If you’re like me, you have more ideas than time. You may have pages and 
pages of notes from conferences, books you want to read, and videos you want to watch; now, if you could only find the time for all of it! Well, I hate to break it to you, but with all the modern technology at our fingertips, the one thing we’ll never invent or create is more time. It’s a finite commodity, and every second that passes is one that will never exist again.
OK, enough of the gloomy words. I want this article – as with most of mine – to be inspirational and to get you motivated to act. That’s the idea that prompted me to write this. Knowing that you can’t do it all is easy. Deciding to take action on some of your ideas is the important first step in achieving greater success. Success is not a product of having ideas or money. Success comes from acting on your ideas, and since you can’t do them all, it means prioritizing them so you can get started. Too many people get paralyzed trying to do too much. You end up spreading your precious time between too many things, only to complete very few (if any) of them.
Let’s start a resolution!
As we approach the end of the year, and many of us start making New Year’s resolutions, what I’d like you to do is to resolve to do something that you can finish within the first 2 or 3 months of the new year. Some of your bigger ideas will take longer, but if you break them down into smaller pieces, you can check them off your list and see the progress. The key is not to stop the flow of big ideas. The key is to decide which ones will have the greatest impact, and then break them down into smaller pieces that you can do now.
For those of you who’ve heard me present “Are you too busy to be successful?” or read my book Your Attitude for Success, you know that I’m referring to what I call your To-Do List, versus your Today List. Your Today List items are all of the things you need to do on a daily basis. Things like responding to email, getting ready for this weekend’s weddings, taking the kids to school, grocery shopping, etc. Your To-Do List items are the things that are more big-picture goals. Things like expanding your business, redoing your pricing and packages, redoing your website, etc.
Let’s make it personal
These aren’t just business things. My To-Do List is things like learning a new language, writing another book and launching a new site with all my audio and video presentations. None of these can be accomplished quickly. The only way to do them is to break them down into small bites. That’s how I wrote my latest book, Shut Up and Sell More Weddings & Events. You don’t sit down to write a book. You write some words today. And then, you find time to write some more words tomorrow, or the next day. Then, after doing that for days, weeks, or months… you have a book, or in my case, a 200-page book. Once I got into the groove, I actually wrote more than I needed for this book, and decided to leave some for another book. I have learned, from writing two other books, that I shouldn’t edit while I write. That slows down the process. Write the words, then go back and have them edited when you’re done.
But it’s in the box!
When I decided to learn Spanish, I hesitated to buy Rosetta Stone because of the price. Sound familiar? You want to act on your idea, but a price tag is holding you back. When I finally pulled the trigger, and bought and started to use it, I was so upset with myself that I had wasted months of time where I could have been using it. I did what our customers do, and looked at price first – not return on investment. (See another article I wrote: “I’m a hypocrite, are you?” for more about that topic)
Once I started seeing progress, I invested more and more into my goal of conversational fluency. I simply find a few minutes, most days, to learn or practice Spanish. Whether it’s listening to audio books in Spanish in my car or ordering my iced tea in Spanish at McDonald’s (actually happened the other day), I’m on a mission to improve my skills. That’s the equivalent of finding time to write a few words towards your book.
Are you investing in your success?
What’s on your To-Do List that’s just not moving? Are you looking to make a new website, but just can’t get started? Is the cost of a new website holding you back? Instead of thinking how much it’s going to cost for a new website, think about how much business you may be losing with your current one! A DJ client of mine called me in a panic, to review his current site, and to guide him towards what his new site should be. I asked what prompted his sudden urgency and he told me that a high-end wedding planner had referred a couple to him for their wedding. The couple looked at his current site and went back to the planner and asked for a different referral. The planner assured them that he was the right fit, but they said that they didn’t like his website, and wouldn’t even contact him. That cost him thousands of dollars in lost business; and that’s only the business he knows that he lost. How many others went to his site, didn’t like what they saw, and went away? You can see that it only took one or two lost sales to equal what a new site would cost him. What’s your website costing you?
You can’t reap the rewards, if you don’t sow the seeds
I get many inquiries about having me do sales training or consulting. I understand that it’s not in everyone’s budget (which is why I’ve written books). What surprises me is the companies that reach out who are doing, or looking to do, large sales volume, yet they balk at the cost. I had one venue ask me to significantly lower my price, to come and teach their team how to sell more – at higher dollars. I told them that if I did lower my price to get that sale, they shouldn’t hire me, as I’d have no credibility to teach them to hold their prices. They didn’t bring me in this year, but I’m already booked for them for next year! They realized that they had wasted a year of not benefiting from the ideas, and that the investment was small, compared to the potential gain in increased sales.
Success comes from action
So, what are you waiting for? What’s holding you back from acting on your To-Do List items? For many of you, it’s having too many things on your list. Cut it back to just a few (I have no more than 3 things on my list at any one time), so you can focus all your energies on completing them, instead of diluting your time and energy across too many things. My friend Bruce Hale, a Fulbright Scholar and speaker, says that, “Failure is just an unintended consequence”. You tried something, and it didn’t work out the way you wanted. But he also says that success is often an unintended consequence, because the positive result you got was different – or even better – than the one you had planned. Either way, the common element is action. If you don’t take any action, you’re standing still – or maybe going backwards – as others move forwards. Move yourself forward today. I look forward to hearing your stories of success.
Need some help with your sales or website? Are you stuck and can’t get started moving your business forward? I can help you, as I’ve helped so many wedding and event pros, like these:
“On behalf of our sales and marketing team I want to thank you for sharing your incredible wisdom about the wedding industry at our all-day conference held at our facility. I am sure this will turn out to be the least amount of money I have ever spent to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars of new business in return. Talk about ROI!”
-Bob Ryan, Robert Ryan Catering, Phoenixville, PA
“I had another great consulting session with Alan AKA the JEDI master today. I feel that every year my business can use a little kick start and refresh from Alan’s ideas and help. Always a pleasure honing my craft of selling what I love and Alan helps me do just that.”
-Jordan Wolochow, Jordan Brian Photography, Mount Laurel, NJ
Want to find out how I can help you with on-site sales training or a website review? Call, email or use the short form on this page to find out more, 732.422.6362 international enquiries 001 732 422 6362
