate and look towards friends and family for motivation purposes to help keep you on track. Look for tools which will help you succeed with your goal, including things like phone Apps that you will have with you all the time..
Just going back to my plan of losing weight, I came up with the following list of additional things I could use/do to help me in my pursuit, should I need to:
Use fitness Apps – to keep me motivated
Listen to Audio books – to prevent boredom during repetitive workouts
Watch TV while working out doing cardio exercises (treadmill) – aimed to prevent boredom
Undertake what I consider to be enjoyable exercises such as bike riding, and 5 a side football with mates to make it more fun
Join a club and exercise with others possible down my local gym
Find an accountability buddy or exercise partner
Undertake Shorter exercise routines – high intensity in short bursts
Remember I don’t have to increase intensity if I’m just wanting to maintain fitness at a certain level
Have equipment set up all the time so there’s no time setting up and packing away, or use minimal equipment (ideas for exercises without equipment)
Investigate tasty, healthy recipe choices
Drink more water to fill stomach – avoid fizzy pop – drink flavoured water if I get fed up of plain water
Keep mind occupied to prevent snacking due to boredom in evenings
Eat health snacks – fruit or veg instead of crisps and sweets
Use recipe apps for healthy eating advice
Put X’s on calendar every time I follow plan. Don’t break the row of X’s
Read motivational quotes, watch motivational videos to help inspire me
Get Results:predator of chance rather than a victim of circumstance
The EU referendum has certainly divided the country, with strong opinions on either side of the argument. And it has been an argument, rather than a debate. From a psychological point of view it’s been a rough ride for both sides.
Politicians and the media have been guilty of constructing their campaigns in such a way as to play to the fears and insecurities of both sides, by using very emotive and divisive language rather than just presenting the facts. Why have they done this? Well because there are no facts, no one really knows if it would be best in or out of the EU. There are opinions about pros and cons on either side of the debate, but not many facts.
It is a gross understatement to say that the general public have been manipulated during this referendum. Politicians and the media recognised the fear of both sides and played heavily on these to influence voter’s decision-making.
Both sides have their own expectations and preferences about the future, which are in opposition. The leavers want to maintain democracy and see the EU as anti-democracy and a symbol of anti sovereign control. Remain campaigners want to remain part of a EU that promises being part of something bigger, making the UK something bigger than they see it as being outside the EU.
The current reality as perceived is also different for each side of the argument. Leavers feel they are having a bad deal, influenced by decision makers that are not directly accountable, see the UK with an elected government that lacks any real power to influence its own economic, immigration and law-making requirements. Remainers’ believe while the current situation isn’t ideal change is better influenced from within the EU rather than being isolated outside it.
The views are certainly in opposition, but you will never get a consensus. In fact it is good that we question each other’s beliefs. In fact both sides want the same thing, to have an improved quality of life, they just disagree on how best to achieve this.
What is not good, is the way politicians and the media have used emotive and divisive language to intensify the fears of both sides, and position the other side in such a way that they become perceived as the “enemy”
Let’s have look at how it works…..
If you look at how emotion is created, it becomes obvious how politicians and media have been playing us and why we have reacted so aggressively to the opposition, and it has been aggressive, and we do see the other side as “the opposition”, even “enemy”. In fact we are both victims of the same process of emotional and unscrupulous manipulation.
Lets look at the equation of emotion and how it shapes your emotional reactions. The equation of emotion is…
Expectation/Preference (EP) compared to Reality as Perceived (EP) = Emotional Reaction (ER)
When your Expectations and preferences don’t match your perception of reality you will experience a negative emotion. This is a fact.
If the source of this imbalance is not something we are attached to, we will become angry towards it. If we feel the threat to be greater, more real, and imminent, we feel even more angry towards the source. (Find out more about the Equation of Emotion by following this link.)
Let me explain…
Remain campaigners have a strong belief that:
We are better in EU than out because we are part of a bigger trading block rather than being alone, this comes from the belief we are too small to make our way in the world alone
We are an open society that welcomes diversity and is outward looking rather than being against immigration and having racist tendencies
We are more secure sharing security information within the EU, than being out on our own.
We can affect change better within the EU rather than being powerless outside it
The theme for these beliefs is that we are better together rather than alone. The fear of remain campaigners includes, fear of isolation, fear of not being part of the decision making process, but still being subject to the EU rules of trade, the underlying fear is a fear of being worse off, having less money, having less prospects, having less of an open society. It’s a fear of loss.
Remain politicians have played on these fears by using very emotive language and attacking opposing views as beings racist, xenophobic, anti-establishment fuelled, and of being an isolation mentality.
These are so against remain campaigners views that it positions opponents as the “ENEMY”. There is no greater “other” than an enemy.
So let’s go back to our equation from earlier.
Remain campaigners have an expectation/preference that the UK is open, inclusive, part of something bigger, part of the decision making process within the EU,
Their reality as perceived is, we are no longer that kind of country with over half of the nation having racist, xenophobic, anti-establishment tendencies. Seeing themselves as now being materially and prospectively worse off out of EU than they would have been within the EU.
The emotion they feel as a result of this, is anger. Anger directed at leave voters who have been painted implicitly and explicitly as the “enemy” because of their opposing views. The more remainers’ feel this to be true, the stronger their anger towards leavers. The more they believe they will be worse off, the more they believe leavers to be everything they are not, the more of an enemy they see leavers, the more the anger and hate they direct at them.
Leavers have a strong belief that:
We are better as a sovereign country rather than giving control to an un-elected EU
Want to control UK border rather than having no say in numbers and choice of migrants coming into country
Ability to make and enforce our own laws, rather than EU making blanket laws that don’t fit our particular national circumstances
Want elected politicians to be accountable and able to be sacked if not doing what the populations wants/needs
Don’t want to be pushed into ever closer union with a United States of Europe with un-elected officials making decisions for us, without accountability.
The theme for these beliefs are centred around control and democracy.
Leavers see remainers’ as not standing up for their democratic rights and laying down and letting the establishment take advantage. They feel the quality of life is being eroded by a lack of control and accountability of the politicians that have been elected.
Politicians and media have played on immigration fears, and lack of democracy to strengthen the resistance to these issues. Again they have strengthened their argument with emotive language designed to stir up and intensify these fears.
Leavers expectation and preference is to have accountable government who have control of the important aspects of society, like the economy, border control and law making and enforcement.
Their reality as perceived is that, this is now the case, having won the referendum, but let’s assume they had lost the vote, for illustration purposes. Had they lost they would feel that they had lost control of democracy. That the political elite had been given a mandate to take further power from the sovereign countries. They would be blaming the remain voters for allowing this to happen. They would likely see remainers’ as being gullible, spineless people who have foolishly given democracy away without a fight.
The emotional reaction would have likely also been anger. This anger would be directed at those seen as responsible for this unacceptable situation, the remain campaigners.
The truth is, that the exact same internal process is going on in the remain voters as is in the leave voters. Both sides have opposing views but both are doing it because they feel it is right for them and the wider community. They are both doing it from a position of “good will”. Both feel passionately about their views and see opposing views as misguided, ill informed, and the victim of propaganda. The emotion has been intensified by manipulative politicians and the media, who are trying to influence voters’ decision-making, by preying on voters fears and insecurities and over-blowing the consequences of either decision.
The truth is, staying or leaving isn’t as bad as either side believes it to be, and that the politicians and media have been stirring up emotion to serve their own agendas, and voters have been caught up in the intense emotion of it all. We would have survived had we stayed in, we will survive now that we are out.
Try to stop feeling angry and realise that love and caring is driving both sides of the debate. Now is the time to put our differences aside and focus on creating a new and improved Great Britain for the good of us all.
A few lessons to learn from the recent EU referendum…..
This morning Britain voted to leave the EU and the reaction of the stock markets was as could be expected, resulting in a lot of turmoil and rush to safety. Much of the political reaction was also based on fear and the prospect of an uncertain future for the country.
Always winners and losers (in every situation)
In reality there will always be winners and losers in any given situation. If we had remained in the EU there were no guarantees about what the future held. Hoping to protect the status quo is a nonsense, there is no such things as a status quo, things are always changing and evolving, whether we like to admit it or not.
When the price of sterling dropped like a stone this morning when the markets opened, had you bought a currency trade and sold it just after the bank of England speech a few hours later, you could have made yourself a lot of money. And so it is with every situation, there will always be winners and losers. It’s not really about what happens to you, It’s about how you deal with it. Change brings opportunities as well as risks. You can either position yourself in such a way as to take advantage of those opportunities or play the role of victim, and lose.
Get Results:predator of chance rather than a victim of circumstance
Change includes risk and opportunity
Emotion makes decision making much more subjective and fearful, if you can separate emotion, and emotive language from the facts, you give yourself a chance of making a rational decision. When we hold a strong emotional position, we may refuse to shift our opinion or back down to any opposing views and counter arguments. In truth, it’s not about being right or being wronged it’s about moving forward and making the best use of the opportunities that are inevitably available because of the very thing we fear…change.
We’re different: embrace the fact
Holding a strong opinion doesn’t make you right or wrong. Some people like to feel they have some control over their destiny, others like the sense of comfort and security. There are leaders and followers, risk takers and play safer’s and all have a valid place in society. They value different things and have different perspectives, and make decisions based on what they feel is right for them and their families. Accept this as part of life’s rich tapestry, don’t judge or ridcule others, respect their views, sure give them your opinion by all means, but know they are entitled to hold theirs.
Anger grows out of fear
When things apparently move against us and our perception is that the outcome is going to be bad for us, we may feel threatened and fearful. In an attempt at self protection, anger may result and be directed at whatever is deemed responsible for causing that fear. “Remain” campaigners saying “leave” campaigners are ignorant of the facts, have been brainwashed, are responsible for this mess, and have low IQ’s etc are attempts to make themselves feel better and increase their self worth. Discrediting others, is a defence mechanism, that inflates their sense of self. However a question we should all be asking is why do people feel such fear in the first place?
Follow your own agenda
During the EU referendum a lot of emotive language and stories of doom and gloom have been used by politicians and media on both sides of the debate, often designed to manipulate the audience into responding in a way that serves agendas of the politicians and media. It creates division and builds strong emotion, clouding the facts and making rational decision making more difficult. It builds on our fears and when we are fearful, we have a tendency to resist change even more than we would otherwise. Try to separate the emotion, and make rational decisions based on facts, don’t be a pawn in somebody else’s game, play for yourself. And even if you feel you are acting in your own best interests, ask yourself, based on what facts, not opinion or prediction, but facts.
The EU referendum has been one of those monumental moments in history. The future is uncertain, and either exciting or scary depending on your perspective. It is unprecedented in history so we will have to wait and see how it pans out.
I guess we will make it work, we always do. It’s in everyone’s interest for it to be a success. When there’s no alternative we can focus on making the one option we have work for the good of all us all as stakeholders.
Taking Action is the single most important aspect of getting results. Without this part of the equation nothing is realistically possible. It’s true that you need a goal, a sense of direction to work towards, but you can plan your path to your hearts content, but if you don’t then take action, all that planning isn’t going to materialise into your reality.
We have all been guilty of procrastinating, this often manifests as over-planning. keeping busy devising a goal, and perfecting a plan of action, then tweaking and re-tweaking.
Get Results: Doing is the greatest teacher
Ultimately it’s prudent to have a goal, fashion a plan that can best be described as a “minimum viable outline plan”. Something that gives you a sense of direction, so that you’re not floating around aimlessly but allows you to retain some level of flexibility going forward.
You should progress with a open mind and open heart, and learn from your experience moving forward.
Successful software developers have long since understood the value of producing a minimum viable product, getting it out in the market, and enhancing it via feedback from customers. That way the market helps in the development process in a real world environment for which it was intended. This approach prevents wasted time developing and realising later it has been overdeveloped or developed in the wrong aspects. Letting the end user decide what they want makes sense commercially. Think of it as a collaboration between developer and customer.
And so it should be as you move forwards towards your goal, let the real world give you feedback as you progress. You take action and the world around you reacts in all sorts of unforeseen ways. Whether it be serendipitous encounters with influential individuals, or insights you could never of expected had you not taken action.
Purposeful right action is an even better way to describe it, because you are working towards something, you measure your progress or lack of, tweak and test as you go. Think of it as if you were learning a skill, lets take driving for instance, your instructor watches what you do, informs you when doing something wrong, watches you do it again, corrects if necessary or lets you know you’ve completed the manoeuvre correctly.
It’s true to say that some people are more naturally talented then others, they have physical attributes that might make it easier for them to be successful, but natural talent is just a head start, whether or not you are naturally talented there is no doubt that taking action or practice has it’s also known improves performance.
The 10 thousand hour rule is routinely quoted as being the time it takes to become an expert in most endeavours, a 20 hour rule is also quoted as being the time it take to become proficient at something. The fact is the more you purposely practice or “do” something the better you will get at it.
Ask the focus question as a compass
A good way of focusing your actions so that you don’t waste time doing none important tasks and as a result make sure you’re taking “right” action at all times is to ask this question…
“What’s the one thing you can do now such by doing it, everything else will easier or unnecessary?”
get results: what’s the one thing
It’s a great question for bringing some perspective to each situation you find yourself in, using like you would a compass, when you feel lost or confused about what needs doing next.
Mini-goals
Another way of ensuring the action you take today is moving you towards your goal is setting up mini-goals, that line up with one another like a pathway to your end goal. for instance have weekly goals that that leads towards achieving a monthly goal, that leads to a 6 monthly goal, that leads to a yearly goal that leads towards a 3 year goal and so on. Line each mini-goal up like you would when domino toppling, knock your weekly goals down and that automatically knocks the monthly goal down and so on.
Summary
So TAKING ACTION is an essential step in achieving any goal, it is probably the most important step, but taking action without direction and purpose is rather like floating at sea without a rudder. Have a goal and take action towards that goal. Have an outline plan but know that you should allow some flexibility as you go. Keep focus by asking the focus question, and use mini goals to keep you heading in the right direction. oh yes and enjoy the journey. Life is a journey, it isn’t a destination after all.
We as humans are constantly driven to avoid pain and as part of that drive we strive to “be” more. Western society has conditioned us to believe the more we “have”, the more we will be. So to that end, we constantly operate in accumulation mode. We love to buy stuff and businesses love to sell us stuff. At the heart of our desire to buy is this simple statement.
“If you believe there’s a BENEFIT in a SOLUTION, and you VALUE that benefit enough, and TRUST the SELLER you’re going to buy it.”
Think about the statement from your perspective, is it right for you, well it’s certainly right for me. So from a selling point of view, if we reverse engineer this and align it from a selling perspective we find the following:
Sellers should provide a SOLUTION that addresses customer problems or wants
Sellers should ensure they communicate a VALUED BENEFIT taken from the customers perspective, with regards to a SOLUTION
Demonstrate you are a TRUSTWORTHY SELLER and able to deliver on your promise
So let’s look at each in a little more detail.
Get Results: components of buying
1.Sellers should provide a SOLUTION that addresses customer problems or wants
“SOLUTION” refers to the product or service you are wanting to sell. It should provide a solution to a problem or want that your prospective customer has, if it doesn’t do this than it serves no use.
You can either create a SOLUTION to a problem or want that you personally have, or that you know other people have. Do some further research to establish how wide spread the problem or want is before investing lots of time in developing your SOLUTION.
Alternatively you can create a product or service and see if it provides a SOLUTION to a problem or want afterwards, although this does happen, I wouldn’t recommend it.
2.Sellers should ensure they communicate a VALUED BENEFIT taken from the customers perspective, with regards to a SOLUTION
So when you have a SOLUTION to a known problem or want, the next thing you need to do is market the VALUED BENEFITS of that SOLUTION to prospective customers. Write down all the reasons you think your customer would benefit from using the SOLUTION in order of importance starting with the most important aspects to least important. Now it’s important to be empathetic with your customers situation and point of view, otherwise you won’t get this right. It’s not what you think your customers “should” want or what you “think” is a problem, it’s what “is” a problem, it’s what “is” a want.
I would also list the objections your customers are likely to have and try to put a positive spin on these, because you will inevitably have to address them at some point in the buying process. You might have to work from a best “guess basis” to start but do as much research as possible going forward. The more you know your customers’ the better you can address their actual situations.
3.Demonstrate you are a TRUSTWORTHY SELLER and able to deliver on your promise
If you can’t provide some way of proving you are a TRUSTWORTHY SELLER you are going to have an uphill struggle on your hands, particularly if you’re selling remotely as with a website store.
Genuine reviews and testimonials are a good way of establishing trust, social media presence and positive interaction is another. Having a physical location helps people to know you are a genuine business, rather than a rogue scammer. If you’re new to business, give a sample of your product to people in exchange for some honest reviews and testimonials, just to get you started. Without trust people aren’t going to risk their cash with you.
This is a short post and covers the very basics of selling, but I believe all businesses should be working from a solid base, so it’s an article that needs to be written, because I see so many websites not paying attention to these basic principles.
Get Results: Gary Vaynerchuk quotes love customers first
Gary Vaynerchuk is described as a “thought leader” and “social media guru”, neither of which he particularly likes. He sees himself as a business builder first and foremost having built a $60 million wine business using the internet and subsequently a $100 million social media company. A lot of what Gary says isn’t new but he frames it in a no nonsense, high energy way, that engages business leaders and entrepreneurs alike. His messages cut to the bone, are frank, honest and on point. He builds his personal brand around giving value, so I thought we should include some of his messages for you to take insight from….
Ideas are s**t, execution is the game – we can all come up with ideas, but ideas mean nothing without taking effective action that delivers results. Execution comes down to talent. Not everyone is talented enough to execute effectively. This feeds directly into the next point
Improve Self Awareness -know what you’re good at and not good at. Face the truth and make progress from that perspective. Get help doing the things you can’t do and concentrate on what you are good at.
Bet on your strengths -Double down on them and punt your weaknesses. To be extraordinary, you have to be an anomaly. You ain’t gonna do that if you spend time bringing your weaknesses up-to-speed. You lean towards doing some things over others for a reason. When you’re good at something, it’s usually because you like doing it, and have tended to do it a lot, so it makes sense to keep doing it even more. The opposite is true of the things you don’t like to do. Make your expertise narrow and deep, rather than wide and shallow, stay in your lane, and delegate everything else if you can.
Bring perspective to your business -When the going gets hard, instead of fixating on the negatives, be grateful for what you have and realise things could be much worse. Gary imagines getting a call saying his mother has passed away, he says that although this is a dark thought, it grounds his reality and adds much needed perspective to the situation.
Work your ass off – If you’re in a job but want to be an entrepreneur, grind 5pm-2am to build something for yourself in your off time and, “Stop watching episodes of Breaking Bad” says Gary. If you work 9 hours a day, sleep 6 hours that leave you 9 hours a day to grind and hustle.
Get Results: hustle and execution
Stick to your DNA – Be true to yourself, be authentic, it’s what makes you, you and separates you from everyone else. It’s okay to admire others, but don’t try to copy who they are, be the best version of yourself.
Do what matters – Don’t get hung up on unimportant tasks. Micro manage or delegate, you decide. Most things don’t matter. Focus on what matters. Take right action.
Stop making excuses – Lack of time or capital are just two obstacles amongst many others that you will inevitably have to overcome but don’t use them as excuses not to do something. Lack of optimism is the major problem. Overcome the inevitable obstacles. “Lack of ……” are just excuses. There are a million reasons “why not” but just one reason “why” which is you gotta persevere and get on with it. Take responsibility.
Care for your Customers – run your business with your heart as well as your head. introduce “random acts of kindness” for loyal customers not just when they are leaving you. Find a way to go “the extra mile” at scale
Learn what motivates your customers – Understand what makes people tick and reverse engineering that so you can add value to them. Be empathetic, and really give a s**t. The customer is not always right but they are always the customer. If you want to take their money, you have to get out of the way, and do what’s necessary to close the deal, put pride to one side. It’s how you make them FEEL that they’ll remember you for. Technology lubricates word of mouth, and customer service is key to creating an experience that will be talked about.
Find where your customers attention is focused – Understand where your customers can be found. Attention is much more focused on mobile phones and particularly on social media through mobile. If you want to get your brand in front of those customers you’ve got to meet them were their attention is. Stop holding onto what worked yesterday, and realign to what is happening in the world today. Get out of your own way, stop resisting and move with the times. Two questions to ask yourself, “Where are your prospects focusing their attention?” “Are you engaging or telling stories to them there?”
Be open to change – Roll with the punches. Don’t try to hold ground. Don’t resist what is. Don’t fear change, embrace uncertainty, evolve, and go with the flow. When you try to resist the way things are, you hurt your business. Market in the present day not yesterday. Things are moving fast, keep up, or get left in the dust.
Be a student of behaviour – This point builds on the previous three. Study behaviour and react to it. Today people are spending huge amounts of time on social media, via their phones, however this is very likely to change in the future as a result of technology advancements, so you need to keep observing and reacting to how the market evolves as a result of these future changes. You don’t have to have a defined plan of attack other than “observing and reacting to what’s happening in the market.”
You must have TALENT – Do you have the talent to be successful, either by being funny, clever, creative, good at DOING something of value, KNOWING something of value, CONNECTING people. It’s the variable that either makes you and your content interesting or not. For instance, you can get away with a drab setting for your videos, if the content is valuable enough to the audience. Deliver something of value using your talent.
Use storytelling in your Marketing – if you understand what the consumer wants, you can then back track to get them emotionally there using story. When done properly it is an invisible influencer. We’re wired to tell and listen to stories. Stories lower our emotional barriers and allow ideas to enter our subconscious.
Embrace your uniqueness – Technology will inevitably take out the B, C, D players in many industries and niches, because they have commoditised themselves, but the “A” players will grow and take B, C, D’s market share. So concentrate on growing your brand. Be authentic, be genuine and don’t try to fit in, or blend into the background, or copy what others are doing, otherwise you will become a commodity (same as everyone else). Ask what makes you different? What makes you, you? Dare be noticed, and stand out.
Get Results: Branding
Nothing happens overnight – It takes lots of work, talent, luck, and serendipity. to be “an overnight success”. Put yourself in the best position to succeed and take a long term view if you can, rather than looking for quick wins. Think Branding over “transaction marketing” for instance.
Hope you enjoyed this article, please check out my Ultimate Guides relating to Health, Wealth and Wellness.
Here is a list of ‘Business principles’ that I have found useful to know over the years so I thought I would share them with you, hope you find them useful…
Look for huge expanding markets – a contracting market means you have to work harder each year to maintain previous revenues and margins. Get your timing right – ahead of trends not behind them for the same reasons.
Provide unique and consumable products . if not unique then you must have a retention strategy, if not consumable then you are redundant until next sale
Pay attention to timing
Make sure you business/ product is ahead of trends not behind it.
Study what creates trends. i.e. Follow the Baby boomers (1946-1964 18 years, 1 billion worldwide control 65% of all money)as they age, products that fend off aging, retirement issues, wills and estate planning, security and money, efficiencies (making life easier), identity theft detection, now 41-59, concentrate on the 60 year olds not the 42 otherwise you are behind the trend.
Stop resisting progress and technological advancement. Instead be on the front foot and be hungry to find out what’s coming next. Disrupt your own business, look how you can put your existing model out of business. It’s better you do it to yourself than someone else does it to you.
Where are prospective customer’s spending their attention. If you’re business isn’t there, you’re competitors will be cleaning up in your absence.
Have a strong work ethic. Work harder than the competition
Work smarter than your competition. Productivity is about focusing on the activities that have the biggest impact on your business.
Employ others – leverage their time and effort
Identify your market segment and focus on them
Where are the gaps in your market?
Where is the growth and profit?
Look for needs and translate the benefits.
Always answer the prospective customer’s question ‘what’s in it for me?’
Look after the customer – go the extra mile.
Be professional at all times, but it’s okay to be human. People do business with people they like, respect and trust.
Plan your objective.
Ask, listen, sell.
And make your business fun – life is not a rehearsal.
Decide what you do (and what you don’t do).
Decide who you serve (and focus on them intensely)
Decide what makes you different (and do it)
Manage cash flow (very closely)
Manage employees (incentivise them for success)
Set goals (and go for them)
Expose yourself (tell the market what you do)
Persevere (though the tough times)
Always maintain your integrity (in everything you do)
Systemise your business.
Deliver full range of values – which means anything that satisfies needs, including money.
The 80/20 rule – leverage yourself and your resources
Apply principles not formulas
Think with your whole mind – logical and gut instinct
Define success. What is success to you?
Focus on results – effective better than efficient.
Use your “double vision” (long term and short term view)
Keep a healthy perspective – big picture view.
Don’t Compete, Create a Competitive Advantage – How will you compete? What will be your business edge? How can you create a winning business model with an advantage? Like the Grateful Dead, the secret is to find a niche where you can be not necessarily the best but the only. Find out what everyone else is doing and then do something different. Your competitive advantage can be based on a unique skill, intellectual advantage, or by selling at an unusual time or location. The alternative to uniqueness is to be ordinary, and sell the same product at the same price as everyone else, making minimal profits if any at all.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the purpose of a business is to make money. But the real purpose of a business is to create value for others.
Trying to sell to everyone is selling to no one. Focus. Don’t waste time trying to sell to the wrong people.
Use financial control to aid your business decisions.
If you’re not already the most expensive in your field, there is room to charge more.
Adaptability. The species that survives, adapts to changing circumstances.
Smell what sells and sell more of it.
Branding and good spelling matters.
Sometimes less is more.
The importance of listening – Listen to what your market research tells you.
Teamwork, creativity, innovation, humility and salesmanship are critical to much of the success in the marketplace. Ego, self centeredness, looking out for one’s self, pride, lack of individual responsibility, and an unwillingness to take risks are reasons for much of the failure in the marketplace.
Perseverance, tenacity, commitment to learning and growing, knowing your market, having a real passion to succeed and understanding your costs.
Plan a retirement date and work on plan of action required to get there.
Its not about who you know but who knows you.
Do what you love – follow your bliss.
Buy items that appreciate in value; rent those that depreciate.
If it sounds too good to be true, don’t jump.
A pressured decision will always rupture.
Fast, cheap, perfect…you can only pick two.
Define your objective(s). find a clear story of cause and effect. Keeping the end in mind increases your chances of success. When planning, work backwards to help identify what you will need to have in place at each stage of progression.
Avoid insanity. Poor processes produce poor results, if something isn’t working, don’t keep doing it again and again.
In business, when things are good they’re not really that good, when they are bad they are not really that bad. Keep a level head, don’t let emotion get the better of you.
Promote your success stories, as story’s.
Stop thinking and start doing. Actions speak louder than words.
Get a business name that explains what you do.
More than simply selling, relationships matter.
The law of supply and demand – Find the demand first then find a way to supply it, at a profit
Find your niche, find your unique selling proposition (USP). Learn how to differentiate your product or service.
Use leverage other peoples, skill, knowledge, money, resources, ideas, time
Look for scalability. If it won’t scale, how can you re-engineer so that it will?
Use lateral thinking to approach a situation from a different angle
Work on your business (system), not in it
Reap what you sew. You’ll get out what you put in.
You have to spend money to make money – speculate to accumulate
Learn to manage cash flow – it is the lifeblood of your business
Understand human nature/ behaviour – the need to seek more/increase and avoid loss/ decrease
Innovate, always be looking to innovate.
Take action, make things happen. You can plan all you like but without “doing the work” you won’t achieve s**t.
Add value to people’s lives by “Uniqueness” – unique value can be charged more for, “Impact” – the degree you improve peoples lives, “Scope” – the number of people you reach, “Perception” – people’s perception of the value you are adding
Say it in 30 seconds or don’t say it at all.
If you can’t explain it simply, you probably don’t understand it well enough.
Know what you know, what you don’t know and who knows what you don’t know.
Look for service/product differentiation – don’t commoditise. If you’re not a brand you’re a commodity.
No one will give you money. Find a starting point instead of an end point, downsize big plans. Find ways to prove your business model on a shoestring budget
Make your expertise narrow and deep rather than wide and shallow.
Don’t fall victim to your own BS. Don’t talk the talk unless you can walk the walk.
Look for win-win situations in all interactions.
Build your weaknesses into your strengths.
Make sure people know about you and your service.
Be lucky. Be open to opportunities related and unrelated, don’t be too focused on one thing. Serendipity and chance come from a higher order, so be open to it.
Focus, focus, focus. Don’t have too many balls in the air at once. Do one thing well rather than lots of things poorly.
Spend 10% of your day thinking about new ways to make money.
Spend 10% of your day networking.
Analysis risk and rewards, take fewer risks as you get older, because you have less time to pull it back.
Spend your money wisely, think Return on Investment, but don’t ignore opportunities to build your brand.
Have fun at work. If it’s not fun, do something else.
Know when to call it quits, but don’t give up too easily.
Know what you do, do what you know. Make use of your skill-set to give yourself a better chance of success.
Act like a startup. Be frugal. Operate within your means.
Sell more by adding variety. People sell more jellybeans when there is an assortment of colours.
Get it in writing, don’t trust anyone. Verbal agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
Offering something of value to others strengthens your worth. Adding value by providing more value than you take in return.
Know where you stand legally with customers and suppliers, know your rights and ensure your business abides by the rules
Adaptability – survival of the fittest. Status quo doesn’t exist. The Risk from NOT doing something. Often feels safe, hard to visualise missed opportunities. Ask “what will happen if we don’t do it”. Because it has worked before doesn’t mean it will always work.
Trust can take years to build and seconds to demolish.
Don’t fight the tide, enjoy the ride.
Live the Golden Rule (treat others with courtesy and respect)
Be a leader – let others follow your example.
Be self-aware. Understand what you’re good at and bad at. Why you do what you do and don’t do what you don’t do. What you like and don’t like.
Employ people that add value and that are better than you at what they do.
Participate and contribute and give 100%.
Pursue excellence. Always be looking for the best way things can be done, rather than settling for the best way you can do them.
Work as a team, there is no “I” in “team”.
Share knowledge, results grow exponentially.
Keep it simple (make it easy for customers to do business with you).
Listen and communicate to employees and customers alike – Over communicate
Never burn bridges.
Always be building relationships in business and personally.
Put the customer first.
Manage customer expectations. Don’t give them cause for complaint.
Be resourceful, use your resources to find creative ways to move beyond obstacles.
Exceed customer expectations always, customer service comes first. Under promise and over deliver – there are more than 100 principles in this article
The Fear of Change is really the fear of a possible future devaluation in our “sense of self” otherwise known as the “Ego”. It’s the fear of the unknown and sense of uncertainty about the future and what dangers that future might hold for us.
The only way to make things better than they are at present, is to make a change – change the way we think and how we do certain things. Failing to change, often results in stagnation and a sense of getting left behind, because everything around us is constantly changing whether we like it or not.
We falsely think that keeping the status quo is the safest thing to do because it’s familiar and we know we can cope with things as they are “Better the devil you know” as the saying goes. This is an illusion. Change is the only reality, so embrace it and be excited by all the possibilities that exist because of it.
The negative things we fear aren’t real, they are only imagined. We can’t deal with future threats, because they are mind projections, which we play, rather like a movie, over and over. We simulate these experiences as if they were real. We feel the sense of danger, our bodies feel the stress as if the experience was actually happening to us. It’s important to know the difference between the bear in your mind that is going to eat you and the actual bear in real life that is going to eat you. Our mind will always gravitate to the “worst case scenario”, because it’s designed to keep us alive. But many modern day situations are not life or death.
Ask yourself “What is really the worst that could happen if things don’t work out, will you die?” How many times have you dreaded a future event, only to find the reality was far less scary than you thought it would be?
I embrace change, I find it exciting. It is the only way to live in our modern world. Doors will open for you, while others may close but the journey is what life is about, not the destination. So enjoy the ride. Open your heart, open your mind. Jim Carey said it best. “Open the door in your mind and when the door opens in real life just walk through it”.
For more information regarding motivation, check out our motivational guide.
“If you insist on holding onto EXPECTATIONS, then expect the future to bring CHANGE, and you won’t be disappointed.”
Get Results: expect change
“CHANGE brings with it OPPORTUNITIES, stop focusing on the RISKS and look for the CHANCES.”
Get Results: See CHANCES not just RISKS
“Why we resist change – CHANGE = UNCERTAINTY = RISK = LOSS. In reality it also provides OPPORTUNITY. But we fear LOSS more than we value gain. So we focus on that.”
Get Results: Why we fear CHANGE
Change Quotes
“There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.” – Dr Wayne Dyer
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”.
Get Results: nothing changes if nothing changes
“When you reach a fork in the road, TAKE IT.” – Yogi Berra
Get Results: when you come to a fork in the road, take it
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” – Dr Wayne Dyer
Get Results: change the way you look at things
“The only way to make sense out of CHANGE is to plunge into it, move with it and join the dance.” – Alan Watts
Get Results: plunge into change
“We can have more than we’ve got, because we can become more than we are.” – Jim Rohn
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading”. – Lao Tzu
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”. – Alan Watts
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”- John F. Kennedy
“The key to change, is to let go of fear.” – Rosanne Cash
“Strive for progress not perfection.”
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” –George Bernard Shaw
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” –Frederick Douglass
“Goals seem impossible only when you are not heading toward them.” – Mike Hawkins
“Everyday is a second chance.”
“If you don’t take risks, you will always work for someone who does.”
“Your life does not get better by chance it gets better by change.”
“I already know what giving up feels like. I want to see what happens if I don’t.”
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
“Run when you can, walk when you have to, crawl if you must, just never give up.”
“You create your own reality.”
“The distance between dreams and reality is action.”
“You create your own reality.”
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Tim Notke.
“Dont make excuses, make improvements.” – tyra banks
“Are your excuses more important than your dreams?”
“Make things happen.” – getresults.org.uk
“Decide – commit – succeed.”
“If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.”
“Let’s not regret what we did not do, rather everyday is an opportunity to do the things we will never regret.”
