I had a email conversation with a potential high-level client several years ago that went something like this…
“Alicia, I have a successful life coaching practice – full client roster, mostly via referrals, steady 6 figures in income, and I want to bring my business online. I’m interested in your Platinum program – can we talk?”
I told her she should consider going through my 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™ instead.
My response surprised her. So much so she graciously asked why it seemed she wasn’t qualified for my Platinum program…(because <insert name>, <insert name> and <insert name> had already told her she was for their programs.
I explained it wasn’t that she wasn’t qualified at all. It was that she was already successful offline and she didn’t NEED a $24k Platinum program to bring that success online.
She only needed to implement the 21 Steps (for $297-) to get the foundation of a successful online business in place, and THEN we could talk about Platinum.
Or I could personally lead her through the 21 Steps program for $24k and call it Platinum… Her choice… You can guess which she choose, thanking me for pointing her to just what she needed next (and saving her thousands of dollars too).
I’m so tired of hearing stories from you about spending thousands of dollars BEFORE you want or even need to, just to get those critical underpinnings in place.
So I want you to have the same choice I gave to her – and for even less of an investment than that…
I’ve created a month-long LIVE version of the 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™ that I’m going to personally lead you through.
If you’re feeling the pull to check it out, I want you to visit the link below right now to get all the details and reserve your seat for $0.
http://www.clientabundance.com/21StepsLIVE.htm
THEN If we reach 30 registrations by April 30, I’ll personally lead you through the entire course for just $97-.
(Why 30? Because that allows me to leverage my time enough in order to be able to offer you this deeply discounted rate.)
The course begins this Thursday, May 1 so don’t wait, ok?
Cheers,
~ A
PS: Whether or not this invitation is for you, please SHARE this super-special offer so I can help 30 more people to create the successful and sustainable online business they ache for… thanks!
Have you ever done a cleanse of your body? It’s an enlightening experience, to be so aware of what you put into your body and how that effects everything, from your mood, to your brain power, to your energy level, to your creativity, to your health and well-being overall.
And it’s really no different for your business. Whether you’ve been in business for awhile or not, at some point – and I recommend at least once a year – it’s good to detox your business too.
Here are four of my favorite ways to detox your business:
1. Complete working with any ‘messes’ in your business
What do I mean by ‘messes’? Basically, I mean the clients that are difficult or demanding, who don’t respect the relationship between you, and who make your heart sink when you see their name on your calendar.
This also applies to any service providers you’re working with. Jot down a list of the people who do work for you in some regular capacity. Then ask – are they easy to work with or difficult on some way? Do they complete tasks well and on time or do they take too long with constant revisions? Do they keep things simple or make things more complicated?
Did you think of someone? My coach’s request of you is to determine a completion date for your work together and honor it for yourself. And know that releasing that person opens the space for a better client or service provider to come along and fill it.
2. Detox your inbox
This is something I talk about a lot. There can so much overwhelm and negative energy in your inbox, even if you’re so buried in it that you’re not sure what’s even in there anymore.
Here’s what I want you to do – Unsubscribe, Delete, Delegate, and Move.
Go through your inbox and unsubscribe from any list that a) you don’t read (even if you plan to, let’s be honest – you won’t) or b) doesn’t make you feel good when you do read it. This one act alone is going to release so much energy that’s pulling you and your business down.
Then delete anything that’s left that’s irrelevant, delegate to your team anything (and more than you think you can) they can take care of, and move any emails that you want to keep into appropriate folders (better yet, set it up so they automatically go into those folders).
The only emails left in your inbox should be the ones that only you can take action on.
3. Pare down your offers
Look at your offers one-by-one and see if there’s any way to simply them. That may mean breaking up a larger offer into smaller, more easily consumable pieces, or it may mean simplifying the delivery of the offer. And some offers may just need to be retired.
4. Release the ways you run your business that simply don’t work for you
This is a big one. Instead of trying to run your business one way, following someone else’s formula or blueprint, doing things your own way will always serve you and your market better. I’m all for following a proven process – I definitely don’t think anyone needs to re-invent the wheel – but just make sure that you tailor that process in a way that feels good and true to you. Don’t be afraid to throw out the parts that don’t resonate, or to add something in that is unique and different. The biggest successes I’ve had in my business have been when I’ve done it my way.
I’d love to hear how this resonates – please comment below.
By Alicia Forest, MBA
The Business Shifter™
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 keeps my family and my life first.
So while I’m always open to learning how to do all of this better, at the moment, my intention is to shift the way I envision my business as I reinvent it for its next iteration.
Here are four of those shifts:
1. Money comes from within
As I assess the current state of my business, I’m excavating where I need to spend my time and energy on to continue 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 will 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 is 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 have been looking more closely at this, and I realized that a big attraction piece for my audience are my non-negotiables (family first, summers off, etc.). From this place, I’m able to draft the new design of my business and I could not be more excited about what is to come.
Designing a business on your terms, in your time, is one of the pillars on which I stand and teach. Learn how to do this for YOUR business and life at my annual Online Business Breakthrough Workshop here.
by Alicia Forest, MBA
The Business Shifter™
In coaching clients this month, I’ve been reminded of many of the common blocks that come up for entrepreneurs as they grow their business. The good news is that to move beyond them simply takes a different perspective.
I’m sharing three of the most common ones below and a shift for you to consider if you’re finding you’re struggling with any or all of these blocks yourself.
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 industry 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?”
And if the answer is “yes” then my next question is “is it working?” And if the answer again is “yes” then my next question is “how can I make it work even better?”
Where can you plug a hole in your business or 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.
I’m really enjoying Making Your Creative Mark by Eric Maisel – and you know I love ‘chunked’ info so here’s an except I have permission to share with you… Enjoy!
CONFIDENT CREATING
By Eric Maisel
If you want to live a creative life and make your mark in some competitive art field like writing, film-making, the visual arts, or music, and if at the same time you want to live an emotionally healthy life full of love and satisfaction, you need an intimate understanding of certain key ideas and how they relate to the creative process.
One key idea is that you must act confidently whether or not you feel confident. You need to manifest confidence in every stage of the creative process if you want to get your creative work accomplished. Here’s what confidence looks like throughout the creative process.
Stage 1. Wishing
‘Wishing’ is a pre-contemplation stage where you haven’t really decided that you intend to create. You dabble at making art, you don’t find your efforts very satisfying, and you don’t feel that you go deep all that often. The confidence that you need to manifest during this stage of the process is the confidence that you are equal to the rigors of creating. If you don’t confidently accept the reality of process and the reality of difficulty you may never really get started.
Stage 2. Incubation/Contemplation
During this second stage of the process you need to be able to remain open to what wants to come rather than defensively settling on a first idea or an easy idea. The task is remaining open and not settling for something that relieves your anxiety and your discomfort. The confidence needed here is the confidence to stay open.
Stage 3. Choosing Your Next Subject
Choosing is a crucial part of the creative process. At some point you need the confidence to say, “I am ready to work on this.” You need the confidence to name a project clearly (even if that naming is “Now I go to the blank canvas without a pre-conceived idea and just start”), to commit to it, and to make sure that you aren’t leaking confidence even as you choose this project.
Stage 4. Starting Your Work
When you start a new creative work you start with certain ideas for the work, certain hopes and enthusiasms, certain doubts and fears – that is, you start with an array of thoughts and feelings, some positive and some negative. The confidence you need at that moment is the confidence that you can weather all those thoughts and feelings and the confidence to go into the unknown.
Stage 5. Working
Once you are actually working on your creative project, you enter into the long process of fits and starts, ups and downs, excellent moments and terrible moments – the gamut of human experiences that attach to real work. For this stage you need the confidence that you can deal with your own doubts and resistances and the confidence that you can handle whatever the work throws at you.
Stage 6. Completing
At some point you will be near completing the work. It is often hard to complete what we start because then we are obliged to appraise it, learn if it is good or bad, deal with the rigors of showing and selling, and so on. The confidence required during this stage is the confidence to weather the very ideas of appraisal, criticism, rejection, disappointment and everything else that we fear may be coming once we announce that the work is done.
Stage 7. Showing
A time comes when we are obliged to show our work. The confidence needed here is not only the confidence to weather the ideas of appraisal, criticism, and rejection but the confidence to weather the reality of appraisal, criticism, and rejection. Like so many other manifestations of confidence, the basic confidence here sounds like “Bring it on!” You are agreeing to let the world do its thing and announcing that you can survive any blows that the world delivers.
Stage 8. Selling
A confident seller can negotiate, think on her feet, make pitches and presentations, advocate for her work, explain why her work is wanted, and so on. You don’t have to be over-confident, exuberant, over the top – you simply need to get yourself to the place of being a calmly confident seller, someone who first makes a thing and then sells it in a business-like manner.
Stage 9: New Incubation and Contemplation
While you are showing and selling your completed works you are also incubating and contemplating new projects and starting the process all over again. The confidence required here is the confident belief that you have more good ideas in you. You want to confidently assert that you have plenty more to say and plenty more to do – even if you don’t know what that “something” is quite yet.
Stage 10: Simultaneous and Shifting States and Stages
I’ve made the creative process sound rather neat and linear and usually it is anything but. Often we are stalled on one thing, contemplating another thing, trying to sell a third thing, and so on. The confidence needed throughout the process is the quiet, confident belief that you can stay organized, successfully handle all of the thoughts and feelings going on inside of you, get your work done, and manage everything. This is a juggler’s confidence—it is you announcing, “You bet that I can keep all of these balls in the air!”
Manifest confidence throughout the creative process. Failing to manifest confidence at any stage will stall the process. It isn’t easy living the artist’s life: the work is taxing, the shadows of your personality interfere, and the art marketplace if fiercely competitive. If you learn some key ideas, for instance that you must act confidently whether or not you feel confident, you give yourself the best chance possible for a productive and rewarding life in the arts.
**
Eric Maisel is the author of Making Your Creative Mark and twenty other creativity titles including Mastering Creative Anxiety, Brainstorm, Creativity for Life, and Coaching the Artist Within. America’s foremost creativity coach, he is widely known as a creativity expert who coaches individuals and trains creativity coaches through workshops and keynotes nationally and internationally. He has blogs on the Huffington Post and Psychology Today and writes a column for Professional Artist Magazine. Visit him online at http://www.ericmaisel.com.
Adapted from the new book Making Your Creative Mark ©2013 by Eric Maisel. Published with permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com
I know that MANY of you struggle with planning in your business – and I did too…
…until the day arrived when I was so completely exhausted from jumping from the
frying pan into the fire and back again that I lost it (that was one of the two times I
seriously considered throwing in the towel on this whole being in business thing).
Once I collected myself , and recognized there was no way I was going to close
the doors on my business, I decided I had to do things differently going forward
if I ever wanted to not be overwhelmed and exhausted in running my business.
Is this resonating???
If so, I have more to share with you here…
http://aliciaforest.com/strategicbusinessplanningday/
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