© DemGen Inc. 2014
© DemGen Inc. 2014
Working in the virtual realm, it’s helpful for us to share more about our team, so you have the opportunity to get to know them on a personal level.
We’d like to introduce you to Will…
While not jet-setting around the world, Will has coordinated the collective output of various teams and projects for over a decade. He especially loves working virtually, and openly welcomes the challenge of engaging clients and support teams cross multiple time zones.
Born in Canada, Will completed his Master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Wales in the UK.
His passion is helping others with strategic planning to help their businesses excel. He embraces finding solutions to creative and business challenges.
With DemGen, Will acts as a Future Vision Map Strategist and Business Vision Advisor, helping clients to realize their ideal future business vision and implement the steps required to reach their goals.
Will believes that virtual workspaces are the key to the future – both in terms of creating happier workforces as well as a healthier global environment for the next generation; he essentially ‘walks the talk’ by connecting with team members from around the world, and consistently demonstrates that working from anywhere and everywhere is an accessible reality. Will notes that the majority of ‘remote’ colleagues he has worked with feel their virtual workspace is important to their overall job satisfaction – in no small part due to the flexibility it offers – and that the quality and timeliness of their deliverables has only improved since abandoning their office cubicles. For all of these reasons, Will remains excited about helping others embrace the unprecedented freedom and significant benefits to be gained from ‘working in the cloud’.
In his own words: “I love working online and enjoying the freedom that comes from a virtual workspace; simultaneously I both live to work (I love helping others free up their lives) and work to live (I love connecting with clients from beachfronts, lakesides, forests, mountaintops, castles, golf courses, and other exotic locations all over the world).
To that end, working for DemGen has been a dream – collaborating with an incredibly talented cloud-based group of professionals in support of a wide variety of clients – what more could a virtual enthusiast ask for?”
© DemGen Inc. 2014
While there may be actual reasons that your business isn’t doing as well as it should, many business owners aren’t aware that what they consider a reason for failure is really just an excuse they are using, usually to avoid hard work or one of several other things.
The most prevalent excuse at the moment is the economy or lack of money. While insufficient funds have always been a problem for many businesses, sometimes it is the way you are allocating your funds that is causing the problem. Many business owners can be quite cheap when it comes to marketing in particular and when the necessary money isn’t spent, it shows in a lack of new business. This leads to either stagnation or a drop in sales, which then leads to doubts about your business.
The second excuse which we hear most often, is not having enough time, a common complaint from many of us these days. As we all know, there is never enough time to do all of the things we consider necessary to run our businesses effectively. Organization combined with intelligent time management is the only way we will be satisfied with the amount of time we spend on our businesses. When our time isn’t used wisely is when it shows up in our business as a lack of interest.
This isn’t the right time to expand my business. This may be true but then again, is there ever a right time? Using economic circumstances or any other excuse as a reason not to expand means you don’t have confidence in your products, services or yourself. The right product and service can do well under the worst circumstances, as there will always be something that your customer needs and it’s up to you to learn just what that is.
These are three of the most common excuses that will erode confidence in your business, always used under the guise of reasons. There are others, such as ill-health brought on by neglect, lack of good help when a business owner is afraid to take on an employee or virtual team with a professionally proven reputation and just plain laziness.
Real leadership takes confidence and if you want your business to continue to thrive and grow, give up the excuses and look at the real reasons you aren’t taking the necessary steps that will get you to where you want to be. Stop worrying about exactly how you will reach your goals and put small steps into place that will at least get you headed in the right direction. Don’t fix things that aren’t in need of fixing as a way of putting off what really needs to be done and work your way past any situation that is holding you back.
© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014
image courtesy of mint.com
Working in the virtual realm, it’s helpful for us to share more about our team, so you have the opportunity to get to know them on a personal level.
We’d like to introduce you to Gloria…
Gloria has over 25 years of combined corporate and entrepreneurial experience. She has had great success as a project manager, team leader, coach, facilitator and business consultant. She joined DemGen to allow her genius abilities to flourish all the more through the potential to delegate the tasks she didn’t enjoy with her own business – just like we do for our clients!
With DemGen, Gloria acts as a Business Vision Advisor and Project Manager to assist our clients in establishing their top business priorities and the strategies required to meet their goals. She helps to coach our clients to help them realize their dreams – as soon as possible.
Gloria believes that the key to success for anyone or any business is being able to look at any situation, task or problem holistically. If you can get a vision of the entire picture and the impact to others, you can always come up with a solution. This also gives you what you need to easily break the solution into smaller, manageable piece parts to ensure ongoing success and a sense of accomplishment for everyone involved. She is also a firm believer that every problem has a solution and everything happens for a reason.
In her own words: “Everything happens for a reason (good & bad) sometimes it takes years before you can truly understand why something happened however it will eventually come to light!”
Working at DemGen has provided me the ability to leverage my skillsets to help clients and learn from them along the way. At the same time, with the privilege of working in an open, honest & friendly environment that allows you to be your unique self.
© DemGen Inc. 2013
With competition fiercer than it has ever been, business owners are finding it more difficult to draw in their customers long enough for them to make a purchase. We all want our customers to keep purchasing from us as loyalty to our brand is what keeps our company growing.
Do you make your customers feel comfortable? Not only in your store if you have one, but also speaking with you on the phone and connecting with you through any online presence that you have. The more they interact with you and your employees, the more they will get to know you and trust you to offer them the best deal and the highest quality.
Though your customers may be attracted to what you are offering, outside opinion quite often has an effect on the purchasing outcome. Rather than making their own decision to buy, there is quite often a little ticker tape running through their minds of what this person or that person will think of their purchase. This leaves you with the double job of ensuring that your customer feels he needs your product and also taking in account how strongly they will let their friends and others influence their final decision.
You also have to take into account the lifestyle of your customers and whether your product or service fits in with the way they live. While many of your customers are now trying to spend less and lead a more simplistic life, a lot of what is being offered for sale doesn’t fit with this image. There are those that stick by their own rules and there are also a lot who follow the crowd and always buy the newest thing. Social status is important to them and they will buy accordingly. Deciding which group you and your customers belong to will help your business succeed.
At the end of the list and perhaps most important, is price. Price comparisons are easy to do by using the internet and unless yours is in line with the majority, your customers will go elsewhere. Making sure your product is easily available and also priced right will motivate your customers to buy from you instead of going to a competitor.
Always make sure that you can prove the value of your product, put it out there in a noticeable way for your customers and follow up. Keep your customers comfortable by not being too pushy and listen to what they have to say. Find out what they are interested in and you will discover their motivations. Go the extra mile and learn about those who purchase from you.
© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014
Most business owners have goals in place, to-do lists that lead to their ability to reach those goals and yet are not easily able to shift their perspective in order to decide which priorities are most important.
Do they have the priorities in place that have led them to choose the goals that will help them the most?
Besides helping you to become successful at managing your time, the actual process of figuring out just what priorities take precedence over others is helpful in defining where your business goes. Some business tasks are much more worthy of your attention than others and successful business owners have learned that priorities also change with time, often quite quickly.
It’s also important to remember that something that is considered a priority for one person, may be completely unimportant to another. Learning to arrange priorities so your business life meshes with your personal life is your ultimate goal. Knowing what you want will make it easier but if you’ve ever asked someone what they really want out of life, the answers tend to be vague, such as money, happiness, security. While all of these are great priorities, they need to be broken down since they mean different things to different people.
Business priorities will also be different for each of us as our goals are as varied as our businesses. Thinking through what is most important to you and what should come first can remind you of what your original goals were when you began your business and can help point you in a new, more satisfactory direction where the outcome will be more in line with your interests. At the same time, you can decide if you are doing things for a real purpose or if they are habits. Some habits may be necessary to keep your business running successfully. Others may be holding you back from becoming the most successful business owner that you can possibly become. While deciding on priorities, make sure they are your priorities and not those that have been imposed on you by the thinking of others. While caring what others think is or can be nice, when it comes to your business, run it your way.
Deciding what is missing in your priority list is another reason to go over it. Sometimes it is the small things that can make the biggest difference, especially in business. Realizing this can re-ignite your interest if it has been flagging and have you looking at your business in a new way. What is most important is that you decide what you can and can’t live without, how much of your personal time you are willing to continue to give up to run your business (maybe this is the time to bring in virtual help), and also if your present goals are still pertinent to what is going on in the present business climate.
Business priorities that you decide on should always be of benefit to you, your business and your family. If a shift in perspective is necessary, spending time on just what your real priorities are, will benefit all of these.
© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014
image courtesy of seanclark
For some of us, there is still the memory of one day a week when the stores weren’t open, no one worked, went shopping or worried about ‘productivity’ and we took a well deserved day off.
The present reality is 7 days a week, full steam ahead, to do lists, being proud of being busy and stress levels that are skyrocketing.
Living in a world that revolves very much around doing, performing, keeping up, catching up and financial gain has led to most of us losing the art of relaxation or doing nothing. While we may have plenty of distractions – our smartphones, television, computers, video games, etc., none of these do anything to help us relax and actually up the level of stress in our minds and in our bodies. Most people think they are taking care of this with their outside activities: going to the gym, yoga classes, tai chi, pilates, meditation classes, art classes, classes galore, but these aren’t really giving you a break either, they are just other ways to keep busy.
For the few who actually set aside time to intentionally relax or do nothing, the result is a raised eyebrow and comments on how it must be nice to have the time. Yet, these are the people who have it right. They aren’t caught up in the busyness schedule, the doing something just for the sake of doing and also don’t feel they have to explain themselves. They know that having at least one day a week with their families and friends, uninterrupted, is crucial to their health and their relationships.
Having an identity outside of what you do or what you can possible offer others is a healthy way to avoid the stress that seems to be rampant in today’s society. Most of us seem to define ourselves by what we do instead of who we really are. In fact, when first meeting a new person, that is one of, if not, the first question we are asked or ask others. Taking a break from constant activity, whether it be work, classes or other activities that we deem good for us or for our productivity will, in the long run, result in a more productive life because of better health. Your ability to focus and enjoy yourself will improve, your energy levels will increase and you may even look better.
Being in the here and now, enjoying what you are doing, is far more important than keeping busy just for busyness’ sake. Taking a break will bring you back to earth and can even make you a happier person!
© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014
image courtesy of sodahead