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Welcome to the October issue of
the BOLD
Bulletin. Summer has become
a distant memory and we're
now fully ensconced in the 4th and final quarter of
2006. Mornings are
brisk, afternoons have been sunny and warm
and the trees are quite
brilliant here in Southern Maine. A reader in Austin,
Texas tells me the
summer heat has broken even there and everyone is
feeling
re-invigorated.
Re-invigorate is the theme for
this issue of the BOLD
Bulletin. Fall is a time when workshops,
teleclasses, universities, etc.
roll out the business programs. Re-invigorate
yourself with new learning
opportunities. Re-invigorate your business
with taking
actions with what you learn.
(check our calendar for
upcoming Bold Vision teleclasses and workshops; a
few of which are lists at the end of this e-zine.)
And, while "re-invigorated" may not be the
first thing you feel
when you think about preparing for year-
end, you'll
certainly feel re-invigorated on January 1 if use
the "Closing and Planning Checklist". There's nothing
worse than having to spend the first months of
the new year in a scramble to untangle last year's
books and
records. Worse yet, that puts you behind on
your plan for the new year - before it even starts!
No it's NOT too early.
Happy October, all. We
get that hour back this month so
don't forget to set your clocks back on October 29
at 2:00 a.m. adjusting for
Daylight
Savings Time . By the way, did you know
the idea of daylight saving
was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin during his
sojourn as an American
delegate in Paris in 1784? He described his idea in
an essay, "An Economical
Project." Read
more about Franklin's essay.
PS - If you enjoy the BOLD Bulletin, please
forward
this to someone you think would enjoy it too. Thank
you!
| GSD&M - October's BOLD Subscriber |
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This month I'm going to shine
the light on my home
state of Texas by honoring the ad
campaign voted as
THE favorite in
THE country in
the last 20++ years. With more than
400,000 votes, Don't
Mess with Texas has won a spot on
Madison Avenue's Advertising Walk
of Fame. This is the 20th Anniversary of the slogan
Don't Mess with Texas and
it is the best-known litter prevention slogan in
history and has now
joined the ranks as one of the best
slogans of all time (check out a couple of the
Don't Mess with Texas ads here).
The ad agency that created the
slogan is
GSD&M
in Austin, Texas. It's the kind of company most of
us want to 'be' when we
grow up. In 1971, six friends
graduating from UT wanted to
find something they could all do to #1) make
money, and #2) stay in
Austin. Two of the six had degrees in
advertising, so advertising it
was. Today GSD&M has over 650
employees and revenues of $1.5 billion
and clients including Southwest Airlines, BMW
and AT&T.
They say their overriding strong suit in the
beginning was "youthful
bravado". That sounds a lot like
BOLDness to me
...doesn't it to you?
So, congratulations GSD&M.
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| Year-Out and Year-In Checklist |
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Year-Out and Year-In Checklist
Don't consider these things as unpleasant
chores; consider it planting seeds
that will create a much more
pleasant environment for you in few couple of
months. You know that the
rush of the Holidays will be here before you know it;
and once we're all in
the swing of shopping, decorating, partying, etc. it
will be even more
difficult to find the time and focus for these
tasks. You know it's
true! So do it now. Start this process
early so that there isn’t a
last-minute rush to complete your year-end closing
tasks. Here are some ideas
that you might want to add to your quarterly and
annual checklists:
Closing the Old Year
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Enter your revenue and expenses into your
bookkeeping system. (You don't
have one?? Get one! Quick Books is
what I use.)
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Reconcile your bank statements with your check
book.
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Estimate your last tax payment for the current
year (many self-employed
people make quarterly estimated tax
payments...the final payment is usually
due on January 15)
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Address the envelopes for your holiday card
mailing
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Make a list of client gifts - get them ready for
mailing
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Create holiday offers - You need to plan ahead for
creative time,
production/print time, mailing or broadcasting
time.
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Clean out old files/emails
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Get your business-related mileage records updated
and tallied
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Total vendor expenses and prepare necessary
1099’s
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Contact your accountant and discuss year-end
tax planning
Planning the New Year
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Set aside a half-day to a day away from the
office and the phone.
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Look back over the past 12 months and make a
list of your accomplishments
then a list of the disappointments
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Review the list above and look for the lessons -
what was it you did that
helped you achieve those accomplishments?
What was it you failed to
do or acknowledge that perhaps lead to the
disappointments? Look for
the hidden lessons there.
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Write your critical goals and objectives - no more
than 10 - for the
coming year. These should be the 10
most important, not the
only 10, just the 10 that will make
the biggest impact in your
next 12 months.
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Write a list of tasks that need to be
accomplished in the first 30 days in
order to move these annual objectives 1 month
closer to success.
-
If not a key objective, then it is important to
update your marketing plan
and your business budget so you open for
business on January 2 prepared
to move forward.
These are year-round efforts.
They shouldn't be limited
to December and January. If you take the time to
review these areas and
monitor results monthly or quarterly, you won't end
up scrambling at the end
of the year. You'll have much less
stress, not only at the end of
the year but all year long. It just takes some
discipline and what I
call Gold Time. See the July issue of
BOLD Bulletin for more
information about Gold Time
Management.
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| Success Program 1 - Road to Achievement |
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Thursdsay, 11-2 or Tuesday,
12-5
- The 5 Principles of Success
- Reasons we short
- Discovering skills that will change your life
Learn about the Cycle of Productivity and it's
importance to your success. You'll also work through
the 5-principals of success that will help you discover
changes you can make to reach your full
potential.
Greater Portland, Maine
$99
3 Hours
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| Success Program 2 - Highway to Success |
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11-8 and 11-9 or
12-7 and 12-8
- Create Your 12-month business roadmap
- Define your empowering paradigm
- Identify your key role and focus
- Develop your plan of action
In this 2-session workshop you’ll take a holistic
approach to business planning. As a small business
owner your personal goals and values are ingrained in
those of your business. We approach your business
planning from “the bigger picture” of total alignment.
Greater Portland, Maine
$349
2-Workshop Series; 8 hours total
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| Promotion Action - Free Introductory Call |
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October 31, 2006
For those of you not living in or near Portland, Maine
the Promotion Action workshop series will be offered
as a teleclass - starting November 7.
If
you're interested but not sure Promotion Action is for
you - or if you're not familiar with how teleclasses
work, join us on October 31.
To register for the Promotion
Action Introductory
Call, return this comment form with "Introductory Call" in
the Message space.
Free
60 minutes
Learn More
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Re-Invigorate! |
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Fall indeed is a great time to re-
invigorate yourself and
your business.A great way to re-invigorate
is to open yourself to
new information and new ideas. And there is
no shortage of learning
opportunities; traditional, on-site or non-
traditional,
via teleconference,
podcast, webcast, etc.
I'm part of
the Maine
Center of Enterprise Development's
workshop
series and will be
leading a
workshop this Thursday, 10/19. Although
this doesn't give you much notice for my workshop,
there are other workshops later you may find useful.
Exercise your
brain, increase your knowledge and expose yourself
to different views - it's critical
to your success.;
Equally important to your success
is what
you do after you
leave the workshop.
And from one who sponsors and
leads workshops and teleclasses, that's the biggest
frustration - what
participants do after leaving the workshop, which is
too often -
nothing.
So my challenge for you is as
you take advantage of opportunities to advance your
skills,
knowledge and financial position, put a process in
place to apply the new knowledge to make it
your own.
Many workshops and
classes present an overwhelming amount of
new ideas and
concepts. Select the ones that make sense to you
and your business. Take
them one at a time and apply them. As one new
idea proves successful, with
continued use it becomes 'ingrained', then move to
a second - and so on.
It's not about spending the time sitting in the
workshop, listening to the
lecture, that will help you achieve success - it's
about what you do
after.
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