True confession time….

I don’t listen like most people.  25 years of being a psychotherapist has given me a bit of an ‘edge’ when it comes to hearing what’s said, what’s not said, and the energy around all of that.

So when I hear language that screams out a really faulty belief under the surface, you bet I release out my inner bloodhound and jump all over that!

Like the other day when I had a session with a client and we were discussing why she priced her product so low.  What she said about threw me out of my chair.

“Everyone knows women are cheap.”

I let it roll the first few times, but when she tried to use that again to justify her unrealistically low price point, I could no longer sit there!

Ya see, this is where my head goes -

If you have that belief, then YOU GET TO BE RIGHT and you’ll have a bunch of cheap women taking up your time and resources and never buying anything because that’s what you decided to be true.

Instead of screaming, I very nicely said, “Hey…I gotta stop you here because women are not cheap.  I’m not cheap and the women I know spend tons of money on things they value.

I then explained to her that clearly she had that belief and it must be banished from her language, or that would be her reality.  She got it when I explained the value piece, because here she was paying good $ for coaching, so it must be true. 

Now if the word police followed you around for a week, what would they notice coming out of your mouth?  Our beliefs are revealed through the words we use.  (Did I tell you the one where a new client kept referring to her “little business” until I corrected her and requested that she only refer to it as her big business!  AHHHHHH…..This stuff makes me nuts, gang.)

The gift of watching your language is that you become aware of hidden beliefs that are holding you back.

So here is the exercise I suggest – ask someone you are close with to listen for certain things.  They could listen for self deprecating statements you slip out, or they could be on the look out for any statements where you play small – like “my little business”, or a new “little idea.”  Have them give you feedback on that, then correct it immediately.  The goal is to extinguish and correct this language, but you also may have to look at where it’s coming from and if you have some funky energy around something you just don’t know about.  Your language is like the window to this for you.

Truthfully, I just got busted by my mastermind group when I spoke some language that showed some weird energy.  My point is that no matter how evolved you are, how long you’ve been in business, or have been doing personal growth work, your language is rife with those little slippery places where you are showing some of your ’stuff.’  What it takes to change it?  AWARENESS!

That and a sassy business and mindset coach!

Let me know how this lands for you, and what tricks you use to avoid those pesky word police.

Blessings!

“What do you want to achieve in this session,” I asked.

“Can you review the new sales page that I wrote,” she said.

That’s where it started.  And fifty minutes later she had a completely different business model, had a plan to quadruple her income, and added a membership site for more leveraged revenue.

What a rewarding time!  Doing Strategy Sessions is one of my most favorite things because I can take the persons business, understand what motivates them, find what they desire, rip the heck out of their current model, then spin something really amazing out of all the pieces.

In this case we went from a business owner who sold only a $19 ebook, and turned it into a $97 Toolkit.  We then added a 90 day free membership for everyone who buys her  product so she moved from a one time purchase to monthly income.  How cool is that?!?  Let’s do the numbers – if she had 50 sales at $19 she’d be making $950/mo.  50 sales at the new price is over $4800!  Just one tweak and she’s rolling in the dough.

It got me thinking of how many creative entrepreneurs spend so much time energy and money, yet don’t have a business model that has the maximum revenue potential.

A couple of years ago I coached a woman who had a list of 22,000.  (Imagine that!)  She sold one thing – a $247 info product that she was getting ready to sink loads of money in to create videos and promotion for.  The problem was that this was a one time use.  So she had a huge list, worked her butt off to market, but once she made a sale, there was no other offering for those purchasers to get.

The solution?  We also created a funnel for her and added different levels of membership, and a higher end coaching program.   Finally, she could leverage that huge list and get loyal fans who kept coming back for more.

Now I want you to look at your business.  Is there a way to add more offerings?  Can you sell a upgraded version of your product?  Do you have a mechanism to have your customers return, or do they buy once and leave you?

An hour spent brainstorming these three questions can make your life (and revenue) a lot sweeter!  Think outside the box my friends……

And if you need some more support, get a hold of me and we’ll work some magic on your biz.

Blessings,

In the first two parts of this “Breakthrough on a Water Slide” series- we talked about the fear, and getting through it, but  let me tell you what happens in business.

After a few years, you reach a certain level of mastery. But then you hit another wall. You have to deal with these three questions -

How do you take yourself from where you are, and really get expert status?.

How do you get to be well known?

How can you have a leveraged business, and have a solid client base.

Those are the questions and the challenges of this stage. At this point having mastery isn’t enough. You ability to attract your ideal clients means you need to have ‘the hook’ of what makes you different, special, unique, etc. For example, it’s not enough just to be a chiropractor. Your success depends on you being able to articulate very clearly why you are better and there has to be enough to differentiate you from the crowd. And this journey is not easy.

When I was trapped in that black tube, with no control and NO WAY OUT BUT THROUGH, it hit me that so many business owners get stuck right here. At times there literally is nothing you can do but surrender to the process. You can’t force, push, control or manipulate your next phase of growth. And here’s the thing – everyone goes through this. If they aren’t talking about it, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t’ been in the dark, not sure how to get out, not sure where the next client is coming from. But being in that tube, and having the experience of just surrendering to the flow, taught me huge lessons. Part of it is in our control, but the rest isn’t. Sure…you can market a bit more, but you will go through some dark times when you are ready to make the leap.

Let me wrap up with my process for how to get on the other side if you are feeling like you are in the dark or aren’t sure how to get over your business blocks.

1. Make a decision. It always starts with the decision. For me it took noticing that my kids were off having fun and I was all alone standing there in the heat, missing out. I decided that my fear would turn into an opportunity for growth. What do you need to decide in your life and business?

2. Ask for help from someone who has been there before you. Thankfully, the lads had been on all the slides so knew which one to start me on. You will be well served by enlisting support from people who are committed to your success, but can show you the way themselves.

3. Use all the tools you have. Truthfully, doing EFT on top of the slide was probably quite funny to some people around me and I’m sure my boys were horrified (cuz aren’t all kids embarrassed by what their parents do) but it worked. I’d make a list right now of the tools that you need to get you through to the other side. Maybe that’s doing some meditation or journaling, or creating a vision board. Just pull ‘em out and start using them.

4.  Put yourself in an environment that will challenge you. I hear from almost every creative entrepreneur that their big breakthroughs don’t happen while sitting in front of their computers!  Get outside. Do something physical.  Change your scenery, and you will open up to new possibilities you had not seen before.

5. Have some fans. Part of the cool thing for me was that my kids saw me conquer a huge fear. In fact my son said, “Mom, does it kind of bug you that you have missed out on water slides and all this fun for fifty years.” Yeah John, it really bugged me, but now I now get to make the next 50 years full of more fun! My kids were super excited and proud. Who is in your life that is cheering you on? When you are going through one of these ‘dark nights’ in your business, there is nothing more important than cheerleaders who can show you how far you have come and what’s possible.

That’s my story!  Now I want you to share yours.  Where did your big breakthrough occur?  And what has changed because of that?  Put a comment on the blog and share please.

Blessings!

Therese

This one surprised me.

I was coaching a woman who is incredibly talented in what she does.  In fact, she’s positioned to make close to a seven figure income in a year, so the gal knows her stuff! Trust me – you’ll know her name very soon as she rolls her marketing out in a big way.

We were working on the elements of her ’squeeze’ page and other items for her new blog.  That’s when it happened.

I said, “Okay, so now what you need to do is to put those things we just talked about in your calendar and get them done.”  She said, “Yeah, but how?”  I said, “You just do it!”

She said, “But Therese, that’s where I break down.  I can’t figure out what to do in what order, so because of that I do nothing.  I need you to help me with that.”

Truthfully – probably not my greatest coaching moment – I giggled.  I couldn’t believe it!  This woman is so powerful and fearless about picking up the phone and getting clients, that I was shocked.  Luckily we have a good relationship and so she said, “I know you are giggling because you see me as really successful and you always see the best in me, but this is where I could really use your help because I always get stuck right here.”

So I took her through the process of deciding what to work on, which order, with how much time, and then to put it into her calendar so it could get completed.  She was delighted, and I had learned something really valuable as a result.

What I learned was that we all have areas where we struggle.  We all can look brilliant and talented on the outside, but experience places in our business where things don’t come easy to us.

For me it’s spreadsheets.  I feel completely ill equipped to work spreadsheets.  They are like doing neurosurgery or something in my book and I look at people who can use the functions (like adding!) as demi-gods who I respect and admire!  I used to say that in my world, before I was an entrepreneur, Excel was a phone company!  This is one of my huge weaknesses.  But do I beat myself up for it?  Maybe playfully, but what I do do is to have an assistant who is a rock star with this stuff so I don’t have to try to slog through it, feeling stupid and frustrated.  I get to focus on what my unique brilliance is.

The morale of the story?  Everyone has both an inner rock star, and an inner goofball who can’t figure out what seems to be the simplest of tasks.  The goal is to not beat yourself, but to get the support around you that allows you to S-H-I-N-E.

I’d love you to share with me your thoughts.  Feel free to post your comments.

Blessings,

Therese

This is an oldie but a goodie!  I’m reprinting it because there are times when we get stuck and have trouble ‘keepin on keeping on.”  You’ll find some inspiration for how to stay focused and moving forward.

Shut up and run!

February 7th, 2007

There are times in your life when you need to keep going, but things get hard.  You know the times.  Maybe your assistant quits, or you are shifting away from your existing model of running your business, so are feeling overwhelmed? You aren’t alone…we’ve all been through it.

How do you keep going when all you want to do is go back to bed and pull the covers over your head?

I was working with a client the other day who was in a similar situation.  She was ready to give up on herself and her dream business because things were hard in the moment.

You want to know what I did that totally shifted her out of that, in about 2 minutes?  (That’s my speciality, by the way…finding where you are blocked.  Guess you could call me a roto rooter for your mind!)

My solution was that I had her remember a time when she felt exactly the same way.  After searching in her past, she told me of a time when she was running a marathon.  As the race wore on, she hit the wall.  She was tired, frustrated, and didn’t think she could keep going,  and at about the 13th mile had her cell phone out and was going to call a taxi.  She was ready to give up on herself.

After she remembered this time in her life, I had her go back to that place, and discover what it was in her that shifted and allowed her to keep running.  Where did the perseverance come from?  How did she move from being in a place of pain, to just giving herself permission to take the next few steps?  She remember that it was a shift in her self talk and that she could come into a place of power JUST FROM DECIDING to make it so! Once she decided, she could persevere, regardless of the pain.  She then had the sweet, sweet knowledge of victory as she crossed the finish line.

I call this your Mount Everest Moment.  Or you can use your Rocky Balboa moment if you are into that.  The moment when you have reached the top of the mountain or run up the stairs, fists pumping in the air, singing the victory song.  We’ve all had them.  I’ll ask you now to think of a time in your life when you had to dig in and pull out strength you didn’t know you had.  The trick is to replicate that.  For my client, her new mantra is, “Shut up and keep running.”  For reals…she’s posted it all over the place, so she’s got an anchor to that time when she was strong and invincible.

What is it for you?  If you could watch the movie of your life and find that frame where you stopped time, blasted through your fear or doubt, and became invincible…what happened?  You can do that in any moment you choose.

I dare you to keep going!!!!!!

Focus on the good,

Therese

OK, here’s the deal…

You are going to spend at least one third to one half of YOUR LIFE working. So why not make it something that gives you joy?

Today’s article is about looking at your business not just as a ‘cash machine’ or a form of revenue generation, but more of something that becomes an extension of you…and your life’s mission. Deep stuff I know, but since we are gonna be putting in all those hours, at the end of the day, let’s find a way to make it matter.

Since this article is not your basic Marketing 101 type of article, I want to set up in the beginning who I’m writing to.

If you are the kind of business owner who understands that in some ways your business is like your ministry, I’m talking to you. If you feel called to fully express your gifts through your business, I’m talking to you. If it’s important to you to serve as many people as you can, I’m talking to you. And if you are passionate about leaving a legacy – then you are my people…So let’s get going…

Business as Your Ministry –

I’m not referencing here the traditional or religious sense of the word ministry. To me it means that you know that your soul’s purpose is being expressed through your business and the services that you provide. One of the definitions of ministry is “the act of serving.” You may be a coach or speaker or own a store. Your work can be done consciously or unconsciously. You can look for ways where you can show up more fully and be of greater service, or it can just be a way to collect a paycheck. You get to decide.

That’s the absolute first step. If you have the sense that your business is like your personal ministry, you stand in the knowing that you are here to serve and are committed to that. From that level of commitment and decision, everything else falls into place.

Fully Expressing Your Gifts –

We are here to make a difference in people’s lives. (OK, that may be my belief, but I like it and am keeping it!) Your business becomes effortless when you express your gifts in the world, instead of trying to be what other people want you to be. This is where fulfillment lives, where passion lives, and its cute little down the street neighbor, Fun, lives!

First you have to know what your gifts are. And a big hint…what you think is easy and comes naturally and likely gets overlooked as “Doesn’t everyone have that?” – That’s YOUR gift. Take an inventory of what you do easily that your clients are really blown away by. Notice your passion-meter. What gets you juiced to talk about or do? Show up more fully in your business and you’ll not only enjoy it more, but you’ll also attract the RIGHT kind of clients who will resonate with your unique energy, AND you’ll also make more money doing it.

Stuck on what your gifts are? Ask! Survey your clients or close friends/mastermind partners and ask what they see that you are gifted at. You will probably be surprised at what they see that you have overlooked. Next – assign a value to what they say that your gifts are. You have to really own how much impact you have, so discovering what your gifts are worth is a huge step in gaining entrepreneurial confidence! When you really get clear about how much value you bring, raising your rates and being paid what you are worth will be easy.

Leaving a Legacy –

What will your footprint be? When you are gone, how will you be remembered? By the lives you touched? For the contributions you made? From the children you so tenderly raised?

Is legacy something that you strive for, or a thing that just happens when you show up and do your work in the world?

It’s my belief that sometimes we get so bogged down with the daily ‘to-do’ list that it’s easy to forget that we are here to make a difference. What would change in your business if you regularly tapped into that place in you that could hold the longer vision of what’s possible.

This legacy stuff on one hand feels a bit big and scary. But on the other hand, it can be energizing when you tap into the knowledge that your ideas and contributions will outlive you. I remember years ago meeting a copywriter and her big dream was “to be an influence.” It hadn’t occurred to me at the time that my scope was any broader that the local folks I was working with, but her soul knew that her purpose here was to influence how people thought and to help them open up to new possibilities.

What will it be for you? It’s not something I want you to ‘work’ at or stress over, but do give it some thought. If you create that new product, can you see the ripple effect? Imagine that 100 people work with you, and that work effects 10 of their friends, and five more down the road, in their networks. Can you see the endless possibilities?

So my wish for you, my dear reader, is to really do some thinking about the meaning of your business and the difference you make in the world because of it. Own your vision in a big way! We need that from you.

I can see it now…..

A room full of grizzly looking, sleep deprived entrepreneurs sitting around wondering what happened to their dreams of success.

One by one they start to share their stories:

“Hi, I’m Amy.  I am an email addict.”  I sit down to work on the projects that would make me money, but every time that email alert pops in, I’m bouncing to check on who could have possibly contacted me.  So by the end of the day, I’m drained, overwhelmed, and have accomplished nothing!.”

Next is Dave, who has the tell tale dark circles under his eyes.  “Hi I’m Dave, and my life has become unmanageable as a result of the distraction of email.  My problem is that I can’t sleep until I know every email is done, sent, or responded to.  Its freaky…in fact, if I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, or can’t sleep, I will head straight to my computer to finish off the email that came in when I was away.  And can I share my biggest shame?  I secretly get a little bummed when it’s about one in the morning and I hit the send/receive button and nothing comes.  I’m a mess.”

But the saddest one of all is Ray, who sits in the corner, barely able to hold his head up.  “Hi, my story is sort of similar but it’s not just email that’s causing me to get off track and waste hours and hours and hours.  Mine is that damn Facebook and Twitter.  In the old days I’d give myself about thirty minutes to ’surf the web’ as we used to call it back then, but with the inventions like Tweetdeck, I’m screwed!  Now it takes all the energy I can muster to get anything done.  And you want to know the worst part of it?  As a coach, when I’m supposed to be listening to my clients on the phone, I secretly pop in and check on the tweets while I should be listening to them.  They are paying me good money, and I can’t even be present because I’m so addicted to distractions.  What they heck should I do?”

Now obviously this is a fictitious “12-Step meeting for email addicts” but many of you will read your own story in the three characters above.

The fist thing I want you to know is that you are probably (unfortunately) among the norm.  We love distractions!  Our cell phones have alarms, our Outlook tasks pop in to alert us, we get reminders of teleclasses, and all sorts of things that intrude on our space.  So what’s a ‘focus challenged’ entrepreneur to do about all this?  I have a few suggestions below.

1.  Turn off the email alert -yes….in Outlook you can stop the function that tells you every time an email pops in.  You may notice a huge void, but that’s the goal!

2.  Discover the cost of being interrupted constantly – I recently got ’spanked’ by my VA.  OK, not literally, but she scolded me because I haven’t yet contacted all the affiliates I need to promote my upcoming Happy in Business Mastermind program.  See I can tell myself the story that I’m so busy, but the reality is that the distraction of email/social media probably cost me at least a weeks worth of work in connecting with people that I need to.

3.  Schedule chunks of time for distractions – Give yourself certain hours where you’ll be on Facebook, certain times you’ll tweet, and certain times you will check your email.  It really is about discipline.   Have you planned your time?  Do you set up a schedule the night before of what needs to be accomplished, or do you just jump on the computer and just start responding to emails?  That is the kiss of death for any hope of productivity, so START NOW.  The deal is that you control your time, and not other people’s calls, requests, or emails.  Think like a singulary focused million dollar business owner.  Would they ‘twitter’ their time away?  Probably not.

4.  Purge, purge, purge -  Do you really need 67 ezine subscriptions?  Take one whole week and everything that you would be tempted to say, “I’ll get to this later” GET RID OF!!!! You can always re-subscribe, but the enormity of getting hundred and hundred of emails a day leads to overwhelm.  (Don’t want to hurt someones feelings by unsubscribing?  Here’s a trick – set up a message rule in Outlook to send their email directly to the delete folder.  That way you don’t have to see it, and they don’t have to know you left their list.)

5. Have an assistant handle your email -This is where I am.  And truthfully, I am FIGHTING this one!  Because I admit that I’m like a crazy email junkie- the more the better in my book.  But I know what it costs me in terms of productivity.  So next week my inbox will be managed by Renee, my ass-kicking VA.  Actually the email won’t even come in to my Inbox.  It may take a few weeks to sort out, but she’ll only send me the high priority items, and the rest will be handled.  Out of sight, out of mind is the key.  Why did I finally surrender here?  Because I know that I will be so much better of a business owner when I’m not distracted and hitting that send/receive button every five minutes.  I’ll be able to do my weekly newsletter, write more articles, and gosh…maybe even have a life.  What a beautiful thing!

Those are my five tips.  Shoot me an email and let me know if you have any other ideas.  (And yeah, I’ll tell Renee to deliver that one to me!)

Blessings,

OK – Contest time!  And doesn’t everyone love a contest?

So here it is —

In July I will be rolling out my Happy in Business Mastermind groups.  What are these you ask?  Small, six person groups that will meet for six months and get lots of coaching/mastermind support.  How’s this different from all the other mastermind groups out there?  Well, let’s start with the number – SIX!  You won’t be stuck in a group with 24 other people and only get to share one time in a year.  Every meeting, you’ll get coaching.  Hey….if you want more details, check out the website, because here I just want to talk about the contest.

I’m going to give away one spot in the group for free.  That’s right.  FREE!  That means you will get access to all the coaching, all the business building/revenue generating magic that happens.

There’s just one catch though……..you have to send me a video explaining these two things:

Why your business should be selected and how you will pay this gift forward.

Paying it forward?  Yeah…what that means is that in six months when you have made much more money, are happier than you have been in your business, and are on track for even more success…what will you do to share some of that good with someone else?

And finally, make your video be something with BOLD Self Expression.  Sing, dance, get creative – but just make it fun and show up fully because that’s the key to having a business you will love.

How?  Send it via email (you can use www.YouSendIt.com) to therese@acceleratingyoursuccess.com.

These need to be in by June 20, so get on it!!!

And be sure to go to the next page – Coming events – to find my latest free teleclass.

Five words -

That’s all it took to turn her around.  One sentence.  Five well chosen words.  Here’s the story.

I was doing a group coaching call the other night when one of the women asked a question.  Now truthfully, this woman is amazing at what she does, but tends to ’spin around’ in her head a lot, so gets herself overwhelmed.

She’s a consultant and she asked me about how she should handle a proposal.  Now normally, I’d jump in and coach her on the how…but not today.

See, my intuition told me to go in a different direction.  So instead of answering her, I simply said:

“You know what to do.”

She missed it at first, so tried to get me again to tell her how to handle the proposal, but I wouldn’t budge.

“You know what to do.”

What happened next was amazing.  She stopped, got back into remember who she was, and immediately had a solution.

The reason I share this, my dear readers, is that the breakthrough for her occurred when someone who knew and respected her, “called her out” to be more in the strong, brilliant and resourceful person she was.

My coaching challenge for you this time is to make sure you have the people in your life who can give you this kind of feedback.  The folks who don’t let you spin around in confusion or overwhelm, but stop and remind you of your magnificence.

It’s all good!

And by the way, in June I’ll be opening up my Happy In Business Mastermind Coaching groups.  Stay tuned….

Did you ever just wish you could be a fly on the wall when great coaching happens?  People make shifts all the time in this process, so I thought I’d share one of my cool client stories with you so you get to ‘eavesdrop’ on the process and apply the questions to your own business.

A couple of days ago I did a strategy session with one of my newer clients, Karen Kanakanui of www.wordsareus.com.  Karen came to the call looking  to figure out how the info product she was working on would fit into her long term plans, but WHOA Nelly………..she got WAY more than she bargained for!

You see Karen is a copywriter who calls herself an “expert in using audio to grow your business.”  I often listen with an ear for how a consumer hears our ‘elevator’ pitches, so the first place I intervened was in suggesting to Karen that what she thought she was an expert in wasn’t really THE THING.  See, she’s really an expert in helping people drive traffic to their sites using copywriting, and then using audio to get them to take action.  (We call that magical concept conversion!)  We discovered that when Karen only spoke of the tools she used, her audience probably didn’t connect as powerfully with her because no one really cares about the WHAT….customers only want the RESULTS.  First big breakthrough……

Next we looked at Karen’s business model.  Oh, this is where it gets juicy for me!  She currently offers copywriting and voice over.  She has an idea for a product where she would interview people, then create an audio product (like an opt-in piece) do the technical stuff, write the ‘hooks’ and then get it back to them.  This is a good idea, don’t you agree?

But it came to me like a lightening bolt while we were discussing this………..

“How else can I consume you,” I asked.

Of course this is such a WEIRD question that Karen stopped and said, “WHAT?”

How else can I consume you,” I asked again…….

Let me put it a different way for you just as I did for Karen.  “If I were to want to buy some of your time or get more of you or your knowledge HOW ELSE COULD I DO THAT?”

See, as Karen was telling me the amazing things she was up to, I was getting really excited because I just happen to be her target market and could use her services.  But she hadn’t yet told me how I could! Do you see how big of a challenge this is?  Karen had one thing she offered – copywriting – yet she’s such an expert in so many areas that could help me as I design a new website and do marketing for my clients.

Breakthrough #2 was when I basically blew Karen’s business model apart and said, “OK, let’s look at all the ways folks could get access to your knowledge.”  We began with her audio product, then added two more components to it.  (Some folks are DIY’s – Do It Yourselfers – while others just want to hand it off and have it done.)  I then added a consultation level because there are some of us who may just want a few hours with someone who knows so much about traffic/conversion.

Karen started the call with the idea of adding a very one dimensional offering, and ended the call with about 5 new things!  It’s funny because when I called Karen the next day to ask if I could share this story, she said, “Yes, tell them that it was overwhelming, amazing, and mind boggling to walk away with all of this.”  I do have to admit that sometimes I get on a roll with these strategy sessions and it’s a bit like drinking water from a fire hydrant, but hey….it’s a gift!  What can I say. 

Your task, my dear reader is to sit in that question……….How can someone consume more of me? That one powerful question can literally generate thousands of dollars in new revenue.

I’d love you to comment on what you come up with as you ask yourself this wonderful question…

Go for it!