Shameless Promotion!

I went to see Debbie Allen speak a the National Speakers Association event last night in Wellington.  A very impressive lady with some great tips to share.  Not only is Debbie in the top 5% of motivational speakers, she has also bought and sold 7 businesses. This got my attention, a true entrepreneur living a life of her dreams. She was a great speaker and shared loads of her own secrets to success. My favourite of her many tips last night was “Get your ASK in gear!” I’ve always believed if you don’t ask the answer is always no, so I agreed wholeheartedly as she told us all to ask for what we want at every opportunity. She also advised speakers and educators to get your own unique brand mark/style.  Hers is ‘Shame-less” and everything she teaches revolves around shame-lessly promoting yourself.  With my ASK firmly in gear, I managed to grab a quick interview with Debbie after her show last night.  Check it out, you’ll see what I mean!

Traits of the Rich & Free #1. Vision

Without fail, every single successful business person I’ve talked to states having a vision for how the business will turn out as a critical factor in its success.  I started reading Michael Hill’s book “Toughen Up” the other day and right there in the first chapter he says “visionary thinking is the real key to business success”.  I remember years ago, when I first started my advertising agency Red Rocks I went to see a lady called Sharon Hunter give a talk to a business group. When she was just 22 Sharon Hunter co-founded PC Direct, one of the first PC companies to sell directly to consumers.  The company was a huge success.  Sharon went on to sell it and make her first fortune at an age before many business owners ever get started.  I can clearly remember Sharon on stage as she talked of her success.  She said when she started that business she could clearly see what it was going to look like when it was done.  She said she could see it, she could smell it, she could touch it – her vision was that clear to her.  And once she had that vision in place, all she had to do was work out how to make it happen.

The world’s most successful people are visionaries.  They are able to look out to the future and see what they are aiming towards.  They know what they want their end result to look like.  A clear vision not only gives you the end result clearly out there to work towards, it also gives you the daily motivation to keep going.  Brightness of the future is an alluring tool in the toolbox of business success.