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Hard Working, Persistent, Purposeful
Ducks can tolerate cold and adverse weather conditions, suggesting persistence under difficult circumstances. Water flows off their back. When trouble comes, be a duck. Let the water flow. Ducks can take off almost vertically implying purpose and direction. They may waddle on land, but they glide in water. You never know how hard they are working below the surface from the seemingly serene persona above the water. Hard working, persistent, purposeful – qualities important to the success of your action plan.
Overview
Action Plans can be simple or sophisticated, depending on the size and complexity of your goal. We suggest you start with simple goals and simple action plans and achieve quick successes.
We have illustrated several examples of simple plans. If you have a good job and want to buy a car, your action plan can be pretty simple. If you need a car, but can’t get a job, your action plan may be more complicated and will include sub-goals like getting/keeping a job, maybe even getting a raise or two, then buying a car. If you have bad credit and no job, your action plan will be more complicated yet.
For some people developing action plans will just flow easily from their goals. These people will just know the steps they need to take and will start making them happen. Others may struggle to turn their goals into action step to do’s.
If your goal is clear and not very complicated, you can just make a list of things you need to do, organize the list, then do the things on your list.
Sometimes your list will become long and cumbersome and you should set sub goals and action steps for your sub goals. If your to do list grows to more than ten items, consider setting sub goals.
Thoughts
As you read through the detail in the simple Action Plans below, it is very easy to loose sight of the fact that these are examples. Your Action Plans should be as real as possible for you. The Action Plan that is right for you, may be very different from the one that works for your friend or an employee you supervise.
The nice thing about an Action Plan is that is yours. You can change it to make it work for you. You can leave out steps that you don’t need. You can add steps that you do need. You can reduce or increase the explanatory detail, change the order of the steps, or do anything you need to do to actually achieve your goals. The important thing is to determine what steps you need to do to achieve each goal, then do what you need to do.
As you continue to explore various areas of Chimorel’s website, you will discover many concepts which can help you develop Action Plans. More detailed Action Plans are available to members and those who enter programs. An easy way to support someone developing an Action Plan is to start with an example that is similar to what they want to do, then encourage them to modify the example to fit their needs and personality.
As you set goals for yourself and for Chimorel and as you begin to support others as they set goals, it will be important to go on to develop Action Plans. Setting a goal and even testing it against reality is easier than developing a realistic Action Plan which enables you to actually achieve a goal.
As we have already discussed, some Action Plans may be very simple and straight forward. Others may need to be broken into sub-goals with related action steps and explanatory detail. Sub-goals may not have time frames and dollar amounts (or other measurable criteria), but they should support goals that do.
As you continue to explore this website, you will be exposed to many new opportunities and you will be able to receive many benefits as an Active Volunteer. May God bless you and be with you as you continue to explore your opportunities.
If you have explored at least one Simple Action Plan, you may have noticed that each action step is a brief command statement, like “Strengthen your skills”? Through a command statement, you clearly tell yourself what to do. Now expect yourself to do it.
Did you also notice the explanatory detail which followed some command statements? The explanatory detail helps you clarify, explain and remember what to do. Sometimes you will just know what to do and you won’t need to write any explanatory detail. Other times you will want to make notes to enable yourself or someone you supervise to remember or clarify important elements of your action step.
Simple Action Plans
The simple action plans on the right and below provide examples for goals that you might be interested in achieving. When you become an Action Planning member or enter into a program, we will assist you to develop simple and more involved action plans for any goal you want to achieve or any problem you have.
You may want to modify these sample action plans to meet your specific needs. We will support you. .
Get a Job
“I need a job paying at least $35,000/yr as soon as possible.
- Decide what work you want to do.
- Consider enrolling in either Chimorel’s I Got a Job or Create a Career program. Obviously these are not the only ways to initiate your job search, but you may find the programs very worthwhile.
- Get serious, get ready, start looking.
- Learn how to do Introductory Interviews, use the internet and uncover leads.
- Strengthen your skills. This may include interviewing and negotiating. It may also mean getting better job skills or better people skills.
- Develop ongoing relationships with people and organizations who can help.
- Never, never stop. Even after you land your job, keep looking for ways to make your employer happy and to grow on the job. And until you land your job – no vacations
Buy a Car
“I want to buy a car this month. My dad will give me $50/mo.”
- Get a job. There may be a down payment and monthly payments. There will be insurance, repairs, gas, parking, oil changes and many other things that will require most of us to have a job or more than $50/mo assistance from dad. A rough rule of thumb – if you can’t afford $200/mo don’t buy a car.
- Reality test what you can afford. In most cases you should buy less than you can afford and apply the difference to your retirement plan or education.
- Research what you want. Safety and good gas mileage might be good ideas.
- Explore the alternatives. Auctions, used cars, reliable friends should be considered. You may be able to acquire a car through Chimorel.
- Negotiate a deal. On a new car start at 23% below sticker. On a used car start at least 25% below sticker. Come up reluctantly.
- Arrange for financing. Make a good down payment. Establish good credit. Negotiate and look around. As soon as possible pay cash for your cars.
- Plan repairs, insurance, etc. Nuff said.
- Enjoy the car. Absolutely. That is the point isn’t it.
Go to College
“I want to go to college in the fall. It will cost $15,000/yr.”
- Enter Chimorel’s College Bound Program. Once again, you don’t have to work with Chimorel, but we do have five strategies which can effectively enable anyone to go to college if they work their action plan. Click the link above to explore this option.
- Research Loans, Scholarships and other Funding Alternatives. There is enough money available to solve almost any college need, but you have to go after it to get it. One way is Chimorel’s “guaranteed scholarship.”
- Get a Job. Warren paid his entire education (AS, BS & MBA) with money he earned while he was in school. At one point he had a full-time job and two part-time jobs while carrying 20 hours at OSU. His wife paid her own way. Both his children paid most of their college costs.
- Start Early. Tell your kids they are going to pay their own way. If they started at 8-10, they might just have $8500 to start college this fall. Both of Warren’s sons paid their own way and their grades were better because of it.
- Go to www.fastweb.com. This is an excellent free source of information about scholarships.
Build / Remodel a Home
“I want to build a $200,000 home for $165,000 in the next three years.”
- Start Chimorel’s Home Builder Program. It may not be essential to use our program, but if you want to save 15-20+% it will be critical that you learn how to build a house, where to buy your materials, where to get contractors, how to negotiate terms and a lot more. You can learn to be your own general contractor. Click the Home Builder Program link above to explore this option in significant detail.
- Locate and buy/have property to build on. You may want to partially design your home and secure financing first, but your property location will influence your design and the cost of your property will influence your financing.
- Design & plan your home. Plan to do as much of your own work as you can, but don’t try things you can’t do or don’t have time to do right. The design and planning stage can be very time consuming. Until you know what you want to build, you won’t know what it will cost and won’t be able to get permits. Most of your savings will start in the planning stage. You may want to consider building a cob house.
- Secure financing. Once you know what it will cost, you need to find a way to pay for it. Chimorel can teach you how to build much more than you might think you can afford, but at some point you will probably need a loan. If your credit is weak, address this problem first. Plan but don’t build until you are actually ready.
- Get permits, negotiate terms. Don’t even think about building a house without pulling all of the required permits. Your subs will pull many of the permits for you. Be sure they are licensed. The worst that happens is you could be required to tear down your house and start over. That’s not a good way to save money. Negotiating a tough, clear contract that you enforce with each sub is a good way to control costs. Plan ahead and eliminate as many “extras” as possible.
- Dig the hole, install the sewer system, pour the footers, lay/pour the foundation/basement walls, pour the basement floor. Get inspections. Yes, you not only pull permits. You also get inspections. Expect them to be tough. The inspectors don’t know you.
- Frame the house, enclose the frame, install the roof, install windows and doors. Get inspections.
- Install the utilities, insulate, install the exterior. Get inspections.
- Drywall, install flooring, install fixtures, caulk, paint, install cabinets, wall paper, install wood paneling & trim, finish interior, install appliances. Yes, there are still a few inspections at this stage, but most are behind you.
- Pay your subs, suppliers and make your monthly payments. If you can’t afford to pay people, don’t start. Loosing your house is pretty expensive.
- Enjoy your new home. It was a lot of work, but you saved $35,000 directly and probably $70,000 when you consider interest and taxes. You certainly will enjoy your house more than most and you will make a lot more when you sell it. Now what are you going to do with the savings? – Start a retirement plan? Help the kids with college? Start a new business?
Building a house is absolutely not this simple, but this action plan gives you many of the basics. To explore much greater detail, click the Home Builder Program in the left column You will leave this area of the website.
Start a Business
“Within the next eight months I want to start a business
that will pay me at least $70,000/yr.”
- Click Start/Strengthen a Business to explore ways Chimorel can help. Chimorel has a Cooperative Effort Program and many other ways to help grow your business.
- Develop a concept that has value. Test reality. In order to be successful you need to be able to market a product or service that someone wants. Then you need to be sure that enough people want your product/ service to achieve your goal. 90+% of new businesses fail in the first two years. You don’t want to be one of them.
- Determine if you need financing. If you can develop your business through your own resources, you do not need outside financing. This is a good thing. You get to keep a larger share of the profits. \
- If needed, develop a business plan. If you need outside financing, you will need a business plan. Having a business plan is helpful, but if you don’t need outside financing, you can build a viable business by doing what you need to do without first taking the time to build a business plan.
- Develop a marketing strategy that works. To make it, someone has to buy what you are selling. How will you tell the world about your concept? This means a lot of research, a lot of creativity and a lot of work.
- Hire the right people. You may be the only employee for a while. If so, do you have what it takes to do the job? If not you didn’t hire the right person. As you grow, it will be increasingly important to hire the right people.
- Develop your resources. Your resources may include bank loans, equity partners, suppliers, customers, employees, government entities, professional contacts and more.
- Look into the future. A business that does not anticipate the future needs of its customers, changing environmental circumstances, new laws, etc. may not be able to adapt and grow. In business you grow or you stop growing and your customers look for new alternatives.
Support a Nonprofit
“I want to raise $50,000/yr for our church’s building fund and join Chimorel’s Education & Employment committee.
- Learn About Fund Raising With Chimorel. You can explore more about developing your nonprofit organization by clicking this link.
- Be clear about your goal. $50,000 means 50 people raising $1000 or 500 raising $100 or 5000 raising $10 or some similar combination. At Chimorel, for example, each Board member is expected to develop $10,000/yr in value.
- Be clear about your message. What will the funds be used for, specifically. If I ask you to give to help us solve problems and achieve goals the message is a little fuzzy. If you give to support: …one person go to college, …someone pay a hospital bill or …Chimorel build a recycling center – the message is clear.
- Develop powerful fund raisers who believe in the cause. Dynamic, enthusiastic believers can raise millions to solve the most horrific problems.
- Do your homework. Get your 501(c)(3) and charitable license. Know what regulators and others expect. Know who you will serve and how. Know who is concerned about the problem. Know who else is working on the problem and, where possible, team up with them. Know who the opposition is.
- Expect your constituents to get involved. A 2000 member church can raise $50,000/yr by providing one service worth $25 each year for every member who pays his/her own way.
- Set specific achievable milestones. $5000/mo with two months off during the summer means ten groups each doing a $500 project each month. One might ask its 50 members for $10/mo. Another might have a spaghetti dinner. The list is endless. Our church raises over $30,000 twice each year for its youth group by holding two mammouth garage sales.
- Plan for the increase. If you do it right your church will attract more members. You will need a bigger church or more services. As your nonprofit grows be sure your planning is out in front of your need.
Two Action Plans With Sub-goals
Below we share two examples of Action Plans with Subgoals. Both of the Goals shown relate to Chimorel. The first enables a Resource Developer to achieve a goal which can be increased once the basics are completed. The second enables a Resource Developer, Manager, Concerned Citizen or Board Member to develop large Introductory meetings, which can be scaled over time to 25,000 attendees four times per year. Click or scroll to learn.
Goal: To become a Chimorel Resource Developer earning $200+/wk part-time.
Sub Goal #1: Making Decisions and Commitments
Sub Goal #2: Starting to Be a Resource Developer
Sub Goal #3: Creating the Revenue Stream
Sub Goal #4: Growing the Revenue Stream
Goal: To organize one large Introductory Meeting every other month for the next two years: 10 new Resource Developers, 200 new clients and $25,000 each meeting.
SG#1: Conduct one feasibility study
SG#2: Invite people to a Party
SG#3: Develop a support group of 20+ core people
SG#4: Work with other Resource Developers
SG#5: Brainstorm Follow Up Action Steps
SG#6: Enhance your Goal
SG#7: Plan for 25,000 people four times/year
SG#1: Making Decisions and Commitments
- Decide the income level you expect and make a commitment to do what it takes. At this point, the example has you earning $200/wk. At the beginning, you start as a volunteer, until you make certain commitments. Then you earn 50% as you train. It could take some time before you become serious, focused and organized enough to earn anything; but if you do get serious, focused and organized you could be earning $200+/wk in a week or two part-time.
- Determine your training commitment. You must first learn about Chimorel, its memberships & programs.. Then it is to your advantage to become serious, focused and organized as you choose which direction is of most interest to you.
- Make a commitment for the time required. If you are well organized and motivated you might be able to earn $20/hr, which would suggest a time commitment of ten hours/wk. At $10/hr you would need 20 hrs/wk. At $8/hr you would need 25 hrs/wk. You will begin to test reality as you begin to figure out what it takes to set ten appointments/wk, for example. The minimum commitment for any serious effort will be 5 hrs/wk, equivalent to $40/hr if you were good enough.
- Decide whether or not to become a member of Chimorel Services, what program(s) might be appropriate for you and as appropriate complete a Membership Application. You are not required to be a member or enter a program to be a Resource Developer, but when someone asks, “What did you do?” it will make a difference if you can talk from the heart about what is happening for you. If you decided to become a member, this would be one of your Chimorel commitments.
- Decide how you will support others. Later you will learn about many Chimorel objectives designed to support others. This is another Chimorel commitment.
- Begin to set specific Goals you want to achieve and develop action plans to achieve your goals.
- Be open to other areas in which you will want to make decisions and commitments.
SG#2: Starting to Be a Resource Developer
- Write down questions you have about your training materials and begin to provide constructive criticism about your training materials.
- Begin to develop questions you will use to test the knowledge of the training materials as you train future Resource Developers. The fastest way to learn is to teach. Developing questions starts this process.
- Determine who has a computer you can use to keep track of prospect data. Determine if you want to earn a Chimorel computer. Appoint someone or become the person to enter and update the data needed. Yes, you can be this person and keep the administrative allocation. You can even be the person someone else appoints.
- Write down a list of 10-50 people – names, addresses, phones, emails and reason to contact. Send this list to Chimorel at Contact Us/to your Manager. Your Manager will review the list and contact you.
- As you learn more about Chimorel, develop a list of things you can do to support people. Place a value on these things with the help of your Manager. This may become the basis for part of your long term compensation.
- Determine where/how you will hold your initial Introductory Meetings and Goal Setting Sessions. This assumes that part of your initial efforts will be to set appointments for Goal Setting Sessions. As you get into other program tracks, this task will change. Where and how may be phone calls, Zoom meeting, actual meetings, Change Your Life Meetings, emails and anything else that supports the people you are introducing to Chimorel. You can work with other Resource Developers, your Manager, Planners, Coordinators and with any program that will support your clients.
- Determine how many receipts you want and learn how to earn receipts. If you use this system, be sure you understand For your Protection.
- Develop a tentative script. If you will be using a computer to generate leads, we will eventually be able to set up a computer driven script for you, but this is something you will earn over time.
- Call, email or meet with your Manager and Planner regularly (1/wk, every 2 wks, 1/mo depending on the time commitment you make) to set meeting times, ask questions and report on progress.
- Add to this list new to do items as they occur to you and as your Manager suggests new items. You will eventually get in the habit of completing tasks and developing new tasks or revising old tasks in order to accomplish your goals.
SG#3: Creating the Revenue Stream
Now it is your turn to create a series of tasks that will become your action plan to generate $200/wk as a Chimorel Resource Developer. After your initial efforts, you and your Manager will revise your action plan as often as needed until you are accomplishing this goal. Why not begin to brainstorm what you need to do right now? We will provide many ways to take this step in our free Success Journey and elsewhere on this website. This sub-goal may eventually turn into many sub-goals. See Goal 2 for possible suggestions.
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This is where the rubber meets the road. You must begin to think through what you will do each day within the time frame you have set for yourself. Yes, of course, your Manager will support you with this important task. However, you must begin the thought process that will lead to your success.
SG#4: Growing the Revenue Stream
This is where the + part begins. Once you have learned what it takes to achieve say a $200 goal, raise it. Achieve bigger and better goals. Eventually, perhaps, you will also want to take steps to make the world a little better, as well.
Goal: To organize one large Introductory Meeting every quarter for the next two years.
10 new Resource Developers, 200 new clients and $25,000 each meeting.
Feasibility Study | Party | 20+ Support Group | Work With Others | Brainstorm |Enhance Goal | 25,000 People, 4x/yr
SG#1: Conduct Feasibility Studies
- Determine how many people to include in your first feasibility study. Minimum five. Suggested initial maximum 10.
- Determine who you want to target with your feasibility study – “People of Influence” or “Friends and Family” or both. We can provide you with the appropriate Feasibility Study Kits.
- Develop and record the list of people you intend to contact. Cross check with Chimorel’s database to avoid duplicate contacts or initiate planned re-contact.
- Practice the interview until you feel comfortable.
- If appropriate, develop a script to set up the Feasibility Study interview. Eventually, you can earn the opportunity to have Chimorel develop a computerized telemarketing script to use, if you are interested.
- Conduct your first feasibility study. As appropriate conduct additional feasibility studies.
- Provide your results to your Manager and review what happened in an effort to determine what went right and correct what went wrong. Follow up as appropriate and accept any benefits earned.
SG#2: Invite people to a Party
- Develop a list and an appropriate script for people you know. Later you will be exposed to a very comprehensive script covering many, many programs and alternatives. At this point you want to keep things simple. “Hi Mary, I am learning about a way to support people and would like to invite you and John over to an Introductory Party this Thursday.”
- Modify the script as needed to call people you don’t know and develop a list. “Mr Evans, I’d like to provide you a little information about a way to support people. If I sent it to you, would you read it. Thanks, I’ll call you back to invite you to an Introductory Meeting to tell you more about what we’re doing. In the meantime let me give you our website. Do you have a pencil and paper? You can log on to Chimorel.com, that’s c h i m o r e l.com. I’ll be getting back with you next week. Thanks for talking to me this evening.” Of course, you will want to develop a follow up script. Chimorel can provide you a list and you can work with your Manager to develop a list. Eventually you will learn to tell the Chimorel story to everyone you meet.
- Determine a date, time, place and refreshments for your Introductory Party.
- Practice your script until you are comfortable.
- Call 20-50 people and invite them to the Introductory Party. You can call people directly or conduct a feasibility study with five+ people. Conclude the study by asking each to attend your Party and bring 2-5 friends.
- Follow up. Make arrangements to Provide Introductory literature. Ask people to log on to www.chimorel.com. When appropriate, ask people to become members. Tell them more about what your plans are. Be sure you have at least five people who really know about what you are planning to do and will come to your Introductory Party. Better yet get ten who know your intentions and who each bring a friend.
- Prepare for the Party. Clean the house. Buy refreshments. Plan activities. Be sure your Manager is aware and makes sure someone will be there to support you.
- Decide how much you will give as a kick off contribution. Have 2-5 others who will make a donation also. Ask your Manager how much he/she will give.
SG#3: Develop a Support Group: 20+ Core People & Others
- Be sure you have at least five enthusiastic supporters who attend your Party. Ask them to consider becoming Members or make a donation. Ask them to invite others. Talk about your goals & plans. Ask them what they think. Ask them to make a list of people to contact. Change the date if you need to.
- Talk with your Manager about your plans. Confirm date, time, place, refreshments and activities for the Party. Develop a four+ minute enthusiastic speech that talks about Chimorel, your plans, and introduces your Manager/helper for the evening. Develop a time line. Be sure you have a list of 10-20 future contacts to provide to each person who will attend.
- At the first Party, discuss Chimorel, goal setting, answer questions, conduct a brief activity, and serve refreshments. Two hours is about the maximum and there is a lot to do, so be well organized and keep to your time line.
- Ask for donations and get indications of other interest and support. Your Manager will announce his/her donation. You announce your donation and time commitment. Let those who made an advance commitment announce their contributions, Membership and time commitment. Ask each person for a contribution of time and/or money. Determine who will be the data entry person for the group (Arrange in advance. If no volunteers, you are the data entry person).
- Provide a tentative script, get & give lists and practice scripts. Discuss the importance of being prepared before calling people. Provide tentative scripts. Get copies of each person’s list. Provide lists so each person has 20-30 people to contact. Keep track of who gets what. Role play / practice using the scripts. Encourage people to develop a script that fits their personality, but expect them to review the script with you/your supervisor before using it. This is a lot. Most likely you will hold more than one meeting or Zoom call, provide a training manual and use other strategies to get it all done.
- Set the time, dates and places for the next several meetings. Some people will not be comfortable calling strangers. Invite them over to work with them to practice. The next few meetings may involve planning for larger meetings, script development and practice, list development, fun activities that tell the Chimorel story, real or pretend Goal Setting sessions and new larger Parties/Meetings to introduce more people to the Chimorel story.
- Develop 20+ core people and arrange large meeting details. You want 20+ core people who will consistently invite 10-20 new people, manage 5-10 others who each invite 5-20 new people, and support you with the details of putting on large meetings. The details will include: Developing sponsors. Selling brochure advertising and creating brochures. Arranging an ongoing meeting place. Setting up new/exciting activities so that each Introductory Meeting is fun, exciting and tells the story in a different manner. Setting up food and other sales. This is just a beginning. We will discuss Core people development and large meeting details later in much greater depth.
- Follow up frequently. Turning your first Party into a strong support group, ongoing larger meetings and active involvement in supporting thousands of people requires that you learn to handle many details and be sure someone follows up with many people on a regular basis. You don’t want to do all of the follow up yourself. You want to train your support group to do most of the follow up. They will be doing what you did as you set up your first Party and more.
SG#4: Work with other Resource Developers
- Form an original task force of Resource Developers. Consistently develop new Resource Developers.
- Determine what needs to be done and who will do it.
- Locate a meeting place. Prepare it for each meeting.
- Create a theme for each meeting.
- Establish ongoing marketing programs.
- Develop relationships with concerned groups.
- Sell sponsorships, advertising, food and other items.
- Determine and set up activities.
- Invite participants, then develop clients through follow up.
Notes for Action Step 1: Form Resource Developer Task Force
With a little encouragement many of your Volunteers may want to become Resource Developers. Their motivation may be to improve their own lives through the resources they develop . They may have a cause they want to support, or a combination of both. Whatever the motivation, once you have at least ten, better 20+, responsible Resource Developers, you can develop a meaningful large Introductory Meeting program.
As you and other Resource Developer achieve your goals, you build a track record you can share with friends, volunteers, participants and clients. In time developing ten new Resource Developers every two months will become easier and easier. The problem then will be to manage their training and growth. At the beginning, however, you will need to make a consistent effort to meet this goal.
Notes for Action Step 2: Determine What Needs to be Done
Locate a meeting place. Create a theme for each meeting and ongoing marketing programs. Develop & train a pool of enthusiastic volunteers. Develop relationships with other concerned groups. Sell sponsorships and advertising. Set up food and other item sales. Determine and set up activities for each meeting. Prepare the meeting place. Invite participants. Determine what else needs to be done. Follow up, follow up, follow up. Now that you know what needs to be done, who will do it. It should not be you for everything.
Notes for Action Step 3: Locate Meeting Place
You might start small, then move to a bigger place. However, developing a consistent place capable of accommodating 1000-2000 people with adequate parking and good traffic flow, space for activities and rooms / booths for sponsors, concerned groups and Chimorel programs will lend stability to an ongoing Introductory Meeting program.
For each meeting, someone will need to set up each room or booth. You may want to have a sound system for music, announcements and dramatic effect for certain activities. Someone will want to plan when and where activities will occur so they don’t compete with each other. Someone needs to clean up afterward.
Notes for Action Step 4: Create a Meeting Theme
Each Introductory Meeting wants to feel new, exciting and different. Participants will come again and again and invite others, if they find each meeting fun, different, entertaining and a place where they learn about new opportunities every time they come.
Notes for Action Step 5: Create Separate Marketing Programs
Separate marketing programs targeting volunteers, concerned groups, sponsors and advertisers, participants and clients need to be developed. Once each marketing program is developed it must be maintained, enhanced and diversified periodically.
Notes for Action Step 6: Develop relationships with concerned groups.
If this month’s theme is the environment, you may want to develop relationships with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Ohio EPA, the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio, and 3-10 nonprofit groups concerned about the environment. Some groups may want to sponsor the meeting. Other groups may want to enter into joint fund raising. Perhaps several planning meetings with all the groups may lead to an ongoing joint effort to accomplish one or more projects which are promoted at Introductory Meetings.
If we ask someone to pay $500 to tell their story, we may only get a few groups to participate. On the on the other hand, if we tackle some real problems that many groups are genuinely concerned about and help develop meaningful solutions, many organizations will get involved and the resources will follow.
Notes for Action Step 7: Sell sponsorships, advertising, food, etc.
If this month’s theme is retirement, you may find banks, insurance companies, financial planners, stock brokers and others interested in sponsoring or advertising at your Introductory Meeting. Your church and 1-2 concerned organizations interested in senior citizens may want to set up food booths which generate revenue for a specific cause (meals on wheels, a retirement center, etc.) A financial organization may be willing to make a donation for every sale resulting from your meeting. Someone may want to sell books, tapes, etc about retirement.
Notes for Action Step 8: Determine Activities
If the theme is recycling, you may have two or three endless loop videos that bring home the need to recycle. Every 1/2 hour someone may take an apple, cut it into 12 pieces, peel one piece, explain that that represents the amount of useable water in the earth. The list of activities is limited only by your creative imagination and research. Activities should involve participants and encourage them to take steps to achieve their goals. This might include a focus group, a demonstration showing how much a group could earn by recycling cans and white paper, or setting up a program to recycle computers to schools for inner city kids.
Notes for Action Step 9: Invite & Follow Up
Get lists of prospective participants from concerned groups, sponsors and advertisers. Train volunteers from each group to invite participants and to follow up. Include invitations in news letters, posters at organizations, bill stuffers, church bulletins, and any other media available to open doors to greater involvement. Call people.
Inviting participants starts with your creativity and research. In the end, people talking to people with follow up and exciting reasons to get involved will be the most effective way to get prospects to come. Once there is a consistent time and place to meet on a regular basis with new and exciting things to do each time, it will become easier and easier to get participants to come. Always develop ways to follow up.
Your immediate and long term income will depend on turning participants into clients. Most of the time participants will become clients because someone follows up with them either before the meeting, at the meeting and/or after the meeting. Your activities, interest groups and available literature should include things that tell the Chimorel story, give people the opportunity to log on to Chimorel’s website, teach participants about Chimorel programs and memberships, and provide powerful reasons to set goals, enter a program or become a member. This will happen more frequently as participants come back to exciting, different Introductory Meetings that repeatedly tell the Chimorel story and give them reasons to get involved. All available Resource Developers and volunteers should be actively telling the story, selling programs and enrolling members before, at and after each Introductory Meeting.
SG#5: Brainstorm Follow Up Action Steps
Did you notice that the action step typically was a brief command statement? Like “Invite participants, then develop clients through follow up.” Through a command statement, you clearly tell yourself what to do. Now you expect yourself to do it.
Then did you notice the explanatory detail which followed? The detail helps you clarify, explain and remember what to do. Sometimes you will just know what to do and you won’t need to write any explanatory detail. Other times you will want to train someone to help you or clarify what to do before beginning. In these circumstances, explanatory detail will be very helpful. As in #4 above, detail can become its own section.
Why not practice brainstorming now? Write command statements designed to enable you follow up before, during and after your first Introductory Meeting. When it could be helpful, add explanatory detail to each command statement.
SG#6: Enhance your Goal
This section is like Goal #1: Subgoal #4. Once you are achieving 10 new Resource Developers, 200 new clients and a revenue stream exceeding $25,000 for each two month Introductory Meeting, its time to raise your goals. Perhaps you want to establish Recycling Centers or take on feeding the hungry in your community or create monthly auctions at five warehouse locations in your community. Dream big, then make it happen. Do something today! Be thankful tomorrow!
SG#7: Plan for 25,000 people four times/year
This is the next step up. Do you have your brainstorm hat ready. We’ll work on this together.
Impossible | All Factors | Motivation | Targets | One Target | Replicate/InvolveOthers | Focus On You
Make a List
Create Sub-goals
When you first begin to develop an Action Plan, you make a list of things you need to do. As your list grows to more than ten items, you breakdown your list into sub-goals and action steps for your sub-goals. Perhaps you use some of our examples and To Do opportunities to help you get started.
Each item on your list of action steps is a command statement telling you to do something. Sometimes you include explanatory detail to help you clarify, explain or remember what to do.
Some Goals Seem Almost Impossible
As you set your goal, it is possible to set really big goals which seem to be impossible to achieve. This is when you learn to establish manageable targets. You break your impossible goal into mini goals, phases and individual intentions. You establish roles and create opportunities for those who will support you. You develop and train leaders. You stretch your leaders and their colleagues with targets that add up to more than your original goal. You teach everyone involved to do things that make it happen. You trigger action by making decisions that conform to what needs to be done.
Address all the Elements
Now let’s address a major factor in achieving an almost impossible goal. You must determine all of the elements or factors that need to be done. There are political factors, technical factors, competitive factors, people who just don’t or won’t understand, really rich/powerful people who think they will be harmed by sharing with the little people and much more.
Let’s consider some really big problems to illustrate: Global warming, world hunger, arrogant dictators, weapons of mass destruction, over population and resource scarcity, world peace, migration restrictions, criminal justice reform, racism and bigotry, economic empowerment of global poor, educational reform, global healthcare, water scarcity, government corruption, religious conflicts and fundamentalism, inequality, factory farming, global terrorism, peak oil (gas, uranium), global tyranny. We might be able to find more big problems, but this list is a good start.
Each of these big problems must address a wide variety of factors – political, technical, competitive, etc. To address world hunger, we must identify where the hungry people are, where the food supplies are, what the obstacles that keep the food from the hungry are, where are the opportunities to increase food for the hungry, what powerful forces benefit from hungry people and much more. For each issue we must identify and address a similar list of factors. We will most likely find that many of the issues are related and that addressing some issues will address other issues.
Create the Motivation
And now you might ask, so why bother? This is a pretty significant question. If you take a nihilistic or materialist world view, you will most likely have trouble with the quantum belief that we are all connected at a profoundly deep level and that what I do to hurt you hurts me.
Taking a materialistic world view tends to lead to the conclusion that nothing really matters and therefore setting goals, developing action plans and breaking things down into manageable targets isn’t worth the bother.
On the other hand, if you accept our belief that working together we can all make the world a little better, you can develop the motivation to help yourself and support others. So when you have a really big problem you want to solve or a huge goal you want to achieve, you will take the steps to make it happen. Of course, if you really want to achieve your big goal or solve a complicated problem, developing the motivation is a critical element.
Break the Big Goal Into Targets
So now that the motivation is in place, let’s proceed. A big goal like genuinely supporting 50,0000 people, most likely needs to be broken down into phases, mini goals and individual intentions. If you really put your mind to it, you might have a meaningful annual impact on perhaps 20 to 100 people. Through the internet, you may be able to touch the lives of many more people, but you are unlikely to have time to truly impact all of these people.
To truly impact the lives of 20 people, you must spend meaningful time with them. You have a job. You probably have a family. You need time to sleep, eat, etc. So if each week has 168 hours and you spend 6 hrs/day sleeping, 8 hrs/day working and 2 hrs on other things you have 56 hours/wk (168-112) to support 20-100 people . Obviously, this is not a realistic allocation of your time, but spending 30 minutes to 4 hours/week is not an unrealistic amount of time to truly support someone. This is why we suggest that it takes many people to truly support one person and that you need to limit the number of people you support.
Focus on One Achievable Target
It might take six months to two+ years to truly support one person. You can enhance the support when many people support each other. If you support 10 to 20 people/year, you could impact 50-100 people every five years. Supporting 50,000 people means breaking this goal into phases of 2500, 5000, 7500, 10,000, 12,500 and 15,000. Then breaking each 2500 target into 500 people mini goals and individual intentions of 50 people supporting 10 others.
Supporting one person means that you invite that person to get involved. Then leaders are in place to develop the needed resources. These leaders must be recruited and trained. Leaders will be members, Resource Developers, Managers, Planners, Coordinators, investors, employers, sponsors, affiliates, joint venture partners and others.
As you set about accomplishing your significant goal, your initial focus will be on one element. You will break your almost impossible goal down into manageable targets. Then you will focus on one specific target at a time.
Replicate Your Achievement, Involve Others
Many times your target will be a money target. If you want to make a million dollars, your initial target might be to sell one $5,000,000 plane which generates a 2% commission or $100,000 for you. Your initial target is one $100,000 commission. You then replicate your initial target ten times to achieve your $1,000,000.
For Chimorel’s 50,000 goal, the initial target is one person that you invite. You then replicate that target ten times. Perhaps it takes you two months to achieve this initial objective. You then replicate your objective five times during the year for a total of 50 people.
Some of the people who get involved, support you. Perhaps you directly support ten people during the year. Our Managers and Planners support twenty people you invite and another twenty people you invite catch the vision on their own. 25 of these people each invite 10 to 50 people and soon we achieve a mini goal of 500.
Each person is getting stronger, achieving their goals and many more resources are becoming available to support others. 500 grows to the first phase of 2500. The first phase doubles to 5000. Perhaps within two years all phases are completed and there are more than 50,000 reaching out to make the world a little better
Achieving your goals can follow a similar pattern. You involve a few people. You train them. They reach out to others who reach out to others. Achieving your impossible goal becomes possible.
Focusing On You
As we just suggested, your almost impossible goal can take a similar approach. It does not matter whether you call a target a phase, a mini goal, an individual intention or something else. You may only break your big goal down once, as in the $100,000 x ten. You may break the goal down to multiple levels as we did from 50,000 down to 50×10 through multiple levels (phases, mini goals & individual intentions). Your goal could be defined in terms of money or some other specific number.
Each time you break down your big goal into smaller targets, you must put in place the other factors you need. Big goals require many people. Those people must be motivated to support you. You need to enable them to achieve their goals through your support and/or pay them in some way which enables them to achieve their goals on their own. Every leadership role in Chimorel has both an altruistic element and a compensation element. Cash is not the only motivating factor, but it can be useful.
