Taking Stock and Looking Ahead
As 2012 comes to a close, I’m wondering how you’re feeling about this past year and what your expectations are for 2013. If you’re inclined to share, please leave your comments below… 🙂
3 Aha Moments from Attending Impact & Influence
I love attending live events, for the learning, networking and most of all, for those ‘aha moments’ that always pop. I choose to attend very few events each year, so I’m always very cognizant of getting a big return on my investment of time, energy and money. Attending Lisa Sasevich’s Impact & Influence event didn’t disappoint.
Here are three of those aha moments I had from attending I&I that I hope you’ll find of value too:
1. In terms of money, you can only receive what you allow yourself to receive.
So consider how that may play out in your own sense of worth, in both the level at which you invest in yourself as well as the level at which you ask others to invest in you.
For example, if you invest in a $2500- program, are you asking your market to invest in a $2500- program with you?
On the other, more common, hand, are you asking your market to invest in you at a price point that you’re not willing to invest in for yourself?
Where in your business might there be this incongruence?
2. When you feel like you need to add another element to a program (to ‘justify’ a higher price), add more transformation instead.
You may have heard me say before that people buy based on emotion, not necessarily on logic.
When you’re writing your copy for your offer or speaking about your offer, you want to spend 90% of your words on the transformation that people will get as a result of engaging your services.
You can think of it as the transformation, or the outcomes, or the benefits, that someone will receive as result of being in your program, buying your product or siging on to work with you one-on-one.
3. “I already know that…”
Whenever I attend an event, I make the effort to pay attention as if everything was new, which enables me to see the holes that are present in my business. And when I find that “I already know that…” I ask myself, “Am I doing that?”
From this event, it was evident to me that yes, I have all the pieces working that were covered at the event; now it’s time to up-the-ante on them all.
Where can you up-the-ante on one thing that’s already working well in your business?
I’d love your thoughts on any of the above – feel free to leave them below…
Go back in time with me?
As I enjoyed celebrating our freedom here at the lake yesterday, surrounded by family and friends, laughing and reminiscing together, in my mind, I went back in time for a moment…
…to when Chloe was 4 months old, and we lived in New York, and we bought one of those small easy-set pools so I could ‘swim’ with her… and then when she was 6 months old and we spent a week at the lake at my parents’ cottage and I cried the moment I laid her on the little beach down the hill from the cottage, and how I smiled so much it hurt when she went into the water in her little float that first time, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for being able to share this very special place with her.
As much as I had always wanted to spend my summers at the lake like I did from the time I was 3 months old until I was 22, I had to get a ‘real’ job after graduating from college instead of another summer job waitressing. Nothing was more motivating to me to figure out how to create a lucrative business of my own designed around the life that I wanted than that first brief visit here with my daughter.
And by the next summer, I had secured a waterfront cottage for us for 4 weeks, which James, Chloe and I enjoyed together, and Chloe and I spent another 3 weeks with my parents at their place with James joining us on the weekends. (Each year since, we’ve added a week or two (and our son Jack), and seven summers later are enjoying 11+weeks together as a family.)
That was also the first summer I embraced this concept, offered to me by my mentor, coach and friend, Andrea Lee…
To double your income, the first thing you must be willing to do, is do LESS THAN HALF of what you’re currently doing.
Gulp. At first, I thought, there’s no way I could possibly work less. I had an 18-month-old who took a few 30 minute naps a day at best, which is when I worked…
But I knew intuitively there was something to this and there was no better time for me to test it out than during the summer.
So I did – for 7 weeks I sent my ezine each week and that was pretty much it… and you know what happened?
I made more money during those 7 weeks than I had in the previous 6 months. Amazing.
Thus, that concept has become one of the principles I’ve built my business on since.
This one can be a bit hard to grasp – it was for me, since I grew up with a work ethic grounded in an Irish immigrant great-great-grandfather who landed on the docks in Boston and started the legacy of a long line of longshoremen on my father’s side, including my dad, the same day.
I’m inviting you now to consider it though… what can you do less of or not do anymore at all that will empower you to create more income?
I guarantee there is something that you could let go of today that will start you on the path of more income today.
This concept, and others like it that have made a huge difference in the success of my own business, are part of what I’ll be sharing with you in our intimate gathering at my Online Business Breakthrough Workshop 2012.
I’ll be sharing with you specifically how to cut your workload in half while doubling your income, so if this is calling to you – then go ahead and reserve one of the last few seats available here:
(If you have ANY questions about OBBW, just hit reply with them and we’ll get right back to you.)
Then watch for a message from me on Friday, as I’m going to offer you an opportunity to create or strengthen the foundation of your online business so you can create the same kind of FREEDOM I have in my business.
’til then…
Cheers,
~ A
4 Business Shifts for Success in Current Times
I have a successful business because I know what to do and I do it. I make a good income, I work with clients I enjoy, I get to be creative and I get to do all of that in a way that serves my family and my life.
So when I attended a small intensive led by Laura West, my intention was not to get more strategies or techniques, but to truly shift the way I envision my business as I reinvent it in these shifting current entrepreneurial waters. And that’s exactly what I got – here are just four of those shifts:
1. Money comes from working within your creative power centers
Laura’s created this powerful body of work around the ‘creative power centers’ that crystallized where I needed to spend my time and energy on to evolve my business in the way that honors my life and my own strong boundaries around that life.
For me that means really listening and following my intuition more, taking care of my personal energy more, hiring a higher level assistant, and adding a whole lot more ‘Alicia flavor’ to the mix.
2. Always come back to what I want
When the thoughts get muddled and the confusion sets in with all the choices of what to do in my business (and my life), I will keep coming back to this single question:
What do I want?
And I’ll keep asking it until what I want is crystal clear. Then I’ll know exactly what to do.
3. Systems and structure equals more freedom
I’m great with systems – we have one for pretty much everything in my business – but structure is lacking a bit, and that’s because I can operate well on the fly. However, just thinking about how a little bit more structure would benefit me and my team and how that would lead to more freedom for me got me excited about actually putting that structure in place right away.
4. My non-negotiables are my success
I’ve been looking more closely at this and with the focused time at the intensive, I realized that a big attraction piece for my audience are my non-negotiables (family first, summers off, etc.). From that place, I was able to draft the new design of my business and I couldn’t be more excited about what’s to come.
At my annual Online Business Breakthrough Workshop, we’ll focus specifically on creating your detailed plan that will show you exactly what to focus on during each step of your business building so you stay on track to move much more easily from where you are to where you want to be.
You can get your ticket right now for the lowest price available here.
I love to know how this resonates with you – share your thoughts with me below…
Thoughts from the Dock: A Message from the Lake
A few weeks ago, I was playing with Jack in the shallows of our beach at the lake when I caught sight of something flashing underwater. I reached down to find a rusty Magic Hat #9 bottle cap – with this message on the flip side:
“The universe always has other plans.”
Hmmm… 😉
Being open to receiving messages such as these, I knew exactly that this was about for me. I had been finding myself dipping into fear and worry about a few things personally. And I noticed that I was feeling out of sorts because while I was trying to have faith, I was also uncomfortable feeling like I wasn’t in control (can you relate to that at all? ;-)).
I actually laughed when I read the message on the cap, and thought to myself, “ok, ok, I get it…” 🙂
Releasing control, moving through fear and doubt, believing that there’s a bigger plan and that everything is happening in Divine order… I’m a lot further along on that path than I was even a couple of years ago, but I’m still growing…
I guess my message here is that we all come up against our stuff, no matter who we are or where we’re at in our personal and professional life, but to continue to move forward regardless is the simplest key between getting from where you are to where you want to be…
Thoughts from the Dock: About being ‘lucky’
Can you believe it’s August already? This summer is flying by, but we’ve been enjoying every single minute of it… as you can see in this shot of us, hamming it up for the camera in the tea room at the spectacular Castle in the Clouds.
The Castle’s original name was “Lucknow”, which struck me when the staff posed us for this photo. It seems wherever we go with Chloe, she attracts these opportunities – she’s pulled out of line to get special attention, she’s picked to go on stage, or the line we’re in puts us in the front seat. It happens so often, we couldn’t help but notice it – sure, she’s super cute and friendly (she’ll strike up a conversation with anyone) – but there seems to be something about Chloe that brings her luck now. Now, if we could just bottle that… 😉
Seriously, I’m a believer in creating your own luck (thus why I don’t buy lottery tickets). Actually I don’t usually use the word luck because I think it’s too easy for people to use it as an excuse, and not in a positive way. I’ll share something personal here – I bristle whenever someone says to me how ‘lucky’ I am to have such well-behaved kids. Don’t get me wrong – I know how blessed I am (and those of you who know me or have been reading my ezine for awhile know this too) to have two happy, healthy, whole kids. No one is more grateful for that than I am. And yet, that comment (and similar ones) always comes across to me as if James and I had nothing to do with it, that it’s the luck of the draw that we have well-behaved (most of the time) children. Are you kidding me?
It’s the same thing in your business. I’m not ‘lucky’ to have a multiple 6-figure business. I created it, I earned it. And I did that by doing 4 things consistently:
1. Learning
2. Implementing
3. Leveraging
4. Mentoring (with and to)
I’ll be sharing more on those 4 in future ezine issues and blog posts, so stay tuned…
Ok, not sure where that little rant came from, but as a late friend of ours used to say, “…and that’s the end of that episode.” 😉
I’d love to know your thoughts – please feel free to share them below…
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