Category: Success Attitude

Note from Michele: If I had to pick one thing that conscious, heart-centered, spiritual entrepreneurs worry about, it’s how to stand out from their competition. But, here’s a little secret: when you’re creative, it’s actually super easy to stand out because, quite honestly, you have no competition. This article from my good friend Samantha Bennett, founder of the Organized Artist Company, has some great tips to help you get started. (And these are particularly valuable if you’re a multi-passionate entrepreneur.) Take it away Sam!

Got a lot of ideas? Hate the idea of being put in a box? Horrified by the idea of being stuck doing just one thing forever?

Congratulations! You’re a creative person.

And you’re not alone. I’ve spent years working with tens of thousands of creatives, helping them to embrace their unique personalities to find success.

To help you do the same, let’s take a look at the following three areas:

1. Choosing the best projects for you.
2. Combining your skills to create a magnetic business culture.
3. Using your true core values to amp up your marketing.

• Choosing the Best Projects for You: Do You Have to Pick One Thing?

I’ve never met a single-disciplinary creative. And I’ve never met an entrepreneur who didn’t have several serious hobbies. Because creative people love trying new things!

Conventional wisdom says, “In order to be successful, you should just focus on one thing.”

But We-Who-Like-to-Focus-on-Several-Things-All-at-Once practically froth at idea of being chained to “just one thing.”

(I’d go as far as to say it’s possible that you’ve even occasionally prevented yourself from becoming “too successful,” just so that you don’t feel locked into having to do one thing forever. Funny how we sabotage ourselves sometime, isn’t it?)

I find that I am most productive when I’ve got three to four fairly-huge projects going on all at once. And usually, one of them is downright impossible. (For example: completing the first draft of my second book in seven weeks, or planning a glorious wedding in three months with a budget of $5000, or hosting a 100-person event with 100% attendance …)

Which brings me to a question for you: What impossible things have you done in your life? What impossible thing would you like to do this week?

Now, concentrating on several projects at once might look like chaos to the average person, but for those of us who are:

• easily bored
• resistant to authority
• in love with complexity
• skeptical of prevailing trends
• waking up with new ideas in the middle of the night …

…  we are generally deeply gratified by combining our many interests and skills to create a business life that is memorable, profitable, and meaningful.

EXERCISE: Focus on Several Things. Make a list of all the big, somewhat impossible things you’d like to accomplish in the next year or so. Then narrow it down to the two to four that you’d like to do first. Put the remaining projects in a folder labeled “Percolating.” Now, start creating daily action steps for those two to four you chose to focus on. Spend at least 15 minutes a day moving those projects forward.

• Combining Your Skills to Create a Magnetic Business Culture: How to Stand out in Your Field

I recently spoke about prioritizing your projects and overcoming procrastination at a conference for CPAs in Atlanta. I did my usual thing, passing out worksheets so my presentation was as interactive as possible. When we got to the “how to pick your projects” worksheet, one conservatively-dressed woman asked, “What do we do if the projects we want to work on most have nothing to do with our business?”

“What’s your project?” I asked.

“Comedy writing,” she deadpanned.

“Perfect!” I exclaimed. “Welcome to your zillion dollars. Write a lead magnet that’s equal parts jokes and sound tax-planning advice. Email your clients funny reminders about their P&Ls. If you can make a dreaded task like accounting fun—or at least enjoyable—you will never want for work. Your competition will simply melt away. Better yet, it’s the only marketing you’ll ever have to do. After all, who could resist telling their friends about their hilarious CPA? What a perfect way to stand out?”

What a relief it would be for your clients to get something entertaining as well as informative. Frankly, when all you ever do is talk about your specialty, you come across a little dull.

Injecting some of your favorite hobbies, skills, talents, and even obsessions into your work gives your clients another way in which to relate to you and help you stand out. And it might even help you attract better clients, for you.

As Seth Godin reminds us, people run in tribes. And people in the same “tribe” tend to share a value system—a point of view on the world. Working with clients who “get you” means that you’ll have more fun day-to-day, and in theory, that should lead to longer, more lucrative relationships.

So… what skills do you have that you can leverage in your business? Can you combine your passion for vegan cooking, your love of animals, or your fervor for the Grateful Dead into a theme that threads through your whole brand?

Maybe you could:

• Offer a fabulous vegan recipe in your weekly email (I once got a recipe for Moroccan Spiced Carrots in an email from the retailer Roberta Roller Rabbit, and I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve considered that store a personal friend ever since!).
• Let the local animal shelter hold an adopt-a-pet event in your parking lot, and encourage visitors to Instagram a photo of themselves with a kitten in front of a step-and-repeat featuring your logo.
• Have on online flash sale at 4:20 pm every Wednesday (Weednesday?) or a special offer on Jerry Garcia’s birthday.

EXERCISE: Spend five minutes listing 10 of your favorite things, and then, jot down ideas for ways you could tie those things into your business and marketing.

• Using Your True Core Values to Amp up Your Marketing

An exciting alternative to using your hobbies in your marketing is to use the quirks of your own personality as the foundations for your brand marketing.

After all, the thing that makes you special can also help you stand out and make you/your work famous.

Having trouble thinking of what you might select as your “thing”?

Consider a quality you were criticized for as a child.

The quality that got you in trouble as a kid is the character trait that can now be celebrated. (Really! Stick with me.)

Let’s say you were the troublemaker in the back row, always throwing spitballs and getting sent to the principal’s office. I encourage you to lean into that rebellious, anti-authoritative tendency. Be the Rebel Queen of Dry Cleaning!

If you were the hyper-active jokester, then take a hint from Johnny Cupcakes, who famously packages their limited-edition t-shirts with weird prizes: sticks of gum, heads ripped off of Barbie dolls, or odd, hand-written notes designed to catch you off-guard and make you smile.

And if you were the one who skipped recess in order to read in the dim library, you might want to start using stories from your literary heroes to illustrate your points, or create verse to entice new clients.

(This is not an abstract example. I myself have grown a mid-six-figure business mostly by sending poems to my list. Heck, I even won a marketing award for it.)

And think of how much more fun you’ll have when your marketing is truly expressing your personality and your (real) core values.

Your (Real) Core Values

Let’s be real: the core values of most businesses are meaningless pablum.

They are designed to be hung as a poster on a wall in the lobby and then promptly ignored.

But as small business owners, we want our work to make a difference. And the best way to do that is to have a strong, personal list of core values that drive every decision you make.

EXERCISE: Complete the following to get clear on a few of your core values:

1. I think the world would be a much better place if only people were a little more:___________________.
2. The quality I admire most in my best friend is: _______________.
3. Even if I am sick, tired, exasperated, or even drunk, you can always count on me to be: _____________________.

I played this game a few clients recently, and here are some of their answers:

Kind/Empathic/Patient

Aware/Strong/Overprotective

Truthful/Hilarious/A Smartass

Now—let’s keep playing:

How would you market a lawyer who was kind, empathic, and patient?

How about a child-care facility that was aware, strong, and over-protective?

Or a country-music bar that was truthful, hilarious, and kind of a smartass?

Are your idea wheels spinning? Of course they are! Because the creative brain loves themes!

And when the themes seem counter-intuitive or contradictory, that appeals to us even more.

A tender-hearted hedge fund manager?
An innocent used car salesman?
A punk rock yogi?

Delicious!

So link up your three words with your profession and see what ideas bubble up for you.

NOTE: This can be fun to do with a creative friend, as sometimes it can be hard to see connections when you’re analyzing yourself.

Anything you can do to show up more fully, more authentically, and more joyfully in the world makes the world a better place.

So the next time you’re stuck trying to think of some way to set yourself apart from your competition, please remember that you have no competition. Your own complex personality means that you stand alone; there’s plenty of success for everyone.

One last note on combining contradictions and finding success:

You are allowed to be successful and keep your privacy.

You are allowed to make money and have lots of quiet time.

You are allowed to be both shy and boisterous, productive and lazy, generous and judgmental.

You are not binary, and the world is not an either/or proposition: it’s a trapeze act.

So be daring—and use your uniqueness to dazzle us all!

FINAL NOTE: If you’re wondering where the story about the Vegan Plumber is, I must confess, there isn’t one! Ha!

I created her/him for the sake of title so that I could, now, 1600 words later, demonstrate how compelling a combination of apparent contradictions can be.

After all, you’re still thinking about it, right? So again, I ask you: What unusual qualities, skills, or talents can you combine to become the most memorable business in your space, eliminating your competition and helping you stand out?

Over the years, one of the biggest things I’ve seen trip up entrepreneurs (especially conscious, heart-centered, spiritual, love-based ones) is knowing how much to charge for your products and services. The struggle between trying to earn a solid income with how comfortable YOU are owning your own value is huge. So, that’s why I asked my friend Ali Shanti (you may also know her as Alexis Neely) to address this super important topic. (Because if you’re all messed up with what you charge, you’re never going to make it as an entrepreneur.) Take it away Ali!

Let’s get clear on one thing right off the bat—you cannot charge what you are worth, period. You are priceless.

What you can do is learn to charge for the value of the services you provide in a way that allows you to earn premium fees and still be the most affordable option for your clients.

And when you are clear on what you need to earn, your pricing can be reflective of your actual lifestyle needs.

I teach this to lawyers regularly to support them in shifting from hourly billing, or even from far-too-low flat-fee pricing (that actually hurts them and their clients), to learning to charge premium fees that their clients actually love to pay. Not only that, but the lawyers then earn a great income and have total control over their lives and calendars.

And, if lawyers can do it, you certainly can, too. I say that because the law is a profession that is notoriously deeply-mired in a mentality of billing by the hour, in six-minute increments, or they charge too little for the services they deliver on a flat-fee basis.

The Affordability Paradox

Where a lot of love-based entrepreneurs and service-providers get stuck when it comes to knowing how to charge for their services is that you want to be affordable. Maybe you’ve consistently gotten the message that people cannot afford your services.

And this can get you stuck in a feedback loop of thinking you need to keep your prices low in order to get clients.

But that’s actually not true.

What IS true is that you need to take a good, hard look at what you are offering, who you are offering it to, and how you are offering it, because if you are offering a service that your market truly needs AND that provides a valuable outcome, the people who need you can’t afford not to work with you.

So, let’s start there with your offer and audience.

1. Choosing Your Audience

Pricing your services and leveraging the Affordability Paradox to command premium fees while still being the most affordable solution for your clients (so you can earn what you need) begins with a clear understanding of what you offer and who you offer it to.

In most cases where people aren’t able to command premium fees for their services, it’s because they are stuck in a trap of offering their services to the wrong audience. And more than anything, it’s a mindset issue.

Consider the possibility that there is a wide range of people who would benefit from your service, and that some people will value what you are offering more than others. Some people will also be able to pay more for what you are offering than others.

So begin by looking at whether you are marketing your services to an audience that either doesn’t value what you provide that much, or that can’t pay because of their own financial circumstances.

And be willing to look at whether that’s the case because of your own insecurity around people who have money. It’s a common thing for those who have not had money in the past, or who didn’t grow up with money or around people with money, to potentially be afraid to market your services to people with money.

Hint: If you are judging people with money in any way, you are likely afraid of serving them, and your judgment is a protective shield you’ve subconsciously created to keep you safe. Get support to shift that mindset if you want to command premium fees.

So, start by choosing an audience that will highly value what you are offering highly, and who are able to pay your premium fees because the outcome of your service, or the convenience you provide, is worth more to them than paying less.

And if you really want to serve people who cannot afford to pay your premium fees, then you can create a B1G1 (like Tom’s shoes—you buy a pair of shoes and they help someone in need with a pair of shoes), whereby for each package you deliver at premium fees, you offer a scholarship package to someone who truly wouldn’t be able to afford you. And you can build that into your marketing and pricing just as Tom’s has done, so you can continue to earn a profitable income.

Exercise: Make a list of all the types of people who would benefit from what you provide. Heartstorm this for at least five minutes (set a timer) and list them. When the timer buzzes, circle the people who would both value it the most AND who would have the means to pay you premium fees for the outcome you deliver.

2. Getting Super Clear on Your Outcome

If you’re stuck on the exercise above, it may be because you have not yet fully articulated what it is that you offer. This is another place many entrepreneurs and service providers struggle when it comes to pricing and packaging.

Let’s make a deal, okay? From here on and ever more, you will never again describe your services based on how much time you spend with someone, or by the name of your profession, but instead based on the outcome you provide.

For example, you do not provide legal services, or massage therapy, or image consulting.

No, you help people get divorced amicably, so their kids grow up emotionally healthy. You realign their bodies, so they can perform at the highest level in life. Or you help them look so good every day that they are constantly getting compliments on their style.

Do you see the difference?

In the first case, you are a commodity that is indistinguishable from the other service providers in your field. In the second case, you are providing a very specific outcome.

Exercise: Describe the service you provide by focusing on the highest-value outcome that you are able to support your ideal clients in reaching.

3. Crafting a Compelling, Premium-Fee Offer

Now, if you dial in on the right audience for your offer and the specific outcome you provide, you can create a high-value, compelling, “affordable premium” offer that has your ideal clients super-thrilled to pay you … while remaining the most affordable solution for them.

For example, a family embroiled in a divorce would be thrilled to pay a lawyer premium fees if they felt confident that lawyer could help them get divorced in such a way that would keep their kids emotionally healthy, right? And, if that divorce would eliminate ongoing hourly legal bills from lawyers who would keep the family stuck in conflict, and the cost of sending their kids to rehab or therapy later on in life, even if the lawyer charged premium fees for that service, they would still be the most affordable solution.

What kind of offer could you create that would be what we call an “affordable premium” for the outcome of the services you provide?

For example, if you are providing body realignment services (formerly known as massage) to CEOs who are operating in high-stress conditions—managing teams and revenue goals and conflict on a daily basis—a weekly massage could allow them to earn tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions in their company.

If you craft your offer well, you aren’t just offering a massage, but the opportunity for them to commit to themselves, relax, receive, and meet their goals.

As the masseuse, what sort of an offer could you put together that would inspire a CEO to make this weekly commitment to herself, and a monthly payment commitment to you, while at the same increasing the effective hourly rate of your services significantly?

If you are the image stylist who helps your clients look so good every day that they are constantly getting compliments on their style, maybe your offer is crafted for the middle-aged empty nester mom whose kids have gone off to college, and they are now ready to reclaim their confidence and style while creating the next iteration of themselves.

Exercise: Craft a high-value, premium offer for your services that takes into account the ideal client for your services, the outcome you can provide, and the value of that outcome.

Once you get exceedingly clear on the value of your offer, and who you offer it to, you are then able to price and package your offer to get exactly what you need to earn in exchange for what you give. And you know who to offer it to.

From there, how do you determine the price of your offer?

First, you’ll need to get clear on how many hours it will take to deliver the outcome you are going to provide. Then, you’ll need to establish the boundaries for how you are going to deliver that outcome, including the format (for example, 1:1 or group, online or offline, or a combination of both). Next, you need absolute clarity on what you need to deliver that outcome sustainably. And from there, you can identify the right price to charge for your services, at the intersection of the value of your outcome and what you need in order to deliver that outcome consistently and sustainably.

This is the fourth of a five-part series where I’m walking you through the five steps of transformation and why each step is essential when you’re ready to make a huge shift and uplevel your business and/or life.

Step 1 is to pause. Step 2 is to make a decision. Step 3 is to take action — the opposite action you normally would take.

So, what’s the fourth step? Feel the emotion.

How does that work? Well, what happens when you start taking the opposite action you normally take?

You start feeling all sorts of emotions you would rather not feel.

For instance, let’s go back to that example of working on a new program for your business. You know your new program is far more aligned with your current branding and message than what you’ve been currently offering. Maybe it’s also a group program, which means it’s more leveraged than what you currently do, which is one-on-one.

Your inner wisdom and intuition is telling you this program is the next step you’re supposed to take to grow your business.

So, what happens when you sit down to work on it?

You get lost in Facebook. Or maybe you have a sudden urge to do the laundry.

But, you now you know this about yourself. So, the next time you sit down to work on the program, you close Facebook and tell yourself the laundry doesn’t need to be done and you’re going to sit here and work.

And, what happens? All these feelings come up. Maybe it’s fear. Or second guessing yourself. Or maybe something deeper comes up. Like fraud syndrome. Who are you to be creating this program? Do you really have any value to share with the world?

And, guess what?

Those feelings? They’re the reason why you’ve distracted yourself in Facebook or the laundry.

The key to your biggest growth and transformation is to take the opposite action you normally take, and simultaneously feel the feelings that come up.

This is also likely one of the most difficult things you’ll ever do.

But, there IS good news. Once you’ve felt the feelings, they WILL move through you. In other words, the first time you sit down to work on that program and refuse to let yourself mess around in Facebook will be really rough. However, if you stick with it and don’t let yourself get distracted, you will eventually get to the place where those feelings no longer come up for you.

The bad news is there’s no way to know how long it will take. So, you have to be patient and compassionate to yourself during this process.

This is why I mentioned having a mantra, something to remind yourself during these dark moments that there is a reason why you’re doing this. You’re doing this because your bigger dream or mission is worth being momentarily uncomfortable.

In the case of my blog, the last six months of 2017 were brutal. I soooo wanted to stop working on my blog. I soooo wanted to give up. It wasn’t working the way I thought it would. I was discouraged. Frustrated. I felt like I had just wasted six months of my life on something that wouldn’t work.

So, what did I do? I felt those feelings …. as I kept working on my blog. I faithfully continued to create content for my blog and I continued moving forward with my blog, even though I felt like nothing was working.

It took a few months, but eventually I broke through to the other side. And, when that happened, I started to finally see the success I always knew was possible with my blog.

When I was a senior in high school, I had a job working as a waitress at a senior care/assisted living facility.

The residents would come to the dining room, and we would serve them a four-course meal—salad, choice of soup or juice, choice of one of two entrees, and dessert. They all came in at once, which is why we had to be fairly fast during the 90-minutes we had to serve them.

There would be seven waitresses or waiters on every shift, and we would each get our own row of tables to take care of.

While we were responsible for finding someone to cover our shift, stuff happens, and sometimes there would only be six waitresses on a shift, which meant we would each take an extra table.

It was a pain, but not nearly as difficult as those times when we would be short two waitresses. Those shifts were hell.

So, imagine everyone’s surprise when my boss decided she not only needed to fire two of the wait staff, but that she would do it right before a shift they were both scheduled to work. And no, my boss hadn’t scheduled anyone to cover.

You see, my boss didn’t actually stay and supervise the shifts. That was the hostess’ job (who was an adult) and the (adult) cook.

I can still remember the flabbergasted look on the cook’s and hostess’ face as my boss merrily locked up her office and waved a cheery goodbye, as the remaining five waitresses (including Yours Truly) stood there trying to process what had just happened.

(Side note—the hostess who was on that night, Ginny, could be a real jerk. No one much liked her. But, that night, she couldn’t have been nicer to us.)

One of the waiters who had been fired left immediately. I couldn’t blame him. Remember, we were all a bunch of sixteen and seventeen year-olds. Why on earth would he stick around? How many adults would stay for a shift, under those circumstances?

Except … the other one did stay. I don’t remember her name anymore, but I do remember I never liked her. She wasn’t very friendly nor was she all that fast or efficient (which is probably why she was fired). But, after she had a good cry in the bathroom, she pulled herself together and stayed for her shift.

She stayed for us. Not for our dippy boss. She stayed because she knew how crappy it was to be down to five waitresses.

(Well, maybe she didn’t stay for me. I doubt she liked me anymore than I liked her.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about mental toughness lately, and how to balance that with not pushing or forcing things to happen, but to instead be more “in the flow” with what is being presented to me.

Thinking back to what that teenager did all those years ago, I realize how she must have felt—humiliated, angry, resentful, and whatever else.

But, she pulled herself together and made it through her shift. She didn’t leave. She didn’t lose her temper. She did what needed to be done, and she did it with a surprising amount of grace.

How many adults would have done what she did?

Would you have done what she did?

Circling back to this idea of mental toughness, one thing I’m realizing is even when you’re in flow and surrendering to what God or the Universe or your inner wisdom/intuition is guiding you to do, you still may not want to do it.

In other words, just because you know in your heart that whatever you’re working on right now is what you’re “supposed” to be doing, you still might now want to do it.

There are days when you don’t want to get on the phone and coach your clients.

There are days when you don’t want to write that blog post.

There are days when you don’t even want to get out of bed.

But, you know if you want to build your business, or get your art or books or message out into the world, that particular task is something you’re meant to work on.

That’s where mental toughness comes in—doing the task you know you’re meant to do, regardless of how you feel about it.

One of the things that sets successful people apart from those who aren’t as successful is how mentally tough they are.  Successful people are willing to do whatever it takes to make their goals and dreams come true.

That teenage waitress showed remarkable mental toughness, staying for her shift because she knew in her heart it was the right thing to do, even though I’m sure every part of her was screaming for her to leave.

If you’re serious about what you’re building right now, I invite you to consider your mental toughness. Are you as tough as you’d like? Or do you “let yourself off the hook” and not do the things you know would help you grow your business faster?

What you discover about yourself may surprise you.

This is the second of a 5-part series where I’m going to walk you through the five steps of transformation when it comes to your business so you can make a shift and see a huge uplevel. The first step is to pause.

What’s the second step?

Make a decision.

But, not just any decision. Make a 100% FULL BODY decision.

Every transformation starts with a decision.

Every. Single. One.

Think about it. You have to decide you want something before you actually start to take action. That’s why it’s crucial to make a decision first.

The problem comes in when you’re not 100% committed to your decision. If you’re wishy washy. If you already have a plan B in place (or worse, you’re fantasizing about your plan B).

It’s easy to not be committed. What if we’re being called to step into something really huge? A new business venture. A new artistic passion. Or maybe it’s a move across the country.

That’s SO big. What if you fail? Then what?

Worse, maybe the people around us are trying to talk us out of it. Not because they’re mean or trying to keep us down, but because they’re genuinely concerned for us.

It totally makes sense we may just want to dip a toe into this new venture. Maybe we keep our current job or income stream and do whatever it is we’re feeling called to do on the side.

We’re just testing it. To see if it works or not. Because that’s smart. That’s responsible.

So, to start, I absolutely want you to be responsible. I am not for a second advocating you quit your job and jump into something you’re not ready for with no financial safety net.

BUT here’s the question I want you to ask yourself. Are you hiding behind “being responsible?”

Because you absolutely CAN be responsible AND take baby steps toward your dream.

Just because the steps are tiny doesn’t mean you aren’t 100% committed.

It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you’re moving toward your dream. All that matter is how committed you are.

So, are you ready to make a decision?

For me, when it’s something this important, after I make a decision I I like to seal it with a ritual. Maybe you light a white candle and really feel into this decision before committing to it. And then you say it. Out loud. And really feel yourself commit to it.

It doesn’t have to take long,. What’s important is the intention behind it. That you are ready to do whatever it takes to make your dream come true.

This is also a good time to start to think of a mantra, something to say to yourself when things get rough (and trust me, they WILL get rough). I like to ask myself a question, such as: Is this worth my dream?

The answer is always yes, and by saying yes, I’m able to recommit to my dream.

Now, part of what I’m doing is illustrating a real-life example of how this transformation process works by walking you through the creation of my new blog.

So, first, I paused on my old blog to see what wanted to emerge. And, what wanted to emerge was a brand-new blog.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy to start over, but it also felt important. I needed fresh energy, a fresh start.

So, I began LoveBasedBiz.com in December of 2016. And I made a commitment that, no matter what, I would stick with this blog for a year. Not only that, I also committed to posting multiple times a week on this blog for at least a year. I would continue on this blog through January of 2018 at a minimum before making any other decisions about my next move.