Month: August 2010

What I like about my business is attracting conscious entrepreneurs whose businesses are evolving. But sometimes we can get stuck in our heads and unconsciously hold ourselves back. People have a lot of “good reasons” for not moving forward. But many of us who are self-aware know that our reasons are often our beliefs, and it’s our beliefs and perceptions that are holding us back.

Here are two common “good reasons” why people don’t move forward, and then an example of an amazing entrepreneur who overcame both and is succeeding beyond her wildest expectations.

Reason: “The smart thing would be to get a job now and then come back to my business later when the economy is better.”

Now I’m not going to refute this reason. The state of the economy is causing lots of changes, and if you need to get a job to pay your mortgage, then it might be a good move.

The thing is, you need to make a decision about what you’re going to do. Too many people spend far too long in contemplation mode. They’re sitting in Starbucks doing their work and thinking about how great and easy it would be to be a barista, serve lattes all day and then go home and not think about work.

You need to make a decision because all that time contemplating can be detrimental to you business: there’s part of you not committed to your business. You’re stuck in this observation mode and you’re not engaged, you’re not “all in.” So if you feel like that at all, make a decision. Draw a line in the sand and decide. And once you decide you can be all in or not. And if you’re not, that’s okay. You may as well stop the agony and get a job and move forward. But it’s the contemplation that’s holding you back.

Reason: “I can’t raise my prices because I just don’t attract the kind of people who want to pay me that much for my services.”

I made a quantum leap in 2009, going from eight years of just below my six figure goal, to making that leap above six figures. But I had to completely throw out the way I was charging for my services and create a new model. And I needed to live on the planet of my mentors – the planet where they charge $10,000 a day or $800 per hour rates.

It’s really important to be able to articulate your benefit to people so they know and understand what they’re investing in. If you’re prices don’t reflect your service and what you deserve, you’ll feel resentful of your clients. And that’s not good for business.

Therese Skelly is a very successful business transformation expert who has more than 20 years of experience in the world of psychotherapy. It took Therese some time to go “all in” on her business and learn to value herself and her services.

Because she had worked for so long in the world of therapy, it was hard for Therese to change her business model. She thought of herself as “only a therapist who had a few business clients,” she said to me.  “It was painful how slow the growth of my business came because I wasn’t owning my gift. It took me awfully long time to claim my expert status and stop apologizing for just being a therapist because in reality that’s what made me an expert.”

Once Therese owned her value and started attracting high paying clients, she was no longer in contemplation mode about her business. She went “all in” and has never looked back. Today she teaches other entrepreneurs how to discover their value and shows them how to leverage that value by creating a business around it.

Maybe you see a part of yourself in this scenario? If one of these “good reasons” is holding you back I urge you to take a hard look at it – and yourself.  Take some time – but not too much time – to think about where you want to be, and then take some action so you can move forward. And value yourself and your services. Once you do, you’ll be able to get where you want to go.

About the Author:

Lisa Cherney, the Juicy Marketing Expert, is President of Conscious Marketing, Inc., an organization she founded in 1999 to help business owners find their authentic marketing voice so they can attract their Ideal Clients. Lisa spent 15 years advising Fortune 500 companies and leading advertising agencies working with brands like AT&T, Lipton, Nissan, Blue Cross and Equal™.  Lisa is available for speaking to business owners and offers Stand Out & Be Juicy workshops, and coaching. Visit her website for more details or call 888-771-0156.  http://www.consciousmarketing.com

Entrepreneurs tend to be so focused on getting their initial operations going that they often neglect to fill out their initial management team to align with prior patterns for success.  Like it or not, investment companies and their investors are still licking their wounds over errors made during the past decade, even back to the burst of the dot.com bubble.  Much of the available capital for startup ventures has unfortunately gone to propping up these mistakes, leaving not only less funding for original ideas, but also establishing a highly risk averse mindset in those still willing to invest in early stage development companies.

It is therefore highly advisable to form a more than adequate team at the outset, not only to meet the expectations of the investment community, but to benefit early on from the additional skill sets brought onboard.  Far too often, two partners will come together with an idea, limited funds, and the entrepreneurial spirit to march forward, but are reticent to add new people to the schema.  Typically, they each come from similar backgrounds and believe they have all that is necessary to build a great company.  Bringing other professionals of comparable stature into the mix seems too much to ask.  Why add more overhead at the start?  No sense hiring any of those types until we really need them.

This error in judgment has been witnessed so many times that a first impression never has a chance to be made.  Investors turn off immediately.  If our young entrepreneurs corrected their error by bringing on two junior individuals, they only compound their error for all to see.  The number one reason that new startups have failed over the past decade is that they address the need for a strong sales department far too late in the process.  The number two reason is that there is not a seasoned financial professional on the scene at the outset.  Typically, a commission-based junior sales type person is hired after the initial planning is completed, and the financial person, if hired, tends to be a junior bookkeeper type who adds nothing to early planning efforts.

Sales and related revenues are the lifeblood of any enterprise.  The crucial need early on is to have a veteran onboard that understands the market, knows what distribution strategies will work and under what circumstances, and who can provide critical guidance during the development stage to ensure success down the road.  The sales process must begin in concert with development in order to be off and running when the final product or service comes off the assembly line.  If not, revenues are slow in coming, and more times than not, the product must be completely redesigned to get any traction in the marketplace.

Take a look at any successful marketing or IT development venture and you will find a strong financial person joined at the entrepreneurs’ hip.  Experienced financial people are not overhead.  They pay for themselves by preventing common mistakes from occurring during the critical start up process.  They understand what it takes to raise funding from a fickle group of investors.  They understand how to keep everyone focused on the end game and how to prevent distractions from steering anyone off course.

Partners tend to worry too much about diluting their ownership positions when starting their various enterprises.  Strong sales and financial people are assets that will only enhance the value of the company from the beginning.  More value means more pie to divide, not less.  Investors understand this equation.  Entrepreneurs would be well advised to understand it, too.

About the Author:

This article comes to us today from Tom Cleveland of Forexfraud, where experienced professionals provide expert advice, educational tools, forex market commentary, and best practices guidance to craft a better online forex exchange trading experience for everyone, everyday.