Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for July, 2009

I meet so many people on my teleseminars and events, who are overwhelmed and intimidated by web marketing. I know that feeling, because I was too. I remember distinctly the time, when I started exploring putting together a website being SO confused by the contradictory advice being offered up by experts. It actually put me off creating my website for a long time. I was paralysed by the conflicting advice.

Thankfully, I finally dipped my toe in the water and started my weekly newsletter. And do you know what I’ve discovered? The process that helped me build a successful business off-line is exactly the same as the one that is helping me build my business on-line. Good old-fashioned CONTENT.

Traffic to my site has increased by people sharing my newsletter, posting my newsletter on their websites and recommending me in discussion forums, social media and blogs. And the reason people do that is they think that my content is good and worth sharing.

So my message to you is to forget about the adwords, the search engine optimisiation. Do those things work? Yes, they do. But all of those bells and whistles can come much later. If you’re interested in attracting and maintaining a large group of people to your site, then the way to do that is through valuable content that helps your visitors, that solves problems, that moves them forward in their lives.

And the great thing about this is: You can do this from where you are right now. You have knowledge, expertise, opinions, insights, experiences that are worth sharing. There’s a good chance you are totally overlooking just how valuable this is to other people, because they are things that you take for granted.

The bottom line is: are you providing value? If you got up every morning and asked yourself  ‘How can I provide value to the people I want business relationships with, even before they become my clients?’, then your marketing problems would be solved forever.

Marketing, on-line or off-line, is nothing more than identifying groups of people who have problems you can solve, or needs that you can satisfy. You then need to solve that problem at a price that works for both parties – one where they get value and you make a profit. When you start serving a few of them and do it well, it won’t take long for word to spread.

Without these basics in place, no amount of fancy technology will help you. With these basics in place, no lack of technology will stop you. This is the true magnetism of your marketing, the technology just accelerates the process. So forget fretting about technology and start thinking about value. That’s what’s going to really turbo-charge your business.

If I said to you, “Do you truly want your business to succeed?” I’m guessing almost everyone would say, “Of course!” Why is it, then, that so many entrepreneurs slog along day to day with little money, few clients and dim prospects for more? Perhaps the secret lies in what they allow themselves to believe is possible. Let’s take a moment to look at whether your imagination is the culprit that’s keeping your business stagnant.

To set the stage for success, sit down to pen and paper (or a computer keyboard) and describe in vivid detail where you’d like to be in thirty days. How many clients would you have? Would you have enough money for the bills? What would your relationships be like?

As you write your scenario, don’t skimp on the details. Paint a picture of what would satisfy you, personally and professionally. This isn’t the time to listen to that niggling voice telling you it isn’t possible. This is your dream, and you can write whatever you want.

Now, stop and read your vision out loud. Do you notice feeling differently as you do? Most people, when given the chance to imagine a better future, feel an unfamiliar sense of freedom. Those anxious feelings borne of unpaid bills and relational stress fade away as they picture themselves becoming truly successful.

It’s amazing how many areas of their lives seem manageable again, once they’ve allowed themselves to dream of success.

So, the question is, again, “Do you truly want your business to succeed?” Do you honestly want to be in a different place thirty days from now? Then the only question left is this: “What are you willing to do to get there?”

When I ask this question in seminars, I find that most people already know what they need to do. It’s simply that they’ve become so mired in the muck of running a business, they’ve forgotten their original vision. They’ve become discouraged, locked into a mindset that things can never be better than they are right now.

And that’s simply not true. I’ve seen the power having a vision can have in generating success. It’s as though, once people stop and picture the way they’d like things to be, those things begin to happen. Once they’ve let go of the thought of being trapped in their present circumstances, they’re free to engage all their skills and talents to find new clients and new success.

So, are you ready to succeed? If you are, you must …

Read and re-read the vision you just wrote and allow your imagination to run free.

Write down the ideas that come to you each time you read your dream of where you’d like to be thirty days from now.

If you already know what it takes to get there, I hope your renewed vision has inspired you to start doing those things consistently. If you aren’t sure what steps to take next, it’s time to get help with your marketing plan.

Your personal success is waiting! Whatever it takes to achieve that vision of success will be the best investment you ever make in your business.

One day, while at the gym, I made eye contact with someone else who was also working out.  A little while later, as I was working on my resistance exercises, he came towards me shaking his head. ‘No, not like that, let me show you.’ he said.
From one look at his physique, it was clear that he had been spending a lot more time in the gym than I have over the past few years, so I was willing to take his advice. After he corrected my technique, I could instantly feel the difference. The way I had been doing it before was totally ineffective, and I was possibly even risking injuring myself.
‘How long will you be in the gym?’ he asked me. ‘Probably about another 30 minutes.’ ‘OK I’ll come and show you some other exercises a bit later.’ He said. Then he left me to it, and got back to his own routine.
At this point I was thinking, wow, I’m so grateful he came over. It takes courage and confidence to walk up to a complete stranger and tell them they’re doing something wrong. I was also slightly surprised by my reaction to him. I’m a bit sensitive on the subject of my body, and it occurred to me that I could have easily reacted defensively, but there was something very disarming in his approach. From the outset his genuine and sincere desire to help was so obvious he completely bypassed any defensiveness I might have had towards him.
I also thought, I wonder if he’s a personal trainer. It would be great to have someone like that helping me with my workout.
As good as his word, he returned a bit later on. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked. ‘Bernie’ I replied. ‘What’s yours?’ ‘Famous’ he replied. I’m not kidding, and neither was he. His name really is Famous.
Now a name like ‘Famous’ isn’t one that you forget easily, and I realised I had seen his name on the class timetable. ‘Oh, you teach Tae-Bo here don’t you?’
So he showed me another exercise or two, and as he did he asked me a couple of questions. ‘How long have you been coming here?’ he asked.

‘Not long’ I replied. He said, ‘The most important thing is to stick with it. Rome wasn’t built in a day.’
And then once again, he left me to it.
Now more than the dialogue, what I most want to convey to you is how I was feeling during these exchanges. At this point I was feeling grateful, inspired, motivated, encouraged, and best of all I was really enjoying my workout.
Famous’ enthusiasm had rubbed off on me, and I wanted more! ‘When do you teach your Tae-Bo classes?’ I asked him as I moved onto the treadmill. He told me the times, and I said, ‘OK, I’ll be there on Wednesday.’
During the next 20 minutes on the treadmill, I realised that Famous was naturally doing what all ‘Client Magnets’ do.
I doubt that he had marketing on his mind as he came to the gym to do his own workout. It’s unlikely that he had a goal to recruit a certain number of people for his class. And yet just by being himself, and sharing his knowledge and expertise with someone who needed it, he did indeed recruit a new member for his class.
Now, some people may say that this is just a trivial story about aerobics classes, and might wonder why I am spending so much time on it.

What’s it got to do with business?
Answer: everything.
My point is this. Every day you have hundreds of opportunities to see this type of magnetism at work. Do you notice them? Do you learn from them? You are surrounded by people who are attracting clients this naturally, with this degree of ease and effortlessness. Start to pay attention and see what lessons you can draw from the examples that surround you.
And in the meantime, I’ve drawn some lessons from this Famous example that we can all learn from. So, in a nutshell, I give you ‘The Famous Way to Becoming A Client Magnet’.

1. Spot a need. He saw me making a mistake and was willing to help me correct it. He isn’t standing in the local shopping centre accosting passers by and saying, let me show you some press ups! The fact that I was in the gym indicated both my need and my want.
2. Have confidence and belief in the value you can provide. He didn’t agonise over whether to approach me or not. His lack of self-consciousness totally disarmed me. He knew that I would benefit from him correcting my mistakes, which transmitted to me as confidence rather than arrogance.
3. Be the example of what you are offering. I could tell just by looking at him, and also watching him doing his own routine that he knew what he was talking about, and therefore I was willing to accept his advice.
4. Share your expertise in a way that adds value to the people who need it. He showed me a couple of techniques, but more than that he inspired me, encouraged me and uplif ted me. His belief in my potential was very compelling.
5. Give freely, with no expectation of return. His body language and timing communicated that he wan ted nothing from me in return. He was just happy to share his expertise.
6. Have no attachment to results. I doubt that he had marketing on his mind as he came to the gym to do his own workout. It’s unlikely that he had a goal to recruit a certain number of people for his class. If I had sensed that was his motive, I would have been less receptive.
7. Make a series of short, low key contacts, adding value each time. When he did approach me, he showed me one thing and moved on. I was glad he ‘gave me my space’. If he had hi-jacked my whole workout, then I would have been resistant.
8. Let people ‘sample’ YOU. Through our interactions, I’d also had a chance to sample something that couldn’t possibly be conveyed on a brochure or flyer. He was inspiring and motivating and most of all he believes in my potential. That’s the real reason I’m going to his class. The fact that he’s teaching Tae-Bo is secondary.
9. Let the buyer progress through the buying process in their own time. He didn’t ask me to come to his class, I asked him about the class. If I hadn’t recognised his name from the class timetable, I almost certainly would have asked him about personal training.
10. Don’t force or manipulate the process. I at any stage I had sensed that he had an agenda, my barriers would have come up. What I really sensed from him was his desire for me to succeed.
11. Be available. He was getting on with his own workout, yet I saw him help a number of people. He was available to answer my questions about his classes when I asked.
12. Have a ‘next step’ for the buyer to take, for their sake and yours. He has a class that I can attend. It would be a shame if he was just a ‘gym-angel’ who helps people and then disappears! That would be disappointing for everyone. Notice how I wanted more!
13. Package your services into a tangible form that is easy to buy. Have a clear offer. It was easy for me to make a decision about coming to his class. I knew the times, the price and what I’d be getting in return for my fee.
14. Commit to your clients. As I was saying good-bye he said, ‘OK I’m going to hold you to that. If I don’t see you in my class on Wednesday, I’ll be asking you about it next time I see you in the gym.’ Did I feel pressured? No. I was delighted!
15. Enjoy yourself! This guy was just having a good time in the gym.
16. And know that you are most irresistible when you are just being yourself. Famous was just doing his thing, and doing what came naturally. He wasn’t thinking about marketing and selling at all!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Think of two boys in a garden. One of them is frantically chasing after birds; the other just stands still holding out birdseed in his hand and waits. Instinctively, most of us recognise that the latter will be more successful. Yet most sales techniques involve some form of ‘chasing’ with the net result that prospective clients are scared away.
You can be ‘chasing’ without necessarily being pushy with prospective clients. You are chasing any time you are driven by fear, and in truth that’s the energy behind most marketing today.
So why are so many people still chasing?
As I’ve been reflecting on this, it occurred to me that the reason we chase is because we don’t really trust.
We don’t trust that there is a ready-made market of people who need our unique gifts and talents. (If only we could pause long enough to notice them!)
We don’t trust that we HAVE unique gifts and talents. We are afraid that we are nothing special so we have to work really, really hard competing and chasing and fighting for our ‘share’.
We don’t trust our clients. We don’t trust that they will recognise the unique talents that we have to offer and be drawn to us naturally.
We don’t trust that there is a niche that is perfect for us. We think we have to carve one out, or wait for a moment of revelation that reveals ‘our true purpose’ and shows us a clear path forward.
We don’t trust that the business will just come if we stop working so hard. We are afraid that people would forget about us, and that no one would really want us if we stopped ‘hustling’.
We don’t trust that the world is fair. We don’t trust that things would or could come to us that easily. So we work hard to redress the balance.
But most of all, we don’t trust ourselves. We don’t trust that we could be that magnetic and attractive.

What if you could be?

What if you already ARE that magnetic and attractive?

What, if you had, as your birthright, a ‘natural monopoly’?

A space in the world that could ONLY be filled by you?

And what if your clients intuitively knew that too, and the people you were truly meant to be working with, would find their way to you no matter what you did?

Would you chase then?

(Probably, because you wouldn’t trust that there were enough of these clients to keep you in the style to which you’d like to become accustomed!)

But what if there WERE? Would you still chase?

Or would you pause, take a deep breath, and marvel at just how wonderful things are.

‘Do what you love and the money will follow’ cries the title of a best selling book by Marsha Sinetar. I beg to differ slightly. Over the years I’ve met hundreds of people who are doing what they love, but the money is definitely not following. Apologies Marsha, but I would put it this way: ‘Do what you love, communicate this effectively to the people in the world who most need it and are motivated to pay for it, and the money will follow’. The fact is you can do what you love and be well rewarded for it, but you need to match up your own skills and talents with those people in the world who most need what you have to offer. It’s not enough to do what you love and simply hope that the right people will get to hear about you. As Julian Gresser puts it in his book, Piloting Through Change, ‘We earn what we want by connecting our gifts to the concerns of others’.
The fact is, when you match up your skills and talents with the people in the world who really need you, there isn’t a lot of selling or convincing to be done. So aligning what you have to offer with those people in the world who most need it is a crucial element of becoming a Client Magnet. The key word here is alignment. What we need to do is match your skills and talents to groups who are easily identified, who are already explicitly aware of an immediate need, want or problem, and are highly motivated to find a solution.

If you are failing to magnetically attract new clients towards you, it could be because you are failing to speak directly to your targeted client. Even before this, you may have failed to identify your target client. Of all the important steps you can take to become a Client Magnet, one of the first has to be to define the people in the world who need your help and with whom you want to work. This isn’t an optional step. It is a must do. Over and over again I see ‘would be’ magnets diluting their marketing by trying to be all things to all people.

Think you’ve already done this? If you already have a steady stream of clients queuing at your door waiting patiently for your services then you MIGHT be able to skip this step, but if not, the message is that you need to get even more specific.

Start by thinking about the people in the world who are already struggling with a problem or issue that you can help them solve. For example, I created the Client Magnet newsletter having met lots of consultants who were frustrated with the amount of time and energy it was taking to find clients. I knew I had ideas and techniques that could make a difference, and so my business was born out of a desire to serve a group of people with whom I had empathy, and who were facing problems that I knew I could help them solve.

Let me start by apologising for that title. I can’t believe I just put marketing and weapon in the same sentence. Because I don’t think marketing is a war, quite the opposite in fact.

But I did want to get your attention, and the fact that you are still reading indicates that I was successful, so let’s get going.

It’s funny how a slip of the tongue can reveal things to yourself that you weren’t even aware of? I had a conversation with a friend this week where we were discussing all the different elements that contribute to marketing success, and suddenly I heard myself say, ‘You know you could take away everything in my business, the website, my subscriber list, my customers, my products, my courses, my contacts, my suppliers, my technology. Take it all, but just leave me with this one thing, and I know I could build a successful business all over again.’

‘What is that ‘one thing’?’, I hear you ask.
The one marketing skill I prize above all others is…….
(drum roll please)
…..the ability to write words that sell.
Let me add that this is a skill that ANYONE can learn, and I’m about to share with you some suggestions on how you can develop this skill, and watch your business soar as you do.

When you can write words that sell, your marketing worries will be well and truly over. A great sales letter will work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A sales letter can talk to one person or ten thousand. Having a well written sales letter is like having a super salesperson on your team who will never call in sick, never ask for a raise, and never defect to the competition.

1. The purpose of sales copy is to motivate people to act
Before you write a word, you need to ask yourself, ‘What do I want the reader to do as a result of reading this?’ Be really clear on your objective, and have one piece of literature for each objective. If your objective is to get a new subscriber for your newsletter, then you focus on that, and giving all the reasons why it’s advantageous to receive your newsletter. If your objective is to motivate them to buy, then you are going to have to overcome objections and ‘hold their hand’ all the way to the point of purchasing and beyond. Giving your reader too many options creates confusion. So focus on your desired end result.

2. Write as you talk
You might be writing a letter for 1,000 people. But each of those letters will be read one at a time. The most compelling copy feels like an intimate conversation between you and a friend. So don’t write as though you were giving a speech to a crowd. It’s one on one. The trouble is people bring to the page all the ‘lessons’ they were taught at school about ‘good writing’ and can end up with a contrived formal tone. You can disarm your reader with a natural, conversational style. Write just as you talk!

3. Read, read, read.
One of the best things you can do to improve your own writing skills is read examples of other copy. What copy motivates you to take action? Can you figure out why? Instead of just junking the mail that came through my letterbox, I started studying it. I started reading between the lines to identify the underlying ‘skeleton’ that successful copywriters were using. My own copy improved as a result.

4. Watch the shopping channel
People laugh at me when I tell them to watch the shopping channels, but if you want to learn about the structure of successful sales presentations, then they have a lot to offer. In shopping channel world, they quickly pull products and presentations that aren’t bringing in sales, so you can be certain that the infomercials you are watching are delivering results. Pay attention to how they set up a problem, then present the product as the answer to that problem. Notice how they use endorsements and testimonials. Pay attention to how the price is revealed, risk reversal such as guarantees, the special offers they entice you with to motivate you to act immediately. (But one tip, make sure your credit card is well out of reach before you tune in, otherwise you might find your living room full of home exercise equipment.)

One of the biggest challenges with selling services is that often the client does not have the same sense of urgency that you do. Anyone who sells bespoke solutions has probably experienced this. There’s a good chance you’ve been in a situation where you’ve made a proposal, you’ve put hours of work into it, and then you’re following up and you hear, “Oh, next month,” or “We’re going to make a decision on that next week,” or “It’s on hold.”

It’s so frustrating isn’t it, when your prospects do not share your sense of urgency? So what can you do to stack the sales odds in your favour and get things moving?

When I started my fledgling training company back in 1996, one of the first hard lessons I learned was that I did not have the funds to finance long decision-making time, and unfortunately in some cases it was going to be 6 or 12 months before I saw any real business gains. I knew that I was going to be out of cash well before that point. So I needed a way to turn things around – fast.

So, in desperation, I said to myself, “Well, what if I just run a one-off day on my specialist subject, and do it as an open programme? I’ll hire a room in a hotel and do the training.” So I started offering a one-day training on cold calling.

I had accidentally stumbled across a valuable technique. I discovered that running my own open courses helped position me as an expert and gain invaluable experience ‘in the field.’ It gave me an opportunity to ‘showcase’ my expertise. There were some people who came on the course and said, “This is great. We need to do this in house.” And so it sped up the process of landing large sales contracts.

From the clients’ point of view, the advantage for them was that they could sample what I was offering at much lower risk. If they sent one or two people to an event and they didn’t like it, then there was no great loss. But imagine if the whole sales team had been taken from their usual duties to experience a training programme, delivered in-house, that wasn’t suited for their needs? That’s a nightmare that no sales director or training manager wants to contemplate. So you’ve got to lower the risk for them.

When you package your expertise and deliver it via a live event, you immediately change the sales dynamic. Instead of you having to wait for months for a decision, you gently nudge your contacts into taking action. That’s because, by their very nature, live events have a limited availability. If you’re selling in-house training or consultancy, the main frustration you experience is injecting urgency and getting people to act. But if the only way they can experience you is via a live event, you immediately have a built-in deadline and built-in scarcity.

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned about marketing and selling over the past 10 years is that you MUST give people a reason to act NOW. First of all you need to recognise that your biggest competition, whether you’re selling to organizations or individuals, is not the other training company or the other consultant or coach down the road. It’s the status quo. Most people would rather stick with what they know than take the risk of making a change and getting it wrong so it’s really easy to keep putting you off. One of the reasons open workshops, seminars and training courses work so beautifully for speeding up the decision making process is because they have two elements which have been proven time and time again to both give people a reason to act and increase urgency. 1. Limited availability 2. A deadline.

When you’re selling a bespoke solution, it’s a challenge to credibly build these elements into your proposal, but when you’re selling open programmes, they are an intrinsic part of the package. There are a limited number of seats in the room, and the course is taking place on a specific date. Once the places are gone, they’re gone! Once the date has passed, the opportunity is gone.

Now, most people who are selling training, coaching or consulting do not exploit these elements to their advantage, but if you do, you can transform your business.

So what happened to me, completely by accident, was that as I started packaging my in-house training into an easier to buy, off-the-shelf solution such as a one-day programme, it generated immediate benefits. I got the primary cash-flow coming from bookings for my training course, followed by the secondary benefits of bookings for in-house trainings.

If you are a trainer, coach or consultant, you MUST seriously think about offering your expertise via an open seminar, workshop or training course. Even if training isn’t your main service, and your long term goal is consulting clients, if you build an event around a technique or a skill that you can teach prospective clients, it WILL stimulate follow-on business. And, if you market it the right way and it will put immediate cash in the bank too.

If you’re not familiar with different types of buyer behaviour in the marketing cycle, let me give you a quick run down. As you read through the descriptions, see if you can identify which types of buyer you are primarily attracting to your product, service or idea.

There is a fairly well recognized theory by Everett Rogers in the business and marketing worlds about how new ideas eventually get implemented to our everyday lives. This theory holds true in many areas, such as cultural fads and consumer buying habits. Here’s the premise:

For any new idea, there is a group of innovators. Innovators are defined as the first 5-10% of the people who first adopt any given idea. They are the ones who usually come up with the idea in the first place and refine the idea so that it is something that works. Innovators are venturesome; they are the most willing group to try something new and take the initial risk to try something out. They are also influencers… they keep in contact with many others in their area of expertise.

The next group, the early adopters are about 10-15% of us. These people are the trend-setters. They are the ones who are aggressively looking for new ideas to implement. They have their eye on the innovators and are influenced by them. They are respectable people who will try out new ideas in a careful way.

The early majority (about 30% of us) wait a little longer to make our decision. Actually, if they’re not actively searching out new ideas (like the early adopters) they might wait to see the first bit of advertising on a product or service, or get the recommendation of a friend before they jump in. But still, they want to be in on the ground floor. Early majority people still consider themselves ‘cutting-edge’, they just want to make sure the idea has worked out in some other places before they try it.

The late majority (another 30% of us) wait still longer to get on the band wagon. They still get on… some are excited, some are skeptical. But by this stage of the game, there is growing pressure to ‘not miss out’.

The last group, the laggards, (about 20% of us) are true traditionalists. They are generally not interested in new ideas/products and are the last group to buy into new ideas.

Think about where your clients and customers fit in the buying cycle, and ask yourself whether the marketing materials you are using meet all of their needs and answer all the questions they might have before ‘taking the plunge’.

Imagine going into a shop. Inside there are lots of beautiful objects, artistically displayed. You can’t see any price tags, and because of the way that things are laid out it’s hard for you to distinguish between what’s actually on sale, and what is simply part of the display. There is one item in particular that you really like but you don’t want to pick it up in case it’s not on sale. Or it might turn out to be too expensive and then you’d feel embarrassed. There is an assistant standing nearby, but you’re too shy to ask because you’re worried about looking foolish. Also, sometimes in the past when you’ve gone into a shop and asked questions, you’ve felt a bit pressured to buy.

So after hanging around, not sure what to do, you reluctantly and sadly decide to leave.

I’m willing to wager that there are lots of people who are already attracted to you and what you’re offering, yet they are failing to become paying clients because they feel like the customer in the scenario above.

Notice that in this scenario both parties miss out. The customer doesn’t get their needs met, and the shopkeeper fails to make a sale.
What a shame – for both parties.

It’s your responsibility to make it as easy as possible for people to buy from you. That means making it easy for them to make the buying decision, preferably without you.

Lots of people in service businesses fall foul of ‘bespokeitis’. It’s great that every client is different. And it’s great that you tailor your service to your clients. But you are missing out on opportunities if you fail to ‘productise’ your offerings.

What do I mean by ‘productise’? I am not necessarily talking about creating physical products, but making your service offerings more tangible by putting them into packages. Here’s how:

1. Sell the solution, not the means of attaining it. For example, a weight loss coach might offer one-to-one coaching, but would find it much easier to sell a 90 day weight loss package. Coaching is just a means to an end. It’s easier to sell, because you have made it easier for the customer to make their buying decision. Providing a package makes the service more tangible.

2. Clear Pricing. Products usually have price tags, however services often do not. When you buy a sofa, you know the price up front; you pay it, and take the sofa home. When you need decoration services for your apartment, the price depends on quality, size, timing and experience of the designer. When services do not have fixed price tags, or guarantees, the customer can feel very uncertain about their purchase. If you can package certain aspects of your service with clear price points, this will help the customer feel that they are in control.

3. Quantify the benefits . If you ‘productise’ your services, it’s easier to quantify the results a person can expect. Your testimonials have more credibility, because they come from clients and customers who have experienced that same package.

Today I want to make the distinction between taking action and taking inspired action.

If your predominant feeling is of overwhelm, not enough hours in the day, too much to do and not knowing where to start, chances are that you aren’t taking inspired action. You may be taking ‘required’ action or ‘tired’ action, but not inspired action.

You will find that your path to becoming a Client Magnet runs far more smoothly when you are taking Inspired Action. If you feel like you are bumping into one obstacle after another, or simply finding it hard to get motivated, you are probably taking action which is required or tired, but it definitely isn’t inspired.

When you are following inspiration, you don’t need to think about motivating yourself, because the desire to do it comes naturally. Inspired action is naturally pleasurable and enjoyable. It usually has a sense of ease around it too. You don’t need to force yourself in the way you need to get required action done.

Taking inspired action is the opposite to how most of us approach our lives. The typical formula goes something like…

• see a problem,
• set a goal to address it,
• work out what actions you need to take to reach the goal, then
• motivate yourself to take those actions, however unappealing they may be.

In contrast, the inspired action approach goes something like this:
• set your intentions for what you want,
• visualise it as though it is already happening for you.
• Get into the feeling place of already having it, and
• allow the inspired action to come to you.

Now some people have a thought that pops into their mind immediately. You might get a picture, or a word or phrase. The more you practice this, the easier it becomes to receive the inspired action. You will probably develop your own unique method of recognising an inspired action.

The next thing to do is follow up on that thought!

There is often a sense of co-incidence or perfect synchronicity when you take an inspired action.