Good morning, –

No matter what your definition of success is, here are a few tips to help you make 2011 your best year ever:

1. Analyze what worked for you last year.

2. Analyze what DIDN’T work for you last year.

3. Get your 2011 goals in order -both for you personally and for your business -and write them down. Goal setting is a necessary component of tracking and achieving success.

4. Print out these goals and put them up in your office. If you’ve got a whiteboard, write them down -the bigger they are, the better.

5. Go through each goal and think through the steps that are required to achieve them. (Yes, even “buying a new disc publisher” can start with “visit website and pick up sales literature.”) Once you’ve got the steps

figured out, put some completion dates to them. If you’ve got a PDA or any other sort of calendar, add all this information to it.

6. Get a couple of heavy-duty trash bags. Throw away everything that isn’t absolutely essential to your success. Go through your office, your studio, your car and, if you carry one, your briefcase, or backpack.

7. Get out your address book. Call your biggest and best customers and thank them, again, for their business.

8. Ask yourself, “What’s holding me back?” This is a serious question that deserves some serious thought.

9. Ask your significant other or, if you have one, your business partner, what his or her priorities are for 2011. Don’t assume you know what they are. Listen carefully to the response.

10. If you have repeat clients, you should also ask this question of your best ones.

11. Allocate a half hour a day to reading about and studying up on your profession. Yes, listening to CDs or watching DVDs or tapes is perfectly acceptable, too. This requires discipline on your part, but guess what?

If you do this, you’re going to become an expert in your field which will lead to you becoming what I like to call a “Center of Influence” in your market.

If you don’t, you’ll just be over there milling around with the herd.

12. Get involved with the VideoUniversity forums. If you can, find a local or regional video association, too. The time you spend connecting with and learning from a group of peers will make a big difference in your business.

13. Remember, good intentions won’t make you successful. Investing in yourself is a requirement, not something that depends on your income. Your personal business library (online or on paper) is a good predictor of your future success. Of course, you have to put the knowledge to use – not just store it away. It takes a steady stream of good ideas to become outrageously successful.

14. Don’t try to do everything yourself. You’ll be absolutely amazed at what you can outsource for a very reasonable price. The next time you have a small project you wish you could give to somebody else -just do it.

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Congrats to Academy Award winner Kirk Simon for Best Short Documentary, for his “€œStrangers No More.”€ When I lived in New York City, Kirk and I did a lot of business and industrial films together. His award is well-deserved.

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To your success,

Hal Landen

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