Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for the ‘positive mindset’ Category

I may be known primarily as a marketing coach, but I am the first to admit that if you’re serious about growing a six or seven-figure business, it’s going to take a lot more than great marketing.

You can do all the right things and work hard, but if it’s not yet translating into results, it may be that your marketing strategies need tweaking, or you may need to work on your business model and your income streams.  But, it’s also a strong indication that what you really need to work on is your mindset.

If your mindset isn’t in the right place, you could be sabotaging your own success.

Perhaps deep down you don’t feel that you deserve it, or you doubt yourself or don’t trust yourself. Maybe you just don’t believe that you should have it so easy.

Wrestling with these issues takes a lot of strength. You have to make up your mind that you are stronger than the issues.

Every time you step up to a new level, there will be more inner work for you to do. There’s always more to face and to overcome and to step through.

Think about some of the workings of your mindset that are holding you back right now.

•    If you feel like you’ve got to do everything yourself in order for everything to get done, that’s a mindset issue.

•    If you doubt yourself, and think you have to slowly build your credibility before you can offer an expensive program, that’s a mindset issue.

•    If you aren’t willing to invest money in yourself by taking training courses, buying programs or hiring a coach, that’s a mindset issue.

•    If you think the only way that you can make money is by trading your time for it, that’s a mindset issue.

You need to shift your mindset. Being put in situations and even getting assignments where your old mindset is challenged and tested will help you to look at and handle things differently. Ultimately, you will blow apart all of the old ways in which you approach new things.  Working with a coach or a mentor specifically on mindset will help you a great enormously.  And I can personally speak from experience!

The change in your mindset shift is a little difficult to explain because it really needs to be experienced.   The bottom line is that part of mindset is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Everything you want that you don’t yet have is outside of your comfort zone. If it was inside your comfort zone, you would already have it. You have to step outside of that zone to get what you want – and deserve.

Once you shift your mindset, you will be comfortable with being the expert at what you do, delegating, believing in yourself and in the value you offer to your clients.

That is when you will achieve and surpass your business goals.

So go for it!  Join me in the journey and make this year your best year ever!

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

What truly scares you about your business?

What obstacles are you afraid will interfere with your goals?

If you aren’t making the money you want, there is some type of fear that is coming into play. That fear factor is the one thing that can stand between you and your ultimate success. Until you face and overcome that fear and those obstacles once and for all, they will keep your vision from becoming reality.

First, figure out what you are afraid of.

Have you ever experienced any of these feelings:

Do you question whether you are enough of an expert in your area?

Do you panic at the prospect of speaking in front of an audience or conducting an interview over the telephone?

Are you terrified by the reality of marketing yourself?

All of these questions undermine your confidence in yourself. You need to address the underlying causes of your fears in order to move past them.

The answer to overcoming many of your fears lies with education. It’s common to fear the unknown, but as you educate yourself in those areas you aren’t familiar with, the unknown becomes far less mysterious. And much less scary.

Start by considering whether you have invested enough in yourself, in your education and training, to feel confident. If you can’t justify your expertise with education and experience, it’s time to get more of both. When you put the effort and energy into yourself, it will reflect in your confidence level, and help you to overcome that fear for good.

You may need to learn more about how to promote yourself, which is very different from promoting a company with a brand name. Investing in courses and training programs that offer strategies and techniques geared specifically toward small business owners will help to put that fear of rejection to rest. The same holds true for public speaking. The more you know about your subject and the more you learn how to do an effective presentation, the less you will fear public speaking.

This is all about you believing what you’re worth. You’ve earned the right to market your skills and abilities. Once you get out there and see the impact you can have on your clients, your fear will slowly evaporate.

Addressing your fears is both exciting and scary. You just have to face it – whatever it is. Whatever that thing is that makes you uncomfortable, that gives you pause and makes your heart and your head pound – just do it.

That’s how you’ll step up into the next phase of your business success. Once you do something that you were previously afraid to do, you can put it behind you. You can consider it part of your comfort zone because you did it and you survived it.

Getting over fear is one of the best feelings you can ever experience.

Step up to something, look it in the eye, learn what it takes to overcome it and then just take it on.

Bernadette Doyle created Client Magnets to help self-employed people solve one of their biggest business problems: attract a steady stream of clients. www.clientmagnets.com. Register FREE for instant access to her Stepping Up teleseminar series

Tweet

Loving your job?  Loving your business?  OR does it feel like you’re still having to suffer through the more undesirable aspects of your work?  I once believed as long as you generally enjoyed your profession, and was rewarded for it, you would still need to take care of those elements and some tasks that you dislike doing.  Well, things have changed and this no longer has to be true.

In order to create the type of magnetism that attracts prospective clients to you, you must find that one thing that you’re inherently intended to do and eliminate the rest.  With so many resources available to every one of us, there really is no excuse to continue to do OR continue procrastinate on those things we hate to do. But, you might ask, “How can I find that one thing I’m meant to do?”  You can start with your current business.  Here’s how:

•    Make a list of all of the tasks that you’re responsible for in your business.  Often, it can be hard to call up every duty, so it can be helpful to keep a daily log.

•    Assign a love factor to each task.  Is it your favorite?  Do you want to do it first every day because it makes you feel fulfilled?  Or is it the one you detest?  The one you try to avoid?

•    Isolate the tasks that you detest and ask yourself if those tasks can be eliminated.  Can you redesign your business’ purpose to cut them from your routine?

•    If the detested duties are necessary duties, start, right away, to find another way to get them done.  Hire someone.  Automate them.  Anything that will eliminate the negative energy from your daily repertoire.

If this process has been completed efficiently, you will be left with one main task…the one that you’re absolutely wild about.

The laws of positive energy dictate that you’ll be paid more for those tasks which you enjoy the most. Once you can figure out what you’re good at, and do that thing exclusively, you’ll realize more success than you had when you were bogged down doing all of the other false necessities.

Another point to remember is though many of us would like to believe that our business lives and our personal lives can be maintained separately, with a definitive line dividing the two, it’s nearly impossible to isolate them.  If there are things in your personal life that drag you down (laundry, cooking, cleaning), then do what you can to justify hiring someone to do them for you.  The positive energy that you’ll create in your personal life will spill over into your professional life, multiplying the magnetism that you create.

Just loving your general profession or business is never enough to warrant truthfulness from the statement, “I love my work.”   In order for your magnetism to be IRRESISTIBLE to potential clients, you must love every aspect of your business, even if that means whittling it down to one, exclusive task.

Do what you love, and only what you love…and others will love the idea of becoming part of your magnetic field of success.

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

Tweet

Many entrepreneurs, small business owners and other professionals find themselves focused on earning an income, finding new clients and the day-to-day struggle to survive.  Having enough income and cashflow to grow your business rapidly is not an uncommon problem.  I often hear people talking about their expected income for the next day, weeks or months ahead.  They focus on knowing where the next paycheck is coming from because they don’t have enough confidence in their existing client base or cashflow.   They fear their income will dry up.

Have you ever felt like that?  If that sounds like you, then it’s time to STOP focusing on your income.  It’s time to start focusing on a long-term plan for success and diversification.  But how?  How do you free yourself from the day-to-day financial worry and really start to thrive?

The answer simply lies in starting your own high-end coaching program.   A high-end coaching programme (when designed and delivered the right way) will provide enough guaranteed revenue to enable you to stop worrying about money and be free to focus on your long-term success!

This is how the strategy works …

Sell Once a Year to Generate Guaranteed Revenue

• With your high-end coaching programme, if you market and sell the right way, you will only need to focus on the selling once and then you’re done for the year.

• Create a program with a limited number of spots, and you’ll only have to sell long enough to fill those spots and then you can focus on serving your clients and creating alternate revenue streams.

• Create a program with a fixed time limit, such as my annual programme, and you only have to sell those spots once per year. Then you’ve got the commitment for the income, and you’re free to focus on other areas of your business. No more worrying month-to-month whether you’ll have enough cash for next month; with a high-end coaching program, you can earn enough money to free yourself up for other pursuits.

Free Yourself Up to Look at the Big Picture

One of the biggest benefits for you and your business of creating a high-end coaching program is freeing yourself up to look at the big picture. If you’re like most people, you spend countless hours per week working on finding enough business, and the rest of your time goes to satisfying your existing clients. You never have time to think about the long-term plans for your business, or how to diversify your revenue streams.

Once you have the committed income of a high-end coaching program, you can stop spending so much of your time selling yourself and your services because you have a guaranteed revenue stream. Instead, you can focus on creating the other steps to achieve success in your business, and put together a long-term plan for your business!

In order to truly become successful in your own business, you’ve got to stop focusing on immediate income so you can begin to build a road map for long-term success.   Worrying about your day-to-day income is short-term thinking and can seriously hamper your long-term business success. When you start a high-end coaching program, you get financial commitments for a large portion of your revenue and begin looking at other ways to improve your business success.

So if you want to see an end to your day-to-day financial struggles and the beginning of long-term success, it’s time to start your high-end coaching programme!

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

Tweet

How much money do you want to make this year?

If you’ve answered this question with a round number, like, $100,000, or $1,000,000, or an, “I don’t know,” you don’t have a goal, you have a wish.  It’s imperative that you know your goal income numbers, specifically.  You must know how much you have to net today, this week, and this month in order to land the yearly salary that will support the lifestyle that you desire.

Here are some get-specific Millionaire Mindset methods:

• What would you like to do in the next year? Move?  Take your dream vacation?  Send a child to college?  Hire someone to manage all of that stuff for you?  Or make it possible for your spouse to leave his or her job to come to work for you?

Don’t forget the smaller costs that go along with each large goal, like the cost of providing your newest employee with a company car and fringe benefits, travel costs, tuition, and your existing lifestyle costs.  Don’t estimate.  Make phone calls.  Get current pricing on airfare, college tuition, health care, or whatever bills you’ll have to foot.  Write it down…you’re going to need it.

• Now that you’ve done the addition, do the division. Break out the calculator and find out how much you’ll need to net in a month, a week, and a day.  This will give you a manageable and reachable goal path.

Lots of people say they want to be millionaires.  But if you ask them how much they need to make this afternoon to stay on track for that wish, you’ll likely be met with a dumbfounded look.  Once this step is completed, you will be distinctly separate from those with a wishing frame of mind.

• Challenge yourself in the pursuit of your income goal. If that means working an extra 30 minutes to meet your daily income goal, do it.  If that means negotiating on a deal, even if you’re not comfortable with negotiation, then do it.

When you know how much money you need to earn this week, in pursuit of the big goal, you’ll be encouraged to do the things that aren’t so desirable.  Every time you challenge the boundaries of your comfort zone, those boundaries will soften, and your comfort zone will grow.

A goal like, “I want to make a million bucks this year,” will never incite you to rewrite an email or to hold firm on your retail price for an item.  But if your goal is, “I need to clear another $50 today to stay on track,” you’ll push right through, because you will connect those little tasks with your big goals for yourself, your family, and your lifestyle.

• Successful business people always know their numbers. They rifle off their conversion rates, costs, costs of sale, and precise percentage profits.  Businesspeople who don’t know are probably losing money.

• If the thought of calculating, relating to, or speaking about numbers frightens you, then hire a business manager to do it for you.  Investing all of your energy in working in your business, without working on your business, will be detrimental to your income goal.

• The numbers might be simple now, but if your goal is to make a million dollars, or any other impressive number, you’ll have to expect the money flow, in both directions, to become more complicated.  Adopt a know-your-numbers attitude now, rather than jumping into a sea of number soup when your chances of drowning are high.

In short, know how much money you need to make.  Then know how much money you need to make this week in order to reach that goal.  Name it, and then claim 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

Tweet

By declaring your goal, whatever it may be, you are taking the first step toward achieving it. Taking that first step is a good start. But, the very instant you make the decision and take the step, something is going to come up – a challenge that you will likely need to face. It could be a fear, an obstacle, or an external challenge or circumstance you didn’t foresee.

When fears, obstacles and circumstances arise, it’s easy to go into panic mode and contract and retreat. If you do this, you will end up feeling like you’ve tried and failed.  And when you feel like that, you’re actually worse off than when you started. In addition to not achieving the goal that you wanted, you’re also left feeling bad about yourself.

Here’s something truly valuable you need to learn about change. It’s so important to grow bigger than your obstacles or unwanted circumstances.

This is what people who are consistently successful do. They take the step. They still experience the obstacle, fear or external circumstance that comes up. But, instead of shrinking, successful people make a decision. They choose to grow bigger than their problems. They expand – and the solution becomes visible.

Richard Branson, a hugely successful businessman who is admired by many, went through this scenario early in his career. He found a loophole where he didn’t have to pay taxes on the store he owned – or so he thought.

He ended being fined an enormous sum of money, with his only options being to pay his fine or go to prison. Branson made what appeared to be a crazy decision. His solution was to open another store to make more revenue to pay his fines.

In that instant, he chose to grow bigger than his problem.

That is partly what makes him such a successful businessman, and such a tremendous contributor to society on a global scale.

To make an impact like that, you have to learn to be comfortable with managing your fears and challenges. When you encounter an obstacle, grow bigger than the problem.  When you learn to do this, nothing is out of your reach.

When obstacles and challenges and fear come into play, you need to find new ways to handle them. Ask yourself, “What do I need to learn?  What do I need to do differently in order to fully step into my new life?”

The instant you do, the solutions will become visible. They may well have been there all along, but you couldn’t see them before. As you grow bigger than your problems, new opportunities will appear because you are doing things differently.

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

Tweet

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

Tweet

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?

Tweet

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

Tweet