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By April Welch, CPO, Smart Women’s Café Contributing Expert

Have you put Get Organized on your list of things to accomplish this year?

You are not alone … getting organized is among the top 5 things listed on 90% of New Year’s Resolution Lists!

So, as the SWC Contributing Expert on Organizing I wanted to make sure you had the right tools for your New Beginning on getting organized in 2008.

When working with clients I always begin our project with a tour of the ‘space’. I use the word ‘space’ because for some of you it may be your closet, others may want to focus on their home office & some may need a little clutter reduction made in their minds. No matter where your ‘space’ resides you can apply some of the following tips to help you create a road map for your goals this year.

1.  Give yourself the guided tour:

a.  Without beating yourself up over the mounds of unfinished “things” you see, simply say out loud what you see. When you begin to hear a pattern emerge take action. (ex: A client had called me to help her with her closets, however once she had given me the tour of her space I noticed that she was explaining in great detail the piles of paper that lead to the closet. We redirected the session to paperwork)

2.  Once you know where you’re going to start & what your focus will be in that area you can begin the traditional sorting & purging.

a.  Sorting – for some clients this is a time just to decide what stays & what goes. Others decide what general category things will go in & start tossing accordingly. The key to this exercise is to handle the item with as little emotion as possible (try not to notice how cute Johnny was in the picture)

b.  Purging – decide how items will be distributed prior to a project. If you know that all your nice work clothes that have been too small for over 5 years will be going to the YWCA program for women entering the work force (as opposed to just a “get rid of” pile) you are much more likely to begin letting go of more.

3.  Avoid Burn Out

a.  Once you’ve reached your energy peak & you begin the downward descent - walk away from the project. No matter how much of a mess you’ve created. If you push yourself past your patience level you will surely get burned out & your New Year’s Resolution will have to wait another year to be accomplished. Take a break (30-60 minutes) do something rewarding like taking a walk or cuddling up with your favorite magazine & return refreshed. Stay disciplined though! Continue returning until you’ve seen the type of progress that meets your goals.

By Sherry G. Day, MS Smart Women’s Café Contributing Expert

Assess your personal traits and skills to see if you have what it takes to be successful as a business owner. Entrepreneurs need great “people skills” as well as industry knowledge and a willingness to take risks. Using the list below, consider your level of competence in 20 areas and rate them 1 – 5, with 5 being the highest. Then add the numbers to get your total. Compare your total to the key below.

Traits / Skills
1. Accepts responsibility
2. Adaptability
3. Coach / mentor others
4. Comfortable with risk-taking
5. Communicate clearly & concisely
6. Create motivating environment
7. Enthusiasm for challenge
8. Exhibit drive & energy
9. Flexibility
10. Good people skills / human relations
11. Initiative /self-starter
12. Make thoughtful & timely decisions
13. Maintain good health & life balance
14. Networking skills
15. Organizational skills
16. Open-mindedness
17. Persistence
18. Resourcefulness
19. Self-Confidence
20. Willingness to listen

TOTAL SCORE:

Key for Rating Points
Well below average 1
Below average 2
Average 3
Above average 4
Well above average 5

What does Your Score mean?

40 or less: Better stick to your day job! You are probably better off working for someone else.
41 – 65: This is “iffy”. You may be able to make it on your own.
66 – 85: You have entrepreneurial qualities. Do you have the willingness to tough it out?
86 –100: Follow your dream and become your own boss. You have what it takes – if you have answered honestly and have a good business plan!

By Marilyn Schwader, Smart Women’s Café Contributing Expert

A few years ago, I suggested to my sister, who is a very good artist, that if she raised her prices on her pieces that she would sell more, and with the higher price, make much more for the same amount of effort. Her first reaction was that she didn’t want to price herself “out of her market.”

A year went by, and every time I saw her, I’d suggest she raise her prices. Finally, after encouragement from many others, she relented and doubled her price. Almost immediately, she began to sell more.

Two years later, she now sells her work for triple what she once charged and has a list of commissions waiting for her to get to. She has not changed her marketing or increased her exposure. She simply made her artwork “reassuredly” expensive so that her market feels they are getting value for their money.

Pricing is an important component of the success phenomenon, although many business people have no idea how to approach this piece of the puzzle. It’s taking three things into account:

* your perception of your product’s value
* how much effort you want to expend
* the buyer’s perceived value

Let’s look at your perception first. On occasion, a business will price their goods too high, often because they have fallen in love with what they’re selling and believe everyone in the world will feel the same way. However, more often, the product or service is priced too low. One reason for this is due to a perception of scarcity: the person setting the price feels that they would not spend that much on the product and wonders if others would feel the same way. Whether the price is set too high or too low, both are matters of personal perception.

Now let’s look at effort. If you are putting the same amount of effort and money into the marketing and selling of your product, having a price that reflects its true value to the buyer will bring back a higher return on investment. This is a simple concept, but one that’s difficult to implement if your own perception of the product’s value is not in alignment with a higher price.

So how do you set your price? Here are five things to factor into your pricing:

1. Examine your beliefs about the value of your product; if you question how much you would spend, is this a product you want to spend your money and energy promoting?

2. If you feel good about the product, decide how much you want to make.

3. Decide how many hours you want to work.

4. Raise your fees to match what you want to make in the time you want to work.

5. Look at others in your market who are having success selling and marketing a similar product or service to determine if you are in alignment with your market.

Finally, there is the perceived value of the consumer. If the price is too low, the buyer might feel the product or service has limited value and will be hesitant to buy. On the other hand, when you have built trust with the buyer, when they feel they will be getting their money’s worth, price becomes less of a factor in their decision, and they will be willing to pay more because they know they will get value for their investment.

The bottom line is that you can increase YOUR bottom line significantly by pricing correctly, and you will move ever closer to the Success Phenomenon.

Dear Family and Friends,

I really think the drought is over. It’s been raining pretty steadily since November; the crops look great, the rivers are full and the cows look fat and healthy. I read somewhere that the drought cycles in this part of Africa often last around seven years and are followed by a like number of years of average to above-average rainfall. Hopefully we are now in the later cycle.

A lot has been happening around here. I’m feeling a huge sense of urgency to get all our village projects up, running and self-sustaining. We’re starting over again with the Cultural Village project. Just now the workers are leveling out the area, removing ash and saving as many stones as possible. In addition, we’ve started one last and large community agriculture project. It’s a five-year program beginning with a big (three hectares) community vegetable garden. We’re combining everything we know about nutrition for children and AIDS patients, permaculture and water harvesting into a project to grow food for our village orphans and housebound sick people while at the same time employing the maximum number of volunteers in a UN food for work program. The UN has already approved phase one of this four-phased project.

We’ve been able to add 20 more families to the monthly food distribution. These families will be
responsible for maintaining the garden. In phase two we can add 30 more families who will contribute workers to build a water retention dam in the village. Phase three of the program will involve cultivating another six hectares with all the grains we need to feed the chickens in our community chicken farm. This eliminates the cost of feed for the chickens and keeps all our volunteer workers on the UNWFP program. The final phase of the project is to build a community greenhouse. Each phase of this new project requires lots of training and coordination not to mention writing the grants to get the financial aid necessary to fund the project. The UN provides
food only – all funds for seeds, building materials etc. have to come from elsewhere – I’m flooding NGO’s with grant proposals.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am with the Menkhoaneng Community Development Association (MCDA). Our newly elected executive committee is taking real responsibility in following through on everything that needs to be done on our various projects. I find my job is to act as an advocate for these people with the various NGO’s and government ministries, create written
proposals and grants and act as an advisor at all the meetings. I leave for Maseru tomorrow to try to drum up some support for the dam project. We need an unbelievable amount of cement.

Also, I just returned from another very fun trip around South Africa with two good friends from the US, Karen Fitt and Joyce Virnich. We visited one of the finest game reserves in SA called Shamwari. We hadn’t pulled fifty yards into the reserve when a very large Cape cobra slithered across the road directly in front of our car. When the screaming subsided (just kidding) we forged onward. I’ll only speak of one of the many wonderful animal encounters we enjoyed at Shamwari. It involved elephants – lots of them. We toured the reserve in a completely open Land Rover with our handsome, knowledgeable guide. We were on a narrow dirt road driving through a big grove of prickly pear cactus when we spotted some elephants headed directly towards us. We stopped the car and just sat there as a whole herd of the huge pachyderms, all females and their many baby, toddler and adolescent offspring surrounded our car. They had come to picnic on prickly pear. The toddlers played “I can push you off the road” with their age mates butting heads and entwining trunks. One little fellow practiced his charging technique on our car flaring out his ears, raising his trunk and charging us while his mother looked benignly on. It felt like a real family picnic. Our guide said it was the finest elephant encounter he’d had in years. We stayed a long time taking photos and just enjoying being so up close and personal with these beautiful animals.

My friends flew home from Cape Town and I took a train back. The train, which ran on electric wires, broke down nine times. I had a sleeper compartment that I shared with an Indian woman and her beautiful three-year-old daughter so I was perfectly comfortable during the two full days it took to get back to this area. I got off the train in Bethlehem, a small town about three hours from Lesotho. There I rented a truck to get myself and a lot of stuff up to Menkhoaneng. I had a long list of supplies needed for our projects not to mention 50 kg bags food for Lance and the dogs. Although it had rained a few days previously, I was able to get the truck to the village. My plan was to return the truck to Bethlehem the next day and return to the village by public transport and on foot. The downpour began just an hour after I got to the village. It rained all night. I’d also made arrangements to take a bunch of our AIDS patients who are now on ARV’s to the hospital for their monthly supply of drugs on my way to Bethlehem. We all stood around the truck in the morning wondering what to do. Finally with a whole team of volunteers armed with shovels and a
serious “can do” attitude we headed down the mountain. It’s nine kilometers to the road and although we’ve been working on this access “road” for the whole two years I’ve been here it is a long way from being complete. Add to this the erosion and damage done by the recent storms and anyone in their right mind would say it was impassable. None of us was in our right minds.

It was a wonderful, muddy, wet, tiring and totally heart-warming experience. We had sangomas, herd boys, women and children literally building a road under the wheels of the truck. I went down to the hubcaps in muck several times. The workers shoveled paths behind and in front of
the wheels, filled the paths with stones and all pushed. I drove that truck like a maniac. When we finally got to a point where I knew the truck could make it on it’s own we had an ad hoc celebration singing songs, dancing and having the sangomas say prayers of gratitude. It took almost all day but everybody who needed to got to the hospital and I got the truck returned to
Bethlehem. Matjeeka went with me all the way so I wouldn’t be walking back up the mountain alone in the dark. It was not an easy day but it was one during which I felt completely surrounded by love. It was a perfect Peace Corps day.

I’ll sign off now. It’s Friday and the brother of one of our most dedicated volunteers died this week. Tomorrow is his funeral, which I’ll miss because of the Maseru trip so I’m going over to her house tonight to help prepare food for the funeral and take some small gifts – candles, matches, peanut butter, bread and tea. I really love this woman; her English is a bad as my Sesotho and we always try to tell each other jokes. When I don’t get what she’s saying she just yells it out louder – so do I. It’s become a regular thing with us – it’s pretty funny. But I’m sure there will be only tears tonight. Her brother was just 32 years old and beloved by all – a fine man with five sisters, a wife, mother and two children left to grieve for him. We got him on ARV’s but too late.

Wishing you all a very happy Valentines Day from the warm, if saddened, heart of Africa,
Love,
Peggi

It is now 2008 - a New Year - a time for new beginnings. What are your plans? Have you written them down? Have you shared them with your loved ones, your business associates or your coach? By now, you may have watched the movie or read the book, “The Secret.” If so, you know that you attract what you focus on most into your life. But what kind of system or process have you put in place to create the life of your dreams? If you are not focused on living the life of your dreams, that’s exactly what you will get - what you don’t want - again.

So, what’s the secret?

It may sound cliché, but the secret is “making the time” to actually sit down and to envision your dreams for 2008, as well as three years and ten years from now.

Try this exercise now. Close your eyes and envision your Perfect Life three years from now. What would it look like? Imagine you are getting ready in front of the mirror and you have a huge smile on your face. You feel amazing. Life is good. For you to be feeling this way three years from now, what has to be happening in your life? What are you getting ready to do that day; where are you going; where are you living; who are you spending time with? (Remember - we become like the five people we spend the most time with!) How much do you earn; how do you look; what are you wearing and how do you feel in your body? Does this make sense? Please get out your journal and write it all down.

Now, figure out what has to happen between now and then for you to be in that position? Start out by writing goals. Print these out and put them where you can read them every day. (Remember, we get what we focus on.) Less that 3% of the population even writes their goals down, let alone “reads” them every day.

Did you put an income goal? If not, why? If you did, was it a stretch? Remember, there is no honor in your thinking small. As woman, if you want to do great things in the world, to make an impact on the lives of your loved ones, to leave a legacy or to make a difference, then you will need to think big and bold. You will also need to understand your relationship with money because whatever is happening with your money, is happening with your life - I promise.

There are five secrets to overcoming under-earning - to being paid what we are worth, to valuing money, to paying ourselves first and to having financial independence so we can live the life of our dreams. This year, I will be focusing on helping women become Midlife Millionaires™. I have done this myself. There is a strategy, a process and it works. I will be sharing this with you, so be sure to watch for my next article, be sure to do the exercise above and you too can become a Midlife Millionaire!

I and the other Contributing Experts are creating an entire series of programs designed to help you do this. There is no magic - just creating the plan and working with those who have done it before. Be sure to visit our Calendar of Events on our Home page so you can sign up for some of our flag ship events this month. These will be life changing. If you don’t live in Michigan and you want to join me for Secrets of Successful High Earners, don’t worry, I will be offering a similar program in a four-week teleclass in February! We have so many wonderful events scheduled for you this year. I hope you and your friends take advantage of them. Click here to share this newsletter with them now. Thank you!

In this month’s Smart Women Talk interview, our own Katana Abbott talks with Barbara Stanny, renowned author and creator of the Secrets of Successful High Earners program. The interview is approximately 25 minutes long and you can choose to either download it to listen to later, or listen right now from your computer by clicking the ‘play’ button.