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Archive for the ‘Business Success’ Category

Picture this image of two boys playing in a garden, trying to catch some birds.

One of the boys rushes around frantically with a net trying to catch the birds. Every time he gets close, the birds fly away. There’s lots of squawking, and feathers flying. The other boy stands quietly, holding out some birdseed.

One boy is trying very hard, and is probably exhausted, while the other hardly seems to be working at all.

Which one will get the results he’s looking for?

Instinctively you know it’s the boy with the birdseed who will be more effective, and a lot less sweaty.

When it comes to marketing and trying to attract clients, you want to act more like that second boy. Unfortunately, though, most people tend to act more like the first.

A lot of the things you might be doing, that are considered to be traditional marketing techniques, might actually be counterproductive. You could well be chasing people away.

Effective marketing techniques used on the wrong market will only provoke resistance, and build defensiveness. You could be running after people, figuratively speaking, with barrages of email, rounds of cold calls and direct mailings, and quite possibly be achieving the exact opposite of what you want.

For example, no matter how effective cold-calling may be for me or someone else, if you detest doing it, your negativity will prevent it from being effective for you.

Even if you are using marketing techniques that are proven to attract clients, if you do them with the negative energy of chasing – if you give off the sense that you are giving simply in order to get – you will end up like the boy who is chasing the birds. Tired and without any bird in the hand.

You want to break down the barriers between you and your prospective clients, not create more of them.

Make sure that the things you are doing marketing-wise, both online and offline, will attract clients to your business. Doing what everyone says is the right thing, but doing it with the wrong energy, won’t produce results.  Do the things that feel right to you. That will bring the positive energy into your marketing, and your clients will feel it.

You’ll know when you’re being a client magnet because it will feel easy. It should feel enjoyable, and you will have an abundance of clients.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

You see an advertisement for a high-priced training course that you know would fill in a lot of business blanks for you.  You know that this course covers exactly what you need to know to move your business to the next level.  Will you decide to sign up for the course or will you pass by?  How do you decide if you will attend or not?  Will your decision be based on your current income or the income you can realize once you have that training under your belt?

More important than the answer to this question is the thinking that you used to arrive at your answers.  Did you think, “My current income won’t support a payment like that.  I’m going to have to pass”?  If you did, you’re making decisions based on your current circumstances, and if you continue to limit yourself that way, you’ll severely cripple your ability to grow to the great potential that is within you.

In order to grow and reach our true potential, you must change your current mindset. Any time a threshold is to be crossed (in this case, a monetary one), a change in thinking must occur.  If you can manage to set yourself on the right course, some of those changes will happen naturally, while others will have to be consciously changed in order to get results.

One of those changes is in the way that you make decisions.

Another working example might be an investment in your business.  What if you meet a dynamic systems expert, whom you know would be able to streamline your business operations so that you can concentrate on making the money that you’ll need to promote the lifestyle you desire?  But, what if the fee for that expert is $25,000 – money that you don’t have lying around, just waiting to be spent?

Here’s the question you might ask:  “Will I invest the money, or not?”  But here’s the real decision:  Will you view the $25,000 through the lens of your current situation, or through the lens of your ideal destination?  Even though you would rather not spend the money now, how will it compare to the $1,000,000 you’d like to make this year?

That puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

Those who continue, time after time, to make decisions based on their current circumstances are often saying “No” to themselves.
In order to make decisions based on your destination, you need to venture outside of the boundaries of your comfort zone. As difficult as this can seem, no progress can be made without doing so.  If you make an investment that you might be uncomfortable with, based on the future, as opposed to the present, you will work harder to make sure that the investment will work for your business.  In other words, that step outside of your comfort zone moves you along the path to your goal more quickly.

Your current circumstance is the direct result of decisions that you’ve made.  If you’re not in your ideal situation, that simply means that you have made some poor decisions; but that doesn’t mean that you can’t change your thinking and look to the future – starting right now.

So what will it be?  Current situation or ideal destination?

Looking for an opportunity to shine from the depths of the direct mail slush pile?

Though it might sound a bit cliché, everyone, even those of you who feel encumbered by a limited budget or a relatively small business volume, can do that.  Whether you’re sending out 10 pieces of mail per week, or 1,000 pieces, you can not only entice people to open your mail, but you can keep their attention with a creative, lumpy insert.

Maybe you have, at times, felt intimidated by the “big boys” – the companies who have thousands or millions of dollars to spend on direct mailing.  But, despite what you might have come to believe about these huge corporations, you actually have an advantage over them for creative direct mailing.  If you have an inventive idea for lumpy mail, you don’t have to sit in countless meetings with marketing committees, pitching your idea, enduring criticism, and perhaps, ultimately, having your idea shot down.  You are your final decision maker.

When you’re creative with your lump mail insert, you can spur your recipients to action.  Here are few examples to stimulate your imagination:

• If you’re intent on helping companies and individuals to find their own hidden treasures, you might consider including an old-fashioned scrolled treasure map with your promotional letter.

• If you consider a message to be of the utmost importance, you might want to stuff it into a bottle before mailing it.

• If you’re hoping to entice inactive customers to fall back in love with your company, you might insert a boomerang with a message like, “Boomerangs always come back, don’t they?”

• If your company has a mascot, you can have a lovable likeness of him or her reproduced as a lump.

• If your company helps people to find resources, for instance, you might want to include an ornamental needle-in-a-haystack.

• A complete comprehensive service might be accompanied by a small, silver platter and the statement, “I’ll give you everything you need for start-up on a silver platter.”

• Fortune cookies can be purchased, complete with customized messages inside, that deal specifically with your purpose or promotion.

If you’re stumped for lump ideas, there are resources that can help.  Two examples are www.LumpyMail.com and www.ImpactProductsMarketing.com.  There, you’ll find lots of creative ideas for lumps.  Maybe you want to announce a promotion, invite inactive customers back to the fold, broadcast an upcoming campaign, publicize a grand opening, or announce a new product or service.

Simply using bulk to create a piece of lumpy mail will, indeed, prompt people to open the envelope, but if you want to stay with them for longer than it takes to empty your promotional pen of ink, or to use that pad of custom sticky notes, you’ll want to put some innovative thought into your lumpy insert.

Make your mail memorable with creative lumps…because when your lump is specific to your purpose, and unlike any other lump, it deems you memorable, worthy of the call or the click, and the investment.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Let’s say that you set a goal to quit smoking, or to lose 20 pounds or to make a million dollars. What is your very next step?

In any of those instances, the first step is basically the same. You need to make a decision. Whatever goal you want to achieve is the direct result of the decisions you make to achieve it. Everything you’ve experienced, in your career, your personal life, in your financial status, is a result of the decisions you’ve made.

And, if you don’t like the results, then you need to change the decisions.

In fact, I encourage you to take that even one step further. Don’t just change the decisions, change your decision-making process. The decisions you make are a result of your decision-making process, and you just might have a faulty process.

Only you know for sure if your decision-making process is flawed. How is your year going?   Are you living the glory days or just a mediocre existence?  Are you achieving outrageous success or is your business just full of challenges? You know because you’re living it.

Learn the three key questions you should ask that will help you to improve, not simply the decisions that you make, but the way in which you make them.

1.    “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Consider the worst-case scenario when you make a decision. Asking yourself this will help you learn how to take risks in your business. It will toughen you against the possibility of any little thing going wrong, and will give you the confidence to move forward in spite of that possibility.

The thought of losing money holds a lot of people back from taking risks or making changes. But if you consider the worst that could happen, it’s impossible to lose money. If something doesn’t turn out the way you anticipated, you may not have received the expected return on your investment, but you didn’t lose. You learned. Consider it an education expense.

2.    ”What will it cost me if I don’t do (or buy) this?” If you ask yourself, “What will it cost me to do this (or buy this)?” instead, you are allowing the cost of something to be the prime motivator in your decision-making.

How much money you have or don’t have should not govern the decisions you make in your business. The key is that when you’re not afraid of losing money, you make different decisions about money and it no longer governs your business decisions.

3.    “What do I need to get an instant return on this investment?” When you invest in something, like a product or a mentor or even a virtual assistant, you want to know how to ensure that you see that investment back quickly. In the end, what you need is for that investment to not actually cost you money but end up making you money.

Notice that not one of the questions asks, “What’s the cheapest way to do this?” That’s not how I want you to think. That’s not how you should make decisions.

Apply these questions to an investment you’ve been considering – something that you’ve been thinking about doing in your business, something that you’ve been wanting to do and that you know would help you grow your business. Maybe you’ve been telling yourself you can’t afford to do it.

Approach that investment with these three questions and you’ll see what happens. These questions will lead to different solutions for you. These are some of the very questions that I include in my own decision making, and I know that they will open up some new possibilities for you.

Think how a caterpillar must feel when it’s in a cocoon that’s turning to mush.

The caterpillar doesn’t know that in only a few seconds, it will be a butterfly. In that moment, the caterpillar feels like it is dying.

This is what change can feel like. It doesn’t always feel good when it’s happening.

When you are on the path to achieving your goals, the recognizable road you once traveled is behind you, while the road ahead is mostly unfamiliar and may feel uncomfortable.  But, as your environment changes, so will you.

Like the caterpillar that experiences a complete change in its environment, going from the ground to the air, everything that doesn’t match the new you on your new path will just go right out of your life.

You may experience some loss, but I promise you, the changes and the gains will be worth it.

For me, a move to a new house led to changes in everything I own, from the clothes I wear to replacing my computer, my phone, my digital camera, my video camera.  Everything just suddenly broke down, got lost, stolen, or needed changing. As I had upgraded, everything around me was getting upgraded as well.

This can happen with relationships too. The people with whom you once spent a lot of your time, both professionally and personally, may no longer be part of your life. This doesn’t need to be negative. As those old relationships fall away, many more supportive people will come into your life.

You will discover new, amazing professional and personal relationships to replace those old ones. Individuals who, like you, are striving toward bigger goals, or who you discover will help you meet yours. It’s like you are upgrading your relationships by moving forward in your life.

Being in the midst of so much change is admittedly scary. It can feel like your life is falling apart. While your instincts may be screaming for you to avoid it, welcome change instead. It means that you’re growing – and the growth will happen across the board.

Remind yourself of the reasons you are experiencing these changes to begin with. Focus on the goals you set for yourself, personally and professionally. Welcome the unfamiliar and have faith in your ability to deal with the changes you encounter.

Like the caterpillar that has no idea of the beauty and unending heights that await when it emerges as a butterfly, your changes mean that you are growing and soaring ever higher.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

In order to take your business from where you are now to a soaring success by the end of this year, chances are you’re going to need to make some investments.

In this economy, that word, investments, makes most people shudder. But, the kind of investments I’m talking about aren’t nearly as risky or as scary as placing all your money into some fund, speculating on the market and hoping to see a good return.

The investments I’m talking about are much more secure than that. And, they are guaranteed to produce results.

You may need to invest in software, or in building your team. You may need to invest in attending an event or in recruiting the right people, or getting the right experts to assist you with a certain part of your business. You may need to invest in your education.

Rest assured, there is always some type of investment that you need to make in order for your business to grow.

Personally, I’ve invested a lot in my business. I’ve done all of those things I just mentioned, from building my team, to belonging to mastermind groups and purchasing software systems. These things are all essential to growth.

Before you think, “Sure, Bernadette, that’s easy for you to say, with all this money, your nice big house, your nanny and your housekeeper,” I want you to know that this is not a recent habit for me.

I didn’t allow cost to be the prime motivator in my decisions, even when I was broke. Not that long ago, when I had a small baby and was paying so much of my income to childcare, I was presented the opportunity to jump onboard Yanik Silver’s marketing mastermind group. This was far more than I had ever spent before. But it is one of the best investments I’ve ever made.

Yes, you’ll spend a lot of money on these things year after year, but they’re good investments. They help to grow your business.

Your bank balance shouldn’t determine your decision making. If it does, your balance won’t actually change until you stop making your decisions that way.

The decision to make an investment in your business is as much a psychological stretch as it is a financial stretch. Like any investment, you have to weigh the factors to determine if the investment is sound for you. But, instead of asking, “What will it cost me to do this?” the better question is, “What will it cost me if I don’t do this?”

Even if you think that you simply, physically don’t have the money to invest in software or an assistant, you need to look beyond that. This is where the leap of faith comes in. By putting that person in place or buying that software, you will free up time so you can then go out and bring on one more client.

If that additional client spends $1,000 with you and the assistant or software cost you $300 a month, essentially that investment saved you or made you $700 more per month.

Start looking at investments in your business as what you will be losing by NOT making them. You stand to GAIN SO MUCH MORE by giving your business the support and backing it needs to grow. The returns on your investment will be well worth it in the end.

Can you envision yourself making $500,000?

I don’t mean imagining that you’ve won the lottery. Can you actually see yourself earning $500,000?

If you set a goal that is believable for you, you’ll not only realize that goal, but as you break through it, even more will become possible for you.

If you can’t envision such a high number and think it’s beyond your reach, don’t set your sights on that number straight off. Doing this will just cause a disconnect between what you want and what you think you can make. You will be starting out with a limiting belief.

I worked with a mentor who shared a story about his wife. She worked for an insurance company as a sales manager, making $29,000 a year. When he asked her if she could see herself making $100,000, she said “no.” When he backed down that number to $50,000, she said, “yes.”

Once she settled on that amount, which felt reasonable and comfortable, she not only achieved it, she far exceeded it. By the end of the year, she had made $499,000.

The important point is that she started out with a vision she could believe in.

What do you truly believe is possible for yourself?  Follow these steps to set believable goals that you can achieve.

Step One
Pick a number that’s a stretch from where you’ve been before, but one that you can actually believe in. If you go too far in the other direction, and begin with a very high number, you will stall out. Your non-belief in making that money will be stronger than your belief in getting it.

Step Two
Start where your belief system is. If the most you’ve ever made is $30,000, stretch that number to the very edge of what you can actually see yourself making.

Step Three
Honor small advances. If you only see a $5,000 or $10,000 increase, that’s fine. Start there. As you make that little advance, you will increase your belief system in many different areas and rapidly advance that number.

Step Four
Once you make that little jump of $5,000 or $10,000, not only do you see yourself make it, but you start to believe in the whole process. When you actually believe in the process, it will have an expansive effect on you. Now you are able to see that this can go anywhere.

You will open yourself up to what is actually possible and really start believing it. That’s when you will take off.

Your ability to make that higher end income is really about knowing where you are in what you believe. Not only will you set believable goals, you will be successful in achieving them, and in surpassing them as well.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Are you setting your goals according to what you truly want or what you think you should get?

There’s a very big difference between those two. If you’re only setting your goals according to what you think you should get, you are probably missing out on so much potential for your business.

Here’s one way you can figure out if you’re setting your goals too low. If I were to sit down with you in a coaching session and ask, “Tell me how much money you want to make this year,” how would you respond?

If your answer is vague or your answer is more in the form of a question, your goals are more in line with what you think you should get rather than what you want to make.

When you set a vision for your business, get this kind of thinking completely out of your head. The potential for your business is so far greater than you could perceive if you’re only looking at it from what you think you can do or what you think you have to do.

One way to avoid getting caught up in this mess is to do projects that you want to do; not projects that you think you should do because they might be the right way to launch a program or sell something.

Doing business this way will afford you the life you think you should have – living in a moderate home, making good money while working 6 days a week, always thinking about but rarely going on a real vacation.

Your goals have to be based around what you truly want. When you truly want something, you have what is referred to in Think and Grow Rich as a burning desire. If you don’t have a burning desire to achieve your goals, it is not going to be enough.

Here’s why that burning desire is so important. When you’re setting after something that you haven’t had previously – something that is a big, daring goal for you – you’re going to hit challenges. You’re going to hit obstacles because anything you want and don’t have is outside of your comfort zone.

On your way to achieving the things that are outside of your comfort zone, you’re going to be stretched. That’s the moment when you will be most tempted to give up, unless you have a really strong burning desire.

This desire, that yearning for something more, is like your higher mind calling you to your true potential.

So, when you’re setting your goals – both revenue goals and lifestyle goals – consider what it is that you truly want.

The bigger house? The 3-day work-week? The 3-month dream vacation?

If these are the goals you truly want, set them. Once you name what you want to achieve, once you know what is your burning desire, we can figure out a way for you to achieve it.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

What is your definition of opportunity?

Imagine that it’s a typical week for your website – the one that you have planned, designed, to which you have driven traffic, and through which you have made booking and registrations possible. Let’s assume that during a given week, 100 visitors cross into the realm of your site; 2 of them make the decision to purchase; however 98 of them leave without investing in your product.

What number captures your attention in the above example? Is it the 2 buyers? Will you wait for another 2 buyers next week? Will you count on luck, or “spray and pray” to deliver a sprinkling of voluntary customers next month, and next year?

Or, do you view the 98 departees as 98 new opportunities for sales?

In truth, your best profit potential lies in the 98 visitors who chose not to buy. If you plan well, after they leave, you will have 98 names and addresses that can lead to potential sales. All you need to do is have a plan for following them up. Just think – if you can get even 2 of those 98 to say “yes,” you have converted a larger percentage than you did with your sales page alone.

Here are some points to show why you should be following up:

• When you follow up with website visitors, you are targeting prospects who have already expressed an interest in your product. They clicked, which means, at the very least, that they are curious. For my regular readers, you know that this means you have gathered an audience of people with “raised hands.”

• Targeted follow-up correspondence answers questions that many of your visitors are not willing to ask (and many people have the same types of questions). Every time you answer a question, you take the opportunity to dispel an objection or a fear.

• Follow-up breeds interaction, which begs conversation. Think of your follow-up e-mails, postcards, and teleseminars as ice-breakers in a conversation that everyone wants to have, but no one knows how to broach.

• Marketing research doesn’t lie. It tells us that more follow-ups equal more conversions. Stay relevant in the minds of your prospects, and you’ll be the first person they turn to when a problem arises.

• Follow-up is a circular phenomenon. It gives you the information you need to devise better methods of follow-up. When questions are posed, and objections voiced, you are given valuable insight into the minds of prospective clients. With this information, you can plant more seeds and dispel more fears.

• Follow-up contact is an invaluable vehicle for conveying the idea of urgency. If a conference is set to take place 6 months from now, people will put off registration. But, if you can communicate a special offer through follow-up correspondence, you will light the fire to sign up. Often, discount deadlines and space limitations work well.

To increase conversions and increase your sales, it’s absolutely necessary you follow-up with all your prospects – even the prospects that don’t buy from you. You cannot follow up too often – you just need to vary your medium to keep your prospect engaged.

Don’t hesitate to use the invaluable follow-up for attracting and retaining clients. Leading prospects to your door is never enough – you must give them the incentives to revisit, and to invest.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

There was a children’s TV program aired in England about 20 years ago, where the primary prop in the setting was a lighted floor. Basically, the lights on the floor were off, and only as the people on the show took a step did the light appear.

They had to take a step forward before any light went on.

This is quite the opposite of how people really want to move forward. Most of us prefer to “see the light” before we take the next step. We want to know where we are going, and see all the steps illuminated and lined up, so that we can go from point A to point B, B to C, C to D, D to E and so on.

But the truth is, that is not really how we move forward. The truth is that often, only the first step you take will be visible. The only way to see the second step is for you to be one- hundred percent wholly committed to taking step one.

That is truly what change is like. There’s no denying that change is uncomfortable, but if you want to accomplish your goals, you’re going to have to step up, move forward and make changes as you go along. The more comfortable you get at doing that, the more stepping up will be a constant experience in your life.

So, if you are serious about doubling or tripling your income, for example, you could go to Vegas or play the lottery, but the real way to accomplish your goal involves doing some things that up until now, you’ve been resisting.

You may not even realize that you’ve been unwilling or unable to make changes. It’s amazing how creative people can be at avoiding change.

But, whether you want to make ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, or ten million, whatever the level or the goal, the process is exactly the same

In order to affect any kind of change, in your life or in your business, you have to take the first step without being one-hundred percent certain about where your foot is going to land.

That takes courage, and it takes faith. That is what change requires.

Commit one-hundred percent to taking step one. You don’t need to know what’s going to happen after step one if you never get there. You will only know what happens next when you take that step. You won’t ever get there if you keep asking questions.

You’ve got to act, and jump right in with both feet, even when you don’t know where that jump will land you.

Once you master this process of change, and just keep stepping through it, you will find yourself more and more comfortable with moving forward without knowing where the next step leads.

As you find the courage to take one step after another, I promise, things are going to change for you.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com