That being said, dates like June 30th, December 31st or March 31st (depending on where you are) can prompt as a reminder to take stock of your business and re-align where it’s going.

Firstly, check to see if you are happy with how the business has performed the past 12 months. Are you pleased with the results? If not, what are you not happy with that you could have done better, given different resources? If your business has grown and you are happy with its performance (taking into account the issues below), then it’s a matter of keep doing what you’re doing.

If you are not 100% happy with the results thus far (lets face it, most people think that something could have been done better or differently), find out how you have been perceived by your customer. This means asking for feedback. You may think that things weren’t great, but what did your customer think? The information you can get from your customers can help with your next 12 months.

Did you set a budget for the past 12 months? If so, did you perform well against your expectations? Where did you fall short? Were your expectations too high? Were there unforseen factors that impacted on the results? Did you set the bar too low? Checking your dollars is not the only measure of success in a business (see the first point), but it goes to checking the financial viability of the business now and in the future.

What do you want to achieve in the next 12 months? What types of business, customers and opportunities do you want to experience? If it’s as simple as “I want to grow my business”, you’re got to know by how much or have a rough idea of the target you’re aiming for. Otherwise, how will you know if you have reached it? Your targets may be financial, cultural, or ideological – it’s important that you know what you want to achieve before you work hard at getting there.

Lastly, how are you going to do it? Employ more staff, sub-contract, buy another business, create new business, or conduct a joint venture? There are so many different ways you can create the outcome you want. It’s a matter of picking a way that you believe will work.

Two important final points:

1. This process is fun. It takes the impossible and crazy ideas you dream of and helps you figure out a way to make it a reality for you
2. You can change the plan! If the ideas you set for yourself now are not working for you in 3-4 months, change it. Go through this process again.

If you have any ideas you want to share, please feel free to list them below.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust – unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her precious bonsai.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email. Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate’s page in your autoresponder.

4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can also contain your autoresponder address. Let’s say you’ve written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally, include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.

5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you’ve written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.

6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you’re selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.

7. Distribute advertising. Let’s say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or email newsletter. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects’ email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.

8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content – not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product. Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.

9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your affiliate programs.

10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.

11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitors’ email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.

12. Offer a trial version of your product. If you have a digital product, give your prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.

13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.

14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.

15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant ideas of your own!

In case you weren’t aware of it, you a salesperson. Before you deny this fact till you are blue in the face, let me explain. You are a salesperson if you:

• Promote your own business to others
• Promote the business you work for to others
• Promote yourself to others

Everybody, at any point in time, fits into one of these categories. You are either drumming up sales for your business or one you work for through direct sales or convincing others that the company you work for is a good company. Or you are convincing others about a point of view you might have toward a subject. So, everyday we are all trying to persuade another human in one area of our lives or another.

What does this have to do with fear?

Let’s take the act of persuading somebody to make a purchase from you or your company. This can also include trying to get them to agree to a meeting where you have the opportunity to show a new product to them. For the experts – those of us that do this everyday – this may seem like a walk in the park. But for the rest of us, this can be very intimidating, especially if you are new to the job.

So how do you cope with these feelings? To put it simply, feel the fear, and do it anyway.

It is important to acknowledge the Fear as being real. It is unwise to try and pretend that the feelings are not there, because they are. You know it when your stomach does back flips or your palms start sweating. Instead of trying to convince yourself that those feelings don’t exist, accept that you are having them, and this is the reason why.

The moment you face Fear head on, you destroy the power it has over you.

Your first step in this process is to acknowledge your feelings as being real, BUT not having control over you.

Often our brain’s tendency to fabricate what the other person (client, prospect, friend, etc) will say or do when you present your ideas to them comes next. Will they reject you and slam the door in your face, or slam the phone down in your ear? Will they think that you are wasting their time, and that they wished you had never contacted them?

Truthfully, you might get some people who may think that way, but the reality is, most people are so concerned about what is happening to them and how people think about them, that thoughts about what they will say to you don’t enter their minds.

So, instead of giving your brain time to imagine and dwell on these fantasies, raising the level of fear in your mind even more, get moving. And here is the second secret to feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Action destroys the energy of fear, and motivates you into a definite outcome.

You may have heard the acronym for Fear? FEAR = False Events Appearing Real. The first time I heard that I was listening to a CD by Anthony Robbins. False events = fantasies, or your imagination.

By stepping up and taking action, everything you do begins to destroy these false images, as your actual reality is vastly different to your imagined one. You will find that your offer to help that company, provide them a new product, or to help show your friends a better way of completing a task, will be received with an open mind. Now this does not guarantee the result you want, but it will guarantee a result. They will either accept your offer, want more information, or decline it.

Let’s look at these results for a second.

• If they accept, then you have achieved your outcome.
• If they want more information, then you can still achieve your outcome.
• If they decline, then you can move on to the next person to achieve your outcome.

99% of the time they will be respectful and courteous to you, even if they really don’t want to hear what you have to say. Not mater what the results though, the imagined events in your head (the Fear), is always ten times worse than the actual events. Now that can be guaranteed.

So next time you start getting nervous about anything you want to ask of someone, be it a sale, a favor or a date, remember this – destroy the fear by taking action. Acknowledge your feelings and decide to change them, not ignore them. One more thing – the people you are talking to have exactly the same fears, and when you truly understand that, then you will know that your actions will help to eradicate their False Events too!