I don’t mean imagining that you’ve won the lottery. Can you actually see yourself earning $500,000?

If you set a goal that is believable for you, you’ll not only realize that goal, but as you break through it, even more will become possible for you.

If you can’t envision such a high number and think it’s beyond your reach, don’t set your sights on that number straight off. Doing this will just cause a disconnect between what you want and what you think you can make. You will be starting out with a limiting belief.

I worked with a mentor who shared a story about his wife. She worked for an insurance company as a sales manager, making $29,000 a year. When he asked her if she could see herself making $100,000, she said “no.” When he backed down that number to $50,000, she said, “yes.”

Once she settled on that amount, which felt reasonable and comfortable, she not only achieved it, she far exceeded it. By the end of the year, she had made $499,000.

The important point is that she started out with a vision she could believe in.

What do you truly believe is possible for yourself?  Follow these steps to set believable goals that you can achieve.

Step One
Pick a number that’s a stretch from where you’ve been before, but one that you can actually believe in. If you go too far in the other direction, and begin with a very high number, you will stall out. Your non-belief in making that money will be stronger than your belief in getting it.

Step Two
Start where your belief system is. If the most you’ve ever made is $30,000, stretch that number to the very edge of what you can actually see yourself making.

Step Three
Honor small advances. If you only see a $5,000 or $10,000 increase, that’s fine. Start there. As you make that little advance, you will increase your belief system in many different areas and rapidly advance that number.

Step Four
Once you make that little jump of $5,000 or $10,000, not only do you see yourself make it, but you start to believe in the whole process. When you actually believe in the process, it will have an expansive effect on you. Now you are able to see that this can go anywhere.

You will open yourself up to what is actually possible and really start believing it. That’s when you will take off.

Your ability to make that higher end income is really about knowing where you are in what you believe. Not only will you set believable goals, you will be successful in achieving them, and in surpassing them as well.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

There’s a very big difference between those two. If you’re only setting your goals according to what you think you should get, you are probably missing out on so much potential for your business.

Here’s one way you can figure out if you’re setting your goals too low. If I were to sit down with you in a coaching session and ask, “Tell me how much money you want to make this year,” how would you respond?

If your answer is vague or your answer is more in the form of a question, your goals are more in line with what you think you should get rather than what you want to make.

When you set a vision for your business, get this kind of thinking completely out of your head. The potential for your business is so far greater than you could perceive if you’re only looking at it from what you think you can do or what you think you have to do.

One way to avoid getting caught up in this mess is to do projects that you want to do; not projects that you think you should do because they might be the right way to launch a program or sell something.

Doing business this way will afford you the life you think you should have – living in a moderate home, making good money while working 6 days a week, always thinking about but rarely going on a real vacation.

Your goals have to be based around what you truly want. When you truly want something, you have what is referred to in Think and Grow Rich as a burning desire. If you don’t have a burning desire to achieve your goals, it is not going to be enough.

Here’s why that burning desire is so important. When you’re setting after something that you haven’t had previously – something that is a big, daring goal for you – you’re going to hit challenges. You’re going to hit obstacles because anything you want and don’t have is outside of your comfort zone.

On your way to achieving the things that are outside of your comfort zone, you’re going to be stretched. That’s the moment when you will be most tempted to give up, unless you have a really strong burning desire.

This desire, that yearning for something more, is like your higher mind calling you to your true potential.

So, when you’re setting your goals – both revenue goals and lifestyle goals – consider what it is that you truly want.

The bigger house? The 3-day work-week? The 3-month dream vacation?

If these are the goals you truly want, set them. Once you name what you want to achieve, once you know what is your burning desire, we can figure out a way for you to achieve it.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

They had to take a step forward before any light went on.

This is quite the opposite of how people really want to move forward. Most of us prefer to “see the light” before we take the next step. We want to know where we are going, and see all the steps illuminated and lined up, so that we can go from point A to point B, B to C, C to D, D to E and so on.

But the truth is, that is not really how we move forward. The truth is that often, only the first step you take will be visible. The only way to see the second step is for you to be one- hundred percent wholly committed to taking step one.

That is truly what change is like. There’s no denying that change is uncomfortable, but if you want to accomplish your goals, you’re going to have to step up, move forward and make changes as you go along. The more comfortable you get at doing that, the more stepping up will be a constant experience in your life.

So, if you are serious about doubling or tripling your income, for example, you could go to Vegas or play the lottery, but the real way to accomplish your goal involves doing some things that up until now, you’ve been resisting.

You may not even realize that you’ve been unwilling or unable to make changes. It’s amazing how creative people can be at avoiding change.

But, whether you want to make ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, or ten million, whatever the level or the goal, the process is exactly the same

In order to affect any kind of change, in your life or in your business, you have to take the first step without being one-hundred percent certain about where your foot is going to land.

That takes courage, and it takes faith. That is what change requires.

Commit one-hundred percent to taking step one. You don’t need to know what’s going to happen after step one if you never get there. You will only know what happens next when you take that step. You won’t ever get there if you keep asking questions.

You’ve got to act, and jump right in with both feet, even when you don’t know where that jump will land you.

Once you master this process of change, and just keep stepping through it, you will find yourself more and more comfortable with moving forward without knowing where the next step leads.

As you find the courage to take one step after another, I promise, things are going to change for you.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Your support is like scaffolding. It’s the first thing that’s needed when a building is going up. And it’s the first thing you need to help you grow your business.

There are several different types of support structures that you can put in place. These are the things that will protect you and help you to focus on your business.  With these 5 support structures in place, you will be ready to grow your business to new heights.

1.  Set Boundaries… It can be very useful to set boundaries in your client relationships.

Do clients ring you whenever they like and expect you to drop everything for them? If that’s the case, you can’t have the time and energy you need to focus on working on your business. You need to have some boundaries in place, where you allot certain times for responding to clients’ calls.

2.  Manage Your Time On Your Terms … You can be so much more productive if you set definite times for when you are working and when you are not working.

For example, I work three days a week. Everyone in my house knows when I’m working, so they don’t interrupt me. People don’t ring me during those hours. If they do, I won’t answer the phone And when I’m in my time off, I’m not working. These are really clear structures that I adhere to.

3.  Work With A Schedule… This is be a great way to stay on track and focused on getting things done.

Put everything that you need to accomplish on your calendar. Make sure to block out enough time for the task, and stick to it. Whether it’s a meeting, a phone call, working on your blog – include it in your schedule. When you see that each item has its own set block of time, you will be able to focus more clearly. This is amazingly helpful in keeping from feeling overwhelmed.

4.  Build A Team… If you are mired down in day-to-day tasks that keep you from working on your business, consider hiring an administrative assistant or virtual assistant.

You may think of this as an expense that you can’t afford. Reverse that line of thought and consider it as an investment instead. By delegating the routine tasks to an assistant, you will free yourself to do the work that will bring in clients and grow your business.

5.  Get Emotional Support… Encouragement and support from the people in your personal life goes a long way toward keeping you motivated in your business.

Perhaps your partner is busy, or your family doesn’t understand what you are doing. If the people close to you don’t offer enough inspiration and support, you may begin to feel frustrated and become less productive.

Should this happen to you, look to other sources for the motivation and encouragement that you need. A mastermind group or other similar group of like-minded people will boost your confidence and help you in countless ways. In addition to emotional support, they can offer specific business knowledge and advice.

So consider all of the structures that can support you as your business grows. It’s critical to have these in place so that you can be productive and concentrate on your talents and expertise.

I sometimes feel like I’m in a similar situation to the Shoemaker.

I first experienced the power of this a couple of years ago when I sent an email that was copied to two people, one in India and one in Australia. In this email I gave instructions for a specific project, the first part of which had to be completed by one person before being handed over to the second person for completion.

And from that single email, while I was sleeping, the project that needed to be completed and the webpage that needed to be uploaded just happened. So when I woke up the following morning, it was really like the elves had been working overnight and doing the work for me.

And it’s so easy for you to invite the same kind magic into your business. All you need to do is start outsourcing routine tasks.

So where should you start with outsourcing? First of all, ask yourself where you have profitability blocks in your business. To work this out, answer the following question:

“My business would make more money if I could do more of _______.”

You already know what the answer is. You can spend more time marketing. You can spend more time developing products and programs. You can spend more time writing your web copy. You can spend more time developing a newsletter.

Then ask yourself this question:

“I currently spend most of my time on ________.”

The answer to this will help show where you are putting your time that you don’t need to. This will likely be one of the first areas where you’ll going to get a quick return on outsourcing.

For example, when I first started out, I found that I was spending more time updating my webpage than I wanted to. It wasn’t part of my vision for my business, and I wanted to use my time in a way that would generate more income. So I found people who do that for me for less than £10 an hour. It was a no-brainer to pay someone else to do that and win back that time which was put towards growing my business. Now, I’m in the position of knowing that while I’m asleep my website is being updated for me.

And today I have seven people around the world working on different parts of my business, which is something I would never have anticipated when I started outsourcing.

One unexpected benefit of outsourcing for me was that I hired someone who was also working for another person whose business was at a more developed stage than mine. This person was a tremendous resource because she had insight into a business that was 18 months further down the road from mine. That’s just one area where a virtual assistant can really start to add value, because they’re bringing in outside knowledge and they’re exposing you to ideas or suggestions that you wouldn’t have got on your own.

You need to think about what you’re ready to turn over right now. You need to be both physically ready and emotionally ready to outsource. If you’re someone who in the past has tried to outsource and has experienced a big disappointment or has been let down, then understandably you’re going to be cautious about outsourcing again. You’re going to want to ease back into it gently, to build your confidence back up.

What you need to do is write out an initial job description or scope for the work you want done. Be specific about what results you want. You want this to be outcome oriented. You want to think about what you want done and in what timeframe. Start to think about the skill sets this person is going to need, and whether it’s reasonable to find these skills in just one person or if you’re going to need a team.

And while I don’t know where you are with your particular business, I still say that it’s never too soon to start outsourcing.

And the fact is that you’re already outsourcing lots of things. You’re outsourcing the legal aspects of your job. You’re outsourcing your website hosting. So, to be correct, the question is really about how much more you should be outsourcing.

Don’t you want to be able to go to sleep knowing that the magic elves will come in during the night and take care of your work for you?

Would it surprise you to learn that one of the most important things you can do to achieve success in your business is to consider what you need to stop doing?

When you move from one level to another, whether in life or in business, there is always something that you need to leave behind. You have to figure out what you need to let go of.

Letting go can be a huge stepping stone. You might even find that much of your growth comes from the things you stop doing, rather than those you start doing.

For example, if you are overly involved in every detail of your business, you risk creating a bottleneck. When this happens, the business slows down because you have to take the time to personally oversee everything.

Let something go. Give up some of the specific tasks that create the bottleneck. Change the process so that you are less involved. You’ll find that not only will things run more smoothly, but that you will have more time to do the work you want to do.

When you are starting out, it’s usually possible to control everything that goes on. In a smaller business, you can see all of the e-mails and every correspondence. But as your business grows, you have to give up some of that control. You simply don’t have the time to be involved in every single thing. But again, when you give up control, what you get back is freedom.

Work smart rather than harder…  One of the behaviors you need to let go of is working so hard. Driving yourself into the ground and flogging yourself to the bone really won’t get you anywhere.

You are the number one asset in your business. It is built around you – your skills, talents and time. You have to take care of yourself as the valuable asset that you are. Rest and recovery are essential to your success.

In his book The Powerful Engagement, Tony Schwartz writes about how we humans are not like machines. We can’t run for eight hours straight. We have from 90 to 120 minutes of energy at any one time.

Begin to block out your time in segments of 90 to 120 minutes. Totally focus on one thing for that time period, and then take a break. Make sure it is a proper break – stand up, walk around, do something different. Staying at your desk and checking e-mail is not a proper break.

Working this way will increase your productivity because it helps to conserve your energy. You are no longer driving yourself like a machine, but using your energy efficiently and treating your body well.

One of the best things you can do is to spend the first 90 minutes of your day focusing on your most important goal. Before you start to work, before you do anything else, concentrate on working toward that goal. Do this every day, and you will probably meet that goal before the end of the year.

Begin to let go of the things that keep you working too hard. Learn to work in shorter blocks of time in order to stay energized and fresh. Focus each day on your goal. You will be amazed at how much more productive you will become.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Of course, there are pros and cons to both, and quite often it will depend on your personal preference, and on how you want your business to work.

When you’re starting to outsource don’t think that you should be able to hire one person who can do it all. Not only is this an unrealistic expectation, but you’ll be making yourself dependent on one person.  That is not a position from which your business can thrive.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t delegate some of your business to individuals. In fact there are some great opportunities in the virtual assistant market to hire self-employed people who have specialist skills in certain areas. You want to start thinking about activities and then match those up to the right individual or organisation to take over for you.

So when should you look for a team to assist you, and when should you look for an individual? Here are some advantages and disadvantages for you to consider:

Working With Teams: As working with virtual assistants becomes more and more popular, companies offering teams of people who could work on your behalf are starting to spring up. The immediate benefit of this is that you aren’t reliant on one person to get the work done. If the person who usually does your account is on holidays, someone else will get the work done for you.

Teams are great at handling routine tasks, such as data entry, transcription, or proof reading. It’s very clear what the outcome is, and it’s very obvious when it’s being done successfully. Your assistants don’t need specialised knowledge to get the job done, and you don’t need to spend as much time training them about your business systems. It’s often a case of handing over the task and waiting for it to be completed for you.

One of the downsides to working with teams is that sometimes you can end up paying slightly more. If a team has a manager and an office, they’ve got more overheads that need to be recouped and therefore they tend to charge more. In cases such as this, some of the benefits of outsourcing can be lost when you go down the team route. But this is certainly not the case with all teams.  You should definitely shop around before you make a decision about who to use.

Working With Individuals: While my business has lots of routine tasks, there are other activities that are more specialised or require more judgment or company knowledge. And for those, I prefer to work with an individual.

For example, one of my assistants has handled my customer service for sometime now. One of the things that I really like about working with her is that in the time that we’ve worked together she has built up an intuitive understanding of how we do things here at Client Magnets. I prefer to work with an individual who, over time, becomes more and more valuable to the business because they get to know your business better.

Just remember, it’s not a mutually exclusive situation. Many people outsource to both individuals and teams, and get enormous benefit from both.

As with everything else, the key is to know what suits your business best. After all, no one knows your business the way that you do.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

There are lots of different paths you can take to find the right people to help you. And it’s not always the most obvious route. A lot of people think that the best option available to them is advertising in the local classifieds. While this works for some people, it can also create a lot more work for you in the long run if you’re inundated with responses and you don’t know where to start.

One of the best things you can do is to make your search more targeted. Here are three ways to do that:

Online

You aren’t limited to only using assistants who are physically located close to your business. Especially if, like me, you work from home and don’t want to have people visiting you in your house, location isn’t an important criterion.

The Internet is such a valuable tool for connecting you with the right people, whether it’s a team of virtual assistants or expert individuals. The following websites are really useful resources for helping to meet your outsourcing needs:

www.Monster.com
www.Elance.com
www.RentACoder.com
www.WorkaholicsForHire.com
www.Guru.com
www.FreelanceWriting.com
www.SmarterWork.com
www.CareerBuilders.com
www.FreelanceWorkExchange.com
www.AssistU.com

On all of these websites, you can either post a job or you can look at biographies of people bidding for work. You can also post classified ads on many of these sites, saying exactly what you’re looking for in an assistant. You can specify how much you want to pay, or you can leave that undisclosed and ask people to make a bid for your work. Then you can sit back and can wait for people to approach you.

Students

Let’s say you wanted someone to research suitable websites that could be good linking partners to you or may provide you with opportunities for joint ventures. That’s a perfect project for a media or business studies student, who might also really appreciate the idea of working with a small business and getting some practical experience.

Your local university or college might have a careers centre or newspaper where you could advertise your projects. These students don’t necessarily have to be working from your office. Instead, you could arrange to meet them locally whenever you need to discuss the project face-to-face. And the great thing about students is that they normally either have their own computers or they’ve got access to them.

Personal Approach

Approaching people directly is one of the best ways to hire talent for your business. When I was first setting up my website, I had a basic idea of what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. I knew that I wanted to set up a website where I could sell digital products that customers could download immediately, but I didn’t know how to go about doing this. It was one of those examples of trying to hire someone to do something you don’t know how to do. I placed a local classified ad, and was inundated with responses. I really did not know where to start deciding who to hire.  In the end I decided to approach the webmaster of a website that I liked. I told him that I needed help with my project and asked if it was something he could help with.

For certain jobs I know what I’m looking for.  I’ll approach a company or individual that seems to be a good fit and I’ll ask them to bid on the job. This approach has actually worked out very well for me. I’ve had a surprising success rate with it. And it’s more time-efficient than just posting an ad and getting a load of inquiries that you have to sift through.

The key to finding the right people for you is to be clear on what you need done, how you want it to be done, and what you’re willing to pay. You’ll need to practise finding the right person, and you might use different approaches for different jobs.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

As you go about setting your goals for the next 12 months, or even for the next quarter, take some time to also figure out what you need and what needs to change to achieve that goal.

Here’s 3 steps to get you started:

1. What do you need OR what do you need to change? What do you need to reach your goal? It’s not always clear cut, but it could be a simple and clear answer such as administrative help. If it is that simple, then so is the answer – hire someone to help you do the books, help with marketing, whatever you need to help you achieve your goal.

What about your time routine or changing your work methods? Do those need restructuring to help you meet a goal? It’s not always so cut and dried though. You may need a mentor, different resources, or a much more dramatic change.

2. Visualize Your Goals. Take a moment to just think quietly. Visualize yourself when you’ve met the goal. Now work backwards, what supporting structures are in place that helped you get there? Were you in a larger office using an assistant? Were you using different resources?

Take it a step further and visualize your ideal scenario – what you’d like it to be, not what you think you will achieve. What structures are in place in the ideal world? See what you come up with.

3. Be Willing To Let Go. To get your new structures in place, chances are, there are things you’re going to need to let go of. You need to make a necessary compromise – be willing to give up something to achieve your goal – whether it’s an old work habit or even some of your revenue to hire an assistant or use a coach. Don’t compromise on the outcome. Be willing to take a trade off to reach it.

For example, I used to watch a soap opera in my early years. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I did take time out some years ago to watch this ½ hour soap opera – five days a week. I realized that this habit wasn’t going to help me reach my goals. It also wasn’t who I wanted to be, so I cut it out. It gave me 2-1/2 hours more time to focus on my goal each week.

Your compromise may need to be more dramatic. It may be relocating, a change in a relationship. But know that it’s going to get you closer to your goal. It’s all part of the process.

Have the courage to re-align your habits, find out what you need and what you need to let go of. By doing this you’re guaranteed to reach your goals.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Perhaps your partner doesn’t have the same interest in art that you do, or prefers to stay indoors while you go hiking. You probably still have friends that you go to the cinema with, or to art galleries or the museum. It’s almost like you build up a team of friends to fulfil the different needs of your life.

Just as we have different people in our life that resonate with different parts of us, it’s the same with business. It’s unrealistic to expect that just one person will be able to fix everything. You’re going to get frustrated because you’ll end up with a person who is good at some things but weak in other areas.

When I started my business, I had a list of tasks that either I didn’t want to do, or that were not cost-effective for me to do. But one of the things that I did wrong was to try to find one person who could take over all of the tasks. Instead, what I should have focused on was to build a team of people around me who could assist my business.

You need to remember that business is a team sport. You should think about the tasks you want to outsource, and match them to the right people. You need to build up a team of assistants to look after the many aspects of your business. This is what I call my “virtual team”.

Outsourcing to teams allows me to be more flexible. I used to outsource transcription of my teleseminars to an individual, but whenever she got a backlog of work or whenever she was on holiday, I had a delay in getting transcripts back. I like to get transcripts of teleseminars up ideally within a week of the teleseminar, so I decided that would work better if I could hand it over to a team of assistants, rather than one person.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t have one person with whom you work more than any other, or who helps run your team of virtual assistants. You just need to make sure that they don’t become indispensible for your business.

Right now, I have a team of virtual assistants around the world who work for me without me having to do it myself. The beauty of it is that even if my key person were to leave, I wouldn’t be left high and dry. We have a manual that I can hand over to the next person that explains how my business operates.

The other important message is not to think that a “virtual team” only applies to a small business. Eben Pagan runs workshops around building virtual teams, and has built a large business around the idea. The interesting thing is that while he has a virtual team of 80 people and his turnover is $20 million, he doesn’t have a company office. So he has the benefit of 80 people working for him, but his business doesn’t have the huge overhead that comes with providing office space for them all.

Your ultimate goal should be creating a team around you that would allow you to action today’s ideas tomorrow.

So create your team and start scoring some goals!

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com