Falling into fear and doubt as you build your business is normal, but there are many things you can do to catch yourself before you fall into what I call the Well of Despair. The Well of Despair is that cold, dark, spinning place filled with fear and doubt like…
“Can I really do this?”
“If this really going to work?”
“I’m putting in so much effort and it feels like I’m not getting anything in return.”
“I’m uncomfortable talking about my business because
I’m not where others think I should be and I feel like a failure.”
First, take heart. We’ve all been there, and back again. And while there are many things you can do to climb out of the Well of Despair or keep from falling into it in the first place, one of the most effective is to simply manage your own expectations about your rate of success. I’m defining success in this case as ‘consistent cash flow’ so here’s a time-tested (over 10 years) timeline to cash flow for your online business.
Knowing this timeline will allow you to manage your expectations, relieving fear and doubt that you’re doing things wrong or that you’re not doing enough. It also allows you to plan ahead so you can move faster through each of the phases OR pace yourself as best fits your lifestyle. The timeline also tells you what to focus on now or what to focus on next.
If you’re implementing the relationship model of building your business, it’s important to be prepared for the time it takes to build your business (this is not a get-rich-quick model, but a potentially highly profitable one with sustainability) and to set realistic expectations of when you’ll start to see a profit from your offerings.
Phase 1: Market and Message
You’ll move through Phase 1 typically within the first 3 months in your building your business. This is when you’re focusing on the problems you solve for your market. This includes discovering and defining the biggest challenges your market struggles with, and researching and/or creating the solutions.
Phase 2: Building Your List
Once you’re clear on who your market is and what solutions you offer to them, you’ll move into Phase 2, which is all about building your list. Currently, we’re striving to attract 500-1500 people to our email list by offering them a free sample of what we do. We start this process right after Phase 1 and focus on building the list as part of our on-going marketing efforts.
Phase 3. Making Offers
This is when you start focusing on how to generate an income with your multiple streams. This is typically done from month 7 onward.
This timeline will give you a sense of how long it can take to get to consistent (or even any) cash flow in your business, as well as stave off any frustration and overwhelm you may feel as you get your online business off the ground or continue to build it. Remember, it takes twice as much fuel for a jet to take off as it does to cruise at altitude. It’s the same in your business. You’re putting in more effort in the beginning but you’ll be cruising later.
Of course this is just a typical timeline. You can always move through it faster or slower, depending on your time and efforts.
I go into this Timeline in a lot more detail with my private clients as well as in our L.E.A.P.™ programs, so if you’d like to learn more, go here.
Where are you in the timeline and what’s your next step? I’d love to know so feel free to leave share your thoughts below…
Are you like many business owners who are confused or stuck when it comes to creating a unique, memorable, and authentic brand? If so, you’re not alone. I’ve been there myself, so I understand the frustration of feeling stuck on this whole branding thing.
But once I discovered that if I looked at it from a completely different perspective, that my brand wasn’t just about my business, but about ME, everything shifted.
Creating your brand from the inside out allows you to fully step into your business identity in a truly authentic way. It’s also the easiest way to stand out in the sea of others who do what you do.
So, if you’re stuck, let me give you three things you must be clear on in order to create a truly compelling and unique business brand.
Strategy 1: What results do your clients experience from your service?
One of the exercises I do with my private clients is have them generate a long list of the results their clients get from working with them.
You can easily do this right now. Just complete this sentence 30 times:
“The results my clients get from working with me are ___________________________.”
If you get stuck, here’s my secret: Send this question to your clients so they can tell you the kind of results you’re helping them create!
For example, when I asked my own clients this question, here’s some of what they shared:
“The results I get from working with Alicia are…
– clear, easy to follow instructions on strategic Internet marketing techniques
– insightful advice from a trusted mentor who understands my business
– generous knowledge and expertise, honest feedback and support, focus and direction
– more clarity on which steps to take to experience more alignment with my business/life purpose
– I now see the bigger picture and base my decisions on the ‘whole’ of my business, rather than just the next thing.
– stretching me in ways and areas that I could/would not do on my own
– more clients, more money and more fun in working with my business
– getting me out of my comfort zone so that I discover what is possible when I play a bigger game
– more clarity and awareness around time sucking activities that I am engaging in so that I can STOP doing them
Strategy 2: What are you an expert at?
Once you have a solid and in-depth grasp of the value you bring to you clients and the results you help create with them, you should easily be able to define what it is you’re an expert at.
Complete this sentence: “I’m an expert at________________________.”
Strategy 3: What does your brand promise?
Let’s take it one step further…
Your brand promise is a statement that is pretty specific. It’s true regardless of the program, product or service you may offer. No matter what the program, product or service, it always fulfills your brand promise.
And just to be clear, I’m not talking about your marketing tagline. What I’m talking about goes much deeper than that, to the very core of what it is that you are so passionate about providing to others.
My brand promise is, “I mentor women entrepreneurs to create priority-based, highly profitable businesses in less than part-time hours.”
So, my high-level private and group coaching programs, Online Business Breakthrough Workshop, 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™ and LIVE program, L.E.A.P.™ Learning Lab, and the rest of my offerings all fulfill this brand promise.
Here’s one from one of my past clients, Dale Carter at TransitionAgingParents.com:
“I provide trusted information and personal insight to inspire adult children to passionately pursue, for their aging parents, the quality of life their parents hunger for.”
So everything that Dale offers to her specific market fulfills this overarching promise. Dale knows what she is an expert at and that shows up in her brand promise very clearly.
So, what does your brand promise? What is it that your clients can count on you for?
The formula for an effective, compelling, memorable, authentic, fun and fabulous brand is really very simple:
“I get X results for my clients, which makes me an expert at Y, which means they can count on me to provide Z.”
Voila!
I’d love to know your thoughts on this – please leave your comments below.
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…
Ever have someone copy your idea, your sales page, your emails, or anything else you’ve created in your business?
Yeah, it’s not a good feeling.
Yeah, yeah – I know that ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ and that we’re all of ‘one mind’ and all that, but really? There is a line that no one should cross.
I’ve dealt with this on numerous occasions in my own business (frankly dealing with it now with someone who certainly doesn’t need to copy me – who has an extremely successful business already so I know that it’s about something else entirely) and while sometimes it is easier and ok to just let it go, other times it’s not.
So what do you do when you feel compelled to do something about it?
Here are 4 ways of dealing with copycats:
1. Vent
First, get on the line with a business best friend and have a good vent about it. You need to get it out of your system before you can approach the copycat from a place where you’re more likely to have the situation resolved.
2. Call them on it personally
I like to contact people personally first, and give them a chance to make things right. I don’t have my assistant do this – I reach out myself usually via email, with a gracious note that I’ve noticed something they are doing is very similar to mine and I wanted to point that out – that I wouldn’t want their people thinking they’re copying me.
In one case, the person in question immediately responded with a gracious note back, offering that she was ‘modeling’ me and others and told me she would make changes to the page in question and send it to me for approval. She did and I was satisfied with the changes she made and all was well.
If it doesn’t go that way then…
3. Call them on it officially
Get your attorney involved and send them a ‘cease and desist’ letter. That will usually do the trick.
4. Move on
Once you’ve handled it either personally or officially, move on. Don’t hold a grudge against the person, just let it go. It’s not worth any more of your energy or emotion and recognize that the reason behind the copying has nothing to do with you. And then use the situation to be even more creative in your own endeavors going forward.
I’d love to know your thoughts on copycats – share with me below…
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…
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