02May 2016

BUILD A COMMUNITY (E-mail Marketing Guide)

by Natalie ⋅ 1 Comment

Here are eight basic steps to follow when building a list of contacts by collecting e-mail addresses.

Use an e-mail marketing programme like Aweber (good) but Infusionsoft (better)
Get a programme to create an opt-in-page. For example: LeadPages.com (good) but Kajabi (better)
Create an added-value deliverable such as a free report, template, E-book, audio or video training so people will happily provide an e-mail address in exchange for the value you provide.
Ask your community about their desires. Send an email to your community with the link to a survey (use a free service like SurveyMonkey.com) asking what they want or need help with in the area of value you’ve identified. Ask open-ended questions to help you later brainstorm or offer multiple choices if you’ve already thought about what you can provide.
Create a solution: After receiving responses to your survey, get to work and create the solution(s). This could be a physical or digital product (a book, audio or video, written training programme, workbook, E-book etc), or a service (dog grooming, babysitting, coaching, consulting, speaking or training)
Plan the launch: Turn the launch into an event. Build anticipation months in advance – make people WANT to buy your product or service. Read the book: “Launch” by Jeff Walker for more tips.
Find a mentor: Find people who have already achieved what you want and copy their behaviour and make it your own. You could either have a relationship with a face-to-face human mentor, hire a coach, read a book or articles by an expert or do web research.
Schedule time to begin implementing these steps, one at a time and within months you can be enjoying the benefits.

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Let me know how this helped you. I’m waiting to hear from you.

11Apr 2016

50 New Rules of Work by Robin Sharma

by Natalie ⋅ 1 Comment

To serve your rise to your best, I humbly offer you these 50 New Rules of Work with the hope that you quietly consider implementing them as well as discussing them at your next team meeting:

You are not just paid to work. You are paid to be uncomfortable – and to pursue projects that scare you.
Take care of your relationships and the money will take care of itself.
Lead you first. You can’t help others reach for their highest potential until you’re in the process of reaching for yours.
To double your income, triple your rate of learning.
While victims condemn change, leaders grow inspired by change.
Small daily improvements over time create stunning results.
Surround yourself with people courageous enough to speak truthfully about what’s best for your organisation and the customers you serve.
Don’t fall in love with your press releases.
Every moment in front of a customer is a moment of truth (to either show you live by the values you profess – or you don’t).
Copying what your competition is doing just leads to being second best.
Become obsessed with the user experience such that every touchpoint of doing business with you leaves people speechless. No, breathless.
If you’re in business, you’re in show business. The moment you get work, you’re on stage. Give us the performance of your life.
Be a Master of Your Craft, and practice + practice + practice.
Get fit like Madonna.
Read magazines you don’t usually read. Talk to people who you don’t usually speak to. Go to places you don’t commonly visit. Disrupt your thinking so it stays fresh and hungry and brilliant.
Remember that what makes a great business – in part – are the seemingly insignificant details. Obsess over them.
Good enough just isn’t good enough.
Brilliant things happen when you go the extra mile for every single customer.
An addiction to distraction is the death of creative production. Enough said.
If you’re not failing regularly, you’re definitely not making much progress.
Lift your teammates up versus tear your teammates down. Anyone can be a critic. What takes guts is to see the best in people.
Remember that a critic is a dreamer gone scared.
Leadership’s no longer about position. Now, it’s about passion, and having an impact through the genius-level work that you do.
The bigger the dream, the more important the team.
If you’re not thinking for yourself, you’re following – not leading.

Work hard, but build an exceptional family life. What’s the point of reaching the mountaintop but getting there alone?
The job of the leader is to develop more leaders.
The antidote to deep change is daily learning. Investing in your professional and personal development is the smartest investment you can make. Period!
It makes a difference.
Say “please” and “thank you”. It makes a difference.
Shift from doing mindless toil to doing valuable work.
Remember that a job is only just a job if all you see it as is a job.
Don’t to your best work for the applause it generates but for the personal pride it delivers.
The only standard worth reaching for is BIW (Best in World).
In the new world of business, everyone works in Human Resources.
In the new world of business, everyone’s part of the Leadership Team.
Words can inspire and words can destroy. Choose yours well.
You become your excuses.
You’ll get your game-changing ideas away from the office versus in the middle of work. Make time for solitude. Creativity needs the space to present itself.
The people who gossip about others when they are not around are the people who will gossip about you when you’re not around.
It could take you 30 years to build a great reputation and 30 seconds of bad judgment to lose it.
The client is always watching.
The way you do one thing defines the way you’ll do everything. Every act matters.
To be radically optimistic isn’t soft. It’s hard. Crankiness is easy.
People want to be inspired to pursue a vision. It’s your job to give it to them.
Every visionary was initially called crazy.
The purpose of work is to help people. The other rewards are inevitable by-products of this singular focus.
Remember that the things that get scheduled are the things that get done.
Keep promises and be impeccable with your word. People buy more than just your products and services. They invest in your credibility.
Lead without a title.

04Apr 2016

Communication: Become a Master Story Teller

by Natalie ⋅ 2 Comments

Communication: Four secrets anyone must have to have massive impact in the first 5 minutes

Be a master of the conversational Sleight-of-Hand (http://prioritybizservices.co.za/communication-be-a-master-of-the-conversational-sleight-of-hand/)
Learn how to be an “Emotional Conductor” (and become resistant/unreceptive to insults, criticism and mockery) http://prioritybizservices.co.za/communication-four-secrets-anyone-must-have-to-have-massive-impact-in-the-first-5-minutes/
Adopt a Value-Delivering Mind-set (and let others praise you for it) – http://prioritybizservices.co.za/adopt-a-value-delivering-mind-set-and-let-others-praise-you-for-it/
Become a Master Story Teller

Today is the fourth and final of four posts in which I will share tips on how to have massive impact in the first five minutes of walking into a room.

Storytelling . . . did you know that the gift of storytelling can be one of life’s most powerful and envied skills? A well told story can make us laugh, weep, swell with pride or rise with indignation. A story badly told can be boring and uncomfortable and also positively painful to experience. As human beings we seem to be fundamentally hard-wired to tell stories. Stories are how we record both the monumental events of our lives and the small, everyday moments.

Become a Master Storyteller:

Ancient philosophers recognised that expert communication had to have two parts working together: Logic and Rhetoric.

Logic involves getting the facts right and making sure that the speaker knows that what they are saying makes sense and follows sound reasoning.

Rhetoric is all about how things are said, how emotion is used, and how convincing one is in the way they tell the facts so as to have maximum influence on others.

The Greeks recognised that both logic and rhetoric had to be combined and that too much of one without the other would diminish the impact a person could hope to have. Storytelling focusses on the rhetoric part and it’s a skill that recognises that there is more to influence than just intelligence.

Although it is incredibly useful and important to be smart and correct, facts on their own rarely move people to action.

Influence comes from being able to tell an engaging and moving story that captivates an audience and wins them over with its power. Example: why do movies have so much more effect at bringing world problems to people’s attention?

We need stories to move us into action and people who own the room need to be able to move others into action, which means we have to become Master Storytellers.

We need to use vivid language to tell our stories “Imagine the worst flight in the world . . .”

There is power in injecting emotion and drawing out the detail – instead of just saying “yeah, so my flight sucked today.”

Are you a good story teller?

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07Mar 2016

What is draining you?

by Natalie ⋅ Leave a Comment

Do you sometimes feel that a particular client or few clients are leaving you feeling drained at the end of the conversation or at the end of the day?

Have you thought about the reasons why you might be feeling this way? There are three possible reasons for this.

Over giving: Charging too little or giving too much of your time, almost always leads to feelings of being drained. It takes courage to charge what you want to charge and end the session when you say you’re going to end. Do it anyway. It will leave you with more energy to continue your day.
Not speaking your truth: What about those things you wish you could say to your client (but it might be rude or disrespectful, and after all, they’re paying you lots of money . . .). Those are the things you need to say!! Just begin your bold statement with a large dose of acknowledgment, compassion and gentleness. It’s nearly impossible to boldly speak your truth and get drained at the same time.
Getting attached to your clients getting results: Generally speaking this is a good thing . . . don’t we all want this for our clients? The problem is that when you get attached to your client getting great results, you tighten up and when you tighten up, you lose connection with your client and you lose connection with your intuition. From this place, you probably push your client too hard, or you protect your client from your inner pusher and you become quiet and withholding. Neither works.

Instead, trust that there is a much bigger picture working here. Sometimes people are ripe for results, and other times, it takes time.

Your clients’ results do NOT determine your goodness or worthiness. You can be amazing, even if your client didn’t get results and you can be terrible and still have clients get results but its helpful to use their lack of results as inspiration to step up your game so that you are holding the most optimal space for your clients to get results.

It’s helpful to trust that there is a bigger picture happening that we are not always privy to that goes way beyond how much money they made, weight they lost, or soul mate they have found. It’s helpful to celebrate the results they are getting, no matter how big or small.

It’s helpful to address your clients’ feelings about the results they’re getting. It’s helpful to love them completely as they are, even if they don’t change a bit, and, at the same time, it’s helpful to hold vibrant space for them to become who they are becoming.

But, it’s NOT helpful to take responsibility for your clients’ results. You can’t get results for your client, even if you try your hardest, because they are the ones doing the work . . . it’s their results. Your job is to hold impeccable space, like a cocoon for a butterfly. The space you hold includes your love, wisdom, energy and compassion and it’s their choice to become the butterfly.

When you’re doing your best to help your client win, it’s best to simply hand the rest over to them and to God and trust that everything that is happening is exactly what needs to happen, but, what if you’ve been charging an amount that feels good, sticking to your time agreements, speaking your truth, and giving the results over to God but, you’re still getting drained? Well . . .

Sometimes the arc is simply over and it’s time to complete. After all, even the best things in life have a beginning, middle and end. Your work together might feel like a stick of bubble gum that you’ve been chewing for 30 minutes and it simply no longer has much flavour.

If this is the case, its time to set this client free and refer them to another resource that can help them grow.

This will make space for new clients to emerge.

Sometimes, the problem is having draining clients . . . but other times, the BIGGER problem is simply getting enough high-paying clients to pay the bills.

If this is the case, I’d love to help.

02Nov 2015

Are you having meetings at the wrong time?

by Natalie ⋅ Leave a Comment

Here are 5 reasons why you’re possibly meeting at the wrong time . . . every time.

Early morning or end of day – You’re meeting at the beginning or end of the day. 9am meetings are just asking for latecomers, and at 4pm, people are tired and are more likely to leave early.

End of or beginning of week – You’re meeting before or after the weekend. Mondays and Fridays are common days for workers to take off to turn a weekend into a long weekend or work from home (or they could be distracted by weekend plans).

Lunchtime – you’re meeting when everyone’s hungry. Even 11am meetings can run into lunchtime, so plan more time around the hour of growling stomachs.

Afternoon slump – you’re meeting during the afternoon slump. Afternoon slumps start around 2pm. Give employees/colleagues more time to get their second burst of energy.

Afternoon brainstorm – you’re meeting to brainstorm in the afternoon. Studies show creative thinking peaks earlier in the day, so consider the type of meeting you’re having besides considering the time of the meeting.

21Sep 2015

Do you overwhelm your prospective clients?

by Natalie ⋅ Leave a Comment

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get rather annoyed with the way some marketers bombard me with their content marketing, many using the “Fire Hose Effect”.

We all know that a fire hose blasts a flame with a high powered surge of water, destroying anything in the way of the water stream or at least completely soaking anything in its pathway.

The Fire Hose Effect in marketing works very much the same and is how many marketers are targeting their prospects. They assume that once they have your attention they need to throw as much marketing material in your face as possible so they don’t lose you. With the Fire Hose Effect, the goal is to keep your attention while they have you.

For example: A prospect visits your website site where you flood them with calls to action. They can sign up for your free newsletter or free class, watch your video, connect with you on Facebook and Twitter etc. Now, let’s assume they choose one of these offers they’re then provided with more content than they know what to do with.

I’ve had situations where as soon as I sign up for the free newsletter, I’m given a link to a video series, a workbook, a book and a link to member only content – password protected (some of it time bound forcing me to respond within a given timeframe).

It’s too much all at once. I’m now feeling overwhelmed and you know what happens? Half the stuff I receive goes unopened and therefore unread. If I’m really interested in what you have to say, I will file it in a file called “unread” with the intention of reading it later when I have the time. I must warn you though, this file is growing daily and the likelihood of me ever getting to read what’s in it is getting slimmer by the day. So instead of taking action like you were expecting me to, your mail has gone unread.

Let me share three simple steps you can take to stop overwhelming me (your future prospect) with information overload.

One call to action – decide what you want me to do and then create one landing page that does everything in its power to motivate me to follow through.
Create one simple, powerful and valuable piece of information to enter into your sales funnel – free information is great and valuable information makes me see you as a credible resource I can turn to for help. Keep it simple and focus on quality over quantity.
Follow through – building a relationship with me (your future prospect) is the best way to move me forward in your sales funnel. Instead of overloading me with freebies and content, follow up to see how I’m doing with the information you provided. Ask me if I have any questions, ask if I’m ready to take the next step and tell me what that next step is.

Make things simple for me and for yourself.

Create a highly focused strategy that strives to offer specific information to interested people like me.

Then build relationships with people like me by providing superior quality information and a genuine interest in my progress.

02Aug 2015