There are a million reasons (nay excuses) why you aren’t where you want to be, why you haven’t achieved what you wanted to, and why you are selling yourself short. Here are three of the biggest and the easiest and fastest to correct. See if you don’t agree and get busy putting your business back on track.

Got Skin in the Game?

You’ve got to have skin in the game . . .
A few years ago, I attended a two day marketing event and as with events of that sort there were pitches along the way. One of these was for a program that regularly was priced at $597 but for this event it was on special for $279. I decided I wanted the product and purchased it at the back of the room. Within five minutes of that, I was approached by at least five participants, one of whom I knew, and it was suggested that they each pay a portion of what I’d invested and they get copies of what I’d bought. Aside from my having ethical issues with this as piracy (and it is), I realized that if they couldn’t afford or weren’t willing to invest $279 in their own success, there was little to no chance this was going to be of any benefit. I declined and they found someone else who offered to do this. I simply wasn’t comfortable and as a coach I know too well what happens when prospects don’t invest in their own success to the degree necessary and essential, they don’t achieve their big dreams.

Get outside your comfort zone . . .
To make real tangible progress in business and in life, you’ve got to stretch beyond your current comfort zone. Doing what you’ve always done will get you what you’ve always gotten. Personally, I find that the smaller the investment the less likely I am to take action because the perceived value is less. Investments that stretch me, that feel like they are just beyond or even way beyond my comfort zone (like those high end coaching programs of $25K to $1M) set a lot more fire under me. Wherever your comfort zone is, stretch it. For the participants at the event I described, their comfort zone may have been $200 but they weren’t willing to stretch to $279 and instead wanted to indulge in piracy with copying a program they needed to own, invest in, and act on.

Get Outside Your Comfort Zone

You’ve got to take action beyond the purchase . . .
We’ve all done it, invested in programs virtual and real that we never implemented. You may be one who has an entire library of shelf help or desk top tools that you don’t use, but you had to have at the time. Achievement is not in the ownership but only in the implementation. You could invest tens of thousands of dollars in tools, strategic plans, systems and solutions but without action, nothing is going to change. Stop acquiring and take a look at what you already have on hand. I bet you are sitting on a gold mine. Go mind the gold you already have instead of chasing new bright shiny opportunities.

Tell me here how you’ve gotten outside your comfort zone!! How are you stretching yourself? I reply to all comments personally. You matter to me!

And always, I welcome your connections by way of a personal note on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

I was in New Zealand for two weeks by myself. I’d only planned my five week adventure Down Under as far as my travel arrangements and transportation, the rest I left up to local concierges and guides. This is just how I roll. I don’t read guidebooks, GPS myself into the ground, or have a list of must sees. I like to experience what any given destination is known for according to the locals in the know. This can have unexpected results.

When I landed, I asked what New Zealand was best known for. Of course, I’d heard about the natural beauty, I was aware of the many films made there capitalizing on that, that was too obvious. Much to my surprise, the concierge said “New Zealand is the land of extreme sports.” Uh oh, I was about as athletic as a wet noodle. My idea of sports was a rare gym workout or maybe a long walk (which my trainer compared to falling forward, OUCH!)

My surprise turned into momentary dread when the concierge continued to tell me that the ORIGINAL BUNGEE JUMP was right here in Queenstown. Now I had a choice, I could play it safe, protest that wasn’t for me and do something expected and usual or I could step up and go for it. I chose to go for it and booked bungee jumping for the following day.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

At last it was my turn. The guy in charge called my name, gave me the once over and informed me I needed to change my shoes. Huh? I didn’t have other shoes with me and I don’t bowl or ice skate because I simply don’t wear strange people’s shoes. And then he explained it to me.

He said “there is going to be a bungee cord around your ankles, you are wearing slip ons,” I stopped him there the picture becoming very clear and borrowed a pair of shoes. I hadn’t come this far to quit.

As I got to the edge of the metal box, the bungee cord around my ankles, and I stood ready for a perfect swan dive, they began the count down. Ten, nine, eight, seven, WHAMMO, I jumped on seven.

I blacked out for the first seven seconds. So much for not being afraid, my body being wiser than my mind simply shut itself down. Of course, it could have been all the blood rushing to my head also! I opened my eyes and was bouncing up.

All I could remember was the directions I’d been given “get into a seated position or the pressure from the jump could force your eyeballs out of your head.” YIKES! I needed my eyeballs so I pulled the rip cord. Damn, my right leg shot up over my head, tangled somehow in the cord. In extreme discomfort I was entirely focused on getting untangled and seconds later found myself back up in the little metal box.

Jumping Into Your Dreams

That was it? What was all the fuss about? They asked how it was and insisted that I hadn’t waited for the countdown. I grinned and said “I’m not stupid, that’s the scary part.” And it is. It is the looking before you leap that will stop you every time. Step forward in faith.

The only way you are ever going to get where you want to go in life, in business, in relationships, in health, and oh just in anything you do is to close your eyes and step forward in faith. When you spend all of your time looking at that monumental step you want to take instead of taking it, the fear you realize will stop you cold.

YOUR TURN! Tell me about a time in your life when you saw the fear and stepped forward in faith. I reply to all comments and love to hear from you.

As always, connect with me online at Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin and be sure to include a personal message.

One of the most serious ways you are selling yourself and your product or services short is by focusing on features and not benefits. What the heck do I mean? Well think about your client and put yourself in their shoes (by the way, if you can’t do this easily, you don’t know them well enough and need to do more research.) As they head to bed at the close of the day, what are the concerns that are keeping them awake?

Know Your Client's Pillow Talk

Let me show you what I mean:
You might sell marketing consulting and plans but that isn’t what they are suffering without. They need more customers in their business. You want to lead with what is front and center for them, not your deliverable but instead the result they realize when they use your product or service.

“I show you how to simply and powerfully attract and capture more ideal clients to add dollars to your bottom line.”

Do you sell home furnishings or carpet? It is unlikely that they are staying up nights worrying about that. Instead they are focused on that upcoming visit from a critical mother-in-law that means they need to make interior decorating changes. Or, they have worn out pieces that preclude them from being comfortable and inviting friends over.

“Tired of hearing your mother-in-law harp about your home decorating? Refresh your look with the perfect pieces for your style that will wow even the most critical mother-in-law.”
“Are you too embarrassed to have friends over? Let us help you find the style that is you, pulling it together and making you look good.”

You may be a coach but instead of zeroing in on the value and results you provide, you get caught in conversations about how many sessions they get, do they get email support, and more. That isn’t relevant to your client’s needs. They want to know what their transformation will be by working with you.

“Imagine clearing up the blocks to better relationships in your life so you can enjoy not just loving relationships with your family but also harmonious relationships in your workplace.  You will look forward to going to work each day and be excited to embrace weekends with your family and friends.”

Know It, Use It

Once you nail down the “pillow talk” of your market, you can much more easily create compelling copy and conversation to drive them to the decision that you are the solution to their pain. As long as you fail to deliver the answer and instead give just the details of delivery, you are going to miss their boat. They won’t see you as an answer but only as an obstacle and they’ll keep searching. Open up your opportunities and your bottom line by pinpointing their pain and brandishing the salve they need most.

Talk to me here in comments with your thoughts and experiences. I reply to every comment and value you as my reader! Oh and find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. Be sure you make the invite personal as I want to get to know you.

{EAV:65e505dc73991de1}I know, it’s an ugly thought, failure. But you may be right in the middle of it on a daily basis and not even realize it. Oh sure, you are probably noticing a drop in your sales, or perhaps you’ve just hit a plateau (nice word for stalled out.) And if you don’t know about these, then who can blame you. Success habits aren’t something taught in school but instead learned by experience (often painful and expensive.)  This might be just the reality check you need to resuscitate your business. Let’s dive in, here are 5 ways you may be failing:

Learning by Osmosis

#1 Learning by Osmosis
This isn’t going to happen. You can sign up for every program imaginable, buy every program available, invest in all the desktop and shelf help you want to, you absolutely will not get ahead by association. You have to take action. Just owning a program doesn’t change your business, taking the steps outlined (often hard and time consuming) will change your business and your bottom line. Suffering the delusion that ownership somehow equates to success is a leading cause of failure.

#2 Success by Association
This doesn’t work. You can join all the swanky masterminds you want to. You can be a VIP member of both online and offline clubs. Until or unless you get involved, active, both giving back as well as getting value, nothing in your business will change. You have to take action. Just being a member of anything doesn’t ensure your success. In fact by merely investing your monies like this, you are ensuring failure because you are paying for something you aren’t acting on and that is a big waste of dollars.

#3 Library of Possibilities
So does the guy with the biggest library of resources automatically succeed? Nope, not even close. The only way this would work is if it was the person with the biggest library of dog-earred page resources, highlighted passages, and actions taken. Having resources at your fingertips is pretty useless if you don’t actually use them. If you fill up your shelves with the best resources and your rolodex (I now old fashioned, but sounds friendlier than database) with the best contacts but never act on them, you are going to fail.

#4 Doing It All Yourself
This is one of the biggest mistakes made. Capitalize on your strengths and delegate your weaknesses. When you spend all of your time chasing your weaknesses and trying to compensate you have no time left to leverage your strengths. No one makes it to the top of any industry, field, or professional alone, it takes a village, a team (virtual or real), and the sooner you start to build yours the faster you will escape the clutches of potential failure and move into the grasp of success.

It's Not About the Numbers

#5 Building Numbers Instead of Relationships
I know it can be impressive to see someone with 100K followers on Twitter, or 5K friends on Facebook or 2K connections on LinkedIn. Get over it! I know first hand folks who have all of that and more and they are flat broke failures. It’s not that they aren’t liked, it’s that they are afraid to ask for the sale. These folks are popular peacocks. They thrive on the admiration of others but it doesn’t fill their bank account and on one knows it. You’d be far better served by a much smaller list of much hotter buyers and focusing your time on what they want that you will deliver in both product and service.

Here’s the bottom line, when you invest in a program, teleclass, webinar, or live event. Dive in, do the work, make the progress, reap the rewards. When you are in the middle of one, don’t buy another until you have completed the first one. Stop throwing your money away on too many resources and too few results. Don’t join anything unless you truly have the time and focus to commit to getting involved. A bunch of logos on your website for “stuff” you belong to, really doesn’t mean anything and it certainly doesn’t equate to financial success. It is so easy to get sidetracked inot the rabbit holes of knowledge, tactics, techniques, state of the art software, and the lastest networks, stay focused. Keep your goals written on an index card and with you every day. Stay glued to your mission and the difference you bring to your market. For every path you wander down, you are losing valuable time and focus. Give yourself permission to say NO to the many bright shiny opportunities that show up.  Success habits take time to build and benefit from, start now.

When you have experienced an “aha” moment in this post, please share your thoughts and stories below. I value every comment and respond to my readers. You COUNT!

Oh and as always, I love to connect online so be sure to catch me on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. Let me know how I can help bring your success closer and be sure to look at my contacts and ask for any introductions you see that will get you closer to your dreams.

Recently I got one of those many emails promising me a peek at my credit score. Well it had been over a year and I was curious as it is always a good idea to keep tabs, so I filled out the necessary information. I know, I know, when they asked for my credit card information for a one dollar charge that would be refunded, I knew that this meant my credit card was going to be held on file so they could do auto-payments of their service. None of that was disclosed up front.

Unhappy Customer

I got the credit scores, and it was expected good news. What happened next, not so much.

I got an email from Scoresense (hey I don’t want you going through this) that said I had just 7 days to cancel their service or they’d be debiting by credit card monthly for monies to “watch” my score. Now, I find this entirely unnecessary and had no intention of being dunned, so I read further for that small print about how to cancel. Lo and behold there was an 800 number. The hitch was when you called it, it insisted you give an extension and they hadn’t provided that, slippery business. So I had to go out to their site and fish for another number.

When I called, I got a telemarketer with a script. As I requested my cancellation, explaining I wasn’t interested, his pitch began. I started to steam. I wanted to cancel, NOT PURCHASE ANYTHING. By the third pitch, I was just shy of yelling at him raising my voice to shut him up, I said “don’t pitch me anything, I don’t want it. I know you are on a script, this isn’t on that script, cancel the account and further charges immediately.” He didn’t really know what to do without his script, pretty funny if I’d had my sense of humor. He maintained his sunny disposition (see below, important lesson here) cancelled and continued to ask what more he could offer. NOTHING! I felt a bit like Moses on the Mount and wanted to shout “LET MY CREDIT CARD GO.” It was this experience that triggered this post!

While we’d all like to think it won’t happen to us, service cancellations and product refunds are just a part of business today. The key is not to piss off an unhappy customer further and turn the situation into a neutral or positive instead of the negative that it is. Let’s take a look at three essentials to a satisfying conclusion for you and your unhappy customer:

#1 Don’t Take It Personally
As difficult as this can be when you are a solopreneur or the actual service provider (coach for example) don’t take this personally. Stay out of being defensive and instead be open to hearing their side of it. Explore it gently with them and make it clear your desire is a resolution that will satisfy them. An unhappy customer often isn’t unhappy with you or even your service, you have no idea what else is going on in their life and you just happen to be a handy target.

#2 Handle It With Grace and a Smile
If you follow step one this will be a lot easier. Be gracious, be open keep a smile (not a grin) on your face. It is likely this is uncomfortable for your customer and they may be expecting resistance and unpleasantness. Show them that isn’t the case and be accommodating regardless of your policies. Policies can and should be bent and even broken occasionally to salvage your customer’s goodwill. Goodwill comes before policy.

#3 Listen and Hear What Your Customer (Client) is Saying
In fact if you shut up and listen, that can often be what they want most. Give them a chance to vent over whatever it is. Remember this isn’t about you, it is all about them. By listening well and even parroting back with phrases like “so what you are saying is . . . ” or “as I understand you . . .” this shows them you are being empathetic, not sympathetic and truly hear their concerns.

#4 Skip Any Pitch
The dumbest thing you can do in the case of an unhappy customer is attempt to pitch them into another service even if it is a lesser value or cost than what they bought.  I’ve had it done any number of times by large corporations with a host of telemarketers stranded with scripts and unprepared for that unhappy customer.  It singularly will piss off your customer and further serve to alienate them and ensure they spread the word of their dissatisfaction.

Thumbs Down

#5 Create a Prompt Resolution
Speed is often of the essence with a dissatisfied customer. Offer a refund or cancellation post haste. Don’t make it difficult, don’t require them to jump through a lot of hoops. Deliver what they want to the degree you can quickly and with goodwill.  Believe it or not, this can even lead to them wanting to do business in the future, rare but it can happen.

When you use the steps here you will deliver resolution faster, with grace, and are infinitely more likely to salvage the customer relationship. You may not get the unhappy customer back but you won’t run the risk of them spreading their dissatisfaction. It is widely known that for every one satisfied customer, they will tell one more. For every dissatisfied customer, they will tell ten more. Are you willing to risk that in an age where ten goes viral to become a hundred? I’m not.

Love to hear your stories of unhappy customers (clients) and how you handle it. And always connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. You matter to me!

The other day I was listening to the radio and they were talking with voters about what they wanted most. A woman got on the air and was expressing her concern about changes in medicare and medicaid because after all she was getting old (a whopping 62) and with age comes illness. What? That is only her assumption and a false one at that. While she has diabetes and a host of other issues, that isn’t the norm nor is it necessary. I know a lot of folks over 60 years of age who are in great shape.  This woman made the assumption that with age (and today 60 is the new forty) comes illness.

Her commentary made me think about the false assumptions we each make about our lives. In fact, watching TV recently (and that is a rarity) I had one of my own shattered. I’ve heard for years and years how hard it is for a woman to lose weight once she passes 50, yet as I watched on a PBS special with Dr. Joel Furman, Alicia Steele who works for PBS and is 56 years old, was sharing how she’d dropped 25 pounds in just three months on Dr. Furman’s plan. It shattered the assumptions I’d been told and believed. Assumptions that have held me back and I’m betting hold you back too.

So next time you put an excuse forth about why you can’t do something and your assumption sounds like this . . .
I’m too old . . .
I’m too young . . .
I’m too fat . . .
I’m too thin . . .
I’m not smart enough . . .
I don’t know the right people . . .
I don’t have the right education . . .
They told me I couldn’t . . .
They said I wasn’t enough . . .
It’s in my genes . . .

Challenge your assumptions. Make sure that they are fact and not convenient fiction (I say convenient because that is what excuses are for lack of progress.) You may be allowing fiction to stand in the way of very real success. If so, it is time to strip away those assumptions and “I’m not enoughs.” Step into that place where you are enough. It is here, it is now. Claim it.

The world is coming at us faster and faster. There are increasing demands on our time and our attention. It is essential to find your focus in order to get anything done. You cannot do it all, none of us can. So think carefully about what you most want to get done and what the end result will look like. That is where you will find your focus.

Take ACTION:

1. Describe in vivid detail (in writing) what you want any specific area of your life to look like ~ relationships, career|business, home environment, health, travel, faith, finances, family, friends. You only need to pick one are at first to focus on.
2. Now look at the activities you are involved in and that endless to do list (because you haven’t yet converted it into a TO CONQUER AGENDA). Which of the activities and action steps on your list are directly tied to your primary focused end result? Put a star next to these.
3. Start each day with your starred action items at the top of your list. Make sure these get knocked off your list first to answer your primary focus. Everything else is next, some won’t get done but you will have focused on and forwarded your primary focus instead of incremental headway in too many non-primary focuses.

Social Network Share:  (Go on and share this on Twitter and Facebook)
Find your focus and you’ll find your fortune. #prosperbydesign

How you refer to yourself is ultimately how others will refer to you as well. So when you run yourself down saying things like, “I’m such a dumbass,” “I’m an idiot,” “I can’t believe I’m so stupid,” you are, in fact, training others how to think of you as well.

Break the cycle of negative self talk and learn to accept the mistakes you make, focus on the solutions you create, and build yourself up, instead of tearing yourself down.

Take ACTION:
1. Wear one of those wide rubber bands around your wrist, pick a cause you like, they come in every color under the sun.
2. Start listening careful to your self talk.
3. Each time you catch yourself in a negative pattern, snap the rubberband gently as a reminder to be gentler with yourself and train others (as well as yourself) to respect and honor you (with all your wonderful imperfections.)

Social Network Share: (Go on and share this on Twitter and Facebook)
Stop running yourself down and build your life up. #prosperbydesign

Recently, I had lunch with a dear friend of mine. It was a gorgeous sunny day, though still brisk with Spring on the way, but not yet here. We decided to stroll the neighborhood boutiques following a delicious bite to eat. It was a Monday, so not many other folks were out (hey there are advantages to being the boss!).  There was one tiny place, no wider than five feet across, but a good twenty feet deep. A little sliver of fashion and fun in the midst of popular eateries, brew pubs, and full scaled storefronts.

Big Dreams
The gal manning it was friendly and dishing about the three for one special on jewelry. As is my habit, I started to ask her about her big dream.  And you thought I only did this with my clients, heck I ask everyone because most people aren’t living their dream.  Evidently I hit a nerve.  It turns out she is a talented artist and muralist. When the economy was strong she was doing her artwork full time and loving it, as soon as the economy nose dived, she gave up, packed up, quit and took the job she has now.

Setting Up Every Obstacle to Success
I asked if she had a website and she was quick to point out she couldn’t afford it. That didn’t make any sense since I know hosting is less than $10/month. When I pointed this out, she went into a tirade about how no one bought art online, she couldn’t afford advertising, it was a total failure. She had decided to put her dreams on hold for the economy, rather than create her own. The irony is that she had a website with her portfolio but in her mind because she couldn’t advertise, it was useless. Evidently, no one had shared the value of SEO (search engine optimization) with her, or the value of building a community online in social media with Facebook and Twitter. She’d shut herself off to possibility and opportunity.

Failure is Her Certainty
In my ever optimistic way of suggesting how she could put herself back out there (sometimes I just don’t learn!), I got another earful. This time she insisted that she would fail. And with those words, I guaranteed her she would. She seemed to be fueled by the the idea that getting back out there would only result in failure and was entirely unwilling to look at anything else. She has decided that unless or until the economy is ready, there is no way she can succeed as an artist or really as anything else! This really bothered me because I realized that you may be thinking the same thing.

The Missing Ingredients
There are only two things you have to have to get through tough times, faith and perseverance.  Neither of these costs you a dime, but without them you will lose your dreams, you will rob the world of your gifts, and you will lose yourself to a life of default instead of a journey by design.

Keep Going
That you experience adversity may not be up to you, how you handle it is entirely up to you. I’m not saying it’s easy and it’s not without pain, struggle, challenge, and frustration. I am saying you can overcome it. Whenever I am in doubt I remember Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness. That movie left an enormous impression on me because it was based on a true story of a man who no matter how many times he got knocked down, back to back, face to face, he kept getting up and going.

Welfare Welcomed Us
And whenever movies aren’t enough, I remind myself that when I was in public junior high school, and walked to school for three years with brown bag lunches and my mom had said it was for the experience, it wasn’t. Mom was a single working parent, while she’d had a glamorous career, it had stalled. Years later she told me that during this time she’d been without work for two solid years, I was busy growing up and surviving adolescence with all that entails. I had no idea. Her unemployment benefits had run out. She was within two days of going on welfare with us in tow, when the option for her book was picked up and an advance was provided. We never knew because my mother was a woman of incredible faith and perseverance. She continued seeking new opportunities at every turn, never doubting that something would turn up, a door would open and it did.

Find Your Answer
Find your faith whether it is in God, in the Universe, in yourself, and find a way to keep going. There are those around you who want to support your dreams and your visions. I am one of them and not the only one. Anyone who doesn’t, let them go. They gave up on themselves and their own dreams and too often spend their time tearing down others. You deserve your dreams, the world deserves your gifts.  Failure is the absence of faith.

Telesummits are a great way to learn but there are a few catches. The bigger the event, the more speakers we are offered, the more challenging actual learning becomes. We’ve all been there. You are so excited to listen in to the gold nuggets your favorite gurus are dishing, then you suddenly find yourself locked up in overwhelm. So I’m going suggest here some radical steps to really getting the most out of the telesummit both for free and for fee. While summits are usually free to listen in and you can even capture a replay for a day or six, to get the recordings you have to invest. And you and I both know that they are most likely going to wind up as “shelf” help, sitting idly on your desktop, while you chase the next bright shiny telesummit. (See, I know you pretty well.)

Virtual Learning, Real Success

#1 RESEARCH the SPEAKERS
By investing a little time at the beginning, you can save a lot at the end. Research each speaker, find those that resonate the best with you and focus on their interviews. It isn’t likely to be everyone, and know that many speakers get on a telesummit circuit, so that if you miss them this time, they are coming around again and the nuggets they share are likely the same on each one. If the summit you are registered for has a dozen speakers, select your top three. If it has twenty-four speakers, then select your top five. You get the idea.

#2 GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION to LEAVE
Not everyone is a good interview. I’ve had interviews where it felt like I was pulling teeth to get anything out and this was a world class expert. It happens. If you are listening in and getting no value, then give yourself permission to hang up. Pick a new favorite to catch to replace the one that didn’t deliver.

#3 WRITE DOWN YOUR ACTION STEPS
Rather trying to write down everything that is being said, listen for the ACTION STEPS. These are the bullet points that you can focus on to tangibly move your business and/or your life forward. Realistically you don’t want to try to capture more than three to five, more will just put in overwhelm and you won’t act on any of it.

#4 SCHEDULE YOUR SUCCESS
Put the new ACTION STEPS you’ve learned into place immediately. You know that if you use a “when I get to it,” or “when I have the time” attitude, it isn’t going to happen. This needs to be part of your regular routine to gain momentum. If you need additional resources, find them and get in touch to move it forward.

Telesummits can be rich grounds for great learning, you simply want to have an easy learning system in place to really reap the benefits. Using the steps here will set you up for success and keep overwhelm at bay.  Love to hear your favorite telesummit story, share here in comments!