Like this article? PLEASE +1 it! Evan Signature
Evan Carmichael Top Header about About Home Profiles articles Tools forums inspirational quotes About facebook Twitter YouTube Blog
Share for a Cause











In Today’s Economy, YOU Need to be Better to Compete!

Guest post by: Kris Cavanaugh

Article Overview: One thing for sure is that in today’s economy, YOU need to be better. Not a better website, not a better pill, not a better CRM (customer relations manager), not a better prospect list and not a better book off the shelf! I have some very helpful tips that will guide you to being a better YOU in this increasingly competitive economy.

Free Download - How “Lack of Employee Initiative” Is Hindering Business Growth By Kris Cavanaugh
Name: Email:

In Today’s Economy, YOU Need to be Better to Compete!

Is it just me, or does every product and service provider have a solution that offers the cure and magic pill for your personal situation or your business problems? Feeling depressed? Try this therapy. Dealing with stress? Take this drug. Business not growing? Revitalize your website. Employees not productive? Use these incentive products. I think if we all step back, we clearly see that these solutions are good offerings, but just touches on the symptom - and does not fully address the root problem. Similar to the fact of the "check engine" light in your car - when that light comes on you have at least 4 options:

1. Ignore it

2. Put some black electrical tape over the light to hide the warning

3. Unplug the light from the fuse box

4. Take the car to a qualified mechanic and fix the problem

The solution may seem obvious in the above example, but as I talk with individuals every day I see them choosing options 1,2 or 3 for problems with their life or business. Maybe it's easier to put off an issue you're dealing with that doesn't look like a red glowing light right in front of your face!

Unfortunately, problems you feel are "out of your control" that cause you stress and tension at home or at work are worse than just the oil needing to be changed in your car.

I think you'll agree that the root of the issue is always YOU (for better or worse!)

This could be any number of things, such as...

* how you respond to problems thrown at you

* your mindset to address difficult situations

* having being influenced incorrectly or being in a wrong crowd

* lack of focus / attention

* paralysis of analysis

Now let me clarify something before I continue. We ALL have our thorns in our side we deal with. Every one of us has strengths, weaknesses, healthy attributes and unhealthy habits. No one is immune!

The difference here I'm talking about, is making a better YOU. In a recent article, we addressed having an R.O.U. (Return on You) vs. focusing on just an R.O.I. (Return on Investment). Certainly in this tough economy, or any economy, you're concerned with Thriving and not just barely surviving. A lot of people I talk with are looking to be head and shoulders above their competition or in more control of their personal or professional life (do you see a lot of that too?).

One thing I know for sure is this: in today's economy, YOU need to be better. Not a better website, not a better pill, not a better CRM (customer relations manager), not a better prospect list and not a better book off the shelf!

Using the car example from before, when you understand you are in the driver's seat of your own life - the best turnaround for performance enhancement is a better Return on You. An R.O.U. that moves you past your reoccurring personal situations, and more competitive against your growing competition!

A lot of people don't know it, but this is what most peak performers, top executives and very successful individuals have already found out from private coaching. Did you know that? I'll bet you did.

In 2003, coaching was the second fastest growth industry in the US and it became worth $100 MILLION.

A coach is beneficial to anyone, from top celebrities to housewives and small to large businesses. People who have used and are using coaches include: Madonna, sports athletes and corporate giants like IBM.

Coaching is for people who want to take their life to the next level, and already successful people often use life coaches because they know the importance of making the most of every opportunity for personal growth.

In order to REALLY turn the tables for your life's situation, a person has to be able to see from a different perspective and position than you see from. This is almost always the case for us humans! It's a common occurrence for someone needing strength training, weight loss, career development, addiction recovery, performance help, etc. to get outside influential assistance!

"Recent studies show business coaching and executive coaching to be the most effective means for achieving sustainable growth, change and development in the individual, group and organization." - HR Monthly

"A major benefit of coaching is having someone who helps you see your strengths and weaknesses and uses them to accomplish your goals." - Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"A study featured in Public Personnel Management Journal reports managers that underwent a managerial training program showed an increased productivity of 22.4%. However, a second group was provided coaching following the training process and their productivity increased by 88%. Research does demonstrate that one-on-one executive coaching is of value." - F. Turner, Ph.D.

A coach helps you achieve your goals by providing support and being dedicated to your success. A coach will offer insights and perspectives and he/she will be there to listen to you and help you become a better YOU!

According to a Lee Hecht Harrison survey, "Companies are increasingly turning to coaching for leadership development, style issues and talent retention, so it makes sense that 55% of respondents said that their organization uses coaching as a one-on-one process intended to maximize management and leadership potential and 54% do so to change behaviors."

I would encourage you to take action TODAY. Whether we're in tough economy, or a thriving economy - the differentiating factor for your success or happiness is YOU! Let a qualified coach work with you to get you from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow. When you do, you'll find yourself in a powerful new mindset and position like John Russell (see quote below). Take action today, and call or email me to begin making the major shifts that will change your life forever!

"I never cease to be amazed at the power of the coaching process to draw out the skills or talent that was previously hidden within an individual, and which invariably finds a way to solve a problem previously thought unsolvable."

- John Russell, Managing Director, Harley-Davidson Europe Ltd.

Related Articles
  Franchising Advantages in a Bad Economy
  IBM Mainframe part deux
  Working at Home With Twitter
  What’s Hot in B2B Marketing?
  Article #4 Attention: Legitimate, Affordable, High-Income Home Based Business Seekers!
  Salesperson Wimp-Out: Cutting the Price
  Daily Meetings Result in Daily Deals
  Promoting your company and self with verve
  Becoming the Master of Customer Data
  Not Every Employer or Employee Needs a Non-Compete!
  Reader Question: Is a strong small business sector important to the stability and growth of a nation’s economy?
  I WANT IT NOW!
  So You Thought Non-Compete Agreements Were Safe? Think again.
  SMEs - a changing trend in SME failure
  What is a 'Covenant Not To Compete' when buying or selling a business
  Are the Holiday's Getting Greener?
  Revolutionize Your Business to Keep up With Rapidly Changing Trends
  Why Your Job Search May Be Taking Forever
  Employees make the Difference
  Newsworthy Trends in Franchising

Home > Work-Life > Kris Cavanaugh > In Todays Economy YOU Need to be Better to Compete >
Article Tags: business success, executive coaching, more competitive, winners edge

About the Author: Kris Cavanaugh
RSS for Kris's articles - Visit Kris's website

Kris Cavanaugh is a speaker, author and coach who specializes in helping others cultivate a C.E.O. mindset in every area of their life so their businesses, careers, and personal lives thrive. She is an expert strategist with an amazing ability to pull her clients through difficult challenges to obtain the life they truly want.

If you have a desire to live your life "on purpose", so you wake up every day excited about the possibilities and maintain an unwavering belief that you will overcome any obstacles to achieve your personal and professional goals more easily - call Kris at 404-551-3601 or go to http://begintoshift.com/landpage/MakeTheSHIFT.htm to schedule your complimentary meeting today.

Kris is author of "Stuck to C.E.O." now available from Amazon at http://amzn.com/0982663668.




Click here to visit Kris's website
Dashed Line

More from Kris Cavanaugh
8 Steps to SUCCESS by Taking Charge of Your Life Part 2 of 2
5 Ways to Tell If Your Personal or Professional Life is in the Dark
Whats Your ROU Return on You
In Todays Economy YOU Need to be Better to Compete
Business Lessons from Pablo Picasso


Related Forum Posts
Compete vs. Alexa Compete vs. Alexa - Thanks for the tip Clint. I checked out what Compete thought of EvanCarmichael.com and it says the top keywords that drive traffic to my site are: #1 mary kay - estee lauder - leadership #2 chris gardner, quotes by #3 gardner rich investment firm While I might rank for these keywords they are far from the top referring keywords. It looks like nobody has figured out the holy grail. I wonder how much ISPs are actually willing to share their data with Compete and other similar services. I would consider moving my hosting if I knew my ISP was sharing information about my website with outside organizations.
Alexa vs. Compete Alexa vs. Compete - Thanks for the tip Clint. I know Alexa is not perfect - but as far as I can see it is the best measuring stick out there. I keep track of my own numbers which are important for my advertisers as well. Why do you feel that Compete is a better measuring stick than Alexa? I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Most Useful SEO Tools For Webmasters Most Useful SEO Tools For Webmasters - Hi, My name is Jeff, I work for WebBizIdeas.com and we are developing an article called "50 Most Useful SEO Tools for Webmasters." We have ranked & listed our top 30 SEO Tools but want to get your opinion on what SEO Tools are most useful to you; as Internet Business Owners. Google Webmaster Tools Google Analytics Google Alerts Yahoo Site Explorer SEOBook.com Keyword Research SEOBOOK.com SEO For Firefox Tool SEOBOOK.com Search Engine Rank Checker SEOBOOK.com Back Link Analyzer SEOChat.com Keyword Difficulty Compete.com Quantcast.com Alexa.com Archive.org Stompernet Site Seer Technorati.com PRWEB.com ADDTHIS.com SHARETHIS.com EzineArticles.com Scribd.com Squidoo.com YouTube.com StumbleUpon.com Reddit.com Digg.com Del.icio.us Wikipedia.org Flickr.com NewsVine.com Yahoo Answers NOTE: When you list your answers please include a description on what the site is, why it is important to you, and your experience please....we may include it in our article. Jeff
Re: New member from the USA Re: New member from the USA - [quote="Mal Tindle":rpz5ne6d][quote="Ethical":rpz5ne6d][quote="Mal Tindle":rpz5ne6d]Hi Ethical, Welcome to the forum, it's good to see new people getting involved in any forum and you have picked one of the very best. I haven't been a member too long but am a regular now because of the support and resources available here which are most impressive. I see you work in the recycling of ink cartridges and I wish you well with that and attracting traffic to your site. best wishes, Mal.[/quote:rpz5ne6d] Thanks for your welcome,Mr.Mal,are you located in the USA,or the UK o'GB.or some other locale?,and if may I have your permission to ask,What kinda(kind of) entrepreneurship are you involved with?,as anything in life,education,and correct info...is the key to success,and Profesional forum attendance,is enlighting.Thanks again for your welcome.[/quote:rpz5ne6d] Hi Again Ethical, Thank you for your reply, I live in the UK and don’t have a product as such to sell like you but I am an Internet Marketer and owner of the ‘Work From Home Gems’ site below. I specialise in finding and recommending different ways to make money on the internet as an affiliate. I very much enjoy working in this sector and hope to work full time from home in the future. Don’t forget to set up your signature as recommended by GT above as this is a simple way to ad the URL of your website and this will show on every post you make, best wishes, Mal.[/quote:rpz5ne6d] Howdy (Hi and How do you do,in Texan): I'm currently working from home,and with My lifelong ltd. business experience(which is not as limited ,As I humbly stated ,I hope to utilize (utilise in British English),some knowledge to help me be somewhat successful.('California is a "brand new game" to many outsiders,inc. a West Texan ,like me,but I somehow managed above expectations). My ambition at this stage of my life(being formally retired),isn't like when I was younger,and accomplished a lot,'way beyond my ltd. means', as I met with a lot of small and big successes,as I didn't had the luxarious option of losing or failing,in order to survive,I had to'make it'. In today's USA Economy and it's negative implications on all of retirees(pensioners) and disabled folks, It became vital to be able to function with some amount of success...or face hunger,if not worse,in the USA we have a 'nation' of homeless folks,that are unaided.most of them are either disabled,or 'senior citizens',or both. so failure is not an option,currently I live in Southern California,which is controlled by an inhumane and dishonest Reublican governor,that cut income from both disabled,and the aged disabled(With false excuses) .while cost of subsisting here is skyrocketing without price controls.so any ltd. additional income is a 'blessings'.Our country economy,as the whole world is already aware is continue to fall,(I was extremely surprised,like many others) that our country borrowed huge amounts not only from its allies(like the UK of GB, UAE,Kuwait etc.) but also from the P.R. of China(ain't it amazing,it's the greatest 'accomplishment' of the previous Bush administtration),It was done prior to our current wonderful president Obama times,But Obama administration was really honest and transparent about these facts,and additionally acted in the best interests of our country,and improved our country situation so dramatically,so at least we're hopefull.The Praises that our current administration deserves are long.Folks like me try to cease any opportunity to survive ,I'm not aiming to'make a killing' but just survive the onslought ,and 'so far so good',I already started on my own to reach to local pro.(professional)folks,that I had the pleasure to know,and there are real hopes,I already sold on my own 1st ltd. batch of 'virgin'(only one time used) 'empties' (Empty ink cartridges),and even earn already a minor sum of 'income',and time'll tell.My honest belief is just as long as one could act rationally there 're hopes for positive results.Thanks for support and advice,I may put the website into my signature a little later,meanwhile ,I'm so busy just 'to keep my head above waters'.Thanks again.
$3000 per mo Site for Sale: $65,000 OBO $3000 per mo Site for Sale: $65,000 OBO - $3000 per mo Site for Sale: $65,000 OBO Content and Community Driven Pet Websites ________________________________________ Profile: Two Pet Related Websites Price: $65,000 OBO Age of sites: 2 years 4 months Monthly revenue: $3300 (plus or minus a couple hundred) Key details: Growth Year over Year: 641% Uniques: 200,000 per Month Page Views: 1 mil + per Month Referrers: 10,000+ Monthly Search Engine Traffic: 61% Members: 7500+/- Articles: 318 Blog Posts: 189+ Forum Posts: 256,000+ Topics: 19,000+ Adsense Revenue: $1500-$1700 per month Kontera Revenue: $900+ per month Direct Advertisers: $90 - $300 per month Monthly Server Costs: $100 Monthly Advertising Costs: $0 Total Profit Per Month $2500 - $3000 Organic Growth Month over Month: 10% +/- (Zero spent on advertising – all word of mouth and search engine) Software Licenses: All Open source and thus free: Linux, Apache, MySQL, Zen Cart, PHPLIST, WordPress, SMF, and the rest Custom Programming. Software Editions: All software running latest releases. Uniques Last Month: 200,000 Page Views Last Month: *2,000,000+ per month Referring Sources: 1,000 different referrers Referring Keywords: 60,000 Search Terms First Page Results: Thousands of keywords and keyword combinations Indexed pages (Google): 65,000+ Indexed pages (Yahoo): 26,000+ Google page rank: 5-6 (Lots of 3’s and 4’s throughout the sites) Pages of Content: 60,000+/- Alexa site rank: 124,000 (way off the mark due to audience profile) Compete Site Rank: Much closer but still off.. See image Brand Value: All Original Creative and Content including Logo, Forum Template, Front-end, CSS, Code, Images etc. Extremely well made to render fast as well as accessible, to both humans and search engines. Search optimized throughout. Description: I actually posted this for sale almost 11 months ago but didn’t take any offers. Since then traffic has increased almost 650% and revenue has increase by almost as much, closer to 600%. Revenue comes from direct advertising ($150-$350 per mo) but primarily Google Adsense ($1500 - $1750 per mo) and Kontera Links ($700-$900 per mo). Letting go as I’m working full time and just started Business School… I just don’t have the time. However, these sites are ripe for one to build a better business direction. I started these sites as the pet industry happens to be exploding, exponentially and almost parabolically. Google “pet spending” to find a glimpse. Some articles you’ll find: “The Growing Pet Industry Is One Trend You Can Bank On” "In the past 10 years, pet spending has more than doubled to an estimated $38.4 billion for 2006." "According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the pet industry is now the seventh largest retail segment in the country." “We have only begun to see the tip of the spending iceberg" “Pet Spending at All Time High” "Pet ownership is on the increase in the US, and the amount of money spent on pets is dramatically increasing too." The two sites are content and community driven websites with 350+ health related articles on pets, a pet blog that discusses current issues, and a very active message board and community. They compliment each other perfectly and as such are being sold together as a package. The templates are completely custom designed and CSS powered. They would be XHTML Strict Compliant however we’ve included a couple of things that just wouldn’t let it pass. There are almost 8000 members between the two sites. Several hundred more between the blog subscribers and the email list subscribers. At one time we had a store (its all still there however it’s been shut off) and we had about 200 customers. The store lasted only about a month and a half as our careers just didn’t allow us to provide the customer service this site deserves. We also had a drop ship company that worked out really well, (and we still do if we want them). Much more work than our careers had time for. The logos are custom. I’ve got the logo in vector version for Signs and tee shirts. The Design is custom. All software front-ends are custom and running clean - open source applications. Runs extremely well. The entire 2 sites run on a dedicated server that runs about $100 a month.. The sites run on a LAMP environment, meaning Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. All of the software is open source and requires no fees. We run PHPLIST, Zen Cart, and SMF Simple Machines Forum. The blog is Word Press. The article system is completely custom however the back end panel is ran simple from phpMyAdmin – straight to the database. I think there is enormous potential with the two sites as the brands have a very loyal following and is growing by leaps and bounds. It has been mentioned in 10 or so online and offline newspapers (that I am aware of) as well as a magazine – all of which will be provided. The site was featured as Yahoo’s Site of the Week. The site was forever (and perhaps still is) the number one pet site viewed on StumbleUpon.com. The blog also has 177 links from 56 sites according to Technorati.com and ranks 52,000. The database is huge. It’s full of fully owned content, images, customer data, subscriber data, members etc etc. The brand really sells when it comes to tee shirts and calendars. We have a drop shipper when needed that we buy tee’s at 4 dollars a shirt. Each shirt sold for $20 so there was a great margin. The two sites have a solid existence and are trenched well into all the major search engines with perhaps thousands of first place results for keywords and keyword combinations. The majority of traffic is all organic from Google, Yahoo and MSN and it will stay that way forever. The site was built solidly by SEO pros with Search Engine Spiders in mind as every part of the site is search friendly. All pages have been correctly and lightly coded. The database powers the meta tags, title tags, h1’s, h2’s, image titles and bold tags. The site has tens of thousands of dollars put into the design and functionality. petsite4sale@gmail.com


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.



Featured Article

Bottom Footer



Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Name:
Email:
Popular Articles

Is the Media to blame for losses in super?

You Have A Website What Now

When Your Smiling

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.