Best Small Business Advice – Interview with Kelly O’Neil

This is the final interview of the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Award winning Speaker, Author and Marketing to the Affluent Expert, Kelly O’Neil, is passionate about helping entrepreneurs think big and play bigger to build thriving six and seven figure businesses. Kelly O’Neil is no stranger to the good life. Having been raised in an affluent family in the Silicon Valley where private planes and luxury vacation homes were a way of life, she set out after college to create her own wealth…and succeeded.

In 2000, she left a thriving career in corporate public relations and founded UpLevel Strategies (now Kelly O’Neil International™) where she works exclusively with thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs as both a coach and consultant to help them design businesses where they earn more and work less through her Marketing to Millionaires™ programs.

While Kelly grew up in an affluent family, she did not always have the privileges associated with money. Listen to the interview to learn:

• The lesson she learned renting her first apartment after graduating from college
• How an unexpected reaction when she decided to quit her six-figure salary job made her even more determined to succeed as an entrepreneur
• Why she succeeded financially but failed miserably in other areas of her first business
• The one thing she would have done much sooner if she could start over again
• What an important mentor told her (this advice is invaluable, and one of the hardest lessons to learn)

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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Can you plan too much?

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When I chat with my mastermind friends, and other colleagues who own businesses, the most common topic that comes up is the amount of work we have to do. Not necessarily the volume of what has to be done (although that might be topic  #2), but the challenge of deciding what to do first.

People are often shocked when I tell them I have my main activities for developing and marketing my own business mapped out at least 6 months to a year ahead. They’re also perplexed when I talk about scheduling client projects for the summer. But how do you control that, they ask, when you’re in a service business?

Let me tell you – once you have a plan, it really is easy! Much easier, in fact, than having to make a million decisions on a daily basis.

Among the people who struggle with this, I find there are a few archetypes that summarize how they approach planning in their business.

The Starter – the person who always has a great new idea, and jumps in quickly to try the latest thing, but never seems to get anywhere.

The Plodder – the person who keeps putting one foot in front of the other, but never looks up!

The  Finisher – the person who only tackles one project at a time, and doesn’t start anything else until the first one is done.

You can already guess that none of these approaches work very effectively. In all cases, these business owners may be busy, but they will not be able to get the ultimate benefit  of planning, which is really just making sure you’re on the right track to get where you want to be, and that you’re checking out your progress frequently enough that you can change course if you need to.

If you don’t have a plan, or at least, have gone through the “Great Plan In Your Mind”, I can pretty much guarantee that you are wasting your time, throwing away money, and making bad decisions. The impact of these decisions could be incremental, like a drip from a leaky faucet, or huge, like a water main break, but either way, they are costing you. You’re probably not making the most of the existing opportunities you have either, because you are only looking at the next few days (or hours!) and not further out.

When you have a plan and a decent strategy behind you, at a glance, you can schedule important tasks for each week, have a more reasonable expectation of your business expenses and income, make informed decisions on participating in training or making a larger expenditure, and evaluating opportunities that come your way.

You can predict your busiest times and know when you will be able to slide in other projects, or even launch certain services to take you through traditionally slower times. You can seek the kinds of projects that fit the timing. For example, in the summer months in my consulting work, I look for and schedule work that doesn’t involve outside meetings because my daughter is home for summer vacation. This allows me to keep making money, but on a completely open schedule over the summer months.

Many business owners think they either don’t have time to plan, or don’t know how. And people who are just new in business think they can’t because they don’t have any experience in their business yet. This is not true!

Whether your plan is on a napkin, in an excel spreadsheet, or in your head, you should be able to answer these basic questions:

• Do I know what is different about my business that people find valuable?
• Do I know exactly what I am selling, and who I am selling it to?
• Do I know the best ways to reach these people?
• Do I have ways to connect and build credibility with them, without selling to them?
• Do I know the main activities I am going to do regularly to reach these people, as well as attract new potential customers?
• Do I have a way to follow up with clients when the work is done?
• Have I set aside enough time each week to work on developing these activities, and taking care of business?
• Do I have a way to measure how I’m doing?
• Do I know where I want to be at the end of the year? Next year?

These are just some of the questions that I would ask you, if we were sitting down together talking about this. Planning isn’t about having the perfect plan, it’s about the process, and it’s about doing it! I encourage you to spend some time thinking about these questions.

Once you know the answers, it becomes less daunting to take out a calendar, make some choices about your key marketing and managing activities, and start scheduling out what you have to do and when.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:  Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System^TM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and  unlock their business potential for greater  personal freedom and prosperity. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful entrepreneurial adventure. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for free tips on how to unlock the business in you.

You can do it, you just don’t know it yet!

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This morning I celebrated a personal milestone. You see, although I am a fairly active person and like to golf, take dance class, and ride my bike I have never been “into” sports.

So you can imagine my family and friends’ surprise when I signed up to run at 5:30 a.m. a few times a week.

Today was the first day, and when I arrived I immediately sized up the other women in the group. I knew that a few of them were seasoned distance runners, from their conversation with the leader. About a third said they run regularly, for exercise, and the rest were like me, totally inexperienced and probably feeling a little unsure.

We started with a one kilometer run just to “warm up” followed by another four kilometers. I completed three and had to walk a portion of it.

All I was thinking was I didn’t want to finish last! When my shins started to feel like they were on fire, I was tempted to quit. Thoughts of “what were you thinking” came to mind. It would have been very easy to deke off the trail and drop in at my friend Wendy’s house.

But I didn’t, and instead of feeling like a loser, now I am celebrating the good feeling that I accomplished the first steps in what will be a longer and sometimes painful process. I was the last to finish, but not by much, and instead of feeling self conscious and comparing myself to those that did better than me, I crossed the end of the trail with a big smile for showing up and not quitting.

Originally, I was going to send out a different article today. But this experience got me thinking about how much our mindset and prior conditioning shows up when we are challenged, feeling less than competent, and getting out of our comfort zone.

Quitting a job and starting a business, and then growing and advancing it takes a lot of courage and determination.

We underestimate how much our self-labels and tendency to compare to others can undermine us.

Through coaching and working hard to improve my own skills, I realized that no one is born a wildly successful entrepreneur and that often feeling incompetent or uncomfortable is just a sign that you are encountering something you just haven’t learned how to do yet.

Separating the label, for example, “I’m not an athlete”, or “I’m not a marketing person”, from the act of learning a new skill, is a perspective that has really helped me.

In business there are many skills we need to learn and master. Not all of them will come easily. Here are five tips:

Recognize but don’t be identified by your limitations – We all have things we are good at, and things we are not. The more in tune you are with your own weak spots, the more you can work with them instead of against them.

Know you are not the only one -Everyone struggles, although our individual struggles are different. If you don’t participate in a networking or mastermind group, or other forum, consider getting involved. It’s amazing how lifted up you can feel when you know that others are going through challenges too.

Stretch yourself – Putting yourself in situations where you are a little uncomfortable is how you grow. Doing the same things, the same way, is not going to get you different results. You have to be willing to try new things.

Make yourself accountable in the way that works for you – If you know you are less strong and therefore less likely to work on a certain aspect of your business, find a way to make sure you do. This is the number one reason that people hire coaches and join mastermind groups. The aspect of public commitment and a shared promise to show up is a very effective way to hold yourself accountable. Others may find they need a different form of support like setting goals and rewarding themselves for completion.

Change your attitude – If you can accept challenge and approach learning with an “I just don’t know how to do this yet” attitude, you can see that nothing is insurmountable. Put yourself in a  position of power, rather than negatively labelling yourself. When you do something, focus on your achievement and celebrate ALL wins, no matter how seemingly small.

As for me, I am fairly sure I will not run a marathon, but I will succeed at my own goal. Coffee at 6:30 anyone?

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:  Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System^TM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and  unlock their business potential for greater  personal freedom and prosperity. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful entrepreneurial adventure. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for free tips on how to unlock the business in you.

No waiting for hugs

It has been a dramatic and exciting year for me and my business. The amount of personal and professional growth has been amazing.

One of the best things I did for myself in 2008 was making the commitment to continuously invest in my professional development, at a greater level and pace than I had before. Taking this step has not only enhanced my knowledge of certain areas of business, but has had the invaluable benefits of heightening my awareness level and building supportive networks.

For example, as a result of attending a conference, I met a group of people who were interested in continuing the momentum and applying our knowledge. We set up a regular weekly mastermind meeting where we share our wins, challenges, and plans, and most of all, request support from each other.

On this morning’s call I raised the topic of balancing mom time with business time, since for many women myself included, flexibility and having time for our children is one of the main reasons we started our businesses in the first place. Our discussion was insightful and helpful to me, and the group dynamic is such that sharing experiences helps each other.

When I finished the call, I asked my 7-year old daughter what she liked most about mom working at home in her own business. She said “When I want a hug, I don’t have to wait until the end of the day.”

Setting up networks that support and nurture you mean you don’t have to wait for hugs — so once again, I am humbled by the wisdom of children who seem to give you exactly the perspective you need! Happy holidays.