How to Build More Confidence and Be More Successful

How to Build More Confidence and Be More Successful
Getting Things Done When You Have Too Much To Do
5 Reasons You Can No Longer Afford to Ignore Google Plus

Posted: 28 May 2013 04:00 PM PDT

build confidence

Confidence in yourself, others and in your business is vital to your success. If you are thinking of starting a business or you already own a business, you must already have some self-confidence to take such a big risk.

Having confidence in your abilities is vital to your success in business because without it, you might be able to start a business, but you will likely hesitate to expand or leave your comfort zone, which is necessary to grow and thrive in a competitive economy.

How do you build your own confidence and the confidence of your employees? How do you build it into the very structure of your organization? These questions are the focus of this article because they are so important to your overall success.

Build Confidence

To build your own self-confidence it is important to focus on your successes. Don't be afraid to post your past accomplishments and successes on the walls of your office. Doing so will constantly remind you that you have a history of success and are worthy of more.

In building your confidence, focus on what you can actually change. For example, if you know your communication skills are weak, take actions to improve them. Every little step in the right direction will build your confidence.

Also, don't take on big issues at work without reaching out to your support network. You need to bring everyone to the table that can play a role in finding a solution. Keeping all the problems on your shoulders does nothing but bring you down. Showing confidence in your team builds up the overall confidence of everyone involved.

Your personal self-confidence also comes from trusting yourself to make good business decisions. Start by concentrating on the positive outcomes of your past decisions. Have you made some bad decisions in the past? Congratulations, you're human!

Take a lesson from them, and then let them go. Concentrate on all the right ones. You need to have a looping highlight reel of your successes playing in your mind in order to trust yourself enough to be successful in future decisions.

Instill Confidence in Others

Instilling confidence in your employees begins with training, and should incorporate systems and autonomy. For example, if an employee is tasked with dealing with customers, they must be trained, follow processes or guidelines, and be empowered to do their job.

They cannot be put in a position where they have to look to others to solve every little issue that arises. They need to know you trust them to find solutions to simple problems.

Remember Lessons of Confidence and Humility

There is no successful CEO or sports star that is suffering from lack of confidence. What can we learn from highly-successful people? First, there is such a thing as too much confidence. We must guard against that. There is a balance to be found there. Humility is an important part of success.

As you build your own confidence and that of your employees, your business will thrive, and you will enjoy running your organization more. Take a moment right now to think about some of your past accomplishments; your confidence will immediately start to soar.

Make a habit of this, and your business will start to soar too.

Confidence Photo via Shutterstock

The post How to Build More Confidence and Be More Successful appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Getting Things Done When You Have Too Much To Do

Posted: 28 May 2013 11:00 AM PDT

getting things done

Productivity consultant David Allen – of "Getting Things Done" fame – says to be more productive and creative, you need to clear out your head.

Allen, founder of the productivity system called "Getting Things Done" or GTD for short, and author of a series of books, explains, "If there's something on your mind, it's not getting done. People who get the most done have the least in their heads."

Allen made the remarks at the recent InfusionCon conference at the Westin Kierland Resort in Arizona. Allen was one of the most popular keynote speakers and the event I most looked forward to attending.

In a packed session, Allen gave advice how to be more creative as well as productive. He spoke about not letting the day-to-day details of running a business get in the way of leveraging your creativity to capture new opportunities.

Allen challenged the audience of entrepreneurs to think about "What [the word] 'flourish' means to you." Define "flourish" for you. Once you define that, it's easier to determine what your "purpose and principles" are, which is what Allen says really matters.

Creativity Comes From Being Relaxed, Focused, Inspired

The goal is to get to "the productive state," which Allen calls the "best state to be in" where you're "in control, relaxed, focused, inspired and engaged" you need to get out of the "stale" state you're currently in. Creativity, Allen claims, happens when you have "the freedom to make a creative mess — and if you're already in a mess, you can't make one."

But in order to progress Allen says you need to clear your head.

Entrepreneurs are famous for having ideas. But according to Allen, once you get your ideas, you need to get them out of you head.

"Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them," Allen says. The key, he adds, is to "capture your idea and put it somewhere." You have to figure out what is actionable about your idea and then actually do something. However timing is key. As Allen says, "Decide what to do when it shows up — before it blows up."

Keeping track of it all can sometimes be overwhelming for small business owners so organizing your ideas is a big part of Allen's plan. And then he recommends an almost constant review process. Allen says take one to two hours at the end of every week to revisit how you're doing.

Getting Things Done: Break It Down Into Steps to be More Productive

If this sounds a bit overwhelming Allen breaks it down into 6 steps:

1. Capture your ideas
2. Clarify what's actionable
3. Take action
4. Organize
5. Review
6. Stay current

The 3-day InfusionCon gathering of entrepreneurs and experts was lively, entertaining and informative. InfusionCon is the annual user conference open to the 50,000+ users of Infusionsoft marketing automation software. This year the conference had more 2,100 attendees. CEO and Founder Clate Mask's opening remarks dovetailed with Allen's remarks. Mask urged entrepreneurs to learn how to run their businesses, and not have their businesses run them.

Clear Mind Photo via Shutterstock

The post Getting Things Done When You Have Too Much To Do appeared first on Small Business Trends.

5 Reasons You Can No Longer Afford to Ignore Google Plus

Posted: 28 May 2013 05:00 AM PDT

google plus for business

Despite all the hoopla that surrounded the new social site when it was first released, many businesses are ignoring Google Plus completely in exchange for increased focus on sites like Facebook and Twitter. While 72 of the world's largest 100 brands have a Google Plus page, nearly 40 percent of them haven't posted any content on the site. But when you consider that Google Plus is the brainchild of the world's most powerful search engine, is it really the brightest strategy to ignore Google Plus for business?

Even though it might not be a major traffic driver like Pinterest or other social sites, Google Plus has some incredible benefits.

The Benefits of Google Plus for Business

Momentum

The Business Insider recently reported that growth for Google Plus has suddenly spiked. In fact, the boom is so noticeable that Google Plus is on track to overtake Twitter as the world's 2nd largest social media site, assuming that the momentum doesn't slow.

Up 33 percent with 359 million users, more people visit Google Plus on a regular basis than live in the United States. If there's anything that marketing's taught us, it's that you always want to be ahead of the curve – and right now the curve is favoring Google Plus for business.

Growth

Aside from increased traffic, Mashable reports that Google Plus is also seeing an increase of time spent on the site. Users are now spending twice as much time on Google Plus than they did in February and the trend doesn't appear to be slowing anytime soon.

As more and more people spend time on the site, the more powerful traffic driver this platform will become.

Authorship

Having a Google Plus account allows you to claim authorship of your original content. This keeps your unique and original content valuable and accredited to you, even if content thieves scrape your work.

Furthermore, the implementation of Google Plus means that links and referrals will be weighted based on who they come from instead of where they're posted. Authorship gives you credibility and power.

Search Engine Recognition

It goes without saying that a strong Google Plus presence directly correlates to stronger search engine recognition. While it can't replace solid SEO strategy, why not enhance your efforts?

Flexibility

Whether you want to host Google Hangouts or filter posts for your Circles, Google Plus provides flexibility options that many of the other platforms don't. By taking advantage of these features, you're making your brand's online presence unique from everyone else's.

To make your Google Plus page even more effective, be sure to incorporate profile links. Unlike other social platforms, you can link to other sites throughout your Google Plus profile, thereby strengthening your overall sales funnel. As more people engage with you by sharing and giving you posts a +1, your profile links will suddenly become powerful tools.

Be sure to optimize your Google Plus title tags for search engine results. Having a highly optimized Google Plus page is much easier to rank than a standalone website. Add a picture to your profile and an author picture for content that you will claim through "Authorship."

Posts with pictures are clicked on up to 5 percent more than posts without. Once you've optimized your Google Plus presence, you can enjoy Google's bias in quickly indexing posts that have received a+1.

The post 5 Reasons You Can No Longer Afford to Ignore Google Plus appeared first on Small Business Trends.