What do you need to do to make your business thrive?

This is a great idea I came across just recently.  To make your business thrive, there will be certain things you know you need to do, and only you will know what they are. Sometimes it can be difficult getting clear about them – but this method will help you.

List ten things you can do that will interfere with the success of your business.

That’s all.   Yes, read it again – that will interfere with the success of your business.  By focusing on the opposite of your business thriving, you’ll give yourself the very things you need to do to keep it thriving.  Each time you specify something that isn’t working, you have the opportunity to turn it around to see what you do need to do for success.  For example, here’s a list compiled by one of my clients:

My list of things I can do that will interfere with the success of my business:

1. Wait to be successful until I am good enough to do it.

2. Get my life’s to do list done

3. Be afraid of attracting too much work, so don’t put myself out there.

4. Procrastinate by answering and sending emails

5. Keep thinking I haven’t found my niche, when it is under my nose

6. Avoid getting clear about what I do so I don’t have to stand by it

7. Not investigating my money beliefs so I don’t have to change

8. Always find something else to do when I have set aside time for meditation

9. Wish I could win the lottery, so I can avoid doing things the hard way and just have some money instead.

10. Not employ someone to help me with the admin/marketing of my business

So what’s on your list?  What could you do to interfere?  Get clear about these, and you’ll know exactly what to do to make next year your best ever!

Handy newsletter hint

Have you noticed that there’s a lot less time around these days?

Daft, isn’t it, even that very notion!   But that is what it sometimes seems like, when I’ve noticed that I like to know in advance how long a YouTube video is going to be before I start watching. Or with an article, I scroll to see how long it is before I start to read, or find out how many pages on the PDF file I’ve been sent.

You can turn this to your advantage if you’re sending out newsletters or information  - let people know in advance how long your MP3 will take to listen to;  write in the number of words of your article and how long it takes to read it.  The whole aim with these things after all is to get people to listen to or read them!  So anything that makes that process more likely to happen, is a beneficial thing to do both for your audience and for yourself.  A tiny hint, but one that can have a big effect.

How dropping a thought can change your life

For years I have been irritated at my husband’s desire to watch sport on TV for hours at a time.  Because he has ME, which means he is sometimes quite incapacitated and has a lot of time on his hands, watching TV for him has become something that fills in hours of time.  He has always said it is a good way for him to relax.  And I have always been rather scathing, considering his time better spent.  In fact, I knew I was right about this.  I was 100% convinced that if only he would live his life my way, then he would get better.

 

Gosh. It’s humbling admitting this, let alone writing it!  Anyway, this summer things came to a head.   Although we’ve had a good relationship for the whole 16 years we’ve been together, this summer, amongst other stresses,  his illness and the TV behaviour, and our difficulty in communicating, got so bad that I was seriously considering moving out, at least for a while.

 

Fortunately, with the help of an excellent therapist, and just a handful of sessions, things changed round. Why?  One of the main reasons was I was willing to change how I viewed the TV thing.  I even remember the exact moment when I did this. I was in the hall, looking at him in the sitting room lying on the sofa, watching football on the telly.

The thought came to me:  ‘Perhaps it’s true that watching TV is a form of relaxation for him; perhaps he’s right when he says it’s healing’.  In that moment I dropped the bag I’d been carrying labelled ‘fury with Philip/TV/illness’, and became free.  I didn’t realise it at the time, but as the days passed and I was less angry, energy was freed up and we began to communicate better; all the energy I had put into being angry (without realising it) was released for applying to other more creative things.  Finances improved; I began to get clearer about business ideas; and we re-connected with what had brought us together in the first place.  Our relationship now has never been better.

But what does all this have to do with business?  Well nothing other than the fact that what is going on in one area of your life, is likely to affect another (especially if you work from home and are having relationship challenges).  And nothing other than the fact that I made a conscious choice to think something different, and drop the feelings about the situation. I would never have believed it possible to do this in such a short time, but I have proved myself wrong.  The therapist had challenged me by saying ‘Can’t you just drop the anger?’  Which is another way of saying ‘Would you rather be right or happy?’.

I do acknowledge that sometimes it isn’t always as easy as this appears; and sometimes more active things have to be done to release, let go and move on, but in this case, it was this simple.

 

The question to ask yourself in relation to this is:  What area of your life feels stuck at the moment, and what thoughts are you thinking that are contributing to keeping you stuck?  Identify those and then ask whether or not you’re willing to let go of those them. Be honest with yourself and see what happens.

 

Make God laugh – tell him your plans

Well I had planned to write at least 6 articles on the long train journey from Inverness to Glasgow last week. 3 hours of focused work.  The two paragraphs below are what I actually wrote:

‘Well here I am apparently writing these articles – but I forgot how lovely the scenery is up here, ad how much I enjoy just looking out of the window. And I forgot that to do any amount of typing, I have to be sitting at the proper angle to my laptop (impossible in this particular train). And I forgot that there would be other people in the train.

An awful lot of forgetfulness!  The result is less than 6 articles done – in fact 2 started only. But the point of this is how important it is to be able to adjust when circumstances are not quite what you thought they would be.’

And I never got any further!  But now I’m catching up again and considering the point of plans.  Plans are good in that they give you an idea of how you are going to get to where you want to go to.  But getting attached to plans is not such a good idea.  I know many people often adjust where they are going to when the plans are altered by circumstances, but in fact it’s not where you’re going to that needs adjusting at that point, it’s the plans!

For example, on this journey I was coming from a place of mild panic about the amount of work to be done by a certain date.  I thought that I needed to get these articles written for my new website to be launched the following week.  As I couldn’t do it in the train, I didn’t know what on earth was going to happen, and in that moment I let go of it all. In the 12 Step Fellowship, they call this moment ‘Letting Go and Letting God’.

What happened next was that when I got to my destination, I received an email from the man who is constructing the website for me saying that for various reasons he was going to be taking at least another week to get it completed.   So I didn’t need to get those articles done after all!

Moral:  by all means have plans, and don’t worry when things don’t go according to plan. Maybe, just maybe, it is all working perfectly, particularly the timing.  Trust is required here, but I can guarantee you that if you’re willing and able to trust, you will enjoy yourself a lot more when your plans have gone haywire and God’s having a laugh!

Automated database mailing lists

I’m just about to take the train down south to the Lake District, to take part in a one day seminar. A working trip, I plan to use the time on the train to write plenty of articles for my next lot of newsletters.

One of the advantages of having an automated database from where I send out to my mailing list is that I can do this kind of thing in advance. This frees up my time for other things.  For instance, I can’t get on the web on this particular train, so I am free from what sometimes can feel like the ‘tyranny of the internet’!  But I can use the time for more creative things.  If you haven’t investigated an automated mailing list yet, then check out www.1shoppingcart.com, www.constantcontact.com or www.aweber.com, all of which have been recommended.

In this world of immediate communication, this is going to become more and more important!  So have a look and sign up for a free trial if they’re offered in a month when you commit to yourself to really explore that system, and make it work for you. If your database is anything over a couple of hundred, I’d say its worthwhile.

Following up enquiries

I’ve signed up to Drayton Bird’s 51 marketing tips (see www.draytonbird.co.uk).  His site was recommended to me by a good friend, also in marketing.

I’ve just read tip no 5, and it’s about how you spend your time on getting new clients. Mostly people put a lot of effort into attracting new clients ‘cold’ – ie posters, fliers, adverts etc.  And not so much effort into following up with someone who enquires  - and yet why not???

It is these people, who effectively have said, ‘Hi, I’m interested’ who need to have more attention paid to them, not less!

And as I was reading this tip, I realised I had done this with someone the other day. He had emailed me after listening to a teleclass, saying he really liked the content.  I emailed back saying thank you and that I’d visited his website, and thought it was great, and if I could ever help him, to let me know.

A couple of weeks passed, and another email arrived from him, this time wondering if the next ‘Develop Your Business’ Coaching Circle would be right for him or not. I emailed again giving my opinion, but invited him to book a free half hour slot to discuss his needs properly.

At the agreed time, he didn’t ring.  I followed up again, and eventually we did have our dicussion.   The end result of that was that he decided to sign up as an individual client, and is now focusing and getting results quicker than before.

When I look at this process in the light of what Drayton Bird was saying, I realise that I persisted on following the initial communication.  This client bought when the time was right for him – and one reason was because I kept letting him know I was interested in his business and seeing if we might work well together.  So I encourage you to follow up with every enquiry, no matter how ‘cool’ – as down the line they may easily turn into a very hot client!

Inspired action – what is it exactly?

If you know my work, you’ll have realised I often talk about taking inspired action, as opposed to motivated action.  Inspired action brings with it more ease, sense of purpose, joy and meaning.

The Findhorn Foundation are organising a week long conference on this theme; if you are at all attracted by the idea of inspiration being the factor behind your actions, then visit http://www.findhorn.org/programmes/programme375.php for more info.

What value do you place on your services?

This morning after singing practice, I was asked by a colleague if I could mend his backpack for him.

‘Could you mend it for me?  I’m willing to pay at least a fiver’, he said.

‘No, no’, I replied, ‘don’t worry, it’ll only take me ten minutes or so’.

‘No, no’ he also replied, ‘it’s worth at least that much to me, it’s been irritating me for so long now’.

Fortunately at this point a glimmer of light went off in my brain, and I told him I’d think about it. And think about it I did, as I walked back through the woods before starting work.

What I said was a great  example of what not to do when valuing your services!  He did not have the tools, equipment, knowledge or experience to do something which to me, who had all the sewing kit needed, and the knowledge and experience, was very easy. But to him it was a big problem.  Hence getting the problem solved was worth a lot to him, while to me it would take just five or ten minutes of my time.

And this is why valuing what you provide is so important. The prospective client coming for your service wants and needs what you can offer – because they don’t have the tools, equipment, knowledge or experience, and you do. That is going to be worth a lot to them, even though it might be just second nature to you (as I was treating this bit of sewing).

So I invite you today to contemplate what you are offering to people, and how valuable it is to them, and consider adjusting your prices (upwards!) if you even have a faint sniff of thinking you are undervaluing what you do.

Stating what you want

Here’s what can happen when you start to focus on something you want more of: the opposite sometimes happens.  I’m sure you’ve had this experience!

The other day I was focusing on one of my goals happening, and understanding that the essence of that goal at this time was me feeling more confident in my abilities.  That night I was to give a speech at the local Toastmasters Club, about which I felt quite confident and was looking forward to doing.

When the time for the speech came though, I was preceded by a new member to the organisation, who proceeded to give a very impassioned and well-constructed speech about being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed European woman who had chosen to become a Muslim. Dressed in a long gown and the hajib, she made a compelling sight.

This threw me – in just a couple of minutes, I had to walk up and give my speech (ironically entitled ‘You are what you think’!).  My previously confident foundations had been wobbled, and I wasn’t aware enough to rise and speak in the moment about what had happened, which might have been one way round it. Instead, I gave my planned speech, but I was not authentic in the moment, nor as passionate or engaged as I usually am.  In short, my body was up there speaking, but I was not inhabiting it.

So I finished and now had the perfect conditions to ‘become what I was thinking’. How ironic!   I noticed how envious I was, how critical I was being of her (all projections from me of course) and it wasn’t until I got to bed a couple of hours later that I began to make some progress on being kind and loving towards myself and her, instead of beating myself up.

I learnt that this is how contrast works.  State you are wanting one thing, and sometimes the apparent opposite, the contrast,  turns up. I see this as a test of my desire – whether to give up the desire or to continue with being committed to it, regardless.  In the end I was able to thank this person and situation for giving me the gift of clarifying my desire for more confidence, for pointing out that it’s important to be the best me I can be, not someone else, and for showing how the confidence I had experienced in the earlier part of the evening had been built on shaky ground.  Whew!  A bit of a journey, but I got there in the end.

Making up your mind

“The agent, the producer, the investors; consultants, lenders, stockholders; customers, clients, fans; friends, lovers, support systems…  they have nothing to do with dreams coming true.

They’re simply summoned after someone’s “made up their mind” to the degree that it’s followed by unending action.

You see, dreams actually come true (or not), long before they can be seen in time and space.”

This is this week’s message, received each Monday, from www.tut.com, and how true it is!  Making up your mind is the same as deciding what you want; setting a goal; having a vision; or making a declaration to the Universe about what you want to attract.  They’re all the same thing, and ALL need to be followed up by action.  The more you act in accordance with what you say you want, the more your dream comes true.  Think about it; if you decide you want something and then you direct your thoughts to support you in that desire, and behave in line with the needs of that desire (eg making phone calls, setting up systems, promoting yourself and your business) then you are creating the conditions for that dream to come true much more easily than if you do nothing.

So what do you want for this week, and how will your thoughts and behaviour line up to help create that happening?