The Sneaky Way You Rob Yourself of Life's Blessings Every Day

The Sneaky Way You Rob Yourself of Life's Blessings Every Day

The boat approached a small, emerald island jutting out of deep blue waters and we finally got a glimpse of our paradise for the next 7 days. The surroundings were surreal - so stunningly beautiful that they seemed plucked out of a movie (indeed they were… the movie The Beach was filmed in the area).

Then we saw it... Tucked into a small cove flanked by soaring limestone cliffs was the resort where our beachfront bungalow awaited us on Lagen Island in the Philippines. My heart leapt in my chest with excitement!

Finally… I could relax and let all of the stress of the past weeks go. We’d arrived at the the family vacation destination of our dreams despite all of the hurdles life had been throwing at us, all of which come with the territory when you’re a parent: the seemingly endless doctors visits and countless sleepless nights when your child is sick. Being able to go on this vacation at all was a true gift... one I could've easily robbed myself of if I hadn't shifted my perspective.

Want to Deeply Connect with Your Target Market? Start Doing This Now

Want to Deeply Connect with Your Target Market? Start Doing This Now

In a noisy and crowded world, how do you stand out and connect with those who want and even need what you’re offering? The answer is surprisingly simple.

The High Costs of Being An Overachiever

The High Costs of Being An Overachiever

When I was in 8th grade, I developed a stomach ulcer. I’m not sure exactly when I started feeling the need to prove myself, but that kind of level of performance stress became my norm. I heaped mountains of pressure on myself. I was always striving, always trying to prove my worth through external validation. And yet no amount of achievement would snuff out that nagging feeling that I needed to do more and somehow be more... and it has really cost me a lot in my life.

Overachieving is celebrated in our society in business, school, sports and more. But the drive to be an overachiever can come with surprising problems and high costs, like low self-esteem, a lack of self-confidence and a deep fear of what others think of you. Here's how to start fulfilling your full potential without all the overachiever problems.

Who to Hire First So You Can Get More Clients and Earn More

Who to Hire First So You Can Get More Clients and Earn More

Learn the 5 simple steps to knowing which activities you should outsource in your solopreneur coaching, consulting or service business to get more clients, generate more income and grow your business faster.

Use This CEO Strategy to Grow Your Business Faster and Better

Use This CEO Strategy to Grow Your Business Faster and Better

As a solopreneur or freelancer, you aren’t just a business owner… you are the CEO of your company! But a lot of hard-working entrepreneurs aren’t approaching their business like a “real” CEO would and it leads to a lot of unnecessary overwhelm, frustration and too little pay-off for all of the hard work.  

Today I’m going to help you ditch overwhelm and help you grow your business faster with a deceptively simple shift. It can make a huge difference in how much you get done each day and how much you make this year. I’ll also show you how to decide where you need to be focusing your efforts to make the biggest difference in your business in the least amount of time.

Plus, you’ll take the first step toward taking control of your business to-do list so you can stop spinning your wheels and move toward that 6-figure mark fast… and do it with a lot more joy, grace and ease!

How to Know which Big Dreams and Goals to Act on Now

How to Know which Big Dreams and Goals to Act on Now

You’re overflowing with big dreams and ideas for your business (and life)... and that can get in the way of your success. Here’s the problem: Too often the most amazing, brilliant, I’m-making-a-real difference-in-the-world entrepreneurs struggle in their businesses because they’re pursuing too many dreams and goals at the same time

In this article I share the simple steps to knowing which of your dreams and goals you should act on right now. 

The Action Plan for Earning 6-Figures in 6 Months

The Action Plan for Earning 6-Figures in 6 Months

The act of setting goals is easy. Figuring out how to make them happen – and then actually doing it – is much, much harder. Before you set your goals and race forward, you need to make sure you’ve got a plan that works to help you focus on the things that will make the biggest difference in the least amount of time. I’ve outlined what you need to focus on in order to hit that six-figure income mark in The 6-Figure Business Checklist, which you can download for free right now inside this post. Go ahead and get it now!

The Power to Achieve Your Dreams is Within You

The Power to Achieve Your Dreams is Within You

No matter who you are, everyone has times when we get into a low-energy funk and don’t feel like doing anything. And, if you’re out there pursuing your dreams and building a business doing what you love, there can be a lot of tough days.

Days – or weeks – when you just can’t seem to book any new clients. Days when the to-do list seems so long it could bury you. Days when you think about giving up and just go back to a “normal job”.

It’s during those especially challenging times when we need a strong dose of inspiration, a hand up or someone saying “I’ve got your back.”

“Every excuse that we make keeps us away from the things we want the most of out of life.” That’s a truth bomb for you.

Head's up: have a box of tissues nearby. 

The Big Marketing Mistake that Keeps You Earning Less than You Deserve

 The Big Marketing Mistake that Keeps You Earning Less than You Deserve

If you’re reading this, it’s likely because something inside you is calling you to do something bigger with your life. There’s a part of you that knows you’re meant to be more and receive more than your current circumstances, whatever they may be. And part of that is having the confidence and the systems that allow you to build a thriving business so you can do the work that is yours to do and serve the people who you’re uniquely qualified to serve.

But, you can’t build a thriving business that serves your clients in the highest way if you’re struggling, working your fingers to the bone or have inadvertently created another J-O-B for yourself that you resent.

In my previous post, I debunked the myth that says if you increase your fees, you’ll lose clients or not get any to begin with. I addressed just about every possible concern or excuse you could have to not charge what you know you’re worth. If you haven’t read that post yet, please read it. It contains critical mindset shifts that will allow you to finally push past your fears and confidently stand in the value you provide, charge for it and get it.

Now we’re going to jump into debunking one of the big marketing strategies that keeps so many business owners struggling financially.

How I Used Two Free Gmail Extensions to Double My Productivity

How I Used Two Free Gmail Extensions to Double My Productivity

As a business owner and mom, I'm always trying to figure out how to get more done in less time. Reaching out to potential clients, following up on inquiries and communicating about new opportunities can devour a lot of time simply with composing and replying to emails.

I use Google Apps for a lot of my business back-end and was getting desperate for a way to cut down on the time it takes me to send out personal emails and track responses… and I wanted it NOW with basically zero learning curve.

That’s when I found a magic combination: Google Lab’s Canned Responses + Boomerang for Gmail.

Once I installed and started using these two tools, I literally cut in half the time that it takes me to send emails… instantly doubling my emailing productivity. 

Raise Your Fees to Get More Clients

Raise Your Fees to Get More Clients

You decided long ago that life was too short to spend it working a typical J-O-B, so you made the leap into pursuing your passion. You’re committed to making a difference in the lives of your clients… and the world. You’ve even built a business around it.

But instead of having more freedom and fulfillment in your life, you're running 24/7 because you’re just not bringing in enough clients at fees high enough to make your business work financially.

Too many heart-centered entrepreneurs know they’re undercharging for the real value and amazing results they deliver, but they’re afraid to raise their rates. That’s not only bad for their business; it also undermines their clients’ ability to get real, lasting results.

How to Finally Start Earning What You Deserve

You’re smart. You’re a go-getter. You’re pursuing your passion of building a thriving business and really going for it.

More people than ever are following their bliss and starting their own businesses…

Yet most entrepreneurs never crack the 6-figure ceiling. Too many of those wanting to make a difference end up struggling.

Of those who do make it into 6-figure territory often only do so by working their fingers to the bone. They may have a ton of clients, but they’re a slave to their business… and it’s certainly not the follow-your-bliss kind of business they’d envisioned creating.

Over the next several weeks, I’m going to share with you the big mistakes that almost every passionate entrepreneur like you is making that keeps you stuck earning way less than your potential and infinitely less than you deserve.

I’ve also packed in the answers to how you can stop making these mistakes and finally start creating 6-figure income consistently without burning yourself out.

The good news is that the problems you’re having with your business – the reasons your business isn’t working like you’d hoped – are totally solvable.

5 Steps to Get High-End Market Clients as a Coach or Spiritual Entrepreneur

5 Steps to Get High-End Market Clients as a Coach or Spiritual Entrepreneur

The high-end market for coaches, healers, spiritual entrepreneurs and other high-end services is booming! But you need to know how to position yourself in the high-end market, attract high-paying clients and make saying yes to you easy - at any price. Follow these five simple steps for attracting your right-and-perfect high-end market clients and keep them coming back.

10 Smart Strategies for Getting the Most from Live Events

10 Smart Strategies for Getting the Most from Live Events

Before you head out to your next seminar, workshop or retreat, you’ll want to use the strategies below to help you maximize the results you get while you’re there. Based on my insights from over a decade of being on both sides of the live event fence as both an attendee and producer of live events, here are my 10 Smart Strategies for Getting the Most from Live Events.

7 Tactics to Influence Clients and Sell More

7 Tactics to Influence Clients and Sell More

Did you know that the largest segment of your Ideal Client pool either isn’t aware of they have the problem you can solve or they are aware of it but not actively looking for a solution? In fact, at any given time, only about 3% of those clients who have the problem you can solve are actively looking for a solution by scouring the internet for answers, asking friends for recommendations, making telephone calls and so on. Most companies are in a dogfight for that 3%, which plants the businesses squarely in the red ocean talked about in Blue Ocean Strategy. If you’re only chasing that 3% with your marketing strategy, you likely find yourself swimming among some big sharks in your field.

However, if you inject greater influence into your messages by setting your clients’ buying criteria, your marketing materials (via Education Based Marketing, as well as traditional marketing copy) will not only ring true to the people who are actively looking for the solution you can provide (a very small percentage of your Ideal Clients), but you will also capture the much more numerous inactive Ideal Clients who have the problem you can solve and who are either aware but not looking for a solution or unaware they even have a problem. 

7 Questions to Discover What’s Stopping Your Success

7 Questions to Discover What’s Stopping Your Success

I would argue leveraging your passion into creating the biggest, most profitable business you can and one based on doing good for others is perhaps the noblest path of all. By doing so, you honor your own talents and yearnings and you create the means by which to serve humanity on a greater scale, as well as the resources you can share philanthropically, if you so choose. In fact, pursuing your passion isn’t irresponsible but instead completely necessary to achieve a phenomenal level of success.

But, what if you’ve got the requisite passion and purpose and you’re not finding the levels of success you want?  You may feel like you’re spinning your wheels… like you’re working your tail off and it’s getting you nowhere. 

3 Keys to Truly Knowing Your Ideal Customer

3 Keys to Truly Knowing Your Ideal Customer

If you can’t “get inside your customer’s head”, your emails, marketing messages and programs won’t connect at all or not at a deep enough level to keep your customers coming back again and again. You’ll end up wasting your time and money targeting clients who don’t have the problem you can solve and won’t buy what you’re offering.

You must figuratively turn yourself into your customer and create your messages and learning curriculum from that space. Dive deep into your customers’ minds, their emotions, their motivations, their lifestyles in order to understand them, create products and programs that serve them and connect with them so intimately that they think, “How did she know how I feel? She gets me! And she may just have the solution I’m looking for.” Using this strategy is also how you turn average customers into Raving Fans who happily buy practically everything you offer.

I’ve outlined below 3 Critical Keys to Identifying and Connecting with Your Ideal Customers, each with a series of questions to help you dig deeper and discover exactly who your Ideal Customer is. 

Occupy the Pinnacle of Impact, Influence and Income as an Expert Trusted Advisor

Occupy the Pinnacle of Impact, Influence and Income as an Expert Trusted Advisor

You can be the Expert Trusted Advisor for your customers. By consistently engaging in the five stages of trust building, operating with integrity and delivering with excellence, you will quickly become your customers’ Expert Trusted Advisor and see your impact, influence and income soar. 

Save your messed up customer relationship in these 5 simple steps

Save your messed up customer relationship in these 5 simple steps

The truth is you won’t really know how many potential customers you miss out on for every customer of yours who has a bad experience since one customer’s bad experience can have a disproportionately large impact given available technology and online social channels. The result is not only missed customers and revenue but also longer term damage to a business’s reputation, which can be very difficult to undo.

So, what should you do if you’ve inadvertently messed up an order, failed to deliver or somehow otherwise disappointed a customer and you’ve realized your mistake?