17 Best Tools and Apps for Building New Habits and Goals.
TJ McCue shares some outstanding tools that you can use to keep your habit improvement efforts on track. I know I found a few of interest. Do you use any of these tools? If not, what do you use? Tell us here!
Don’t freak out if that new sales goal seems unattainable. Salesopedia shares some specific tips to break down the goal into manageable steps Visit Salesopedia for more info on how to Achieve Your “Unachievable” 2013 Sales Goals.
If you have that magical mix of skills and personality that a career in selling requires, you may be able to earn yourself a six-figure salary as a real estate broker or a sales engineer–but not all sales positions are nearly that glamorous and high-paying. Forbes Staff Writer, Jacquelyn Smith, exposes the good, the bad and the ugly in sales salaries.
Sales or marketing executives or professionals looking for your next career option, Naviga Business Services can help. Use the advanced search to find new and exciting sales jobs and marketing jobs. Once you find the perfect fit, apply online for jobs and Naviga recruiters will get your resume for the specific position of interest. Naviga recruiters work on sales jobs and marketing jobs nationwide,
(Reuters) – Whether it is improving health or managing finances better, about 87 percent of Americans will make resolutions for 2013 and there are plenty of apps to help them achieve their goals.
Nearly half of New Year’s resolutions are about setting health-related goals, which is the most popular category, according to a recent survey by online broker TD Ameritrade.
Rather than jumping into a rigorous fitness routine, a new app called 5K Runner suggests it might be better to ease into things slowly and focus on building sustainable habits. The iPhone app helps couch potatoes ramp up their running distance to 5 km over the course of eight weeks.
“You’re slowly building this routine into your daily life with a lot of success and after eight weeks you’re literally running 5K, which is pretty big if (initially) you’re not running at all,” said David-Michel Davies, the executive director of The Webby Awards, an annual ceremony honoring Internet companies.
The app guides runners through each run, alternating periods of running and walking for 35 minutes.
Davies also recommends Nike+ Running and RunKeeper, two popular and free fitness apps, which use GPS to track distance traveled, speed and calories burned. Both apps are available for iOS and Android devices.
Diet is another component of good health and a focus of many apps. Fooducate is an iPhone and Android app that helps shoppers make healthier purchases at the supermarket by allowing them to scan the barcodes of products and get insight into how healthy the product is.
Their database, which contains over 200,000 products, displays a grade for the product and information on its contents. It can show whether there are hidden additives or the probability of containing genetically modified ingredients.
“There are a lot of healthy people out there who unknowingly buy products that have an inordinate amount of salt in them,” Davies said.
DietBet is an app for people with a competitive streak. Available for iPhone and on the Web, it allows its users to join in a four-week weight loss challenge to lose 4 percent of weight. Everyone bets money, which goes into a fund, and submits proof of weight lost. People who meet the challenge split the money.
“It comes back again to how people get motivated,” Davies said. “Gamification is something that technology has really enabled and for some people it really works.”
To stay on top of finances, Davies recommends Mint, which provides a visual view of all financial accounts and is available for iOS, Android and on the Web.
(Reporting by Natasha Baker in Toronto; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Eric Beech)
Everybody says “time is money”, but how many people actually live as if time was money?
In Las Vegas, they take away your “real money” and give you brightly colored chips to “play with.” This is not a caprice on the casino operators part; it’s done for a very sound psychological reason. People tend to risk more, lose more and lose more cheerfully when operating with this play money than with the form of money they deal with in everyday life.
Similarly, because minutes, quarter hours, half hours, hours and days are not dispensed in the form of money – coins and bills – it’s hard for us to feel the same way about spending time as we do spending money. The same person who gets confused in a dark cocktail lounge and leaves a $50-bill as a tip when they meant to leave a $5-bill, and feels awful about doing so, will think nothing about wasting an hour waiting in line or “shooting the bull” around the water cooler.
However, the fact is that time IS money. When you waste an hour, you might as well go to the ATM machine, pull money out and then toss it directly into the little trash bin beside the cash machine with the receipt.
There is absolutely no doubt that an individual’s income, career progress and other rewards are directly related to how much value they place on their time.
Below is a calculation device that will show you exactly how much money your time is worth.
These calculations are based on 8-hour workdays:
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IF YOU
WILL EARN $XXX,XXX/year |
EVERY HOUR IS WORTH
|
EVERY MINUTE IS WORTH
|
AN HOUR A DAY
WASTED AWAY COSTS YOU – IN A YEAR |
| (Enter value here) $ |
$
|
$
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$
|
Did you plug in your numbers? Assuming you did, maybe the question now should be, how much time can you afford to waste?
The difficulty with time is that you can’t really save or salvage it. Time is an elusive ghost. Unfortunately you can’t bottle it up and store it in your basement for future use.
The good news is you’re not the only person who can’t store time on tap in their basement. The whole world is constantly being forced to shift and change with time.
Time is the ultimate equalizer. Time truly does “level the playing field” and that can be a remarkable advantage for anyone who is able to perceive time as their ally and learn to use it effectively.
You can achieve endless levels of success simply by mastering the ability to manage and prioritize your time. But before you can truly master time management you must identify and pinpoint the real time wasters in your life.
To help you identify where most of your time is being spent we’ve put together a time use quiz. It will help you to identify time wasters in your life and could possibly shift your perception of time.
As business and sales leaders approach the end of the year, they are often a pushing to get those last deals across the finish line to hit annual budgets and goals. Interestingly, your clients may have some budget remaining that they need to “use it or lose it”. As we come around the final turn of the year, how can you ensure your company is prepared to get a piece of that pie? There are 3 things leaders can do to finish strong and take advantage of these opportunities. Continue reading
Many professionals have a basic idea of what they want to achieve in their careers. They may want to close more sales, earn a higher income, or move into a different job. However, somehow they do not achieve the success they desire. Why? Why is it that intelligent, motivated, hard-working individuals are not achieving the success they deserve? It is because they haven’t set clear goals.
They may have a general idea of what they want to accomplish, but the mind does not work effectively with generalities. If you want to earn a higher income and you earn one more dollar, have you achieved your goal? No, of course you haven’t. Because you were not specific about what you wanted to accomplish, your creative mind could not assist you in reaching your true objective.
In order to be effective, goals must be written down in the present tense using clear, specific, vivid words. For example, if your goal were to earn a salary of $50,000 per year, you would write. “I now earn $50,000. per year in a job that is fulfilling and allows me to express myself creatively.”
Completing the following steps will help you set goals effectively so you can achieve positive results in your career.
1. Decide what you want to accomplish. The goal should be very specific. If you want to close more sales, how many more sales do you want to close? What do you want your closing ratio to be? If you want to move into a different job, what are the characteristics of that job?
2. Determine a deadline for accomplishment. A goal must have a deadline. If you do not have a date on it, the goal is only a wish or a dream.
3. Determine that the goal is believable to you. You must feel that the goal can be realized. If you believe it is impossible to achieve, you will never take the action necessary to make the goal a reality.
4. Where are you now? Take a current inventory. You will never know how far you have to go if you don’t know where you already are.
5. What obstacles do you need to overcome? Is there something that may make it difficult to achieve your goal? Be aware of the obstacle so you can make plans to overcome it.
6. What knowledge will you need to acquire? Will you need to earn a professional designation or take certain courses? Will you need to research new markets?
7. What organizations and groups should you associate with? Are there certain groups of people that can make it easier for you to accomplish your goal? How can you become affiliated with them?
8. What are the benefits to you? Write down as many benefits as possible. The more benefits you can come up with, the more likely you will be to stick to the goal until it is achieved.
9. Develop an action plan. Determine the specific steps that will be necessary to achieve the goal. Start at the accomplishment of the goal and work backwards.
10. Visualize yourself accomplishing the goal. See yourself in clear detail as if you have already achieved the goal. If you want to close more sales, see yourself closing more sales easily. Do this over and over again until it becomes part of your subconscious mind.
11. Take daily action towards the goal. Dreams and goals require action. The best goal in the world will never materialize unless consistent action is taken.
12. Resolve to never quit. Decide that you will never give up, even when times get tough, until your goal is reached.
Taking the effort to complete the steps in goal setting is not easy. However, when you follow these steps, your success is almost assured.
Della Menechella is a speaker and trainer who helps organizations achieve greater success by improving the performance of their people. She is a contributing author to Thriving in the Midst of Change and the author of the videotape The Twelve Commandments of Goal Setting. She can be reached at 732-985-1919 or della@dellamenechella.com. Visit http://www.dellamenechella.com for other free articles about how to achieve peak performance.
I have personally experienced the highs of the dotcom boom and the lows of the deep recession that has affected global business. Years of flat sales, dramatic losses, and a never-ending stream of negative press can take a toll on the psyche of businesses and their leaders. So, what separates the companies that are energized for growth versus those paralyzed by fear or their past successes?
The common thread of these items is culture. If your culture is in retrenchment mode, it is hard to generate growth. Energy flows where attention goes. To lead for growth, focus your attention on creating a culture that celebrates it!
Kevin Steffey is President of Naviga Business Services, a national Sales and Marketing Recruitment firm. Kevin and Naviga have a passion for sales and marketing positions due to their direct impact on the growth of their customers. Check out www.navigaservices.com to engage a partner in growing and developing your team.
By Kevin Steffey
Hopefully within the first few weeks of the second half of the year, you have taken some time to review the strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your team and are ready to start putting together a plan for the second half. We have provided some good thoughts for you to use in our earlier post “Using the Strength of Your Sales Team to Accelerate Growth“. But, what to do about your weaknesses? Given the pressure in the second half to achieve results, I recommend the following three approaches to your weaknesses:
Kevin Steffey is President of Naviga Business Services, a national Sales and Marketing Recruitment firm. Kevin and Naviga have a passion for sales and marketing positions due to their direct impact on the growth of their customers. Check out www.navigaservices.com to engage a partner in growing and developing your team.
By Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing. Heinz Marketing is a Seattle Marketing Agency that delivers results – more customers, higher revenue, lower costs.
It’s the start of the month, start of the quarter, and we’re now halfway through the year. Which also means you’re halfway towards hitting your original 2012 goals. Right? Right??
Maybe, maybe not. But Monday is the first [real] day of the new month, new quarter, and the rest of the year. No matter how great or how bad the first half of the year has been, Monday you get to start fresh.
Here are seven questions to ask yourself now, to help frame, prioritize and get after the second half of the year.
