Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for the ‘Success Secrets’ Category

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.

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

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.

Tweet

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

Tweet

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

Tweet

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

Tweet

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

Tweet

It’s a lot easier to turn a ship that’s moving in the wrong direction than it is to turn a ship that’s not moving at all.

If you’ve been getting “analysis paralysis”, scratching your head and trying to figure out what your direction is, just pick a purpose and start heading toward it. If you’re off course, the market will correct you.

If you’re not heading in the right direction, the market will quickly give you feedback that will help you adjust. Just don’t get overly concerned that what you decide today is going to be cast in stone.

Don’t worry about picking the wrong area or niche at first. Don’t worry if you find that you’re being called an expert on something that you don’t want to be known as the expert on.

Areas of expertise can change. But you can only change your direction if you have already set out in one to begin with.

Bob Burg is the author of a book called “Endless Referrals.” He is now positioned as a referral expert and an expert on helping people to generate referrals for business.

When he first started out, his niche was memory experts. He noticed that people who took his memory courses wanted to improve their memory to remember the names of people they’d met at networking meetings and events. They wanted to improve their memory to achieve better business results.

As he spotted that connection, he started to focus more on being the referral expert. No one accused him of being a fraud because he was now a referral expert instead of a memory expert. The market let him know in which direction to steer his business.

When you set course in your chosen direction, look for niches and markets where it’s going to be easier for you to establish personal relationships and position yourself as an expert.

If the niche you do choose turns out to be an enormous amount of effort, you have to weigh whether or not it’s worth your while to continue down that road or take a different road to get business.

When Dan Kennedy, the marketing expert, was invited to submit a proposal to give a speech in Switzerland, he opted out. While plenty of other people would jump at the opportunity, and spend a day putting together a proposal to bid, that is not the way he wants to go after business. Perhaps it didn’t seem worthwhile to spend the time writing the proposal. The point is that you have to make the determination of how you want to do business.

Your niche will evolve with your business. It’s an actual evolution that happens in most any business. Look at my own situation. I started out as specializing, by trial and error, as a cold calling expert. But I didn’t stop at that. Today, I’m teaching people how to find new business and triple their income! The way in which I’m helping people and the types of people I’m helping is completely different from what I started out with.

But it’s turned out for the best for everyone!

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

There are many ways to become a client magnet. Here are 20 proven methods that will help you to achieve astonishing business results.

•    Carefully choose the niche that you want to be known as an expert at.

•    Learn everything there is to know about your declared area of expertise. Go through the experiences and learn the lessons, connect with a mentor and then put it into practice to be successful. Only then can you teach and help other people to do the same.

•    Pick something that you’re passionate about; when you’re passionate, that really shows through.

•    You will make a greater impact in a place where you genuinely have some value to offer.

•    Realize that you don’t have to try to get every person you ever encounter to become a client.

•    Build your relationship with the people who have already “raised their hands” and expressed an interest in your product or service.

•    Focus your effort and energy on people who are pre-qualified to buy. It is more pleasurable to work with and for them than to try to convert people who will never be interested or will never be qualified to buy your services.

•    Approach your tasks with the right energy. A positive attitude will resonate with your clients; conversely, so will negativity.

•    Be a congruent model for success by focusing on and being committed to your prospects and clients.

•    Use one-to-many methods for connecting with clients and offering services, as much as possible.

•    Put systems in place to start building your list.  Then continue to grow and improve your lead generation systems.

•    Know the principles behind offering ethical bribes, such as a free report, and have processes in place to handle responses.

•    Incite a call to action by creating a sense of urgency for people to sign up with you or purchase your offer. Deadlines work well for this.

•    Don’t underestimate the value of affiliates and joint venture partnerships.

•    Be consistent. Systematize and automate your process so that you can make money even when you aren’t working.

•    Use articles, teleseminars and social media to increase your exposure and the perception of you as an expert.

•    Use quality software to build and maintain your websites and blogs.

•    Always offer an upgrade with every sale.

•    Build relationships by following up with the people you meet at networking events right after the event.

•    Offer something for free or do a product giveaway at an event, collecting contact information in exchange for entry.

Implementing just some of these strategies today will add many more prospects to your list and take you closer to a more profitable business.  When you’ve applied them all, you will be a true client magnet.

Tweet

Do you dream about creating an amazingly successful business?

Do you have a plan mapped out inside your head?

Do you dream about creating an amazingly successful business?

Do you have a plan mapped out inside your head to get it started?

Or are you looking for miracles to make your dream a reality?

Whether your starting out with your business or planning for growth, both of these seemingly conflicting concepts
need to co-exist inside your head.

It is very important that you have realistic expectations.

If you don’t have a budget and you don’t have any spare time, can you really expect to make an extra £20,000 a  month from your business? While it is certainly possible to earn that much money, you’re going to have to invest a certain amount of your time, effort, and money to make it happen.

But before you do anything at all, you need to have a plan. What I would like you to do right now is to take a moment, grab a sheet of paper, and draw a long line on it.

At the first end of that line, write the words “me today.” This represents where you are now. At the other end of the line, write down the words “1 year” and “revenue target.”

Write down whatever that number is that you want to reach in one year’s time. It could be £100,000, £250,000, £500,000, or even a million plus. When you have this goal clearly expressed on paper, then you can work out the steps you need to take to get there.

The first step toward reaching your revenue target is to take stock of your current assets. Think about your time, resources, and money.

If you find that you don’t have an abundance of all those assets, don’t panic. Consider the marketing concept that addresses the balance of money and time and creativity. If you’re short in one area, expect that you will need to put in more effort in the others.

So if you’re short on money, for instance, you will probably need to spend a lot more time to get your business going. If you’re short on time, then you’ll probably think about outsourcing from day one in order to maximize the hours you can devote to reaching your goal.

If you’re short on both, then you need to put your creative juices to work.

Don’t let any of these scenarios deter you. Building your online business and earning the income you desire is a very realistic and very attractive prospect for you. An online business has a very low in startup cost. The overheads are low. And, the percentage of profit that you get to keep is high. Keep your expectations and your evaluation of your assets realistic.

At the same time, it is also important to remember this other concept –

Believe in miracles.

In fact, plan on them. This may appear to contradict keeping your expectations realistic, but really, it doesn’t. It is harder to quantify, but there’s definitely a magic in just getting started. Doors are going to open that you can’t even imagine right now.

Until you get started down that road toward your goal, you have no idea where it is going to lead you. Once you actually take physical steps on that path, the universe will take 10 steps toward you.

Balancing your realistic expectations with your belief that miracles await you will tip the scales in your favor and assure you a very successful year ahead! Go ahead, set your expectations high, plan for the future AND always remember miracles await 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

Tweet