Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Eliminate any Risk and Your Clients will Buy from ...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Eliminate any Risk and Your Clients will Buy from ...: The greatest challenge facing anyone, who needs to purchase anything, is the risk that the product or service they will buy, will not meet...

Eliminate any Risk and Your Clients will Buy from You with Confidence

The greatest challenge facing anyone, who needs to purchase anything, is the risk that the product or service they will buy, will not meet their needs. If that is the single biggest obstacle stopping anyone buying from you, then simply eliminate the risk and you will significantly increase your new client acquisition and multiply your revenue. I am in the consulting and professional speaking business. It is often difficult for the leader of a large corporate to invest a significant amount of money into my fee and risk, not being satisfied or worse, being disappointed. The best way to secure the business is thus to remove the risk to the client completely. I offer to consult, offer training or present a key note address and if they are not 100 % satisfied, they do not have to pay me a cent.

I am sure that you are in a similar position, where there is often a great divide between you and your prospective buyers. You know that your product or service is absolutely perfect and will meet or exceed your prospects expectations. You are completely certain that once your client gets to experience what you have to offer, they too will see the fantastic benefits it offers. The challenge for the customer though, is that for you to open the door and show your them how great your product or service is, they will need to take a risk and as you know, people are risk averse. So most people will not take the risk and offer you the opportunity to share your great product or service with them.

Build Mutually Beneficial Relationships

As you are in the business of building mutually beneficial relationships with your clients, both you and your client lose, if they do not have the opportunity to see what your product or service can do for their business. The secret to open the door and to start to build the partnerships and relationships you want with your prospects is to eliminate the risk completely. Instead of expecting them to work with you, with blind faith, where they take all the risk, eliminate the risk completely. In other words show them how much you believe in your product or service, put your money where your mouth is and offer to supply it free of charge, if it does not meet their expectations and needs.

You know that you cannot build mutually beneficial relationships and form lasting partnerships with your clients, unless you are authentic, believe 100 % in what you are selling and know that what you have to sell will eliminate pain and exceed the needs and expectations of your clients or new partners. You therefore know that what you have to sell is fantastic, so have the courage of your convictions and show it by removing any risk to your client.  

Accept all the Risk

 I was involved in on-going negotiations with a large manufacturer and after months of negotiation, it looked that, even though I knew my service would eliminate a whole lot of pain for them, I was going to lose the deal. To secure the deal and to begin the process of building the relationship, I asked the CEO what she felt the risk was and how could we eliminate the risk. She felt that if we wasted time on doing the necessary research, went through the training process and they did not see any positive results, she would look bad and have incurred a big expense for nothing.

I immediately eliminated the risk completely and offered to do the research, offer the training and deliver a final keynote address at their annual conference. I told her that, should she not be 100 % satisfied with the results, I would offer the entire service free of charge. By eliminating the risk and showing complete confidence in my work, I gained a great new client and have built a really great partnership with this company. We both benefit from this great on-going relationship.

The secret to create sustainable success and to ensure that people get to know’ like and trust what you have to offer. Is to firstly believe in your product or service, know what it can do for your clients and then remove any risk to your client. By following this simple strategy, you will very quickly grow your business and achieve the sales success you desire.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Practical Sales Tools and Techniques, to Support y...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Practical Sales Tools and Techniques, to Support y...: Building relationships and long term mutually partnerships with your clients, is the best way to, get your prospects and clients to know, ...

Practical Sales Tools and Techniques, to Support your Sales Efforts

Building relationships and long term mutually partnerships with your clients, is the best way to, get your prospects and clients to know, like and trust you. It also changes the relationship dynamic, when you deal with them, on this level. They are no longer in the power position, with you merely taking instruction from them. You become an asset to their business, an additional tool, which will serve them and their business. When you work from this modality, they know that you have their best interests at heart and will only offer them the best value for their business. This all sounds great, but how do you start to build this relationship, how do you begin the journey to build a mutually beneficial relationship with them?

                                       

As you know when you meet with a prospective client for the first time, the tension levels are fairly high. This is most certainly not the time to sit with your feet braced firmly against the desk, regurgitating the benefits or features of your product or service. This is the stage for small talk and an opportunity for you to start to build rapport with them and to begin the process of developing a good business relationship, which shows your commitment to support them.

Past, Present and Future

We all love to speak about is ourselves. When I approach any new decision maker, I encourage them to speak about themselves, by using the past, present and future as a focal point for the conversation. As I walk into the decision maker’s office, I look around and immediately look the decision maker in the eye, saying “Wow it is amazing to see that you have this amazing position with such an incredible company. How did you get started?” This immediately breaks the ice, as nobody has asked them that question for years. The decision maker is obviously very proud of what they have achieved and how well they have done in the company. I have heard many different versions, but they usually go something like this “eighteen years ago I started out as a filing clerk and I worked my way up…..

The secret to start building any relationship is to listen twice as much as you speak. Simply sit back and listen intently, showing real enthusiasm and authentic interest. People will very quickly see through you if you are merely feigning interest and pretending to care. I have learned an incredible amount of really valuable lessons, by listening to people’s success stories, so there is real value to be had by listening and learning from people. You can glean a massive amount of valuable information from the decision maker during their chat about their success journey.

The next question I ask is about the present situation. I would ask a question like “Could you tell me about the current situation and how you have managed to achieve so much success? At this point, the decision maker will disclose even more valuable information, by telling you something like “I have 25 people reporting to me, we have plans to expand our production facility and have plans to open three new branches…… Again sit back, listen and make mental notes. The decision maker is not only having a chance to speak about their own favourite subject, but they are supplying you with valuable information, which you can use to find innovative ways to show the decision maker how your product or service can serve them and their business.  I cannot stress enough, how important it is to ensure that you show real interest in what the decision maker has to say.

The next way to lead the conversation is towards the future. This is probably the most important part of the conversation. Ask a question like “Where do you see yourself and your company, five or ten years from now?” This is your opportunity to sit back, show real interest in what they have to say and at the same time be on the lookout for buying signals. They may say things like we are looking to modernise our production facilities, grow our sales, reduce costs or improve product quality. Listen intently and just make mental notes of all the possible opportunities for your products or services to help support the decision maker, achieve these outcomes.

Research, innovate and be Creative

This information will serve you going forward and help you to build and cement the mutually beneficial relationship, which you are attempting to build with them. After the meeting, record your thoughts and any valuable information, which may help you later, to develop the relationship. I have an electronic sales recording system, where I carefully record this information immediately after the meeting. I then use this information to research the client and explore actual company results or outstanding achievements, related to their tenure at the company. I record this in my electronic sales recording system, for use at the next meeting with the decision maker.

Remember the emotions expressed by the decision maker, while they were talking about the past, present and future. Those emotions will help guide you towards an innovative way of showing the decision maker how your product or service will serve them and their business. As you know logic makes people think, but it is emotion which makes people act. Always focus on the decision makers emotions when developing your sales strategy.

After the meeting explore all opportunities you have identified in the meeting where your product or service can support them, by either eliminating some pain or helping them to better achieve any desired outcome. This process requires you to be a little creative and to innovate. It is crucial to stop thinking like a traditional sales person. Look for innovative ways of supporting them and helping them in the long term. Focus on building a mutually beneficial long term relationship. Forget about trying to make a quick short term sale and focus on how you can utilise your product or service to help them in a meaningful way. I hate this old cliché, but “think out of the box”.

Always look for ways to serve your clients and to add real value to them and their business. The decision maker is going to use their emotions to buy and will only buy from someone they know like and trust and who will add real value to them and their business. Keep this as the focal point, during all interactions with your clients.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Manage your Activities, Within your Available Time...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Manage your Activities, Within your Available Time...: Trying to manage time, which is relentless and never stops, is as effective as shouting at an approaching tornado and telling it to go the...

Manage your Activities, Within your Available Time

Trying to manage time, which is relentless and never stops, is as effective as shouting at an approaching tornado and telling it to go the other way. We cannot ever manage time, but with foresight and planning, we can choose to allocate our time more effectively. Money is infinite and we can earn more money at any time. Time on the other hand, when viewed from our current linear perspective, is most certainly finite. Should something so valuable, not be invested as effectively as possible every day, to earn you the best return possible? I want to share a few really powerful and practical tips with you today, on how utilise your time as efficiently, effectively and productively as possible every day.

Activity Log

An extensive study done in the USA, found that people who utilised an activity log and recorded their activities for one week, all felt like their productivity and free time doubled. Using an activity log is really simple. You create a daily log sheet, broken up into hours, with a few lines below each hour to record your activities during each hour of the day. As each hour passes, spend a few minutes recording how you spent the last hour. Do not analyse the data, you are collecting. Simply think about what you did and record your findings on your log page. At the end of the week look back over the seven pages and analyse the data. Look for periods of productive and non-productive time.

One of the greatest benefits, which will come from this exercise, is one of awareness. After completing this exercise for seven days, switch your thinking around for the next week. Before each hour starts, look at the activities you will be carrying out and ask the question is this most effective and valuable use of my time?

 As the week progresses, you will be far less likely to waste any time reading emails every time your smart phone bleeps or shooting the breeze with work colleges. You will learn the art of utilising your time as effectively and efficiently as possible. Over time, ensuring that each hour is invested as wisely as possible will become one of your new success habits. You won’t need to consciously think about it. You will just unconsciously use your time as productively as possible.

Planning Your Day the Night Before

Armed with the information gained after conducting the week long activity logging process, you will know the time of day when you are most or least productive. This will give you an opportunity to understand your daily rhythms, so when you are “Planning your Day the Night Before” you are able to allocate the most difficult tasks, to be carried out during your most productive time every day.

Sit at the end of the day or as I like to call it “Done for the Day”. At a time chosen the night before during your daily planning session, you decide, when you will stop all work related activity, for the day. This is a time you give yourself permission to switch off from work related activities and to recharge your batteries. Ten minutes prior to reaching your done for the day time slot, you start your daily planning session, in which you plan how you will invest your time the next day.

The best way to start your planning session is to first review the day, which has just passed. Explore all the activities; you had allocated yourself, to carry out during your planning session the night before. Reward yourself for all your successes that day. Even if that means you just sit, smile and feel the glow of satisfaction, for a job well done. If there are any tasks, which you were unable to complete that day, for whatever reason, these must be allocated, during your planning session, to be performed in the first available time slot the next day.

You will then explore any meetings you have and any priority tasks you must complete. Armed with this information and knowing when your most productive time in the day is. You will set aside time slots, which are cast in stone, to carry out your daily priority tasks. The secret to make these time slots work for you and to ensure that you don’t keep reaching the end of the day, without having completed all your priority task, is to not allow any distractions or interruptions during this crucial priority time, during the day. You would not allow any interruptions during a meeting with a client, to disrupt proceedings. Treat your daily time slots where you carry out your top priority activities, the same way.

Do Not Disturb

The reason most people get to the end of the day and they feel exhausted, but they still feel like they got nothing done, is that they allow constant interruptions during their day. They never remain focused on completing single priority tasks. Set aside time for meetings, handling emails, time when people can pop in to discuss things etc. The real secret to mastering the use of your time every day is to tell people when you are available and when they can only reach you in an absolute emergency.

During those priority task times, close your door, switch off your mobile phone and focus all your energy on completing those priority tasks. When you follow this simple process of allocating time slots to complete your top priority tasks every day and you remove any possibility of distraction from the equation, you will effortlessly complete all your priorities every day and will start to see incredible results show up in your life and business.

Earl Nightingale was quoted as saying that he can tell exactly how successful someone will be, purely by looking at the daily agenda. Are you satisfied with how you are utilising your time every day? Is your daily agenda, going to deliver the level of success you want or is it the major reason why you are trapped in a life of average? Introduce these few daily disciplines into your life and you will see a remarkable improvement in your outcomes this year.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Become a Sales Super Star

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Become a Sales Super Star: Selling is an art form or should I rather say that it is an on-going process of fostering relationships with people, who have a need or ch...

Become a Sales Super Star

Selling is an art form or should I rather say that it is an on-going process of fostering relationships with people, who have a need or challenge, you can solve, by supplying them with the product or service you offer. Selling is most certainly never about telling, or a single event. It is a process, which develops daily over time, never in a day, by fostering mutually beneficial relationships with people, who you view as partners. When you view your clients or prospects as partners or potential partners, your approach to them and the way you will interact with them is very different to a traditional sales person, who is sitting opposite a “BUYER” with their feet braced against the desk, desperate to make a sale at all costs.

The sales professional, who approaches every client or prospect, with a view to forming a mutually beneficial partnership with them, will be constantly looking for ways to add value to their partner. Anyone who is entering a partnership with someone else is always looking for ways to foster good relationships, to support them and to build trust with them. You can never be authentic and foster the meaningful relationships you need, if you do not believe 100 % in your product or service. You will be very quickly found out, if you try to sell something you do not completely support or believe in yourself.

As you know your new partners will only buy from people they know, like and trust and they believe, is adding real and meaningful value to them or their business. When your intentions are not honourable and you try to pretend that you have your clients and prospects best interests at heart, but in fact you are only there to try to close a sale. You will be found out. We have an inherent ability to read peoples body language, their tone and pitch of voice and the cadence and volume of their speech while they talk. Your client will very quickly see through any façade or false intentions.

Plan your Sales Calls

Just like anything in life, you need to plan every sales call or relationship building process, before the meeting. Yes you can wing it and walk into the meeting unprepared, and in some cases may even get away with a lack of preparation. Attempting to go into a sales meeting with your client or partner unprepared, is like allowing yourself to be a paper cup blowing around with no direction in a car park. You will just get shunted around in the meeting at the whim of your client or partner. They will be in control and you will be in a weakened position, where you will be forced to tell to try to sell. Have a clear intention or purpose for every sales call.

Change the Way You Look at Your Clients

If you want anything in your world to change in an instant, then simply change the way you look at it and it will immediately change. As soon as you are able to make the shift in your mind, away from viewing yourself as a sales person, who desperately needs to sell your wares, and instead you see yourself as a value adder. Someone who has a fantastic product or service, which can be included into someone’s life or business, to remove a challenge they currently face or to satisfy a need they may have. You equip yourself to become a relationship and partnership builder. Approach every client or prospect with a mind-set of let’s go do it, rather than I am here to sell you something, now you go do it. See the relationship you are developing, as a way of doing something with and for your client or partner.

As soon as you change your philosophy and truly believe in what you have to sell and you authentically believe, that it is a real value adder within your partner’s life or business. You are ready to start the journey to become a relationship builder and partnership developer. Your intent will always be crystal clear, when you work with any client. They will see right through any façade you may try to create. When you are authentic and you always act with your clients or partners best interests at heart, you will build long term relationships with people who will get to know, like and trust you and obviously buy from Dare to explore the limits of your potential and awaken your full sales potential. It is time to up your game and to set your sales giant free. Unlock your hidden sales super star and finally make the shift away from old school hard selling, towards new age relationship building and sales influence, as an effective selling strategyyou.

. As you build relationships with your new partners you will be equipped to use their positive emotions to show them how your product or service will add real and lasting value to their business.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Managers - How to Motivate Your Employees

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Managers - How to Motivate Your Employees: One of the greatest challenges facing many businesses today is finding ways to motivate and inspire their team members every day. This tas...

Managers - How to Motivate Your Employees

One of the greatest challenges facing many businesses today is finding ways to motivate and inspire their team members every day. This task is growing even more difficult, due to the turbulent economic conditions; we are facing and the ever increasing pace of change all around us. I hear many of my clients asking the question, “When are things going to return to normal”? Well I am afraid to say this is the new normal, change and al the uncertainty, which is associated with it, is here to stay. The rapid pace of change is not showing any signs of slowing down at all   In fact all indicators are pointing towards the pace of change accelerating even further in the foreseeable future.

If we as business leaders, want to stay in the game and flourish, going forward, we need to find ways, to not only work within the changing and shifting environment we face, but also to be open to search for and discover ways of using change, as a tool for discovering new opportunities for our businesses. Despite the constant change all around us, it has never been more important to create a crystal clear picture of exactly what you want for your business, organisation or team. Remember, vision is your compass or the tool, which offers you guidance and direction. So when faced with constantly changing conditions, circumstances and new innovations, you will very quickly become overwhelmed, if you do not have a clear picture of where you want to take your business, organisation or team.

This clarity of vision and purpose, will equip you to explore any changed circumstances, changed market conditions or even new innovations and give you the benefit of foresight. You will be able to see how these new conditions, can assist you and your team to accelerate your progress, improve your performance, whilst still inexorably moving towards achieving your vision and goals. Without a clear vision and a set of dynamic strategic plans, any leader, no matter how experienced and capable, will quickly become overwhelmed and be unable to continue to positively influence their team members to perform at their optimal levels. The leader will be unable to be the example, they need to be to motivate and inspire their team members, to perform at their best.

Communicate Your Vision

It astounds me how many organisations, have a great vision for the future, but it is one of the best kept secrets. The only way to ensure that you are moving in the direction of your vision and will be equipped to achieve your organisational goals, is to ensure that everyone in your team or teams, knows, what the overall vision of the organisation is, their individual teams vision and goals and their individual role in delivering on this vision. When your team members are clear on what is expected of them and there is no ambiguity around expectations, they will automatically become more inspired and driven to support their fellow team members, to achieve the team or organisational vision and goals.

Creating Your Vision

Commit these to paper, and ensure that they are clearly and regularly communicated to all stakeholders. They must be easy to understand and very easy to communicate to all team members. Remove any ambiguity and keep them as simple as possible. American Express, for example, who are in the business of providing credit card services to people all around the world, have a very simple, yet extremely descriptive, vision statement “Become the worlds most respected service brand”

This simple and short, yet very clear vision statement gives their team members, a very simple, yet profound message about what they want to create in the future. McGraw-Hill Companies, who publish text books for students have a really inspiring vision statement “Support economic growth and job creation, by creating a smarter, better world” I know a vision statement like that, would get me up and inspired in the morning, eager to contribute to the overall vision of the organisation.

Communicate your vision

Once you have invested the time to create a vision statement, which resonates with you and the picture you have for your business, organisation or team is clear for all to see. Ensure that this is regularly communicated to all stakeholders. The best way to get all stakeholders to take ownership of the vision and internalise it, is to ensure that they are involved in the creation of the vision. When people feel included in the process and they have a stake in the creation of the vision for the future, they will be far more inspired to support you and the overall vision of the team or organisation.

It is also crucial to regularly communicate your vision, mission and goals to your team members, as often as feasible. This can be achieved by communicating the message at the start or end of every meeting, sending our weekly vision messages to your team via email, text messages or even small promotional business cards. The more creative you are and the more often each team member thinks about, understands and commits to carry out their part in delivering on the vision, the greater will be the success and the overall motivation within the team.

Shift the Way you Look at Things and the Things you Look at will Change

When your team members are equipped with a clear understanding of the overall vision for their team or organisation and they completely understand their individual role on delivering on this, they are able to make a crucial shift to the way they see everything around them. As they are clear about where they are going, things that used to be “IN” their way and as such, they were constantly looking for ways to get through them, almost as if by magic shift and are now “ON” their way. When anything is on your way, overwhelming circumstances, become manageable and the same experience that was in your way before, now becomes part of the success journey and your team members are able to discover what they can learn form or get from any experience.

This subtle, but crucial shift will see the motivation and inspiration levels within your organisation go through the roof. Inspiring and motivating your team, is not an event, it is a process, which when carried out daily, will result in far more satisfied, fulfilled team members, who are driven to help their organisation achieve the results they want.

  

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Stop Selling and Build Mutually Beneficial Relatio...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Stop Selling and Build Mutually Beneficial Relatio...: Anyone who has built a camp fire knows that starting a fire and getting it going is quite difficult. You need to build a small pile of dry...

Stop Selling and Build Mutually Beneficial Relationships with your Clients

Anyone who has built a camp fire knows that starting a fire and getting it going is quite difficult. You need to build a small pile of dry kindling and then apply some sort of spark to it, to get it burning. Once this small fire is burning, you slowly add more dry wood to the fire, to gradually allow the critical mass of the fire to grow, rather than to sputter out and die. The same is true, when you have a new business idea and it catches fire within you. Take action immediately and ensure that you slowly add critical mass, daily action, to the idea to keep it alive and eventually, turn into your new reality.

Deciding to grow your sales or attract a new prospect, to your business, is simply a spark of inspiration. The challenge you face though, is to not allow the flames of that inspiration to die. Take action immediately and research where you can find the most qualified prospects. Invest time and energy to explore and research each of them thoroughly. Discover as much useful, relevant information relating to them and their business as possible. The art of selling requires you to partner with them, where you work to develop mutually beneficial relationships with your clients and prospects, rather than simply selling something to them. The only way to completely understand the needs of your prospects and clients is to thoroughly research them and to work to understand their needs and any challenges they may be experiencing.

Once you have a handle on any difficulties or pain they may be experiencing, you are equipped to partner with them, to offer them a mutually beneficial solution, which will solve their challenges. This then shifts the relationships, which you have with your clients, from one of buyer and seller. Where the buyer calls the shots and the poor seller, meekly takes orders and negotiates the lowest price, to secure the business, to one where you become a partner, an additional resource in their business. This way of partnering with your clients, allows them to get to know, like and trust you and they view you and your product or service as a valuable tool in their business.

As your knowledge of your clients and prospects grows, and you get to understand their business better, you will become an additional (FREE) resource in their business. They will no longer view you or your product and service as a commodity; they will see you and your product or service, as a crucial part of their business. Of course it is far more difficult to study a business, get to know the idiosyncrasies of each business, its markets and its needs, difficulties and challenges, than it is to “smouse” your product as a commodity and negotiate and sell just on price. The benefit of getting to know your clients and their markets is immense and are well worth the extra effort.

Use your Vision as Your Anchor

The key to make this selling process work for you, is to first create a very clear vision of exactly what you want and then to use this as your anchor point. Stay focused on why you are investing all the extra effort into researching and understanding your clients and their businesses. When you have a crystal clear vision and are clear on your purpose, you will have the drive to stay focused and will succeed at growing your sales and building mutually beneficial relationships with your clients.

Commit to do whatever it takes

We are pleasure seeking and pain avoiding by nature. So the research and work required to develop partnerships and mutually beneficial relationships with your clients and prospects, will take you out of your comfort zone, into unchartered territory. So it is important to focus on the great feeling you will have in the future, when you are able to become a partner with you clients, rather than that feeling of just being another sales person, who is there in an inferior position, to merely take orders. Success is driven by first being willing to pay the price, “do the research” and then to experience the promise, “great mutually beneficial relationships with your clients”. I am not saying that this way of selling is easy. I am however saying it is far more fulfilling, meaningful and satisfying, to both you and your clients.

Try to remain light hearted

When the going gets tough and it will, it is easy to become discouraged and frustrated. Do not allow “REJECTION” or setbacks to discourage you at all. In fact, know that there is no such thing as rejection. Before you approach a new client or prospect to buy your product or service, you do not have a sale. If one of your prospects or clients refuses to buy your product or service, because they do not see or understand the benefit your product or services offers them or their business. You still do not have a sale, nothing has changed. Things only change when they accept your offer, see the benefit of partnering with you and forming a mutually beneficial relationship with you.

When a prospect says no to your offer, it does not mean no at all. What it means is not right now. The way you have described your partnership proposal to them is not clear, they cannot yet see the benefits to them or their business. Your job as the relationship builder is to then go back to the drawing board and to find a better way to explain your offer. You must more clearly define the value you bring and how that will equate to less pain for them and their business. Work to become a valuable additional resource to your clients businesses and you will no longer sell anything; you will become a value adder in your clients businesses.  

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Achieve the Impossible, One Step at a Time

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Achieve the Impossible, One Step at a Time: At some stage in your life, you still dared to dream and you had those grandiose goals and aspirations, to live a life of meaning and fulf...

Achieve the Impossible, One Step at a Time

At some stage in your life, you still dared to dream and you had those grandiose goals and aspirations, to live a life of meaning and fulfilment. What killed that drive and determination in you? Was it because you really were dreaming the impossible  or you just simply did not have what it took or was it something else altogether? Was it because the people around you told you that what you wanted to achieve in your life or business was impossible? Eventually, after hearing that negative talk from everyone around you, you started to believe them and so you simply gave up on your dream for your life or business.

There is only one opinion that matters when it comes to following your heart and living your dreams. The opinions of everyone around you are nothing more than feedback from your environment. As you know feedback can be very useful to ensure that you have considered all the possible challenges, or to help you assess any knowledge or skills, you may require. It is seldom a reason to kill your dreams and to accept an average life, with no meaning or fulfilment.

As you know, if you have ever tried to light a campfire. Nothing will happen until that small spark hits the kindling. Those small flames, which start to flare up, in the kindling, will very quickly die out, if you do not add more of the right type of dry wood to the fire, to help build the fire and add critical mass to it. If you add huge pieces of wet wood with the bark still on it, the small fire you have created with the kindling, will be unable to ignite the big piece of wood and the small fire will quickly die out.  The same is true with any new idea or dream you may have, for your life or business. When that idea catches fire in your belly, it is important that you take action immediately, you must then keep adding the right amount daily activity, to this small flame of inspiration, to help keep the idea alive and to eventually to bring your idea to life.

Take the Right Type of action

If you do nothing and you do not take any action at all, those initial flames will obviously just die out. If on the other hand you rush headlong into attempting to turn your idea into reality, as soon as possible. You will also kill those flames of inspiration, as you will feel overwhelmed and quickly move back to your comfort zone. The simplest example I can offer here is one where someone, gets all inspired to get fit. So they sign up for a new gym contract. They rush into the gym and for the first three days, they go every day for an hour of vigorous exercise. As you know we are a pleasure seeking and pain avoiding species, so as the level of discomfort increases as we overload our bodies. We quickly lose interest and return to our comfort zone and almost immediately stop exercising altogether.

If that person had thought the process through and instead of rushing headlong into the gym, every day, they had instead, started slowly. Doing the right type of exercise, which was fun and enjoyable. Not overtaxing themselves, they would have been far more likely to keep going to the gym and their new exercise routine would have eventually become part of the daily routine. If we use this approach, to achieve any goal we want in our life or business, where we quickly take the right action, which helps to keep the flame of inspiration burning, and we keep adding the right activities to our initial action. We will gradually build up the critical mass we need to sustain our efforts and eventually achieve our goal.

Sustaining the Effort

The second challenge we have when we have a new idea, is to sustain the initial effort required, to get the idea going, when we do not see any immediate results. Imagine a hand water pump, with the water level about 3 meters below the ground. When you prime the pump (add a little water to fill the pump) and you begin pressing the handle, up and down. You will see no water come out of the spout, for quite a long time, as the water is slowly pumped from far beneath the ground and it gradually rises to towards the surface. If you stop pumping before the water gets to the surface, it will simply just return to the level it was at, before you started pumping.

This is how most people tackle any new goal, they start out taking action every day and as they do not see any progress for a while. They stop taking action, before the actions they are taking have had time to gather momentum and so they never get to see the results they desire. In the example of the water pump above, if the person pushing the lever on the hand pump, kept pushing the lever long enough, to give the water a chance to start flowing from the spout. It would take very little effort to keep the water flowing. The same is true for achieving your goals or turning ideas into something tangible and real. You need to persevere and keep taking those small actions every day until you see results. Once the results start to appear, it is really easy to sustain the effort required.

Imagine a huge horizontal flywheel, rotating on a vertical shaft. If you grabbed hold of it and applied force to start the flywheel turning. You would only manage to move the wheel a fraction. As you continue to apply force to the flywheel it will slowly, build up momentum, until it is spinning at speed. It is not the first push or any one push, no matter how big that push may have been, which allowed that flywheel to build up the speed and momentum it now has. It was the accumulation of all the small pushes, which added up to make it speed along. Exactly the same is true for the almost insignificant goal specific actions you will take every. No single small action is going to result in the success you want. It is the accumulation of all those almost insignificant actions, over time, when added together will allow you to succeed.

Achieving sustainable success is thus the result of taking action, before the idea has had a chance to fizzle out, to then keep taking small actions daily, to sustain this flame of inspiration and to use your willpower to sustain these efforts long enough to actually start seeing results. The biggest secret of all is to accept that goals are not achieved in a day, but rather daily, with sustained and determined effort.

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Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Do You Know What You Really Want and Do you Believ...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Do You Know What You Really Want and Do you Believ...: When you walk into a dark room, you simply reach across, press the light switch on and the darkness disappears. Do you need to attend a mo...

Do You Know What You Really Want and Do you Believe You Can Have It?

When you walk into a dark room, you simply reach across, press the light switch on and the darkness disappears. Do you need to attend a motivational talk to inspire you to press the light switch, or do you procrastinate and contemplate the task, before you actually press the switch? No, you just press the light switch. I know this is a simplistic example, but what it illustrates, is the principal that, if you believe with absolute certainty that any activity will result in the outcome you desire. You will carry out any task, without the need for any external motivation and you will most certainly never procrastinate before carrying out that activity ever again.

Get clarity about what you want, invest the time to acquire all the knowledge and skills you need, to be absolutely certain that you can achieve it. Once you have this deep rooted belief in your ability to succeed. Carrying out the daily activities necessary to achieve that goal will become almost effortless. Believe in yourself, know with certainty that you are on the right path and that the goal specific activities you are carrying out every day, is steadily moving you along the path of success and nothing will be able to stop you from succeeding.

Using the light switch example again: If you walked into the room and pressed the switch and for some reason the light never came on. The Bulb was fused, or the power was off or the circuit breaker had tripped. Would you never press the light switch again, because you had encountered a challenge and it never worked that one time? The same is true about the actions you take every day as you move towards the success you desire. There will be times that you take a specific action and some external factor may have changed and that action does not result in the outcome you wanted. That is no reason to stop believing in yourself and to stop taking action.

It is simply an opportunity to look around for the cause, does it mean you need a little more education or do you need a few new skills, maybe you need to slow down or speed up a little, are you getting enough rest, exercise or proper nutrition? Find the tripped circuit breaker, damaged light bulb or disconnected power supply in your life. Fix whatever is wrong and move forward. Experiencing challenges on your path toward the success you desire is never a reason to stop believing in your ability to succeed. It is simply an opportunity to explore and find out why things are not working like they should be.

Circuit breakers trip, light bulbs blow and the power sometimes gets interrupted. That does not mean you must stop pressing the light switch, when you walk into a dark room, it simply means, that you need to find out why it is not working. Fix it, and when you press the switch on the next time and the next, the light will come on. The same is true for your life and business. Things are going to go wrong, challenges will come your way and things will not always work out the way you want them to. Simply explore, find what is wrong and then press on and the action you take will once again deliver the results or outcomes you want.

Stop harping on your flaws and any temporary failures you may experience. This negative self-talk is extremely destructive and does not serve you at all. Simply identify what is wrong, build a plan to fix it and move on. When the light switch does not work, when you walk into the dark room? Do you go into a tirade of self-incrimination about, why the bulb blew, do you berate yourself for hours before changing the bulb. No you search for, and discover the challenge, do the repair and enjoy the benefit of the light. If you could learn to apply the same simple process in your life and business, every time you encounter a challenge or a roadblock. You would very quickly overcome any roadblock, setback or challenge and almost immediately, get back on track.

Instead of berating yourself and constantly reminding yourself about your flaws, rather learn to celebrate your successes and achievements. Constantly look at your skill and ability. Look at all the things you are doing today, which you were unable to do a week, month or year ago. Celebrate your progress and use this progress to help keep you inspired. Give yourself regular feedback and reinforce your new positive behaviours as often as possible. Don’t wait for an award, promotion, a friend or mentor to appreciate your progress. Take pride in and reward your own efforts daily. You are most certainly doing a whole lot more right every day, than you are doing wrong. Keep up your consistent positive efforts and you will eventually succeed.

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Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Invite Harmony into your Life

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Invite Harmony into your Life: Inviting harmony into your life means that you will need to exert a little more conscious control over your habits and lifestyle. I believ...

Invite Harmony into your Life

Inviting harmony into your life means that you will need to exert a little more conscious control over your habits and lifestyle. I believe that if you are to truly become a fully actualised individual, you need to look beyond the obvious, on-going commitment to lifelong learning, consistent growth in financial wellbeing, devotion to your career or business and you need to also engage in regular exercise, pay attention to your nutrition, relax through musical, cultural, artistic, spiritual and family activities.

True harmony can only be achieved when all the facets in your life are working together. It is crazy to focus all your energy on creating financial wellbeing, whilst and at the same time you neglect your health or family. Lying alone in a hospital bed recovering from triple bypass heart surgery, with a massive bank balance, will most certainly not serve you. Have the courage to explore your life right now. Are all the areas of your life working, or are there parts of your life, which are working better than others? You can never become fully self-actualised and live a life of meaning and fulfilment, if you neglect any facet of your life, to concentrate all your energies on building another.

Action Idea: Try to introduce these few crucial success tools into your life:

• Pay more attention to your nutrition, choose leaner source protein and fibre based carbohydrates as your basic food choices.
• Schedule exercise into your week. Ensuring that you get a good 30 – 45 minute cardio workout at least 4 times a week.
• Schedule time to spend with your family.
• Make time to invest into your spiritual endeavours. It does not matter what your circumstances or beliefs are regarding the spiritual element of your life. It is just important that you do not neglect this crucial part of your life experience.
• Give yourself permission, to relax through cultural, musical or artistic activities.
• Ensure that you get sufficient sleep and that you schedule time to rest and recharge your batteries.

The above investments will serve you well and help you to maintain, far more harmony in your life. Better exercise and improved nutrition, will help you to have far more energy. Spending time with your family will help build better family relationships and will see more support and assistance flow to you from your family. As your spiritual awareness expands, your universe will open up and your whole life experience will improve. Your investment of time into music, culture and art will give you time to relax and appreciate the wonders of the world. Finally by getting enough sleep every day and scheduling rest into your week will keep you invigorated and driven.

Learn the art of becoming a super achiever.

Super achievement is never about just work and no play. Block off periods in your schedule for recreation and vacations and obviously include uninterrupted periods for work, where you can focus all your energy on the most crucial priority projects in your life. I have researched a number of the best books, works of art, inventions and even musical compositions. All of the greatest works were produced during uninterrupted time frames.

They could never have been produced during interrupted time frames, where the person producing the master piece, did a few brush strokes, or wrote a few bars, then answered their phone or read an email on their smart phone. Every success I have enjoyed in my life, where I have produced a great audio book, made a DVD or written a book, was done with discipline and even included twelve to fifteen hour days of complete focus, where I focused 100 % on just that one project.

I was able to work at that pace, because I had scheduled rest periods throughout the day. I planned time to rest and recharge my batteries. I made time to exercise, ate well and built time into my schedule around this focused activity, to be with my family. This focused activity was conducted during blocks of time, which included time to work, time to rest, recreate, recharge and exercise.  

The secret to sustainable success is to focus your energy on prime projects during prime time and to use your innovative powers, material, time and energy resources as effectively as possible to focus on carrying out your goal specific activities every day. When you learn the art of effective priority management, you invite freedom into your life. This freedom allows you to have a far better opportunity to make more informed, higher quality decisions. As you know the decisions you make or fail to make are shaping your future, moment by moment.

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Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Small Insignificant Daily Actions, Add Up Into Sup...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Small Insignificant Daily Actions, Add Up Into Sup...: How are things going this year, with those big dreams and goals you had earlier this year? Are you still allowing yourself to stand on the...

Small Insignificant Daily Actions, Add Up Into Super Achievement

How are things going this year, with those big dreams and goals you had earlier this year? Are you still allowing yourself to stand on the side-lines of your life and are you still making those small daily errors in judgement, which are adding up into poor performance and results. Not reading 10 pages of a good educational, inspirational or transformational book every day, does not result in instant failure. Not using your willpower to develop a success habit set, which will support your daily goal specific activities, has no noticeable effect on your life either. Arriving home every night and simply flopping into the chair, pressing the on button, to switch on the TV, feels good in the moment and also does feel like it is negatively effecting your life either. It is the daily accumulation of all these negative behaviours, which over time ads up to the poor results you are currently enjoying.

Or should I rather say can add up into the success you want to invite into your life, in the future. If you work to improve yourself by only 0.33 % every day, you will not be able to even measure the difference after one day has passed. After three days you will be about 1 % better than you were. This will also be pretty difficult to measure. This is why so many people don’t even bother, it just seems like nothing is changing at all. It is only after a year has passed and you look back that you will realise that those small daily efforts to improve yourself, by only 0.33 %, each day, have now resulted in you being 100 % better than you were when you started, a year before.

Success or failure for that matter does not happen in a day, it is the accumulation of great decisions in the case of success and very poor decisions in the case of failure, carried out over time. So if achieving success is so easy, why does everyone not just do what it takes and take those small insignificant daily actions, which will over time result in the success they desire. I do not know the answer to this simple question, but I do know that we have freedom of choice and so, as easy as the actions are to do every day, so easy are they not to do. Not carrying out a goal specific activity for one day or even a week, does not feel like it has had any effect at all. So people neglect to carry the activities they need to carry out every day, instead, looking for instant gratification, in the moment.

They choose to sit and vegetate in front of the TV because that feels good in the moment. They do not apply their willpower, encouraging themselves, to experience a little discomfort in the moment, delaying their gratification, so that they can achieve the results or outcomes they want. Are you going to continue to sit on the side-lines, taking the path of least resistance and remain trapped in an unfulfilling and empty life? Or are you finally going to do the uncomfortable every day and gradually, over time, build the future you desire, one tiny insignificant action at a time.

Are you finally going to be that person, who achieves their goals, or are you going to allow yourself to remain trapped in the average. Have the courage to finally step away from the side-lines and allow yourself to move toward daily action. Overcome the inertia, which is holding you hostage to a life, which you don’t want and allow yourself to do the small uncomfortable activities every day. These tiny actions will finally bring the meaning and fulfilment you want in your life. Success is not an event; it is the accumulation of numerous good decisions, which over time add up into the great outcomes you want.

Open the door on a future, where you can finally see that you are amazing and by using the simple process of compounding your daily activity, you will soon realise that you have few or no limitations at all. Success is never achieved in a day; it is brought into your experience daily, with consistent and focused effort. Dare to be different and take those small uncomfortable actions every day. They only weigh ounces and cost almost nothing. The weight of regret on the other hand, which will manifest in your life later, as a result of not taking those small insignificant daily actions, weighs tonnes and will manifest in the form of failure, bankruptcy, divorce or damaged health. I don’t know about you, but I choose to be a little uncomfortable in the moment, to take those insignificant daily actions and to enjoy the fruits of my labours in the future.

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Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Create Your Own Vision Book or Vision Board

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Create Your Own Vision Book or Vision Board: As you travel on your journey towards the success you desire, you obviously understand the importance of having a purpose, vision, mission...

Create Your Own Vision Book or Vision Board

As you travel on your journey towards the success you desire, you obviously understand the importance of having a purpose, vision, mission, a set of very clearly defined goals and finally individual goal specific actions, which you will carry out every day. Once you have this crucial structure in place and you are completely committed to achieving your goals. There are a few tools you can use to support you on your journey.

Positive affirmation is one, which helps you to overcome negative self-talk, build belief and encourages you to engage in daily goal specific supportive behaviors or routines, which will support your success. Another powerful support tool is visualization. This is a process where you create a crystal clear picture in your mind of exactly what you want to achieve in the future and then with all the emotion, energy and conviction you can muster. You visualize yourself, living exactly that life. Your brain is unable to tell the difference between a visualized and a real experience. So over time as you visualize yourself living this perfect life, you encourage the right behavior, which will support the daily goal specific activity, necessary to invite the success you want into your experience.

One of the best ways to help you create the vivid pictures you want, which will then serve as the focal point for your daily visualization practice, is a vision board or vision book. These are simply a book or a board, which you fill with pictures, photos or concepts, depicting exactly how you want to see your life turn out in the future. Your vision book or board is a visual representation of your goals and aspirations. It’s a physical book or a board, similar to a scrap book, or a notice board (as fancy as a framed photo assemblage or as simple as a presentation board), where you assemble photos, inspirational words and quotes, and other items, which represent the achievement of your desired goals.

All or One

You can create a vision book or board that encompasses all of your goals in each area of your life, or make several, which each illustrate one goal or one area of focus. You may find that you want to create one for your personal life, and another for your business-related goals, which you keep at work. Depending on your environment, you might find it helpful to have the vision book open, on your desk, or placed in a spot where you can see it as often as possible.

Regardless of where you keep it, refer to it daily and whenever you need to re-focus or re-energize yourself. The images on your vision board or in your vision book, will help to stimulate those all-important feeling, which will help you to actually feel and experience all the positive feel good emotions you will feel, when you actually do achieve the success you have envisioned. These positive emotions, which your vision board or book will conjure up, can very often help you to overcome a roadblock or challenge, which you may encounter or if repeated daily, inspire you to take the goal specific actions you need to take, to ensure your sustainable success.

Guidelines for Creating Your Vision Book

As you create your personal vision book, remember to have fun and enjoy the process.

It’s Your Map to Your Future

These are your dreams, and so naturally you’ll want to be selective about what goes in the book and how neat and organized you keep it. Look for images from magazines, photographs, and words that best represent your dream, your purpose, and your ideal future. Keep them upbeat and positive. As you build your vision board, know that it is a collage of your future. Build it wisely and allow your mind to visualize possibilities, which will stretch and challenge you.

Achievement Board

As you achieve things on your vision board, take them off and transfer them onto your achievement board. This gives you a way to reward your successes and a physical representation of all the successes you have enjoyed. Whenever you feel like nothing is working and you cannot seem to make any progress. Visit your achievement board and use the positive feeling of satisfaction, which came with achieving and transferring those successes onto your achievement board. This will help you to inspire yourself and to know that if you keep taking action daily, you will eventually succeed.

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