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Learn How to Empower Your Money to Help You Fulfill Your Dreams

Guest post by: Andrea Travillian

Article Overview: Five steps to help your money get headed in the right direction.

Learn How to Empower Your Money to Help You Fulfill Your Dreams

Have you ever faced a marketing problem, realized that it needed fixing, but had no idea where to start? If you are anything like me, not knowing what to do can leave you feeling confused, frustrated, or even hopeless. Getting your money on track can be the same. You may know that you have a problem and realize that solving the problem will enable you to fulfill more of your goals and dreams, but you just have no idea where to start. So how do you solve your marketing problems? You develop a five-step process to help you deal with marketing today and tomorrow. You can solve your money problems with the same five steps:

1. Determine where you want to go.

2. Assess where your problems are.

3. Create a plan to solve the problems.

4. Add plan items to your daily tasks.

5. Adjust and revise as needed.

Let's stop and look at each step individually.

Determine where you want to go

You can market all you want, but if you don't know where you want to go you may end up headed in the wrong direction. When that happens, you will quickly lose your motivation to keep going. Likewise, with money you can work on it all you want but if you do not know why you are trying to reduce your expenses or make more money, then you will run out of steam and erase all your progress. So the first step is to sit down and figure out why you want your money to be healthy. Write it down, draw a picture of it, or do whatever else it takes to make it real for you.

Assess where your problems are

Sometimes this is the hardest part because it means you have to admit that something is wrong. It is one thing to say "I know I need to change" but a completely different thing to say "I spend more than I make." Sit down and list the problems that need to be fixed. For marketing, this might be "My ads are targeting the wrong people" or "I do not follow up on leads." For your money, this could be "I spend too much," "I don't make enough," "I don't have an estate plan," or "I do not have life insurance." Get everything on paper.

Create a plan to solve the problems

Now you know what the problem is, but you still have to make a plan to solve the problem. If you know you want your marketing to add five more clients by December and that your problem is lack of a website, you still won't make much progress if you do not have a plan to get a website. So your plan would look like this: register domain, create website plan, hire designer, publish site. Money is the same. I can say, "I want $2,000 invested by December so I can go on vacation with my sister," but without a plan that details it out, I likely will not save enough money for the trip. So your plan might look like this: open savings account, set up automatic withdrawal to savings, and cancel HBO to get the extra money to put into savings.

Add plan items to your daily tasks

I know that adding items to your task list seems simple, but many of us do not take this step with either our marketing or money. We do not understand the value of adding items to our daily calendar. If you don't add "Cancel HBO" to your calendar, you most likely will not do it.

Adjust and revise as needed

With your marketing you need to try something, adjust it when it is not working, and then re-try. Money is the same way. If you find that you cannot live without HBO and want to instead try skipping one pizza a month or a manicure, adjust your plan to make it work for you. What if you decide instead that you would rather pick up one extra client a month and not skip anything? As you work your way through your plan you will discover things that are going well and others that are not, and you may hit an obstacle or two. Don't get discouraged-remind yourself that making changes is part of achieving a goal. The key is to adjust and keep going!

It's time to stop feeling confused, frustrated, and hopeless with your money. You can achieve what you desire and get your money headed the right way!

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Article Tags: dreams, five steps, goal planning, money, right direction
Referred by: http://www.SohoMarketingGuru.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Which would you start: a Blog or Online Community? - It is a difficult decision to make. Lets start it this way - What are you more interested in? Money? or Friends? or Both? If its purely Money, then Blog might be an appropriate answer. But consider this - It will be people (visitors) that will bring traffic to your blog and then Money will follow. This will be possible after a time and during this time it will be your friends who will be the starters. If you are looking for friends only, then its true that not many will be interested in knowing how you have beaten them in the game or the other way round. So it will be preferable to have a Forum where they can share ideas with you and others. But you can share your insider knowledge with them and invite comments from your Blog. You can also put up information on what others (including your friends) don't know about Tennis. The blog you create can provide News, Inside Information and also Techniques that can be used by the new entrants in the world of Tennis.
Making Money in 2011 - Hello forum members! As we draw closer to the new year I thought it would be appropriate to change the title of our forum category "Making Money in 2010" to "Making Money in 2011" - I'm looking forward to some interesting discussions and wish everyone a prosperous New Year!
QuickBooks vs. Microsoft Money vs....? - I have always used Microsoft Money to run my business - accounting, invoicing, etc. It came with my computer when I got it and integrated well with my online banking system so everything is a breeze. It only takes 30-60 minutes every quarter to do the bookkeeping (keep in mind that I have a very simple business - no inventory, very little invoicing, I do all my payments by credit card, etc). Is QuickBooks or Money the best accounting tool for small business owners? Or is there something even better?
Re: What or Who Sparks Your Business Interest - It's interesting to see what the different motivations are by Age Category. I've noticed this around me: 20 to 29yr olds: Motivator: Money 30 to 39yr olds: Motivator: Success/Ambition 40 to 49yr olds: Motivator: Family comes first 50 to 59yr olds: Motivator: Leaving a legacy i've only gone that far in my analysis. Of course this is a braid generalization but I find that it helps direct my marketing to individuals in different age brackets. The product/service can be the same but the Marketing message (Benefit Statement) to a 20 year will revolve around "Money" vs. a 30-something would be on their "Self Image"
Lisa Shepherd Story - Great story! I love the Earn - Learn - Equity - it's very relavent for new entrepreneurs.


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