The Future

this is a picture of a lighthouse which depicts one's ability to be a beacon and a light onto oneself

It’s Down to You

At the end of the day, the business you have, the career you’ve built, and the life you live is all down to you. The decisions and choices you’ve made, commitments you stuck to and the reputation you’ve built are all by your own design. In considering this; perhaps it’s not worth complaining about missed opportunities, or choices you should have made.

The future is now and always will be now. It’s “the now” built on many yesterdays and will undoubtedly continue to be more of the same. Unless, of course, you decide to make new decisions, new choices and build new habits to support your new decisions and new choices.

It might take some time to build your new future if you are looking to progress further or build in a new direction but it’s definitely possible. There are a great many examples of people who are what we would term late bloomers, who did many things and failed miserably in many ventures until they landed on the one that stuck. The key is to keep moving forward, keep building on your self-confidence and belief that you can make good things happen in your life and positively affect the lives of others.

Once you make a steadfast decision to move your career, business or personal life in a new direction then you must commit wholeheartedly and be ready for a good dose of resistance from not only yourself but friends, family and colleagues who might be feeling uncomfortable about your new passion. They might be dealing with some of their own malaise and your new enthusiasm acts as a mirror to their current situation. Try to understand their pushback and encourage them by explaining that you’re finally ready to move on to new pastures and are excited about the new challenges ahead. Ask them to support you if they can and invite them on your journey. Who knows, maybe they will be inspired by your newfound excitement and decide to make a positive change in their lives too?

“If it’s to be it’s up to me” – 

William H. Johnson

Change can be fun, exciting and rejuvenating if you frame your decision properly. In knowing that the future is now and now is not what you want it to be, then you must build new habits and make new decisions today that will build the NOW that you want to live. Therefore, your Future Now’s will ultimately continue to build your Ultimate Desired Future.

Enjoy your new journey!


Dominic Kotarski is the author of the international best-seller “The Making”. He teaches on the most important aspects of your business including Sales, Coaching, Team-Building, People Management, and Business Development. Get weekly access to his blog & training videos FREE by subscribing HERE! 

The Journey Never Ends

What the future holds is not nearly as important as how you’re dealing with your current situation. When you spend too much of your mental energy on trying to control a future outcome you end up missing the important markers in the present moment.

Time is on your side if you allow it to expand in the present moment. Your intuition will sharpen if you can learn to pay attention to all your senses throughout the day. Your present moment can morph into a form of mental and physical awareness you can learn to command during your normal day to day dealings. Similar to an ongoing meditation which allows you to bring more information into your decision making, into your responses, and ultimately into your unconscious engrained habits of interacting with yourself and others.

When you notice that your breathing is erratic or you’re slumping your shoulders. When you catch yourself daydreaming when you know you shouldn’t be. These are your trigger moments when you must snap out of your unwitting conditioned self and pull your power and personal energy back into your conscious awareness. To become an active director in your life and take back the reins from your passive, shadowy, bystander-self.

“It’s an oxymoron to slow something down in order to speed it up, but It’s how those that have become successful continue to succeed.” – djk

You have won back your right to a life worth living, you have gained respect from your most important friend and ally (YOU!). Your best you, the one that goes for what it wants, that doesn’t just set goals but makes vowed intentions. The one that’s in control of their own destiny and knows that destinies aren’t just handed out at birth but are willed into focus and awareness through life experience, gained wisdom and self-actualization analysis.

If this post speaks to you then you are on the right path. Keep up your excitement and the thrill for your day to day life!  Keep your willingness to learn and embrace all that you notice and then expand that awareness so you can notice… Even More!

This is the only way forward. You know it and this is why you fight every day to live it!

Ode to The Journey and may your journey never end!!


Dominic Kotarski is the author of international best-seller “The Making”. He writes, speaks, inspires, motivates and teaches the most important aspects of your business including Sales, Coaching, Team-Building, People Management, and Business Development. Get weekly access to his blog & training videos FREE by subscribing HERE! and when you sign up you will get Instant Access to his Sales Skills Training Video.

PAIN

a picure of 3 individual teeth. One yellow, on red and the centre on is black with the caption "pain"

Conventional wisdom states the twin forces of human behavior are pain and pleasure. Most of us seek pleasure and avoid pain. There are of course your outliers who might avoid pleasure and run towards pain. However, in this case, it can easily be said that for these people pain is their pleasure so the statement can still hold true. Just don’t assume what another person’s pleasure might be.

Now, when you’re looking to sell your product or service in the marketplace you should remember that there are varying degrees of both pain and pleasure. You could simply be in the right place at the right time and your customer comes calling because she’s on a trip… just got a flat tire and you’re the only tire repair center available in the vicinity. I wrote about a similar “Going Flat” experience last summer on my road trip across the USA.

So when it comes to getting business you should make a note to access not only what kind of pain/unresolved issue your potential customer is experiencing but also how acute it is. If it’s just a minor irritation then you should take a bit more of a long game approach but also make sure you make references on how much more expensive or inconvenient things can get if they wait too long. My dentist just recently used this tactic probably without knowing when he told me what the consequences of my tooth would be if I waited too long to book my procedure.

Toothaches are a great example because none of us really likes going to the dentist, but when our tooth starts aching and continues to increase in its intensity than before long we’ll be sitting in that chair begging to pay our dentist (or any dentist for that matter) almost any amount of money to stop the pain.

Most businesses don’t have the perfect remedy of a shot of Novocain and an expensive drill to apply to a begging customer. So we have to resort to leading our potential customer towards an upgrade to a brighter future. Or perhaps we create a scenario of exclusivity or possibly differentiate our products by demonstrating better value for money than our competitors.

However, we should always try to add a little reminder of the consequences that a customer might face if they don’t ACT NOW on our offer, for the same reason that “all offers” have a deadline or an “until supplies last” tagline.

Here is an acronym I like to use to remind myself to use the Pain Principle when I’m engaged with a potential client.

P = Pick a consequence – remind the customer of at least one consequence that could happen if they wait too long before purchasing your offer.

A = Ask the customer what alternatives they have at the moment that they’re weighing? If you really want to solve this issue then when would be the best time to act? Especially considering that you’re there now to help and the price is what it is now and you have the product or solution available and ready to go.

I = Initiate your end of the deal. Let them know what you’re willing and authorized to do in addition to your offer and above the call of duty of your competitors

N = Negotiate a win for your customer. Be on their side all the way in order to resolve their issue and relieve their pain from this moment and into the future.

There’s your tool to be the best solution for your customer and your company.


Dominic Kotarski is the author of international best-seller “The Making”. He writes, speaks, inspires, motivates and teaches the most important aspects of your business including Sales, Coaching, Team-Building, People Management and Business Development. Get weekly access to his blog & training videos FREE by subscribing HERE! and when you sign up you will get Instant Access to his Sales Skills Training Video.


 

Leverage

How much leverage are you comfortable with? Are you currently leveraging your business relationships, your company’s assets, your awesome personnel, your reputation, stock portfolio, and your friend’s friends?

There are so many things you could leverage to give your career or your business a bit of a boost if you really wanted. The question is, are you aware of these possibilities?

Definition of leverage | Merriam-Webster
1: the action of a lever or the mechanical advantage gained by it
2: power, effectiveness – trying to gain more political leverage
3: the use of credit to enhance one’s speculative capacity

I like the word leverage because it can be used as both a noun and a verb. You can use a lever (noun) to move an object that you could not normally move with your own force. We can gain a market advantage by leveraging (verb) your network of partners.

“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the entire earth” – Archimedes (C. 287-212 B.C.)

Warren Buffet has used leverage to build his massive fortune but he also thoughtfully reminds us not to get too addicted to the wonders of this amazing tool if you’ve had a few successes using it.

I’m not the biggest fan of using leverage against other people, as in, someone made a big blunder and now feels helplessly indebted to you. You know this so you take advantage of their self-inflicted feeling of indebtedness.

I truly believe that you should be a strong enough individual to forgive people this kind of burden. Everyone makes mistakes and if you’re in a position to forgive someone theirs then you should highly consider exercising your right to do so.

You should only use leverage to the level that you feel comfortable. Although you can use leverage to both magnify a gain and a loss. It can also be used to reduce the magnitude of a full loss on a particular trade by using less of your own capital. For a more elaborate explanation of using leverage to trade on the markets, you might want to read this article by Adam Milton.

We should all use leverage to advance our careers, our finances, and our businesses. Just not go too crazy when it comes to our fellow compadres.


 

Dom Kotarski CMC

Dominic Kotarski is the author of international best-seller “The Making”. He writes, speaks, inspires, motivates and teaches on the most important aspects of your business including Sales, Coaching, Team-Building, People Management and Business Development. Get weekly access to his blog & training videos FREE by subscribing HERE! and when you sign up you will get Instant Access to his Sales Skills Training Video.


 

It’s All About Your Assets & Liabilities

In business as in life it’s important to keep your assets and liabilities in check. You don’t want to operate from a position where you feel forced to make decisions based on an over extended balance sheet. If you’re operating too heavy on your liabilities and you fear that you have to take on certain clients or jobs that you don’t want to do and you forego new projects that you don’t have the energy and capacity for simply because you know your over exposed then I would strongly suggest you’re Liability heavy and a quick adjustment is needed.

In my view, I don’t want to be in a position where I do a job simply because it pays the bills. I want to be able to go into the market place in a relaxed state of ready awareness. I prefer to see opportunities as real choices and know that I can make the commitment to follow through with the idea or not. My decisions should not be made based purely on income.

I want to grow and maintain ample assets that can cover any outstanding liabilities.

Often as entrepreneurs we take overzealous chances in the market place and make assumptions about future values. When we get it right we get paid handsomely but some times  things don’t go exactly according to plan.

And when this happens, I don’t want to feel like I’m under undue pressure to make my next move. I want to be able to weather a down market or a bad storm and still be able to maintain my current lifestyle.

If you don’t think you’re in a good position at the moment don’t fret because you can start now by making new decisions and adjustments to your current situation that will make your balance sheet much more attractive and favourable in the coming years.

It’s all about the plan and the commitment to that plan and your relentless focus. It also helps if the markets continue to climb, your property values inflate and you resist the urge to borrow more money just because you can.

If the money you borrow doesn’t make you more money then the interest you’re paying then it’s not an efficient use of your capital. Be vigil with your personal borrowing and strive ardently to be mortgage free. Business wise it’s rarely a good idea to borrow money to pay your expenses. If you’re having to borrow just to pay expenses then your business is not growing and is probably shrinking.

You should be taking the scalpel to your expenses until you’re at least at break even point. If you can’t squeeze a profit after you’ve stripped your expenses then you should consider looking at a new opportunity. There’s always a new way forward.

Sometimes you might need a little help to find your new direction and as hard as things are, try to remember that there’s always someone who’s been in a similar position as you yet found a way out or a way through. Thankfully, some of these individuals are now working as coaches or consultants catering to businesses just like yours.

If your business is doing good and revenues are going up then it might be wise to get some advice in order to continue on your trajectory and take things to the next level, but if your business is on a downturn then there’s definitely no time to waste. Get on the phone and get the help you need to make the hard choices you’ve gotta make to set things right.


Dominic Kotarski – International Consultant | Author | Coach | Trainer | Speaker

Dominic KotarskiDominic writes, speaks, inspires, motivates and teaches on the most important aspects of your business including Sales, Coaching, Team building, People Management and Business Development and on some rare occasions, his political views. Get weekly access to his blog & training videos FREE by subscribing.  CLICK HERE

For a FREE/no obligation Business Consultation you can request an appointment HERE



Entrepreneurs Curse

A very common curse since the dawn of entrepreneurs is learning to ask for help. There’s many reasons for this and most of the reasons are good.

  • Entrepreneurs tend to have an over abundance of confidence in their abilities to solve problems and overcome obstacles.
  • Entrepreneurs like to go it alone.
  • Entrepreneurs more often than not think big and go big when building on a new business idea.
  • Entrepreneurs are willing to fight the good fight and are used to winning.

These are awesome attributes to call upon when your business is growing, you’re adding market share, building your team and taking on business challenges. However, where these attributes often play against you might be when your business model is slipping, your market is shifting or you’ve made some questionable decisions that are hurting your financials.

Taking on these challenges is often hard enough as it is and the last thing you want to do is admit that you’re in trouble or possibly made a questionable business assumption when you executed your growth plan.

Often we wrongly think that nobody would understand our unique situation, but that’s simply not true. One thing you can count on is the fact that there are countless entrepreneur’s out there that have been in similar situations and would completely understand your predicament. And if they were available for consultation they could for sure make some great recommendations or be able to give you some valuable advice that could turn your situation around for the better.

If you’ve approached your friends and immediate network and have failed to find someone to talk to then it might be a good idea to  seek out an entrepreneurs organization, a reputable business mentor or an experienced business coach & consultant.

Building a business is never an easy thing and most entrepreneurs will admit that it was a bumpy, wild ride to get where they are. They will also admit that they have no regrets and would do it all over again and again. What they won’t say is that they achieved their massive success all by themselves and did it without any help from anyone.

Be the smart entrepreneur and build a great network of experienced advisors to help smooth out your entrepreneurial journey and reach your balanced and profitable business life.


Dom Kotarski CMC

Dominic Kotarski is a Business Consultant and Master Coach. He is the author of the international best seller “The Making”. He writes, speaks, inspires, motivates and teaches on the most important aspects of your business including Sales, Coaching, Team building, People Management and Business Development. Get weekly access to his blog & training videos HERE