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When you decide to leap into the journey of entrepreneurship it’s so much deeper than choosing a business name, creating a logo, setting up a website, and hang your shingles up to say you are open for business. Although these tasks are important this is not where you should begin when you are preparing to launch and build a business. This is a waste of your time and money if you try to do this first. In fact, this is a common mistake that new entrepreneurs make in the beginning of their journey of entrepreneurship. When you’re first starting your path as a business owner you have to do a lot of research into the area that you want to focus on in business, and take an assessment of your skills and expertise, gifts and talents, knowledge and experiences, your strengths and weakness to see how you can take these different components and use them to your benefit in business. If you want to launch and build a profitable business and brand that you love there are 12 essentials that you need to know and implement to achieve this goal. And all 12 essentials are below as follows: 1. Be willing to share your story. Don’t be afraid to share what you’ve gone through. Your transparency is what will help others in their journey. Your experiences are what shape you into the person that you are today. And I guarantee if you have overcome a situation in your life, I know you can help others to overcome as well long as you can systematize the process and your system helps them to experience a transformation too. 2.Know and articulate your point of view. Be honest about who you are and how you got where you are today! Stop trying to be like other entrepreneurs within the marketplace. Be your authentic self so you can stand out in the market place. Your unique point of view, molded by own experiences, is the one thing that set you apart from the market. Most successful entrepreneurs have their business setup around their point of view. 3.How would you like to help your ideal clients? In order to help your ideal clients, take what you do naturally and translate it into a specific topic or field where you can impact others. 4.What problem would like to solve for your ideal clients? If you can help someone solve their problem, then you can create a business that thrives and serve others for the greater good! In creating a solution to your clients’ problem, what value could you provide to them to create the transformation that they want? What have you gone through, and overcome yourself that you can teach to your ideal clients in a systematize manner? This is your solution! 5.Who are your ideal clients? Who do you want to serve? Who’s in your heart, mind, and spirit to help? Is it women, men, moms, dads, couples, children, people who need help with marketing or branding, women that want to leave Corporate America to launch a biz, people that need help working on their mindset, faith-focused people that want to become leaders. 6.Build a list of your ideal clients. Create a free offer that’s has value that your ideal clients will appreciate, and want to learn about and experience a benefit immediately. This free offer can be given in a form of an eBook, training series, audio or video tele-summit, and training audio. 7.Build a relationship with your list of ideal clients. Send weekly emails to your list, and engage them by having them to provide you with feedback. The know, like, and trust factor is always key to building the relationship with your clients. 8.Sell to your list of ideal clients. Your clients like to do business with people that they can relate too. This shows them that you understand what they are going through. And if you build a solid relationship with them they will purchase from you because people do business with people that they know, like, and trust. 9.Be patient and consistent. You need to understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your business. It takes time, money, effort, energy, sweat equity and persistence to build a business and brand right the first time so it will last a lifetime. 10.Believe in yourself. Yes, I'm going to say it again. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. Things will come up, and try to knock you off your inner game but you need to know that you have all that you need to win in business and life. There will always be something to try to keep you from moving closer to your dream of building your business like financial struggles, challenges, setbacks, and distractions, but you have to make up your mind to do this and be consistent no matter what you face. Remember you are a winner, and pro’s don’t act or think like amateurs. 11.Maintain a positive mental attitude. To keep yourself in a positive PLACE AND SPACE you have to feed your mind with powerful and positive information. Listen to people like Les Brown, Pastor Joel Osteen, Valorie Burton, Apostle Charles E. Perry Jr., and me, Cynthia Lewis to name a few. Make sure you have a clear vision of what you want in your business and life, and keep these images in front of you as much as you can. Meditate on this throughout your day. This will engage your mind to keep you focused on your goals forging you to stay in action. And help you to maintain a positive attitude. 12.Watch the words you speak. You need to make sure that you’re speaking the right things over your business. Your words are powerful, and can build you up or tear you down! The power of life and death is in the tongue. Your words have so much power that they can prophesy your future. So be very careful about what you put out into the atmosphere because it surely will manifest. Seriously, it will! I hope that you’ve enjoyed these 12 foundational essentials in helping you to launch and build a business and brand that you love because focusing on these things will surely help you to get it done! Much Love and Success, Cynthia Lewis I want you to know that you have all the time that you need to build a successful business that you love part-time, and will give you freedom and flexibility!
I've received so many emails asking me how to create the time schedule to build a business when you have so many roles and responsibilities on your plate to handle. I totally understand the busyness of life especially since you work a full time job; you have the responsibilities of kids, taking care of yourself, and managing the responsibilities of your home front. But if you have two hours to spare then you can definitely build your business. You have to look at your weekly schedule to see what’s on it that can and can’t be moved. Going to your job, doctor appointments, preparing meals, going to the grocery store, working out at the gym are concrete and definitely things that can’t be moved. However, going to the movies, hanging out with friends, and watching television are definitely things that can be sacrificed so that you can work on your business. Think about it each day you can easily burn two hours just watching television, having a phone conversation, hanging out with friends, going to the movies, and perusing the internet. Hanging out on IG, Youtube, and Facebook. You get my point right! So if building a business is really what you want then sacrificing some of these things temporarily to help you to setup up your future for success is so worth it. You will be surprise where you can capture your time throughout the course of your day to work on your business. In fact, you can easily set up a two hour and 30 minute work schedule for how you like to work. It truly depends on the schedule that works best for you. Some people like to work at night, and if that’s the case you can work from 7:00pm to 9:00pm or 8:00pm to 10:00pm and if you like to get things done in the afternoon, then you can take 30 minutes from your 1 hour lunch break to work on your business. Take your lunch break at 12:00pm, and use 30 minutes to eat and 30 minutes to work on your business, but do this you need to do some planning. Bring your lunch to work or scope out somewhere to eat close by like a park that will help you to facilitate the 30 minute lunch break. But if you are an early bird then you can get up to work at 3:00am to 5:00am or 4:00am to 6:00am. Obvious, this is predicated on the time you go in for work. These times are just examples of work times. You have to make the schedule work for you! This means you can literally work on your business even before you go to work in the morning. To support you in building your business part-time, there are three things you need to do. Check out the folIowing: 1. Guard and Protect Your Time. Guard your time from people that are going nowhere in their own future. You will find when people don’t have any goals of their own that will keep them moving forward, they will try to distract you and keep you from moving closer to your goals. Oftentimes you will have to disconnect folk in order to protect your time; otherwise, people will dictate your time and tell you what you should be doing. You definitely want to distance yourself from people like this. Stop wasting time with things and people that won’t help you get what you want. 2. Create a Workable Plan and Execute It Daily. Identifying the following information will help you to create your plan. What do you love doing that will allow you to serve your clients? What problem would like to solve for them? Who are your ideal clients? Build an email list of your ideal clients. Create a free offer that’s valuable (ebooks, training series (audio or video, telesummit)) to give your ideal clients an immediate benefit. Build a relationship with your list so they learn to know, like, love, and trust you. By giving your ideal clients something of value through blogging, free teleseminars, and workshops. Sell to your list of ideal clients. Convert your prospects (ideal clients) into paying clients with an amazing offer. What would like to offer them? a (VIP Day, Workshop, Training Program, Group Coaching, 1 on 1 Coaching). 3. Know Your Number. You need to know how much money you want to earn per week, month, quarter, and year. And know what you want to purchase. Obvious you need to know your monthly personal living and business expenses so you can pay them, but what is the cost for that thing that you’ve been wanting to purchase (new car, new home, condo, vacation home, fun trips, college education for child, retirement for yourself) you get my point. You always need to work your business with a goal in your mind that you are reaching for. Never work without a goal. There you have it my thoughts on what is takes to create the time schedule and plan to build your business part-time. Much Love and Success, Cynthia Lewis As a business owner it’s very imperative that you stick out from the crowd, and stop trying to do things like everybody else. Look around you and see what everyone is doing, and then go do something different. Here's the deal you have the power to create your own market space in uncontested territories. Look at companies like Chick-fil-A, Disney, Starbucks, Cirque de Soleil they all have carved out their own market, and no one can compete with them. Why? Because they’ve perfected their craft and created a different target market, and business models from everyone else; therefore, creating uncontested market space.
And you can do the same too by being authentic while sharing your brilliant ideas in the marketplace. Look at other industries to see what’s working and then go and innovate that idea and create it into your own. That’s what I mean when I say be authentic in business. Listen you can easily stand out from the crowd too, and get noticed as an entrepreneur when you focus upon and perfect all three of the following areas: 1. Give your Clients an Amazing Experience. Your clients deserve to experience stellar star service from you. Make it a priority to serve them well, but if you make an error, and your client or customer brings it to your attention be honest about it. Don’t ignore or sidestep your customer. Address their concerns, and problem solve so that you can make things right. Consumers are really smart now. That being said, if your client pays you for a product or service, it’s your responsibility to make sure they are satisfied with it. Your clients or customers are walking billboards, and they have the power to make or break you in business! Remember that people don’t care about what you say, but how you made them feel. 2. Become a Good Problem Solver. When a mistake occurs in your business, make it your concern to determine how it occurred, and find a solution from preventing the same problem from reoccurring in the future. I believe when errors popup, it’s meant to help you to educate you and to help you to evolve as a better entrepreneur and small business owner so pay attention to the errors that pop up. When you come up with a solution; document the process into a procedure so everyone that’s on your team or works in your business is aware of the policy. Sometimes solving problems will make you deal with your challenges regardless of it being uncomfortable, but work through it until you get the results that will make you and your clients happy! Remember that successful entrepreneurs are great problems solvers! And the more problems that you solve, the more income that you will earn to fill up your bank account. 3. Possess a Good and Positive Attitude. As the old adage goes your attitude determines your altitude, yes especially in business! When challenges occur in your business, you have the power to determine how you will respond to any given situation. And a positive response has the power to give you positive results better than a negative response ever could. Have you ever heard that a soft response will turn away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger? Well it’s definitely true. Be friendly and stern, but professional with your clients. People will remember you about the attitude that you display towards them. And this quote by Maya Angelou sums it up with "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Leave a lasting impression on your clients to the point that whenever they need your products and services you will always be on the top of their A List. Much Love and Success to You, Cynthia Lewis Three Keys to Embrace for Building Your Confidence and Brilliance as a Successful Business Woman6/11/2019
Often times, people make observations about you and your business on their perception of you. That’s why it's very important that you determine how you position yourself internally and externally within the marketplace. And your confidence and brilliance and your message can determine how your clients respond to you. It can cause you to thrive or crash. People can discern if you are competent and confident. In fact, your brilliance, and the way you connect to others is how you attract people to you. So the three keys that will help you to embrace and build your confidence and brilliance as a successful business woman are: Key #1 - Step into Your Glory Zone by Stretching Outside Your Comfort Zone. As you go through challenges as a business owner or even personally use it as an opportunity to learn and grow into a better version of you! Accept the fact that challenges are going to occur, but you can decide how you respond to them. Will you stand up to become unstoppable when you are faced with a challenge or will you crawl and shrink back into that old thinking that the challenge is too big to master and overcome. When you go through challenging and painful situations that you feel you can’t overcome or deal with, remember that it’s always a lesson hidden at the core of the problem in order to grow you. Perhaps the lesson is grounded in making you a better person, entrepreneur, business partner or colleague, mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend. But whatever the lesson to be learned, embrace it knowing that a greater you will manifest and emerge to the surface. Lessons which are meant to educate you will bring you from your comfort zone into to your glory zone! Coming out of your comfort zone will cause you to tap into skills, and talents that you didn’t know you had. Your glory zone will cause you to take more risks to say or do something that you’ve never thought could be done. It’s okay to take risks in business and life. Often times your ego will keep you rooted in familiarity so you can play it safe. But realize that you are at your greatest when you are trailing through unfamiliar territories. In fact, it’s good to deviate from the norm. Taking risks allow you to play big in business; don’t be afraid to take action, and step into the unknown. Your glory zone will cause you to face your fear so that you can keep moving forward. At times you will have to quiet your ego and mind by staying focused along with implementation, making the declaration that you are going to make it, and during this process you will grow into a better you. Work close with your coach to support you through navigating through the process. Key #2 - Denounce your FEAR, and embrace your FAITH! As you build your business you will have to move through fear in order to step into your greatness. I’ve found the very thing you fear most is what you will have to face in order to step into your greatness. But you must have faith, and the right mindset and thought patterns, the right declarations, and the right actions to implement for whatever you want. Fear isn’t real but is merely a feeling that will attempt to paralyze you in order to keep you from moving toward your goal or dream. According to the American Heritage dictionary, fear is defined as a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger. Zig Ziglar says fear is false evidence appearing real. Fear has no power over you or any of the situations that you face unless you give it power. You can’t conqueror what you won’t face so face your fear! If I told you that you were born to win, would you believe me? Well let me tell you that you were created to be and do awesome things but you must do it by acting in faith even if you are in doubt and facing insecurities. Take action if you want to build your confidence and overcome fear. Key #3 – Eliminate Negative People from Your Network. If you’re going boost your confidence, and thrive in business you must be able to invite and be receptive to constructive criticism. But beware there will be people who will never approve of what you do. Don’t give negative people your attention they will become remiss, and will find another group to hang out with that will feed on their negative behavior patterns. Negative people are also toxic, and will drain your energy. They are cynical, and like to talk about and criticize others. Negative people are off-purpose people that you don't want to be around because they will cause you to loose your focus, and have you second guessing the vision you have about your business or dream. They have no vision for their future, and they are continuously dealing with fear based thoughts. Reach out and surround yourself with positive people. Positive people are focused on making a difference in the world, and don't waste time engaging in negative sabotaging behavior patterns. Positive people will keep you focused, and will influence you to stay the course with your dream to impact other people's future in a greater way. Positive people see what is possible. They have hopes and dreams that they believe are achievable. They have a winning attitude. I believe God blesses those who will do what others will not do, that’s why aligning yourself with the right people are key because the end result could lead you to phenomena success. These three keys if you implement them right away can help you to emerge with confidence and brilliance as a successful business woman. With Your Success In Mind, Cynthia Lewis It’s an exciting opportunity when you decide that you want to step into the journey of entrepreneurship. It’s quite normal to want to share your news of becoming an entrepreneur, and the dream that was placed in your heart with everybody everywhere you go. But the truth of the matter is that you shouldn’t. Why? Because you will find that everyone will not be happy for you.
In fact, you may encounter that those people that are most close to you will be the ones that will try to hurt and discourage you by corrupting, distracting, and hindering you from your dream. Some will say that your dream isn’t possible because it’s stupid. So I like to call these people naysayers and dream killers. I see only one benefit of a naysayer and dream killer which is the opportunity to prove to yourself that you can achieve what they said you couldn't, and in the process they get to be proved as wrong. These folks are the ones who fuel your fire especially in those moments when you feel like you want to stop, but you remember them saying that your dream isn't possible so you keep going. Stopping is not an option. The dream that you are carrying is bigger than you as well as your naysayers. So you have to do it because so many other people are relying on you so they can achieve their dreams. Here are five ways to protect the dream that God placed in your heart to build your business as you take steps each day to close the gap of getting there. 1. BE SELECTIVE & INCLUSIVE. BE CAUTIOUS WITH WHOM YOU SHARE YOUR DREAM. You must understand that the DREAM that you carry was given to YOU! So be selective and inclusive with whom you share your DREAM. Everyone will not understand it or believe in it, but there will be others that will; either way YOU should be cautious with whom YOU share your DREAM. Realize that everyone will not care about your DREAM nor be happy for YOU; in fact, YOU will find that some of the people that are most close to YOU are DREAM killers. Yes, that’s right sometimes your family, friends, and others close to you may be SECRET haters, negative, jealous, and envious. It’s not because you’ve done anyone wrong. It’s because these individuals lack the clarity and direction about the vision for their own future. Instead of them seeking direction for their own DREAM they’re on a mission to assassinate yours. 2. ONLY SHARE YOUR DREAM WITH A SMALL INNER CIRCLE OF OF TRUSTED AND QUALIFIED ADVISORS. Communicate your DREAM to colleagues and advisors that you really trust. This includes people with wisdom, experience, and expertise who YOU can support and will support YOU! Only communicate with people who have expressed a sincere desire to support your journey even if that requires you to hire a mentor or business coach. You also want to share your DREAM with your best friends, business colleagues, and spiritual advisors. Most importantly before you elevate anyone as a trusted advisor it’s imperative that these folks share the same values as you, they respect your privacy, demonstrate professionalism and business acumen, they have and demonstrate integrity and good character, and overall is able to demonstrate they have a positive track record. Their references should be able to back up what they say if they've worked with them long enough. “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” – Proverbs 11:14 King David said it best, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful” – Psalm 1:1 3. SHARE YOUR DREAM WITH THREE TYPES OF SUPPORT THAT ARE CRITICAL IN HELPING YOU TO FOCUS, WHILE YOUR DREAM YIELDS PROFITS. Strategic Support or Short Support: This type of support often comes from working with a business or success coach. This type of support will help YOU learn the business strategies and shortcut your learning curve to move your business farther and faster. You can also receive assistance from reading books, listening to CDs, watching DVDs, and attending and participating in results based coaching programs and masterminds. Find the people who can support YOU, and provide YOU with the results that you want! Emotional Support: You need to have ongoing encouragement and acknowledgement from people that BELIEVE in your vision. Ask for what you want! You need other people (NOT only your spouse) to remind you of your GREATNESS. You also need a team of people who are going to be great coaches and cheerleaders to YOU when you hit a rough patch. YOU need people around you that will help you to coast and stretch yourself when things are challenging. This is so significant to your success! Support with Details: This type of support may include a Personal Assistant or Virtual Assistant. This support allows you to focus on what you’re truly good at, income earning tasks and activities, and then delegate the details and busy tasks that will not help you earn income like administrative activities (including house work, picking up the cleaners, cooking, grocery, bookkeeping, mailing out flyers, answering emails) the goal here is to trade your low income activities to high-income activities. 4. CREATE A CIRCLE OF TRUSTED ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERS. When protecting your DREAM, you need accountability partners. Essentially you convey your DREAM to your accountability partners, ask them to remind you of what you’re focused on and ask them to support you! You want a support team that can pour into you so you can poor back into them. Let your team know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and let them know that you need them as your support system so they can keep you focused and on track. Your accountability partners can be your personal Board of Directors. Keep in mind that they can make you or break you. They will give you so much insight that will prevent you from experiencing a lot of pain and help you to achieve more than what you ever could on your own. They will speak life into you and over your business, and be your protection because they pray for you. These people will celebrate you with honesty and integrity! Your accountability partners may be: Business Coaches, Mentors, Spiritual Advisors, Business Colleagues, Financial Advisors, and Prayer Partners 5. DON’T SEEK APPROVAL FROM OTHERS. In protecting your DREAM you must remember that you don’t need anyone's approval! You were given the DREAM – not others – but YOU! To share your uniqueness with the world! It’s important that you carry out your DREAM. Don’t be afraid to invest the time and work that will elevate your business for success. As I’ve said before challenges will come, but it is how you handle and navigate through them is what make you into the person you were meant to become! There are always going to be naysayers and those that don’t get what you’re doing, and there are going to be your community and tribe that love and support YOU in the work that you’re doing. Don’t give up no matter what; you have to know that your service to others are changing lives, and it’s helping you to evolve into a better YOU! So there you have it my five ways that you can protect the dream that God placed in your heart to build your business so that you can impact people doing what it is that you love most. With Your Success In Mind, Cynthia Lewis |
Hey Beautiful!I'm Cynthia, and I ABSOLUTELY 
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