I’ve personally invested over $100k in my own business education (not including my MBA) and I’ve leveraged that investment into well over a half-million dollars in the last few years.

I’ve said before that I will make my million – in my time and on my terms. And because I’m sensing this strong undercurrent of desperation in many business owners about making 6 or 7 figures, I wanted to invite you to take a different tact:

Ask yourself, what’s the least income you can make right now and still live a happy life?

Not ‘I want to make a million dollars by the time I’m 40′ and you’re 39 now and the most you’ve ever made is $50k. Not ‘I want to make 6 figures by the end of 2011′ and your current monthly revenue is $2k.

So, what’s the least you can make that will take you to that very next step in your vision – not the BIG vision – but just the next bump up?

What’s the least amount of money you can bring in that will give your current lifestyle the boost that will make you smile, that will make you feel and know you’re moving forward, and that will continue to motivate you onward?

You see, I’ve been asking myself the same question lately. And the reason is because I’ve been starting to feel really stressed in my business and frankly I’m not having as much fun as I used to in it either.

And because of a few other things that are attributing to this feeling of heaviness that are outside my business, I’ve been feeling a need to shift things. Just small shifts for now, while allowing the bigger shifts to more fully form without pushing them into fruition until next year.

So here’s my answer to this question and how you can figure it out for your own business too:

Step 1: Get cash clear

Get crystal clear on how much money you really need to live the lifestyle that you’re happy with, not the one you’re striving for (I guarantee when you give up this grip, money will flow more abundantly to you).

This may mean having a conversation with a spouse or partner. Do it. Especially if you are in a financial partnership with someone else, you’re likely not the only one feeling the push and the pressure for more. Do yourselves both a favor and figure out what’s the minimum level for you. You may be able to give up or put aside one or more of your current income streams so you can have more of the time freedom you crave, knowing you still have enough to enjoy your life.

Step 2: Be sure all your eggs aren’t in one basket

If you’re relying on high-end pricing and programs to carry your business, you may be setting yourself up for a financial fall. Your clients and customers are being more and more discriminating about where they’re spending their money – and that’s not going to change anytime in the near future, not while our economic outlook is still bleak.

Be sure to have different ways in which you can serve your market, not just one-on-one. Offer lower priced programs and products to help more people as well as to diversify your cash flow.

Step 3: Build your business around your life

This is a mindset shift for many people. But if you’re in business for yourself, isn’t it so you can design the life you want to live? Not so you can work more, but so you can work less, and still enjoy a great life with the income to support it?

In order to do that, you have to schedule your life first, then your business-building activities around that. This is how I’ve been able to take off almost 3 months every summer for the last 6 years. My business doesn’t suffer; in fact, it grows because of my commitment to this principle.

Figure out how to make the money you want for the next level of your business (again, not the BIG vision, just the next bump up) in the time that is left after you’ve planned the life you want to live first. Then ask for the support or hire the team you need to help you make this happen.

When you put your life first, the time towards what makes you happy, the focus on just the next bump while you tend to LIVING, all the ‘more’ you want (which we all want, by the way – we are all here to grow and to be, do, and have more) will come. This I know for sure.

I’d love to know your thoughts on this – please leave your comments below.

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I’ve been spending a lot of time lately getting ready for 2012 – planning, organizing, strategizing, visioning, and more. There are many transitions and transformations on the horizon for me and my business, and much to do to prepare for them, so I’m making space and opening the flow.

Here are some of the ways I’m doing this in my business that you can do too:

1. Clean Up Your Business Time

Time is your only non-renewable resource. If you’ve ever experienced days when you don’t know where the time has gone, but you do know you haven’t accomplished much, then you need to take a serious look at just what is eating up those precious minutes. My coach’s request of you is to track your time for the next two weeks. Like a food diary makes you intensely aware of what you’re eating, a time log will allow you to quickly and easily identify where you’re frittering time away.

Most likely culprits?… Email and TV (yes, I know some of you are ‘watching’ TV while you’re online, and no, that’s not multi-tasking, that’s just pure distraction).

Once you are aware of where your time is going, make a conscious effort to redirect it to more productive – or even more restful – activities. Turn the TV off (or TIVO/DVR whatever it is you must watch and give it your full attention later). And don’t leave your email open all day long! Allot specific time to read and respond to it instead.

You’ll be amazed at how just doing this simple exercise will free up the time you want for more important (and fun!) things. (Be sure to read Part 2 of this article next week where I’ll share more specific and effective tips for handling email overload.)

2. Clean Up Your Business Space

Now is a great time to go through your files – computer and physical – and delete or organize them for moving forward to 2012. I spent several hours going through my physical files recently, shredding lots of documents (I love to purge!), and setting up new files for my new Platinum clients as well as empty files for the ones yet to come. During this process both online and off, I also found a lot of gems I’d forgotten about – pieces of content, systems and processes, tools, resources, audios, and more.

And now that I have a recent visual in my mind of what’s in my files, it’s literally at my fingertips as I move forward in building my business. As for my computer, I actually went so far as to purchase a brand new laptop, and I’m being very discerning about what gets transferred over from my old PC to the new. Energetically and electronically, I can feel how much more open the flow is by doing this.

3. Clean up Your Business Circle

This one can be a bit difficult, but it’s necessary to prune the people you surround yourself with from time to time. It doesn’t mean you have to completely disconnect from them (unless they’re just weighing you down energetically), but do make a conscious choice to spend more time in the company of those who lift you up.

Let me give you a simple example. If you’re on someone’s ezine list just because everyone else is or you feel like you should be, but you either a) don’t read it or b) don’t feel good when you do read it, just unsubscribe and allow the space for something that resonates with you to take its place.

Or maybe you’re part of a mastermind group that you feel you’ve outgrown. Now is the time to graciously bow out. Once you do, you open the space for a new group to form around you that better supports where you are now.

How are you making space and opening the flow for the new year? Please share below…

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I had many light bulb moments during my three days in Dallas at SHINE this year, and I wanted to share with you 10 of my top take-away’s:

1. Opportunities come through people, not your computer

Think about that for a minute. Yes, you can build good relationships with people over email and social media. But when it comes to the really juicy opportunities, those are going to come through meeting people and spending time with them IRL (in real life). That’s one reason why it’s so important to get out there at least a couple of times a year.

2. BLT – Believe, Like, Trust

We often hear and I say it myself – that people need to know, like and trust you before they will buy from you. But I liked this version better – that people have to BELIEVE you, like you and trust you. So the more YOU you put into your marketing, the more authentic you are, the more people will get to believe, like and trust you, and the more sales you’ll make.

3. When you are yourself, you have no competition

Enough said.

4. No Plan B

If you have a Plan B, then just do Plan B. Otherwise make the commitment to Plan A, with no other option.

5. Your best ideas don’t come from sitting at your desk

My best ideas come to me in the car. Or sitting on the dock in the early morning of summer. I created this business under a palapa in the Turks & Caicos. Where do your best ideas come to you? When you’re stuck or need to hit the refresh button, go where your best ideas are able to pop into your mind.

6. You’ve got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable

Being an entrepreneur will bring up all your stuff. Most of the time, that’s going to make you uncomfortable. You have to be ok with that and recognize that it’s just an indicator that you’re moving through whatever you need to in order to grow and reach the next level. If you can remember that, it’s actually pretty exciting, isn’t it?

7. Balance

I always say there’s no such thing as balance, that there’s an ebb and a flow but no such thing as balance. So it was empowering to hear two of the speakers say the same with their own spin:

“Life if not about balance; it’s about resilience.” and “Balance is for ballerinas.”

8. Eat that frog

You may have heard this idea before – to do the thing you most do not want to do first. Eat that frog and get it over with. Once you do, your energy is free to work much more productively and enjoyably on everything else.

9. Focus on your zone of excellence

If you’re still trying to be all things for the people in your market, I’m going to make a coach’s request that you make a commitment to stop that right now. Spend some time focusing on who your ideal client is and what is the ONE thing that you LOVE to do in your work with that ideal client? Start re-designing your message and your offerings around that.

10. Business happens at the bar

…or on the shuttle from the airport, or while waiting in line for the restroom, or when you step outside on a break for some fresh air. If you’re taking the time away from your business and your life to attend a live event, then you need to be talking to people, engaging with them, and letting them engage with you. Let me be clear – I don’t mean selling to them and I’m not fond of the word networking, but just talk to people, have a conversation. The best business relationships I have were built from a simple chat over a drink.

I’d love to know which of these resonates with you. Please leave your comments below…

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Chloe has a children’s book titled Milton’s Secret: An Adventure of Discovery through Then, When, and the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and Robert S. Friedman, which really simplifies the concept of living in the present moment, and how the practice of that will, for the boy in the story, eliminate fear and worry.

I wanted to explore that as it pertains to your business, with a slightly different slant. I wonder if you, like so many of my clients, and myself as well from time to time, are so hooked into the future that we’re missing the NOW and not fully enjoying the journey?

So how do we unhook from it to allow what we truly want to come to pass without always feeling like we’re striving for it? Here are 5 ideas:

1. Let go of the goals that take you away from the present.

Let me say first that you can have everything you want – and there’s no judgement here on what those things are.

That being said, do you want a mansion, to be the #1 speaker in your market, to be the one with the biggest email list in your market, to be a New York Times bestselling author, to make a million dollars? There’s nothing wrong with any of those lofty (and completely attainable) goals.

And, what happens is when we’re so focused on the sexy dream we tend to get ourselves so riled up about getting there that we miss all the amazing stuff happening NOW.

What I’ve noticed is that people get impatient, sad, frustrated, and even angry when they’re so focused on the future goal that the present seems uninteresting at best, despairing at worst. The antidote? See #2.

2. Polish the present

I want to encourage you to stop striving so hard and thrive in your present. What I mean is that if you make what you already have better, and polish what’s already good and working, you uplevel your life without expending that energy on something that doesn’t exist yet.

Yes, it’s about appreciating what’s already good and right in your world and in your business AND it’s about how you can make what’s already there fulfill you even more. It’s true that if you make the most of what you already have, you’ll get more and better of it with a lot less effort on your part.

3. Don’t plan so much

I’m all about having the big picture plan down to the day-to-day details, and yet I know that most of the time, the plan changes.

One of the reasons we – as business owners – plan so much is because it gives us a sense of control and it helps to alleviate the fears and doubts we have about knowing what we’re doing.

So have the plan and be willing to be flexible with it. Let it be a guide but not the only way. If you get wrapped up in THE PLAN you’ll actually hold yourself and your business back from being able to adapt quickly when things change – and they always do.

Assess if you spend more time planning than doing – and if you do, stop right now. And if you tend to fly by the seat of your pants more often than not, you might want a lightly-built framework around you to give you some sense of stability.

4. Get out of the striver’s club

Stop trying to acquire a better future with others who are striving. It’s just too exhausting. I’m not saying to surround yourself with lazy folks, but to get out of the overdrive club if you want to relax into a currently compelling present instead of an exhausting still ‘out there somewhere’ future.

5. Get off the ‘if/when’ rollercoaster

I admit this is a pet peeve of mine. Not from people who are decisive, but from people who use it as an excuse to not be happy now. When you make ‘if/when’ statements, you’re living in the future. Dreaming and visioning is one thing; otherwise it’s a holding pattern for you but even worse, you’re not enjoying where you’re at right now!

Now take and implement these five ideas to unhook from the future so you can enjoy the present.

I’d love to hear which of these resonates with you the most – feel free to share with me below

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As part of your launch strategy to boost your online sales, create partnerships with colleagues, and increase the overall value of your product or service, add a bonus (or several) to your offering.

Here are 5 ideas for bonuses you can use to increase your sales:

1. Offer a special report.

Take several of your articles with a common theme that complements your offering and compile them into a special report. If you don’t have articles that seem to fit, think of additional information that you did not include in the original product and write it up as a special report. Use your word processing software to write it, then convert it to Adobe PDF to make it look nice. Or offer a special report written by a colleague of yours with information that complements your offering.

2. Offer an audio.

If you are selling a product that is education-based, offer a follow-up teleclass to answer any questions that your customers may have about the material. Or record a special audio to go along with your product that offers some additional material that you didn’t get to cover in the actual product itself, or that is an introductory or overview of the material covered in your offering.

3. Offer a resource file.

If you want to increase your customer’s satisfaction with your product, offer a quality resource list, so they don’t have to waste time and money searching for where to go or who to hire to follow your sage advice. Put together a list of the service providers, websites, ezines, books, magazines. etc. that you personally use (or that come highly recommended to you by your trusted colleagues) and that are related to your product or service. Create a PDF of your compiled resources to offer as a bonus. For example, one bonus that comes with my 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™ is Alicia’s 6-Figure File of Recommended Resources, which is a list with links of who and what I personally use to make my business run successfully.

4. Offer a workbook.

Just like so many self-help books do, create and offer a workbook, action guide, success journal, or the like to go along with your product or service. Pull out the main points of your material and create exercises to deepen your reader’s understanding, or create sections in which your reader can add their own thoughts and ideas as they work through your information.

5. Offer a discussion list.

You can do this a number of ways, but the easiest and the one that will require the least amount of effort on your part is to create and offer a discussion list via Google Groups, Facebbok Groups, or NING. It’s free and can help to build a community of people who have YOU in common, and it gives them a place to offer each other support. You can pop in and out at your leisure, maintaining and strengthening your relationship with your customers.

Another way to do this is by offering a membership site as a very valuable bonus. For example, with 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™ I offer a trial membership in my L.E.A.P™ MasterMind as a bonus.

If you haven’t tried tacking on a couple of bonuses to your offerings, do so and see what happens. My bet’s on increased sales…

Are you ready to learn how to “Launch Your Products, Programs, and Services to Instant Success”?

In my brand-new L.E.A.P.™ GOLD* program, Once your product or program or service is complete and you’re ready to offer it to your market, if you don’t know how to effectively launch it, you’re leaving a ton of money on the table. There is a science to it and I’m going to teach you the precise steps to take, pre-launch, during the launch, and post-launch to guarantee you get the biggest return on your investment in your time, energy and money.

Most entrepreneurs simply don’t know how to offer their products, programs and services to make the most of them in sales and clients. It’s a simple process that you’ll learn from me (the first launch I did using this formula converted 40% of my list from potential buyers to paying customers (many of whom turned into clients as well) – that’s unheard of in the industry).

To make it even easier for you to follow this process, I’m including the same checklist we use in my business every time we launch something new.

Interested? Reserve one of the *very* limited seats TODAY

I’d love to hear which of these bonuses you’ll offer next and what your results are. Feel free to share with me below.

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Want to increase your sales BEFORE you launch your product or service? The following are some of the most effective ways to do just that:

1. Use Social Proof

What is “social proof”? Simply put, we are all conditioned to watch what others are doing and follow along (think teenagers). Using social proof in your marketing helps you to influence your customers to purchase your products/services, get new prospects to sign-up for your list, and get people talking about you and your offering – and that’s just the start.

So, how do you use this psychological trigger in your marketing?

One way is to use results-based testimonials. Ask your current customers or clients to give you results-based testimonials. They literally say, “I used this product and these are the results I got.” Having celebrities give these to you is great, but make sure you have testimonials from REAL people. Those are the ones that are really going to cement the idea in your potential buyer’s mind that they can do it, too.

2. Answer your prospects #1 objection

To take “social proof” to a deeper lever, anyone who is buying anything almost always has this #1 objection: “Sure, you can do it, but can I do it?”

In addition to using yourself as an example (if appropriate) as evidence that what you are offering does what you say it will, it’s also important to make sure you get “social proof” from people in your client/customer’s peer group. Then your potential buyer sees people like themselves and understands that “Hey, it worked for them, it can work for me, too.”

3. Use a time limit

Creating a sense of urgency around your product or service will make it that much more enticing to potential buyers. For example, offer special pricing for one week only and tell your buyers that after that week, the price will go up. You don’t even have to say by how much (but DO raise it if you say you will). Just knowing that there’s only have one week to buy at a lower price creates that sense of urgency.

4. Use a limited quantity

If you are selling a physical product and you are only having 100 produced, then use that information to create the same sense of urgency you would with a time limit. Use a countdown on your website to further create the feeling that if your potential buyers don’t buy now, they may miss out.

5. Use a time or quantity limit on bonuses

Additionally, you could offer bonuses for a certain length of time (first week only) or for a certain number of products sold. For example, the first 30 buyers would get an additional special report (valued at $XX).

The last three strategies also help your buyers feel like they are part of your “club” when they join by purchasing your product or service.

Obviously, you can use these tactics unscrupulously, and I’m sure you’ve seen it or experienced it yourself. But if you want your business to truly be successful, in all the ways that are important and meaningful to you, then you must only use these strategies with integrity and honesty.

If you really are only going to print 100 copies of a physical product, then only print 100 copies. That doesn’t mean that you can’t do another print run. It just means that you tell your market that you’re only going to print 100 now, and if you do decide to do another run, then they will have to wait before they can get their copy.

If you really are going to raise your price after a certain date, or after a certain number of items are sold, then you must follow through. You can give your current base a chance to buy at the “original” price before you raise it, but you still must raise your price if you say you will.

Your integrity using these strategies will create more sales for you than ever before. Choose one to try and enjoy your results!

Are you ready to learn how to “Launch Your Products, Programs, and Services to Instant Success”?

In my brand-new L.E.A.P.™ GOLD* program, Once your product or program or service is complete and you’re ready to offer it to your market, if you don’t know how to effectively launch it, you’re leaving a ton of money on the table. There is a science to it and I’m going to teach you the precise steps to take, pre-launch, during the launch, and post-launch to guarantee you get the biggest return on your investment in your time, energy and money.

Most entrepreneurs simply don’t know how to offer their products, programs and services to make the most of them in sales and clients. It’s a simple process that you’ll learn from me (the first launch I did using this formula converted 40% of my list from potential buyers to paying customers (many of whom turned into clients as well) – that’s unheard of in the industry).

To make it even easier for you to follow this process, I’m including the same checklist we use in my business every time we launch something new.

Interested? Reserve one of the *very* limited seats TODAY

I’d love to hear which of these tactics you’re going to try and what your results are. Feel free to share with me below.

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