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, increasing a team member’s responsibilities, 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.
Creating supportive environments is imperative to your success as an entrepreneur. It goes without saying that if you have environments that will support you and your passion, it’s going to be much easier and more enjoyable for you to do your work. In Part 2 of this series, I’m going to touch upon a few more of the environments that I believe are most essential to your success and well being.
Let me ask you something. Are you like me and by about mid-February, you’ve had it with the gray day after day? Not feeling sunlight for days at a time really affects my mood and my motivation levels. And sometimes, when you work at home, it’s easy not to go outside for days at a time. I try to make any effort to spend at least 15 minutes outside, soaking up some sun. What about natural light in your work space? Windows? Clean and fresh air? Are these things part of your everyday creative environment, as they should be?
Exercise 5:
If you aren’t getting enough natural light, fresh air, and can’t see the outside world, you are stunting your creative flow. If there is anything you can do to change or improve your natural environment in this way, I encourage you to do it now.
Your energy field is one of your most important environments. It doesn’t only include your own energy and the sources from which you get it, but it also includes the energy, positive or negative, that you get from your spouse, your friends, your children, your other family members, and your clients or customers.
Since our relationships are so important to us, it is very difficult sometimes to set appropriate boundaries, and we tend to tolerate behaviors and actions that are detrimental to our own well being. In order for you to be as successful as you want to be (remember that everyone’s definition of success is different), you need to take a hard look at the relationships that are not nurturing you, that are sending negative vibes into your energy field, and recognize that you are allowing it. And then you need to make adjustments.
You will either need to set clear and solid boundaries, or you will need to let go, as hard as that may be. I found I had to do this with a few very old friends several years ago. As much as we share a history that I treasure, when I was making some major transitions in my life, the only “support” they could give me was to remind me how miserable it all was, even when I had moved through the misery of it and had created a new and happy life for myself. They just wanted to stay stuck in the misery of it, and you know why…because they were miserable! It was hard, especially because we had a lot of mutual friends, but I have never regretted that decision. And you know what happened? Several new amazingly wonderful supportive friendships showed up in my life soon afterwards.
Cutting ties with old friends is hard, but dealing with not-so-supportive family members is even more difficult. My favorite tactic is to not react to anything they say or do, to just simply respond. It is very hard to not be attached to the feelings that a family member can arise in you (guilt, worthlessness, stupidity), but at some point you have to take back your power and not allow them to make you feel that way anymore. Their issues are their issues and you need to let them own that – don’t carry it for them.
I have found that when I am able to respond instead of react, they tend to give up and move on much faster. And each time I do this, I get better at it, and they get the message more and more clear. And suddenly I have found them on my side, being a cheerleader for my work and my life. Believe me that it is worth it to stand up for yourself with grace.
As for dealing with clients or customers who drain your energy, your best bet is to create an Ideal Client Profile and stick judiciously to it. The ICP is not a new concept, by any means, but it is one of the best ways to create an environment around your work that is full of supportive and wonderful people who love what you do and who make you want to do more for them because of it.
Exercise 6:
Choose one person, if needed, in both your personal and professional life to whom you either need to let go of, or set some clear boundaries with, and get to work.
You’ll find that your inner environment will improve as you make positive changes to your outer environment. In addition, making space in your mind for your creativity to flow is important for you to be able to bring your best self into the world.
One of the ways to do this is to invest a bit of time each day into writing what Julia Cameron calls “Morning Pages,” which is three pages of free writing at the beginning of each day to clear your mind of some of the unnecessary clutter. Sometimes what you write will seem trivial, but it’s that trivial stuff that takes up much needed space in your head! Other times you’ll enjoy some real breakthroughs. I highly recommend engaging in this practice. I have been journaling all my life, but the practice of Morning Pages really does help the creativity flow – besides that I believe that every life that is worth living is worth recording.
Exercise 7:
Your assignment then is to purchase a journal or notebook, or create a new file on your computer, and start tomorrow writing three pages of whatever comes to mind. Make this a daily practice and watch what happens.
Making an effort over time to create supportive environments for the things that are most important to you will open doors and opportunities that you might never have received otherwise. You deserve to be supported in your work and your life, so choosing to allow those people and things into it that bring out your best is not only a gift to yourself, but also a gift to the world.
I’d love to know your thoughts on creating environments that support you – please leave your comments below.
I’m writing this on my laptop in a Cosi café in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. The reason I am here has nothing to do with me or my business, but the reason I can continue to be successful in my work is because I have set myself up to do so. How? By creating supportive environments. In this case, the laptop, the appropriate software, and the ability to connect to the Internet, as well as the support of my husband, all contribute positively to my accomplishment of the task: writing and submitting this piece on deadline and without stress.
Creating supportive environments is imperative to your success as an entrepreneur. It goes without saying that if you have environments that will support you and your passion, it’s going to be much easier and more enjoyable for you to do your work. I’m going to touch upon the environments that I believe are most essential to your success and well being.
There are many environments in your life, and most of them intertwine. Being aware of these environments will ensure that you have a hand in creating them, and not allow them to be created for you by tolerating those people, situations and things that you shouldn’t.
Important areas of your overall environment include your home, office/work space, body, energy, and nature, which all impact your mental, spiritual, and emotional environments.
In your outer environment, your home is one of the most important. Your home should be a sacred place for you, a place where you feel safe, taken care of, and content. Clutter and chaos in the home should be kept at a minimum, but your bedroom and your work space in particular should reflect calm. I know sometimes it just isn’t possible to stay on top of it all, but if you make a consistent effort to divide and conquer – and ask for help! – over time you can make a huge difference in the quality of your home environment. As bonus, you’ll create space for other more appropriate and wonderful things to enter as well!
Exercise 1:
If you have a list of things that are broken, need replacing, or just need to be tossed, then start doing this today. Pick three things that are in your home right at this moment that you can either toss or give away. Then do so, and feel the space clear.
Nothing blocks creativity more than clutter in your office or work space. To be honest, I write that sheepishly thinking of the paper piles on the floor surrounding my desk at home. What I need are several filing cabinets so I’ve ordered the ones I want and just that simple decision is freeing a lot of mental stores.
Exercise 2:
If you have clutter in your work space, you are not allowing yourself to be more productive and creative. Give yourself the gift of a clutter-free space in which to bring your gifts into the world. Take ten minutes at the end of each day and tidy your space. File what needs to be filed, throw away anything that you no longer need and can honestly assess that you really won’t ever need, and make a plan for tomorrow.
Don’t ask yourself to be perfect in this; sometimes you are going to need to fly away from your work space and simply don’t have the time to do so. When that’s the case, then take the ten minutes in the morning to clear your space so you can clear your mind for the work of the day.
Having the right tools to work with will also make your work more enjoyable and much less stressful. My desktop died a slow tortuous death one summer and you can’t imagine my stress level at the time. It got so bad that I literally shut down and spent a week in a cabin in the woods, just working from my laptop, just to get away from it. And I also can’t tell you how happy I was when it finally bit the dust and I bought my new one. The lesson for me, though, was that I should have simply bought the new desktop when I knew that there was no saving my old one, instead of going through the stress of not being able to do my work, and not being as productive as I like and need to be to continue to be successful in my work. It certainly wasn’t worth it – on any level – to suffer through those last weeks.
Exercise 3:
As in your home, are there things in your office or work space that need to be tossed, replaced or upgraded? Are you tolerating things for financial or other reasons that are really counter-productive, like I did with my ailing desktop? Choose one thing that would make your work easier and more enjoyable if you replaced, upgraded or tossed it, and make the decision to do whatever it takes to make that happen as soon as reasonably possible. Stop tolerating what you shouldn’t and get on with bringing your work into the world.
Your body is an environment that you need to take care of as well. Are you getting regular exercise? Are you participating in something physical that you really enjoy, not something that you dread making yourself do simply because you know it’s good for you? Are you eating as nutritiously as possible, without feeling deprived of the foods you love? Do you get haircuts as often as you should and would like? Do you treat yourself to a manicure, pedicure, or some other spa treatment once in awhile? Do you get enough sleep? Do you rest when you need to? Do you run on adrenaline or do you use food and exercise as your means for energy? Our body is one of the environments that can be easy to ignore (until something is wrong), yet when we take good care of ourselves in this way, it is amazing how much more energy, patience, creativity and satisfaction we have.
Exercise 4:
Choose one area of your body environment that you know you can improve right away and make the commitment right now to do it. That could mean you will go to bed a half hour earlier each night, or that you will take a 30-minute walk outside today. You could not have a sugar-laden dessert tonight and instead opt for a lighter version of frozen yogurt with fresh fruit. What action could you take today that you know will make you feel proud of yourself for doing so?
I’d love to know your thoughts on hiring help in your business – please leave your comments below.
Taking my struggling consulting business online and following the business model I now do turned everything around for me, financially and otherwise. So when I started hearing from my mentors that I might want to add some offline marketing tactics back into the mix, I was hesitant to say the least.
But then I started studying and learning more about some specific direct mail strategies, and recognizing the power they have, I started wondering if maybe I wasn’t missing an important piece of the puzzle to take my business up another notch.
Then I started seeing some amazing results from my colleagues who were using direct mail in addition to their online marketing efforts – things as simple as a postcard – and I decided I needed to get into this game myself.
How do you get started adding direct mail marketing to your mix? Here are 5 simple steps:
1. Start collecting physical addresses
You may have the addresses of those clients and customers who have purchased something physical from you already, which is a great start. But you also want to start collecting snail mail addresses from those people who sign up for your list. This way, when you’re ready to send a physical mailing out, you’ll have all the information you need. AND, if email deliverability gets muddier, you’ll always have this other option of reaching your audience.
2. Plan a campaign
I always tell my clients to plan an online promotion campaign when they are ready to market a specific product, program or service, instead of sending out a single announcement. The campaign I recommend typically includes a minimum of three emails.
Same goes for an offline mailing. You need to plan a campaign, with more than one mailing, in order to truly get and discern a return on your investment.
3. Go cheap the first time
Something I learned when I was the public relations/marketing director for a university was NOT to do an expensive mailing until we had cleaned our list. Peoples’ addresses change for a variety of reasons and you may not always have the most up-to-date ones when you’re ready to send your mailing.
So, here’s a tip to clean your list before you start investing in some higher-end mailers. Send a postcard that has your return address on it to your current list. Then update your list via the returned postcards you get. Then make sure you have your return address on every mailing you do to keep your list as up-to-date as possible.
4. Keep it simple
Do a postcard, which gets read right away, with a simple, direct, compelling message and an immediate call to action, with graphics that don’t distract but support your message.
5. Track your mailings
The easiest way to do this is to send your readers to a simple website address (URL) that you only use for the purposes of that mailing. All you have to do is redirect that URL to your existing web page (where your offer resides) using the tracking link feature in your shopping cart. That way you can tell how many people typed in the URL and how many people took advantage of your offer. This is how you measure your return on your investment.
Getting started with adding direct mail to your marketing mix isn’t difficult. And by combining your online strategies with offline ones, you’ll be gaining a lot more clients and customers and bringing in a lot more income.
I’d love to know your thoughts and if you’re already using direct mail marketing or if you’re ready to start using it. Please leave your comments below.
Over the years, I’ve developed very strong boundaries in my business, which have contributed to its quick growth, and I coach a lot on setting and standing strong in boundaries with many of my clients. I wanted to share some of the ways I’ve created and strengthened the boundaries within the way I run my business so you can do the same.
Here are 4 ways that you can gracefully set boundaries in your business:
1. Have a policy page
For every product, program or service you offer, someone is going to ask you to do something different for them. It could be to offer it in a different format, at a different time or day, with a payment plan option, or dozens of other scenarios than I can’t possibly cover here.
As a general rule of thumb, don’t accommodate. Yes, there will be times when you make a different decision, but most of the time, stick to the parameters you created in the first place. You can’t please everyone, and every time you accommodate someone, you a) typically un-accommodate someone else who was just fine with the way your offer stood in the first place, and b) attract more people who will ask you to bend things for them in the future.
What do you do with the requests you get? Create a policy page from each and every decision you’ve made on how you will or will not run your business. Then when the next person makes a similar request, you simply send them to that page that explains clearly what your policy is, and that the policy applies to everyone. It takes the edge of it feeling like saying ‘no’ was a personal decision as much as it makes it super-simple for your team to handle these requests.
2. Be fair to ALL your clients
Being fair to all my clients is one value that I hold that makes it easy for me to be clear about the boundaries I have in place in my business. If you remember that it’s NOT that you aren’t willing or don’t want to be accommodating, but that it simply wouldn’t be fair to the rest of your clients and customers by doing so, it makes it much easier to say no graciously, and it keeps your integrity intact.
3. Have a buffer
Having someone on my team who manages these requests is imperative. First, as the business owner and leader of my company, it’s not the best use of my unique brilliance to be dealing with these requests personally. Second, my team is quite capable of knowing when a request may require my attention, and I trust them to let me know. And third, it makes saying ‘no’ less personal and much more graceful and respectful to the person making the request when they get an answer from my team instead of from me.
4. Be willing to let go
Ok, this one used to pop up for me a lot when I still struggled with a tendency to over-explain. I liked to craft just the right words to make sure someone understood my decision about something. I’ve realized that in doing so I wasted a lot of time, energy and emotion. So I stopped doing that for the most part. Once in a while when I found myself back in that loop again, and when I realized how much of my team’s time I was wasting, it bopped me over the head and I instantly went back to my short-but-sweet way of responding.
Here’s the thing: there’s always going to be a tiny percentage of people who want you to customize and accommodate them. But let them go play somewhere else. Because what happens when you stick to your guns is that you honor your value, your time, and your self-respect. You attract more clients and customers who are ideal and who are respectful of you and your team as well, and your business runs more smoothly and more joyfully.
Which one of these boundaries can you set in your business today?
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