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4 Business Areas To Focus On In 2022

4 Business Areas To Focus On In 2022

by | Jan 5, 2022 | Business foundations

  1. Marketing
  2. Operations
  3. Business Model

This is all about the reason your business exists and the ideas and big why upon which it is built. It’s the message you share with the world. Under purpose it’s important to explore and identify those very things that makes your business unique — it’s what separates you from others in your field and helps people to know that you are the business owner they want to work with.

  • Your core message, which I describe as the big idea behind your business. Not sure what yours is, consider what business related idea you would share if you were to give a TED talk. Mine for reference is this: When you change the way you do business, you change the world. You can read more about what I mean by this here.
  • Your point of view, which is basically your take on how to solve the problem the problems your clients have. It’s your opinion on the best possible course of action to get the results people are looking for. To read more about point of view head here.
  • Your framework, this is the how of your business, it’s your particular approach to facilitating the transformation your clients seek. What I’m sharing here in this blog is, in essence, my framework for building and growing a conscious and sustainable business.

This as an “area” to focus on can often feel huge and overwhelming, especially given how much conflicting and toxic advice there is out there on the internet. Personally, I like to keep it simple. First of all I like to reframe marketing from marketing to our audience to connecting with our audience. Often the first step we need to make is to change how we think about marketing. Click here for more on that.

  • Practice regular outreach, which essentially involves reaching out to people 1:1 and developing meaningful relationships, which over time inevitably lead to sales as well as a host of other opportunities and friendships. To watch a presentation I gave about outreach, head here.
  • Conduct audience research. I can’t tell you how many people fail to ask their audience what they think, what they are struggling and what they want. Conducting audience research is a wonderful way to build relationships, get invaluable information about how to help our ideal clients and a great source of the specific language we can use to better connect with our ideal clients and get sales. To read about different ways to do this head here.
  • Offer a generous freebie. I’m not a fan of pithy email opt-ins designed to get people on your list but I am a fan of generous freebies, such as full, pitch free gift sessions or high value free workshops (as opposed to time-wasting webinars). In my experience when you wow people with a generous freebie, both sales and loyalty are much more likely. To read more about my approach to gift sessions head here.
  • Your processes and systems. As my business has grown, I’ve had to get serious about having strong systems in place. If I didn’t it would be chaos over here. Often we think that we don’t need systems (because we’re still small) or that systems will stifle our creativity but I promise you that having solid systems in place allows you to focus on the important work of delivering your services without wasting countless hours on unnecessary admin and busy work. To access a systems checklist I use with clients, head here. (If you make a copy you’ll then be able to edit).
  • Your support system, i.e. the tools and software you use, the tasks you outsource (or could) and any people you employ and how these work together to save you valuable time.

Your business model is the way you bring money into your business and as such covers the following:

    • Pricing. This is where you’ll want consider your positioning. Are you a business that offers premium services or do you favour affordable and accessible pricing? To read my thoughts on authentic pricing head here.
    • The customer journey. Some people might call this the sales funnel, but I hate the thought of squeezing people through a funnel. I much prefer to think of the path my potential clients take to the front door of my business. You’ll also want to consider what kind of marketing you’ll need for each individual product or service. How you market a group program that happens once a year is very different to how you might need to market an ongoing membership. To read more on pathways head here.

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    The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

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    The Secret To My Consistency

    The Secret To My Consistency

    by | Nov 24, 2021 | Business foundations

    “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

    ~ Confucius

    I believe that showing up consistently is one of the key components to business success and also one of the hardest things to do. This is what I have learned about being consistent in both life and work endeavours.

    I haven’t always been disciplined. In fact quite the opposite, for many, many years I was a bit of a disaster on that front. In my twenties I would often declare new goals or intentions only to be laughed at by friends. “I’m going to give up alcohol” I would boldly declare. “One day I will run the London Marathon.”, “I’m going to write a novel.” All statements I made, all dismissed or laughed at by friends. Why? Because I was known for having big ideas, but then lacking the discipline and consistency to follow through.

    I loved to dream big, but forming consistent habits that helped me to achieve those big dreams was a struggle. I would endeavour to do something, such as give up drinking for example and I would last a few days or even a few weeks before my resolve would crumble and then I’d be back to square one.

    Fast forward a couple of decades and I’ve actually achieved all three of those goals and many, many more besides. Now when I say I’m going to do something, friends and family don’t doubt for one minute that I will. People don’t laugh at my lofty goals anymore, they’re inspired by them.

    So what changed?

    How did I go from having terrible will power and follow through to being disciplined and consistent in both my personal and professional life?

    The answer is surprisingly simple. So simple that you might at first dismiss it but I encourage you to really think about what I share and examine how it applies to your life.

    In a nutshell, I stopped seeing things as black and white. Good or bad, success or failure. I stopped striving for perfection.

    Allow me to explain. In my younger years, if I made a bold statement like I’m going to run every day this year, when the day came that I inevitably couldn’t go for a run — perhaps due to time or health restraints — I would consider that a failure and my thinking would go something like…

    I said I was going to run every day, I didn’t run today so I’ve failed at my goal.

    End of story. Well not quite the end of the story, because with that perceived failure came a whole load of being hard on myself. Negative self-talk that would have me believe that I was a failure, lacking in will power and incapable of sticking to my goals. You know the sort of thing — the lovely feedback we like to give ourselves that leaves us feeling empowered and motivated to do better (not!)

    For many years, I lived in this pattern, slowly undermining my own sense of self worth until gradually I started to see another way. With time I realised the flaw in my black and white thinking and I started to embrace the gray.

    I started to see that doing things imperfectly was better than not doing them at all.

    That’s how I managed to run a marathon in 2008, even after an injury that prevented me from training for months. I had the perfect excuse to bail on my goal but instead, as soon as I could, I got back out there for my training runs.

    When I committed to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days back in 2012, it was this new way of thinking that allowed me to come back to and complete the goal, even when by day 25 of 30, I had only written 4,449 words. I don’t mind telling you that those last 5 days were intense!!

    And more recently, when I declared that I wanted to do 100 days of walking to get fit again after two babies, I didn’t give up when on day 6 (the first Saturday), I failed to get out for a walk. Instead, I adjusted my goal from 100 consecutive days of walking to 100 days of walking Monday to Friday and then when I missed a Thursday because of a stinking cold, I simply adjusted my goal to 100 days of walking, no matter how long they take. I’ll get to my 100 days and by then it will be a consistent habit and I will be healthier and happier in my body.

    Not giving up when I fail to do something perfectly, is one of the most life-changing shifts I’ve ever made.

    Coming back to the goal after every slip or stumble is what helps me to stay consistent. Not beating myself up when I don’t do it perfectly is what helps me to stay consistent. Allowing life to get in the way of my ambitions, without then throwing in the towel is what helps me to stay consistent.

    How about you? What’s your relationships to goals, commitments and consistency? Does my story help? If so, let me know in the comments.

    SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

    Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

    The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

    If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

    Ten Bold Moves I’ve Made in Business

    Ten Bold Moves I’ve Made in Business

    by | Apr 7, 2021 | Business foundations, Business Growth

    “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
    ~ E.E. Cummings

    1. Started a blog (2011)

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    Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

    The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

    If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

    To Niche Or Not To Niche

    To Niche Or Not To Niche

    by | Mar 24, 2021 | Business foundations, Strategy

    “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.”

    ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

    Whether you pronounce it nitch or you pronounce it neesh (and for the record as a Brit, I say “neesh”), it’s generally accepted that having a clear niche is considered a necessity if you want to get more clients and make money in your business. 

    But let’s get real here, niching is hard. 

    More than that it can actually feel quite counter-intuitive, especially for conscious, heart-centered types — business owners like you, who are committed to changing the world and having a positive impact on others. Because if the purpose of your business is to do good, why on earth would you want to limit that good to a specific problem and/or group of people??

    I know I get it, we’ll get to why niching is important later.

    For now, I’m getting ahead of myself, because we haven’t even defined what a niche is. Sure, you could probably give me a definition if I pressed you to, but on a deep down, know in your bones level, how comfortable are you really with the term niche and what the activity of niching actually involves? The truth is, a simple google search will bring up a gazillion different definitions and the dictionary definition I found online which speaks of market segments and specialized areas (yawn), is about as helpful, to the likes of you and I, as a chocolate teapot.

    Here are a few helpful definitions I have found. 

    Tad Hargrave calls your niche the role we want to be known for in the marketplace.
    George Kao describes your ideal niche as the place where you are offering a service/product that you love, and that others love to buy.
    Rebecca Tracey calls your niche the problem you solve and the people you solve it for.
    Danielle Gardner splits your niche statement into 3 elements — 1. Who you enjoy helping + 2. What you help them with + 3. Your take on how to approach those challenges and goals. 

    All of these descriptions are helpful and what they also point to is the fact that there is no hard definition when it comes to niching, which on one hand is sort of a relief (yay freedom) but on the other hand it can leave us feeling a little confused.

    But defining what the term niche means is not the biggest hurdle business owners face when it comes to niching. The biggest hurdle is finding and clearly articulating our own niche. Even when we’re clear on what our niche statement should include, knowing those details for our own business is a whole other matter.

    What adds to this difficulty is the barrage of messages we receive online that tell us, in order to succeed in business you absolutely MUST have a clearly defined niche! Talk about pressure.

    This advice trips so many people up and places them firmly between a rock and a hard place. Because if we believe that we need to have a clear niche to be successful, then we are likely to stop ourselves engaging with the world with our business until we have found the perfect niche.

    Goodbye action, hello chronic overthinking.

    But guess what’s wrong with this thinking. First of all, there is no perfect niche. It is, in fact, an ever evolving thing and secondly, you won’t come to understand what your niche should be unless you are out there taking action on your business and engaging with potential clients.

    But how can I enrol clients if I don’t have a clear niche? You might ask.

    I had my first $10,000 month many years ago, when my niche was about as clear as mud. Back then, I helped people (all people) overcome their fears (all fears) to live the life of their dreams (all dreams). I worked with people on all sorts of issues from relationships, self-esteem, addictions, business, wanting to travel the world and so much in-between. I coached hundreds of people on a wide range of issues.

    Most marketing experts would have told me that it was impossible to make good money with such a wide (read: absent) niche but I made it work for me. Something that helped all those years ago was reading these words from one of my favorite coaches, Steve Chandler:

    “Most coaching “certification” programs urge novice coaches to find and choose a niche…a specialty!

    I have never encountered such counter-productive nonsense. Most of the coaches I know who are extremely successful have no niche at all. A niche would limit them! It would shut them off from many categories of people who are yearning for their help.

    I know coaches who emerge from “certification” programs crowing about the niche they have chosen. They have no clients, but they have a niche! “I am going to coach rodeo clowns!” I mean, good luck!

    The only time I see a niche working in a coach’s favor is when it emerges on its own…..if you have a certain success in a certain category (and it can happen by accident) you can now go to other people in that category and they are more likely to listen to your success stories. But even then, you don’t have to let it restrict you.”

    I eventually decided to become a business coach in much the way Steve describes. Because my coaching business was doing so well, more and more coaches started to ask me to coach them on building their coaching businesses. After several (6+) years of coaching, I realised that this was the work that lit me up most, as well as the area my work seemed to be having the greatest impact and so I made the bold leap of letting go of my successful life coaching business to start from scratch as a business coach for conscious business owners.

    Looking back now I’m aware that I couldn’t have known any sooner than I did that this was the niche for me. I had to go through all of those years of coaching to find my sweet spot.

    Why then is it important to have a niche?

    You’re probably wondering then if what Steve Chandler says is true and if I can make $10,000 in one month without a clear niche why would you even bother? Well having a well articulated niche can help you in a lot of ways:

    • It makes it easier for people to find you because people are usually searching for support with specific issues rather than general themes.
    • It makes it easier for people to refer you, when you become known for doing that one thing (e.g, ethical marketing) when that topic comes up in conversation, so does your name.
    • It helps you to be in your zone of genius, because you are doing the work you most love to do with the people you most love to do it with, which makes working in your business more enjoyable and what you offer more impactful.
    • It allows you to achieve a level of excellence and master your skills in one area rather than just being good at many things.

    Is it possible to make money without a solid niche? In my experience, yes.
    Is it preferable to have a niche? In my opinion, yes!

    What to avoid

    The biggest mistake in all of this is trying to niche too soon. We tend to tie ourselves in knots when we attempt to pick a niche before we’ve even began the real work of serving our clients or audience. How on earth are you supposed to know a) who you most enjoy working with, b) what topics you most enjoy working on and c) where your greatest strengths lie i.e. where you can be most impactful, when you’ve only worked with a handful of people (or less)?

    Here’s the truth — you can’t. So if choosing or clarifying your niche is something that has been holding you back in business here’s what to do instead.

    Experiment widely! 

    The best advice I can give here is to EXPERIMENT — try out, play with and try on for size lots of different niches and see what works and what doesn’t.

    List out all the problems you think you can help people with and all the types of people you think you’d enjoy working with and start reaching out and offering complimentary sessions (or doing market research calls) with each of those groups of people in turn.

    When I went through this phase in my business, for a while I offered out complimentary coaching sessions to women who struggled to have healthy relationships (and had a few paying clients in this area!), then I spent some time offering sessions to people who would like to give up alcohol (and realised I hated coaching on this topic despite knowing a lot about it, I celebrate 10 years of living alcohol free next year!). Later on in my life coaching business — I offered more and more sessions and resources on business building (which I soon discovered was my absolute fave thing to do — hello business #2!).

    Through all of this, I coached a lot of people (and got a lot of coaching practice), I also got a fair amount of paying clients and crucially I came to understand my role in the world — what I most love helping people with (business growth), who I most loved helping (conscious changemakers) AND what qualities and traits my ideal clients have (spiritually inclined, with a tendency for action, combined with a deep desire to change the world).

    It’s only taken close to a decade to get to this, but my niche statement, for what it’s worth, is this.

    I coach conscious business owners, such as coaches, healers and teachers, to build and grow successful online businesses, using strategies rooted in integrity,

    This is, by no means, a perfect niche statement but allow me to break it down for you.

    I use the term conscious to denote a type of person, with a specific way of seeing the world. To understand further, check out my article Conscious Business — What it Is and Why It Matters some people have told me that this word may not be understood by everyone and I therefore shouldn’t use it but here’s one of the keys to niching — my people, not only understand the term but relate to it because it speaks to their spirituality.

    Next, I specify the type of conscious business owner and in doing so demonstrate that I largely work with service providers rather than (hold in your hand) product based businesses. People offering coaching programs, healing sessions, health and wellness services and teachers offering courses, classes and/or other digital offerings.

    I specify that I work with online businesses, also ruling out bricks and mortar businesses because that’s not in my wheelhouse.

    I talk about building and growing which indicates that I not only help people build their businesses from the foundations up but I also help them to grow existing ones.

    And finally, the most important distinguisher for me is that my business coaching focuses on using growth strategies that are rooted in integrity as opposed to the icky and manipulative marketing tactics we all know and hate.

    I share this with you to demonstrate that one simple statement covering the nuance of what you do is possible, but not in a vacuum.

    If you feel unclear on your niche and feel like this is holding you back, you absolutely must be out in the world trying out different niches and working with different types of problems and people to find where you fit.

    Your homework

    If you’re up for it, I have a challenge for you.

    This is something I have my 1:1 coaching clients do and it’s a great way to start working on your niche. Have a think about who and what you most feel called to work with right now.

    If you’ve been thinking about 3 or 4 different niches you might do, which of those calls to you the most in this moment? Next I want you to sit down and write a long form post titled: I’m looking for someone… 

    Then go ahead and describe that person in as much detail as you can muster. What kind of person are they? What are they struggling with? What might they have tried already? How do they show up in the world? What are their values, traits, characteristics?

    Once you’re happy with the description. add a sentence or two in which you offer a set number of complimentary sessions or calls with people who identify with what you’ve written and then go ahead and share it everywhere you can, with your subscribers, Facebook fans, Instagram followers and anywhere else your ideal client might be hanging out.

    For one of the best examples of this I’ve seen, check out this post from one of my former clients.

    So there you have my thoughts on niching, if you have any questions or thoughts on what I’ve shared in this article, please drop them in the comments below. 

    SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

     

    Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

    The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

    If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

    How Easy Is It for Your Ideal Clients to Find You

    How Easy Is It for Your Ideal Clients to Find You

    by | Apr 7, 2019 | Business foundations, Selling

    In this post I want to talk to you about how easy you are making it for your right-fit people to find and to buy from you and share some simple steps you can take to really improve your reachability. 

    I’ve been listening to an amazing recording lately of a Marketing workshop run by the wonderful Tad Hargrave in which he shares, among other things, the idea that our right-fit people are looking for us, yet so many of us are doing a terrible job at allowing ourselves to be found. He stresses the importance of having clear paths that lead people right to our door and uses this analogy:

    “So many people set up their businesses in the middle of a forest with no paths leading to it. They are hoping that somehow, lost in the woods, the right people will stumble upon them and want to buy what they’re offering.” 

    The more paths you have established that lead to your door, the more easily you can be found and ultimately the more revenue you will generate. One caveat to this is that some people have the paths piece down only to drop the ball when people show up at their door. More on that below.

    I’d love you to take a moment now to consider the paths you have set up. Below are some examples of paths you might have in place or that you might consider setting up:

    • Blog post writing 
    • Being active on social media (then there are several paths within this such as Insta stories, being active in groups etc) 
    • Hosting a podcast
    • Advertising 
    • Public Speaking 
    • Running Workshops
    • Networking
    • Leading webinars
    • Giving out flyers

    And so on, there are many more paths out there than this but hopefully this gives you an idea.

    What’s important to note here is that having the path in place is not enough.

    To continue the analogy, what you absolutely must do is make sure that your home is set up to receive guests once they land on your doorstep. Imagine if you did all this work carving out the perfect path but then your doorbell was broken so you didn’t even answer the door to people because you had no idea that they had even arrived.

    This is more common that you might believe. Let me give you an example of how this can go.

    A business owner has heard that a great way to connect with her right-fit people is to show up and be active and supportive in specific groups on Facebook. So she spends countless hours doing just that and it works, it’s getting people’s attention, they love what she has to say and how she is showing up in the group.

    The problem is that when people read her wise and informative comments and then click on her name to find out more, her personal profile gives no clue as to what she does or how to connect with her business.

    I see this all the time and what it means is that the path created is pointless because it’s not actually getting people through your front door (and having them become subscribers or customers).

    I don’t actively promote my business on my personal profile but I do make sure that anyone who is checking me out on Facebook can find my business through it. To see my profile head here (and feel free to add me as friend!) or look at the Intro section of my profile in the image below and you’ll see that it’s fully optimised with links to my website, my business page on Facebook and a clear one-liner about who I work with.

    This is just one example of where and how you might be losing people who have followed your path. Another common one I see is no clear way for people to take the next step to work with you once they land on your website. Not having clear calls to actions that allow people to easily take the next step is another way you might be missing out on new business. Be as clear as you can be about what needs to happen next, is it an email or a call? Do they need to complete a set of questions? Do you have your prices and packages clearly laid out? Be certain you’re not making them jump through any hoops to get all the information they need in order to hire you.

    If you haven’t given adequate time to creating the paths in the first place, then my best guess is that you’re really struggling to get clients.  So here’s what I want you to do. Take some time to map out the paths to the front door of your business and contemplate creating more paths if you realise that your business is lacking in this area.Once you’ve done this, then check out what happens when someone follows each path. Are there any obstacles that might cause them to give up and turn back? Are there any glaring holes that could prevent people from accessing your services once they reach you? When we are busy in the day-to-day detail of our business, it’s super easy to lose sight of the big picture.

    Taking some time out, a morning or an afternoon to map out your paths and then making sure that your business is optimised to receive the people who show up, makes far more sense than spending wasted hours working on activities that are sending people to a dead-end. Or spending all of your time creating incredible products and services, but having no paths in place for people to find them.

    If you enjoyed this piece, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. Feel free to share any insights you gained about your own business and the paths people can take to find you. 

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    Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

    The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

    If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

    4 Ways to Turn Pro in Your Business

    4 Ways to Turn Pro in Your Business

    by | Apr 4, 2019 | Business foundations

    “When we turn pro, we give up a life that we may have become extremely comfortable with. We give up a self that we have come to identify with and to call our own.”

    ~ Steven Pressfield

    If you are struggling to see positive and financially sustainable results in your business, theres a good chance you are still treating your business like a hobby rather than showing up for it as a true professional. Before you read on ask yourself if you genuinely feel that you are doing all you can to make your business a success? Are you taking full responsibility for your business and what happens in it?

    Early on in my entrepreneurial journey after years of trying to begin with my business, I read a book called Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield (all quotes in this post are from the book) and it changed everything for me. His approach in the book is direct to say the least and in it he compares what he calls the amateur and the pro and refers to his life in two parts, before turning pro and after. Stating in no uncertain terms that “After is better.” I most certainly agree.

    Having begun the transition from amateur to pro myself, in this post I want to share with you the four ways in which we can begin to turn pro in our businesses and reap the rewards of doing so, which I might add are not purely financial. 

    1. Change your mindset

    To turn pro is a decision. And it’s a decision we often avoid taking because in avoiding the decision we also avoid risking failure. It’s a decision to take yourself and your business seriously. Because if we don’t take it seriously, we can’t expect anyone else to. I’ve worked with a lot of people who resist turning pro because they fear that if they truly take their business seriously and show up as powerfully as they possibly can and they fail…then what? Where do you go from there?

    So instead of turning pro, we stay small, telling ourselves (often unconsciously) that if I don’t give it my all then when things go wrong I can say, “well I didn’t give it my all so that’s probably why it didn’t work” Can you see how illogical this is? Personally, I like to think that it’s better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all. What if truly making the decision to turn pro and to show up to your business with all the power you can muster, means that failure no longer has the same hold on you, because as a pro, you turn your failures into opportunities to course correct and grow.

    “What happens when we turn pro is, we finally listen to that still, small voice inside our heads. At last we find the courage to identify the secret dream or love or bliss that we have known all along was our passion, our calling, our destiny.”

    You might be asking, how can I be sure if I’ve turned pro or not? My answer to that would be when you don’t need to ask the question. You know when the decision has been made and you know in your heart when you have turned. Everything is different. Having said that, turning pro is definitely a journey. Once I made the decision to turn pro it has been a decision that I have returned to, day after day, and year after year and in doing so my professional self has evolved and got stronger over time. I’m showing up more professionally today than I was six months ago for example.

    “Turning pro is like kicking a drug habit or stopping drinking. It’s a decision, a decision to which we must re-commit every day.”

    Adopting a professional mindset means not allowing self-doubt to derail you. It’s not an absence of self-doubt because that’s highly unlikely, even our greatest heroes suffer from self doubt, but what distinguishes the pro from the amateur is that the pro continues to show up powerfully in spite of her self doubt. Take a moment now to think back to a time when you started a new job. For sure you had some fear and self-doubt going on right? But did you allow it to stop you from showing up and getting on with your job? Of course not, because if you had you would probably have been fired. So regardless of that fear and self-doubt, you got up every morning, you showered and dressed and you got yourself to your place of work on time and ready to work. Why then do so many of us resist this when it comes to our own business, our own calling, our own livelihood?

    “The amateur allows his worth and identity to be identified by others. The amateur is tyrannised by his imagined conception of what is expected of him. He is imprisoned by what he believes he ought to think, how he ought to look, what he ought to do, and who he ought to be.”

    Turning pro means that your work in the world, the mission you’ve chosen for yourself, the calling you’ve answered all become far more important than the troublesome worries of what others might think.

    2. Cultivate pro habits

    “The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. We can never free ourselves from habits. The human being is a creature of habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones. We can trade in the habits of the amateur…for the practice of the professional and the committed artist or entrepreneur.” 

    To give you some examples of this. The professional keeps regular working hours while the amateur works when she feels like it. The professional maintains habits that support her to reach her fullest potential and the amateur has habits that keep her playing small such as getting lost, comparing herself to others, on Facebook. The professional sets goals and makes plans, bringing much needed intention to the way she spends her hours. The amateur goes with the flow and allows mood and circumstance to dictate her day. The professional prioritizes deep work and focused time and the amateur lives in the shallows, flitting from one shiny thing to the next. 

    The professional reviews her progress and seeks feedback so that she can adjust accordingly and make necessary improvements. The amateur is so preoccupied by concerns of rejection that she submits to failure before she’s ever really tried. The professional makes her work in this world a priority. The amateur puts everything and everyone before her business. When discussing what needs to happen to make their business a success, people often say to me, I will get to that soon but first I have friends visiting or I have a festival I’m going to or I have a trip I’m going on and then they wonder why they’re not getting clients.

    I have people coming to visit regularly and they all know ahead of time that between 9-6.30pm, Monday to Friday (with the exception of Wednesdays and a 2.5 hour lunch), I work. There are no exceptions to that unless I take a pre-planned holiday. People still come and they respect my work time. If I had a regular office job, I couldn’t just fail to show up for work because some friends from out of town came by. If I wanted to take some time off, I’d have to request it in advance and makes plans for my work to be covered in my absence. Why? Because that’s what’s required to be sustainable in business. 

    That’s not to say that you have to work on your business full time, you can absolutely work on your business part time. But you must then factor in that it will likely take you longer to achieve the same results as someone working full time. You can also take time off for holidays and to spend time with loved ones but you need to plan ahead so that your business doesn’t wither in your absence. It’s also important that whatever hours you do decide to work, you stick to them with a degree of consistency. Your audience and your clients need this from you because consistency equates to reliability in the mind of your customer. The professional spends time regularly mastering her art. The amateur creates the conditions for overwhelm and then swims in it.

    If you are lacking certain skills to succeed in your business then it’s crucial that you schedule time to learn them. In this day and age there is little we can’t teach ourselves online. Break what you need to learn down into achievable chunks and make a plan. Look for the best teachers (not the ones who have the slickest marketing). I keep Wednesday mornings in my schedule free from coaching calls for this very purpose.

    3. Maintain a professional environment

    The professional ensures that her working environment is conducive to focus and that it is distraction free and contains the right tools for her trade. The amateur works on her bed in her PJs. The pro prioritises business equipment over other purchases making sure that she has the right tools for the job. A good computer, the right stationary, a dedicated desk, good quality earphones etc.

    Having a professional environment to work on your business is essential. When we honour our work in this way, we honour the sacredness of our art. If your work in this world is important, which I truly believe it is, then create a space that honours that. If your work is in service to making the world a better place then have your working environment reflect that importance. Keep it clean, organised and clutter free.

    “A practice has a space, and that space is sacred.

    There’s a wonderful book called where women create. It’s a compilation of photos of studios and workshops where various female artists do their magic…Just look at these sacred spaces. What you’ll see is this: Order, Commitment, Passion, Love, Intensity, Beauty, Humility.”

     

    4. Create pro systems

    The pro has systems in place that are professional and create positive experience for the customer or client and that automate tasks that would otherwise take you out of your zone of genius. The pro sees a problem and puts in place a system or a process to fix it.

    For example, I began using Zoom because it allows my clients to record our sessions. I used to use Skype with a Skype recorder but then I was always too busy to upload the recording and send it to the client. Switching to Zoom saved me time and benefited my clients.

    I started using Calendly because I was always having issues with time-zone differences and because I can automate session reminders and the sending of pre-session questions and instructions. It saves me a lot of time and gives a much better experience for the end user.

    Over the years, I have put in place systems for planning my week, for capturing new ideas, for planning content, for welcoming new clients, for invoicing, for capturing to dos, for goal setting, for financial tracking, for project planning and so on. Don’t worry if you feel like you’re winging it a little. Much of the systems I have introduced have come over the years as I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t and what wastes my time when I could be doing more meaningful things.

    It’s also important to note that many of the 3rd-party solutions I use in my business come with a free version that you only need upgrade when you’re business warrants it.

    So there you have it, 4 ways to further your journey from amateur to pro. Which of these feels like a priority for you? Where do you find yourself on this journey? Please do share in the comments below, I’d love to hear from you and if you enjoyed this post, you might want to check out the additional resources I’ve shared below.  

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