helping healthcare organizations grow

Welcome to The Healthcare Marketing Connection! This week is the end of the first full week of the New Year. For some of us, our New Year's resolutions are beginning to feel heavy. After a week our enthusiasm may be waning and our ability to stick to our intentions is getting more difficult. No one said habits are easy to change. Know that you can create what you desire in life, you can make change happen. Have the confidence in yourself that you can do it. This week's feature article gives you a few tips to keeping your confidence high and controlling your self-esteem.

Next week I am off to David Neagle's 4 day business building seminar in Las Vegas. I'd love for you to join me. You can check out the seminar here  http://www.davidneagle.com/ers2008.html. I'm jumping on board at the last minute and looking forward to the time away from the office to work on growing my businesses. I'll be sure to share what I learn when I get back.

To your success!

Kelly

Don't let low self-esteem stop you

Low self-esteem is something we all face at one point or another in our lives. Some battle with lack of confidence on occasion, others all the time. We've all experienced a situation where we've wondered if we had what it takes to do a good job (I know I have anyway).  

Self-confidence is not a matter of knowing you can do everything perfectly and that you are a super star. To me, self-confidence is having the strength to honestly say to yourself, "I'm willing to try and give it 100% that I have to offer. Which is a damn lot!" It may not be perfect, but that's ok. I'll learn from the experience if nothing else.  

YOU have all of the control over your self-esteem. By controlling your thoughts and the discussion that goes on inside your head, you have the ability to improve not only your outlook on life, but your confidence in yourself and your ability to handle what life throws your way.

Here are five things YOU can do to improve your self-esteem:

1. Notice your thoughts. Notice what stories you tell yourself over and over all day. Are they positive happy stories, or are they stories that make you angry or sad? Are you reliving the bad feedback a client gave you? Or the argument you had with your husband last night? The first step is to notice these negative thoughts. The second step is to stop them. I learned this trick about two years ago. It actually took me a year or two to get a handle on it, but once I did it was amazing. My business has had phenomenal growth and I am a much happier person now – ask my kids!
   
   
2. Think about positive things. What gets you excited? Goals you are setting for next year? The new raise you're going to get because you did such a great job on a project? ALL the ideal clients you have attracted to your business? Make a conscious decision to think about these positive thoughts, rather than the negative ones you tend to focus on each day. After a while the positive thoughts will be more dominant than the negative.
   
   
3. Before you go to sleep at night, either journal or think about at least five things that happened today that made you happy. Don't make this a lot of pressure – it could be your daughter smiled at you this morning, or you finally wrote a promotional article you had been putting off. Maybe the checker at the grocery store was unusually nice. Force yourself to start recognizing and acknowledging positive behaviors rather than negative. This is especially important before you go to bed because your brain is doing a lot of processing while you are sleeping. You can't control your thoughts while asleep, but you can set the tone.
   
   
4. Before you get out of bed in the morning consciously start thinking of positive things for the day. List things you are grateful for. Start with awareness of what your thoughts are when you first wake up (mine are often negative and I have to consciously switch them over to positive) then start switching. You may start with your five positive thoughts from the night before. Don't get out of bed until you are feeling grateful to have today to look forward to.
   
   
5. As negative things do appear in your life – and they will, it happens to all of us – don't let them linger. Look at the negative experience, learn from it, and then let it go. Don't store it in the storage room of your mind so that it keeps coming back – you don't have room for it. I recently read some techniques different people use to let go of negative thoughts and feelings. Chuck Norris, the famous actor, physically writes down the negative event or experience and then folds up the paper and burns it. The act of writing it down and then physically watching it burn is his way of making something intangible (his thoughts and feelings) more tangible. This is then easier to throw away.

It's easy to take feedback negatively and personally. Don't let negative thoughts control you and your future. You are meant for greatness – go get it!

(c) 2008, A Marketing Connection

Want to use this article in your e-zine or web site? No problem! Just let me know at info@KellyRobbinsLLC.com. I'll send you a short bio to include at the end of the article.

Are you ready to double your revenues next year? Do you have the marketing systems in place?

Is your business up and running, ready to serve - if only the clients would come? My question to you is, what marketing are you doing to attract clients? Is there so much to do you don't know where to start? Why not let one of our marketing consultants take a load off your shoulders and help you put money generating marketing systems in place. Rather than purchasing services a la carte, we've combined several of our most commonly requested (and that produce the highest return) to save you both time and money. These health care specific marketing packages encompass several different areas of client retention and client generation and are designed to put working systems in place to help you easily connect with your clients - and make more money. There are a variety of price points in each of the packages and each allow you to customize different products to your needs.

Some of the things we will help you do...

---Write your web site
---Create a free report or introductory giveaway
---Develop 6 articles/handouts on health topics to choose from as educational pieces for patients/clients
---Help implementing "marketing systems" that are right for your business. Choose from seven listed including:
starting an ezine or print newsletter, creating a post card system, developing a strategic article placement system, speaking to grow your business, press release system, and more...

To see the full packages visit the marketing packages section on our website at: www.kellyrobbinsllc.com/marketingpackages.html

Are you looking for a customized package with the exact components you need for your business? Contact one of our marketing coaches to create a customized marketing package at info@amarketingconnection.com.

This week Kelly recommends www.thebasementventures.com. Holding a teleclass? Need a quick conference call? Basement Ventures offers a free reliable phone bridge service. The bridges can hold up to 250 people and you can also record the call for free.

If you have any other great resources you'd like me to share with everyone, let me know and I'll check it out. kelly@KellyRobbinsLLC.com

To learn more about healthcare copywriting and marketing, visit my Web site at www.KellyRobbinsLLC.com/article_archives.shtml. There are tons of fr ee articles on a variety of helpful topics.