19Sep 2016

I need help!!!

I hope your week is off to a wonderful start.

I am in the process of planning my content for the rest of 2016 and I’ve hit a mental block.

I’ve been posting content weekly for a little more than a year now and think that maybe it’s time for a little overhaul.

As I was trying to figure all this out, I realised something.

I NEED HELP!!

Specifically, I’d LOVE your help

What I would love your help with is . . .

Any burning business related questions you want to ask
Any particular topics you want to hear me talk more about here on this page
Would you like or prefer me to share business related information via short video messages?
What would you like popping into your inbox from me every week? Would you like me to do a weekly/monthly newsletter? If so, what topics would you like me to cover that would inspire and empower you and help you build a thriving business?
If you would like to receive a weekly/monthly newsletter from me, please provide me with your e-mail address for my mailing list.

If you could spare a minute or so just to give me some feedback I would appreciate it so much.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Would you prefer a short video more than reading posts here? Do you prefer Podcasts to video? Do you want a newsletter? If yes, how often? Weekly or monthly? What topics would you like covered?

Let me know anything and everything that will help inspire me to create content that you will love.

I look forward to receiving your feedback in the comments box below.

Have a lovely week.

05Sep 2016

30 DAY PRODUCTIVITY CHALLENGE

by Natalie ⋅ Leave a Comment

Three things nobody wants to admit about their time management:

How much we procrastinate
How long it takes to complete a task
How unwilling we are to delegate

Here’s a little Productivity Challenge for you – are you ready?

FOCUS ON ONE THING (free template available on request):

HOW THIS CHALLENGE WORKS

Write down all your projects or goals you’re actively working towards at the moment or over the next month.

Prioritise your projects or goals so you know what you need to focus on. Ask yourself this question: “Out of everything on the list, what’s the one project or goal I’d love to have completed by the end of 30 days?

(Think about the projects or goals most aligned to your big business vision . . . you want to focus on something that will really help you move forward in your business).

Pick your project or goal i.e. pick the number one project or goal you can focus on for the next 30 days.

Commit to focussing on that ONE PROJECT or ONE GOAL almost to the exclusion of everything else you need to do – all your focus and energy goes into this.

Naturally you will still answer the telephone, respond to e-mails etc but your main focus for the next 30 days should be this ONE PROJECT or GOAL.

AN EXAMPLE:

Let’s say it’s your goal to get your website up and running or your goal is to revamp your existing website. What steps do you need to take for the next 30 days to get this done?

At the end of the 30 days, let me know how it went.

28Jun 2016

I don’t know if you are like me always walking around with a million things going through my head at the same time? by the time I sit down at my desk I try to do a To Do List for the day but because there is so much going on in my head I don’t know where to start.

Well, here’s a brilliant idea that works so well for me. It’s called a Brain Dump Planner. This is not your To Do List. This is the place where you write down (dump) every single idea as they pop into your head. You need one of these on your desk whole day every day while you’re working and as an idea or thought pops into your head, you immediately write it down on your Brain Dump Planner. Don’t worry too much about what you need to do with the thought or idea immediately. Leave that for the end of the day.

At the end of the day, have a look at everything you have written down on your Brain Dump Planner and decide what needs to be done about the task. Use the triple “D” system. Decide whether you need to Delegate the task, Dump the task or Do the task. As simple as that.

Delegate that which you need to delegate (via e-mail or whichever way you choose), Dump the ideas that can and need to be dumped (by drawing a line through them on the page) and what’s left to do now gets written on your To Do List for the next day.

Simple, isn’t it?

BRAIN DUMP PLANNER

Today’s date: ___________

Write down anything that distracts you – Google searches to be done, random thoughts, new ideas, whatever. The point is . . . if you write them down, they’ll stop popping up when you’re “in the zone” doing what needs to be done now.

Use the triple “D” system (Delegate, Dump, Do)

Task	Delegate	Dump	Do

Has this post helped you?

Let me know in the comments section below. I’d love to hear from you.

06Jun 2016

Have you mastered the art of saying NO?

by Natalie ⋅ Leave a Comment

Having 24 hours in a day is something we all have in common. This means that we all have the same amount of time each day whether we are a homeless person on the street or Raymond Ackerman or Donald Trump.

A scary thought for me is that where I am in my life today, is a direct result of how I have been spending my 24 hours each and every single day, up to this point. Doesn’t that scare you?

Is your business thriving the way it should? If not, maybe you’ve not been putting enough hours into the correct activities. Please note: I did not say that you’re not putting in enough hours, I said not enough hours of the CORRECT ACTIVITIES. How can successful people like you get more hours in a day?

You need to become very good at saying NO! (and mean it every time you say it).

I’m going to give you three reasons why saying NO can make you more successful:

Feed your own family first

If you’re anything like me, my family is the most important part of my life and spending time with them is not negotiable. My priorities in life are in the following order:

My family
Myself
Business
Friends

My family always comes first. There is nothing in the world I would not do for my family.

Next on the list is myself – I need to care enough about myself to ensure that I’m healthy, happy and living a good life.

Next, is my business. Why is this more important than my friends? Well, because of my family and myself. The success of my business depends entirely on me and the amount of time and effort I put into it – partying and having a good time with friends is not going to keep a roof over my head.

By saying yes, you are saying NO to something else

Are you always agreeing to do things just because you’re too scared to hurt someone else’s feelings? Are you a people pleaser? Are you scared of what others might think of you if you just said NO?

STOP IT! STOP RIGHT NOW!

Today is the day when you will take a bold step, make the change and JUST SAY NO! Why? Because you have probably been putting other people before yourself most of your life (like me). You deserve better. When you say yes to something, you are actually saying NO to something else.

How many times have you said yes to something (helping a friend during business hours, chatting on the phone about a rugby match, or, if you’re a female, talking about girly or mommy stuff) when you should be working on your business?

If you give them a finger, they will take the whole hand – have you ever heard this expression?

I don’t know about you but I’ve often experienced how selfish many people are and how often they take advantage of good-hearted people like you and I. Being the “go to girl/guy” is great, but does it bring in the money you need to keep a roof over your head?

I’ve loved being the “go to girl” all my life but the minute I hint that I’m going to start charging for my services, everyone runs a mile – just goes to show. I’ve built up a reputation of being the “go to girl” who almost always says yes to weird and awkward requests that no one else will help out with (not even their own family). I’ve said yes too many times because I did not want to be the bad girl to say NO.

I’ve made a decision to push myself out of my comfort zone and started saying NO. How about you?

Now is the time to finally take your life back and stop living for other people.

Disclaimer: I just need to say that I don’t mean you should say NO to everything that comes your way. I just mean that you should become a lot more conscious of what you are actually saying YES to. You should be saying YES to requests as long as they don’t interfere with your list of priorities.

For example: a friend phones during business hours to chat about last night’s rugby game – do you chat or say “sorry, I’m just in the middle of something, can I call you back tonight?” and continue working on your business or do you spend an hour or more talking about THE GAME when you could have been earning money?

Always think about your priorities –

A before B, before C, before D, before E.

Get the point?

Successful people share and are generous, but seldom with their time. Why? Because they also only have 24 hours. They are more likely to donate to charity than give a random person a free one-on-one meeting. Why? Because although they have lots of money, they still only have 24 hours in a day.

Where do you find it difficult to say NO?

Drop me a note and let me know.

04Apr 2016

Communication: Become a Master Story Teller

by Natalie ⋅ 2 Comments

Communication: Four secrets anyone must have to have massive impact in the first 5 minutes

Be a master of the conversational Sleight-of-Hand (http://prioritybizservices.co.za/communication-be-a-master-of-the-conversational-sleight-of-hand/)
Learn how to be an “Emotional Conductor” (and become resistant/unreceptive to insults, criticism and mockery) http://prioritybizservices.co.za/communication-four-secrets-anyone-must-have-to-have-massive-impact-in-the-first-5-minutes/
Adopt a Value-Delivering Mind-set (and let others praise you for it) – http://prioritybizservices.co.za/adopt-a-value-delivering-mind-set-and-let-others-praise-you-for-it/
Become a Master Story Teller

Today is the fourth and final of four posts in which I will share tips on how to have massive impact in the first five minutes of walking into a room.

Storytelling . . . did you know that the gift of storytelling can be one of life’s most powerful and envied skills? A well told story can make us laugh, weep, swell with pride or rise with indignation. A story badly told can be boring and uncomfortable and also positively painful to experience. As human beings we seem to be fundamentally hard-wired to tell stories. Stories are how we record both the monumental events of our lives and the small, everyday moments.

Become a Master Storyteller:

Ancient philosophers recognised that expert communication had to have two parts working together: Logic and Rhetoric.

Logic involves getting the facts right and making sure that the speaker knows that what they are saying makes sense and follows sound reasoning.

Rhetoric is all about how things are said, how emotion is used, and how convincing one is in the way they tell the facts so as to have maximum influence on others.

The Greeks recognised that both logic and rhetoric had to be combined and that too much of one without the other would diminish the impact a person could hope to have. Storytelling focusses on the rhetoric part and it’s a skill that recognises that there is more to influence than just intelligence.

Although it is incredibly useful and important to be smart and correct, facts on their own rarely move people to action.

Influence comes from being able to tell an engaging and moving story that captivates an audience and wins them over with its power. Example: why do movies have so much more effect at bringing world problems to people’s attention?

We need stories to move us into action and people who own the room need to be able to move others into action, which means we have to become Master Storytellers.