I am grateful for the raviolis (made from my grandmother’s recipe) that will grace the table at Uncle Sal’s country home on Thursday and all the beautiful people that make up the Rando clan that I will have a chat and share some laughs with.

I am grateful for all the people on my THRIVE Team. All the positive, professional, self-motivated folk that help my business run well and are living the entrepreneurial lifestyle. I am grateful for the ladies on the board of directors for A Good Deed Tea that like me want to uplift underserved women and girls around the globe.

I am grateful that I am off the Carnival Splendor cruise ship that got stranded at sea and grateful for the future Hawaiian cruise on my calendar. It is important to always get back on the horse—or the cruise ship.

I will not continue to one-thousand. Instead I will close by mentioning the two most important things. I am grateful that I get to do work in the world that fulfills my purpose of helping women succeed and that I have a good loving husband.

Mille Grazie for all this and more.

Please tell me what you are grateful for.

Even if you have a totally supportive spouse you will encounter this challenge with your clients,  your staff, or people on your implementation team. Here are four big tips to create an environment of support from your spouse:

1. Share your mission statement and compelling vision with your spouse. Tell them why your business is important to you and why your success is good for the both of you. For more on compelling vision read this article: http://www.attractclientswithease.com/articles/seeingavision.htm 

2. Tell your spouse you really need their support to be successful and make a request for it.

3. Tell them specifically what support looks like. For example: pick up the kids three days a week, make dinner certain nights, have it be okay that I have to work late sometimes. 

4. Increase your acknowledgment of your spouse. This is another important topic I will write more on in the near future. For now check out this awesome article to learn this skill:
http://www.attractclientswithease.com/articles/acknowledgment.htm

You deserve support from your spouse/partner for your business. Take these actions to create it.

What I have come to realize is that one of the best things you can do for your business is simple, yet significant and can be easy or incredibly hard.

This “it” factor is cultivating a highly effective implementation team. These are the people that help you complete the to dos on your list- everything from your billing, database management, and auto-responders to your sales generation and service delivery.

I am not talking about employees, or your virtual or executive assistant I am talking about people that sign on to and are committed to you- your success and the fulfillment of your mission.

Through much trial and error, a lot of misses, and a lot of money I might as well have burned in the fireplace and roasted a marshmallows over, for all the good the expenditure did me, I can finally say I have an awesome and highly effective implementation team. I want to share with you a few of the key qualities I have found in formulating a criteria to get great results for my business and many of my clients businesses.

1. Look for someone with a positive disposition. Positive people keep you positive and more importantly they give you vitality- that keeps your business vital.

2. Become the client of an entrepreneur. Rather than working with someone who considers himself or herself an independent contractor or an employee, an entrepreneurial attitude is worth its weight in gold to your business.

3. Professionalism. If it is not there you will spot it fast and in most cases. It cannot be taught because professionalism is a value as much as a skill. Professionalism is made up of genuine caring, kindness, courtesy, consideration, and integrity.

4. Integrity deserves it’s own mention. If you do not implicitly trust whomever you are working closely with, stop working closely with them.

5. A willingness to learn. I have found that someone who meets the other criteria but lacks certain skills can still be a huge asset to an organization if they are willing to learn. Be willing to invest in them.

If you are looking for the right webmaster, database manager, graphic designer, virtual assistant or PR professional, use these criteria to find someone you can build a long-term relationship with and make them a member of your highly effective implementation team.

If you need a referral for anything–ask me. I have used these criteria to assemble a team strategic alliance partners I am so proud of. Use these criteria, and soon you will be saying the same thing with a smile.