3 Signs I Know You’re Too Scared To Grow Your Business

After years of working on myself, I am fortunate to be in the place where I’m actually uncomfortable being comfortable. If I have lots of money in the bank, I go and spend it on a wildly scary new way to grow my business.  So I’m scared ALL the time. I want growth constantly. I don’t ever want to change.

For me, fear is the tension that motivates me but for others, it’s the terror that stops them from growing.

Here are the signs that your fears are stopping your business growth:

1. You Would Rather Do What You Know

If a business owner is unwilling to try something new or to invest in something new to grow their business, I know they are too scared to move their business forward. Remember comfort is the enemy of growth.

2. You Would Rather Delay Decisions

What’s the cost of making your decisions later? Go try to buy a plane ticket for a flight tomorrow and see. There is a huge cost to delaying decisions for your business. If you think the world goes on anyway, you’re deluding yourself.

3. You Refuse To Talk About It

The first step to getting help is to admit to the problem, as they say in AA. If you don’t even know about or can talk about the fear that’s holding you back, how are you supposed to overcome it? If someone spots it in you and you balk, who is going to help you get over this paralyzing fear?

So if you find yourself exhibiting any of these symptoms in growing your small business, get help. Any kind of help. Or stay in your safe, known corner of the world forever. But that is not what I would want for you or anyone…

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(VIDEO) Advertising Your Small Business: The Lazy Solution or Salvation?

Have you ever wondered if new clients are waiting to rush to the phones to call you if only you advertised?

I’m going to stop you right there. I am against service based small businesses advertising. I feel that there are way too many other ways to connect with and market to your ideal client that will result in much faster and higher returns on your investment. But I’m not here to judge. I’m here to help you decide whether an ad investment will pay out or not, regardless of my personal opinion about it.

1. Your first step in deciding on if you should advertise is to be crystal clear on who your ideal target client group is. You know, the group of people who can afford your rates, who need what you offer and who love you as soon as they meet you.
2. Once you’ve strategically found your target niche (as opposed to guessing it from your gut), then ask the ad rep how many of those target people will be reading/listening to or seeing your ad.
3. Then take the cost and divide it by the number of people the ad will reach and you will get something called a CPM, a cost per thousand calculation.
4. Now you do this same thing and find the CPM for other forms of marketing you’re doing, say a trade show cost vs how many people you talk to at your booth or a bus shelter ad and how many of the thousands will actually BE your ideal client etc.
5. Then you choose the CPM that’s lowest which means it has the lowest cost to reach a client. In my experience, I’ve gotten the lowest CPM through networking, public speaking and trade shows. Let’s see what your CPM numbers will show you?

For the love of God, please don’t just throw your money on advertising and expect your business to triple in size. Make sure it’s a strategic decision and you won’t regret it.

Need more chicken soup for your biz? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch me on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk

What Makes You Say ‘F### it, I’m Going To Keep Going!’ After the 100th No?

I lived through 2 clients having deep lows this week. They had come to the end of their limits of failure. They were feeling weak, vulnerable and defeated. These are strong, intelligent people who are very successful at most things. Yet they were both reduced to despair at having failed at something in their own mind.

Cue the Universe

While the saddening drama was going on in my practice this week, at the same time, my own coach’s training was on the topic of What makes a person reach their true potential despite hardship? Coincidence? I think not…

Both of my clients (I’m proud to say) were able to grieve but then get back up and say ‘F### it, I don’t care about what it takes, I’m not giving up! I am going to make that next call, even if a 100 people say no to me!’.

The Reason

When it looks like the whole world is against you and nothing seems to be happening and you are tired of your defeats, there is A REASON that keeps you from giving up. All of us have one. For some it’s so their children will live a better life. For some it’s about freedom. For some it’s about healing the world. For others it’s about a lifestyle they want.

When I Cried

At the start of my practice, I often talk about how I couldn’t get a single client, even though I had dirt cheap rates and 20 years of kick-butt marketing knowledge. I used to cry and lie awake at night for months–you know the drill. What kept me going even though I did hundreds of free complimentary coaching sessions and heard ‘no’ over and over again was that I don’t want to die without learning how to create my own life and destiny in exactly the shape that I want it to be. I don’t want my childhood conditioning to dictate how much  money I make. I don’t want bosses I don’t respect to tell me how to live the majority of my time and dictate how much I will make. I want to teach this to my son, my husband, my extended family and clients.

The Old Lady

I went to pick up my 5 year-old from daycare several weeks ago. The children were playing outside and one of the new helpers was an elderly East Indian woman with white hair, a red dot on her forehead and a shawl around her head. She was clearly in agony while the cold wind made her shiver and blew through her meager clothing. She nodded to me politely as I passed but I could see her pain and discomfort about being outside for such a long period of time. This was a condition over which she had NO real control because probably her childhood conditioning and belief system made her choose a job with these difficult circumstances that she had to endure at her age. It broke my heart and the image of her stayed with me for a long time.

What’s At Stake?

If you don’t change your current situation, what’s at stake for you? What will your life be like in 10 years, what will it be like when you’re 75, like that old lady probably was? How much money will you be making? How many people will you be helping? How will you have fulfilled your destiny and promise to the world if you just keep being comfortable and safe?

So ask yourself that questions again: What Makes You Say ‘F### it, I’m Going To Keep Going!’ After the 100th No?

Need more chicken soup for your biz? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch me on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk

And The Sad % Of People Who Keep New Year’s Resolutions Are…

Happy New Year everyone! I wanted to greet you with a scary statistic..call me strange…Only 19% of people who make new year’s resolutions keep them for one whole year. Here are the other numbers according to the Toronto Star article:

19%: Less than 24 hours

15%: One week

52%: One month

19%: The whole year

As a small business coach and as an entrepreneur, unfortunately I see this all too often. Some clients start the program with a bang and finish with a whimper. Friends who vow to save the Timmy’s coffee money for a vacation are carrying trays of the brown stuff to work in a few weeks. Small business owners I meet while networking who vow to spend more time marketing this year, still get sucked into working more in the business than on it. It truly is sad to see.

Why is this happening? I came up with a few theories of my own on this one:

1. Nobody Is Really Holding You Accountable

Even for those who’ve announced their intentions to the world (remember Rob Ford’s weight loss promise) there’s no real New Year’s Resolution Police who’s going to drag you to the Broken Resolutions Jail. So who cares if a few people ask you about it, nothing really changes in your life if you don’t follow through.

2. You’re Not In Enough Pain To Change

Unfortunately humans don’t change unless they are in deep pain. Most of the time. It’s either a divorce, the loss of a huge client or a heart attack that makes people take real stock and attempt to change. Even then, studies show that most people can’t stick with the changes. When there isn’t enough pain, there’s no gain.

3. Your Body Is Ruling Your Mind

According to neuroscientist Dr.Joe Dispenza, our bodies are chemically dependent on the same thoughts we’ve been thinking (and those thoughts produce hormones and chemicals that translate to feelings) since the day we were born. So to simply start thinking different thoughts is pretty difficult.

What’s a Person To Do?

So how do the people who do keep their resolutions for the whole year differ? They usually have an accountability partner, a plan of action that’s committed and a structure that allows them not to slide back into previous behaviour. For example, in 2013 when I committed to losing weight, I signed on with Weight Watchers. Their weekly meetings and especially the scary weigh-ins kept me on track. Similarly, when I decided to grow my business exponentially, I spent an enormous sum to hire a top-level coach. I haven’t looked back since!

What are you going to do differently to make sure you’re not a sad New Year’s Resolution Statistic?

Need more chicken soup for your biz? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch me on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk

 

When My Angry Reader Confronted Me At A Conference

I had one of the most interesting confrontations of my life at last week’s Canadian Association of Professional Speaker’s Conference. It was really illuminating and I’d like to share it with my fellow business owners who dare to blog, speak and in general share their honest personal opinion on the state of the business that they are in.

Speaking Gig

As my virgin run at this conference, I was thrilled to have gotten a speaking slot. Imagine, my first time at a Speaker’s conference AND I get to speak to professional speakers. My speech was about a fave topic of mine lately: your money mindset. In the 12 minutes that I was allotted, I talked about my humble beginnings, and my limiting beliefs. I talked about my shame and fears. I exposed myself (as I often do) to share my failures and my fumbles.  This humanized me to a very special member of the audience. I was to find out why very shortly.

An Admirer Approaches Me

A gentleman who had been in my audience later approached me in the lobby, telling me how much he’d enjoyed my talk. He also said he wanted to talk to me further. Now alarm bells weren’t ringing at that time because like any business owner who speaks to sell, I often get people wanting to talk to me about how I can help their own business after hearing me on stage. This gentleman was soft-spoken, respectful and from his earlier musical talent show using an odd-looking instrument, a very interesting person. I was happy to talk to him.

I Have A Confession

Then he revealed that he had a confession. He said that he had signed up for my newsletter and had read my last blog titled ‘5 Ways I Can Tell That You’re NOT Serious About Your Business‘ He said that he hadn’t even gotten past the first point before he was boiling mad at me for saying what I did in the article. He then told me of how he’d seen me come in to the conference room the day before and had chosen to ignore me deliberately because of the ill-feelings he was harboring towards me. However, he still wanted to see me speak in person and came to hear me speak that day. That’s when he realized that what was triggering him was HIS own limiting beliefs.

Dare To Tell

I can’t tell you how much I admire this gentleman. It took guts. I was blown away by his courage and honesty. These two things are not often encountered in today’s world. This at first nerve-wracking but later touching experience was literally the best thing to happen to me at that conference all weekend.

What Triggers Us

My new friend and I parted on this one thought in agreement: what triggers us is always what is stopping us. I now know why I used to cringe when speakers started circulating their sales sheets. I know why my heart used to pound out of my chest when it came time to quote my prices (which were a mere fraction of what they are today!). I understand why it was so hard for me to believe that I could make my dreams come true.

I hope this story teaches you something as valuable as it did to me. Speak your truth, always. When the student is ready, the teacher will show up.

Need more chicken soup for your biz? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch me on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk