I sat down to write this blog post today knowing it’s Tuesday and I have a commitment to keep!

The problem is I’m not always inspired!  

I know all the regular topics that my clients want to hear about; how to get more clients, how to price their programs, how to figure out their elevator speech, how to deal with all the technical issues, blah, blah, 

Those are all good topics, and yet they don’t get to the real core of the issue for most of my clients.  

The core has to do with emotions. Ugh. No one wants to talk about this because, hey, you are supposed to look like you have it all together. 

You go to networking groups and dress-up, put on your best smile and talk about your business as though it was highly successful! 

In the privacy of your own home you are in tears, dealing with anxiety, panic attacks and feel like a failure. 

Last week I had a new client share with me that she felt it was dishonest for a business coach to say they can help you get more clients, when in fact they are constantly looking for more clients themselves. 

She expected her coach to not have the same problems she had.

Her comment made me think about this whole issue.  She had already hired me at this point, so I  very quickly  let her know that in fact  I am not as “pure” as she thought!  I wasn’t going to put myself in a postion of pretending I was someone I wasn’t. Of course I have issues!

As it turned out, she decided to stick with me because I was honest. 

Here are a few things I believe to be true.

1. When you own a business, you never stop  facing those core issues around money, rejections, failure, and self-doubt. Never!  

2. You never, ever stop having to do marketing, selling, and bringing in new clients. It doesn’t matter what kind of business who have. One rule of thumb is that it takes a good four months before you see the results of any marketing campaign. So, if you stop doing marketing, you are going to be mighty hungry four to six months down the road. 

3. It isn’t a shameful thing to feel scared or stuck in your business. The times I have had the most issues myself, I am the sharpest in helping my clients. I have blind spots in my own business, but they don’t over-low to my clients, in fact it’s the opposite.  Not sure why, but it’s always been that way. ( It doesn’t mean I don’t offer good service when I feel un-troubled. The logic doesn’t go both ways

If you are feeling stuck, fearful, riddled with self-doubt or confused, this isn’t the problem. The problem is what you do when this happens. Some people hide out, eat junk food,  or do computer games.  This will just make you feel worse.

Here is what I suggest instead:

1.  Take action. It doesn’t matter what as long as you do something constructive from your to-do list.

2.  Find someone to talk to about how you’re feeling. Just in that process, you will shift and realize that just on the other side of the fear, is a feeling of promise, a knowing you are going to make it, a belief that you will be successful.

3. Find someone who can see past your blind spots. This is the best investment for your sanity and for your business. Once you can clearly see what they see, the fears and self-doubts will fade into the background like magic.

Does this make sense to you? Can you relate?  What do you do when you feel stuck?

How is your old story holding you back in your business?

So much of who you are, the decisions you make and how you present yourself has to do with your story. 

I recently had one of those aha moments and uncovered another layer of my story and how its been running the show.

When I was in second grade I had an unfortunate experience with math at school. I was in one of these combined classes on grades two and three. One day my teacher was showing the third graders long division and the rest of us were supposed to be “not watching.”  

Being good, I didn’t watch but but some of my classmates didn’t listen and instead they learned long division and I was left to feel stupid.

I asked to be shown but she just told me to wait until next year. Evidently there were no points given for being good. A could have gleaned many messages from this incident but the one I adapted was that I wasn’t good at math and also not very smart overal. 

That stayed with me and as a result I stayed away from financial stuff, struggled and thought I wasn’t smart enough to make money. 

I’m not sure where I got the idea that it took higher than normal brains to be able to make money but I didn’t think I was smart enough. 

Not feeling smart came from that childhood message. Math was not my best subject in school after that and somehow I thought you couldn’t be smart unless you were good at math. It’s really amazing the twisted beliefs that get adapted at a young age and then the decisions that are made from those places. 

I only share this story as an example.  When I realized what my story had been all those years, I decided to re-write the story. In the new story it talks about a very smart little girl who was in a very low quality elementary school with poor teachers. She was bored and creative but had no outlet for her creativity there, so she learned to daydream and doodle away the hours. As a result she got low grades in math.  

However she grew up and got two masters degrees and got an A in statistics. She took a year of glaze calculation as part of ceramics and got in A in that, and this was before the use of calculators. ( ok- I am that old:) 

As a result of my new story, I realized I was certainly smart enough to run a business and understand the financial part. I also realized that one of my skills is to help other entrepreneurs to understand and change their own story to support their success.

Can you see how there might be a story from your early childhood that is affecting you today?  

What is your own story around being a successful entrepreneur?
What part of your story do you need to let go of?
What’s your new story?

I would love to help you unravel this. Contact me for a free discovery/strategy call

I am loving the gorgeous tulips that are right outside my front door!

They are a reminder of the magic of new growth and the simple beauty that comes with it.

For years I knew how important it was to outsource, hire an assistant, and not try to do everything myself.

I’ve been preaching this to my clients for years because in theory I knew that “doing everything yourself keeps your business at a small size that you can manage.” 

It’s a funny irony. I wanted my business to be larger, have more income streams and I also wanted to have a team. The theory was correct. 

The trick was how to turn that theory into practice. Some years back I began by hiring various personal assistants to help me with projects. There were problems immediately:

• I really wasn’t earning quite enough money yet to pay for it.
• I didn’t know how to find the right person or the skills I really needed.
• I didn’t know how to manage that person.

So I ended up with people who were not exactly the right fit, I felt like they were doing stuff I could have done myself and I also couldn’t guarantee them a certain dollar amount each week. 

It was hard and I felt like I was missing an important piece of the puzzle (a common thread for me:)  

In fact, it was all good! What I realize now is that for most solopreneurs, there is an overlap time. You need help sometimes, but not all the time and you have to experiment and figure it out. 

You need to also develop  your own business plan first so you are focusing on the projects that will help you to grow your business. This is the key! Once I got that key it all changed. The telesummit I just did was the completion of this shift. I absolutely could not have done it without expert help.

I didn’t hire people because they were cheap. I hired them because they knew more than I did and could do the parts I couldn’t do, didn’t want to do, and didn’t have time to do. I paid top dollar for my telesummit Virtual Assistant, but Claire was actually a project manager for me. She kept me on track and I trusted her!

As a result of that experience, I was able to see exactly what I needed help with next in my business.

I have been doing telesminars for years and it was time for me to do my first webinar with slides. I kept putting off going on the Instant teleseminar site to figure out how to set that up, how to embed it on my website etc.  That stuff  gives me a headache, so I was sabotaging my process by doing everything else first. This past week, I finally gave the job to Tara, my new VA and empowered her to do it. In one hour she figured it all out for me.

Now I can spend today creating the webinar content which is my favorite part. 

I feel like I am now a grown-up in my business and moved into being a really good manager. I can’t show enough appreciation for Tara. She is not just my VA. She is a valuable member of my team.

• Know what you are good at, at what parts you need to outsource. This won’t be the same for everyone. 
• Find someone who has the exact skills that you need. I am more of an artist, teacher.  I needed someone more left brain!
• Communicate and show appreciation. This goes a long way to building a strong relationship. 

“5 Steps to Awaken Your Entrepreneur- It Begins with Your Mindset”
Thursday April 18,  4PM Pacific
http://www.awakeningbusiness.com/the-awake-entrepreneur-shift/

What is your own experience with hiring a VA? What help do you need?

The wonderful life of a work-from-home entrepreneur.

In your fantasy it was all about doing what you love, sleeping late, making a difference!

Of  course you have people running after you to throw money at you because they just love your programs, your healing work or your art. 

That was my fantasy and if I hadn’t had any self-doubt or made all the mistakes, I’m sure this would have happened for me long ago!

However, it was really hard work to get to where my business is now!

The last two weeks in my tele-summit, every one of the presenters shared a similar story.

Flora worked as a waitress, Patti had two small children to support and no income, Connie spent her retirement and made almost no money the first year, Jenn didn’t think was smart enough to receive money, and so on. 

However every one of these people have highly successful businesses now. They worked hard, learned and shifted their mindset. Jenn talked about getting past your stoppable self. Vicky talked about doing it, not trying to do it!

Vicky shared:
You’re doing better than 50% of the people if you just show up. 
You’re in the top 20% if you put out any effort at all!
You’re in the top 1% if you do everything you can!

Where do you want to be?  I want to be in that top 1%!  I just overcame huge fears, self-doubts, money issues and tons of other crud, in the process of hosting this amazing event. If I can do it, so can you!

What is your big thing that you could do if you didn’t have your issues? Are you willing to do it anyway ?  I did and I didn’t die and neither will you. 

Are you willing to do all you can? 
What is stopping you?  

Some responses I have heard  include:
Having no money, not wanting to create debts, fear of failure, not being good or perfect enough. 

I’ve had all those things too and I just decided that my desire to be wildly successful was more important than any of those tiring old issues:)

Here are two ways I can offer you to help you right now!
I’m offering. It’s up to you to accept! 

Download the Mp3s of all ten amazing sessions. Listening again will give you so much help! Each speaker shared so much wisdom!

•  Create and own your expertise.
•  Connect and communicate to the world through your strong message.
•  Monetize and leverage your gifts.

Remember- the first step is showing up!

What do Life  coaches and molecular biologists have in common?

You might be scratching your head to think of anything!

But in fact they both work with clients who need a certain kind of special help.

However, this might be the end of the similarites…

A biologist might get paid $1200 for a consulting one hour to help his client  understand a complicated scientific formula or process needed in a  cancer research project.

You might be suprised that someone would pay that much, but in fact they aren’t really paying for an hour of the scientist’s time. They are paying for the knowledge and expertise they will receive in that one hour that could save lives. 

If you were a biologist you wouldn’t need to work too many hours a week at this rate- but of course this scientist would likely have written books, conducted research, given lectures etc. 

A life coach also charges an hourly rate – maybe $60-100. However it’s usually less clear what expertise is being given. There is a value in having a good listener and someone to help you sort things out. But people often don’t see the real expertise beyond paying for that person to listen and ask good questions for that hour. It’s worth something, but not a thousand bucks! (unless you’re Oprah)

So the question is…if you’re coach, healer, wellness practiioner, designer or writer, what is your expertise that you can market instead of hours of your time?  How can you market it in a way that it will benefit millions of people?

This requires you to change your mindset and become an expert at something beyond what you can give in that one hour. It has to be something there is a real need for. If people are unhappy they will pay for help if you have knowledge that can help them.  

It needs to be articulated and packaged and once you do that, you will begin to have a real business where you are not always scrambling to find one more client!  Find out how!