One of the reasons many small or solo entrepreneurs fail to promote is because they aren’t sure what will work or they don’t want to feel like they’re being pushy or “salesy”.  Another reason may be that they are not doing any active promotion. Active promotion requires you to speak with a prospect in person or over the phone, not through an e-mail or Facebook message and it’s much more powerful in establishing a real connection.

Speaking is the fastest, easiest way to catapult your business to a whole new level and have clients seeking you out. Developing a speaking strategy can fill your business with eager clients very quickly. It works perfectly whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for some time. In fact if you’re at the starting gate, pick up the phone this week and start calling local organizations whose members are in your target market and offer to speak at one of their meetings.

Before you seek out speaking opportunities, you’ll want to prepare so you get the results you want by creating a signature speech or presentation that gets people interested in working with you. Here is a simple formula that will get you started. Ask yourself these questions:

•    What are the top 3 problems people in my market have that I can solve?
•    What are the top 3 mistakes people make that create these problems?
•    What are the top 3 results I can deliver?

Now develop a 45-minute talk that explains these problems, the mistakes people make that get them there, and the changes that will eliminate these problems. Start with your story or the story of a client who you have successfully helped navigate the path from problem to result. Conclude your talk by mentioning the programs or products that help you clients achieve these results.

Even if you are not permitted to “sell from the stage” you can offer people a wonderful gift—your giveaway—in exchange for their name and e-mail address so you can add them to your subscriber list. Or you can offer the first 5 people who approach you after your presentation an opportunity to pick your brain in a “complimentary phone discovery session”.  These are just a few of the many ways you can almost instantly turn speaking into clients.

There are so many ways that speaking can attract people to you and give you what you need to succeed, like–

•    More subscribers
•    More social media followers
•    More website traffic
•    More interested leads
•    More clients
•    More visibility in your market
•    More online sales….
And more income.

I’m going to challenge you to make this a key marketing strategy in your business and you’ll easily fill your business with eager clients who are excited about working with you.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can turn speaking into sales, join me and 7 other top experts at the Speaking to Sales Online Conference. Each of these experts have turned speaking into six or seven figures in sales. You can attend free by registering here — http://speakingtosales.com/

Each week I’ll list the weekly challenge below. Take me up on a challenge, then let me know if you need help or better yet, share your results with others who are doing the same. Let’s have a conversation and build your business!

Challenge #1

Get outside your comfort zone by setting up 3 phone conversations with prospects who are subscribers or social media followers. Offer your them a limited opportunity to talk with you by phone, but tell them what they’ll get from the conversation, for example “3 fast action steps”. Offer it as a complimentary assessment, discovery session or laser focus call. Then take the opportunity to get to know them and gently lead them toward a product or program that will help them get the results they need. This is a really effective and fast way to easily enroll people who need your help into the programs or products that will help them quickly.

If you’re going after organizations, then set up “get to know you” phone calls with prospects you’re connected with on Linked In or Facebook. Offer to share some insights or knowledge that might help them. Either way, take the challenge! If you did this each week, can you imagine how busy you’d be?

Challenge #2

1. Make a list of local organizations where you could find members of your target market
2. Identify and write down the top 3 biggest problems your prospects face that you can solve
3. Create a presentation outline and title it to address one of those challenges. Include 3 to 5 key points you’ll cover that will give people a reason to listen and to want to learn more from you
4. Call these organizations and tell them you have a wonderful presentation that their members will benefit from and ask what to do to get on their speaking schedule.

Come back each week to see the new weekly challenge. Are you TAKING ACTION or just reading these and forgetting about them. As Suzy Orman says, “stand in your truth”. Challenge yourself to grab your dream!

Challenge # 3

• Write a 500 word article about a topic covered by your product or program, making sure you have great keywords in the title and content
• Make the article into a 2 minute video or record it as an audio. You can talk into the camera or create a powerpoint video with audio using Jing
• Post the article on your blog and keyword tag it (this is what gets results).
• Be sure your keywords are what someone might search for who could use your product
• Post it to 5 article directories, including www.ideamarketers.com and www.ezinearticles.com. You’ll need a short bio and a link back to your product page
• Post the video to YouTube and other 4 other video sites. Be sure to tag your video with your keywords.
• Post the links to your blog and video on Twitter and Facebook over several days and encourage people to check it out.

• Do the same thing every single week and you won’t believe the results. CONSISTENCY is crucial.

Here’s a video I did with Marnie Pehrson who owns IdeaMarketers.com.They get 600,000 page views each month and you could be on the landing page!

It just amazes me that many retail businesses are still not web savvy. They are still doing the same old, tired print advertising, and their websites are often vintage 2000. In the same way, service based businesses who rely on online sales can fall behind by using marketing methods that worked like gangbusters five years ago but are much less effective now. Let me give you some examples.

E-mail marketing was king a few years ago, but is less effective today. Open rates are down and if you are relying solely on e-mail you may be struggling a bit. Today you have to give people a compelling reason to open your emails or they’ll hit the delete button in two seconds. Tele-class marketing was also more effective than it is now, although it still works. But just like emails, people have so many choices now that they’ll only chose you if your subject and content are tightly focused on delivering information they really want.

Some marketing activities are timeless and continue to be effective, like one-to-one phone calls, focused networking and well written direct mail. It’s just that the way you implement them changes as the technology changes. Many people now use an online scheduler to schedule phone calls. Networking groups are more savvy and focused then they were years ago. And there are many more options for getting creative with direct mail, like using SendOut Cards for example.

What’s currently working?  Video and webinars. If you haven’t dipped your toe into video marketing, I’d start right away. Video is like watching TV for many people, plus it gives you a chance to personally speak to your prospects. Audio is a close second. Combine the two and you have a really effective way to build a relationship with your prospects that result in sales.

Websites have changed too. If you haven’t updated your website in the last few years chances are it looks outdated and may be sending visitors straight to someone else’s website. The look that works now includes clean, bright colors, lots of white space, videos on key pages and a call to action on every page. If you’re not using WordPress, think of making the switch. It has so many advantages I can’t even list them in this short article.

And don’t forget about creating a social media strategy. Building a following of people in your target market on Twitter, Facebook and Linked In is a must, and that means spending a bit of time daily interacting with your followers and offering them great tips, insights and resources on a regular basis, as well as sharing a bit of the real you—who you are as a person. The more you open up and build a real relationship the more likely it is that your followers will become loyal fans, clients and buzz builders. And the more people that recommend you through social media, the larger your following will grow.

What’s emerging now are technologies like automated audio and webinar systems that deliver content to your prospects as if live, and allows them to choose the time that’s most convenient for them to “attend”. This allows you to re-cycle your webinars and tele-classes over and over and invite new people on a regular basis without a lot of time required on your part.

Take some time to really study what’s working today and then update your marketing to use those tools and strategies that people are responding to now and you’ll see a dramatic increase in subscribers, fans, leads and clients.

To get started, make a list of what you’re currently doing each week to promote your business and see if you can add any of the suggestions I’ve made here.

This is the time of year when you may find yourself slowing down in your business to focus on the holidays. It’s easy to use this as a reason to put your business on the back burner, when instead you need to be doing the opposite. Okay we all need time off and you know I’m a big believer in wrapping your business around your life. So I’m not talking about taking a week off to enjoy your family and friends and to celebrate. I do that as well, and have always done so, even when I owned restaurants.

I’m talking about getting everything ready to have a stellar year next year. This means

• asking yourself what is working, what’s not working and what needs to change
• taking time to create a 6-month to 1-year Business Design so you can hit the new year running
• thinking through what is taking up too much time in your business and implementing systems or getting outsourced help to eliminate these time thieves
• having the courage to be completely honest with yourself about what habits need to change, such as money mindset, fears, procrastination, thinking you need to do it all alone
• figuring out how to build the support team you need to soar.

What problems, challenges or questions have been baffling you or holding you back? Sometimes just having access to the answers can start you on a new road to eliminating a roadblock and getting more clients.

Here are just  few of the questions I get regularly.

• Why am I not getting more subscribers?
• How can I create a more effective website?
• How can I quickly generate some cash flow?
• How can I quickly get more clients?
• How can I create an audio product?
• How can I sell using tele-classes?
• How can I lower my expenses?
• How can I get past my fear of promoting my services?
• How can I learn the technology I need to succeed? It scares me.
• What are the marketing strategies that work best?
• How can I get clients from social media?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m doing something unprecedented. I want to help you get unstuck and moving forward toward next year in a big way. So I’ll be answering your most pressing questions in a video. All you have to do is ask your questions below by Friday December 16th.

I’ll be answering your most pressing questions. So Get Coached. It’s absolutely FREE access to some top level insights and strategies.

Why am I doing this? It’s to celebrate the launch of my best coaching program ever– Step Up & Soar, where a small group of serious entrepreneurs will get personal mentoring from me, high level marketing, mindset and strategy training, mastermind calls, how-to videos, templates, scripts, specific action plans and 20 hours of website and traffic generation assistance from my outsourced team.

So go ahead and put your questions in the comment box below.

Some months ago I became involved in a relationship. In spite of my initial hesitation and after being patiently but ardently pursued by the other person I slowly let go and began to trust that it could work. I began to open up to trust and love. Things seemed to be blossoming until I began to see subtle signs that he might not be capable of fully participating in a deeply intimate and emotionally committed relationship even though he desired it. Unfortunately I ignored the signs, hoping that maybe an open two-way communication could resolve the bumps along the road even though I could feel my serenity slipping away.

Not long afterward I returned from vacation and found a message waiting for me in my email inbox from this person suddenly ending the relationship, and with only a vague explanation. Wow. My immediate reaction was hurt, shock and disappointment that commitment and trust could be so lightly discarded. I always like to see the best in people and assume they will honor the trust you’ve given them, or at least be able to have an open and honest conversation if they can’t. However not everyone is capable of this because, let’s face it, open and transparent communication can be scary and it takes a certain type of courage.

Most of us have probably been in this place of heartbreak and sadness but I determined that I would not get stuck there.  I immediately turned to what I call my “transform-it toolkit”. These are the tools I have mindfully chosen that can create a true mindset and heart-set shift so I can accept what is, and create inner change.

Your toolkit can include regular practices that work for you such as: meditation, prayer, contemplation, nature walks, yoga, reading inspirational books or scriptures that help you shift, and powerful conversation with loving, safe, trustworthy and non-judgmental friends. Using your toolkit regularly is what keeps you emotionally and spiritually open to amazing possibilities in your life that you can’t even imagine because you haven’t experienced them yet.

The purpose of this toolkit is to help lead you quickly toward healing and toward total honesty with yourself.  You see, it’s easy to get stuck in anger, blame or sadness, or simply shut off your feelings but I knew that wasn’t where I wanted to stay because I chose to live in joy.  My toolkit helps me quickly release old pain, anger, shame, guilt, sadness or indifference and reveal these 4 Big Truths–

1.      Everything happens for a reason. Our job is to figure out the reason and the lesson

2.      Everything that happens holds a mirror up to me to show me where I need to change and be more honest with myself. It can be hard to swallow and I may chose to ignore it and stay in my comfort zone, but I do so at the expense of never knowing deeper love, greater joy or never feeling or experiencing life fully

3.      Each person is at a different place on the path we all travel toward knowing ourselves fully and being emotionally mature, open and loving. If we each try to respect where the other is, then we can let them move at their pace, not ours, even if that means leaving them behind.

4.      I am totally responsible for the life I create and how I react to every situation that occurs in my life.

So when that unexpected email landed in my in-box signaling the end of my relationship my first step was to surround myself with loving, spiritually grounded friends to get some perspective on the situation. Next I worked on revealing these 4 truths by using the tools that work for me. One powerful tool is The Work of Byron Katie and her book “Loving What Is”. With her simple but profound 4-step process I can uncover the answers to these questions:

• What is the reason and what is the lesson?
• Where is the situation a mirror I need to hold up to myself? What judgment have I made of the other (person or situation) that also mirrors something I need to look at in myself?
• How can I accept the other—the person or situation I’ve judged—as being exactly where they are, not where I want them to be? Our minds keep saying “what if?” but that thought just keeps us stuck expecting the other to be something they can’t be at this point in their life’s journey. They aren’t ready and maybe that means they will never fully experience what you know is possible, but that is their choice to make.
• How can I surrender the person or situation and let it go with light and love, even when I know it’s not what I would have wished, but it is WHAT IS.
• How can I use this new understanding of myself to transform my life, my situation, my relationships, my business for the bette

Other “tools” that reinforce this work for me are meditation and contemplation.  One of several revelations I had was that I needed to express –and stay grounded in–the essence of who I am more openly and powerfully in my life and my business (I’m starting here), and that I need to be in loving relationships only with others who want to do the same. This will take courage and I’m working on it each day.

Just like your life, your business is a reflection of you. If your thoughts and beliefs about yourself, your relationships or your situation are limiting; if you are blaming others and not looking in the mirror; if you are hiding from the truth so you don’t have to feel emotional discomfort, then how can you fully express who you are in the world and how can you attract the right people or situations to you?

So what do you do when you’re hurt, frustrated, stuck or discouraged? You get out your “Transform It Toolkit” and put it to work for you. Using my toolkit has created not only healing and a deeper understanding of myself, but is helping me land in a much better place, and putting together and using your own toolkit can do the same for you.

And yes, it takes courage, time and patience to be open and vulnerable, to admit mistakes, to change old habits and beliefs that are closing you off from the life you want to live. And this means—to borrow a phrase used by several of my colleagues—you have to put on your Big Girl (or Big Boy) Panties! But you do need to chose—do you want to simply survive or do you want to thrive.

Using your toolkit can clear your inner path of debris and darkness so you can let your Divine and powerful light express itself fully.

I’d love to know what’s in your toolkit and how it’s made a difference in your life. Please share your thoughts by posting a comment below…

As a small business owner, you’ve no doubt heard that even the best marketing and sales advice in the world won’t do you any good if you don’t take action on it.

And as true as the previous statement is, if you are like most entrepreneurs, you’ve never taken the time to reflect on exactly what “taking action” really means, much less how you can possibly improve the quality of the actions you take.

The word “action” simply means to do something, and here’s where most small business people excel…

answering endless emails, returning phone calls, running errands, spending time on the various social media platforms, sending out a promotional email for a colleague, listening to teleconferences and webinars and a thousand other things. By the end of a typical business day, you’re likely exhausted from all the actions you’ve taken!

But there’s another half to our definition of action…

the word “action” means not only to do something but to do something typically in order to achieve an aim or goal.

And here’s where many small business owners, perhaps including you, fail miserably. You don’t think about the actions you are going to take on a given day and just go running helter-skelter from one fire to another, from the time your feet hit the floor in the morning to the time your head hits the pillow at night.

And yes, to be fair, you probably do accomplish some things. But at the end of each day, how many of those things actually benefitted other people’s businesses more than they served to benefit yours?

Hmmmmm…does that hit a little too close to home?

I thought so.

But listen, you are not alone. All of us, me included, can all too easily get caught up in the world of information overwhelm, deadlines and expectations placed on us by other people.

There IS a way out.

This solution is not glamorous but when it’s applied consistently, can free you forever from days spent spinning your wheels and can be seen in the word “action” itself.

To act is the essence of action, but as a well-known Buddhist precept reminds us, only “right actions” that have value. In my business, I have a systematic process I go through to help determine if my actions are right. And although I don’t have time or space to go through my system here, I will explain one piece of it that can be very helpful to you.

Let’s take a look at what “right action” means in business using the simple acronym A.C.T.

A: assess the situation – Here’s the crucial question I always ask my business coaching clients when they ask my opinion on a course of action I’m about to take: What is the purpose of what you are about do? In other words, what do you want the outcome to be and what do you hope to achieve from this action?

Often, just stopping to reflect on this one question can bring immense clarity and focus to your plans.

C: calculate your next steps – taking the purpose of what you are hoping to achieve into account (from A, above) formulate your next step.

Example: if the purpose of your actions is to generate quick cashflow, then trying to put a membership site together which includes lots of valuable content and resources is definitely not the next step to take. Perhaps having a sale and sending a quick email out to your list is a better course of action. I think you get the idea.

The important point here is not so much on what specific action you take, but that you take time to reflect on your desired outcome before you take the action. This sounds simple, but is so often neglected.

T: tap into your resources – now that you have decided on your next step, tap into your resources to help you accomplish it. Perhaps you have decided to write a new blog post every day. Well, have you thought about asking some of your colleagues to contribute content so you can showcase them as experts (and so you don’t have to do all of the work yourself?)

And think also, before you take action, is this the best use of your most valuable resource, your time? Maybe answering all that email first thing in the morning is not serving you well. In this instance, a simple rearrangement of your schedule may be the most valuable action you can take.

So yes, as a small business owner, action is definitely required. But remember to A.C.T…assess the situation, calculate your next steps and tap into your resources.

Right action = right results!

To get on the path to consistently taking “right action” in your business, grab your free copy of Ellen’s highly acclaimed “digital conversation” Zen and the Art of Email List Building, at http://www.MarketingQi.com

Award-winning Online Marketing Strategist and Amazon best-selling author Dr. Ellen Britt is the co-founder of Marketing Qi, helping savvy women entrepreneurs (and a few cool men!) develop the business strategies they need to get the success they want. Ellen specializes in mentoring her clients to see their businesses strategically and then guides them to combine the results with a custom, highly leveraged business model designed to produce immediate cash flow and continued profits.

If you’re struggling in your business because you don’t have a BIG enough reach to connect with your potential clients, you’ll want to explore how Expert Interviews can boost your list building, power up your joint venture partnerships and generate income.

The simplest model of a joint venture is the Expert Interview. Here’s the Enlightened Listbuilding™ 8-step road map to grow your business with Expert Interviews:

1. Identify your Tribe’s burning issues. You need to know the problems and issues your Tribe is ready to resolve. Do your market research and hone in on the topics your tribe is ready to take action on.

2. Find and connect with joint venture partners that can deliver the solutions. Find savvy joint venture partners that are a joy and a pleasure to partner with AND who best align with you, your Tribe and the urgent problems they need help with.

3. Schedule a phone conversation to explore partnering on an Expert Interview. Craft a winning conversation that creates rapport, connection and synergy. Connect first, then explore the benefits of this collaboration – sharing your great content/message, building your list and generating income. Partner authentically to grow your business, share your joint venture partner’s expertise and serve your subscribers.

4. Create online event invitations that are compelling. Get your Tribe to connect with you and your offer with magnetic messages that elicit curiosity and engagement. You want to attract participants that are engaged by your topic, eager for your expert’s solution and ready to partner on a resolution.

5. Build buzz and visibility for your online event. Identify colleagues, clients, mentors and other partners who are willing to help you get the word out about your event. Use a targeted social media strategy to help you build buzz and drive traffic to your event registration page.

6. Host a sizzling expert interview. Create an experience; it is the BEST marketing you’ll EVER do! Host a ‘cool conversation’ that delivers great content, generates income and grows your list authentically. Create an Experience That SELLS, So You Don’t Have To.

7. Boost your impact and income by re-purposing your expert interview. Leverage you expert interview so that you continue to grow your list, share your message, create visibility and generate income.

8. Turbo charge your list building by hosting a targeted telesummit. Give your list building a quantum boost. This is an advanced strategy with a good number of moving parts. If you’re ready for it, and have the support, it is the quickest way to build an engaged following.

You cannot grow your business in a vacuum. It is through the power of partnership that your reach will increase at the speed of light. List building with Expert Interviews is a strategy that boosts your business in no time at all.

Learn how to grow your business with joint ventures at Enlightened Listbuilding™, where you’ll receive training videos and tips to help you build authority, increase visibility and position your message powerfully.

Adela Rubio is a Joint Venture Strategist who helps conscious entrepreneurs share their message and build their tribe using listbuilding strategies. She is an expert at creating engaging and experiential online virtual events that position you as a thought leader while leveraging your talent, tribe, and technology. Let Adela teach your how powerful partnerships can be. Download Adela’s free audio “Creating Powerful Partnerships” at http://adelarubio.com today!

If you’re in this situation the effect on you is that you can easily become discouraged and start to believe that the dream is an impossible one. That leads to lack of motivation or becoming stuck.

What we’ve been taught to believe is that if you have a dream you simply have to follow this 3-step formula

• Set goals
• Take Action
• Get the results you want

Unfortunately this formula is missing some crucial stumbling blocks. Because it’s WHAT actions you take that determine the outcome you get, and the actions you take are determined by three factors:

1)      Your underlying beliefs, thoughts and level of confidence—in other words having an entrepreneurial mindset

2)      Whether you have a healthy mindset and relationship around money

3)      Knowing what to do that will work–in other words, which specific proven strategies and action steps will actually get you the results you want

Sadly I often see people who talk to me passionately about their dream, but when we start digging to see what’s happening in their business, what their challenges are and why they are stuck, what often emerges is that the marketing message and branding is not working, and that there is no real profitable business model in place, that they simply do not have an entrepreneurial mindset. If your website is outdated, ineffective and not getting any traffic; if you are not promoting your business enough or are unsure how and where to find the clients you need to dramatically increase your income; if your marketing systems and business structure have never been developed because you just didn’t know how to do so, then how can keep growing? After all, how can you do what you don’t know how to do?

When you do what you know but it’s not working; when you work hard but are still barely getting by, then the dream starts to hurt. It starts to seem like a lost possibility. What saddens me is when I see that people gradually start running their business based on a belief that they can’t make the money they deserve. And it becomes a “catch 22”. Saying “I can’t afford to invest in my business” becomes a mantra that comes from fear and keeps you stuck exactly where you are—doing what’s not working. Because it stops you from getting the help you need to breakthrough your personal roadblocks and learn the step-by-step skills and strategies that will make your dream a reality.

Thinking big and having a big dream only work when you want it so badly that you’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it. In many cases the reason behind the dream is the desire for financial freedom, the passion for doing what you love and the desire to be of service. How strong is your passion? Are you willing to step outside your comfort zone and try a new approach?

Here are some important and tough questions to ask yourself so you can begin to turn things around:

• Do you truly believe you can make the kind of money that will create a lucrative lifestyle business? If the answer is no, then ask yourself why you believe this?
• Are you charging what you’re worth or simply selling time for dollars?
• If you kept doing what you’re doing now, would you be any closer to the dream in six months? If not, what needs to change?
• Do you have a big, but realistic dollar-for-dollar written plan for exactly how you will create a six-figure income?
• What  action could you take today to get a new client?

Your business depends on your honesty in answering these questions. And so does your dream. So take the plunge. Don’t settle for stagnation. Don’t let thinking big hurt when thinking big combined with the right action steps can transform your dream into your everyday life.

Building your sphere of influence is like fishing with a net—okay I’ve never fished with a net, but I have a good imagination! If you fish with a pole you catch just one fish. You can move your boat and cast the pole again and maybe catch another fish. But you’ll only have two fish. If you cast a net just once, you could end up with a boatload of fish that will feed many people.

If you are struggling to get enough clients, most likely you haven’t gathered enough fish in your prospect net from which to cultivate clients, or you just aren’t promoting your services often enough. Or both. Let’s look at how casting your net widely can influence the results you get.

Your ultimate net is your e-mail list. This is your biggest asset. But you can also build a network of fans and followers in other ways. If you create a product or program and you can only introduce it to 100 people because that is the number of fans, followers and subscribers you have, you can imagine how hard it will be to make money since the average conversion rate is around 2% to 3%. But if you had, say 2000 subscribers, 200 members of a social media group that you created, and another 2000 followers on Facebook and Linked In, although this is not huge, your sales would be significantly more IF you have built a solid relationship with those people.

This is why a significant amount of time every week needs to be dedicated to attracting traffic, subscribers, followers and fans and following up with them to build a trusting relations. Much of this can be outsourced but if either element is missing—attraction and nurturing—your sphere of influence will not grow.

Now let’s talk about the crucial importance of nurturing and building relationships with these people. Just accumulating names like trophies won’t get you far. People want to know you care about them and their success. So it’s important that you decide ahead of time what will happen on the back end once people begin to follow you. How will you prove to them that you are a valuable expert? How will you show them that you can get results? How can you gently build excitement with them about your products or programs? Decide ahead of time so you are set to go once people find you.

You may not realize this, but your most important job is promoting your business and building your sphere of influence. No matter how outstanding you are at what you do, if no one knows about you, you won’t be able to share your talents and make money doing so. Think about how you spend each day. Are you spending too much time researching, perfecting, pondering, responding to e-mails, or just unfocused or overwhelmed? Re-focus your time on building your sphere of influence and start offering product, programs and services to these new fans. They don’t have to be perfect. They just have to help and people will be happy they found you.

Actively working on attracting followers and nurturing the relationship–these two strategies alone can quite literally double your sales. Turn this into a rinse and repeat system and you will be able to stop worrying about how to get new clients.

I certainly understand how easy it is to slip into default in our daily, busy lives and to forget to work on expanding ourselves to a new level of consciousness. It’s easy to settle for where we are, even if it’s not where we really want to be. I think that we all go through cycles where we do this.

I also know from working with hundreds of talented business owners, that if we stay in that place we’re truly sabotaging our long term success because we’re not growing, and we’re not facing those hidden beliefs and fears that are holding us back and then working on changing them.

Recently I took a good, hard look at some situations in my life that were not quite as I wanted them to be. It seemed that I had achieved and received about 80% of the outcome I had hoped for but the other 20% eluded me.

Then it hit me like a lightning bolt—the missing 20% fell into an area where I had experienced doubt, where I had been feeling resistance and fear and even voicing concern to close friends and confidants. It wasn’t just chance that I had not gotten a 100% outcome. I had gotten the exact outcome from the Universe that I had asked for. The 20% I didn’t get was the part where I was literally and unconsciously saying “no, I don’t want that”.

Have you experienced this in your business or your personal life? No matter how hard you push or try, it seems like you’re on a very steep uphill climb. You’re working really hard but not getting the results you say you want. Here are 3 simple steps that will break the cycle.

1. Write down specifically what’s not working.
2. Then honestly ask yourself what you truly fear, believe or are resisting that is causing these unwanted results.
3. Begin to work daily on becoming very aware of your fear or resistance around this issue and letting it go by affirming the opposite. Become aware where you may be clinging to your belief out of fear.

For example, if you fear that you will never make a generous and consistent income from your business, then no matter how hard you try, you won’t. I’ve seen this happen more times than you’d imagine to small or solo business owners who proclaim vehemently that they “can’t afford it”—“it” being something that is crucial to them growing their business. It could be anything from a professionally designed website to coaching or mentoring that they truly need. Whatever it is, they believe or fear they can never make enough money to justify investing in themselves, and the result they get is exactly that–not enough money, even though they have the expertise to create great success.

Try doing the 3 steps above and you won’t believe what starts to open up and be revealed.

My real “aha” moment was seeing that we can understand the concept that we need to change the way we think, but unless that concept has traveled the long road from our head to our heart, we haven’t really gotten it on a profound level. You can know what works in theory, but until you feel it deeply you will probably not take action to change it.
This is the reason that two smart women can learn the same business building strategies, and while one will jump on it and succeed in no time, the other will take months. The second wasn’t quite ready to make that journey from knowing what would work to feeling moved deeply to go after it.

I’ll be working on manifesting my missing 20%. What about you?