If you are anything like me you probably have great ideas for programs you could run all the time. It’s really easy to get excited
about an idea and rush ahead too quickly to put it into action.

I used to do it and I see others doing it: You launch a program, you fill it you make some money from it and then what?

You have to start all over again with a new program and fill that and repeat the whole thing. Then some people want to attend but can’t make the dates so you decide to put the same program on again a few months later.

Big mistake.

Why? Because it’s not strategic. You end up chasing your tail, working way too hard and with too few participants in your programs.
Then you go and have to chase participants to make it worthwhile financially for you.

Not a lot of fun to do (I’ve been there done that).

So how can you avoid this dreaded cycle?

These days there are four criteria every one of my programs needs to fulfill before I even think about launching it. They save me from giving in to the temptation of wanting to make a ‘quick buck’ by putting on a repeat program or satisfying a need that seems to be appearing that moment in front of my eyes.

Here they are:

1. Is there pent-up demand for such a program?

In other words is there a large group of people searching for a solution to this, I am in regular contact with them and I can feel a kind of built up pressure that can be released through a specific program that satisfies this need?
A successful program launch is like a pressure -release valve that channels all tension into the ONE program. Your launch process builds up a pressure by tapping into an underlying need and when you open the doors, people are ready to jump in.
This way it’s much easier to fill a program and it happens fast. It does require discipline though and a longer planning horizon. You can’t do this as a spur of the moment thing.

2. Does this program seamlessly lead into at least 2 other streams of income for me?

Marketing a program is a fair bit of work and expense. Chances are if you don’t have at least 2 other ways of benefiting from it financially, its not worth your while. You may also be disappointing your participants who want more of you after having experienced such great progress through working with you. You don’t want them to feel abandoned. So it is really important for you to have other programs lined up that people can opt-in to in order to keep working with you. Again, a long planning horizon is needed for this so in your marketing you can prepare your clients that there is another step for them to take.

3. Does it fit my brand?
The whole idea of your brand is that you become known for being an expert at something and that you convey a certain personality that people connect with. Every program you launch should reinforce that message rather than muddling it up. All my branding is about attraction marketing, it wouldn’t suit my brand to suddenly promote an aggressive campaign to go out and get clients. That’s not my style. I’m also about building a business from the inside out, so I coudn’t go out there marketing a program that is focused on making as much money as you can fast. That’s just not me. I think you are getting the idea…

4. Does it have a point of difference?
Don’t launch a program that is like 5 others out there, even if the 5 others are extremely successful. You want to be original and have an edge over the competition. That doesn’t mean you can’t cover similar topics, you definitely can, it just means you do it in a different way, different in a way that matters to people. And if it’s unique then that’s even better. In many ways my ‘Six Figure Income Breakthrough Secrets Program is unique. While some of the concepts are not new, this is a workshop where they are completely integrated in a step by step formula specifically designed for coaches, consultants, trainers and therapists. It focuses on getting the strategic pieces right which are so often covered up by a focus on tactics and technology. While tactics and technology are also important, if you haven’t got your strategy right, it’s just piecemeal.

Staging a really good program launch is a skill. It can be learned and it’s essential that you do learn it so all your hard work in creating the program and marketing is paying off. During my Six Figure Income Breakthrough Secrets Workshop I will be teaching you how to launch your program successfully no matter whether it’s a small entry level program or a premium program of a few thousand dollars.

I’d love to know what you think, please leave me a comment or a question here and I promise to respond .

Are you getting overwhelmed with all the things you have to do in order to make your business profitable? Building the list, running campaigns and so much more? They are all important, I can assure you. And, sometimes it’s good to go back to basics and ask yourself, how many clients do I really need in order to be profitable? How many and which programs do I really need to run in order to make the money I want? Sometimes we over complicate things when what we really need to do to get our goals is just so simple.

When was the last time you looked at all your great ideas for programs and asked yourself:

What is the fastest and easiest way I can create the income I want while enjoying the programs I run and the people I work with?

I know what I most enjoy doing is running programs for my clients so I consistently look at how I can deliver more value and market less so I can be in my flow as much as possible.
Doing this means I stay energised, motivated and connected to the energy of abundance.
I am keen to share my top three tips for achieving just that with you so here we go:

1. Ask them what they want
When was the last time you asked your subscribers and indeed your clients what they want? Not many entrepreneurs do this on a consistent basis. Often they spend more time thinking about what they want to deliver than what it is that their clients and prospects might want. This can be as easy as running a survey, picking up the phone and asking them or creating something like focus groups or research teams (made up of clients and/or prospects) that you can run your ideas past and that you can ask for input over a coffee or lunch. Many clients and other members from your community would be more than happy to participate in something like this if asked.

2. Make your first offer a ‘no brainer’ one
The secret to creating repeat business is to build a strong bond of trust between you and your clients. Learn to look at the first program people attend with you as just the beginning. Sometimes it’s smart not to necessarily look at that first program as needing a huge profit margin in order to be worthwhile. It could be the ‘trust builder’ that sets up client relationships for years to come. It is so much easier to create repeat business with clients who already know-like and trust you rather than finding new ones all the time. Sure you will also need new clients but the more long term relationships you create, the better for you.

3. Pick up the phone
It’s easy to get caught up in working on big marketing campaigns and forgetting the basics: Sometimes it’s as easy as getting on the phone and having a personal conversation in order to win a new client or participant for your program. Actually, the two go hand in hand. A good marketing campaign will make it easy for you to pick up the phone and call people and they will be thrilled to hear from you.
Often people don’t take that last step though out of fear they will be perceived as pushy. Not so. As I said most people will be delighted that you go through the trouble of calling them as not many service professionals do this.

What are your thoughts on these ‘keep it simple’ tips? I’d love to know, please leave me a note.

At my Six Figure Income Breakthrough Secrets Workshop I will give my participants the skills to just ‘get on the phone’ and have the conversation, a skill that has added significantly to my bottom line and client loyalty over the years. I will also show them how to create the ‘no brainer’ offers and how to position them so they are most effective.

You can still jump in to this program, but be aware the bonus “Money Mindset and Pricing Strategy Secrets Series starts next week and is only available if you book your ticket by this Monday 19th July.

This is tip 3 of my preview series for my upcoming “Six Figure Income Breakthrough Secrets Workshop” .
Do you charge the fees you truly deserve? Or are you leaving money on the table?

Find out
- what really matters to clients – much more so than the price
- how to reposition what you do so clients will be happy to pay what you charge
- specific tips and tweaks you can make to your packages and offers now to make them so attractive that clients will
happily pay what you charge and deserve (hint: this can add money to your bottom line straight away).

The Webinar is on TODAY – Tonight 8PM East Coast Australia Time I am going to reveal my blueprint for six figure income success. You can still join me, register below

This is a question I am asked a lot: Is there a market for what I want to do? If you are in the business of transformation or you support those that are in the business of transformation, meaning if you are a coach, consultant, speaker, author, designer, organiser or virtual assistant, then you want to watch this video as it may provide some answers or at least some insights for you.
I believe that the time is right for us, the passion-driven Solo-Entrepreneurs.

Learn not only the trends but also a systematic way to identify exactly who your ideal client tribe is.

Watch this first high content video in a series of four I want to give you over the coming week as I am getting ready to launch:

What do you think? Please let me know, lets start a conversation here on my blog. What are your burning questions regarding building a successful business? I will be shooting more videos for you, want to share specific strategies and would love your questions.

I will reveal my Blueprint for a Six Figure Coaching Business on a Webinar on the 30th June 8pm East Coast Australia Time. You can register for it already now below.

You can listen to this blog post here (4min 39sec)

Years of coaching Entrepreneurs through mindset challenges has not meant that I don’t have any myself but it does mean that I am finding it easier these days to recognise my own patterns and stop them.

Here is one that I have personally experienced, have a look and see can you relate:

Imagine having three business opportunities lined up. They all have the potential for a huge payoff. You get excited, you work hard to make them happen. Then one doesn’t eventuate, one shrinks disappointingly and one works successfully but doesn’t get the results you had expected. And suddenly you feel like your business is a house of cards that is so fragile that it can fall down any time.

Has this ever happened to you? It has happened more than once for me, let me tell you. It takes me a bit of courage to talk about this so openly but I think it’s important.

It’s those times that my inner critic comes out to play and tells me this isn’t going to work, I’m wasting my time, I’ve missed the bus when it comes to opportunities, and maybe I wasn’t cut out to run a big business in the end anyway. See, I know my pattern, this is it.

What don’t see in these moments are the other opportunities that came seemingly out of nowhere. That were completely unexpected, are a perfect fit and while not as huge as the others I feel I just lost (and even that’s debatable), they quickly add up to something really solid. So in other words, my perspective on what is going on is heavily skewed and it’s really not serving me.

The truth is, this is the kind of dance that happens for me every time I take a significant step to grow my business and I feel out of my comfort zone.

Luckily I have ways to recover from this very quickly these days. The three tips I’ll share with you here are my safety net. These things keep me sane, get me focused again and have kept me from quitting more than once.

Get a reality check

The voice that comes through in these times is your inner critic who is NOT rational, often not caring and wants to drag you back to the safest path (which is certainly not running a business). This voice is often very dominant and loud. What you need is a reality check. I use my mastermind network and my mentor to do this for me. Whenever I feel this kind of stressful state come on I reach out to them and ask them for their perspective. I don’t know how many times I have blessed my Mentor for finding just the right words or my mastermind network for just being there, giving me a new perspective or cheering me on when I needed it most. Make sure you have a support network of like minded people preferably those that have walked the path before you.

Change your state

It’s almost impossible to find a new perspective or a sensible solution when in an unresourceful state, when you feel down, depressed or stressed. My way out of it is to put my favourite pieces of uplifting music on before I even attempt to shift my perspective. And it works wonders. I feel better, and I see new options. I know this sounds so simple but doing this takes some discipline as it often is tempting to wallow in your depressed mood. So the important thing is to nip this in the butt as soon as possible.

Commit to a bigger game

When you stress about things it is often because you are playing too small. If you fret about losing a client then what does that say about your prospect pipeline? And what does it say about your efforts you put into growing your business to a certain level? What if: What if instead of three big opportunities I had six lined up? How big a deal would it be if one or two didn’t turn out? Not as big. I think one of the biggest dangers is that people underestimate what it takes to get the results they want. So commit to playing big and stop sweating the small things.
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What do you think? What do you do to get yourself back on track? And how is that working for you? Please leave me a note I’d love to know your view.

You can listen to this blog post here (5min 30sec)

Do you love what you do but crumble when it comes to selling yourself? Asking for a good bunch of money for your valuable services and promoting in adequate terms the amazing work you do?
I hear it so often from clients – I used to be so good at sales while I was employed but it’s all different now that I am selling myself. I just can’t ask for what I really want, I don’t know how to sell myself, somehow it’s awkward to ask for money for what I do.
I know, I’ve been there. Because we sell the invisible its far less easy to put a price tag on what we do. And on top of that, while we totally believe in our work, it comes so easily to us that it’s easy to fall into the old employee mindset trap and think that because it’s easy it mustn’t be worth a lot.
Were you also brought up to not blow your own horn and to never exaggerate what it is you do?
While obviously we never want to lie or mislead anyone with our statements about the results people can get from our work, it is essential that we are disclosing the full potential our service has and help our clients make an informed decision about whether to hire us or not.

And here is the real mindset shift that you must make as you leave behind the old employee way of thinking and fully embrace your entrepreneurial spirit:

Creating and attracting money to you is just as much part of the creative process as is helping somebody let go of fear, set a new goal etc. If you don’t pay attention and do the best job possible during the sales conversation, your potential client will always miss out more than you do.
Seeing sales as something separate from providing a service is wrong. That’s the old paradigm that we are led to believe as employees. The sales process is the first act of service that you provide your clients. Start on a good note by doing as thorough a job as you will once they are your clients.
Why is it that we created this funny separation between money and everything else? We are entrepreneurs, to me that means we create value – for our clients and ourselves.
Here are three ways to shift your perspective so you can make asking for money a natural part of the creative process you propose to clients:

1. You are not asking for money you are creating value for your client
Whenever you sell your services/programs to anyone, if they are the right client for you, they will gain more from it than they pay you. That’s the idea. And it’s up to you to show them and educate them on exactly how they will gain so much more than they pay. Because we sell the invisible, we the gain can often be unconscious, far in the future etc. And as consumers we are trained to only notice the immediate visible, so we have to do some more educating so people realise how much they really gain.

2. You must help your potential clients make the right decision for themselves.
What you can give your clients might be exactly what they are looking for. But if you don’t take the time and make the effort to give them what they really need to come to that realisation (or to help them move on if it’s not a good fit) then they might miss out on something that could truly change their life forever. Do you want to carry that burden? I don’t. I’d rather do a proper job even though it might mean help my clients feel their own pain so they know it’s important to do something about it.

3. You don’t want to be attached to the decision they make but you do want to be committed to helping them make the best possible decision
This is going to be the clincher for many people. This is how you get out of the “I don’t want to be pushy” mindset and into the mindset of a true servant to your tribe. You know so much more than they do. You have an obligation to do whatever it takes to help them make the right decision for themselves. One that helps them improve the quality of their life. No matter whether they buy from you or not, do them this service of giving them all they need to know in order for them to make the right choice.
People are often amazed at how easily selling comes to me and it’s because I believe what I share here 100%. Any sales conversation I have in the true spirit of service knowing it’s the beginning of every relationship where I can enrich others’ lives.
I’d love to know your thoughts on this, please leave me a note here on the blog.

A few weeks ago I attended a great conference with awesome speakers. They were passionate, polished and very knowledgeable. There was just one thing that struck me as very odd. So many of them crumbled when it came to the end where they were going to make an offer. I heard things said such as “I am not trying to sell you anything, this is not a sales pitch,…”. Why not??? Why do we need to even excuse ourselves for a sales pitch?

Sales is not a dirty word and I think it’s important we get over our resistance to it because none of us would even have a business if we were not actively selling something. As you can see from my newsletter I always have an offer for you out there even if it’s a free one.

I do understand that there is some backlash to events that are simply pitch fests and people being over that. AND, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The reason why there are so many fantastic free offers out there is because they inspire a certain percentage of everyone enjoying the free stuff to actually take action and invest in taking the next step. And it’s when they take the next step that they really see the big benefits. Because even though the free stuff is extremely useful, it is always only part of the picture.

Nobody can put years worth of study and experience into a one hour free teleseminar/webinar and the like. The purpose of the free offer is to showcase your expertise and to give the audience the inspiration and the confidence to take take the next step and commit to achieving their goal using your material, teaching, systems.That is a really important step as when you sell information/coaching/consulting you are always selling a result.

So the better you are at building people’s confidence that they can do what you recommend in order to get the results they want, the more people will invest with you. That’s what you want to achieve in your promo free give aways. So don’t be afraid to be generous when you give information for free and at the same time don’t be afraid to make your offer and invite people to take the next step. Your speech/free give away earns you the right to make that offer.

And believe me, there are  people who want to hear it, who are waiting for you to show them how they can find out more, so don’t rob them of the opportunity to invest in themselves!

Ok, I”m going to get off my soap box now, what do you think of this? I’d love your comments on this here on the blog, I promise I read every one of them, even if I don’t always get to answer everybody!

So drop me a line ok?

“If  you build it they will come” is probably one of the biggest myths ever published and believed when it comes to business.

“Once you build something extraordinary  and you tell everybody why they should come they may” is probably closer to the truth, I’d say.

So how many people find out about you and what you do every day?

As you know you could have the most extraordinary offer but unless  people know about it, you will stay the best kept secret in your industry. And it’s exactly here that most Solopreneurs think too small and simply underestimate how much exposure they really need in order to fill their pipeline.

“But I am already working so hard”  I can almost hear you say.

I know. And that’s why the strategies that really take your business to the next level need to leverage everything you already have: Relationships, technology and online media.

Here are three strategies that  I am using and that are working for me right now to increase my reach:

1. Form Joint Ventures

The upcoming Massive Client Attraction Telesummit is a great example of a joint venture that I have formed with seven other experts in my industry.  Teaming up with who you could regard as your competitors to create a triple win situation (you, your JV partner and your clients/subscribers) is a great way to increase your reach.

Seek out the big players in your industry, set up events where you interview them or present alongside them not only positions you as the expert in YOUR field but also exposes all of you to a wider audience as each contributor promote s the event to their following.  This strategy has been instrumental in my business success to date probably more than any others.

During the Massive Client Attraction Week Telesummit I will be interviewing Janet Beckers who built her entire business in record time based on boldly putting this strategy in place.

2. Drive traffic to your website with a purpose

It is imperative that your website is structured to generate leads for you. Giving a valuable piece of information away in return for them providing their name and email address  is the most effective lead generating strategy that you can virtually put on auto pilot.  Using paid ads such as Google Adwords or Facebook ads or your ad on other resource sites can lead a steady stream of potential prospects to your site without you having to do anything else (except monitoring your Return on Investment).

During the telesummit I will be interviewing Alicia Forest who built a huge list of loyal subscribers using a variety of such ‘list building’ strategies.  As a mum of two little kids Alicia is a master of systemising things as she has to – there’s no time to waste when you have kids to look after.

3. Use Social Media to engage

Social media is all the rage at the moment and I have had success in getting clients through social media sites such as linkedin, facebook and twitter. You can too, but beware it is easy to get sucked in  and waste your time doing this. They key again is to use leverage.  It is possible to link the different applications and connect them with other media such as your blog so that one update gives you exposure in many different places.

And yes we will have an expert covering this area at the Massive Client Attraction Week Telesummit which is  a really important one as there are so many variables in this field, you really want to know what you’re doing here. Wendy Moore will shed some light on this, I for one am really looking forward to this session.

There are other strategies that are highly effective and the key is to leverage what you have got in as many ways as possible. I suggest you focus on one strategy, implement it to an extend that you can clearly see it working, then move on to the next one.  Making it perfect before you move on will mean you are wasting time.

What are your thoughts on this? I’d love to know what you want to know more about, so I can ‘grill’ my experts during Massive Client Attraction Week and get you answers.

Please leave me a note!

You may have heard it before: Experts get paid a lot more than Generalists, and the way to attract a lot of clients is to position yourself as an expert in your field. Being the accepted Go-to Person for your particular field is the easiest way to stand out and have clients choose your service over your competitors’. Ok so far so good. But how do we do this in the fastest way possible you might ask.

When people hear the word ‘Expert’ they often think of somebody who has been in one field for a long time. Many people balk at the idea of claiming expert status for themselves thinking “Who am I to claim I am an expert, I don’t know anywhere near enough to be an expert. When I ask clients how long they need to have been in a field before they can claim to be an expert, they often answer with “at least five years”. Hmm, so what are you meant to do in the meantime? Just accepting the fact that you are merely mediocre? Marketing yourself as a beginner?? No way. Nobody wants to work with a beginner. So who decides from what point onwards you can call yourself an expert?

And really it can be so easy if you just make that one small but important mindset shift that lets you claim expert status no matter where you are at and how long you have been doing what you’re doing.

Here is the all important question:

Who is your audience?

Expert status is always relative. Here’s an example. I am a total tennis novice. For me the tennis coach giving lessons at my local club is an expert at what he does. But for a professional player, like the world’s number one, Roger Federer he is not really the expert, he’s an amateur. Roger needs somebody MUCH more experienced and knowledgeable than my local tennis coach to assist him in his training.

Point being, who do you cater for with your expertise? If my local tennis coach compared himself to Roger Federer’s trainer, he would never be able to claim expert status. He will be forever an amateur. Feeling like the eternal amateur isn’t going to be good for his image and not very client attractive. Not to mention what it will do for his self esteem. But for a tennis novice like me, my local trainer is THE expert I want to work with as he can relate to me as a beginner, he knows how to teach beginners like me and he can easily take me to the goal I want to achieve when it comes to playing tennis. Maybe better than Roger Federer’s trainer who really would be totally bored working with a beginner like me.

Now how about you? If you are having issues claiming expert status, then who are you comparing yourself to? A competitor who has been in the industry you just entered for 10 years? Is that why you can’t claim to be the expert? And who are you looking at catering for? Where are they at in their journey? And what level of expertise will most serve them right now?

Now if you needed to be THE BEST to be an expert, then wouldn’t every local tennis coach be out of work while Roger Federer’s trainer was inundated with clients? I think we both know the local tennis coach down the road has nothing to fear from Roger’s coach. And both can quite happily call themselves experts, as they are both speaking to a different audience.

So what is your audience? And how far ahead of them are you? Can you take them forward the steps they are seeking to take? If yes, great then you are an expert in their eyes RIGHT NOW.

Next week I will share with you three ways you can position yourself as an expert almost instantly. Hint – check out my Client Attraction Week Telesummit where I team up with seven other experts to bring you highly effective strategies for positioning yourself as an expert…. you can attend for FREE, check it out… http://www.clientprosperity.com/telesummitsales

In the meantime, what are your thoughts on the whole Expert Status thing? I’d love to know, please leave me a note…

Click here to listen to this blog post (4min 12sec play time)

Have you ever met somebody, you were interested in what they do, you were considering doing business with them, ready to learn more about them and the first thing they do is send you a blatant advertising of their services asking you to buy? It’s rather off putting isn’t it. This approach just doesn’t work anymore in the age of abundance, especially for coaches and consultants. There is a three step process that you must go through in order to turn people who are effectively strangers into long term appreciative clients. Each step has it’s own purpose and wanting to achieve more than one step with whatever action you take can spoil all your efforts.

I know, I am impatient too and it’s obvious that what I do helps my ideal clients get what they want, but they don’t know that yet, so you and I need to be patient and stick to the three step formula always knowing what action we take for which purpose when it comes to client attraction. So look at what the three steps are and what actions are appropriate for each step, ok?

1. Lead Generation

Before we can even talk to anyone about our services, we must get in front of the people who could be interested in what we have to offer. Our goal here is to raise their interest enough for them to want to find out more and enter a conversation with us. This is the lead generation stage, they are still stangers. Getting the message out and having people who are interested in what we have to say, wanting to find out more, is the only thing we want to achieve here. This is where we might get people to download a free report from our website, attend a teleseminar or a live speech. We get the word out through social media, direct mail or other an introductory speech at a networking function. All we want at this stage is their permission to continue the conversation. Don’t try to sell here or you’ll kill the relationship.

2. Build the Relationship and Good Will

Once we have permission for the conversation to continue, we want to make deposits into their Good Will account. Here is where we educate what are now our prospects, give them value with no expectation of any return (in other words, still no selling!), delight them and impress them. And allow them to get to know us as a person so we can build a real connection with them (hint: the articles I am sending you every week will hopefully score me points in your Good Will account). While we do this, we also create awareness of what it is that they need more of in order to reach their goals. And of course we want to be the person of choice they go to in order to fulfill that need.

3. Invite them to invest

Ok now you can sell. And I deliberately phrase it as invite them to invest because that’s closer to the truth. If you have done step one and two and your valued prospects are ready to act to fulfill their need, what you offer them hits the mark for them and they trust you now, it’ll be easy for them to say ‘yes’ and invest in your program. You can see the power is always with your prospect. So what you put out there has to be pretty darn good, so it stands out and you become the obvious choice for them to go to. Because they don’t have to. Always remember, they can end the conversation with one mouse click, whenever they want to. Don’t give them reason to do that, but at the same time be sure to communicate enough so they can truly appreciate the offer you are making. It’s a balancing act you need to learn to master.

I am interested in your thoughts and questions. I am planning a huge initiative, I’m organising Massive Client Attraction Week (May 17-21). I’ll be teaming up with Australian and International Client Attraction Experts to bring you the most valuable up to date info on all three of these steps.

So what do you want to know about ??? Please leave me a note with your question and comments so we can make this a really great event that you will love/strong>