In the last blog post we asked if the stress you were experiencing was real or just something you had created by allowing it to ‘take you down.’   In part 2 of the series, I’ll share the first of my five-part formula for how to take back control.

It takes a bit of work, but if done properly, you can manage your mindset and stay on top of the stressful elements in your business because managing your energy is your #1 job!  Here are the first two ideas for you to begin working with.

Come Clean – Be honest.  You can’t do anything about a problem if you don’t acknowledge it.  So what does stress mean to you?  How does it look?  And what are your unique ways of doing it?

• Overwhelm because you don’t know what to do next
• Lack of sleep because your mind is going over and over and over…..
• Self doubt which causes you to under charge
• Loss of productivity (cuz you are just doing mindless busy work all day)
• A dip in revenue because marketing stops or slows down
• Immobilization because at this point, shutting down feels like a good solution

Stop the Spinning – Good for you.  You have acknowledged that you may be a bit stressed.  And now it’s time to get off the merry-go-round for a bit.  In this phase you will consciously notice that you have slipped into stress and now make conscious decisions to do something different.  Notice a lot of emphasis on the word CONSCIOUS because for most of us, getting out of our zone and on the stress-train is usually unconscious.  No one chose that destination, but suddenly we wake up one day and its like, “Holy Cow….how did I get here?  The big red sign that says “STOP” is just what you need to do right now.

Here’s what you do – Pick a relatively short term goal like 3 to 6 months out.  Then you will list all the tasks that need to happen in order to get that done.  After you list all the tasks via a big brain dump, you will calendar it.  What happens most often when folks are stressed is that they don’t know what to work on next and they have VERY unrealistic time frames set up. This method will allow you to not only stay focused on the bigger picture goal, but will also solve the “what to do tomorrow” challenge as well.  And one more thing….make sure you have a visual reminder of that big goal.  It’s easy to get lost and stressed about the minutia, so having the tangible thing to focus on can keep you in the game a bit more.

In the next post I’ll cover a the last two steps designed to get you turned around and get a handle on the stress in your biz.  And in the meantime, focus on the good!

Blessings,

Therese

Let me ask you this big question…..

Is the stress you have in your business real or imagined?  And most importantly….what the heck can you do about it so it doesn’t make you go under?

Suddenly you are not in the moment enjoying the work, you are in the grip of one of the number one business happiness and productivity killers – you are stressing which means that as hard as you are working, your energy is going south with attracting the right clients to you.  That translates into the fact that you may be on some level pushing away the very thing you desire because of the stressed and overwhelmed state you are in!

Let me start by telling you that you aren’t alone, and that very often it’s darn hard and a bit scary to be in business for yourself!  I think stress, overwhelm, doubt and confusion are one side of the entrepreneurial journey.  (So are happiness, delight, satisfaction, pride, and so many other cool things!)

If you are like most enthusiastic entrepreneurs you may have moments where you are in the flow, feeling great, and doing the work you love.  But then there are those other moments when you start to worry or feel overwhelmed.  You may start to project fear into the future or ruminate over past opportunities missed or perceived mistakes made.

My request to you today is to notice the self talk you are doing when your stress level is at it’s highest.  Write down your thoughts.  That will prepare you for the rest of the articles that will follow.

Catch ya tomorrow, and know that you CAN turn things around!

Here’s to believing in you……

Therese

We addressed the mindset piece and the pricing piece in earlier posts, so in this article I’ll be talking about how using a call to action is super critical in growing your revenue, and what to do if you have a bit of a hard time asking for that.

OK, first things first.  You do use calls to action, right?  With every email or article or written correspondence, are you directing your readers what to do next?  On your interviews or teleclasses, is there a ‘next step’ you want folks to take?  I think sometimes we get a bit lazy or just forget that this is a critical piece of having people move into connecting more with us.

So here are a few places not having a call to action is hurting you and how it’s related to the dreaded “Oh crap….they aren’t buying” syndrome.”

1.  They don’t know how to work with you. Yikes.  This happened to me once.  A person who had the profile of my ideal client responded to something I put (for the first time!) in my newsletter.  Basically I said, “Hey I have spots for a few more 1:1 clients, so if you are struggling with these issues, contact me and we’ll set up a time to chat.” By the time she got to the call, she was already sold because she’d seen my work.  When I asked her why she decided to respond to that ad in the newsletter she said,

“Because I never knew how to work with you before.”

See, I had been sending out articles, doing expert interviews, and had launched a few programs, but that wasn’t what she’d been looking for.  No where  in anything she read was a blurb that said, “if you want to break free of whatever it is that is stopping you from your business success, click here to do that and I’ll partner with you.”  Big lesson for me there!  My call to action for you….find places you can ask folks to take the next step.  Actually first figure out what that next step is and then go for it!

2. Your call to action is worn out and tired. So maybe you do have something at the end of your blog post that says, “leave a comment” or maybe you say “go to my website and sign up for my free report.”  But what if folks are getting sick of that?  What if they have already downloaded your freebie and left a comment or two?  What then?  Or what if your freebie is outdated and doesn’t match the talk you are giving now or the branding you are currently rolling out?

Here I want you to do a bit of spring cleaning.  You don’t have to go crazy, but you do have to have more current offerings.   And when you do, you may want to ask your market what they’d like.  Example….”would you prefer to listen to a 45 minute audio, or receive the same info as a 5 day ecourse?”  My call to action for you here is to let your readers tell you what’s working by asking them.

3.  Your mindset is getting in the way of asking people to take a next step. If you are first born child,  have super-hero tendencies, or tend to be a bit of an overachiever I have a prediction about you.  My guess is that you have a bit of a hard time asking for things.  Most of us (particularly women) get into “let me help/support/nurture you” mode and HATE to ask.  Very often the sale or opportunity to work together is just laying on the table but because we get so freaky about wanting to ask for things, we miss it.

I want you to notice what goes on in your head as you think about asking people to take the next step.  Do you recoil?  Feel like you’ll be ‘pushy’ or bothering them?  Are you afraid to seem to ’salesy’ or aggressive?  My call to action for you is to notice the places of resistance.  Notice if you get a bit anxious or uncomfortable.  This is a huge point of growth and so you may want to lean into where you normally would back down.

4.  You don’t know what to use for a call to action. Simple stuff here.  If it’s not your mindset, it may be that 1) you didn’t realize you should be using CTA’s in your pieces, or 2) you haven’t taken the time to plan or strategize where things should go.  It’s simple if you think about it in relationship building or developmental terms.  Let’s break it down.  Say someone reads one of your blog posts.  They get a feel for your work and expertise.  What is the next thing you want them to do.  (Asking them to leave a comment is really fine here)

Sometimes we may ask for a specific thing like “go to Facebook and join my group” but other times it may be more intangible like “Ask yourself what’s the definition of success in your business.”  You don’t want to continually be promoting, so are there CTA’s that will help your audience answer their own questions?  Find their own solutions?  Even if you are just asking the question, you are still viewed as a trusted source and that’s precisely what you want!  My CTA (call to action) for you is to take some time to look at each piece that you put out and plan on the call to action requests as well.  Don’t take it for granted that people know how to work with you, how to find you, how to benefit from your expertise, or even how to contact you!

Now my final call to action is to go out there an be as brilliant as you can be because the world needs what you have to offer!

And if you want some support in doing that, email me at Therese@HappyinBusiness.com.

Blessings!

This is part two if the three part series of what do to when you notice the trend (and probably freak out a bit) when folks aren’t buying what they used to.  If you didn’t catch part 1, the mindset piece, you can click on the link and read that article.  Once we deal with the inner game, now we’ll look at how some tweaks in your pricing can infuse some more vibrancy (and cash flow!) into your business.

Ask you list what they struggle with. Are you selling what you want or what your customers need? Sometimes we are guilty of that because we get so excited about our offerings.  How about asking them what would serve them? Perhaps they aren’t buying because what you have been offering needs a face-lift.  If you do a survey to you audience, they will likely tell you things that you have thought of before, but hadn’t yet focused on.  Ways to ask them?  You could do informational interviews or use www.SurveyMonkey.com to get the data that would give you this information.

Come up with smaller pieces for your clients to buy. My advice – don’t lower the overall prices, but you can offer new ways to ‘consume’ your offerings. This way you don’t go from let’s say charging $250 a session to $150 a session. You go from offering a 9 month program to a 3 month program but keep your value the same. (And please don’t just be charging per session! Programs are the way to go.)

Offer payment plans. One of the commitments I made to myself was to keep my prices up where I felt really good about them. Even when the economy tanked there were some folks who wanted to work with me but couldn’t afford the fees, but I refused to lower my rates because I made the decision that I would rather lose money and take a stand for my worth and value than take less and feel compromised. (In fact I wrote an article about what happens if you undercharge – how it leads to resenting your clients.) That doesn’t translate to good service.   So if you want to make it a win-win, offer payment plans so your clients can get your services in a way that also works for their budget.

Add new/lower cost offerings to your funnel. Some of us are one trick pony’s. We offer one program, one group, and maybe a book or two. When you do survey your list, ask them what their biggest challenges are and design lower priced starter level programs around this to 1) get them in your funnel so they can begin a relationship with you, 2) help more people, and 3) get some income flowing in. When I did the Body, Mind and Business Breakthrough Telesummit I created the “30 Days to Plugging Your Money Leaks” program. This has been a wonderful way for people to start coaching with me without making a huge money commitment up front. And I feel good that this program really does solve a problem for business owners. So get outside the box with your thinking and come up with something new that addresses the challenges that your market has.

Create and offer high end programs. Guess what… folks are still spending money!  And there will be people who will want a more exclusive/high end offer.  This may not be for all your clients, but don’t take it off the table either. I’ve been doing my VIP offerings and so can attest that people are willing to fly in for the day for intensive work. A healthy service provider has a range of low to higher cost programs, so again asking your list what they’d like, roll out something.  You might find that it’s a heck of a lot easier selling one $2,000 day than selling one hundred $20 books. The trick is marketing, relationship building and finding the solution to the pain and challenges that your clients have.

There ya go….how to structure your pricing.  But now you have to get  comfortable asking!  So watch for my next blog in a couple of days where I’ll talk about why the “Call to Action” kicks our butts some times and ways to get around that.  In the meantime, if you would like help with your pricing, book one of my Bold Business Breakthrough Sessions before 8/31 while there is a $100 discount.  Trust me….I can help you design your pricing, feel good about it, and blast through and mindset blocks that would get in the way.  Just go to www.AcceleratingYourSuccess.com/vip and reserve your spot.

Surely the scariest place for a business owner is when the phone isn’t ringing, clients are leaving, and you get that dreaded feeling….

“Oh crap….no one is buying these days.  What am I going to do?”

We’ve all been there and it just sucks!  But there is a way out.  In this post I’ll talk about some inner game and mindset strategies and the next article I’ll go over my thoughts on pricing strategies.  So know you aren’t alone if you have felt this, and that there is a way through it!

And if you are in that space of fear about money, the first thing you must do is to watch you thoughts! Instead of looking at what you don’t have or what you have lost, flip it to notice just how much abundance is all around you. Perhaps you have an abundance of beauty in your yard, or like me feel tremendous wealth in personal relationships. This is where the expression, “What you think about, you bring about” comes in. The more you focus on lack and fear, the more you will see and experience it.

Your number one job during these sometimes scary times is to manage your energy. We’ve all had the experience of having the desperate person in the bar hitting on us or the pushy car sales person who needed your purchase to pay his rent. And that energy is quite repelling, so you must be vigilant about knowing that your good is right around the corner, and stay in the positive mode of what you have that’s working right now.

Whatever you do, STOP the conversation about what’s going wrong!   Last year when I was in this very scary place, I spent loads of time sharing with my friends how things weren’t working. (Yes, my inner drama queen was having a hey day over it all!) Finally one of my best friends said, “Look, your business is called Happy in Business. If you can’t figure out a way to be happy right here, you can’t own that brand.” Quite the kick in the pants, but so true. I began to shift right then and there.

So after you stop the negative conversations, the next piece is to look at the possible gifts in your life even if you can’t see them in the moment.  Think of the farmer who has to have faith and trust that the seeds he planted in the ground he so lovingly prepared…will soon take root.  That’s the task for you my friend.  Finding that level of faith.

So just to restate it, the mindset tricks when you get scared or they aren’t buying are these:

• Stay in the day – don’t project into the future with fear
• Focus on what’s working and expand that
• Find the gifts so you don’t feel like a victim
• Refuse to give in to negativity – shift your energy
• See the abundance all around you and amplify it
• Reach out and let people support/love you
• Know there are seasons to everything and this will change too

Try these tips and let me know how it works for you.  Mainly … don’t give up!  See ya next time with my pricing ideas.

Blessings!

By the way – if you see yourself in this article and would love a BIG breakthrough for your business, go to www.AcceleratingYourSuccess.com/vip and you can save $100 off of my Bold Business Breakthrough Session.  Just use the coupon code VIP and you’ll be on your way to making the big shifts!

Have any questions, feel free to email me at Therese@HappyinBusiness.com and I’d be happy to get back with you.

Maybe you have a beautiful baby of a business just ready to come out….it wants to grow up big and prosperous.

Are you surrounding yourself with the right person to help birth it?

This article was published months ago but I thought you’d enjoy reading it as there are some inspirational nuggets inside.

This came at about 3am….it was pouring rain and I couldn’t sleep because it kept going round and round in my head…….

A bit of the back story first though – I had just signed up a new client.  The perfect kind of client that ‘gets’ the work I do.  The kind where there is an instant synergy.  It tells me that my marketing is working!  I had been pretty clear on who I wanted to attract, but I hadn’t been quite as BOLD and powerful about who I was being until my friend/coach Nancy Marmolejo took me through her Profitable Essence program and helped me find it!   It was there that I finally claimed that I’m not just about growing your business….that’s of course part of it, but its in transforming YOU that is the most rewarding.  You and your business get transformed by the work, and the results are amazing!

And since I have been putting that ‘vibe’ in the world, the coolest of clients are finding me!

So at 3 in the morning my head was swimming around, looking for a metaphor for this blend of me getting more clear about my work, and that magic is bringing the exact right clients in.

Then it hit me – the Midwife versus OB/GYN analogy.   I think of it like this…you go to an OB and it’s kind of on their terms.  You as a pregnant woman are pretty dis-empowered, and mostly have to submit to how they want things to go.  A midwife on the other hand supports YOU in creating the delivery the way you want it.  She will assist you in finding the strength inside yourself to do the hardest thing you’ll ever do.  Since there may be men and women who don’t resonate with the childbirth analogy, let me take you a bit further into the similarities.

See, most business owners don’t really know what to do to create a profitable business and certainly not how to  market themselves.  They go to a web developer who tells them what kind of site they need, they listen to some friends who tell them what they should charge and what to offer,  so very often what comes out is not a  pretty baby!

The cool new client that came to me is a beautiful and spiritual woman who had a dreadful website!  Here she is with a very soft and feminine side, yet her website was black!  Another one of my recent clients listened to someone who directed her to create a site that had not a single piece of her in it.  It was corporate and cold…nothing at all of who she is.

When these clients come to me they haven’t had the success they want, don’t understand why their marketing isn’t working, and they are sometimes even ready to give up.  That’s where the “Business Midwife” comes in.  Because my belief is that your perfect business- just like a baby – is inside of you, just waiting to be birthed.

Let’s look at how you know when you have birthed your ideal business?  It starts with how you feel.  Do you have fun?  Is it something that you are proud of?  Is there an ease to it?  Do you feel fully expressed in the business world?  That means, are you giving yourself permission to bring ALL of you to the table?  For this if you are spiritual, you be spiritual.  If you are quirky or analytical, be that.  And when you finally give yourself permission to be there….magic happens.  I call it the Dog Whistle effect.  Just as the dog whistle is imperceptible to the human ear, your perfect marketing message will only be heard by those eager souls who would love the work you do. But if you water it down by not showing up fully,  they miss it….and you experience the frustration that so many entrepreneurs struggle with.

I know from personal experience how to birth a baby!  I did it naturally two times, and my last son was born in a tub.  And I know how transformative that experience was.  Instead of having the “let’s just get this kid out” feeling that some women experience, it became the most pivotal experience in my life.  I took all the pain, discomfort, and struggle and turned it into the knowledge of my own power and strength as a woman.  Growing a business affords you these same opportunities!  You will feel stuck, you will want to turn back, you will experience pain and doubt, but if you persevere and allow for the transformation….you will be rewarded the most amazing creation of your life. That’s my hope for you.

I hope I’ve helped you to see over the last few posts that you CAN have the business of your dreams.  That you do have the power to make the changes that will set you on a course of victory over these traps that may have held you back.

Wrapping up the list of the money sucking mindset blocks comes #5 – which is the belief that I’m not ___________ enough to be successful. I coach a lot of coaches and other people who are service providers, and I hear this from them sometimes. It sounds like…

“I’m not educated enough”
“I don’t know how to market good enough”
“I’m not experienced enough”
“I’m not connected enough”

This one was one of my personal struggles when I started doing coaching back in the day. Partly because I have a Master’s Degree in Counseling and felt so proficient, educated, credible, and established in my old industry, that when I started something new, all my insecurities came flying up to the surface. I remember telling a more seasoned coaching all the reasons I “wasn’t enough” essentially and he looked me in the eye and said, “Give up your story…YOU ARE FULLY COOKED.” It was the first time I had considered that what I brought was valuable. And so what I did was to decide then and there that I’d figure out what more I needed to add to my skill sets and then get that so I no longer had the “but-I’m-not-enough-cuz-I-was-just-a-therapist-and-didn’t-have-a-corporate-background” crap I had been telling myself.

(The funniest part? The thing that I was feeling my “not enough-ness” around is the thing today that makes me the most unique and is what allows me to command good money for my expertise. How crazy is that!)

When I work with my clients, one of my joys is finding those places where they don’t own their value and then turn it in to the pearl that makes them unique.

The trick here, like all the other mindset traps is to first become aware of your story. Next, do the Byron Katie work or other awareness exercises to turn it around, and then “act as if” so that you begin to start breaking the patterns that keep you playing small.

I’d love to hear from you.  Post a comment or shoot me an email and let me know your mindset blocks and how this blog series has helped you.

Blessings,
Therese

Do you see how the puzzle is fitting together as we’ve worked through Traps 1 and 2?  How our mindset really does influence our outcomes and being conscious is key to business success.

How many times have you heard yourself (or someone you know) say mindset block #3 – Everyone already knows this. This little bugger is the thing that keeps your great ideas inside you, has you comparing yourself to everyone else, and has your income hitting the skids in some ways because you may be devaluing what you know. It looks like this…you get an idea for a new program or product and then talk yourself out of it because that monkey mind who reminds you that everyone has heard this before, you aren’t that much of an expert anyway, and who the heck do you think you are! Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a teensy bit, but loads of great service providers are wandering around talking themselves out of their brilliance with the crazy story that what they want to launch in the world doesn’t have value.

Are you seeing a theme here? Notice that many of the mindset blocks really boils down to the issue of undervaluing ourselves.

So how do you believe that not everyone knows what you want to teach? Do some research. You could either ask your clients, find forums or other places where your ideal clients hang out, put questions on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or the social networking sites, or notice the themes that come up as you work with people. That will show you that there are specific problems that you are an expert in solving. I’d encourage you to make a list of the things that you have expertise in solving.

Here too is where we come to the place of there not being any competition because you have your unique style. You could be presenting Anthony Robbins’ stuff word for word and put your spin on it with your personality, and it would be fresh to your listeners! But too often we don’t take into account our experiences and world view and our way of working. The key here is owning your style.

Mindset trap #4 is what keeps most of our good ideas on the shelf, and that’s the belief that it needs to be perfect. This is a tricky one because no one wants to put out schlocky work, but if this one gets hold of you, the result is that of a hamster on the wheel. I have seen so much money, talent, time and potential wasted in the quest to achieve that “just right” state, that it’s mind boggling. This may be you if you aren’t launching your ideas because you have to “get it just right” or “do some more research” or “take another training” before you are enough or your work is ready to roll out.

My “BFF” and super-coach Shawn Driscoll always tells her clients to get it 70% done and get it out. You can always tweak a bit later, but the secret here is to master your ability to self soothe when that little gremlin pops in telling you that it’s not good enough. The next key is in having accountability and hard deadlines. Announce to your list that you are creating a product. Tell them when it will be ready, and it’s even ok if you tell them it’s a “Beta” launch while you are working the kinks out. Lots of people charge a bit less for this, so there’s not the feeling that you are charging a ton and giving a less than perfect product.

I should also say it here that if you have this pattern in your business, it’s also showing up in your life…I guarantee! So keeping with George of Seinfeld and the Opposite Day theme, do something different! Go out without make up or whatever for you would represent breaking the perfection pattern. You will eventually learn that good is good enough! Of course we strive for excellence and I’m not saying to settle, but if perfection is the thing that’s costing you money because you are holding your stuff back, settle for getting it out first and then looking for improvement. And remember that it’s a process, not an event.

You don’t want to miss the final discussion about Trap 5 because most, if not all people have fallen victim to this one at least sometime in their lives.  Find out how to overcome it for good!

Blessings,
Therese

I bet you started your business to make a profit, right? Or maybe to make a difference or create a lifestyle. But did you go into business to grow yourself? Were you sitting around a job one day saying, “Hey…I think I’ll take on one of the biggest personal growth transformation experiences there is…I’ll start a business!” More than likely you probably never had that conversation with yourself. And if you are like most of us, by now you have bumped into more than your fair share of the ‘stuff’ or what I call mindset traps.

In my last newsletter I covered the Five Mindset Traps of an Entrepreneur. You can click on the following links to refresh your memory of those posts:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.  That will give you an overview of what they look like and what the cost is.

In this series of blog posts, I’m going to share some strategies to break free of these pesky little patterns that can be standing between you and your success.

The Five Traps are:
• I have to do it all myself
• People won’t pay higher fees
• Everyone already knows this
• It needs to be perfect
• I don’t have enough _______

Ok, and as a reminder – if you see yourself in some of these traps, be gentle. No judgment, no shame….just awareness and action. So as you read this stuff, the best thing to do is to commit to doing something different. Sort of like that old Seinfeld show where George did “Opposite Day.” ?

With that bit of context, I’m excited to dive into strategies that will address Trap #1 in my next blog post. Definitely keep an eye out because these are simple things you can do that will have an immediate impact on your happiness and bottom line.

Blessings,
Therese

OK, let me start off by saying I have the worlds best VA’s.  Three of them actually!  (Sounds like a bumper sticker — “My VA could beat up your VA“, or “My VA got a perfect score on 1Shopping Cart today”…but I digress. 

I’m going to be sharing a huge business lesson that my savvy-with-all-things-technical VA, Rachael Henning didn’t know she taught me, but nonetheless did.

If you have been reading my blog or newsletters for any length of time, you know I’m crazy passionate about owning your brilliance.  Getting your stuff out in the world.  Big and bold, baby!  Yep, that’s what I’m about.  So when I discovered something about Rachael lately, it triggered an “OMG that’s a blog article” moment because of the reaction I had.

Here’s the story =

Rachael used to be the VA for a colleague of mine, so I had seen her work for 3 years.  Earlier this year I hired her to replace my other tech VA and have LOVED what she does.  I’ve referred her to numerous friends and clients, and everyone thinks the world of her.  (In fact, check out the work she did for my new product.  I wrote the copy and told her to “snazz it up a bit” and this is what she created….amazing! -  Mindset And Marketing Magic.

And even though I know Rachael, I don’t really KNOW Rachael if ya get my drift.  While one of my other VA’s and I have many late night Skype chats and discuss my dating career, (grin!) and all things related to business, life and children, Rach and I have more of a professional relationship, but I have the highest degree of respect for her.

But the other night it all changed.  I know she had a baby a few months ago so I was asking if she had pictures.  She told me to go to her Facebook page and find the new pics of their little girl, Zuzu.  So as typically happens when you are surfing the social networks, going to her page took me to her husbands page, and it was there that I discovered something Rachael hadn’t shared with me before.

Rachael is an amazing singer and songwriter!

Ok, that may not mean much to you, but my reaction to finding that out is why this article is written.  As I shared, I rave about Rachael.  But discovering that she had this whole other aspect to her somehow made her more real, more approachable, more talented and more respected.  It was like her celebrity status shot up about 50% more in my book because of this new information.  So immediately I sent her an email asking why she was holding out on us!  (And asked her if it’s ok that she’s the focus of this article.  She gives her blessings, BTW.)

How does this relate to you, the business owner =

Did you notice that I already had known Rachael before I got her?  I didn’t choose her based off her website or by seeing her on LinkedIn.  I hired her because I saw her work.  But most of us aren’t that lucky.  Many times the first shot people have with us is our website, so this is why I implore you to put more of you on your site.  Now to some, Rachael’s singer/songwriter status may have nothing to do with her skills as a VA, but let me tell you this…if you are marketing to women, they base buying decisions on being relational and in finding commonalities.  Since I’m a bit of a singer myself, Rachael had instant rock star status when I heard her original compositions and beautiful voice.  (You can listen to her stuff at:  Rachael Palmer

I always ask my clients, “Why should someone pick you?  If there were 100 of you in a room, what makes them choose you?”  Often it’s not the qualifications or skill level, but these intangible sorts of things like hobbies, kids, geography, interests, etc., that make all the difference in the world.

And do you know what often gets in the way?  Mindset.  Yep – back to the old mindset thing again.  Why?  Because we play small, under value ourselves, and fear that if we really go big and bold, we will be judged.

I remember back in the day years ago when I had just moved into coaching and decided that I wanted to be known as “The Spunky Coach.” I felt so liberated when that name came forth.  And scared.  Scared that it was stupid, no one would get it, and I even had to fight my coach at the time on why it was so important for me to birth that new version of myself. But that became part of my brand.  People came to know me as that.  I grew into and it ordered how I showed up in the world. That’s the epitome of branding.  As we grow our business grows, but do you see that our business also forces us to be more, show more, and express more?

So what is it for you? What are you holding back?  What cool things do you do, what do you love, and what do you take a stand for that  your ideal clients could read and have the visceral reaction like I did to Rachael?  I guarantee that if you start infusing your marketing with these things…you’ll soon be working with much more cool people and marketing gets a whole lot easier.

My challenge to you is to make the commitment to yourself to get out there in a bigger way.  Want some ideas how?  Give me a shout.

Blessings!