I have just returned from the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS) conference. My mind is overflowing with new ideas, solutions to issues I was pondering before I went and a myriad of others things. I am bursting with enthusiasm and energy about where my business is going in 2018!

As excited as I am, let me hit pause for a moment here. One of the things I know about firsthand and I hear time and time again from many of my coaching clients is the ‘overwhelm factor’. You attend all of these great sessions, hear amazing speakers, talk to people who are achieving great success in their business, find out that online learning is the place to be and live streaming is the wave of the future, are told you need a website that does this and that, you have to do videos, be active on social media and be a sales and marketing expert! WOW, I just felt my blood pressure rise writing this.

First things first, let me congratulate you on attending the conference because many will not make the investment of both time and money to go. However, if you are now back in your office and anything I just said about the post-conference whirlwind is resonating with you I would like to help.

Here are four tips to help you to decompress and take stock of what you heard at the conference so it remains an investment in your personal development and your business and does not simply become more shelf help. These are the tips I share with my coaching clients and what better timing could this be than the end of a year, getting ready for 2018 planning and rocking the house.

• Stop! This is not the time to run around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to implement everything you heard at the conference. It is vital to take some time to create a quiet space for yourself to digest your notes, shift through everything you brought home with you and to think. Think about what you want to accomplish with the new information and knowledge you now have in your possession.

• Create a plan. The New Year is right around the corner and you should be planning for 2018 if you have not already done so. Before I left for the conference, I set up a full day planning meeting with my team for the week after I returned so I would have time to digest everything and decide what my key takeaways are. The last thing you want to do is go into a planning session with yourself or your team with the ‘shiny object’ look still alive in your eyes. All this will accomplish is confusion for yourself and lack of direction for everyone.

• Network. I know you didn’t just sit in your room during the conference – you went out and met, talked to and learned from other like-minded professionals, but networking needs to continue after the conference. You just spent your money and your time to meet many new people who are just like you and they also attended in order to make connections to grow their business. Please reach out to the people you met and continue the conversation! There are opportunities for collaboration, introductions and a ton of other things you might never have considered but you will never know if you do not reach out.

• Finally yet most importantly – Do not do it alone! One of the things I see and hear repeatedly with entrepreneurs and sales professionals is they think they can go to a conference, simply buy a book or have a quick strategy call with someone and they are good to go. Wrong! One of the most important pieces when it comes to implementing and accomplishing goals is the coaching support. However, the most common comment I hear when the subject of coaching comes up in a conversation is the cost and affordability. This is the worse self-defeating language I hear time and time again and if you continue to view coaching as a cost vs. an investment, you are simply sabotaging yourself. Coaching is an investment that pays off by helping you to grow your business so you make more money, sleep soundly at night and have fun along the way. Now doesn’t that sound good!

Being an entrepreneur or sales professional can often feel like an isolating career but you do not have to do it alone. Please reach out if you have been thinking about coaching or believe this is the time for you to take the initiative to add a coach to your team. I would be pleased to talk with you about how we can work together in 2018 to achieve your goals!

To Your Success!