Vision boards have been around for a long time, but got great publicity in the movie, The Secret. I even made my own at a party with some of my entrepreneurial girlfriends.

To create your own: grab some scissors, magazines, glue and a cheap frame.

• Cut out pictures and words that relate to your goals.
• Paste the pictures on to the paper filler from the frame. (That’s the thing that you take out when you put your own photo in.)
• Think about each goal as you paste, and write a date when you hope to accomplish that goal. (Make sure you set a realistic time line.)
• Once you have completed it, pop it in the frame and hang it up where you see it every day.

Has a vision board helped you? Let me know!

Image credit: Shannon Cherry of Be Heard Solutions

Post from: EveryJoe

Will a Vision Board Help You?

Many folks recommend mindmapping as the way to get those goals or visions on paper.

Mind mapping is a technique popularized by Tony Buzan in the 1960s. Noticing that the humans respond better to images, keywords and direct associations, he developed many of the mind mapping techniques that we see today. And before Buzan formalized it, thousands had used the techniques including journals  Leonardo da Vinci, and Albert Einstein.

Here’s the basics:

1) Set your topic (what you want to brainstorm/mind map) on the center of the page, such as ‘2009 goals’ ‘Business Idea’ etc

2) Create pitcures or words that are themes that relate to the topic. For example. if your topic is ‘Goals 2009′, you might want “Personal Goals”  and “Professional Goals”

3) Continue breaking down the themes until you’re brain can’t work any more.

Do you use mind mapping?  Frankly, I’m more of a list girl. But am willing to try it if many of you think it has merit. Has it helped you?

For more inspiration, here’s Tony Buzan explaining mind mapping.

Image credit: creativeinspiration, on Flickr

Post from: EveryJoe

Can Mindmapping Help Your Business?

I wanted to have one for my office to inspire and motivate me (see a picture below).

A vision board (which was made popular by the movie, The Secret) is typically a poster board on which you paste or collage images that you’ve torn out from various magazines, etc.

The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with images of who you want to become, what you want to have, where you want to live, or where you want to vacation, your life changes to match those images and those desires.

Yup, a bit of woo-woo from yours truly.

But it’s not really woo-woo, as one of my mentors, Alexi Sebasttien from Little Effort, Big Results pointed out to me. You see, it’s about setting my goals – and really believing I can make them happen.

And that really what my vision board is all about: my goals for the next few years. It’s also a way to focus my efforts on what I think is important.

Post from: EveryJoe

What’s in your vision?

I hope you’ll enjoy the plethora of posts. There’s more here than any one person could read (except me, cause I read all the posts!) but find a category, post title or summary that grabs your attention and read on. Help these bloggers out by checking out their stuff, commenting on their blogs and linking to them.

And please support to the Carnival of Entrepreneurs by spreading the good word! Link to this post, tell your friends, share the wealth. In February the Carnival is going on the road — if you’ve expressed interest in hosting you’ll get an email soon, I promise.

Finally, a quick note — other than the Carnival Highlights, the other posts are listed in the order I received them, organized into categories.

My Carnival Highlights

• Craig Harper presents Personal Training?…. That will never work! He has a $0 marketing budget but owns one of the most successful personal training businesses around. How did he do it? He tells you, and there are lessons in there for everyone.
• Brian Kim shows us How To Take Risks. This is a highlight in part because of his intro, “When you were young, you didn’t even understand the notion of risk. You just did. You ate paint chips off the wall, you tasted the handful of dirt you scooped up in your garden, you stuck your fingers wherever you wanted to…” Um, and if we’re still doing those things?
• David lists 7 Traits of Highly Effective Teams. I particularly like, “Strong leaders protect protect their teams.”
• John Welsley suggests that you commit yourself to action by investing in success. In a nutshell: plunk down some money to achieve your goals and you’ve just put in place some serious motivation.
• Erek Ostrowski presents Personality vs. Purpose. It’s worth reading because Erek touches on an important point for small business owners and entrepreneurs. We wear tons of hats, but our business won’t become successful because we handle operational details, they’ll be successful because we can strategy, sell, push our ideas forward. It’s not that operational details aren’t important, but businesses become more successful as those things are handed off to others.

Entrepreneurial Deep Thoughts

• Laura is Killing a Sacred Cow. Actually, she’s burning books. Yup, Laura burned 2 books. Find out why.
• GP muses about life as an innkeeper. Reflecting on some of the specifics of running a bed & breakfast operation, GP touches on many issues that impact everyone’s entrepreneurial and business endeavors.
• Steve Faber asks How Can I Be a Successful Entrepreneur? Steve points out rather humorously that many people look successful on the outside but they’re leveraged to the hilt. Still, that BMW sure looks nice doesn’t it? Steve does point out some good facts about successful people too…
• Alan wants to know Do Your Clients Like You? Alan points out that people do business with people they like, or at least they want to. And so there’s a likeability factor when it comes to getting business, retaining it and being successful that’s important.
• Charles Green presents Fear and Loathing at the Office. Makes you want to visit Vegas doesn’t it? Charles is wondering if there’s a place in business education for elements of emotion; vengeance, revenge and all that fun stuff. Interesting read.
• Patricia writes about self-fulfilling prophecies and how easy it is to become negative and create negative results.
• John Peter says that we need to know our sacrifices. He’s talking about the sacrifices you make when starting a business.
• Josh Bickford wants you to give your gift to the world. He’s referring to expressing your desires and pursuing your dreams. Of course, if you want to send me a gift…
• Gazzali Maidin presents his thoughts on achieving success.
• Katie states it plainly, quit doubting yourself and tap into your assets already. Do you know what your assets are? I’ve got plenty of nice assets. OK, enough of that…

Getting Down To Business

• Christine Kane presents Business Advice for Artists and Sensitive People. Actually, it’s good advice for anyone in business, not just artists and sensitive people. I particularly liked #3, #5, #9 and #12.
• David Daniels has 3 reasons why it’s hard to hire great Sales Team Leaders. Hiring people is always a challenge, if you want great people. And most companies don’t hire well.
• Kim flatly points out there’s only 2 things a small business owner should do with her time – getting customers (sales), and keeping customers (service). Of course there’s more to running a business than that, but it’s helpful to be reminded of the priorities once in awhile.
• Todd brings you some pros and cons on various corporate structures. It’s an important topic for anyone thinking of starting a business.
• Sagar Satapathy presents Lessons from the Lemonade Stand: 101 Common Sense Management Tips.
• Debra Moorehead presents 5 Ways to Use Your Time More Efficiently. I particularly like Debra’s concept of “the ideal day.”
• Johan Holmberg is Overthrowing the Dreaded Business Failure Rate. Do 9 out of 10 business really fail? Not really. It’s important to understand how failure is defined, and debunking the failure myth could help encourage people to start businesses.
• Emmanuel Olawutosin presents So, you are thinking about starting a business? He’s got some tips and ideas on how to move from an idea to a living, breathing business.
• Becky McCray has 4 tactics for coming up with business ideas for small towns. Becky’s a master businesswoman, go read her stuff (even if you’re not in a small town.)
• Jakob Dupont Knudsen recommends that you share your business ideas with others. He’s completely right. Hold an idea close to your chest and you’re setting yourself up for failure. I’ve always said that you need to talk to people about your ideas.
• Barbra Sundquist has 6 Key Questions to Ask When Setting Up Your Home Office. This is a must read for anyone starting a home-based business.
• Wayne Hulbert presents Creative thinking: Forget the lesser of two evils. When faced with trouble in your business, don’t just look at bankruptcy or downsizing, there are other creative ways of getting out of a sticky situation.

Online, E-Marketing Tips and Tricks for Entrepreneurs

• Krishna De recommends using Google alerts as a research tool. It’s a great recommendation. You can use it to track what others are saying about you, news in your industry and more. Kohl’s should use it.
• Tom M says PayPerPost is a brilliant marketer. PayPerPost is certainly an interesting company – they give advertisers access to bloggers who will write posts for money on their blogs – and as a result they’ve generated a ton of buzz. Does the rule, “no press is bad press” apply?
• Jim Logan presents Is personalization a Web 1.0 gimmick? A short, amusing look at the minimal personalization done in most ezine and email newsletters. Is “Hi Jim” enough to convince someone they’re receiving a personalized email newsetter or is it really just phony?
• Dragos Roua offers up The 6 Thinking Hats of Your Blog which really goes through 6 steps or goals that you’ll most probably work towards while blogging – focusing on content, comments, design, plugins, optimization and revenue. That’s not the exact order I’d follow, but they’re all issues worth discussing.
• Jason Hulott suggests asking your customers for feedback through the use of online surveys. He claims that people love being asked their opinion, especially online. People do like to voice their opinion, but I’m not sure people love filling out online surveys. Still, he’s got some good tips on how to do an online survey, which may be useful.

More Great Business and Entrepreneurial Blog Posts

• Surfer Sam has some business opportunities you might be interested in. There are some interesting business ideas — decorated concrete pavement business and pet hotel stood out as rather unique.
• TJP has some ideas on investing in an import-export business. I wanted to get into the import-export business with a friend a couple years ago. Sandals. Marble (marble is big!) It never happened. But you never know…
• Gerry Wollert presents Why You Should Trade ETFs & Mutual Funds Rather Than Individual Stocks which is a good introduction for people into the world of ETFs and mutual funds. The day trading craze may be over, but investing wisely has never been out of fashion.
• Jonathan Lambert is also interested in ETF investing and has some beginner information for those people who are unfamiliar with Exchange Traded Funds.
• Matthew Paulson presents My Experiences at a Quixtar Recruitment Meeting. I’m not familiar with Quixtar at all, it sounds like an MLM-type business that you can join. It’s not the type of thing I’d recommend to any entrepreneur, and Matthew generally agrees.
• Scott Lee has some ideas on How to Handle Your Credit Cards. His post has a great opening line, “Credit cards are an absurd creation. I mean, really, what is the point?” OK, I’m in. Tell me more. He also suggests you cut up your card if you’re ever not able to pay your monthly bill in full. Interesting.
• Mary Emma Allen recognizes the importance of learning more about the Internet and how to use it for home-based business owners.

That’s it for Carnival #7. Next week’s Carnival will be hosted right here on January 31st.

What a ride…I hope you enjoyed it, and keep on coming back to Startup Spark for more entrepreneurial content.

Post from: EveryJoe

Lucky Number 7 – The Carnival of Entrepreneurs

We’ve got a huge list of content to go through, with some great posts on topics ranging from motivation, inspiration, learning, making money online and failure. There’s a few themes running through the posts, which I find particularly interesting. It shows that people are thinking along the same lines at the beginning of 2007.

Please help us promote the Carnival of Entrepreneurs! Link back to this post. Visit the sites and comment on then. Submit your own entrepreneurial content! The more participation, linking and sharing, the stronger the Carnival becomes.

Carnival Highlights

• Laura Young tells us about her bathroom habits. OK, not quite, but she’s got a great story to tell about being bold and grabbing opportunities when they come your way.
• GP suggests that you don’t try and learn everything when you first start pursuing your goals. Sure, it might be a natural reaction when starting something new; go out and learn everything to avoid mistakes, but those mistakes could be worth more than you realize. (Oh, there’s also a recipe for Comforting Rice Pudding.)
• Bill D’Alessandro asks, What Makes a Successful Entrepreneur? Of course we all want to know. Bill looks at some research, questions why so few young people go into entrepreneurship and concludes with some thoughts on whether entrepreneurship is a character trait or learned.
• Craig Harper takes a scientific look at success and offers up 10 things that he’s learned about successful people. Craig’s got a bit of a “take-no-prisoners” attitude, which is quite refreshing. The end of his post is brilliant.

Get Inspired And Succeed

• Lorenzo has a method for channeling inspiration which he developed after noticing that people often solve their problems, right on the spot, when speaking to someone about them.
• Jane Chin offers up Your Crucial Key To Success. If I’m not mistaken Jane has her own blog network called Chinspirations. I’m still laughing at the catchy name! Jane, do you write ALL of those blogs?
• Wilson Ng wonders how to manage our own indulgences. It’s a good question. A tough question. Any ideas?
• Adeolu Akinyemi is thinking along the same lines. He offers some suggestions on how to stay strong in moments of weakness.
• Emmanuel Olawutosin has the answer to your job woes: Fire Your Boss. Until I read “it’s a mental exercise” I was really hoping Emmanuel was suggesting that you literally fire your boss. Sadly, that’s not the case, but the article is well worth reading on how to improve your current job situation.
• Paul is thinking a lot about goal setting and how to achieve his goals. He’s looked at different methodologies, tackled goal setting from different angles, and perhaps finally come up with some secret sauce – focusing solely on ego-driven goals won’t work.
• Johan Holmberg is focused on entrepreneurial failure. Not the most positive topic in the world, but it’s important to understand failure and accept it. Well, don’t just accept it and roll over. Learn from it, please. Johan’s looking at research into entrepreneurial failure with a very detailed approach.
• John Peter says the key to success is all about attitude. Granted, John’s impression of success is making money, and I’d say there’s more to it than that, but your attitude certainly plays a big role regardless of how you define success.

Building Great Companies

• David Maister asks, What does a company need most? He gives you 7 choices and the discussion created is quite interesting.
• David Lorenzo provides The Foundation of Marketing a Business Start-Up. Visibility. Credibility. Differentiation. There’s the foundation. Now go read how to do it.

Practical Business Guidance

• Thom Singer tells us we should pay attention to the US pre-election campaign as it heats up. Why? Because Hillary Clinton, John McCain and John Edwards do a fine job of giving us a live business seminar throughout the process.
• Mary Emma presents, Branding Your Home Business. It’s a quick reminder that even if you work from home, if you’re trying to earn a buck from it, you should think about branding. It’s not just for big business.
• Charles Green suggests that you subsidize marketing with sales. The basic idea is to help others when the occasion makes sense, and you’re bound to create more than just good will and positive karma, including referrals, testimonials and buzz.
• John Ingrisano asks, Does your business have a disaster plan? He’s not asking if you have a plan for getting into disaster, but if you’ve got one to get out of it when it strikes.
• Derek has a strategy for planning pulled from the U.S army called the Operation Order. You have to love the title of his blog – Hope Is Not A Plan; very cool.
• Kelly Anderson has some tips for what you can do for your startup business in 15 minutes. She’s got some good ideas and really hones in on the fact that many stay-at-home mompreneurs (mom entrepreneurs) have to work in short bursts.
• Chris Johnson reminds us that it’s important to pay yourself first. He’s speaking about the fact that many people spend without tracking their income and are left at the end of the month breaking even, just getting by. He’s got some ideas on doing more than that. I’ve touched on this subject before as well with, Don’t Forget To Pay Yourself When You Start A New Business.
• Wayne Hulbert suggests that you admit your mistakes when you make them. Wayne’s got some good insights into how a company can develop a good culture around admitting mistakes and giving people the freedom to mess up and learn from it.

Interesting Reading

• Kavit Haria presents, Role of an Entrepreneur. Kavit has an interesting definition of an entrepreneur, and coins the term, “musopreneur.”
• H.S. Ayoub tells us that the biotech industry is a failure. This is an interesting read, even if you’re not that familiar with the biotech industry and there are some great lessons in here for all businesses and industries.
• Mike Buckley presents, Your Strategic Plan. It’s the 18th installment in a long series of posts based on a case study on the rebirth of small, independent retail in the US. Very interesting. I don’t think we have many retail-focused contributors here so this is a new twist on things. The gist of the post is that retail changes so quickly, it’s hard for management to keep up.
• Michelle presents, Immigrants Are More Likely to Become Successful Entrepreneurs & Business Owners. Michelle looks at some recent research on the subject of immigrant entrepreneurs and draws her own conclusions as to why there seems to be a real connection between immigrants and entrepreneurship.
• Almomento presents, The Hidden Power of Mastermind. I had never heard of Mastermind groups before, but it sounds interesting!
• Juuso Hietalahti has a funny story to tell about a pizza guy and marketing.

Online Entrepreneurship

• Erin Blaskie offers 5 Reasons Why You Should Create a Blog Site. Solid, straightforward advice.
• Ruben presents, Blogging for Profit: 2 of the Most Profitable Types of Blogs in the Blogosphere. If you’re looking to earn money from blogging it can’t hurt to find out what works well already.
• Kumiko Suzuki tells us how she achieved over 1,500 hits in my first two weeks. Of course she’s referring to her website, and offers some sound advice on site marketing and strategy.

That’s it for Carnival #6. Next week’s Carnival will be hosted right here on January 24th.

Next month the Carnival hits the road – I’ll be emailing a few people shortly about hosting – if you’re interested, please get in touch.

And don’t forget – we’d love a link over to the Carnival, or perhaps you’ll find a post you want to write about, pushing people’s ideas further and extending the conversation.

Post from: EveryJoe

The 6th Carnival of Entrepreneurs Rolls Into Town

Although we’re already halfway through January (where’s 2007 going?!?!) it’s still as good a time as any to look at our goals.

In fact, you should be assessing goals constantly. Goal setting isn’t a time-specific activity. You don’t have to set goals only at certain times – be it at the beginning of a new year, every quarter, every month, etc.

Steve Pavlina points out that setting goals is about improving your present day moment. In essence, you only live in the present moment. If setting a goal improves your present moment, and thinking about it later on improves that present moment, it’s a goal worth keeping.

With that mindset, why would you ever limit yourself to setting goals at a certain time of year? Why would you only do it infrequently?

Set big goals. Go for it. There’s no harm in doing so. Big goals will usually give you a more positive feeling than micro-goals because they’re more meaningful and impactful.

But break big goals into mini-goals. Many people fail to achieve their goals because they become too daunting, too unachievable, too long-term. Breaking goals into mini-goals provides you with digestible chunks that’ll be easier to handle.

It’s a combination of benefiting from the positive nature of big goals and handling the tasks at hand that need to be accomplished.

What you’ll discover is that the sum of the goal’s parts is smaller than the whole goal itself. And each mini-goal will provide more positive bang for its buck by being a part of something bigger.

This post is part of our Business Channel Theme Day on goals for 2007. Please check out the rest of the posts at Home Biz Notes.

Post from: EveryJoe

New Year’s Resolutions Are For Liars