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What Is Reality

Every week a group of entrepreneurs gather on the phone to talk about a variety of issues and thoughts. Today’s discussion centred around the concept of reality. What is reality and how do we test it? All I Know – or more correctly what I’ve learned so far is that it’s all too easy to believe what others tell me is real when it truth it may not be.

For example: The UK Government’s view of what is real may be quite different from my own.

So be very careful to test your perception of reality. Now that begs the question how do we test reality? The film ‘Matrix’ was all about our perceptions of reality and taking the blue pill or the red one would dictate what reality was for us.

Start from a place where you test the simple things – food, your home, your family and then build on those. In his book, your life as art, Robert Fritz uses an illustration where he gets some art students to paint a brick building and they all paint what they see – a building with red bricks. He then alters their perception by getting them to look at the building through a pinhole in a card and paint what they see – this time the bricks take on a  whole new colour – orange to be true to the story. The lesson is that our perception is altered by our surroundings. Test your surroundings and try to get a better understanding of your reality. Having done that then try to visualise what you are trying to create – that sets up structural tension. Then put into place small steps that take you toward what you want to create.

For example imagine that you want to have a more fulfilling relationship with your wife or partner. You first decide that you want to create something – in this case a better relationship (What you want to Create). Then you acknowledge current reality in that you get home late from work and are too tired to do anything (Current Reality). You now have structural tension in that you know where you are and what you want. Then you put in place simple small steps like planning in your diary to get home 1 hour earlier one night a week when your partner/spouse is free.

Do that for a minimum of 3 weeks and you’ll have the grounds for a new habit and one that is constructive and creative. Simply build in more steps over the weeks and with a supportive structure around you the impossible suddenly becomes possible.

Overcoming Infertility With Food Naturally

Many people are struggling with getting pregnant; you would be surprised how nature does a good job of this and is cheaper. It also dramatically improves your odds of getting pregnant and there are no side effects. For most people who are struggling with getting pregnant they turn to the doctor for help but I want to show you that there are many things you can do to overcome infertility with food naturally
Are you frustrated… disappointed… or truth be told, even a bit angry that you’re not pregnant yet? Especially when it seems like getting pregnant is easy for everyone else but you? If yes, then I know exactly how you feel, because that’s just how it was for me. Just one mistake can reduce your odds of getting pregnant.
As you read further down this page, you will begin to understand how you can take control of your fertility by making simple changes to improve your odds of conceiving. And this will show you how wonderful nature can be if you embrace it.

Ruth Akiboye

The Power of Referrals – don’t understimate it

If you’ve ever been in the position of having a happy customer bring or refer a friend or relative to you and your services then you’ll know just how good it feels. Conversely we never find out how many people have a less than satisfactory experience with our businesses and then go on to either tell no one or worse still tell 10 people how poor your service was. In may cases bad customer experiences can break a business – but that’s another story.

Imagine having one customer who goes out and tells one person in the next 12 months how good your service and product are. Now just stop and look at what that would do to your business over the next 12 months – it would have a small effect. What would happen if one in 5 customers did just that – your business would grow by 20%.

Imagine if every customer referred one potential customer a year to you – the business would double in a year. The truth is that many satisfied customers would happily tell others about your wonderful product and service every day.

My Point is this in these days of recession and downturn the companies that will remain and even prosper are those that provide outstanding service and who recognise the value of referrals. So what is your strategy to get referrals?

OK the customer referrals are rather nice and take a while to develop but they alone can save your business. What if you knew the ‘type of person or business’ you’d like to be referred to. What would a customer/client be worth to you? I remember a colleague who received a referral from a carpet cleaner which turned out to be worth £2 Million in the next 12 months. Now that’s the exception but it illustrates the point.

OK lets look at a couple of real examples. If I’m a mortgage broker I might make £2000/mortgage I arrange and i can write 5 every month on average. But the customer is also likely to want the services of other tradesmen so lets have a look at some of them:

1. insurance for the new home
2. carpets cleaned
3. plumber to put in washing machine/dishwasher
4. electrician – to add in a cooker point
5. gardener to tame an overgrown garden
6. a removal company
7. are the family moving to downsize because children have gone off to university – might be a referral to a pension specilist
8. builder for some modifications
9. bank manager because they prefer to bank locally
10. garage for servicing the car
11. telephone supplier

The list could go on and on but the initial business was worth £2000 but the spin off referrals could be worth many times that amount. Have you ever noticed that once one house in the road has a new driveway laid the same people then often do the same for other people down the road. The same goes for roofing – one does a good job and gets several referrals from friends and neighbours.

The Mortgage broker (if they are any good) will often have a very close working relationship with solicitors, insurance specialists, estate agents and business that naturally refer people to each other. So the big question is what would your ideal referral be? What would they look like, what sector would they be working in?

Know Exactly What You are Looking For

I’m in business to help people set up their own businesses and very often those people are looking for a change in direction, they are looking to make the best use of their time. The people I’m looking for fit into one of several groups:

• Group 1: they have time on their hands and want to start something that they can call their own and looking for  a new challenge in life. Most often they are women and they are interested in their own health and that of their family. They may have been in business in some way in the past. They are predominantly in the 50-60 age bracket.
• Group 2: they are people who are 25-35 age group and realise that their pension provision is less than what they would like. Not affraid of a little hard work and are teachable and have good sticking power. They quite often have a young family at the early stages of school and have a bit of time on their hands now one or more children are in full time school.

So how do you put that into words to tell people? Let me give you an idea of what I might say or have in the back of my mind.

“I’m looking for people who have taken early retirement or who are nearly at that point and who want to do something gainful with their newly found free time.
They may have children who are getting married very soon and be living away from home.”

If I had a product oriented business I might ask my customers the following question?

“We’ve just introduced a new product which is great for people with ‘tired eyes’
and we are asking all our existing customers if they know anyone who they think might like to try a sample.”

It’s been said that we all have roughly 200 contacts, people we know relatively well, and its those people that we know that are the potential customers that we can refer others too. So if you are part of a group of 10 people who all subscribe to the ‘business by referral’ principle then you have indirect access to 2000 potential customers. One word of warning if you are referring someone to a close or very valuable client then take care if you’ve not used the services of the person you are referring. Say something like “I’ve not used their services personally but they come very highly recommended” or if you are unsure say “I’ve not used their services but I thought you might like to explore if they might be of value”.

Unless you know what you are looking for in terms of referrals then you are in the realms of hoping that you get one or two good ones. Why not learn to be specific and ask people for the choicest referrals?

The seminal work, in my opinion, is this book by Ivan Misner the founder of BNI

Getting Pregnant

1. getting pregnant can be easy

2. overcoming infertility with food naturally

3. Fertility boosting foods
Society sometimes over look mothernature and natural tools we have to help us with our fertility and pregnancy experiencies. Choosing certain foods and drinks as a way to influence your ability to become pregnant soinds more like folktale wisdom than medical advice. Sometimes women do not eat he…
How-To & Education – Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:23:36