Recently I attended Midas Camp with Andrea Lee and her wonderful team. 

We had a full day on sales and the sales process as this is an area many of us needed help with!

Most sol-preneurs struggle with sales; not wanting to feel pushy and just uncomfortable about the whole process.

It’s funny because you likely have no problem telling people about something you love!  I  bet you do this all the time, whether you’re talking about your children, pets, a good movie, a restaurant or whatever!  

However it seems to feel challenging to talk to people about your programs, even though you love and feel passionate about them as well!

I suppose it’s because there’s money involved and so it gets all scrambled with your self-worth and all that other  stuff!

Andrea asked each of to spend two minutes talking about something we loved and then at the end, just adding on how we know you would love it too. It was easy in this context,  and then what we learned the next day,  is that this is the exact same energy to use in the sales process.

Just be authentic, not pushy, not manipulative, but real and heartfelt. 

It was amazing and I totally got it!  We each did our two minutes “what I love” video. I actually didn’t know what I was going to say until I was standing there. But here it is!  

By the way- I will be bringing a bit of  my Wainui Beach wildness to the Awake Wild Women Retreat next October.

Manzanita beach is also special and this event will offer you the opportunity to learn how to be more comfortable with sales, money and more!  I’m going to love this event, seeing all the women show up, share and leave feeling so empowered and focused.  I know you will love it too! 

I’m sure that I lost a good two years of business growth just due to making poor money decisions. 

At the time I didn’t see it that way. I saw my low bank account,  a deep fear of incurring more debt, and I didn’t trust my ability to earn real money.  So I made money decisions from that place.

It was a logical decision to be frugal and careful, however but was also a huge mistake. 

I needed to invest wisely into my business and to step into a place of empowerment. Those poor money decisions also kept me financially poor and  kept my business disabled. 

Now I can see it all so clearly, but at the time I was in the mud so all could see was more mud. 

When I woke up I began to search for  the right mentors to help me and it was  as though a ray of light shone into the darkness. I realized that while I was stuck in the mud, the rest of the world was moving and I was being left behind in my scarcity mind-set. 

The last few years I’ve been making up for lost time. I am now mindful of where I spend money, but not operating from a “I can’t afford it”  mentality. 

I knew that in order to shift and grow my  income I need to find joint venture partners and this meant, get off of my bum and go to events where I would meet the right people. 

A few weeks ago I went to Midas camp with Andrea Lee. My friend Kathleen and I drove all the way to Vancouver BC, stayed in the fancy hotel and had a blast. Andrea is an amazing teacher, business woman and a heartfelt person.

I learned so many new empowering things for my business that I hardly know where to begin sharing.

I met tons of amazing people who are part of my tribe. I’m sure some of them will end up being joint venture partners in the future. I came home feeling energized and focused.

All in all I spent over $4,00 if I count the new year long program I signed up for. Will this have a return on investment and be worth it?  As andrea says, “All business is an experiment,” so I don’t have that answer yet. What I do know is that I am more focused now, have huge support, and have even more good stuff to share with you, my clients. 

If you are looking for a way to get this same energy and focus ( and you are a female  come to my Wild Women Entrepreneur Retreat - an exclusive event for  a small group of smart, but wild, women!  Look at the website and then get back to me. 

Do you struggle to figure out how to price your programs?  

What makes this so challenging?

It can bring up tons of issues and trying to come up with the right price can be confusing!

For one thing you might feel you don’t have a tangible product you are selling and so its like shooting in the dark.

And then there is that sneaky self-doubt and scarcity mind-set gremlin. He tricks you into under-valuing what you are offering.

From that place you imagine that none of your potential clients will pay over a certain low amount.  You assume that people make decisions based on what they can afford and you assume that all of your potential clients are also in a scarcity place.

Actually  there are many reasons people will make a decisions to buy and most of it is not based on the price. Price only becomes important when buying a commodity product where you can compare apples to apples. In fact, most of  you  are not offering exactly the same thing as someone else. 

For one thing, you are a big reason they choose your program and you, yourself are not duplicatable.

You train your team and then can emulate your system but there is something about you that attracts them. And then, the offering is not exactly the same as anyone else’s. Even if it was, for some reason they have connected with you and if your program fills a strong need they will say yes if you have done a good job articulating this in the marketing messaging as well as the sales process. 

So, the price is only a part of the equation. The other part is your marketing messages. People want to know exactly what and how they will benefit. In other words, they want to know what they are paying for. 

Fair enough!  Anytime I spend over twenty bucks I want to be clear this is something I need. If you are selling a higher priced program people will scrutinize even more and really want to know the take-a-way. 

This very issue came up for me recently. I am getting ready to promote a new ” Wild Women in Business” event next year and  I dropped into this same process. It threw me a bit but I realized it was only my emotions that clouded the issue.

My emotions are triggered by very old  messages that I thought were dead and buried. I can even hear the words of someone talking to me, that make me question my own ability and self-worth. Crazy, as this was so many years ago.  

Once I realized how I was getting de-railed in this way, I did a reality check by asking my mastermind buddies what they would charge for something similar. 

Then I did the following process:

1. I totalled up my expenses for the event and then I added  on another 10% for stuff I might have missed. Expenses include early bird discounts, affiliate payments, rental fees, food, paying team members and credit card fees. 

2. I decided what I want to profit from this event so it would feel like I will be getting the energy in return for energy output.

3. I added up those two numbers to get a total and divided it by my desired number of participants.

4. I then looked around at what other people are charging for something similar to see if I was in the ballpark.  

When I did this there was also the benefit of really looking at the expenses closely ahead of time. I am usually quite sloppy with that part. If I want to earn more money I have to be a better money manager. 

What other questions do you have regarding pricing?

How does this formula help you with your pricing your programs?

It all feels good. Now I am off to do the marketing messages.  The webpage should be up in a week so watch this space. 

In the meantime I am doing a free webinar on May 2nd. The Wise Woman and the Four Money Traps. 

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?

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!