Doug’s Blog

15 May 2009

Manifesting your Dream – Team Edition

By |2017-04-06T12:22:59-06:00May 15th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

On Wednesday, I talked a little bit about manifesting your vision and yesterday a little about taking action.

Things get a little more interesting when you start trying to manifest your vision and at the same time, align your business team with that vision.

Sure you can just ram your vision down their throats but you have a better chance of success if you can get them behind your vision and an even better chance of success if their career and/or financial objectives align with your vision.

The thing is, strategic goals are easily lost in the day to day work of keeping clients […]

14 May 2009

Actions Speaks Louder Than Words

By |2017-04-03T12:29:03-06:00May 14th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Vision does not create results.

Goals and planning do not create results.

Only action creates results.

Any action towards your goals and vision is better than all the planning in the world and no action.

How do you know your detailed plan is right? If you are heading down a new path planning out all the details in advance is treacherous. Things change and you spend all your time adapting your plan rather than taking action.

So have a vision, do "enough" planning and start taking action towards your goals. Avoid analysis paralysis. Be open to different paths along the way.

After all, actions speak louder […]

13 May 2009

Manifesting Your Vision

By |2017-04-03T12:29:08-06:00May 13th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Whether you have a personal dream or a business vision, unless you do something to manifest that vision in the real world, it will not materialize.

At its core, the process is simple:

  1. Write out your long range vision,
  2. Determine intermediate and short-term goals (or projects) that will bring you closer to that vision,
  3. Take action and implement steps that will help you reach your goals.

The bigger the vision, the more nebulous the path to accomplishing it may be. But no matter what size your dream/vision is, you need to take concrete steps to make it happen.

You need to keep the long range […]

12 May 2009

Can’t or Won’t (Achieve Your Potential)?

By |2017-04-03T12:29:12-06:00May 12th, 2009|Categories: Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

How many times do you hear someone say they can't do something?

The problem with thinking like this is that you almost guarantee you won't.

Can't is defeatist. There is a finality and despair to it… a sense of giving up on yourself or a cop out.

If you say you can't do something others will lower their expectations regarding you and you can continue to safely coast through life.

But have your really tried? Do you really mean you won't do something?

But you have a choice.

You can choose a goal. You can take steps towards achieving your goal. You can change your attitude to can […]

11 May 2009

Make the Pie Bigger

By |2017-04-03T12:29:16-06:00May 11th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

One option for increasing sales is to partner with complementary businesses, put your products or services together and tackle bigger markets jointly.

You share sales and marketing costs and can significantly increase revenues for both parties. The relationship can be informal, formal or you can even launch a joint venture.

There are two keys to making this work:

  • Both partners need to give to the relationship so that both win, and
  • Both partners need to give to the relationship so that both win.

Yes, the biggest killer of any type of partnership is when one partner takes without giving back. Unfortunately, it happens too often.

You […]

7 May 2009

ProCoach Update and Intuition

By |2017-04-04T16:43:21-06:00May 7th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Al Dhalla and I (Doug Wagner) went to another ProCoach Success Systems seminar put on by Andrew Barber-Starkey. Andrew is based out of Vancouver and was in town for this seminar and other ProCoach activities.

My intuition was telling me I should attend, but I’ll get to that part later.

Their System

Seeing a second presentation by Andrew, talking to some of the people in the room who are (or were) working with him and reviewing some of his materials that he provided as part of the seminar helped me form a stronger opinion about ProCoach.

My feeling so far is that he has developed […]

5 May 2009

Strategy – The Amazing Race

By |2017-04-03T12:29:24-06:00May 5th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

On Sunday night I watched two contestants get eliminated from the Amazing Race. It came down to the fact that one of the team members drank so much liquid she had to stop for a bathroom break on the final leg to the pit stop. Not a good way to go down.

This applies to business strategy as well. It is really easy to get caught up in the task at hand and lose sight of the big goals… causing you to lose everything.

On the show, one team member had to eat a bunch of deep fried creatures. In this case, […]

5 May 2009

Back to Business

By |2017-04-03T12:29:38-06:00May 5th, 2009|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing|

Hoping everything is back to relative normality health-wise.

I will be focusing on my primary role, business development, so the focus of my writings will be shifting to… well business development. Being that the role includes software product development, I will be also returning to my roots in technology and agile development experiences.

In the meantime I hope at least some people enjoyed the ligther side of my more recent posts.

4 May 2009

Guys with Sensitive Eyes

By |2017-04-04T16:54:42-06:00May 4th, 2009|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

I had to take a bit of a hiatus from blogging. Had a flare-up with the eyes and it was a bit hard to read or write much, at least without lots of grammar and spelling errors. But I did have lots of time to think and writing helps clear my thoughts and motivate me… so here goes.

Government Forms Can Cause Blindness

I didn’t know this either and it is not in the fine print anywhere… I found it out the hard way on Wednesday evening. Ok, I admit I procrastinated a bit on the personal tax returns and had […]

29 Apr 2009

Door Openers – Getting The Right Foot In

By |2017-04-03T12:30:03-06:00April 29th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

If your product or service offerings are fairly expensive and you are looking for new clients, one way of getting in the door is having a door opener.

Retail

In retail you see door crashers all the time. Special prices designed to get you in the door or to generate a bit of a marketing buzz.

If oranges are on for 50 cents a pound, you might go to the store and while you are there upgrade to bread and cereal. The upgrade path is clear.

If a big screen TV is regularly $1500 and they have 5 on for $400, they are […]