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I ran into a client of mine yesterday at a function. We’ve been working together the past month, and this is what she told me:

“Bonita, I feel so different. I used to dread calling people to follow-up with them. For years, this has held my business back. Now, I can’t wait to follow-up with people I meet, and I feel so good doing it. I don’t know what happened!”

Listening to her, I couldn’t help but smile. I knew what had happened; her mindset shifted.

With a few simple activities and daily practices, that takes her less than 10 minutes per day, the problem that has plagued her for years, and kept her from earning the income she deserved, dissolved in a matter of weeks!

What was the root cause of her mindset that sabotaged her success? It was her own negative self-talk and disempowering beliefs she told herself day-in and day-out. Old tapes tucked away in her mind that she wasn’t even aware were there.

These beliefs literally “put up a wall” against her being able to receive clients that would pay her fees. And, the more business she lost, the more these beliefs took hold, and a cycle of extreme self-doubt kicked in.

The same thing happens to many other women. It isn’t a lack of skill, capability, or experience that holds women back from getting high-paying clients that value them, and will pay for their services. It’s their emotional mindset.

How do negative self-talk and disempowering beliefs show up?

If any of these ring true for you, its evidence your mindset may be the culprit, and getting in the way of you attracting high-paying clients:

• When you come up with an idea that’ll kick your business into high gear, your mind shifts to “why it won’t work”
• You harbor negative thoughts about your value and worth (“no one will pay that much”)
• You frequently compare yourself to others (and lose)
• You keep changing your mind about WHAT you want to launch
• You waffle “back and forth” about WHAT you want to charge
• You decide on an investment level, and then decrease the fee right before launch
• You downsize your goals (from wanting 8 people enrolled to then deciding on 4)

What are things you can do to dissolve away limiting and disempowering beliefs? Here is what my client did:

1. Keep a daily journal of limiting and disempowering beliefs

What are you telling yourself, day-in and day-out? Most women are playing a broken record in their heads repeatedly that criticizes, judges, and compares.

What’s the way out to break the pattern? For 3 to 5 days, write down every limiting belief that crosses your mind. See if you can detect a “pattern” of the same thoughts that keep recurring.

2. Shift thoughts from disempowering to empowering

Once you’ve identified limiting beliefs, shift them into positives by coming up with evidence of things that disprove the disempowering beliefs. For example, some limiting beliefs could be:

“Things never work out for me as planned. I am not as successful as other women entrepreneurs are. I am not as experienced and can’t charge as much for my services.”

Then, you make an empowering list of things of things like:

“Things do work out as planned for me. The workshop I lead a few months ago was fantastic, and people got a lot of value from my content. I am a successful woman entrepreneur. I have been successful getting clients, and I will get more. I am very creative and have many ideas about how to grow my business. I am experienced. I have a degree. I’ve attended “X” training events and am a continuous learner. I can charge more for my services than I have been…”

By doing this you begin to prove to your mind that these thoughts are true.

3. Do daily affirmations

From your list of things that prove your value, read them aloud to yourself every morning, first-thing when you get up. Try your best to feel what you are saying. Feel successful…feel powerful!

You can also record you what you wrote and listen to it every morning when you get up.

How must value yourself FIRST before you will attract clients who will pay higher fees that reflect your value.

When you step into that beautiful space of being kind, loving, and supportive of yourself, your energy becomes an irresistible attractant to amazing high-paying clients!

When I talk to women soloentrepreneurs, and tell them they can charge more for their programs and raise their fees, the first thing they quip is, “I’m having trouble finding any clients.  How will I find high-paying clients that’ll pay even higher fees?”

This response is one of the most common I hear.  And, this thinking is a problem because it keeps women chasing any breathing client, usually the wrong type of client.  And, when she fails to own up to her value, the value of the work she’s doing, and this keeps her income well below what she’s really worth.

Here are two tips to help you attract high-paying clients so you earn the income you deserve for your awesome programs and services!

1. Know what an Amazing High-Paying Client ‘looks’ like

If you’re reading this and thinking, “I’ve got to attract better clients,” the first place to start is to get specific about what type of person is your perfect client.

An example of a way to think about this is your perfect client confident in her abilities?  Does she take action and implement?  Does she shop at Whole Foods, do Pilates, be easy to work with, have enough money to easily invest in a coach?  Is she a low drama personality, have her financial matters in order, have a great relationship with a supportive spouse or partner?

Write down a description of your amazing, perfect client!

2. Know ”like attracts like”

I’m sure your perfect, ideal client is wonderful!  Now, take a look at the actions you’re taking in your life.  Are you doing those things your perfect client is doing?  If so, this is awesome!  If not,  this is a major leak where you are giving up your power, because to attract high-paying, awesome clients, you must first BE like the client you want to attract.

For example, if you  want to attract clients that live a healthy lifestyle, are you living in that way?  If you want clients to invest in your services, do you invest in a coach?  If you want clients that are low drama, are you low drama in your life, as well?

Start acting in your internal and external world like your perfect client, and you will start attracting them. “Like attracts like.”

To attract high-paying clients you must own up to your own value, and be in alignment with yourself both on the inside, and the outside.

Get the inside and outside in sync, and you’ll be delighted at the amazing clients who appear at your door step wanting to work with you!

The secret to making your income grow by leaps and bounds is to have a simple marketing system in place that organizes your list-building, marketing, and promotional activities. 

It is important to invest time in managing these activities, because the size of your list, as well as the timing and quality of your marketing and promotional activities, directly influences the amount of your income.  

Having said this, the problem many entrepreneurs experience is managing all their marketing activities quickly becomes overwhelming, because there are just too many different activities to manage.

The solution to this problem is to create three different marketing calendars to manage all activities you must do to grow your business.  These three marketing calendars are:

1. List-building

2. Marketing

3. Promotional activities

Using these marketing calendars will banish overwhelm you may feel at all you have to do to grow your business.  Having three calendars may seem like it complicates the planning process, but, it actually simplifies it. 

I found when I tried to combine all my list-building, marketing, and promotional activities into one calendar, I ended up with a massive calendar that was a paralyzing mess.  By breaking up these distinctly different activities into three simple calendars,   it made my list-building, marketing, and promotional activities easier to manage.  It will help you do the same, too.

Here are the three simple tips about how to create your own simple calendars, just like the ones I use to manage my business-building and income-generating activities with ease.

Tip #1 – List-Building Calendar

A List-Building Calendar will simply detail out for you the timing of all the different list-building activities you will do throughout the year to build your list of prospects. 

To begin building this calendar, take a pencil and write down on a piece of paper a list of the different list-building activities you intend to do.  For example, some common and easy to implement list-building activities include:

- Offer free teleseminars

- Offer to be a guest speak on other people’s teleseminars

- Write and submit articles online/print publications

- Launch Pay-Per-Click campaigns

- Speak at live events

- Blog

- Participate in various social media activities

- Submit press releases

- Networking

After you write down your list of list-building activities, plot these different activities on your List-Building Calendar.  I recommend categorizing this calendar week, such as January, Week one, Week two, etc.  Doing so will make it easy to see 1) how often, and, 2) what you are doing to build your list of prospects and potential buying customers!

Tip #2 – Marketing Cash Calendar

A Marketing Cash Calendar helps you to plan the different products and programs you intend to launch during the year to generate your planned revenues. 

To begin to create this calendar, first write down all the different products and programs you plan to promote in the coming year (or whatever is your planning timetable).  Then, create a goal for how many of each product or program you want to sell.  For example, you may have a product titled, ‘Information Product A,’ and your goal is to sell fifty copies at $100 each in January, for total estimated revenue of $5,000.  

Then, using the same calendar format as for your List-Building Calendar (by month and week), plot your planned launch dates for each product and program.  The launch date is the actual date you expect to be generating income from a promotion.  Also, include a column for ‘Total Monthly Revenue,’ so you can see what your planned revenue is by month, and then add it up all months at the bottom of the column to see your total planned revenues for the year.

You may want to plan a maximum of four, certainly no more than six, different promotions in one year.  The reason is it can become very complicated for you to manage promoting more than one product or program at a time.  In addition, people on your list will get confused about the different offers, become irritated, and unsubscribe from your list (which some will do anyway when you promote). 

Tip #3 – Promotional Activities Calendar

Looking at your Marketing Cash Calendar, use this calendar to plan the different promotional activities you will do for a SPECIFIC product or program launch.  This means you will have a different Promotional Activities Calendar for each individual planned product or program launch.   

To create this calendar, list each of the specific activities you will do to promote, such as:

- Mention in ezine

- Tweet about the promotion

- Write about in blog

- Lead preview teleseminars

- Write articles about the topic, addressing benefits/objections

- Send direct mail to existing clients

Then, look at the launch date, and work backwards from this date to plot out the timing, and different promotional activities you will do.  Allow a period of four to six weeks to ‘seed’ the program, and then two weeks for active promotion and launch. 

By keeping your calendars separate, and simple, this allows you to focus your energy on creating results, and increasing your income in a grander way.

One of my Private Platinum clients showed up for her retreat last October, and said to me, “I feel so silly admitting this.   But, I have difficulty figuring out how to spend my time each day in my business.   It feels like I am working all of the time, yet not getting results.  Can you help me lay out my day so I can grow my business, and feel less stress and exhaustion?”

When I asked my client questions about how she invests her daily time, the problem became clear; she didn’t prioritize her daily activities to support her in growing her income.  Plus, there were all sorts of ‘time leaks’ in her day because she didn’t set boundaries with clients and family members.

For example, she was allowing non-urgent family requests, such as running to the pharmacy to pick up meds, to interrupt her day.  She also gave her clients unlimited access to her.  Her own priorities kept getting pushed further and further into the background.

This resulted in her working 6 days a week until 9 or 10 pm each night.  And, she was earning less than $20,000 per year for all this work!  No wonder she was stressed out, exhausted, and her income suffered.

The problem is clear: when you don’t manage your time properly, you become overworked, and work way too hard for too little money.

Here are 5 tips to help you better-manage your time so your business and income will grow:

1. Read first-thing every morning for 30 minutes to get your mind ready for the day.

I like to ease my ‘thinking brain’ into my day by investing 30 minutes each day reading something educational that gives me the knowledge I need to develop my personal mastery skills, and grow my business. 

Another big benefit of starting your day this way is it gives you creative fuel’ that will spark new ideas you can apply in your business immediately.

2. Focus on income and invest 90 minutes each day on your Bold Money Goal.

For the next 90 minutes of your day, invest time doing income generating activities directed toward achieving your Bold Money Goal. 

3. Build marketing momentum (or keep it going) by investing 120 minutes per day.

For a minimum if 120 minutes (two hours per day), plan to invest time doing marketing.  Activities include following up with potential clients, networking, social media updates, speaking, delivering a list-building teleseminar, contacting joint venture partners, referral sharing, newsletter preparation and broadcast, attending trade shows, etc.

Note: If you need clients or are new in business, a guideline is to invest up to half your day (4 hours) doing marketing activities!

The trap people often fall into is when they get clients, they then get into client delivery mode and forget about marketing.  Then, very quickly, marketing momentum is lost, and the “marketing machine” has to start all over again.  It takes an incredible amount of energy and time to restart the marketing machine!

It is much better to spend time every single day marketing.  This evens out your cash flow and income.

4. Work on 3 ‘smaller’ goals for 45 minutes.

By smaller goals, I am talking about those projects that aren’t urgent, yet they need to be done to grow your business.  It could be such things as researching keywords to optimize your website, working on creating a Facebook page, and other tasks. 

Invest 15 minutes on each of your top three small goals.  This may not seem like a lot of time.  But, take these small bites of time, and watch you accomplish these smaller goals with ease! 

5. End your day with 30 minutes of creative time.

At the end of each day, invest 30 minutes in creative free thought, and write down all you ideas.  You’ll feel relaxed, stress will melt away, and it’s a very pleasant way to close the work day.

These 5 ideas will help give you structure to how you invest time during your day.  Of course, you also need to allow time for client fulfillment activities, delivering discovery sessions, content creation, attending professional development activities, and so on.

 Get connected to the TRUE COST of not managing your time.

 Time is a non-renewable resource. When your time is gone, it’s gone. Which means: when you don’t invest your time wisely, you sacrifice your dream.

 So what happened with my client?

We restructured her workday so she was only working 5 days per week, instead of 6.  And, she set boundaries with clients by setting aside a time period each day when they could call her (rather than allowing them to call any time day and night).  She also communicated to family members the importance of her work, and set boundaries of when she would be able to take time to fulfill family needs.

By doing this, she was able to treat her business as the priority it is.  After all, she deserves to earn the income she desires…and so do you!  This allows her, and you, to serve others, as well as yourselves.

Once upon a time, one of my Platinum clients came to her coaching session feeling very unsure of herself, and frustrated. “I’ve started creating my Signature System, but then I get stuck when I look at what everyone else is offering.  It seems what they have is so much better.  Help!”

When I heard her say this to me, the problem was clear.  She was suffering from the “I’m not good enough” trap.  By comparing herself to other people, she was doing what most of us do: ending up short in comparison, and losing self-confidence.  My client is definitely not alone with this problem.

The problem is when you compare yourself to others, you take YOU and your special and unique talents and gifts out of the equation to be successful. 

This cripples your business’s growth, because when you compare, you inevitably fall short in comparison.  This is too bad, because doing this is a way women “take themselves out of the game” and don’t take the actions they need to grow their business.

Here are 3 tips to help you curb the urge to fall into the “I’m not good enough trap”:

1. Get a sense of your own value

You are unique in your knowledge, life experiences, talents, and special gifts.  There is no one else like you on the planet.  Get in touch with this so you gain a sense of your own value, what you have to offer others, and how you can uniquely help them.

Action Idea: Take out a sheet or paper and make a list of everything that contributes to the value of your work, including degrees, awards, trainings, natural skills and talents, people you’ve helped and specific results they’ve achieved, what others value about you, and what you value about yourself!

2. Create a continuous self-improvement plan

Ongoing expansion of your knowledge and personal mastery of key skills in your business is crucial to its growth and success.  Your current skill level and beliefs are reflected daily in the results you get in your business.  What’s your business reflecting back to you?

Being in business is not easy for most women entrepreneurs, because the fact is our potential clients have many choices when they want to work with someone get the help they’re seeking.  Why should they choose you?

Get in touch with the fact that part of their choice is determined by your special skills, life experiences, and talents you possess, as well as what you are learning NOW.  Keep your knowledge base up-to-date, and constantly be learning and growing to build your expertise and value in your clients’ eyes.

Action Idea: Meet with a mentor regularly, someone who will challenge you, stretch you, so you continue to grow and evolve.  Become part of a master mind group of like-minded entrepreneurs, lead be a leader who has successfully navigated the path and has ‘reached the other side.’  Attend professional development conferences, seminars, and workshops to increase your knowledge base and keep current.

3. Up-level your internal self-talk

Pay close attention to what you tell yourself, because what you say becomes your reality.  Notice what key ideas, phrases, thoughts, or beliefs keep spinning ‘round and round’ in your brain, disempowering you.  Make a choice of one idea or thought or belief to shift to something that supports you.

Action Idea: For the next 1 to 3 days. Jot down any disempowering beliefs that keep coming up for you.  Make a choice to stop these thoughts in their tracks, and adopt positive beliefs, instead.

Stop comparing yourself to others and get in touch with the TRUE VALUE of YOU.

You are special, unique, and to be successful, your business has to be a reflection of YOU.  Not someone else.  Put YOU in the center of your business, and create programs that project your expertise, what you know, and who you want to serve.  This will create ease in your business, because you will stop struggling ‘against’ yourself.

So, what happened with my client? She became aware she had a pattern of negative self talk and beliefs, and consciously chose to stop talking to herself in a self-defeating way. 

She also realized she had to focus on herself, and her business, and not other people.  She stopped struggling, and creating her programs got much easier once she stopped directing her energy outward toward comparing herself to others!

Want to learn strategies you can use to create a self-empowering mindset to support your success?  It’s no coincidence that once I started paying attention to my mindset (about 10 minutes every day), I created a 6-figure business working only about 10 to 12 hours per week.  I’m now sharing my secrets in a complimentary 6-Figure Mindset Secrets Breakthrough Session.  I’m only offering 5 spots.  To reserve your spot contact me at (847) 989-0513.

Only 2 seats left!  To register visit http://www.BonitaRichter.com/rediscoverretreat

‘Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. ~Margaret Young

What if you teach about relationships, yet you don’t have the perfect relationship? 

What if you teach about money management, but you haven’t amassed a millionaire’s fortune?

What if you teach others how to market and build a business, yet you are still striving to achieve a certain income level?

Can you still help others if you haven’t “made it,” yet?

When I am working with my clients, inevitably, when they consider teaching others how to do something they’ve learned, and have had some success at doing, many times they still object to teaching others because they feel they haven’t “made it.”

In other words, they haven’t achieved a level of mastery they feel they should have achieved, to have the ‘right’ to teach others what they know.  They think if they do so, they’re a fraud.

I am here to tell you this is just not true.

First of all, who’s to say what destination you “should have” arrived at?  There are people out there right now who are looking for you, with your unique experiences they can relate to, and only two or three steps ahead of them.  And as a mentor, this is all you truly need to be to help your clients!

You don’t need to be the superstar coach in your industry.  There is plenty of room for co-stars to stand out, and become known for their unique offerings, and how they help.

Remember Fonzie from the T.V. hit show Happy Days?  He was not the star of the show, but he was still certainly a “hit,” and got plenty of attention!  The same is true for you, too.

If you teach about marketing, there are certain things you know, and ways of teaching that nobody else knows because your teachings are based on your personal experience. You can teach it in a way that nobody else can.

If you have something to offer, you simply cannot let the gremlins in your mind stop you from using your gifts.  What you have to teach others will change their lives forever, so don’t hold that back from the people you are meant to help.

If you’re still thinking you haven’t arrived, ask yourself, “What is the destination, anyway?”  Your life is a never-ending journey of growth.  As soon as you’ve arrived at one destination, there’s a new one to strive toward.  My point is you never arrive, because there’s always a new place to get to.

Another thing you must do is claim your expertise; this is really the bottom line.  No matter where you are on your path, claim your expertise.

My coach’s request of you this week is if you have any concerns about teaching what you know, because you feel you don’t know enough, have not arrived, will feel like a fraud, is to look at all your expertise, credentials, and unique experiences.  You can help others perfectly, today, right from where you are!

Problem: playing small, not shining, not being an example, keeps others and me small

Why the need to change: to be a model, help others grow, grow income, be self-sufficient, live out life purpose, fulfill dreams, and strive to achieve potential

How to change: recognize where you are playing small, and what the cost is to you, and what you are going to do to change

When faced with a must-change behavior we are doing, in a moment’s time it becomes apparent this behavior has to change.  The behavior I need to change is to stop playing small, hiding out, and keeping my success to myself.

Why?  Because if I am to be the leader I want to be, a ‘Leading Lady,’ I have to set an example for the women I want to help.  I have to be a model of success.  I have to show what I’ve achieved, so they can see it, believe it, and increase their own awareness the same is possible for them.

This past weekend it hit me like a brick falling out of thin air.  Because of a fear of people not liking me, thinking I am bragging, and generally not wanting people to be jealous of me, I’ve been playing very, very small.  This is my bare-all confession to you.

This weekend I decided I was tired of playing small.  I am going to step out, step up, and be the model of success and leader women entrepreneurs need to help them achieve success, too.

Part of my mission I deeply believe in is that women have the right to thrive and support themselves on their own terms, using their unique gifts and talents, and not having to conform to anyone else’s expectations of them, “shoulds,” and fears getting in the way.  The ONLY way I am going to be heard is if I step out, get this message out, and express it in my own being.

So, for me, becoming the Leading Lady of my own life means taking full ownership of my point of view, beliefs, and mission, and helping those I’m meant to serve.

To help you, I want to share ideas with you, that you, in turn, can model and step into.

I know I am a leader.  I have lived it, I’ve had amazing successes, I feel it in my bones.  It’s something I am, and am destined to be.  I can step up and be a stronger role model by expressing this to you, so you can follow me and achieve the same, rather than hiding out and keeping it a secret.

Here are ways I expressed hiding out so you can learn from them, know what it has cost me, as well as those people I was meant to help.

Not collecting enough testimonials for the work I do.  Cost:  People don’t know how I can help them, they don’t know the “whole story,” may have insufficient evidence, and not as many people hired me, which means I did not help as many people, and they didn’t reach the levels of success they may have.  It also hurt my income, too.

Not raising my fees as high as what I am worth.  Cost: This has kept my income suppressed, I did not create the security cushion fast enough, that I needed to pursue my passion full-bore, I am not attracting enough of the type of client who will appreciate my work the most, and be willing to pay for it because they know I’ve “got the goods” to help them succeed.

Not speaking of my success.  Cost: Women have not been able to use me as a strong role model as they could have, because they didn’t know I wasn’t an “Average Jane.”  The cost to other women has been high, because they may not have sought my help, when I am the best one to help them.

Not speaking of my income and lifestyle.  The reason is that I don’t want to “brag.”  Cost: Inauthenticity, suppressing myself, not wanting to make others feel bad, where it could have been used to lift others up and bring them along with me.

The total cost to me over the last three years of keeping my gifts “hidden” is over $1,000,000 in lost income.  Shocking, isn’t it?  And, I have not helped as many women as I could have by staying small, which means their incomes have been suppressed, as well.

What’s the cost to you for not stepping out, and stepping up into playing the role of Leading Lady in your life?

I am declaring to you from this moment on, I am boldly stepping into being the leader of my business that I am.  How will you know?  You will see me open up more about my point of view, what I will “go to the mat for,” and expressing my beliefs.  I will be sharing my successes, and collecting proof of the transfomration my clients get by working with me.  And, I am going to be a leading example that you can model so you can grow with me, too.

No more playing small, the cost is too high to me, and those I am meant to help.  No more.

By guest author, Ken Carlson

So…I’m a recovering achiever. You know the type. The kid that sits in the front row in every class in high school and college. The adult that goes shopping for the perfect shirts and ties for work so the boss is impressed. The never miss a deadline type—even if it means staying up until 3am and getting up at 4am to get back to work. Some of you might have called me a kiss up. Whatever—I got A’s and I got promoted.

I still think sitting in the front row is a good idea.  I’ve got a kid in high school and a kid in college and I would definitely encourage them to sit as close to the front as possible. Why?  Because when you sit in the front row you A) have to pay attention and B) you get a much better idea of what is most important to the teacher; we all know that only part of doing well in school is knowing the material—to get A’s, you have to know what matters to the teacher.

Somewhere along the way though—I decided that sitting in the front row wasn’t giving me everything I wanted in life. It certainly gave me nice paychecks. I got to drive a nice car, live in a nice neighborhood, have nice friends, go to a nice health club. All so very NICE.

The new question. The one that kept me up at night was this: What was it all costing?

I could clearly see what I was getting. Stuff. Lots of good stuff. Travel. Fun. Some financial security. A great lifestyle for my wife and kids. The ability to retire at a reasonable age. I was also getting accolades from bosses, my family, and my friends. All good things.

It was costing me a lot more though. Mostly, it was costing me my days. I was spending at least 250 of 365 days per year inside and I absolutely adore being outside. It was costing me sometimes three hours a day behind the wheel of a car. I was helping corporations make money and making very little tangible difference in anyone’s life. I certainly wasn’t passionate about the work that my company did.

So, I decided to get in the front row again. This time though—I wasn’t in a college classroom or a corporate boardroom—I got in the front row of my own life.   I started going
to therapy. I started reading all sorts of books. I hired a coach. I started talking to my best friends regularly about what was next in my life. I wanted to figure out me. I wanted to take charge of my own life and my own future. So I did.

Right now, it’s several years later and sitting in the front row of my own life is the best decision I ever made. There is definitely a cost to living my dream. A cost to doing what I most love. A cost associated with leaving the corporate world and starting my own business. However, for me, the cost is worth it to have the things that I most want for my own life. I want to make an impact on people every day. I want to spend time outside every day. I want to be creative. I want to be present for my children.

Here is my challenge to you: What is it that you want for your life? What cost are you willing to pay to have what you want? I have yet to meet anyone that has regretted the choice to get in the front row of their own life and do the work.

Ken Carlson is a life coach, father, business owner, athlete, and 40-year old from Geneva, IL with clients all over the world. He specializes in working with individuals that are successful in their lives and career and are looking to fully follow their dreams. He named his company Authentic Development because he believes that entering into our true selves is really the only way to fully come alive! Website: www.authenticdevelopment.com

I see a lot of women entrepreneurs who are busy ’doing’ a lot of different activities to grow their businesses.  On the surface this seems all good because they’re investing energy and time. 

The problem is too many times they’re not getting the results they desire for all their expended energy.  This keeps their business and income stuck at the same levels, or they experience small amounts of growth.

How can you tell if you’re not getting adequate results for your invested efforts?  Here’s a list of two ways to tell:

1. Your income in 2011, compared to 2010, either decreased, stayed the same, or grew less than 20%.  (no whining about the economy)

2. Your hourly fee rate decreased or did not increase (annual revenues ÷ total hours worked)

The bottom line is if you are working harder, and not gaining significant forward movement toward your goals, you probably need to change what you’re doing.  

Here are 3 ways you can “change up” your activities to ensure you reach your 2012 goals:

1. Review 2011 and determine 1) what went well and CELEBRATE!, 2) what didn’t go as planned, and 3) why things didn’t go as planned. 

Were you lacking support or some skills and know-how?  Or, did you simply not invest the time into certain activities you could have?  Diagnose the reasons so you can course correct in 2012.

2. Create your 2012 vision and goals – what do you want your business and personal life to look like 12/31/12?  What personal mastery skills do you need to develop?

Be very specific.  Without specifics, you may be wasting time and energy doing activities that will not move you closer to your vision and goals.  Example: Are you part of a networking group that has few of your ideal clients?  This time may be better invested doing something else.

3. Create your plan to make it all happen!

Your business plan needs to include an income goal and key strategies you must implement to make it all happen. 

For example, this year my income goal is $300K.  Key strategies I will implement to make it happen are:

1. Become more visible to my ideal clients

2. Increase traffic to my website and subscriber opt-ins

3. Increase marketing activities

Then, for each of the above three strategies I will create objectives, identify activities to do, and put a timeframe to reaching the objective.

For example, to become more visible to my ideal clients I could, 1) lead one teleseminar every week, 2) be a guest on someone else’s teleseminar every 2 weeks, 3) speak to live groups one time per week, and 4) attend two networking meetings per week.

Then, I will keep track to make sure I am investing the required time and energy to get the results I’m seeking.  In my case, I am tracking achievment of my $300K income goal.

Now is the time to evaluate and review what you’re doing so you can be proactive about making necessary course corrections to achieve your 2012 goals!