Copyright (c) 2003 by Angela Booth

It's a bright and shining new year, and you've got a clean slate. What will you do with this opportunity?

Here are some ways to ensure your business success this year:

1. Keep your business moving forward

If you haven't set your goals for 2003, decide what you want NOW. Take out a notebook, put today's date on top of page and write out your business goals.

While you're at it, you may as well create some goals for self- improvement and family and relationships. To make most of your business in 2003, you'll not only need to be healthy, but you'll also need support of others.

Leave some space on right side of page for a "Due Date" column. This is date by which you want to have achieved each goal.

The next step is to create an action plan for each goal. Don't spend too much time on this, but make sure that you've broken down each goal into small, manageable steps, and have translated those steps into daily tasks.

Write or type: REVIEW GOALS into each day of your daily planner, and then do it. Look at it this way: you'll never achieve what you want to achieve unless you try. So try, and give it 100 per cent of your energy.

2. Expect to be successful, and repudiate your doubts on paper

Do you expect your business to be a success? Are you positive that your business will be successful? Are you so determined that you'll be a success that you'll do whatever it takes?

I hope you answered a loud and heartfelt "Yes!" to all three questions.

If you have doubts, write doubts down. Most of your doubts will be trivialities and hypotheticals. You'll see how ludicrous they are once they're in black and white and you'll be able to laugh at your fears.

If a doubt has real substance, by writing doubt down, you'll be able to make a plan so that you can work around challenge. Once you've made a plan, you'll get a huge surge of confidence and relief.

Remember, writing your doubts and repudiating them on paper is vital to your success.

3. Don't sweat small stuff (it's all small stuff)

Keep your eyes on prize: that is, achievement of your goals. The bumps and bruises of life will only steal your enthusiasm if you allow them to. Things will go wrong. Expect this. Handle each challenge, and get on with working towards your goals.

4. Close your office door

Block out at least two hours each day in which you can work without interruption. Close your office door, and let answering machine or voice mail take your messages.

Copyright (c) 2003 by Angela Booth

The right time to start your new business is right now. Today.

Whenever I suggest that to someone who's going to start their new business "soon", I get a variety of replies, mostly prefaced by "yes, but".

Yes, but I have to get my business cards printed. Yes, but I don't have a business plan. Yes, but I don't have time right now. Yes, but I'm (or my wife) is pregnant.

All of which tells me that this person is waiting for some magical time in future, when conditions will be exactly right, and when they'll have all time, confidence, and expertise they'll ever need.

Unfortunately, that time will never come. The conditions will never be exactly what you want them to be. You'll never have all time you need, and you get confidence and expertise by doing, not by thinking and studying.

There are only four things you need to start your business today. Here they are:

=> You need to know what you're going to sell

What product or service will you sell? If you're a writer, you'll be selling both your products and your services. You'll have a line of books and ebooks you've written, plus articles you've written, and you'll also sell your writing services.

If you're selling your services, you need to be competent enough to know what you're doing, but assuming that you are, once you know what services you're going to sell, get to work and sell.

If you're selling someone else's products, you need to get those products at a good price, and work out how much you're going to charge for them.

If you know what you're going to sell (even if there are problems and things you haven't quite straightened out yet), make a phone call to a potential client, place an ad in paper, call people in same business you're in and tell them you're available if they want to sub-contract work to you.

You just need to get started. Twenty years ago Bill Gates of Microsoft fame sold DOS (Disk Operating System) before he'd even created system. He just did it.

No, you don't need to get business cards printed, and you don't need to have a business plan. Not right now, not today. You might want to get these items, but you don't need them today. Just go ahead and sell.