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Get Organised Before Your Kids Grow UpHi! A couple of years ago I attended a presentation from Parenting Expert and well-known author, Stephen Biddulph on "Raising Boys". My son, Trent was 11 at the time so I was interested to hear what Stephen had to say. In fact, so were the 800 other parents in the room! The key point that I picked up on was that boys from the age of 6 -14 really need 'time' with their dads. That is the most influential period in their lives when they bond with him. And the type of time they need is not all thrown into a 'once a week' or 'month' block or some exotic holiday once a year, they need to spend time with their sons on a regular basis. Otherwise how can you build a strong and stable relationship? For the single mums reading this, don't despair. If you are estranged from your partner and bringing up your son is your responsibility, having a positive male role model in his life i.e. uncle, brother, grandfather, teacher, tennis coach, etc. will work as well. What's happening in our society in the chase for the almighty dollar and in many instances the big ego; our relationships are breaking down. People are totally dominated by their work and have little energy to invest in themselves and their families. Navigating Work and Family Life In his article Navigating Work and Family Life, another leading Parenting Expert Michael Grose says: "... Research by Australian Institute of Family Studies fellow Virginia Lewis supported this view of family time. Lewis found that many children of working parents wanted to play more and interact informally with their parents. They didn't mind if their parents worked reasonably long hours but they resented it if their parents came home stressed or grumpy. It seems that many parents need a wind-down time so they can switch from work mode to parent mode". Planning Personal Time It's very interesting to note that every client I have coached ... male or female, whether they are the business owner, director, executive or whatever title they hold, all have the same common goal... they want more time for their personal life. They do not want to start work at 7.30 a.m. and return home at 7.00 p.m. They are committed and enjoy what they do, however they are not prepared to sacrifice their own relationships and wellbeing anymore. THE PRICE IS NOT WORTH IT! You Can Turn Your Life Around And do you know what the three key things you need to do to turn your life around? Learn to say 'no', how to manage your time and then take action. That's right. Everyone tells you how busy and how little time they have, yet most people do nothing to learn the skills that will have a dramatic impact on their work and personal lives. You have to plan time to get things done. Do you want to spend more time with your family? Do you know how to plan for it? How much time do you spend working? How much time do you invest in yourself to learn how to be more effective? Are you hoping that one day, work will ease off and then you can spend more time with your family? Do you really need a bigger house, nicer car or overseas holiday? Will that improve your relationships? Do you think that you'll (hopefully) stumble on the secrets to getting more time back in your life? If that's the way you live your life, your kids will probably be all grown up and not really need you. Cats in the Cradle For those of you old enough to remember, Harry Chapin recorded a song called "Cats in the Cradle". It was about a young boy whose Dad was always busy working. He never seemed to be available when his son wanted to be with him. Over the years this continued until the boy became an adult. By then his Dad had retired and had time on his hands, however his son had now become too busy to see his Dad. He too was working and had kids. The tables had turned. All of a sudden the Dad realised what he had done. He was too busy caught up in his work and missed out on his son growing up. The Final Word For those of you who have managed to maintain a good balance in your life, congratulations. No doubt you are happier, healthier and more fulfilled. For the rest of you who are unhappy, unhealthy and unfulfilled, then you need to take action if you are serious about wanting to make changes. Do it, because nothing changes if nothing changes! And remember the definition of insanity â€" doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Have a great week Lorraine Pirihi Other articles by this author »
About Lorraine Pirihi
Lorraine Pirihi is Australia's No. 1 Productivity Coach. She's also a dynamic presenter and a leading business and life coach. Her business The Office Organiser specialises in showing small business owners and managers, how to get organised at work so they can have a life! Lorraine is also a dynamic speaker and has produced many products including "How to Survive and Thrive at Work!" To subscribe to her free ezine visit www.office-organiser.com.au Related
And here is another random article you might be interested in... How To Triple Your Sales & Profits With A Powerful Follow-Up System...No matter what you sell... products, services, or causes... one of the key ingredients to your success will be the attention you give your sales lead follow-up system. Notice that I used the word 'system' to describe your follow-up program. It's an important conceptual word. If you do not have a well planned, step-by-step system for lead follow-up you are leaving a lot of profits sitting on the table. It is widely accepted that it takes a minimum of five attempts to close a sale (any sale) before the customer has enough information and confidence to buy from you. My own experience, based on years of in-the-trenches experience suggests that the minimum number of timed follow-ups is anywhere from nine to thirty... depending the complexity and/or cost of your products or services. If your idea of follow-up is to bounce one autoresponder message back to your on-line inquiry and expect the cash register to ring, you are in for a shocking surprise. You have heard often, and will continue to hear, that internet marketing is based on the building of relationships with your potential customers. It's true! Indeed, this is one of the true Power Principles of internet marketing. One of the great benefits of the internet is the ease and cost-effectiveness of relationship building. We must understand that our potential customer is inundated with competing advertising messages from various media--television, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, point- of-purchase, direct mail--and now the internet. All of these marketing methods attempt to build a relationship with its audience in order to make the advertising message credible and believable. Credibility and believability lead naturally to sales. The one media that stands head and shoulders above the competition is the internet. No other vehicle provides the opportunity to connect with your audience in such a timely and intimate way. Using the combination of web sites and email you have the graphical power of television and the intimate targeting of direct mail--without the associated high costs. It's a powerful combination. Add-in a timely telephone call or two... and you are on your way to increased sales. If you really want to 'Reach Out And Touch Someone', the way to do it is with the real Killer Application of the internet e-mail. The two most powerful e-mail tools for effective client follow-up are:
Let's look at each one briefly: YOUR OWN E-MAIL NEWSLETTER, EZINE. I can't say enough about what a regular newsletter or ezine will do for your bottom line. By communicating useful information to your clients and prospects on a regular basis you are building a strong bonding relationship with them. Over time, they will begin to see you as a partner in their success. The trust and friendship you have built through your newsletter will translate to added business and increased profits for you. Managing a newsletter or ezine does not have to be expensive or very time consuming. There are several free services that will host your publication and provide an automated subscription process. I just switched one newsletter over to the YahooGroups system for new subscriptions and it seems to work fine. It has eliminated all the hand subscription process and automated it for me, all at no cost. If you are a network marketer, you simply must communicate regularly with your downlines... and your product customers. In addition to the tools available through your company provided websites, you should give serious consideration to producing your own periodic e-mail newsletter. In doing so, you will be building relationships which will fatten your profits quickly. AUTOMATED E-MAIL FOLLOW-UP: The use of autoresponders to supply immediate and comprehensive information to your prospects is a very powerful use of e-mail technology and, I believe, a good one. But, what do you do after the initial lead response? How do you continue to follow-up at regular intervals? If you deal with very few leads of high quality, it's not a problem to follow-up with custom one-on-one messages and it is imperative that you do so if you expect to convert these leads to sales. If your lead flow runs to big numbers, however, you have a problem. You simply must automate the follow-up process to insure that every prospect inquiry gets properly timed, on-going, information and reasons to buy--a 'minimum' of 5 times. To do less is to waste your lead generation investment... more is better. You must maximize this return-on-investment if you are to succeed and the only practical way to do this is with automation. A number of e-mail services provide an autoresponder system that will send a series of pre-written, timed, follow-up messages to your leads. This is a powerful use of technology. The real power comes, however, when the messages you send are professionally crafted works of benefit laden sales copy. These timed responses can be profit-enhancing selling tools... or downright intrusions. The difference will be the skill with which you use the tool. Fortunately for you, you have available numerous high-tech tools. In order to maximize your income you will want to take aggressive advantage of all lead generation tools and systems available online. The reward for building an automated follow-up system is always worth the effort. The time you spend nurturing your follow-up program will result in:
Remember... the profits are in the FOLLOW-UP! Other articles by this author »
About Thom Reece
(C) Copyright 2005... Thom Reece is the CEO of On-Line Marketing Group, a direct response marketing agency with headquarters in Hawaii. His firm builds custom lead generation & follow-up systems for organizations & individuals. He is the creator of the Online Marketing Resource Center [ http://www.e-comprofits.com ] . Thom can be reached by email at: thomATe-comprofits.com Related
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