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Don’t Miss Out on Round 2 of the Liz Fundraiser Auction

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Via Terry Starbucker & The SOBCon Team

In case you haven’t seen it yet, we’ve got some wonderful contributors for Round 2 of the official fundraiser for Liz Strauss. This round of auctions expire at midnight on June 26th, so get your bids in now.

Remember, if you want to donate directly to Liz rather than bid, you can donate through Paypal here.

This week’s auction contributors include: (click link after the name to see the specific item)

Derek Halpern http://bit.ly/17mRT76
Brian Clark http://bit.ly/11ZDjxu
Scott Stratten http://bit.ly/12KkXTh
Ted Murphy http://bit.ly/12VtGDj
Ric Dragon http://bit.ly/15k2fO9
Steve Farber http://bit.ly/10xuAUV
Les Mckeown http://bit.ly/17YbiL8
Michael Port http://bit.ly/17YboSQ
Barry Moltz http://bit.ly/11LOHZM
Brian Solis http://bit.ly/12VtnIM
Dave Taylor http://bit.ly/14iPEfa
Jim Kukral http://bit.ly/11Of2ax
Danny Iny http://bit.ly/1atc02k
GM http://bit.ly/11LOyp5
Mo Krochmal http://bit.ly/1915Wja
AJ Leon http://bit.ly/142STa8
Molly Cantrell Kraig http://bit.ly/14iX4PE
Diane Brogan http://bit.ly/11yrxqJ
Karen Hanrahan http://bit.ly/19RTXnC
Gayle McCain http://bit.ly/16KnmMN

Please help us spread the word about the fundraiser using the hashtag #LizFund on Twitter.

Liz has touched us all with her deep insights and love for community. She passionately believes in its power to “not let us fail”.

Let’s put that power of community, and those words, into action for our dear friend.

Thank you,

Terry Starbucker & The SOBCon Team

If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You’ll Never Get There

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By Jennifer Dunn

Where is your business headed in 40 years? Yes, that question probably sounds ridiculous to you right now. You’re busy trying to survive another year, month, week or day, or even attempting to get your business off the ground in the first place. At what point are you supposed to think about 40 years in the future?

Honestly, you should be thinking about the future, because it will be here at some point. While you may not have to specifically worry about 40 years ahead, you should be considering where you want your business to be. If not, it could lead to some pretty bad situations for you that could lead to the demise of your business.

If you don’t have a plan for your company, it’s like it’s a plane without a destination – you can fly high for a while, but at some point you have to come down. If you don’t know where that is, you could be in for a rough landing.

Goals and Vision

Everyone has a vision for their business as well as a reason for getting into business in the first place. This reason could be absolutely anything – you wanted to spend more time with your family, or had a great idea for a product, or wanted to escape the rat race. It could even be to prove to yourself you could do it.

There is no wrong or right answer here. Your reasons are your own. The point is you have to honor those reasons and your vision for your company. If you don’t, you could end up with a monster you can’t control.

For example, let’s say you wanted to never compromise your product line as you believe it can change the world. It’s a lofty goal, but a great one nonetheless. Now let’s say you have an opportunity to sell your company to a bigger company. At some point you may realize the big conglomerate wants to change your product. Now you have a big problem – do you choose the money or the reason you went into business in the first place?

Find Your Destination

While this initially may not seem like such a big deal, eventually moving away from your original goals could lead to a point where you abandon your business. If you struck out on your own to spend more time with your family but you let your company get so big that you no longer have no time for them, you’ve defeated the entire purpose of starting your company.

This is why it’s important to look toward a destination for your company. If you have a place in mind for your company to land, you can make better decisions that will keep you happy and invested in your business. Even if something unexpected pops up you’ll be able to handle it with ease as you know where you want to end up.

Keep in mind this destination and your goals may change. You may start out wanting to make a ton of money and get rich but switch it later on to just being comfortable and being happy working on your own. Again, there’s no wrong or right answer – just make sure it’s what you want for your business and yourself!

Where are you heading?

Author’s Bio: Jennifer Escalona Dunn is the owner of Social Street Media where she writes about small business, tech and finance for sites like WePay and Outright. You can find her on Twitter @jennescalona.

Entrepreneurial Tips – How to Maintain a Positive Attitude

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By Ronald Alexander

As entrepreneurs, we put work just above everything else. Unfortunately, sometimes when we are working toward something, we forget to maintain a positive attitude, which can lead to additional stress and an unhappy all-around life.

The 10 tips listed below will help you to stay positive while at the same time driving your business in the right direction.
How to maintain a positive attitude

1. Work with people that you like

It’s easy to be unhappy in a business where you are surrounded by negative people all day. This is why it is vital that you hire and work with people who have a positive attitude and don’t drain you emotionally.

2. Don’t hesitate to fire people

It is 100% okay to let people go who are not doing all they can do to help your business. Usually a primary cause of stress for entrepreneurs in the workplace is having people who make them unhappy because they either don’t work hard enough or constantly stress out about little things. It’s a great release when you know that you have just made your work environment better for everyone by letting someone go.

3. Create long-term goals

Short-term goals are good, but having goals that extend decades will allow you to be more focused on where you want your business to go. These goals are usually far less stressful and will show your team that you do know what you want out of your company.

4. Feed your creative mind

Every entrepreneur is creative, so it’s natural that we need to fill our off-time with things that will feed that creativity. Some people like to read, while others get their creative juices flowing by taking a long walk. Whatever you need to stay charged up, you need to make sure that it is included in your weekly schedule.

5. Continue to be yourself

People often forget what got them to the point of being an entrepreneur and having a business. The fact is that you need to continue to be yourself even as you are taking off as an entrepreneur. The people who work for you and the business contacts that you make need to know who the real “you” is. You don’t have to develop a phoney business persona, which, I promise you, will lead to additional stress.

6. Don’t be a yes man

Many people have the instinct that saying yes to their employees will keep all parties happy, but in reality a business has to be run by someone who knows when to say no. If someone needs help with something and you have an important task that you are dealing with right now, you have to tell them no and they’ll need to find another solution to their problem. Always take a second to assess everything before you answer questions at work so you can be honest with yourself and others.

7. Remember to take a break once in a while

Entrepreneurs are usually workaholics, but everyone needs a break to stay fresh. The truth is that those breaks that you take every day will allow you to get better work done, which should be reason enough to take them.

8. Expect stressful situations and deal with them the right way

Work is stressful no matter what you do for a living, so it is each person’s responsibility to deal with every bit of stress that is thrown in their direction. It’s tougher earlier on because you are new to all of the business scenarios that you will face, but with time you will learn how to deal with the stress. Just go into every situation knowing that there will be stress and then conquer it.

9. Don’t expect flawless work

It would be nice if everything we do in our work life ends up being absolutely perfect, but that’s just not reality. You want to draw things up to be perfectly played out, but the most important thing is that you reach the end goal in everything you do. Don’t focus too much on the imperfections; this can help you put off some burden.

10. Don’t try to do everything on your own.

You have a team for a reason, so you have to learn how to delegate responsibilities. It’s not easy at first, but you shouldn’t try to do too much of the work on your own. You run the business, so figuring out who should be doing what all day will help you to take a lot off your plate.

To sum up: You need to figure out what’s keeping you from being as happy as you can be in your business life. Going over these tips should help you to figure out how to lessen the stress so you can focus on getting your business to where you want it to be.

Author’s Bio: Ronald Alexander is a passionate writer and avid blogger currently associated with Forsyth.co.uk, which provides business services including flexible office space and virtual office services in Manchester.

Image source: Pixabay by Nemo