Are you focused? Or are you just flying all over the place.

Where and on what is your focus?

Are you focused:

• On the down economy or are you focused on the opportunities it creates
• On down sales or the opportunities to take business from your competition and finally get them out of your accounts – take their share of the business.
• On losing the customer, or finally getting free of a customer that you were losing money on.

If you really want to understand focus, then you have to take a look at children.

It is a snowy day, the snow is falling and it is starting to really pile up. You focus on problems with the roads, work and a dozen other things, you might even start whining.

But your child, they focus on the possibilities, they focus on playing in the snow and having a great time.

When your child misses the school bus. Again you focus on having to go out of you way to take them to school, the problems of messing up your schedule.

But your child, they focus on getting to spend more time with you. Getting to ride to school in the car with you. Maybe even stopping for breakfast. They focus on the possibilities.

You have just spent the day at the shore and are getting ready to leave. You go to start your car, and it won’t start. You have to call the auto club and they tell you that it will be at least a 2 hour wait. You focus on the wait, but guess what you children focus on?

They focus on 2 more hours of playing on the beach, isn’t this great?

You see, as adults and business people, we focus on the problem.

Our children focus on the possibilities, they are creative, we are practical.

To be successful in this down economic time, you have to learn to focus on the possibilities, not the problem. You have to start being more creative. You have to start thinking outside that old box.

Start focusing on the possibilities and see what a difference it can make.

Let’s look a bit deeper at the problems we originally discussed:

You focus on the down economy. What would happen if instead you focused on:

• The opportunities it creates
• The fact that as people go out of business, there is less competition.
• The fact that more doors opened that have never been opened before.

You focus on down sales. Again, what would happen if instead:

• You start focusing on the opportunities to take business from your competition and finally get them out of your accounts.
• The need to help your customer and the opportunities to build your relationship with them. A relationship that will really pay off in the future. People remember.
• The need to work smarter and use your time to find new and creative ways to generate business.

You focus on losing the customer. Again, what would happen if instead you focused:

• On finally getting free of a customer that you were losing money on.
• The fact that they will be back and once back you will be able to charge them a price at which you can make a profit.
• That everyone is looking and you now have more time to prospect and find better customers.

This week I want you to be more child like. I want you to start looking at the possibilities. You will be amazed at what you learn.