The Online Prosperity Experience

Remember the very best work you have done.

As coaches, consultants and small business owners we suffer from self-doubt from time to time. We have good days and not-so-good days. Days when we think we can do anything, and days when we feel we’re not even worthy to get paid for the work we do.

Welcome to the life of an entrepreneur!

Hopefully, you have more up days than down days.

When you do have the occasional down day, here is something I do to snap myself out of it.

I think back to some work I did that was really good.

1. Maybe it performed incredibly well.
2. Maybe I was just particularly proud of what I created.
3. Either way…it is proof that I can create good work.

Sometimes I’ll just think back to that moment, or when that project was completed. Other times, I’ll look at a sample or an image on the portfolio page of my site.

The trick here is to remind yourself of what you did and reaffirm your ability to do good work.

Another way to do it is simply to think back and remember times at work when you really enjoyed what you were doing.

That memory could be related to a project you worked on or a great team of people you worked with.

The idea here is to get your mind thinking about a very positive moment in your work life.

Why?

Because the brain works with a rather peculiar cocktail of chemicals. And you can often get out of a funk simply by adding a splash of good memories. If your memory makes you smile – and by that, I mean physically smile – that’s even better.

The act of smiling also adjusts that chemical cocktail.

It may seem odd that you can change your frame of mind in this way, but you really can.

So even if you are feeling on top of the world right now, you may want to think about those positive moments from the past – make a mental list of them — so you have all the ingredients you need at hand, ready to help you handle one of those bad days.

Rename your “To-Do” list to your “Opportunities” list

To give yourself a daily lift in self-esteem, get into the habit of using to-do lists.

I have an ongoing list of things I need to get done and the days by which they are due.

When I get up in the morning, I can immediately see my tasks for the day.

As each item is completed, I check a box next to the article.

As the day progresses, more and more items get checked off.

At the end of the day, I can look at my list – at all the items with check marks against them – and I feel good.

I feel good because I can see what I have done with my day. I can see I have had a productive day. I can see that I have made progress and am moving forward.

The funny thing – I used to simply delete items from the list as I progressed through each day. But…that didn’t make me feel as good, because at the end of the day I could no longer see the complete list of what I had done.

So now I use a system where I can just check that box. I still delete the items at the end of the day, but I like to look at the day’s list, all with their check marks before I do that.

This is one of those weird mind games one has to play with oneself. It shouldn’t make any difference to us whether or not we can “see” what we have achieved each day, but somehow it does.

What program or service do I use for my to-do list? I have tried numerous services, a few of which I paid for. But now I just use the tasks function within Google Calendar. I have the calendar open to see my various appointments for the week, and on the same screen can see my task items for the day.

If you are not doing this already, try it. It will make you feel good.

The Great Outdoors Can Teach Us Entrepreneurship Lessons

If you've listened to a few of my podcasts, you know I find business inspiration in the oddest places: the dentist's office; kid's shows, and Mr Bean; heck, even learning Italian has given me some lessons about running a business.

So it should be no surprise that on a recent hike in Plenty Gorge, Mernda's urban outdoors setting, inspiration struck once again. Even if you don't get outside much, you can take these lessons to heart.

The feeling of awe is a powerful thing. We can feel it when watching a gymnast performing some incredible feat, or at the birth of a child, or in nature.

That moment of awe has a profound effect on us. It’s a little like a reset button, allowing us to view everything afresh. All the jumbled-up worries and thoughts in our minds are swept away.

For myself – perhaps because I don’t have easy access to gymnasts, and have just the right number of children already – I find awe in nature.

Is your content created simply to market your podcast or site, or to actually inform your listeners and readers?

A lot of coaches, consultants and small businesses create content simply for the purpose of marketing their websites, blogs or podcasts.

We are driven by the knowledge that content is king and the creation of content is a powerful means to attract new visitors.

In other words, we use the content as bait. We end up just creating content for content's sake

But when we do this, are we really giving our readers or listeners what they really want?

Another way to look at it would be to view your website, podcast or blog as a library.

For a moment, imagine your site as a physical library, built with bricks and mortar, and stocked with research books and old texts.

Now think about what kinds of books you would buy for your library.

In the real world of bricks and mortar, you would buy and display books according to what the public wanted to find there.

You would cater to their tastes and have a few reference books on the shelves that might be rather mundane in their subject matter, but are nevertheless what your readers want to find.

Now imagine a physical library where the librarian thought more like a website creator or editor. He or she would probably buy books that are new, exciting and provocative.

The reference books would give way to bestsellers. In fact, the librarian would be driven to choose books that attract the most attention and ignore the useful, information-packed books that people really wanted to find.

Such a library might attract some attention at first but would soon lose favour.

People come to the internet to get information. And if they get this from our websites, they get to know, like and trust us. And we all know, people do business with those they know, like and trust.

Readers might be excited by what they first find there. But they would stop coming back as soon as they discovered that the library no longer offered the full range of useful, informative reference materials they really wanted.

We can fall into the same trap with our websites and blogs as coaches, consultants or small businesses.

We create content that grabs attention, hooks readers and hopefully, is shared far and wide through social media. To put it another way, we use the content as a means to market our site or business.

But all too often we forget to create content that is actually useful. We don’t like publishing what we consider to be boring content, even if it is what our readers are really looking for.

The best sites – the ones that get it right – are those that find the right balance.

Yes, they create fresh, exciting content as a means to market their sites. But at the same time, they also create content that is deep, useful and helpful.

Going back to the library analogy, by all means, create an entrance area that is filled with bestsellers and other exciting, provocative and eye-catching books. But behind that entrance area, be sure to stock the shelves with the deep body of reference materials your readers are looking for.

Check out your own website or blog now. Do an audit.

Do you have the right balance? Or do you offer too much brain candy and too little serious reference material?

Grow your blog post audience by always writing from the customer’s perspective.

The problem is that, for coaches, consultants and small business owners to create great blog content that keeps people engaged (and returning for more), you have to know why people read blog posts. Your blogs, specifically.

• What led them to your brand?
• What are they trying to accomplish when they read your blog?

In short: you should be writing content that’s valuable from the customer’s perspective, not yours. Blog posts about your product features and company events? They’re okay to include in your larger content library, but they’re not what’s going to drive organic traffic to your site.

In this podcast, I’m going to cover why people read blogs and how you can use that information to grow your blog post audience.

Your new subscribers, site visitors and audience don’t know who you are, yet.

Do people even really understand what you do these days?

What’s the watered down, back-to-basics story of what you do, what you stand for, and who you are?

• How would you tell that story to your audience?
• How do you tell it on your blog?
• And what does it look like in under 140 characters?

Starting fresh is somewhat harder than it seems sometimes, but the effort is really important.

If you are a coach, consultant or small business owner, what story would you tell anew for people who have forgotten who you are and what you mean for for those who already know of you? If you’re a solo business selling some service, how do you tell your story in such a way that it resonates with your prospective audience?

As you move forward with your career, many of your readers have stepped in half way through the narrative. They may not know where you “came from” or how and why you do what you are doing today.

The challenge we all face, certainly as coaches, consultants and small business owners, is to speak to all of our readers and customers effectively, whether they have known us for 10 years or just 10 days.

We not only need to communicate where we are today but also how we got here.

The internet is driven by, community, conversations and content.

Think about how often you see businesses shouting their messages at their audience. No engagement, no context, no conversation.

Those brands look spammy and self-centred, not exactly trustworthy.

Brands that foster community on the other hand clearly care about their customers. They converse with their customers, sometimes even one-on-one.

They want to learn more about their interests, needs, and behaviours. They want to solve their customer’s problems.

As a result, their customers care about them and what they have to say in return. They become loyal to these brands.

Tip your hat to those companies. They knew how to build an online community.

What Does It Mean to Be an Affable Person?

I was talking to a client the other day and came across a discovery about how people choose their doctors, coaches or consultants.

And this is where the 3 A’s come in.

1. Affability,
2. Availability and
3. Ability.

When a doctor is affable, that means he or she is friendly, empathetic and appears genuinely caring.

Availability is about how long the patient will have to wait to get an appointment.

And ability speaks to the patient’s sense of just how good or bad the doctor is at his or her job.

What interested me was that the client I was talking to, was just expecting the social media, funnels and website we had created for them to do all the heavy lifting.

I had to let the client know these 3 A’s are listed according to their importance to the patient.

In other words, patients care most about their doctor being affable, then about their availability, and finally about their ability.

Yes, their ability was listed last.

Of course, this doesn’t mean people don’t care about how good or bad their doctors are. And maybe people place it last in part because it is very hard for us to make a judgement as to how good a doctor might be.

That’s how it works with doctors and patients. And maybe we can learn from this when figuring out what a client is looking for when he or she mulls over whether or not to hire us.

I think many of us coaches, consultants and small business owners assume that clients are most interested in determining our abilities.

• How good are we?
• Are we good enough to do the job?

So as coaches, consultants and small business owners we put a lot of effort into providing proof of our ability, using testimonials, case studies and the like.

I think what we do less well when prospecting for clients is displaying our affability and our availability.

Making it clear that we are available and ready to start work on their project today is easily done. You can simply put an online booking system on your website or social media.

Demonstrating our affability is a little harder, and takes more time.

Let’s look at the topic of affability in this podcast in a little more detail.

Why? Because I suspect it is a lot more important than we think when it comes to securing a client.

Because the hard things ultimately build you up and change your life.

Many people often take the easy way out of, well, everything. They take shortcuts in life and often times they end up living a life that is less than fulfilling. A new idea – probably the best idea – is to do the hard things in life instead.

This means making decisions to do the things that other people aren’t willing to do, or the things that you’ve always avoided doing.

In this podcast, we discuss some valid reasons why doing the hard things is the best way to live your life.

The ‘hard things’ in life can be whatever you think they are.

Like getting up before sunrise to exercise even when you want to sleep in. Mowing your elderly neighbour’s lawn after mowing yours for three hours.

All these things make a difference, help others, and essentially make you a better, healthier, happier, and fulfilled individual.

Your services can be generic, but your message can’t be

In the early stages of their business, coaches, consultants and small business owners often struggle to come up with really strong messaging to describe what they are selling, and this has a huge impact on their ability to raise money, find customers, and attract employees.

This is not that surprising, as it can be really hard to arrive at great messaging that is simple and appealing.

This focuses on how to get messaging and positioning right so you can have a business that's profitable and enjoyable.

There are two reasons why you need to have a clear message about what you are offering:

1. You need it to connect with customers, investors, potential employees, the press, etc. and if you don’t have a simple, compelling message, they won’t bother to learn more. They won’t take the time to learn about, and ultimately love and share your product. More so, if you don’t steer how people think about your product, the market will make up its own version which may not match your vision.
2. Every touch point a customer or potential customer has with your product or company will shape their view of you. It’s critical that each of those touchpoints send the same message. When you create a clear brand message, it ensures your team is fully aligned. This gets everyone moving in the same direction, telling the same story and creating consistent touch points for your customers.

Your services can be generic, but your message can’t be.

Your primary message, as viewed on the home page of your website, or in that elevator, has to be exciting to both yourself and your readers.

It has to convey value, and it has to make your prospect want to work with you, and nobody else.