ARTICLE 6

Home-Based Women Entrepreneurs

Accelerate Your Home Based Business

By Dan Coughlin, author of the new book,
ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum
Visit Dan at www.businessacceleration.com 

See the Equity in Quality

The quality I provide as an entrepreneur is the value other people receive from interacting with me.

Accelerator Action #1: Review past successes, preview future ones.

Self-Confidence

Review a past success story.
a. What was my goal?
b. What were the obstacles?
c. How did I persevere?
d. What did it feel like when I achieved my goal?
e. What lessons did I learn from that experience that I can use today?

Preview a future success story.
a. What do I want to achieve?
b. Why do I want to achieve it?
c. Why do I expect to achieve it?

Accelerator Action #2: Maintain daily enthusiasm.

The Process for Maintaining Enthusiasm
a. Clarify the purpose for my work. (Why do I do the work that I do?)
b. Every day focus on fulfilling my purpose.

Accelerator Action #3: Operate at the intersection of greatness.

The Intersection of Greatness Questions

a. What are my values? What beliefs guide my behaviors? (Values)

b. What are my strengths? What am I good at doing? (Strengths)

c. What are my passions? What gets me excited when I do it? (Passions)

d. How can I use my strengths and my passions to accelerate the achievement of my organization’s most important business outcomes and my customer’s most important outcomes while still operating within my own values? (Focus)

Accelerator Action #4: Find revenue growth opportunities.

Capable of Delivering Excellent Value

The Process for Finding Revenue Growth Opportunities

I. What do we currently do that delivers excellent value that some of our current customers might purchase but have not done so yet?

II. What do we currently do that delivers excellent value that potential customers might want to purchase and who are those potential customers?

III. What can we do that will deliver excellent value that our current customers might want to purchase?

IV. What can we do that will deliver excellent value that potential customers might want to purchase and who are those potential customers?

Accelerator Action #5: Continually raise my bar.

The Bar Raising Process (stay logical, not emotional)

a. What was the goal?
b. What was actually achieved?
c. What did I do to try to achieve the goal?
d. What worked well and why did it work well?
e. What did not work well and why did it not work well?
f. What lessons did I learn?
g. What will I do the same and what will I do differently as we move forward?

Accelerator Action #6: Sacrifice to accelerate.

The 1-3-6 Exercise

a. What is the one most important business outcome I want to improve in the next six months?

b. What three things can I do that would have the greatest positive impact on improving that outcome?

c. What six things do I need to stop doing so I have the time and the energy to do the three things I know would have the greatest positive impact on improving my most important desired business outcome?

Accelerator Action #7: Play it SAFE.

o Have fun.
o Make an impact.
o Sustain a focused effort.

About Dan Coughlin

You can visit Dan at www.businessacceleration.com . He is the author of ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum. As a keynote business speaker and management consultant, his clients include Toyota, Boeing, McDonald’s, Marriott, Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Quoted in USA Today, the New York Times, and Investor’s Business Daily, Dan’s articles have appeared in more than 100 publications. He will speak at HBWE in August, 2008.

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