Twenty years ago, my girlfriend and I vacationed in sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We had a wonderful time, and saw some amazing tourist attractions. But believe it or not, it's not the traditional tourist attractions like "Ocean World" or "The Museum of Science and Discovery and Imax Theater" I think about when I recall our trip to Fort Lauderdale.

It's the amazing Unique Selling Propositions (USP's) of some of the businesses we encountered down there.

The past year has certainly had a profound effect on nearly everyone. Revenue may have slipped, cutbacks were made, and clients were lost, but there’s no better time to start fresh than the New Year. Steve Fretzin, President of Sales Results, Inc., says to use this time of the year as an extra motivation to make new goals and new efforts to better your business.

What are the challenges, goals and accomplishments that a new business like Go Green Go faces? Sometimes the challenges, goals and accomplishments are all the same thing! Example - Decision Making! Last month I wrote about the decision making process that I went through while developing the company. The longer that I continue to develop the company, I realize that decision making will always be a part of the process. The challenge is to make decisions, the goal is to make decisions and the accomplishment is that decisions were made. Then we start all over again with a new set of circumstances. I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know! One of the decisions that I committed to early on in the development of the company was that this was going to be a “Grassroots” type of company.

Most companies don’t use budgets to help them meet profit goals. Why? Well, most owners and CEOs reason that the effort required to learn how to build and use workable budgets is just too much. They seem to feel that learning how to budget is more frustrating than just hoping the numbers will all work out—if they only sell enough widgets or services or whatever.

Well, the clock is always ticking in our biz/lives. This week there is an important countdown you may want to note. You have only a week until next Wednesday (December 9th) to vote for grant winner, if you haven't already done so.

Well, what the heck other games are you GOING to play?
Gee, talking about win-win seems so twentieth century!
Haven't we got the idea?

Don't we realize that, unless a situation is a win for both (or all) parties involved, it's not a win at all - because the loser will figure out that he/she is the loser, and probably do something to mess things up?

Nah, we don't realize that. I know this for a fact because I coach people to help them sell. And I can tell you that win-lose is alive and well!

Imagine having a newborn dropped off on your doorstep wrapped only in a blanket with a note attached that reads, "Take care of me."

For the sake of argument say you wanted a baby so this is like a windfall. You bring the child in the house and it only takes a couple of moments to realize that you have no diapers and no formula, so out you go (or you send your husband) to buy the necessary items.

This holiday season, the need for cost-effective marketing tools is more important than ever – especially for small businesses. With a continued shift of shopping to the Web expected, using social media to reach customers with special coupons and other incentives, will be critical to success. In addition to using social media to communicate offers, these channels allow small businesses to create a dialogue with their customers and reach a broad audience with a minimal cash outlay.

Since the birth of Go Green Go” – one of the greatest challenges has been the process of making decisions. This process can be painfully slow and full of uncertainty, particularly if you are a one man show.

The Development and Sharing of the Idea with Friends

It all starts when a little voice in your head says “Hey, have you ever thought of doing _______?” (You get to fill in the blank.) You keep thinking about the idea, rolling it around and around in your brain. The little thought grows and evolves until you can actually put words to the idea and intelligently describe the vision to others. The next step is to tell a few people about your idea, usually the first victims are your close friends. This is a very scary step, because you are putting “IT” out there. You’re putting your brainchild on the line, along with your ego, and waiting to see their reaction. Do they think your idea has value or do they try to keep the laughter at bay?

We all know how important it is to focus on what we want.

But what happens when we LOSE focus?

It’s easy to do, isn’t it?

We get distracted. Something captures our interest and diverts our attention away from our chosen objective.

We suffer setbacks. Things don’t work out as planned. Someone lets us down. Circumstances change and good plans go bad. We get interrupted. An important matter takes precedence—sometimes for long periods of time.

We, or members of our team, get sick or hurt. We don’t have the energy we had before and often find it slow to get back in the game.