This kind of connection doesn’t require physically being in the same  room.

In fact I make some of the weakest connections in those crowded networking meetings where there are hundreds of people milling around with drinks and plastered smiles. 

Okay, maybe this is just me (and I am willing to admit it) but I don’t find those groups fulfilling. 

For one thing the noise level is so high that I have to strain my ears to hear even the bits of small talk. 

What I like is real sharing in a quiet space.  I want to find out something about the person I’m talking to and not just a marketing message. 

I ran a monthly group for two years that provided this. We had a maximum of 15 people and we also spoke one at a time and did real sharing!

I am just about to begin a new similar group and am so looking forward to getting to new connections that are deeper and include ways we can support each other.  It’s really about community.

However, many of the people in my tribe I have met online.  They live in Australia,  South Africa, Canada and England.

We met first on facebook or linked in.  There is one woman who lives in Paris who I first met  on facebook, she then signed up for my weekly biz tips, and then listened to one of my teleclasses.

She wrote me an email recently, thanking me and we had a lovely back and forth email conversation for awhile.

Those kinds of connections are so real and really helps me to see what a small world we live in.

Here are a few things you can do to build stronger connection to people you meet online!

1. Be authentic and tell your story. People want the real you.

2. Be consistent. If you only go on Facebook one a month, there is no continuity of connection. 

3. Re-share people’s posts if you really connect to their message. That person will feel your warm fuzzies and know what they wrote really touched you. 

Connect with me even more by coming to my Free training  “How to Powerfully Connect with Your Tribe.”

If  you live in Portland shoot me an email and let me know you are interested in my local groups. 

I’ll be doing one monthly drop in and also a year long mastermind group!

What kind of connections are the most powerful to you?  

What kind of help do you need?

This is the plague of the solopreneur!

Where to put your energy?
What to focus on?
Whats the best use of your time?

Here are a few tools that might help you be more empowered!

Thanks to Andrea Lee for the first two!

1.  ”Hell Yes, Hell No, Maybe”

 It is so simple and yet can really help get things in perspective very quickly!

Make three columns on your paper.

“Hell yes” are the ideas that are a clear yes and they get gold stars!

“Hell no” are just ideas that you have thought about for awhile because you think you  ”should” do them but they feel yucky and or not a good fit. These ideas get crossed off and thrown out immediately. Gone!

Maybe” are ideas to put to the side to let them percolate for only  a very short while. However, if they don’t move to the “Hell Yes” category they also need to be thrown out.

2.  ”Too little,  Enough, Too Much”

This is an especially good tool for assessing how you can move your energy for more productivity.

For the next few days just gently review the parts of your business and think about these three categories and where you feel not enough, too much or  just enough.

Where does it feel you have too little of something?
What are you doing too much of?
What parts feel they are in the perfect “just enough” place?

Make three lists of your business areas and activities under these three headings.  Look at the “Too little” category and jot down some ways to get that to move to the “Enough” list.  Look at the “Too much” category and write down some ways to decrease so they can also move to the “Enough” section. 

Notice if it’s easier for you to increase or decrease.  Good awareness!

3. Smiling White Board 

I created this tool for myself and it continues to help me stay on track, focused and helps me acknowledge what I’ve accomplished.

I have a large white board in front of my desk. I draw a smiling face on it every day before I quit work and  write down three things I absolutely want to accomplish the next day. These are things to do in between client meetings. 

As I go through my day and want to get pulled off course I make sure I complete these three things no matter what.  

It gives me a good feeling every time I can erase one off the list. At the end of the day when all three are gone I smile back at my happy face, draw a new one,  and then add the three for tomorrow.  

I can leave work peacefully knowing I don’t have to think about the next day. It also allows me to bring some creativity and fun into my work!

Which of these three ideas resonate with  you?
Are you ready to be less overwhelmed and more focused?

If you asked people what your speciality is, would they be able to answer correctly?

Most people stutter when asked this question.  Some answer in generalities,  like  “I’m a massage therapist,”  or “I’m a coach.”

Others rattle off every possible thing they do just in case..

When you focus on your speciality you answer in a way that no one else could.  You are standing tall in your own footprints and people take notice.

Are any of these true for you. 
•  Having so many ideas and wanting to focus on them all
•  Not wanting to specialize because it means saying no to something else
• Shying away from making a plan based on sound business decisions

However, if you have a for profit business it is so important to focus in on what makes you special!

Your speciality is like a lighthouse beam. It will draw certain people to you because once you know your speciality you can create your messages and content that is like a magnet.

To figure out your specialty in requires real soul searching.

It means you have to dig in and listen to that wise part of yourself and find out exactly how you do what you do in a way that’s your own expression. 

Knowing your speciality on this deeper level will help you to grow your business, make more money and offer a higher level of service to your clients. 

Here are a few questions to help your process:
1.  What are you “really” offering to your clients that is uniquely your gift?
2. Who are the exact people that would most benefit from this offering?
3. Will people clearly see your specialty on your home page?

Stepping into your specialty is one of the 5 steps to transform your passion into money in your business. 
Find out about all 5 steps!

What’s your speciality?  Take a stab at it and share!

However, recently I have been made aware of an equally important piece that is often overlooked.  

This is about you being authentically you. 

I’m in that “fine tuning” phase of my marketing and looking at my own message and realizing that its not all about what tools I offer.

Much is about how I offer it and what is my way of being that is different from anyone else who offers similar solutions, whether it’s about marketing, mindset, or sales. 

It’s  about my personal branding in a way, and the reasons that people choose to work with me rather than someone else.

A few days ago one of my clients shared that she had been hiding a piece of herself that is so intrinsically part of her; her spiritual background.  

Her fear was that if she came out of the closet and integrated this in, people would disappear and think she was too new agey or something.

We talked about how she could bring this part into her message and  it would make her more aligned with her wisdom and gifts. People would notice and gravitate to her because of this. 

When I began my business  way back when, I had the feeling I needed to present as  ”businessy,” and for me that meant compartmentalizing myself in certain ways.  

I had lived in a community in New Zealand and my wild woman played on the beach and my wise woman ran the show. I decided (out of fear again) that this part of me wouldn’t give my potential clients the feeling that I could help them with their businesses.  ”Get real! Business women don’t howl at the moon!”  

However, this is such an intricate part of who I am, and in some ways I realized I left that part of me in New Zealand.  One of my new mastermind buddies told me I needed to make her part of my branding.

Funny how wrong I was, and how many women choose to work with me because I howl at the moon, and in fact,  they want to do it with me! 

So- my questions to you:

1. What part  of yourself have you left out of your business message?  
2. How have you cut yourself off from a deep piece of who you are, out of fear?
3. How can you integrate this in to make your message even stronger?

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?

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! 

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. 

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

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. 

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?

It’s adding more stuff to do to my already busy schedule so my first thing to overcome is my mindset (as always:)

Today I am visiting three blogs written about my niche topic.  

I always want to do this but don’t get around to it regularly, so this is a good challenge for me!

Connie says:
1. Read their posts
2. Leave a comment.
3. Notice what they are doing that is similar to what you are doing.
4. Make some notes about what you liked and didn’t like.
5. Decide if this is someone who you want to connect with and why.

I love this activity and focus because it one part of creating joint venture partnerships.  

I’ve learned that it is essential to develop connections with people you can partner with.There is only so far you can go in your business without this piece.

Here are a few ways joint venture partners can help your business? 

• Building a community of peers which feels expansive. 
• Being part of a team of people with complimentary businesses.
• Offering mutual support when it comes to  promoting products.
• Creating affiliate partners income streams with people you trust. 
• Offering more resources and value to your clients.
• Developing products and programs together for higher value.

I just completed my first tele-summit which included all six points above. It was life-changing for my business and my own self-esteem as well. 

Next week I am off to Vancouver BC to attend the Midas Camp with Andrea Lee and so much of this event will be about meeting new potential joint venture partners. I’ll be writing some new blog posts from there with photos so stay tuned!

What are doing right now to nurture joint venture relationships? 
Join me in the blog challenge. If you are reading mine- you can count this as one of course!

And if you follow those steps impeccably you will be successful and make money!

It is logic in the purest sense.

Likewise, if you don’t follow the steps, you will make less money and be less successful.

Of course, there are many ways to judge success depending on what stage your business is at, and it’s important to acknowledge all the successes at each part of the process.  

This can be very hard if you are always looking at what you haven’t yet done!

At the beginning, it might just be having your first client or deciding on a domain name. Later you also might judge your success on how many income streams you have activated and how much money is coming in. 

Regardless of what stage you are at, the very first step is always to Shift Your Mindset. This is not something you do once, and you are done! It keeps coming up, over and over.

You want to expand  and shift into your entrepreneurial mindset.
Michael Gerber, author the the  ”EMyth Revisited” explains this very well!

“The entrepreneur is our visionary, the creator in each of us. An entrepreneur is a person who takes an idea, product or service and does whatever is necessary to introduce it to the marketplace where it can produce revenue.”

Most people who begin their service business, struggle to become a real entrepreneur. He says, “They fail to see the business as a product as an entrepreneur would. Instead, they see the business as a job.”  

If you are a therapist, coach, designer, or other practitioner you might relate to this and have found yourself stuck in that place of working hard and getting nowhere!

So, the first place to begin is in changing your mindset. This has not been a black and white shift for me!

Every new stage I get to in my business, the issues come up again. One of the big ones for me has been my money mindset. 

Here is one example that snuck in when I wasn’t looking.
In an effort to be financially responsible, I made decisions to use Free Conference Call for my teleclasses. I have over 60 hours I have recorded in the last few years. However the quality is so poor that I can’t really make them into a paid product or event make them into a Podcast for i tunes.  

It saved me money but disabled my business!

It was actually my scarcity mindset that made the decision, but I didn’t realize it. I got fooled!  Now I have shifted to Instant Teleseminar which is high quality and also  will allow me to have webinars with slides. It’s not free but so worth it! Plus I am an affiliate so I can earn money just by referring people.  Again- an entrepreneurial decision.

Here is my link. Please use it if you want to do teleclasses. I highly recommend not making the same mistake I did!  

http://kayalikes.com/instantteleseminar

You can immediately become an affiliate as well and very soon you will be making money rather than spending it. Another mindset shift! 

Here are a few questions to answer that will help you to have more insight around step #1

How is your mindset disabling your business?
What changes to you need to make that would make you be more of an entrepreneur?
What is one small thing you can do today to make a huge shift?

Come back later to hear about Steps 2-5!

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!

Like many solopreneurs- I was…well ..alone and had no idea what a joint venture looked like or how it worked. 

It sounded like some fancy business term and I felt left out of that world of real business.

I also didn’t want to tell anyone I didn’t understand because then they would know I was not very savvy! Crazy!   However I forced myself to admit it and hired a mentor who explained it to me.  I had one of these aha moments. I am all about connections and community and really this what’s joint ventures is about. 

If you feel at all like I did- I’m going to explain this really easily and show you how it will help you grow your business by leaps and bounds.

If you have products and services for sale, you know how important it is to get in front of the right people- those people who are potential  buyers; your niche and target clients.  

You want to build your email list to be large enough that when you do a marketing campaign, your emails will go to thousands of people instead of  20 or 50. One of my  mentors has a list with 50,000 people. I was in awe and wondered how she did it.  I paid her a wad of money to teach me and now I get it, and am passing it all on to you for FREE!

Here is Joint Ventures made easy!

Look for other entrepreneurs who are:

1. People you like, are authentic and operate from integrity. Why would you want to hang out with someone you don’t feel this way about?
2. Experts at something your niche clients want to know about. Something that compliments what you offer.
3. Successful, have a strong online presence, has a large list,  and/on social media. 
4. People you want to be part of your tribe! 

How do you find, connect and develop a relationship with  people like this?

•  Going to events where they are present.
•  Reading and commenting on their blog.
•  Connect on social media. Comment on their posts, interact.

It requires focus and intention but it’s part of developing any kind of relationship and it’s a two-way thing. If you put energy out toward someone and never get anything back you might move on.

Here are two easy ways to begin.

1.  Ask to interview them. You can do this on the phone and record it. Ask them to tell you about their business, how they started it, who they help and anything you think your client would like to hear about. You can do it live and invite people to come or you can put the recording on your website.  

You can give them the recording and they can put it on their site and you get exposure even more if this happens. Either way, this new person gets exposure and you have started a new relationship. You benefit because you have new content for your website and it builds your own credibility when you interview other experts. 

2. If you are more of a writer than speaker, you might ask this person to submit a chapter for an ebook you are writing. Your ebook can be short but on a particular topic and you might have a group of people submit a section.

If it comes out good, the contributors might also market this book to their group. Your expertise gets highlighted because it’s your book! You can turn it into a Kindle book and put it on Amazon. The options are endless!

I’ve done both of those things in the past and now I’ve invited a group of experts to be a part of my tele-summit. It has been amazing!! Each person has shared so much excellent business help and advice!  Have a look at it as this is another option you can do eventually. It has been lot of work to put  together but the results are amazing and gratifying.

It’s all about building my tribe, my community and offering more help to my clients.

What idea do you have for creating joint ventures? Can you see how it would help your business?

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!

They all help people with their amazing service.

They are also likely struggling and always trying to figure out how to get more clients!

Their income goes up and down and they are stuck too way often in the down position!

There are four traps that can cause this pattern to persist.

When you systematically change in each of these areas there will be a gradual transformation in your business success!

Here are the four traps that might be keeping you stuck working hard with not enough money!

1. Pricing model that has you selling hours for dollars. Your time becomes the commodity and you can never get ahead this way. Learn how to market your expertise and knowledge instead of single hours of your time. When you become the product it’s limiting and exhausting. What people want is your help to get the benefits they want for themselves. There are many ways to offer this.

2. Having only one main income stream which are one-on-one sessions. You’re lacking a product funnel and not understanding the concept of leveraging. Leveraging equals larger income and greater impact and value. You need sound plan based on long term goals. Not understanding how to develop products that flow from one to the other, you will never be able to take a vacation without having your income dry up!

3. Being a generalist with no clear niche focus and a clear speciality. You might have a fear of  narrowing your niche and specializing, thinking you will have less clients, not more.  Find out how to position yourself as a specialist. Seeing yourself as an expert will affect your marketing and how you communicate to potential clients and strategic partners.

4. Doing everything yourself. Not knowing how to delegate or outsource, you avoid doing the things you don’t enjoy. You end up focusing all your energy on your products and services and not on business support and skill building. This practice will keep your business small as you are ignoring the  the stuff you dislike or feel uncomfortable doing.

Are these four traps easy to get out of? It depends on your will power and determination. Any trap an be broken out of but you need to focus your energy that way.  Begin right now by signing up for my FREE  “Help More Clients Now™  Summit.  This is the first step to breaking out of the traps you are in. 

I imagine many of you feel similar and subscribe and unsubscribe constantly! 

It might make you feel a bit hesitant to send out too many emails to your tribe, in of fear of irritating people. 

However, email is an excellent business building tool if you use it correctly.  It provides:

• An instant way to communicate with masses of people in real time!
• Short and informal conversation without the usual letter writing rules.
• Hot links to web content, videos etc. 
• Photos, colors and visual prompts. 
• A way for people to re-share or forward it on in a moment!

It’s also true, if you use it incorrectly it can be counterproductive and not only not work, but be offensive.  Here are a few  essential rules to follow. 

1. Always focus on giving value to your exact niche/target group. This means you need to know who they are and speak only to them.

2. Build empathy first by identifying their problem you’re addressing.

3. Keep it focused on one main value you are offering!

4. Keep it short and to the point. Don’t try to offer the whole kitchen sink because people won’t read it and it will feel like it’s  just too much information. Next time they might not even open it because they will assume it will be long-winded again. 

5. After 4-5  ”giving,” emails you can then make a sales offer email. By then you have built trust and people are more likely to listen and be interested in your program or product.  In other words, you can’t sell until you have built up your trust bank account.

6. Have a valuable call to action- a FREE webinar, teleclass, a link to a longer article on the same topic,ask a thought provoking question that gets people more involved.  

7.  Use action verbs or benefits in subject line. “7 Tips for good emails,” or “How to fill your classes.”

8. Be consistent as people have joined your group because they want your help!

Some things NOT to do!

•  Calling your email a Newsletter because it connotes “long,”

•  Too small font size. The words need to jump off the page. 

•  Poor design and imagery that looks tacky and unprofessional. Better to send a text message if you don’t have the skills to make it look good!

•  Asking for people to write to you if they want to unsubscribe. No one wants to do that!  Make it easy, with an unsubscribe link at the bottom. 

•  Spammy subject lines; all caps, words like FREE and buy now.

•  Adding people to your list without their consent. Cardinal spam rule.  

Look at the lists above. Which things are your doing or not doing?  How could you improve your emails? Any suggestions or other ideas?

It makes sense on a mental level. You get it and it can give you hope and permission to just go for it. However on an emotional level it’s another whole story. 

The reason you stay in your comfort zone is because well…it feels comfortable!

There are people who thrive on facing fear, but most solopreneurs who I work with are not in this category.

The thing is, you want the rewards that live in this new place of greater success, but you certainly don’t want the stress, fear, self-doubt and overwhelm that go with making this shift. 

Making the decision to step into a new level of  your business is scary. The place where you are now isn’t working. You don’t have enough money coming in, enough clients and you feel like a bit of a failure.

That part isn’t comfortable either, when you view it from this perspective.

So, you take the first step, pay money for getting help, decide to build a new website, go to that conference, raise your prices, dump products that aren’t working, hire an assistant, etc.

All those things will bring up huge emotions because you have to learn all new processes, how to manage people, spend money before you have it, blah, blah.

Here are a few things that can make this can of shift much easier.

1. Minimize stress by getting help. Find people who are supportive and can see past your own self-doubt. You want to be around people who not only have the skills you lack, but they can help you to move forward.

2. Set up organizational systems so you don’t feel overwhelmed. It’s hard to try to do a lot of new things all at once. The challenges can slow you down. It helps if you see an order and steps going forward. 

3. Work-life balance is essential. Take time off from work. Go to the beach, take walks, watch funny movies, do art. When you do these you will remember your vision and what you want for yourself!

4. Look at your own limiting self-talk. Make sure you read books, watch videos or go to seminars that talk about success, confidence, and trusting your own abilities. It’s about downloading new messages and then making decisions from that place.

5. Get enough sleep regardless of how much there is to do. If you are a walking zombie you will work less productively and take way longer to get things done. It’s better to use that extra time sleeping than hitting your head against the wall. 

6. Get  a massage and/or acupuncture every week. This will help your stress as well as keep yourself peaceful. Don’t sacrifice your health to save a few dollars. 

7. Notice that you are already partly through the process and will emerge a transformed person and entrepreneur on a new level of your business. 

Really, you are giving birth to a new identity of yourself. The process is not comfortable or easy but so worth the results when you welcome your new self to the world! 

Your job description would make any sane person feel a little crazy as you attempt to juggle all the different stuff you do.  

You fantasize about having an assistant; someone to give jobs to, chat with about how things are going and share the load!  

But you aren’t yet earning enough money to do it. So- you keep on doing everything yourself.

Except some things never get done because there just isn’t time. In an attempt to hold it all together yourself you:

•  Ignore some things that are important.
•  Skip the things your don’t enjoy or understand.
•  Miss opportunities to earn more money. 
•  Don’t know how to delegate.
•  Feel very small.
•  Begin to lose sleep and feel stressed. 

All of the above was true for me and more!  I did hire assistants to help me here and there, but the money outlay always influenced my decision. I couldn’t clearly see the return on investment. Plus I never found the right person. 

I now have two assistants plus a bookkeeper. One person is virtual and helping me with an event I am planning. The other is local and is doing all those things I don’t enjoy, but I now realize how important they are!  I like having someone I can sit in the same room with sometimes. 

This feels like a gift from the goddess having these people on my team and I wonder why I didn’t do it sooner.

I now realize there is an overlap period. The process is different for everyone but here are some things I learned.

1. Begin by hiring people for small contract jobs so you can evaluate and learn from the experience.

2. Make a list of everything you have ignored and how it would help your business if those things got done. It might just pay for itself.

3. Analyze yourself and make a list what you aren’t good at or don’t enjoy. Find someone with those traits as this will compliment you and let you do what you love while they do the other stuff.  

4. Look at how the jobs they are doing will actually increase your income over time.

5. Realize that your health and well being is actually more important than the money! 

This last one actually was the tipping point for me. I was getting so overworked and stressed that I wasn’t enjoying my business anymore. I now feel I can breath again and I’m not alone!  So don’t model after me. Hire someone before you get to that point! 

Can you add anything to this list? 

No consistent pay checks, no paid time off, spendiing more money then you’re earning, worry, stress, feelings of failure and self-doubt…blah, blah.

I’ve experienced all the above!

So why have you made this choice??

• Promise of not just a pay check- but residual income.
• Money coming in while you’re on the beach.
• Ability to keep earning more. 
• Doing what you love. Following your passion.
• Feelings of huge success. Personal achievement.

Yes, but you may have woken up in 2013 just to realize another year has gone by and you still don’t have those promises listed above!!

What does it take to move from from the first list to the second? 

It’s not easy because it means changing yourself from the inside out. There are so many hidden things that hold you back.

However it is possible. People do it everyday!  You just have to choose and be willing…

Will this be your year to really do it? 

Here are three ways to begin the year with a new focus. 

1. Attitude
You have to shift on the deepest levels. If your self-talk is limiting and poverty based, no matter what action you take you’ll be sabotaging yourself. 

2. Action
Act as if, and take positive steps for yourself and your business. Call those people, make those connections, go to that conference. Your habits can be influenced by your self-talk.

3. Allies
Find the right people to help you. You simply cannot do this yourself. A good mentor will help you to shift your attitude and take right actions. 

Get three pieces of blank paper and write out your intentions in each of these three areas. Use a pen and paper- not your computer. Your hand is connected to your brain and your heart.

This is a powerful way to begin anew!

And share below in the comments. It’s very empowering to state your intentions out and this could be the first big shift.