While I had many shifts, ideas, pauses for thought, and lightbulb moments while attending Andrea Lee’s Wealthy Thought Leader event, I wanted to share with you three of the a-ha’s I had during the event’s three days.
1. I already am a wealthy thought leader…
I just need to embrace it. And I can’t do that until…
2. I’m ready to take a stand…
And I am ready. It’s been forming for a while now, most particularly over the last few months. I started getting really clear on my principles and guideposts for my business as well as how and what I want to teach and share with my clients to enhance their business as well.
And that re-ignited that…
3. I really do love what I do.
How blessed am I that I get to work with such amazing clients, that I’m surrounded with a fabulous group of colleagues that continues to deepen and grow, that I get to be as creative as I want all the time, because this is my business, my life, and my choice.
At my annual Online Business Breakthrough Workshop, we’re going to do a session on making a stand in and for your market so you can stand out in an overcrowded marketplace.
Get on the early reservation list here.
I love to know how this resonates – share your thoughts with me below…
If you want to create more money in your business, you have to know your value and be able to articulate that really well in order to be heard above the din in our loud and overcrowded world today.
You probably have an idea of the value that your clients and customers receive through your work. But what will make what you do far more enjoyable, more marketable, and much easier is to really dig deep into finding out very specifically what the value is that your clients and customers get through your work together or from your products or programs.
So I have a two-part assignment for you:
Part 1: Ask yourself…
“What’s one benefit/value/result that my client gets from working with me?”
Answer that question 30 times.
(here’s the secret: the first 10 will be easy. After that you’ll need to start digging to find the gold nuggets ;-))
Part 2: Ask your clients/customers…
“What’s the value you’re receiving from our work together?” or “What’s the value you’re receiving from this product or program?”
Ask them to answer that question beyond the superficial, to really dig deep, to find the real value they’re receiving.
You may be surprised to find out it has little to do with the actual ‘thing’ they initially invested in you for.
Then take your answers and their answers and work with them to come up with several laser marketing messages that make you and what you do memorable and highly attractive to more and more of your ideal clients and customers.
At my annual Online Business Breakthrough Workshop, we go deep into this and other exercises so you’ll leave with your unique message and how to articulate that through all of your marketing so you can finally stand out among the sea of others who do what you do.
Get on the early reservation list here
Share your answers with me below…
Here’s a question I get asked all the time:
“I don’t know you how do it, Alicia…with two little ones to care for and so few hours in the day to actually focus on your work. Somehow you manage to write your weekly ezine, hold a bunch of teleseminars each month, run your group and private coaching programs, AND be creating and promoting new offers and new products all the time. I’m so impressed and inspired by you, but more than that, I want to know how you do it all!?”
To be honest, sometimes I wonder myself! Something I often say to other, especially new, mothers is, “despite what everyone tells you to do, do whatever works for YOU.” In a way, that’s how I started running my business after I had my daughter. I just did whatever worked. I still do.
When she got a bit older, it was easier to manage both being a fulltime mother along with running a successful business. Then enter baby #2 and it was back to square one. It’s not easy but it is possible. And here’s what’s really interesting (mompreneurs, take note): I started making about $3k more each month since having my son – and I’m working LESS.
A client once pointed out to me that it seems the biggest growths in my business have been when I’ve been having babies – and she’s right!
Over time, I’ve figured out how to get the most important things done while still being able to focus the majority of my time on my family (after all, that’s one of the reasons why I went into business for myself in the first place).
Here are just a few of them:
1. Setting my work hours
My typical work day looks like this: I get organized the night before for the next day. This jump-starts my day and makes sure that when I do get those tiny pockets of time to get something done, I know exactly what to do. This makes me feel like I’m accomplishing stuff in-between drop-off and pick-up from school, making crafts, playing trains, making dinner, etc.
When I started my business, I didn’t get any real work done until naptime. I worked for about a total of an hour or so while the kids napped, five days a week. Then I put in some more time after they went to bed at night, whether I was leading a teleseminar or catching up on emails. My biggest block of focused time, usually reserved for writing and product creation, was on Saturdays, when I worked approximately 4 hours.
During a perfect week, that gave me about 12 hours of time dedicated to business. However, there’s never a perfect week (one or the other doesn’t nap, I have some pressing non-business-related task that I can only take care of when they’re sleeping, one of them is sick, etc.), so my best guess is that this gives me about 8-10 productive hours to work on my business each week.
Now that the kids are both in school, my dedicated work time is a couple of hours in the morning until I pick my son up at noon, a little at naptime, and sometimes in the evening (again if I’m hosting a teleseminar) or on a Saturday, if I have a launch going on.
So, although my hours have shifted, the amount of hours is still relatively the same – about 15 hours a week.
So how do I decide what to focus on that will move my business forward the fastest in that limited amount of time each week? I use what I call a Priority Card…
2. Using a Priority Card
A Priority Card will help you organize all your tasks in a way that will SHOW you every day what you should focus on. There are a lot of details that will threaten to take your mind off your priorities (this is where a virtual assistant can be of immense value), but those details are not necessarily what will move you forward in your business. To do that, you need to consistently focus on completing the projects that will move your business ahead big-time.
You can create a system for helping you focus on your priorities in a number of ways, but I’m going to give you mine. Like I said, I only work about 15 hours a week on my business, so adjust your own plan accordingly.
At the beginning of each week, I choose 3 to 5 projects with looming deadlines (self-imposed as they may be) from my master task list (which really is so massive that I write it on a 8.5 x 14 legal pad). For example, at the moment, I am working on my annual Online Business Breakthrough Workshop.
On a colored index card, I write down those projects and prop the card in a standing clip holder, right in front of my computer screen. When I start to feel that sense of overwhelm, or when I find myself getting distracted by new ideas or other tasks (all of which seem important), I remind myself to look at my Priority Card and focus only on what’s written there.
Once I started using my Priority Card, my own business growth leaped forward ten times faster than when I was doing a little of this and a little of that, working on a dozen things, but taking much too long to actually complete just one project.
3. Ignoring the phone
I’m serious when I say that I ignore the phone. Some of my clients get heart palpitations when I tell them that I NEVER jump when the phone rings and suggest they do the same. I don’t even have the ringer turned on on the business line. Does this mean I miss some important calls? Probably. But my virtual assistant checks my messages in a timely manner, takes care of what she can, and forwards the rest to me. I then email or call people back at a more convenient time for me.
4. Quick consults
When a prospective client wanted to speak with me about ‘just a few questions’, I used to gladly schedule a time to talk. But instead of a few questions, I’d be on the phone for at least a half hour, basically giving a free coaching/consulting session, and being frustrated with myself for not valuing my time more.
And up until a few years ago, when a potential client or customer requested to talk with me further about working with me or about one of my products, they could schedule a time to talk for a much smaller fee than my usual hourly rate, and if they decided to go forward with working with me, they could apply the fee they paid towards the program or product they were interested in. This was fair and valued both our time and investment in the process.
Now, however, prospects can talk with my virtual assistant should they need more information about any of my programs or products. If someone is interested in working with me one-on-one, they need to apply for a private coaching spot and if I feel it’s a good fit, we set up an interview to discuss moving forward.
BONUS: Make and use lists
I’d be lost without my lists! I’d never remember to do anything if I didn’t write it down. I keep a bunch of reporter’s notebooks around the house and anytime I think of something I need to do, I write it down in whatever room I’m in – whether it’s business or personal. Then I periodically gather the lists and separate them into three main lists; personal, business, and other (which includes the “someday I’d like to…” stuff; things that aren’t a priority but that I want to remember to do at some point), and check things off in priority order from there.
If you start applying some of these steps now, I guarantee the number of productive hours you spend on your business will increase. And you’ll also feel less overwhelmed and lessed stressed about trying to get it all done!
I’d love to know which one of these resonates the most with you – share with me below…
I’ve been hearing from many business owners lately that they’re feeling stuck, like they’re spinning their wheels and staying in one place instead of moving forward.
Several things are currently really standing out for me in terms of what may be contributing to the sense of frustration and overwhelm that seems to be prevalent at the moment for some, and especially newer, business owners.
Here are the top 4 ways that I see business owners staying stuck. See if you recognize yourself in any (or all) of these and if so, take the action step I give you to start to get unstuck and moving forward again.
1. Staying in the BS funnel
This was something my very first coach coined and is a place where lots of business owners stay to stay safe – for any number of reasons.
Basically what it means is that instead of spending time and energy in the marketing funnel (or HourGlass in my business model), they are spending time in the BS funnel – re–doing their website, working on their email signature, re-writing a sales page for the 100th time before posting it live, re-designing their business cards, making lists and getting organized, frittering on social media, etc.
Now there is a time and place for all of those things, but not if you’re concerned about cash flow. When you’re concerned about cash flow, you need to focus on making offers and getting clients/customers. Everything else can wait. Once you have your bread and butter cash flow (whatever your minimum is) then you can go rest in the BS funnel for a bit. 😉
ACTION STEP: Be honest and Identify whether or not you’re spinning because you’re in the BS funnel. If you are, commit to getting out of it and staying out of it by being consciously aware of when you are going forward. Make a ‘money list’ (it should be short) of only the tasks that will bring you money and focus on those instead.
2. Knowing they need to build their list but not doing anything consistently to build it
I know list-building is not that sexy or exciting, but it’s an absolute MUST, even more so today than even just a couple of years ago.
So if you’re saying, “I know I need to build my list but…” then you’re NOT building your list. You will not get responses to your offers – free or fee – if you don’t have a substantial audience to make that offer to.
Too many business owners base the success or failure of an offer based off not enough info – meaning not enough people to actually put your offer in front of to have substantial evidence on way or another if what you’re doing is ‘working’ or not.
Just as you want to have a solid number of responses to a survey before you use that information to make decisions, you have to have a decent-sized list before you can make a fact-based decision about whether or not your offers are resonating.
ACTION STEP: Pick two new list-building strategies to add to your consistent marketing calendar and implement them today. Add two new ones every month until you find your list-building has traction and its own momentum.
3. Getting distracted by too many new ideas instead of focusing on one project at a time
I have to admit that sometimes I get exhausted just listening to how many ‘new’ ideas, tools and tactics some business owners are implementing all at once.
You know what happens when your energy is scattered like that? Lots of nothing. Seriously.
ACTION STEP: Pick one project from your ‘money list’ and focus on that through completion. When you get distracted, and you will, ask yourself: “Is this related to my project?” You know what to do if the answer is no.
4. Not truly understanding that it takes time on and IN the business to start creating consistent income
I don’t mean the difference between working on and in your business ala Michael Gerber. What I mean is that it takes time both in terms of dedicated time towards building your business on a daily basis AS WELL AS time to allow the seeds you’re planting now to grow over the months and years to come.
It takes a lot of baby steps to get to where you want to go. We all have moments when it feels too hard, but the successful folks are the ones who continue to put one foot in front of the other no matter what.
“It’s not working” is only true if you quit.
I’d love to know which one of these resonates the most with you – share with me below…
Oh no! ANOTHER social media platform?
Oh yes – and it’s one you might want to take a look at, to see if it makes sense for your particular business. But a caution here – even it it does – don’t feel you have to add it to your social media marketing. If you’re already overwhelmed and just keeping up with your current social media efforts, then leave Pinterest be, at least for now.
But if it appeals to you and makes good business sense to add it to your business platform, here are five specific ways you can use it in your marketing efforts:
1. Less Clicks = More Conversions
The less clicks your visitor has to make to get to the information or product they want, the higher your conversion rates. With Pinterest, there are just two clicks from first seeing something of interest to visiting its site of origin. That translates into more leads and more sales.
For example, let’s say you have a book for sale and you pin the image of the cover from the book’s sales page to your board. When one of your followers sees your pin and clicks on it, it will allow them to share it with others immediately. And if they click it again, it will take them to the site where the image was pinned from, in this case, the sales page for your book.
2. Drive tons more traffic to your site
Because Pinterest has such a large following (10 million unique views at this writing) it’s a great tool for driving more traffic to your site via the links that are attached to the pins you make to your board.
In fact, there are tracking stats that are showing Pinterest is driving more traffic back to websites than Facebook or Google+.
3. Easy for people to share your content
Pinterest makes it super-simple for your followers to share your pins and therefore links back to your site. Because every pin includes a link leading back to the source of the image, this can translate into a lot more inbound links to your website. So the more followers you have, the more those followers share your pins, the more traffic to your site.
4. Gain from user addiction
Some markets have already fallen in love with Pinterest, with more to come as more people become aware of and start utilizing this new social media platform. If your market is a fan of Pinterest, then you need to get onboard and get in front of all that traffic. Just start with one board, pay attention to what your followers are re-pinning (sharing with others) the most, and pin more of that content.
5. Connect it with your other social media sites
Since I’m all about leveraging your time and talent, if you’re going to use Pinterest, then you need to connect it with your other social media platforms to do so. You can connect Pinterest with your Facebook profile (hopefully they will add the ability to connect to your fan page soon). You can also connect your Pinterest account with Twitter so your pins are automatically tweeted. And you can add a "pin it’ button to your website, much like other share buttons, so your visitors can pin for you.
I’d love to know your thoughts on Pinterest – share with me below…
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