Does Your Ezine Cut to the Meat, or the Chase?

I used to be a cut to the chase type of person. You know the sort who wants info products to get to the point, and not waste my time with personal notes and frilly graphics and random other people's opinions (usually called testimonials...LOL).

I get way too many ezines, and all that overly friendly relationship building stuff doesn't really get me feeling all warm and fuzzy about the sender.

This morning, after getting yet another formulaic ezine I realized that either I'm a terribly unusual consumer, a hard sell (both may be quite true), or I've already been sold and trying to sell me again is having a boomerang effect -- it's actually pushing me away.

The chase makes me run the opposite way. The excessive exhuberance comes off as a little desperate.

So for all my colleagues out there who are falling into the habit of formatting your ezines this way:

• personal note
• picture of family or some past event
• testimonial that promotes your latest program
• promotion about something you're selling
• finally!! the meaty tips that keep readers on the list
• another promotion
• another promotion for someone your list has never heard of
• another promotion for a joint venture partner
• no kidding, another promotion for another JV partner
• and yet a 2nd or 3rd promotion for what you're selling

may I suggest that you think about cutting to the meat of your message instead of leading with so much chase. Quality over quantity, ya know?

4 Things You Absolutely MUST Spend the Money For

Just starting out in private practice, or moving from agency work to be out on your own? Haven't had to market for clients before and don't know where to start?

There are 4 tools and services you need to function as a business owner who relies on attracting clients for one-on-one counseling, coaching, or naturopathic healthcare. They are as important to your business as electricity is to your home.

A Client Attractive Website for Your Practice

It's a well known fact now that most people who have computers do an internet search first when thinking about needing our services. In addition, many allied professional want to check us out before referring, and want to see our website. If you don't have one, it's like announcing to the world that you aren't ready for prime time.

You don't have to pay a designer thousands of dollars to have a website. They really aren't that difficult to create on template-driven webhosts. See my Web-Based Marketing Resource Packs for Counselors, Coaches, or NDs for a list of recommended, inexpensive and easy to use do it yourself web-builders.

Your Own Domain Name

Rather than having your website address be something like yahoo.com/TopekaTherapy it really is better to buy just Topeka Therapy.com. It's more memorable and clear, and looks more professional, like you are serious about your work and the success of your business.

Many webhost / website builder companies will also have domain name registration as part of your package. Some charge more than they should, but many make the whole process very easy. One that I like so much that I became an affiliate of is Webstarts.com.

An Autoresponder Vendor That Can Send Attachments

To build relationship with potential clients who are yet ready to make appointments and commit to therapy or coaching, you'll want to be able to provide them with a useful piece of self-help in exchange for collecting their email address. In the beginning before you have more than 50 names on your business email list, you could manage this manually with your personal email program.

Once your list goes beyond 50 names you really will need an account with an email broadcast vendor such as Constant Contact, MailChimp or Aweber. Short information pieces -- such as tip sheets -- or a series of short articles, these can be delivered by your personal email, but will tend to get blocked from delivery if you send to a group larger than 50.

The best solution is to pre-program an autoresponder to send your self-help tip sheet or special report on request. Constant Contact is the easiest for that, but can't yet send attachments. Aweber sends attachments but is more difficult to configure. All broadcast email services provide a sign up box you can install on your website.

Listing in Locator Directories

Once your website is live on line, with its own address, and with an autoresponder email collection box on it, it's time for the last of the 4 essential items you must spend money for -- listing your practice on a locator directory, such as Psychology Today, CoachDigg, or HealthProfs. Some are free, but the better ones charge a monthly fee to list your practice. Look for the ones that rank high in natural search results, which means more people use those directories to find practitioners.

Don't forget that all these expenses are likely to be tax deductible in the cateogry of Advertising because they are spending you need to do to let the public know you are open for business.

Do You Have My Mother Too?

My 90 year old mother is conditioned by her life experience of living through the Great Depression, and by her religious views, to expect the worst. She lives in fear and pessimism.

So I'm not a natural optimist. Fear of doing the wrong thing, of making shaky or bad situations worse, is more often than not the pot that percolates in the back of my mind.

And I'm here to tell ya -- it's hard to run a business that way. Seems common sense, doesn't it? I'm surprised by how many of my clients have the same mother.

Where I strive to live, and help others dwell, is in the knowing that if you can avoid making choices from a position of fear and desperation, that's always best. Fear based decisions usually trap us in what we don't want and keep us from moving forward to achieve what we do want.

Now sometimes I think we get handed what looks like "sensible" solutions or opportunities as a kind of test of our intention to make the changes we've said we want to make. For example, between Dec 15 and Jan 4 I got multiple requests to do astrology readings (something I used to do as a sideline business).

I had made the decision to not be in that business any more. But here were those opportunities. Much as the extra income would have been nice, I turned them down because I recognized the requests as a test of my resolve to not live in fear of rejecting income opportunities, and to not scatter my focus from my primary business.

So, my bias is -- We have to insist on allowing the universe to support us in the intentions that we put out there, and not confuse the law of attraction energetic dynamic by sending mixed messages (as in, I don't know what I want so I'll do anything I'm sent to do).

Coaching question:
What are you insisting on allowing the universe to support you in this year? If you believed the universe is there to support you in achieving your clearly and specifically stated goals, what could you accomplish this week?

Do We Really Need to Tweet?

Everybody's Tweeting, it seems. Where once you were left in the dust if you didn't have a website, or a blog, now the craze is to Tweet.

Incessantly. Mindlessly. Time-consumingly.

I might be clinically anti-social, but I don't get the appeal of reading what you had for breakfast, where you walked the dog, or how much you adore /hate American Idol. Nor has it -- yet -- occurred that I've made real friends (call me old fashioned, but if I've never heard of you, you can't possibly be a friend).

Can engaging in social media really build your counseling or naturopathic practice? Should Twitter, et. al., be a central part of your marketing strategy?

They -- you know, those people who know everything -- say that engaging in the social media frenzy is absolutely necessary to having a successful business. Could that be true?

So far as I can tell, no counselor I know of, and no ND I'm in touch with, is filling their practice with clients gained from spending hours -- much less offering one tweet a day or week -- on Twitter. Or Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, or any social media site. I think this is because there is an essential ingredient missing in the instantaneous global broadcasting of one's daily trivia, personal inspirations, private wins, idiosyncratic gripes, and self-serving promotions.

The missing ingredient is actual relevant value to the recipient of others' streams of consciousness.

What Twitter especially can do for us, is be a traffic cop in helping send more readers to our newest blog post, or to a fresh offer on our websites, or to info about an upcoming event that helps shed light on or solve the problem that our ideal clients have.

Note that the strategic effort goes into the problem solving blog, website, or creation of an event.

Okay, now that I've thrown out my 2 cents, it's time to Tweet that this post exists.

New Decade, Fresh Start -- how will you use it?

I'm excited about the dawn of 2010 -- are you? There's something significant about completing the first decade of this millennium and century. Have you taken a moment in this waning week to realize the many positive changes and achievements you have accomplished in the last 10 years?

Before moving forward with new hopes and plans, it's good to review:

1. In what area(s) of life did you have high satisfaction?
2. When were you most surprised, challenged, and delighted?
3. Where did you get support you didn't expect?
4. How have you integrated lessons learned, and celebrated growth?

Then, it's good to look forward with a sense of purpose and a little extra boldness:

• What do you envision for self, relationships, business, or community improvement for this new year?
• What do you need to empower your efforts in bringing such improvement into being?
• How will you engage your time, attention, inner resources, and commitment in service to your vision?

Remember, it matters little where you've been; it matters a lot where you're going.

Coaching Questions:

• How will you be using your fresh start this year?
• What would make this year absolutely perfect for you?
• If you were 10 times bolder, what risks would you take?
• Are you holding yourself as accountable as you could to make of your business, health, relationships, or life as much as you can?
• If not, what's stopping you?

20 Thoughts to Juggle in Naming Your Business

Selecting a good business name is always a challenge. There are lots of considerations to keep in mind.

• What will the name mean to people who are seeking the type of services you are offering?

• Will the name have a degree of energetic resonance for these people, such that it conveys exactly what they are seeking and they recognize that the first moment they see the name?

• Is the name a clear descriptor for your service, conveying what your business actually does or is?

• Will it create conversation or confusion?

• Is it inspiring for you as well as for your clients?

• Is it short enough and powerful enough to be memorable, and easy for others to spell correctly?

• Does the name evoke a visual image and felt-emotional connection?

• Is there an inherent positive connotation to the name?

• How many ways can it be misunderstood or misspelled in a Google search?

• How much time and effort are you prepared to put into promoting / explaining your business name?

• How much competition is there for a similar name?

• Does the name convey expertise in a niche market?

• Will clients be able to spell and pronounce it when referring you to others?

• In an international marketplace (if your clients will come from across the world), can your business name possibly be a bad word or have inappropriate or detrimental associations in another language?

• Does the name suggest any particular color or color combination and will that match or clash with your branding scheme?(fascinating article on color meanings here: http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/symbolism.htm)

• Is your favorite name, or one very close to it, already registered with the appropriate business licensing authority?

• Does the name convey a serious business, or is it suggestive of an amateur hobbyist?

• Did you test several names with people likely to be in your ideal client target market?

• Did you test several names with 8-10 year olds and could they tell you what your business does?

• Can you fall in love with your business name, and wear it proudly on a sticky networking badge?

Well, you get my drift. Lots to think about.

I personally like names that hold some special meaning to the business owner, that have some special "zing" to them, while also being memorable and descriptive of the actual work being sold.

Ultimately the marketplace will tell all of us whether we've got a great magnetic business name, or one that gets us lost, forgotten, or is off-putting.

Do You Soak in Self-Fulfilling Messages?

Remember when mother used to say: watch what you say? She was wrong.

It's much more powerful to watch what you think.

Most of us bombard ourselves with conscious and/or unconscious mental messages everyday that guide our beliefs about what's possible. Then we take the actions that live up to those beliefs.

This is true in every area of life, and it's no less true with regard to being in business for yourself. What are the messages you give yourself about what it will take to succeed?

Here's a list of some of the more destructive self-fulfilling messages that have lead to a lot of counselors and coaches I know going out of business this year:

• I don't have time to market
• I can't narrow down my interests to one ideal client group
• I don't want to limit myself
  
• It doesn't feel professional
• I don't want to have to sell myself to get clients
  
• I can't possibly spend money on marketing when I don't have clients
• It's not my style to set goals and track progress
• I'm not comfortable being an aggressive networker

You may have these messages in your head, or others that are keeping you unfocused, scared, unproductive, and stuck. If you aren't working on changing these mental mantras, they will drive you out of business.

What can you do?

Get very clear about what your destructive self-fulfilling messages are. Make a list.

Then choose the one that has the most power for you, the one you're most afraid to change, and imagine what could be different in your business if it magically shifted. Do you like what you imagine?

If so, tackle this as a professional and personal improvement project. Determine what actions are needed to overcome this message -- what risks need to be taken, what resources need to be acquired, what timeline will you set for changing this false belief, and who will help you be accountable for making it happen?

4 Web Techie Tools Even I Can Use

I keep saying I'm not a techie. But it's true that after some 10 years or so of doing web-presence marketing, I have learned a few things.

Here are 4 techie tools I use and recommend because they are supremely easy, free or really cheap, and have high benefit even if you are still figuring out your first website.

www.Constant Contact.com
A broadcast email marketing service.

• 60 day free trial
• Then only $15 for up to 500 names on your email list(s)
• You can have as many lists as you want
• Send as many emails a month, week or day as you want
• Plenty of design templates are attractive and customizable
• Includes ability to have one autoresponder option that sends up to 5 pre-set email installments when triggered

www.Davesite.com
Online free html tutorials. Scroll down past all the junk on this site to the links for the tutorials. I'm totally intimidated by the thought of computer programming, but his instructions are very clear.

• Really really easy to understand
  
• Instructions for making text bold or italic
  
• Creating a bullet list, and many other basic html code features
  
• Make your web-presence stand out even more
• Examples of what to do and what happens
  

www.Bravenet.com
Free membership gives lots of very cool features to add to websites and blogs. Listen, if I can do these things, you can too. Bravenet makes it easy.

• Poll widgets
  
• Email forms
  
• Speaking avatars with your recorded voice
  
• Message forum tool you can use to add a discussion board to your website
• More spiffy tools available from Bravenet with paid membership upgrades
• You can use the free stuff forever

www.StatCounter.com
Free membership to see how much site traffic you're getting and where it's coming from.

• Track the most recent 500 hits to your websites and blogs
  
• Multiple "projects" lets you track many different sites you own
• Shows what country visitors came from
  
• Gives what pages they looked at, how long they stayed on your site, and more.
  
• You can pay to see more than the most recent 500 hits
  
• Old hits are replaced by new ones, so most of us don't really need that paid feature

7 Ideas for When You Don't Have Time to Market

When you think you don't have time to market, that's a problem. Your practice may have enough clients right now, but do you have all the things in place that you need to ensure that there are always people coming into the pipeline to replace those who "graduate" from your services?

Ideally, to get a private practice in the healing arts off the ground successfully, conventional wisdom says you'll need to be engaged in marketing tasks 4 hours a day 6 days a week for 6 months to a year.

I can hear a lot of you groaning about spending that much time.

About half of my business coaching clients aren't new at their work, just changing status from agency or clinic or corporate employment to private practice. Some are moving away from taking insurance to being completely cash-based. Your practices have been successful for a while, and you don't want to feel and act like a beginner, putting that much time in.

Okay, here's what I'd recommend when you're in transition or have very limited time. Missed and cancelled appointments are perfect times for accomplishing any of these marketing upkeep tasks.

What you'll need: a laptop and internet access in your office.
What to do: pick just one of the tasks below to fill your available time.
Assumes: you already have a website, are on some locator directories, maybe do some blogging.

1. Review and refresh your website. Make sure has strong, emotionally compelling messages on the home page. Ensure that the target niches are current. Check all the links to make sure they still work and eliminate the ones that send people off your site. Time expense: 2 hours to half a day now, and once every year).

2. Add visitor capture widgets -- some way and reason for people to provide you their email address in exchange for something they can implement immediately, like a tip sheet or a quiz. Time expense: 30 minutes or less, once.

3. Add articles you've already written. Recycle old blog posts, ezine topics, publication articles you've submitted to update references, statistics, etc. Time expense: 30 minutes or less for adding to website, 2-3 hours or less for revising each article, one per week or month.

4. Review and refresh all locator directory profiles. Make sure they are consistent with your refreshed website, and are speaking to your current target niche market. Time expense: 1 hour or less per profile, once a week until done.

5. If all updating is complete, brainstorm a list of questions your clients ask you. If you have a blog already established, and if you can post in draft mode (unpublished), start a new blog draft with each question. This forms a ready prompt for later. Time expense: 30 minutes - 1 hour.

6. Pick one blog draft prompt question, and off the top of your head start writing a conversational answer. Voila, you have a blog post. Edit for spelling and grammar, and publish. Time expense: 20-40 minutes.

7. After publishing new blog post, go to your Twitter account and Tweet it, thus driving traffic to your blog. Time expense: assuming you already have your professional Twitter account established, 5 minutes or less.

Free First Appointments vs Paid Initial Sessions

I attended a workshop the other day where I learned these useful facts in the context of coaching:

• paid intro sessions produce a higher conversion rate -- more prospects become clients
• paid intro sessions produce higher retention rate -- more clients stay with you longer
• paid intro sessions produce higher sales rate -- more clients buy higher priced packages

In contrast, I also had confirmed what I already believed, that:

• free intro sessions can solve too much -- immediate solutions create no incentive to pay for coaching
• free intro sessions tend to attract non ideal prospects -- fewer people ready and willing to hire you
  
• free intro sessions set clients up to undervalue you and your services -- retention rates are lower

Despite these facts, verified by the experience of most coaches with six and seven figure incomes, many new coaches succomb to offering the trial session as a way to "educate the prospective client about coaching." (hint: they don't really care, they just want a solution to their problem).

New counselors also are tempted to try the free first appointment strategy, although few have sustainable success with it.

There are, however, a couple hybrid models for first sessions that intrigue me. One is a type of donation basis strategy, while the other is a type of time control or end-now-or-pay-for-more strategy.

Intro sessions for both coaching and fee-for-service counseling can be offered with the understanding that the client will be asked to pay what they can, or what they feel the session was worth. Personally, I think the cleanest way to do that so that the client doesn't feel pressured to negotiate with you is to direct them to a Make a Donation button on your website, or send a button link to them in an after-session email. Another option is to direct the client to add an extra amount of their choice to their initial required payment for further work.

With a time control strategy, the idea is to provide 15-30 minutes for free, then let the client know what the fee is if they'd like to continue. This should be discussed in advance when making the appointment so that the client doesn't feel tricked by a bait and switch ploy.

Either way, coaches and counselors need to get comfortable talking about their fees and "closing the sale" when talking to prospective clients.

4 Things to Keep in Mind about Multiple Income Streams

Lots of business coaches advise leveraging your time and developing multiple streams of income. Time leveraging generally means working with groups, whether that be via teleconferences or live seminars. Multiple streams of income for service providers may mean developing a product line, or adding a new service, which may mean getting another credential.

Generating lots of different ways to make money sounds like a good idea -- until you realize each one can become a new business start up. How many businesses can you handle having at one time, especially as a solopreneur?

Keeping focused on your central business purpose can be a challenge when you start adding additional ways to monetize what you know and do. But allowing yourself to scatter your energies can be deadly, resulting in no one "stream" becoming more than a trickle.

If your vision as a counselor, coach, or ND is to be a one-person show, here are four things I've learned the hard way that may help you become successful more quickly than I did.

1. Define your ideal client niche with great precision -- know what their problems are, what motivates them to seek help, where they turn when they do, and what they are willing to spend money for (the outcome they want).

2. As a coach, you naturally deliver one-on-one services. That's Stream #1. In what other ways will you deliver the same information and help? Local workshops? Teleclasses? E-books? Ezines? Sticking to one themed (signature) message throughout all these different delivery methods will keep things manageable.

3. Set out to become a topic expert in your signature field. Do one thing everyday that furthers your visibility in your topic. Select the things that either will create income or that promote name recognition, subject authority, professional credibility, personal rapport, and client attraction interest.

4. If you feel the impulse to spend time and money that doesn't fall into the profit or promotion categories, get some coaching on working SMARTer, and look at core beliefs and other self-sabotaging factors in your self-employment habits.

Being Professional -- What Does That Mean Anyway?

One of the worst ideas -- in my opinion -- that mental health counselors and naturopathic doctors get saddled with in graduate school is the notion of what is or isn't professional looking. I'm not talking about ethics, record keeping, or other business practices. Just the more subjective qualities of professional appearance and personal conduct.

Hidden in this idea that there is some "professional" way to look and be as opposed to some "regular" way to look and be is, I think, a particular ego trip. It's an intention to feel better about ourselves by giving the impression that we are more successful, more competent, more experienced, more wealthy, more something than we actually are.

Or, it's an unconscious defensive posture designed to get past normal insecurities about being self-employed. It's trying to match someone else's level or idea of confidence or success, rather than being comfortable with what's real for us at any given time.

Either way, isn't that type of professional appearance or conduct dishonest? Seems to me it's an attempt to impress prospective clients and colleagues by being something other than what we are.

When I was first out of graduate school, I rented a room in an office park suite overlooking a lake, where there was a mix of solopreneur businesses and a busy reception office to serve us all. I thought this would make me look "professional."

It ended up making me feel like a pretender because it didn't fit who I was as a person or a clinician. I moved out when I realized that I was trying to emulate my father the lawyer -- putting priority on what his 1950s vision of "professional" was, rather than developing my own 1990s personal version.

Over the years I've decided for myself that being professional doesn't require having a receptionist, waiting room, or prestigious magazines on expensive coffee tables. It has nothing to do with what car I drive, or whether my address is in the "right" part of town -- although it does require me dressing one notch above the jeans and t-shirt attire of most of my clients. It's not about how much I spend to impress prospective clients or referral sources.

Being professional, for me, means:

• being on time, every time, for every one
• unfailingly doing what I say I will do, and being quick to say what I can't or won't do
• taking nothing personally, not publicly showing discomfort, frustration, or anger when I'm annoyed
• being clear and firm in interpersonal expectations and business policies
• at all times remembering that my mission is to be of service, and to give a little more service than is anticipated
• serving the clients best interests at all times, even when others disagree with what those are
  
• using the common courtesies and normal social manners
  
• being congruent -- that is, as good a model of what I advise as I can humanly be

What's your personal, confidence-based, ego-less vision of being professional?

7 Shoestring Budget Marketing Musts

Lots of my clients allocate a miniscule amount of their business budget to marketing. Cautious about taking financial risks, and invested in getting trackable results, they tend to have a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) marketing mentality.

It's psychologically understandable to want your business to pay for itself. It may even be an absolute necessity for now. However, it is assuredly an unwise long term practice that won't lead to sustainable success.

So I have these suggestions for smart initial spending on a shoestring to get the most value from your marketing dollars.

1. Remember that nearly all marketing expenses are very likely tax deductible, even for sole proprietor businesses. Spending on marketing is like putting money in a savings account -- the pay off grows over time, and you collect nicely on your year end income tax return.

2. Spend all you can on building an attractive, sticky, interactive, user-friendly website with a compelling marketing message.

3. Invest in help for crafting the best marketing message that makes the deepest emotional connection with your ideal client if writing isn't fun and easy for you. (remember that writing for marketing purposes is different from all other writing)

4. Use an inexpensive online printer like www.VistaPrint.com for your business cards. Don't bother with ordering brochures at first. Print fliers, tipsheets, even brochures from your own printer on an as needed basis, unless you need more than 30 or so at one time.

5. Take advantage of all the low cost online locator services, and free social media and blogsites to connect with potential clients.

6. Pay for online credit card processing capability -- such as PayPal, as one of several examples -- to make it easy for clients to buy your services and products.

7. Develop a marketing plan that gives you a clear path for growth within the limits of sensible, reinvestment in your business spending.

The Magic Bullet is Time-Released

We all want results NOW. We have become conditioned in this age of instant messaging to expect clients to flock to our doors and form lines around the building the second we have an online profile posted.

That would be nice.

Reality, however, rarely works that way. Marketing for solopreneurs in the healing arts is a trial and error, prepare and pitch, wait and see, track the stats and adjust the plan game. In other words, it's time-released. There are lots of reasons for this, but what you need to know today is that building your business takes more time and more commitment to daily effort than you have ever expected.

Getting what I call the foundation pieces in place so that they run practically on their own can take months or more of full time effort, even when you outsource major pieces like designing your website. There are always parts that no one else can do for you -- like drafting your web content -- that take most counselors, NDs, and coaches a long time to get just right.

If you are new in practice, or if you are transitioning from paid employment to full time solopreneurship, think of growing your business as if it's taking care of an infant. It requires constant and scheduled attention, multi-tasking, passionate dedication of effort, and a strong vision of and belief in its future.

The coaching question for you today is: Are your expectations of results in realistic alignment with the amount of effort and commitment you are expending on building your client base? If not, what foundation pieces are missing, and where do you need to spend immediate, focused, unrelenting attention?

What to Look for in DIY Website Builder Tools

I've been playing with different website builder programs for the last year, to get familiarity with various ones so I can being more helpful to my do-it-yourself clients who aren't that tech savvy. Here's how I choose which company to go with:

1. Can I register a domain name for under $10 and have low cost web builder from same company? Can I have a no cost trial or see the templates before signing up? Are there any templates I like? How customizable are they?

2. Can I have a site with more than 5 pages? 5 is a good basic start, but quickly becomes static and stale. Extra pages allow new content that attracts clients.

3. Does the tool bar look like something familiar like Word more or less, and can I change fonts and sizes, colors, move elements around on the page easily, create bullet and number lists, import from Word, etc?

4. Does the web builder program have cool extra features -- can I import PayPal buttons for e-commerce or does it have an e-commerce feature? Can I easily add my photos, forms, have a blog on the site, collect email addresses (aka contact management system, CMS), easily upload a pdf file (file transfer protocol, aka FTP), add audio or video, add a date/time stamp which automatically updates every time I make a change to the site(lets people know the site is current), etc?

5. Is there tech support available for the web builder at hours that work for me (why is everything on east coast business hours?!) Are there tutorials to help me problem solve?

6. Can I have an already registered domain name pointed to this new website? Is an email account part of the package or extra? Can I transfer an existing domain name to this company, and what do they charge for that and how long does it take?

I think that covers the initial thought process, but if I remember anything else I'll post again. I would add that if you decide to have a site built for you, you may still want to know all these things PLUS, how fast will they work, and can you take over after it's built in order to add new pages and content?

If you can create a flier in Word, you can build a website. Play, create, have fun!

Change and Consistency

The topics of change and the value of consistency have been "up" for me lately. Events in multiple areas of my life and work are prompting me to think about when change is good, when it might not be, and how can I be consistent during a transition process, and consistent with what. After going through many changes in my professional life through the decades, here's how I'd currently coach my clients on these issues.

Major change is your business is good when it:

• starts from the identification and assessment of a specific problem that can't be easily fixed without major change
• involves all stakeholders in the assessment and solution-generating process, including clients
• develops a solution path that leads to a better way to consistently serve your vision and values
• crafts a strategic implementation plan with well described action steps
• puts in charge the players (or parts of your solopreneur psyche) who thrive on taking risks
• gains emotional investment and accountability commitment from key players and supporters (parts of the solo-psyche)
• assesses impacts and progress during transition openly by collecting and evaluating feedback
• adjusts action plans based on feedback, or weighs the costs of not adjusting and provides rationale for those choices

If you are thinking of taking the next leap with your business, major change is likely to be required. Coaching questions you may want to think through would include:

1. Have you completely assessed the problem you want to solve, involved stakeholders, and developed a strategic plan?
   
2. Do you know where objections and obstacles to change will come from?
   
3. How can you be ready for that?
   
4. Where's your personal emotional investment and level of consistent accountability?
5. How will you measure progress and impact?
   

Guaranteed Success Method -- for Private Practice Failure !

Here's the No Hype Truth this morning ~~ most private practices in the healing arts flounder NOT because the counselor, ND, or coach doesn't take insurance, is fresh out of school, poorly trained, or delivers bad service.

Most solopreneurs fail to put the same level of daily commitment into building their business that they put into getting their education. The harsh fact is that you cannot develop a thriving, self-sustaining, self-employed business if you don't ruthlessly focus 50 - 70% of your time in the beginning on marketing.

Any successful business coach will tell you that spending 4 hours A DAY on marketing is absolutely necessary in the first year if you want to be breaking even or doing better than that. Sounds like a lot? Don't worry, there's plenty to do to keep busy -- it may not even be enough!

And, you want those 4 hours to be spent on the most client-attracting tasks possible. Those include:

• creating a sticky, value-providing website, and continually updating it
• blogging, Tweeting, and other traffic-driving activities
• listing yourself in online locator services and/or doing Google Adwords
  
• monitoring your web-presence and search engine rankings
• writing articles for local, hard copy publications
  
• outreach to referral sources with personal visits, and follow up materials that give valued info
• networking interactions where your ideal clients are
• scheduling, preparing, giving signature talks and / or workshops
• developing and tracking email marketing campaigns
• writing auto-responder series and special reports
  
• evaluating your efforts, eliminating what doesn't work, maximizing what does

There's more that can be done, but these are the can't-do-without basics.

The trick to making all this easy is to be methodical in getting your foundational pieces in place first, because they will then work for you on auto-pilot while your attention is on more advanced marketing tasks. In the beginning, or when struggling, if you want your business to survive and thrive, it's crucial to spend the needed 4 hours a day and be laser focused with self-discipline, commitment to success, and accountability to the health of your business.

I can't emphasize this enough -- being methodical means to have a marketing map and work on one or two things at a time until they are running smoothly, then move on to the next.

The scattered, unfocused, headless chicken approach is a successful, guaranteed method for business failure.

Be in business FOR yourself, not BY yourself

Yesterday I was talking with a coaching colleague when one of us used the phrasing of being in business by yourself. That stopped me, and I couldn't quit thinking about how big a difference a simple little word makes to one's empowerment for success when self-employed.

Being in business BY yourself -- it seems to me -- is how many solopreneurs in the healing arts approach tackling all the systems and support structures necessary to getting and serving clients. We see it as a lonely, isolated, almost defeated position to be in. For those of us who are more naturally extroverted social creatures, the circumstance of doing anything by ourselves is distressing and grinds down our enthusiasm for being accountable for the tasks that promote success.

No wonder we then have trouble making our practices thrive.

Being in business FOR yourself -- in my perspective -- is a more empowered mindset. It's knowing you have complete autonomy for daily decisions, long range directions, development of the strategic vision, generating motivations, and harvesting of rewards. It's having total choice about what to do ourselves, to what degree, and what to outsource to others, and when.

Yes, that CAN be scary at first. It can feel overwhelming and intimidating to accept that much responsibility and wield that much control.

But try it, won't you? Your confidence will grow, and you may just come to love it.

Are You a Business Dabbler?

A coaching colleague has been telling folks that it takes 4 or 5 years to get a solo practice really profitable. That's true for a lot of self-employed people, it seems. But the questions to me are, why and is that timeline the only reality?

You may have already been asked -- are you running a business, or a hobby -- and not realize what that means. Here are my rules of thumb for making that distinction:

You're dabbling at a hobby if you:

• tell a few friends and ask them to spread the word
  
• send a few fliers or postcards to names out of the phone book
• design a website that talks all about you
• put a few "articles" on a blog, call it a website, and never update it
  
• try to appeal to everyone with every problem because you "can't afford to turn away clients"
• spend more time getting organized than doing marketing tasks
• change your pricing too often, or give away your services, or use sliding scale too much
• use less than 4 hours a day for marketing in the first year (or more)
  

You're seriously running a business with a commitment to succeed if you:

• create do-able business and marketing plans before ordering business cards
• schedule 4 hours a day, 6 days a week to accomplish tasks on your marketing plan
• hold yourself accountable for keeping those appointments with your business
• isolate an ideal client niche and use the language they do in describing their problem
  
• work methodically in developing the foundational pieces of your marketing message
• be systematic in pursuing your marketing strategies for connecting with those ideal clients
• create many ways to give valued help as a relationship-building strategy that gets clients
• develop an emotionally compelling, helpful to clients web-presence
• lead with your personality strengths in determining the right marketing activities for you
• pull together a support team that includes professionals with expertise you don't have

Sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it? It is.

Being in a self-employed business is like having several businesses going at once. You have to do the all the work that corporations have multiple departments and many people to accomplish. Yes, some of the work can and should be outsourced to those who can do it better, faster, and cheaper than you can (after factoring in trial and error).

If you aren't ready to eat, breathe, and sleep your practice, you've got yourself a hobby.

SP* Seeks Confidence for Self Promotion

SP = solopreneur. That's you if you're self-employed in a one-person business, as many of my counselor, coach, and naturopathic doctor colleagues are. And having the confidence to promote yourself is about the biggest problem I'm hearing about these days.

Isn't it curious, this lack of confidence? What happened between the moment we make the decision to pursue all that training, believing that we could do it, and the moment that we graduate and start in with the anxiety of, am I good enough? How does that initial confidence evaporate?

One very likely cause is that we stopped believing our own "can-do" inner voice. We gave away little pieces of our confidence power when someone else had a different idea, or challenged our view, or required evidence we didn't yet know of.

In becoming educated, we learned how much we didn't know. And perhaps that scared us. Then we got out in the world, opened a practice, and realized, holy cow, no one ever taught us how to get clients.

Fear, doubt, need, recognition of our lack of knowledge -- all these erode belief in the self, and a confident can-do attitude.

Here's a hint: if you think you lack confidence for promoting yourself (meaning your skills, your knowledge and training), then don't promote yourself.

What do you / can you have confidence in? That you have a desire to help? That you know more than your clients? That you can interpret or reframe their suffering or problem in a way that will help them?

Promote that.

To paraphrase the famous movie line, If you build on that, they will come.