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At last night’s mastermind group, during the first round of sharing successes, photographer Katie Settel took her turn with pride and delight. Her goal had been to photograph Beyonce’s new baby. We all supported the dream she had laid out in session 1 (this was our 5th) and have witnessed her transformation as Katie developed her marketing materials in that pursuit.
At our third session, Katie arrived with an elegantly designed package of her photographs, which demonstrate her talent, plus her freshly written cover letter…and a huge smile. She had put together an exquisite pitch package which she sent to Beyonce’s agent in NYC. Even getting that far was a win. Katie also designed the concept of a photo shoot with purpose (i.e. not winning a million dollar contract from People, say) which she proposed as a differentiator from all the other photographers in pursuit of that opportunity.
The baby has been born. I haven’t found any photos on the internet yet (correct me if I’m wrong), but as Katie put it last night when giving her report, “I didn’t get the shot, but I gave it a shot.”
While not everyone would claim not getting the sought after opportunity as a success, I surely do. How many people scheme and dream and don’t even take the first step in the direction of their own success? Katie moved several paces in that direction by not only following through on her own vision, but also by ratcheting up her skills, materials and courage level by giving it a go.
Success is the journey toward a worthy goal, so chalk up miles of advancement for Katie’s career.
Since my 2011 business year ended nicely in the black, I worked hard in December to invest some of my earnings back into my company by enrolling in courses for the upcoming year.
One of my business gurus, Brian Tracy, uses the figure 5% of income as the target number of dollars to spend on education. If you grossed $100,000 spending $5K on education would be prudent, for example.
With a decent budget to work from I thought about where I’d like to study and with whom. I considered trade shows, conferences, courses and cruises as I began planning for the upcoming year. I’d also recently heard from three different colleagues about a program offered at Harvard called Immunity to Change. Those kinds of signs have reliably pointed me in the direction of my vision. I’ve enrolled in that three-day course in Cambridge, a week-long holistic cruise where I’ll be able to study lifestyle practices and network with practitioners in March, and a few other well-timed, choice learning experiences to expand my knowledge and community.
I’m also offering others a way to expand their business skills in 2012. My webinar Soul Proprietor’s Formula for Building Your Business has been a great success. The 20+ women currently enrolled are taking strides in their businesses, meeting other remarkable women through our private Facebook group and actively pursuing their visions. A new session is beginning next Monday, January 9 at noon. I’ve got a very special offer (scroll down for the great pricing) on right now for those who enroll by midnight January 6.
One of the best features of webinars in general is that you don’t have to be physically present to receive the information. All of my sessions are recorded along with the visual materials that accompany the talks. You get to learn at your own pace, according to your own calendar and style. Even the twice-weekly question and answer sessions will be recorded so you won’t miss a word of advice.
I invite you to join me this year and start investing in your own learning. Who knows? With my help, next year’s education budget can exceed your wildest dreams.
“The marathon’s the parade,” my friend Doreen once said about the actual running of the 26.2 mile race. You’ve done all the hard work, trained, sweated, ached and pained. The day of the event is a celebration–a parade. “You don’t change anything. You show up and simply perform what you’ve spent months practicing.”
An entire city turns out to cheer. There are water stations and banners along the way.Your friends call out your name and encourage you as you near the end of this arduous journey.
Where were they when you were in training?
One of the hardest parts of prepping for anything worthwhile (i.e. long term goals) is that instead of the rallying forces that come out at showtime, your internal chorus is filled with saboteurs deriding your ideas, challenging your assumptions and generally impeding your progress.
I should know. As I’m putting dates on the calendar for my fall events, there has been a symphony of condescension and crescendos of self-doubt.
And, I’m putting them out anyway, which is what I advise my clients to do. Gremlins, be damned. Action is the magic word.
Here’s what it looks like up close. I’m planning to offer my webinar sessions on Thursday evenings EST. “Well, how are the Europeans going to call in, Jane? It’s too late for them.” “What about Thanksgiving? Maybe you should wait until the new year.” “Thursdays are tough for people.” I’m ignoring them all, but acknowledging their presence. I’m sure you have similar voices with equally ‘useful’ information and ideas.
I’m really excited to be sharing my methodology for becoming a Soul Proprietor. I’ve designed a powerful visual presentation and an equally powerful script. Participants will have weekly field work–creating a vision, defining a market, mindmapping, etc.–which will result in a leap into your dream work or a substantial leap ahead of where you already are.
In addition, I’m offering two hours per week of coaching support as you work my program. I’ll be there when the gremlins come out and fear seeps in. I’ll be there to cheer you on as you experience success after success. You’ll hear your own voice and echoes of it as others share their challenges and successes too. There’s nothing like hearing your story told by others to reinforce what’s true for you–the good, the bad and the ugly.
Please join me for my free introductory webinar: The Soul Proprietor’s Formula for Building Your Business aka Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started My Business Wednesday, October 26 at 8PM EST. Mark your calendars now. Registration will begin in a couple of weeks.
I’ve got three great offerings coming up this fall, and I’m really excited to share them here first.
My final Remarkable Women’s Network event for 2011 is Wednesday, October 5 from 5:30-7:30pm at Troy Fine Art in Southport, CT. The focus that evening is Come As You’ll Be. At past goal-setting retreats I’ve run, this themed party concept was the Saturday night highlight of the weekend. Guests are asked to dress, speak and think five years out.
What success would you love to live into for Fall, 2016? Dress up as the best-selling author, award-winning designer, fabulously wealthy business owner, etc. The paparazzi will be on hand to capture the moment. You’ll meet 30 other remarkably successful women and find out how they achieved their goals. I promise, it will be the most fun you’ve had in months.
I’m also rolling out a new concept in Mastermind Groups at a special lunch event on Friday, October 14 in the Club Room at 597 Westport Avenue, Norwalk. You’ll not only meet two dozen other women who want to grow their businesses, but you’ll have the opportunity to get feedback, motivation and inspired accountability.
What do I mean by inspired accountability? When I hear a woman business owner commit to taking a huge step forward on her own behalf, I get inspired. When I hear a dozen women stake their claim and set a date by which they will research, call, announce or commit to the next growth adventure in their businesses, I’m blown away. That’s what October 14th will be about. Stay tuned for the details via my newsletter, but save the date for my kick-off lunch event.
My third offer coming up this fall is a brand new webinar series on how to become a Soul Proprietor. I’m really excited to be making my own offer after studying with a group all summer on the best way to create and present a program like this. I’ll be starting with a free webinar in a month so you can try out the medium and see if you like it. What I love about this opportunity is that over the years I’ve heard from so many of you outside the tri-state area–like the Pacific Northwest, Singapore and Moldavia. I’d love to get YOU on the line for these sessions. Watch for the details!
I hope I’ll see you this fall at my Remarkable Women’s Network event Wednesday, October 5, my Mastermind Groups lunch launch on Friday, October 14 and/or on my upcoming late October free webinar class.
I just heard a useful piece of information regarding pricing. The age-old question is: How much should I charge? It doesn’t matter if it’s a piece of jewelry or a coaching service. The quandary of how to price your goods or services is a perennial challenge.
I have always loved my father’s wisdom on the subject, coming from the retail background he did. His response was a question: How much is a black dress? Of course, it depends. What’s the fabric? Who’s the designer? What’s the market–Bergdorf’s or Target? You can see that the decision, while influenced by these factors, is arbitrary.
Carolee Friedlander of Carolee jewelry designs taught me years ago that “jewelry is a blind item” meaning that so many factors go into it that there’s no strict formula for creating the pricing structure. Whatever the market will bear comes to mind. That’s true in the coaching world as well. There are coaches charging $50 per session and others charging $1000. There is no definitive rule on the matter.
A new slant on all of this came via a coaching community I’m a part of. The instructor began bluntly. “If you don’t know what to charge in your own industry…” (Now here I thought he was going to give a lecture on market research and due diligence, but he surprised me) “…then you can only imagine how little your customer knows about pricing in your industry.” Brilliant! And true.
Prices are all over the place in every industry, so why not make up your own? His point, which is one I salute and profess myself, is to put it out there and see what happens. There is too much analysis paralysis (guilty!) and not enough running it up the flagpole to find out who’s saluting.
Lesson learned. Watch for my new offer coming soon…
I invited two of my clients to let their gremlins have full rein at the beginning of our group’s call. They each had a minute to let loose, and they did a beautiful job. My purpose was to allow the negativity to have its head, and then excuse it from the premises. Coaching and gremlins don’t work well together. Those critters must be removed.
It was a very productive rant. I’ve asked my clients’ permission to share the words of their saboteurs because they are universal, even though they may sound personal to you. Here’s what they heard. Sound familiar?
- “You don’t really know what you’re doing.”
- “Why not just enjoy the summer?”
- “Do you really want to build this big a business?!”
- “That’s a lot of work.”
- “It doesn’t matter how you‘re feeling. You still have to show up for your clients.”
- “You can’t do this forever. Why bother?”
- “Who says you have to go to the next level?”
It didn’t take long to fill the allotted time, but I could tell they were running out of steam at the end. After that, I denied all entry to gremlin-esque thoughts or concerns. We had a very productive session.
In a self-help book I read long ago, it was suggested that you reserve a special time each day to spend on what’s bothering you–say 4-4:15pm every afternoon. That will serve as your dedicated gremlin/voices time, a chance to give your full attention to the matters at hand. If a voice starts grabbing your attention at 10am (“You’re an impostor!”), remind yourself to take note and consider the ‘advice’ at 4pm. You can see where this is heading. Inevitably, the flow of your work, what you’re meant to be doing takes over and you’re able to work peacefully and productively. When the appointed time comes, you may or may not decide to mentally hash out the earlier thoughts. Our 1-minute rants served a similar purpose of re-training the mind when it comes to gremlins and saboteurs.
One great transition that occurred after that initial exercise was the re-framing of one client’s thought. In order to get to the next level, this business owner felt that she would have to “expose [her]self more.” That sounded frightening to her and to me, too. After discussion and processing on the subject, this is her new language regarding the opportunity: “I consciously create important relationships in a bigger arena.” She began to feel the positive pull of that phrasing. Feels really different, doesn’t it?
So, spend time with your gremlins…on your watch, not theirs. I promise, it works.
A colleague of mine who’d studied journalism taught me a quote she’d learned in her school days. Their mantra was, “Notice what you notice.” In fact, I call my bi-weekly newsletter The Noticer. This hit home for me yesterday in three quick observations.
Yesterday I had lunch with a client of mine who is in the home care business. We were walking in the center of Fairfield, CT, by a small park where a camp group had assembled. My client spotted someone pushing a wheelchair. “I wonder why he’s wearing [surgical] gloves. There’s no need for that.” I looked over and saw what she was referring to, but would never have even looked twice. But, that’s her business, and she took note.
After lunch I drove to a new salon in Bethel for a haircut. It’s housed in a large, old Victorian house on the second floor. The first floor is devoted to a restaurant. Although there is signage for the salon–I knew I was in the right place– all of the signs in the parking area said “Parking for Restaurant Only” which made me question whether it was permissible to park in the lot.
Not wanting to be towed, I drove to another lot across the street. The sense that I got was that the restaurant may not be welcoming to the beauty salon clients walking through their premises. This was all split second stuff, but I was conscious of whether I was entering the right door or not. It set up a negative experience. That was quickly dismantled by the gracious hostess and the salon owner’s apology. “As a business owner,” I offered, “you need signage for your new clientele letting them know the score.” That’s the kind of thing I notice: what will be useful for a business owner to enhance the client experience and comfort level.
The reason I was trying a new salon was that the owner had attended a speaking event where I was featured. We’d had a delightful conversation afterwards, and he said he’d love to cut my hair. “I took a good look at you when you were speaking and noticed that you could use a different cut.”
What are you noticing? This is what makes you who you are.
“I suck at advertising,” was one of Drew Lamm’s opening lines last night to the group of assembled women. I could tell this was going to be a special event by the energy outside her purple front door. Women were pulling their cars onto Drew’s quaint, narrow street in the village of Rowayton and bustling up the purple stairs into her home. I overheard excited chatter among classmates seeing each other again after having shared intimate thoughts they’d written under the gentle, constructive guidance of their teacher Drew.
My thought after experiencing this special night was that she advertises extremely well. Word of mouth had filled the room. There is no finer testimonial than bodies filling seats, worthy readings and hearty applause. I’m not even in the market for a writing class and I wanted to sign up!
It was a grown up recital, much like those old piano class days, of students demonstrating their talents for the assembled masses. Drew gave an admittedly extemporaneous opening modeling her belief that when you’re in the company of creative women and the space is safe, the muses will inform you as they certainly did Drew. She spoke eloquently from the heart about the sacredness of the practice she preaches. One by one, her disciples read their drafts to us, smiling at the unexpected laughter they engendered, touched by the applause when they completed their reading.
“You’re hearing rough,” Drew explained, but it hardly felt so. These were wonderfully tender, meaningful and well-crafted essays and poems by a disparate group of women.The topics ranged from collecting lightning bugs to breastfeeding to cursing matriarchs to what to be buried in (naked on satin sheets was the request). Drew had promised a break during the readings, but read the mood of the room and kept the pace going. We were enthralled. An intermission would have disrupted the flow.
Drew made a gentle pitch at the end of the program for her upcoming workshops offered this summer. Based on the obvious success, support and affection that happens in this kind of environment, I don’t think she’ll have any trouble filling her sessions. For more information, visit her website.
Her house is eclectic and she invited us to visit her particularly magical bathroom located behind the star/beaded curtains. I was intrigued and captured a few images. The one above is the mirror in that room. There are many inspiring quotes hanging framed on the walls there. This was my favorite. It’s hard to read, so here’s the translation: There are two things in the world–life and death. ‘Art’ is life. ‘Not Art’ is death. ~Stuart Davis
Mary Ellroy, owner of Gamebird, is a game and toy inventor as well as a consultant to those wishing to bring their products to market. She’s also a member of my nearly 20-year old mastermind group and a dear friend. I take what she says seriously.
Slight digression: I remember my father trekking into NYC with me in the late 60′s carrying a perpetual calendar I had designed as a college project, which he thought was worthy of manufacture. My point here is that pretty much everyone I know at some point thinks they’re an inventor. Since you know some things about me already, one is that I didn’t get rich (or even sell anything) from that product.
Consulting to this audience proves tricky for Mary as most would-be inventions are as well-intentioned but un-salesworthy as mine. How do you kindly educate your audience, save them years of frustration and disappointment and take a small chunk of change in the process? Our mastermind group is an ideal place for her to share this challenge and develop strategies for making each appointment a win-win.
One not-so-easily rejected client of hers, after Mary thoroughly assessed her game idea, shot my friend an email the day after her disappointing evaluation. She wanted an explanation of what Mary meant when she said, “It’s all about the WOW factor.”
Mary is one of the most kind-hearted people I know. She doesn’t enjoy rejecting ideas, but also needs to respect and teach the wisdom of her industry and honor her own expertise in marketability. “That question had me go to UrbanDictionary.com to look up WOW Factor. They nail it down,” Mary told our group.
I’ll let you look it up yourself, but the more important take-away from our session was a retort Mary learned from Hasbro to whom she’s been selling for years. “The WOW factor–we know it when we see it. If we knew how to achieve it every time, we wouldn’t need you.”
It can be a tough world out there. The truth hurts. But it’s a time saver and may move you to the track you belong on rather than the one you may wish for.
A strategy I learned quickly and well in my early stages of entrepreneurship was that I got to choose which 8 hours a day I work. (A snarky associate suggested it was more like which 20 hours she chose to work…) As an early riser, I often have more done by 9AM than many accomplish by 2PM. Without phones ringing or a deluge of email, I’m able to laser focus and move through correspondence, writing, planning and mulling before most people hit their offices.
Going for a shiatsu treatment, as I did yesterday at 4, is a way I reward myself. While waiting for the practitioner to finish up with his previous appointment, I was able to fit in a business call while standing on his front porch overlooking a salt marsh in Fairfield. No need to explain my whereabouts or why the call needed to be brief.
A colleague of mine always says, “My office is in my pocket.”
Block in time for yourself on your calendar and treat it as an appointment, as you would with any other commitment you make. No need to share with anyone that those hours you’re booked are for a haircut. It’s nobody’s business but your own.
Self-care is a critical component of success. Deprivation is the bane of many business owner’s existence. My recommendation is to schedule in your personal needs along with your business needs and show up for both with equal enthusiasm and respect.
