If you’ve used the Get Clients Now! 28-Day Program, you know there are two different types of action-oriented elements you can include: Success Ingredients and Daily Actions. Recently I’ve gotten several questions about the distinctions between these two, so let’s take a closer look.

Here are the definitions found in the Get Clients Now! book:

• Success Ingredients – the missing ingredients you need to be successful in your marketing and that you plan to create during the program
• Daily Actions – ten specific steps you plan to take on a daily or weekly basis during the program

Success Ingredients are based on projects; their creation has a defined beginning and end. A Success Ingredient is expressed as the end result you want to achieve. Daily Actions are steps you could take every day or every week, theoretically forever; they do not expire. A Daily Action is expressed as a phrase that describes what you will do and how often.

Examples of Success Ingredients:

• New website
• Blog added to my website
• Entrepreneurial groups to speak to
• Completed brochure in the mail
• List of agents to pitch my book to
• Updated LinkedIn profile
• New contact management system chosen
• Contact management system installed and operating

Some things of note:

• Notice the last 2 Success Ingredients are two different items. Which one you choose will depend on where you are in the process of choosing, setting up, or using your contact management system. If you choose this Success Ingredient, you would only choose one of these, not both, so as to not overwhelm yourself. Once one of them is complete, you can move on to the other one. This is an example of being specific and honing in on where you are with your project.
• Since Success Ingredients are project based, they may have a completion date that is different than that of the end of the 28-day program. It’s OK to choose a target date that is more than a month away, just as it’s OK to choose one that’s only a week into the program. The target completion date depends on the Success Ingredient you’ve chosen and your best estimate of when that can be completed.
• As you move through the 28-day program, Success Ingredients are measured as percentage completed. This helps you keep track of the progress you’re making as compared to your target completion date and adjust accordingly the attention you pay to the project, and the speed at which you are working. You can also adjust the completion date if necessary to be more realistic.

Examples of Daily Actions:

• Submit 1 essay per week to a literary journal
• Contact 6 biopharmaceutical companies in person each week
• Enter new contacts and updated information into my contact management system daily
• Write personalized query letters 3 times per week to literary agents
• Host an open house 2 times per week
• Answer questions on LinkedIn once per week
• Read a popular Real Estate book chapter or brief article daily
• Send out my newsletter once per week

Some things of note:

• Daily Actions must be done at least once per week. If it’s something that happens only once a month, then it’s not eligible to be a Daily Action.
• Daily Actions are measured with a yes or no — you either did them or you didn’t. It’s not a percentage of completion measurement as with the Success Ingredients.

One area of possible confusion is that the program suggests you have one or two Appetizers included in your Daily Actions. Appetizers are actions that will help you to create or acquire Success Ingredients, as opposed to your Main Course actions, which are focused directly on getting business. You should never have more than two Appetizers in your program. Possible appetizers would be:

• Spend 1 hour each day on my Success Ingredient projects
• Complete 1 item each day from my Success Ingredient project list
• Practice my skills or script once per day

Examples of writing items as Success Ingredients vs. Daily Actions

Each of these elements you may wish to include in your program could be written as a Success Ingredient, an Appetizer Daily Action, or a Main Course Daily Action:

• Look for schools to give my flyers to and go to 10 schools by the end of the month.
  – As a Success Ingredient: 10 schools to give flyers to
  – As an Appetizer Daily Action: Spend 1 hour twice per week identifying schools to give flyers to
  – As a Main Course Daily Action: Give my flyer to 2 schools per week (this presumes you already know what those schools are)
• Add 20 new social media connections each week in the first three weeks of January and interact with them.
  – As a Success Ingredient: 60 new social media connections
  – As an Appetizer Daily Action: Spend 1/2 hour per day adding social media connections
  – As a Main Course Daily Action: Spend 1/2 hour per day interacting with my social media connections (this presumes you have already established them)
• Launch a new coaching program.
  – As a Success Ingredient: New coaching program designed
  – As an Appetizer Success Ingredient: Spend 1 hour per day designing my coaching program
  – As a Main Course Daily Action: Pitch my new coaching program to one person each day (this presumes the program has already been designed)

Whether designing a Success Ingredient or a Daily Action, remember that a confused mind doesn’t accomplish tasks very well. Specificity is important! Once you understand the distinction between a Success Ingredient and a Daily Action, your 28-day program can be even more successful. You’ll be able to rely more on the Persistence Effect and have a clear course of action for 28-days. When in doubt, use the Success Ingredient Shopping List and the Action Plan Menu in the book to select appropriate items or guide you in designing your own. Remember this is your program, so have fun choosing your items, pursuing your goal, and being specific!