If you thrive on challenges and hate to be outdone, you may want to find some “friendly competition.” By nature, “friendly competition” is not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. It is there to create motivation and to help people reach goals.

There are a number of message boards and forums that are focused on business; you can create a post that explains your goals for the next month and ask other members to reply back with their goals. All of you can keep adding updates each week on what you have accomplished.

You may choose to put together a more formal, tight-knit group of a few selected people that correspond via a yahoo group or private chat room. You can update each other daily, if you wish. You can even take this a step further and meet weekly on a conference call; as it may be easier to discuss problems and brainstorm with each other via telephone.

If you find yourself connecting with one person more so than with the others, ask that person to be your accountability partner. You can even give each other a quick call every morning to pump each other up, or at the end of the day to talk about what you had accomplished and what you plan on doing the next day.

Aside from going over each person’s individual goals, you can also create monthly “contests.” For instance, if you are in direct sales, you can meet with other people in the industry and have a contest over who can book the most parties, sell the highest dollar amount, or recruit the most people.

If you are a physical product seller, your group can have contests such as who can write and distribute the most articles or press releases. Or you can hold a contest to see who can reach a monetary goal, in terms of monthly product sales in a given month. The possibilities are endless when it comes to creating motivating contests.

The simple fact that you are letting people know your goals, and meeting at designated times to cover your progress, can be very motivating. No one wants to admit that they haven’t done anything and that they are not even close to accomplishing their goals. This is especially true if the other people in the group have worked really hard and have accomplished several things.

Knowing that other people are going to hold you accountable for your actions and “kick you in the butt” if you need it, can drive you to work hard and accomplish your goals. However, friendly competition can take a downturn if the competition turns vicious or mean. If you are working at your best level, and attending your meetings makes you feel bad or “not good enough,” that group may not be the one for you. Look for a supportive, fun spirited group that inspires you.

If you would like to join our Product Seller’s Motivation Team, just register here and comment on this post. I’ll set you up with our group.

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Everyone has times when they lack motivation. On the other hand, you may be so motivated and full of ideas that you lose your focus because you are trying to juggle too many tasks at once. However, multi-tasking may do more harm than good. When your mind is divided by too many tasks, your productivity decreases. Here are some tips to help you stay focused and motivated on your business.

Choose a Niche
Once you know what your niche market is, you will be able to focus on tasks that will help you with that particular market. Try to narrow your market as much as possible. For instance, if you have a coaching business and want to help people work from home, perhaps you can target a certain field, such as web designers or virtual assistants. You will gain a reputation for being an expert in that field and will be able to help people create specific plans while coaching them to success.

Set Goals, and Write Them Down.
When you set goals for your business, you are defining the direction in which you want to take your business. When you write them down, you are greatly increasing the odds that you will accomplish the goals you have set.

Create a Business Plan
When someone wants to start a brick and mortar business, they need to create a business plan and submit it to a bank to secure a loan. A business plan is a summary of how a business will be organized and a listing of activities that the owner needs to complete. For instance, a business plan will explain when a business owner expects to make a profit, as well as the type of marketing they intend to do. Creating a business plan for your home business will increase your chances of success.

Stay Away From Distractions
It is easy to lose track of time when reading email, blogs, and surfing the web. Set aside a block of time in the morning and evening to take care of email. Try to limit your internet during work hours for tasks specific to work, such as research. Wait until you are done with your work to read the celebrity gossip.

Prioritize Your Tasks
When you write out your to-do list, prioritizing your tasks will keep you working on what is important. Some items may need to be accomplished as soon as possible, while other things can wait a day or two. Take a colored highlighter and highlight the things that need to be done ASAP. When you look at your to-do list, your eyes will be drawn to the items that need the most attention.

Outsource When Possible
As you look over your to-do list, do you notice items that can be handled by someone else? By delegating tasks to others, you will have more free time to work on things that require your attention.

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This week I spoke about THE secret to success at Product Seller’s Talk Radio. And today, I see that Rich Schefen, of Strategic Profits has taken the topic and gone a step further:

You can’t become successful by chasing 10 different rabbits. You’ve got to focus on one, and actually catch it. Then you can go on to the next one.

You can read more on his thoughts about focusing your business and you can listen to my thoughts on THE secret to business success.

Now go find something to DO!

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So here it is, 2005…oops, mess up already… 2006 and we’ve got 12 months of web design, maintenance, marketing, search engine optimization and general business running staring us in the face.

So, let’s sit down and figure out what we want to do this year? Make a $1 million dollars? Sounds good to me! But let’s talk about what we need to do to increase our income in this new year.

My plans?

Well, for starters, I’m going to start writing in this blog more often. I’m sure there are tons of bloggers out there just waiting for someone to tell them how to earn money with their websites.

And then, I’m going to start a lovely ezine with website, marketing and online business tips. See that sign up box over to the left — yes, that one… you know you want to sign… just go ahead… it won’t hurt, I don’t sell your private information or send gremlins to your house to steal the socks from your drier. Just sign up and you can always opt out later. And if you don’t, you’ll get some great information in your email box that will help you reach your business goals

Finally, I plan to hire people to help me with some of the more menial tasks of running a business.

What are your goals?

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