Marketing From The Heart: Issue # 17

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Marketing From The Heart: Issue # 17
http://www.zerald.com
By Tom St. Louis
"The Shortest Distance Between You And Greater
Profits(tm)"
April 26, 2002
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Today's Tip: Getting And Staying Motivated About
Marketing Your Business

There's nothing more important in business than
marketing your business. But what if you just don't
feel like it? What if you look at all your action
items and would rather do anything -- anything
but marketing? What do you do then?

I could give you many clever answers, but the main
thing is to stick to your plans no matter what.
If you elevate your feelings above your commitments
even once, you will soon find yourself slipping in
several areas. If you can't give your word to yourself
and keep it, your marketing and every other part of
your business and life will suffer.

But still, feelings are important. Wouldn't you
rather feel great about something you are going to do?
How can you work it so that you are totally pumped
about the things you have committed to accomplishing?

One of the secrets to maintaining motivation is
taking regular breaks. I'm as guilty as the next
person of overdoing it from time to time. When you
approach burnout, your productivity slumps and your
lack of clarity negatively affects everything you do.

It is easy to delude yourself that you have no time
to take a break. Mark Victor Hansen says you get a
breakthrough per vacation. So what would make more
sense -- take a vacation once a year or six times
a year?

When you take time to swim in the sea or climb a
mountain or walk down an empty country road, something
wonderful and absolutely predictable happens - you
get clear about who you are, where you are, and where
you want to go with your life. It never fails.

I always tell my students to "execute in your time of
darkness what you resolved to do in your moment of
clarity". But if you have no clarity to draw from, this
advice will do you no good.

Once you've had a good vacation, and have some clarity
to draw from, you will need a way to stay committed.
The secret is to make what I call "titanium-plated
commitments". Here's how they work:

In my "Double Your Business in 180 Days Program", on
the first day I asked the attendees if they would like
to participate in a simple exercise to at least double
their commitment level. Everyone said yes. Next,

I asked each participant to commit to writing a
personal letter to five people they look up to,
informing them of their new resolution to fully
participate in the program. All the participants said
they would definitely do it.

At the follow up meeting a month later, I asked who
had done and not done the exercise. The ones who
had done it were up to date with all their
assignments and on fire with intention. The others
were behind in everything. So, I pulled out stamps
and paper and envelopes and we all waited while the
stragglers wrote their five letters on the spot.

Making a strong declaration to the people you admire
the most is the easiest way I know to absolutely get
yourself into a state of peak commitment. By now,
we all understand that pain is more motivational than
pleasure. So who wants the humiliation of breaking
their word to their whole inner circle?

Go to Issue # 18

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CLIENT TESTIMONIAL:
"Tom St. Louis' Four Day Intensive produced an
explosion for us. We tripled our output from the
previous six months in three days! "Richard Rossiter,
CEO, Rossiter & Associates, Little Rock, AR
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