Regardless of where you are in your career, self-discovery is a key step to check in with yourself and see if you’ve drifted away from your unshakeable core or lost sight of your most important goals. Maybe, when you read this, you think, “No way, I’m working SO hard toward my goals.” Think of it this way, you’re tunneling toward your destination – your start point was CEO prison – the end point? Shangri La – a great team that carries out your most profitable visions and sells your product path to a client funnel that is wholly in tune with you, your company and your vision. (Does that sound like what you’re building?)

As an Executive Mentor what I see a LOT of the time is a CEO who’s tunneling toward that goal, working super hard, but their tunnel goes off track. They get wrapped up in the day-to-day, or they forget to implement a key part of their revenue strategy – or worse, they get “married” to their vision of success and refuse to throw out the ideas that just don’t work. And trust me, there’s NO way to create business acceleration if we’re tied down to ideas, products and people that just don’t work for our TRUE success story.

An assessment is about sticking your head OUT of the tunnel to see where your goal is and redirect your efforts. (And remember, the best path is NOT always a straight one – often there are things in your way that The RIGHT Executive Mentor will see – like bombs laid by your competition, or bottomless shafts of “administrivia” that will detour you forever.)

Begin your assessment with YOU. Ask some key questions about your own body, mind, spirit and successful vision. Here are a few to get you started.

- Am I learning, stretching, challenging myself?
- Am I building my network of fascinating people by at least five people per month?
- Am I being honest with myself and others – authentic and not fake or defensive?
- What am I still afraid of?
- Where can I go and what can I do to get to the next level?
- Am I aligned – meaning is my VISION aligned with my ACTIONS?

Once you’ve DONE this, for real, you can begin to assess your vision, your actions and where you are on your path. THAT is why a reassessment is so vital. Tune in for part two later this week!

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Times Best Selling Author http://businessaccelerationintensive.com
PS: Remember, we ALL have blocks on our path – from the top CEOs to the newest entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to bust through yours, then the right executive coach is key. I will MAKE room in my BAI program, IF you are serious. (I’ve added new dates all over the country too!) Teaching my Mighty Formula for Executive Evolution is my personal passion to turn this economy around, one success story at a time.

http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

I recently shared about how we ALL fail at times, and how getting stronger must be part of your story when you fall down – and that stumbling means getting wiser and better suited to take on the next challenge every time you stand back up. This week, I want all of the executives and entrepreneurs out there to hold onto the tenet that the fear of failure can hold us back from our goals MUCH more than anything else.  You should have a healthy number of failures in your life. Being paralyzed waiting for them, however, is to stagnate – and we all know the REAL competitor out there – it’s inertia.

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you’ll need to learn to embrace risk and reach for opportunity, even when you’re discouraged or afraid. You won’t always measure up - I sure haven’t – but that doesn’t mean you have to walk away from the game. Remember, you’re playing to win, not to avoid losing.

I like making a list of my fears. Then, I tackle one a week or one a month – its fun. I’ll give you an example. I’ve always had a fear of rattlesnakes. So, I went to Gatorland, in Florida, where there is a pit of rattlesnakes. I thought it would be great to tackle my fear of rattlesnakes. I asked one of the snake handlers if I could walk around in the pit and they said, “Definitely not!” I got a ringside seat instead, and what I saw changed my entire perspective.

At the show, the handlers provoked the rattlesnakes so that they lunged forward and then jumped back. I was, initially, frozen with fear, but after about 15 minutes, I started feeling really sorry for the snakes because they definitely more frightened than the snake handlers around them. And, that’s when I realized the snakes are more scared of you then you are of them. So, what did I have to be afraid of? Some “perceived” snakes around me? And what about the would-be million-dollar executives I coach? Should they be afraid of THEIR perceived snakes?  Competitors, the recession, their own team, slow revenue, undeveloped product paths?  Nope.

Your fears may or may not be related to your entrepreneurial aspirations. For each fear that you list this week, attach a goal around when you want to tackle it (about one a month). By examining your fears, writing them down and tackling them one at a time, you will take an enormous step that will enable you to embrace risk and reach for opportunity.

If you’re ready to do MORE than one a month and accelerate your success story, then a mentor who’s been through that process with successful business accelerators is a must.

Tomorrow, I’m holding an incredibly focused Q&A with specific, mind-blowing training around HOW to build a 7-figure business and create huge ROI on everything you do for your company. This event is a PHENOMENAL opportunity – it’s a ridiculously small investment to get my personal coaching on your toughest questions.

Go to http://bit.ly/SMask811 and reserve YOUR spot and get YOUR questions answered by me. 

Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach

CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc. and Business Accelerator

http://www.BusinessAccelerationIntensive.com

IRS = ROI

Today I want to write you guys just a few sentences on team building.  HOW do we keep our team motivated?  Recognition is a HUGE piece of that puzzle.  In fact, even when team members hear us praise someone ELSE on the team, it’s a proven fact that they’re all inspired to try harder.  So this week, keep in mind the two IRS factors:

1. Initiative – Responsibility – Speed. When you have a team member who takes the initiative to always move you and your business forward in creative, effective ways, and they take responsibility for projects and new endeavors, and on top of it all, they understand the URGENCY of SPEED and always being focused on the end game, THAT is a team member to work with as closely as you can and to praise publicly.

2. And remember when praising to use the other IRS: Identify – Recognize – Seize the Opportunity!

Identify specifically what they did for you / your company.

Recognize their efforts with some sort of reward – your words are great, but a tangible thank you rocks the house, even if it’s just a wonderful meal with you to celebrate.

Seize the opportunity! Great team members don’t come along every day.  Find out what inspires this person about working with you and your business and put them in charge of it!  If it’s sales, give them a great product to launch, if it’s marketing, ask them for a new look at your old list or marketing plan.

You get the picture.  Whatever you do with your team, just don’t do NOTHING.  Remember, your biggest competitor is INERTIA.

Next Wednesday, I’m going to hold an incredibly focused Q&A call with some mind-blowing training around how to build a 7-figure business and create huge ROI on everything you do for your company.  I’ll send you all an event invite – it’s not a free event, but it is affordable – and a GREAT investment to get my personal coaching on your toughest questions.

I’ll send you the details by the end of Tuesday, and I want each and every one of you to know that YOUR success matters.  It matters to me, to the people you will touch in your life, an it matters to our NATION.  That is not a joke.  So take your next steps seriously and practice IRS on yourself!  Have initiative, 100% responsibility, and speed in all you do.

Until next week’s call,

Christine Comaford, Executive Coach

CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc. and Business Accelerator

http://www.BusinessAccelerationIntensive.com

Last week, you learned how to reveal yourself.  Here’s the next step in your Executive Evolution:

Stand for yourself.

You have all the answers within yourself.

How great is that? Now you just have to do the work to find the answers. They don’t come easy, but once you crack the code, you’re golden. You’ll likely need the help of others to find these answers.

For example, I am not you.  It is quite likely that you exist within a framework that does not allow you to have what you want. I do not. Inside my framework, what you want is totally possible. So, it’s unlikely for you to hang out with me without change – without getting what you want – because I don’t “buy in” to your limiting framework, I won’t believe (or co-sign) your B.S… and soon you won’t either. Hear me on this one:  Find someone who cares enough to call you on your “stuff.” Your Limiting Lies.

This is why searching for the latest/greatest strategy, technique, tool, trend will fail you every time… grabbing desperately for any lifeline or distraction won’t work either. At best, these will provide only temporary relief. Because you are focusing out instead of in. When you focus out, you aren’t standing for yourself. You’re asking for the answers outside, and you will NOT find them there.

This is where a coach comes in. They guide you to do the work to find out who you are and what you want. Just make sure the coach you choose has the chops and the successful exec’s and businesses behind them to prove it.

Standing for yourself requires the decoding of the relationship you have to create success in your area of challenge – PLUS figuring out what you’re truly more committed to – succeeding or not succeeding. You’re going to get infinitely curious about the stories you tell yourself and if they benefit you. Along the way, of course, you’ll make sure your business strategies and tactics are sound and workable – we ARE business people, after all.

At this point we’re talking about aligning all the parts of you that are in conflict with what you want for yourself and your company and your life. But I’ll cover more on that 3^rd step (align) next time. For right now, I want you to focus on Step 2 – Stand for Yourself. And begin to surround yourself with a coach and a team that facilitates this and inspires you.

It’s profound. Be SURE you’re ready.  If you ARE ready, then having a coach who can help you figure out what you stand for – and what you don’t – is key.  I will MAKE room in my BAI program for you this July, IF you are serious.  (And I’ve added new dates all over the country if the West Coast isn’t your thing!)  Teaching my Mighty Formula for Executive Evolution is MY “stand” for Christine.

Christine Comaford, Executive Coach
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Times Best Selling Author http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

PS: Business Acceleration and an experienced Coach are always the key. http://businessaccelerationintensive.com

Hi gang, THIS is Alyson Hoag’s amazing success story. Alyson is the CEO of Authentic Beauty, one of the rockin’ clients I mentor through my Business Growth Blueprint program.  Aly’s letter was so powerful that I decided not to change a word of it.  I know it’s longer than my usual blogs, but stick with it guys, it’s totally worth the four minutes.  To learn more about my BGB program, go to: http://bit.ly/7gZW41

Christine, I know you haven’t heard from me lately but I am still out here listening and engaging and rocking! I have been implementing my plan and I think this month is the month I deserve to be your success story.  I know this isn’t going to be in the format you’d like. I would be here writing all day if you wanted me to name the hurdles I have had to overcome. There are too many to name. In the story below the major ones are mentioned. As for the most important module – it was Business Essentials. I have hung onto my end game throughout all of this.

I want to back up to when we first met. It was at Guerilla Business School, March of 2007. If you don’t remember I ran after you delivered your presentation to introduce myself. I didn’t have enough money to pay for your course but I called my mother and said, “If you believe in me, you’ll lend me the money. I have to work with this woman”. 
I think I was your first round of Groundbreakers and that time was invaluable to me. It was in the “formulation” days when the idea was being born into reality. I hung onto every word you said and I listened to the replays over and over.  And then the rubber hit the road. The week I sent out my investor packages the market disintegrated and key people I knew lost millions. The following month we found out the building we leased wasn’t going to be permitted and then slowly one by one all the people who were part of my team disappeared. It looked as though I was going to crash and burn.  And through it all I kept listening to everything you had to say over and over. I was really scared. I didn’t know how I was going to make it. I had two kids to take care of.  I knew somehow I was going to get out of this. Despite the creditors calling I just kept moving forward.

When you sent the email and said just get here in June 08 for your Summit in CA, I begged for a buddy pass from my ex-husband, my sister took my kids and I got on the plane. It was the best thing I could have ever done. I left refocused, recharged and taking action.

Miracles began happening.  One after another.

A big part of my business model is to create mobile events inside of hair salons. Well, since I didn’t have a “home”, I decided to put the model to the test and I spent 9 months in 3 different salons, building the model on my own and learning. The most important thing I kept looking for was what I was going to learn from each situation.

In the meantime I had several key breaks. I became the lead makeup team for a local magazine and they did a story on me and I had a radio personality name me as “the brow guru of Atlanta”.

It turned out that one of those salons I was working with asked me if I wanted to take the front of his space. The owner wanted to downsize and if I didn’t want to take it he said he would shut the doors. At this point I had NO money. I worked it out with the salon owner and I went for it. It also just happens to be in one of the most central locations in Atlanta.

We opened the doors late November 2008. I was actually interviewed on tv by our local Fox affiliate about opening during a down turned economy. However, I believed in the lipstick effect. If you don’t know, in a bad economy makeup sales go up. Leonard Lauder coined the phrase.

We opened the doors and last month marked our one year anniversary. (We had a BIG party and nearly 100 people showed up to show their support.)

So what we accomplished this past year:

• We grossed nearly $160k this year ending with a 20k month in December!!!!!! 
• Hired our first employee.
• We have 10 freelancers
• We have over 850 active clients
• Authentic Beauty was written up in our local Fashion Mag as What’s Hot this year for 2009
• I write my own monthly beauty column in a local magazine.
• Have developed relationships with several PR companies who use me regularly in their promotions of other companies in which I benefit.
• Developed relationships with all local tv affiliates and this week had my first in studio appearance with the CBS Atlanta affiliate for their morning show.
• Developed relationship with the most popular morning radio show in Atlanta and do the makeup for a video weekly for one of the DJ’s AND as a result she featured me the week of Christmas as one of her favorite things.
• Authentic Beauty was written up in at least 7 magazines and our work was featured in at least 10 publications with at least 4 covers.
• We have been told by Jean Chatzky’s people that in the next week or 2 I will be featured as one of their entrepreneurs of the week on her blog
• I was featured as one of the top 100 entreprenness’ in the CRAVE Atlanta book
• We are in the middle of developing a new mobile tester unit that I will be able to resell to the artist community
• We are developing our own makeup line (I finally stopped resisting) and the plan is to get it on QVC and fund the whole business with it.
• We  just closed 2 deals with 2 MAJOR plastic surgeons who are going to carry my makeup line and bring our makeup artists in.
• I have a meeting on January 15^th with the hottest salon in the Atlanta area to bring our artists in and do events
• We have an investor presentation on January 14^th with someone who is VERY interested in what we are up to. He is coming to Atlanta to see us.
• I am fully in the REVENUE, REVENUE, REVENUE mode. This month was a huge breakthrough. We doubled our sales from what we started out with in January, reaching the over 20k mark in December. The goal is 40k per month and I am clear it won’t take that long. All the seeds are planted.

When you said to me on the last call I was on, “You need to come up with revenue generating ideas,” I went for it! That’s why you haven’t heard from me. I took a step back, looked at what needed to happen and I think I haven’t come up for air since. LOL

I am planning in all the structures to make sure I am taken care of…In fact a huge breakthrough is that I got sick this week and I had a whole team to cover for me. I couldn’t be there on New Year’s Eve and they handled it all!!!

My goals for this year are to clean up all the messes left from the first go round, get myself financially stable, get the salon/mobile model implemented, build our wedding work, develop the makeup line, QVC launch of our eco, gel based 3in 1 foundations, get the website revamped and get all the social media working in synch, begin the national PR campaign which includes MORE MAGAZINE and get my makeup artists booked solid, Have Project Authentic Beauty (our non-profit initiative) fully structured. AND TAKE AN UNBELIEVABLE VACATION WITH MY FAMILY.

I want to say thank you for all your support, encouragement and guidelines. I am far from being perfect but I launched!  I have taken everything you have said (or nearly everything) and have but it into practice. I am certainly not at the mastering level YET but I am moving in that direction!

I am grateful for your commitment to others and to me. Thank you for everything! Without you the beauty industry would have had to wait for someone else to come along to transform it.

I look forward to being one of your million dollar companies. I don’t think it will be long now! 

With All the Love in the World, Ayson Hoag
CEO, Authentic Beauty

 Note from Christine: Aly, it’s NO surprise to me that you’ve turned my Business Growth Blueprint formula and teachings into a REAL success story.  You definitely had the chops AND the know how to implement implement implement!  I totally enjoy working with you and look forward to your amazing 7 Figure Business Success. 

Christine Comaford, The 7 Figure Business Builder
CEO of Mighty Ventures
NY Times Best Selling Author

PS:  To learn more about my BGB program, go to: http://bit.ly/7gZW41

SUCCESS Stories – If you’ve followed my company, Mighty Ventures, for a while, you know that Business Growth Blueprint is one of the ways we help build massive success with entrepreneurs and small businesses.  Scott Jordan is one of those success stories, and we’re proud to call him a colleague and a friend.  Read on!  And if you want more info about the BGB program, visit http://www.mightyventures.com

Scott Jordan, All Credit Lending Solutions

For Scott Jordan of All Credit Lending Solutions, (ACLS) becoming a mega-success story is all about focus and a strong foundation. ACLS provides financial expertise and non-bank / private lender funding to small businesses seeking financing of $50,000 or more.  Scott has almost single handedly built his business by providing a variety of financing options, with special focus on equipment leasing, lines of credit, accounts receivable and purchase order financing and other B2B needs.

When clients first come to Scott, they are often panicked – they have been denied capital from traditional banks and don’t know where to turn for funding. Scott educates clients on what funding sources look for and why lenders come in a variety of shapes and sizes – with many different criteria for lending. Not having the knowledge or relationships needed, the client in question faces losing opportunities for profit – or even sustainability. With ACLS’s expertise and support, the client gains access to multiple non-bank sources of funding and is provided the vital analytical piece of the puzzle.  Add to this equation that Scott has built relationships with over 50 non-bank lenders, and has hit the ground running with the timely concept of utilizing creative and little known finance strategies and direct access to multiple lending sources to solve a borrower’s problem of being denied financing for their business.  With Mighty Ventures’ mentorship, ACLS has created a new focus, moving from banks and the Mortgage Backed Security Marketplace, to asset-based lenders and other non-traditional sources of capital, many of which are only now coming back into the market after the long recession.

ACLS is in a market-leading position, similar to where Scott was in his career when he was part of a voice over the internet (VOIP) startup in 1997, which raised $265 Million in a successful IPO in 1999. ACLS has the ability to dissolve a client’s fear and replace it with knowledge and experience by preparing a package that will lead a borrower to receive approval for funding. 

Scott is 100% committed to the success of ACLS – and has achieved much of that success with his own effort and expertise. With Christine Comaford’s direction he has started to assemble a talented team to focus, identify and overcome certain hurdles in his path. With the Business Growth Blueprint Program, he has created much needed increased focus and clarity. Christine Comaford has begun to take ACLS through steps needed to create solid building blocks and business development. Scott has already identified many of his company’s roadblocks and begun to blow through them, “My ego was not my amigo.  It compelled me to think that I could do it on my own — without someone else’s help. I now have more focus – more clarity on what is important in growing and developing my vision into a reality.”

He added that marketing now has a clear, solid role in ACLS’s model for success, “Module 1 of Mighty Ventures’ Business Growth Blueprint was great, and the marketing module helped to provide some clarity and focus on the marketing efforts we are now instituting.”

With the guidance of Mighty Ventures, ACLS will soon add a membership site with a “Freemium” model, featuring three levels – Free, Paid, and Premium – this will enabling small business owners to connect with other like-minded entrepreneurs. The site will enable members to gain the knowledge in approaching non-bank lenders themselves, or they can utilize ACLS’s unique process in obtaining the financing they need. With the launch of the new website, www.YourBusinessLoanNow.com, Scott looks forward to taking his company into its next evolution. Say’s Jordan, `Because of our unique creative strategies and access to multiple lenders we can provide the best solution for the customized needs of each borrower. There are very few companies that have access to multiple types of loans, leases, etc. Most companies do a single type of loan, and if it fits their box, they take in the file – if not, they reject it, RARELY providing additional options for the borrower to consider.  At ACLS, we believe we are on the cutting edge of providing a new model (multiple lending choices combined with financial expertise) for providing the optimal capital structure to business owners. We are excited to take our unique business model nationally to help business owners get the capital they need while we are in this uncertain economic cycle.”

With Mighty Ventures’ guidance, the future looks bright.  Scott is now ready to find a pay-for-performance sales agent to help handle the screening of inbound leads – a key player who can support ACLS as it moves forward.  He is also looking for lenders who have new programs who need marketing of those new products.  The new website, www.YourBusinessLoanNow.com, will provide information helpful to borrowers, such as their free downloadable information product: 9 Secrets Your Banker Never Told You.  ACLS will also create a portal for submitting loan scenarios and forms every borrower will need when submitting to a lender for funding.