Month: November 2013

Categories
Success Attitude

Are You (and Your Biz) Being Sabotaged By Your Subconscious? 2 Ways to Test Yourself

 

The first time I heard that your subconscious could be sabotaging you, 2 things went through my mind.

 

The first was relief — OH maybe this isn’t completely my fault after all.

 

The second was confusion — what the heck does this even mean? All I want is more clients, and I’m doing all this work to get more clients — how can my subconscious mind be stopping me from getting more clients when my actions are all about getting more clients?

 

And so my journey on the long, twisty road of personal development/spiritual development began, and many times, what my teachers told me and what I actually SAW in my life felt like two very different things.

 

So today I want to talk about exactly HOW your subconscious blocks you, so you can start recognizing the signs and patterns. Because the only way you can start getting a handle on your blocks is if you can finally see them (and they’re tough little buggers to see).

 

Here are 2 signs to look for in your life (and while I’m going to be giving business examples, the reality is we all have blocks in lots of areas in our lives, so this can also be applied to anywhere you’re feeling stuck).

 

1. You don’t like what you see in your outer world (i.e. your reality). So in this case, you don’t like what’s going on in your biz. You don’t have enough clients, you aren’t making enough money or maybe you’re stuck at a certain income level and you can’t figure out how to make more money.

 

And you may be doing everything you can to get more clients, but it’s just not working and it hasn’t in awhile. So you may also be blaming external factors (i.e. economy or how much time you have or even how much support you have).

 

Now I’m not saying those external factors aren’t a part of the equation, but what I AM saying is you also have some blocks going on that are preventing you from creating the reality you want.

 

So how do these blocks work? Well, that’s where the next sign comes in.

 

2. The definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So in your mind, you’re busy doing all this stuff to get more clients in the door.

 

But are you really?

 

Here’s what I mean. What are you actually doing to get more clients? Do you:

 

* Work super hard during slow periods — doing everything you possibly can to bring leads in — and then as soon as you land clients, you stop marketing? You may still have marketing activities on your to-do list, so you may say you’re still marketing, but deep down you know you aren’t and you won’t until your current clients drop off again.

 

* Have every intention of marketing on a regular basis, but somehow something always comes up, so things either never happen or happen sporadically? You know what you SHOULD be doing, but somehow life gets in the way and it never gets done – or if it does get done, it’s fast and sloppy — you just throw it out there so you can say you’re marketing.

 

* Not really know what you SHOUD be doing to bring in more clients? Maybe you’ve even looked into buying products, or hiring someone to help, but either you don’t actually spend any money (because nothing seems right or maybe you want to wait until you make X amount of money before you spend it, but because you don’t know what to do, you never do make X amount). Or, maybe you actually have invested in a product or a program or a person, but the information is sitting on a shelf because you don’t have “time” to go through it. Or maybe you attend an event because you know you need to network, and you spend the whole time with the friend you went there with rather than meeting new people. Or maybe you DO meet new folks and come home with biz cards, that then sit on your desk because you’re “too busy” to follow up with. (And you don’t have any other system in place to follow up with them.)

 

* Hire a team to help you, but something always seems to happen to the team so things still aren’t getting done? Your team isn’t doing what you want or keeps dropping the ball or quitting (or you keep firing them because they just “aren’t right”).

 

Now, why I’m going through this is NOT to give you a reason to beat yourself up, but to help you see your pattern. Where you STOP in the pattern is where the block happens.

 

Willpower may get you so far — it may get you to the event or have you buy the program and even start to go through it — but then something always happens that you’re probably not even aware of that keeps you from finishing. It may even seem like a really good reason as well, but if you have a pattern of “good reasons” that keep stopping you from the activities you need to do to consistently grow your business, that’s when you know you have a block.

 

But remember, knowing you have a block is the first step to unblocking yourself. So once you can pinpoint exactly when the block shows up, rather then doing what you always do to get through it (i.e. maybe you try to push through it or you give up and start surfing the Internet all day) do something else instead. One thing you can do is try breathing into the block, or journaling about it to see if you can try a different approach to getting through it.

 

Categories
Planning & Management

A Model For Conflict Resolution

A Model For Conflict Resolution

About a week ago a former counseling client emailed me to ask if I could help her mediate a conflict she was having with her mother. They’d been trying to work through things for over 9 months and seemed to hit a wall. Her mother suggested counseling and my name came up as someone who might help. The desired result was to get past the conflict so that their relationship could be restored in a better way.

Working through conflict can get very sticky. I believe it takes skill, finesse, resilience, a healthy self-esteem, and objectivity to be really effective in conflict resolution. I see it as an art – something you get better at with practice and increased self-esteem. When things become personalized, objectivity can go right out the window. I know that when conflicts arise between family members, close personal relationship and friendships, things can become painful, uncomfortable, and scary.

Common situations that often lead to conflict:

~ The Blame Game – finger pointing, accusations, buck passing, using excuses, defending, and explaining are all ways people deny taking 100% responsibility for what they create in their life. As long as we have someone or something to blame for our situation, we never have to look at our role in what happened. The fact is that we are powerfull creators and we are consciously and unconsciously manifesting all the time. In a conflict situation, questions to ask yourself are, “What was my role in this creation?” What were my beliefs? Intentions? Expectations? Behaviors? that contributed to this situation?

~ Upset. The root causes are:
1. Unmet Expectations – was it realistic? Was a clear promise made? Did you perceive it as a promise?
2. Undelivered Communication – what was unclear, assumed, unsaid?
3. Thwarted Intentions – things happening out side of direct control.

~ Judgments and Self-Criticism – people aren’t who we want them to be. We’re unhappy with ourselves. Things aren’t the way we want them to be. Inner turmoil and struggle creates stress, anger, frustration. It’s exhausting and very painful. We all want to be unconditionally loved and accepted for who we are. Practicing compassion, tolerance and love for each other’s humanness (and ourselves), invites happiness and inner peace and offers healing and growth opportunities.

We must become the change we wish to see in the world – Mahatma Ghandi.

~ Stuffing things for too long – sitting on something that is simmering will eventually start to boil and lead to a blow up. That’s what happened with my mother and daughter. I’m an advocate for clearing things up as soon as possible. Withholding upset creates a gap in a relationship that widens the longer a person remains silent. One of the keys to clearing things up in a healthy way is the ability to hear things without taking it personally. This takes tons of practice and strong self-esteem.

When both parties can be in an objective space, having a conversation using these 4 opening statements can be a useful Model in conflict resolution. Notice the intentional omission of any accusations or blaming language?

In this model, YOU take full responsibility for your experience, interpretation and reaction as well as what you need to bring the experience to peace inside yourself. To be the most effective, let go of any attachment to what you want or need the other people to do or be. This is critical to offset high expectations.

1. This is what happened (from your perspective).

2. This is how I felt about it at the time (taking full responsibility for your reactions, interpretations, assumptions, feelings…)

3. This is how it affected me (taking full responsibility to what happened as a result of how you felt, what changes might have occurred…..)

4. This is what I want from you now (which might be nothing, you just needed them to hear you, you want an apology…) Understand that what you might want might be offered and be prepared for your request to be denied.

These steps can be very therapeutic regardless of the result because it creates an opportunity to have a conversation where both people can express what happened, show up for themselves and be heard. Being able to show up and hear things that might be upsetting by remaining compassionately detached and present is a skill that takes lots of practice and high self-esteem.

Mutual respect, compassion, accountability, strong self-esteem, good communications skills and the willingness to grow as a person are key ingredients to having more successfull conflict resolutions that build trust and safety in any relationship.

Finally – seek help if you need it. Sometimes we are just too close to the situation and need a third-party to help move things forward.

Categories
How-To Guides

5 Steps to Create a Successful Product Launch System

5 Steps to Create a Successful Product Launch System

There is more to launching a product or program to your community simply than sending out an email and hoping people will buy!  It’s about creating a whole product/program launch system so that you can get maximum sales for your brand-new offering.  Every business owner is excited to launch a new product or program and dreams of seeing “sold out” on their website.

But very often they don’t have a launch strategy in place, and so miss many of those vital pre-launch steps that would result in those “sold out” sales.

Before I figured out the very specific system needed for a successful launch campaign, I too experienced those “launch flops”:

  • Spending months putting a program together and not having a single sale when it launched!
  • Tried again a few months later with a new program, and had two sales!
  • Then, finally, creating a program launch system that created “sold out” signs going up on my website!

With the technology that’s available to business owners, and the world-wide reach of the Internet, you’d think it would be easy to create a product or program, launch it, and make sales!  Not so.  It’s all down to your program launch system, and taking very specific, step-by-step actions to ensure you have all the steps covered.

Here are my top five steps to ensure a successful product launch:

Step 1: Give yourself enough time to plan and implement your launch. So often business owners don’t allow enough time to put in place all the key steps needed to ensure a successful launch campaign.  There are so many moving pieces in a launch cycle that if at any point in the process a step gets missed, it could spell disaster for your launch and means it might not to be as successful as you hoped it would be.

Step 2: Set realistic sales goals.  For this you need to understand the metrics of your business.  If your goal is to have 100 members in your new membership program, but your list size won’t support that goal, then you’re going to end up being very disappointed. In my experience, business owners set unrealistic expectations of what they want simply because they don’t understand their business. So take a look at your business, and determine what realistic goals are for your product/program sales.

Step 3: Set up the necessary back-office systems.  This means having your Infusionsoft or 1ShoppingCart account properly set up to handle the automated sales and delivery process.  If you don’t understand how this technology works, and you don’t have someone on your team who can do this for you, then taking orders is going to become an issue for you at launch time.

Step 4: Determine which promotional strategies you’re going to use. This ties into Step 1 above as there are many different promotional strategies you could implement, with some taking more time than others. For example, will you be hosting a preview call? A series of preview calls? A video series? Will you be bringing on board affiliates and joint venture partners? Knowing at the outset which promotional strategies to use will determine the timeline for your launch campaign.

Step 5:  Decide on your launch window.  After launching your product, how long will you make it available for? When will you close the cart? What will you do during this timeframe to encourage more sales?  All of these are key factors that you have to build in to your launch campaign at the outset. And, depending on what you decide to do, you’ll need to allow the time and resources to implement these.

As you can see, there are LOTS of things you need to take into account.  And this is why it’s so important that you create a system for your product launch campaign, so that enough time is allowed and important steps don’t get missed.

Once your launch is over, if you planned it all out from the beginning and created a system for it, you should be congratulating yourself on reaching your sales goals.   And next time, guess what … you have the system in place.  You simply rinse and repeat for future launch campaigns.

Categories
Starting Up

Getting a Head Start: Three Analyses You Need to Do When Starting a Business

race_10

Article Contributed by Lionel Luigi Lopez

There are a number of inspirations that typically drive people into becoming entrepreneurs. While some simply want to use their business to exploit their creativity and skills, there are those who want to secure their future by making such an investment. Then there are the ones who are apparently born to become business owners. No matter what the reasons are, setting up a business can be awfully exciting especially when one starts thinking about the positive feedback from consumers and, of course, the money it’s going to bring.

But sometimes, entrepreneurs can be a little too overexcited that they overlook some of the most crucial measures when starting business, one of which is research. They suppose that as long as they have sufficient funds and a great product, it will be easy for them to hit it big. On the other hand, sensible entrepreneurs realize the value of conducting proper research before even beginning to think of the more complicated aspects of the business. This is because they know that the more data they have, the better they will be able to construct a business plan that is not only efficient but also one that has realistic objectives. Facts and figures can also help entrepreneurs manage their expectations once the course of the business starts rolling.

Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or you’re looking forward to start yet another business, you sure don’t want to take chances especially when you know that you can get reliable information. Without further ado, here are three areas you need to study first before opening up shop. 

Market Research

Any level-headed business owner knows how valuable it is to identify their target audience and so should you. Since it is the customers who will be the one to patronize your merchandise, you must ensure that information relevant to them is integrated in the development of product ideas. When you’re able to tailor your product or service to the needs and wants of your target customers, it is easier to establish a connection. This is where a market research, also known as consumer research, comes in.

Among the goals of a market research is to determine the demographic you want to deal business with. The data that can be included in this category are age group, gender, religion, ethnicity, and economic status. Apart from this hard data, you also need to learn the pertinent intangible information such as their preferences, buying behavior, and what influences them to buy or decline an offer.

Consumer research is usually done through surveys where questions are asked during a personal or a phone interview. Marketers also have the option of sending the questionnaire through mail or stage an online poll. You can also make use of market research tools if you wish to be involved more in the data gathering process. 

Industry Research

Another category essential to your research work is the industry analysis. It is important that you are aware the products or services similar to yours that already exist in the market. Keep in mind that unless your merchandise is original in every imaginable aspect, it is highly likely that there are business that are already selling what you’re about to offer.

But don’t let this discourage you. Originality is not the only yardstick used to measure a business success. This is also one reason why you need to research about the industry you will be in. This particular set of data will help you visualize how you’ll fit in the industry and what approaches are effective in making the trade flourish or fail. When you conduct an industry research, emphasize on details such as its size and how it is segmented among different markets. You should also look into statistics such as how prices influence the growth of the businesses and the industry itself.

The Internet can be a handy tool if you’re not sure where to begin your industry research. You can look up the key players in the industry and check their websites, which usually have relevant data about the trade. You can also participate in related events so that you can be more informed as well as establish connections to what your industry considers authorities.

Competitor Analysis

As they say, you have to know your enemy before you enlist in the battle. So before you proceed to finally set up your business, you need to know the enterprises you’ll be up against with. As such you need to know the playing field very well from a competitor’s point of view.

When you know who your competition is, you’ll be able to force yourself to push your creativity so that you can have a fresh approach to greet your customers. It may be true that originality isn’t the be-all and end-all of business but you also have to remember that customers are always looking for better alternatives to the products or services that have been availing. By learning about what your competitors precisely offer and what people think of their merchandise, you can make necessary adjustments to make yours set apart.

To be fair, you don’t have to treat your competitors in the business as arch-nemesis. If for anything, you can learn a lot from their successes and mistakes; this is information that you can use to boost your own business. 

There is Power in Knowledge

It’s being a cliché doesn’t make it any less true—that when you have the information and data you need, you have the leverage of designing a business structure that could work. Sure, research takes a lot of time and hard work but if done properly, it can be the key to your business’ prosperity. If push comes to shove, you’ll have something reliable to go back to assuming that the research you did is unbiased. At the end of the day, you still don’t lose your advantage.

About the Author

 is a business writer, entrepreneur and a musician. He runs a small business in Manila and still active in music. Follow him on twitter @lionelluigi

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Five Key Questions to Profile Your Customer

Customer-Profile

Article Contributed by CASUDI (Caroline Di Diego) of Entrepreneurs Questions

We have been profiling customers for our clients for years; we always called it MITS (man-in-the-street) profiling. It means asking the right questions, and accurately determining and understanding the meaning of the answers. We did this in the days before sophisticated data analytics!

If you align these answers with your Customer Development & Customer Experience answers, you will be well on your way to profiling and  knowing your customer.

In the online trackable universe we now have endless amounts of data”, big and small, but the information may be worthless if you don’t define your criteria, and ask the right questions in your data search.

Here are FIVE KEY Questions to profile your customer that we have used with success from before the days of “data”, and they still work great today!

1. Where can I find my customer; where do they hang out?

Are my customers to be found on the golf links, boating or fishing, flying their own plane, hiking in the wilderness, attending the theatre…..where are they?

Today we have another option; do they spend time online?

Is it easier to find where your customers hangout online? The endless number of product or special interest-focused communities would indicate that it is. However, whether your search is data driven or MITS, you still need to ask very targeted questions to find your demographic and sociographic customer profile.

2. What habits and routines has my customer established?

If you know what, where, and when your customer does things routinely, it enables you to create very targeted campaigns. Example: everyday thousands of people head to gyms in the suburbs of major cities between 7-8am.

We now look online for communities, to engage with our client’s customers, or we may help them create a special interest community to attract their customers. We can even create a habit or a routine for the customer; guiding them to be where and when we want them.  It really does look a lot easier than it was. Just think how the major social networks have made this so much more possible!

You can do a psychological profile from their SoMe (Social Media) feed ~ go to twitter, LI or other social networks and find who they are talking to, what they are saying and also what their friends are saying.

3. What lifestyle most accurately describes my customer?

To answer this question it helps to have an understanding of what differentiates lifestyle. Are my customers established in a 9 to 5 business/office routine, or do they have flexible schedules, as well as flexible incomes? Obviously income is a lifestyle driver, as is locale; city or suburban, west or east. Lifestyles may include “the boating crowd”, the “country club set”, “snowbirds”, “pickups and shotguns”…….

Who influences your customers? “Influence” is very much in style today, but it has always been a key line of questioning in determining and understanding your customers’ lifestyle and trends.

Take a look at the hugely influential “Mommy bloggers” and how they are being courted by big and small brands alike.

4. What brands is my customer most likely to buy?

Part of the customer persona is what brands do they gravitate towards. Are they Mac or PC? Audi or Cadillac? Pepsi or Coke?  Are they brand-focused at all?

When I was marketing real estate, if I knew what brand of car a person drove, I could tell a lot about them, sometimes even which house they were more likely to buy!

Similarly, in the online world the attraction to certain brands may often be a very good indicator on which social network a customer is likely to hang out, and what communities they gravitate towards.

5. Where does my customer get their news and information?

In the past there were fewer options; radio, TV, newspapers and magazines and outdoor. We broadcast our one-way outgoing message, and sometimes quite successfully.

Today there are many more options to find and consume news online. However, this facilitates many added opportunities for listening to and even having conversations directly with your customer.

Pay attention to niche social platforms if you are looking to sell services and products into niche markets. Example: my business partner has been engaging actively in the FerrariChat social network for 10 years. This discussion forum website has over 120K members, with nearly 400 threads of discussion at any given time. There is much discussion of luxury brands (Ferrari/Lamborghini/watches/private planes, etc.), but in addition he keeps abreast of current news and information there, just as I may do on twitter and G+. It is fun, and often quite revealing, to compare the discussions on the same topics, from the 2 different viewpoints; Ferrari and twitter!

Summary: I’ve always found profiling customers fun, revealing and profitable and you can too!  I like noting similarities and differences, connecting the dots and spotting patterns and trends, and of course getting the right answers by asking the right questions!

FIVE KEY Questions to profile your customer by @CASUDI #EQlist [Entrepreneurs Questions]