How To Handle Bad Clients During A Crisis

You have been working really hard through the COVID-19 crisis and now we’re at the point where many accountants and bookkeepers are working on the SBA loans, the PPP, preparing the taxes, and getting the books up to date. Learning how to handle bad clients during a crisis is a new skillset to master.

A lot of you are working 14+ hour days, not getting up from the computer. Having your head down working really hard. 

I get it… and I just want to say “thank you.”

Thank you so much for everything that you’re doing for your clients. 

How to Handle Bad Clients 

There’s something else that I want you to notice as well. It’s something that’s popping up in crisis mode left and right. And I know it may be happening to you – and that’s why we need to talk about it.

Are your bad clients the loudest voice in the room?

These are those clients that are  barking the loudest, making the most demands, and probably wreaking a lot of havoc, causing a lot of stress.

They’re coming out of the woodwork, demanding that you finish their taxes, especially those that  were supposed to send everything to you months ago.

So here’s the thing, I want you to take a deep breath and first, and have empathy for them. 

Second, start taking back some control of this situation.

Start learning how to handle bad clients during a crisis.

Ask yourself:

  • Is this client just reactionary based on the current situation?
  • Was this client a bad client before this crisis?
  • Did this bad client’s behavior get even worse during the crisis?
  • Will this behavior improve after this crisis?

Take out a piece of paper, and start to write down your client’s name that falls into these categories.

When this is all over, you need to make a choice of who stays and who goes.

For now, go ahead and get them through this time, but then also start thinking about transitioning these bad out. 

Why? 

Because you deserve only A-list clients. Period.

And when you are serving great clients at a high level, there is no room for vampires that suck up all of your valuable time. 

Start making your list today. Think about easy ways to transition out from working with them.

Opportunity of a lifetime

This is your opportunity to start unwinding from less than favorable clients, looking at your skillset, and believing in yourself.

Believing you can fill you practice with all A-list clients.

Right now is the BEST time to do this, because bad clients are causing you so much pain right now. When we experience pain, we are more inclined to do something about it.

And when bad clients zap your energy, they zap your energy from your A-list clients, the people that really need and deserve it. 

If you show up totally depleted, then you cannot serve your A-list clients on the high level they deserve.

Know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. 

Know that you can start making a list in the background, creating a little bit of ease for yourself to say, “Hey, once I get over this hump, we can start coming up with a transition plan to transition some of these bad clients out.”

And you never have to deal with learning how to handle bad clients during a crisis.

As the saying goes, once one door closes, another one opens, and that’s your bad client going out the door and your A-clients walking in.

Want To Find Your Ideal A-List Clients?

Discover the the 6 Simple Consultative Questions To Ask On Every Call so that you can position yourself as the go-to-expert, create a two-way interview process so you can fill your practice with only great clients. Get your FREE PDF showing you the exact questions to ask on your next referral call! 

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How To Get Qualified Leads

Accounting and bookkeeping practices struggle with bringing in qualified leads.

How can this be when you enjoy a steady stream of referrals?

As I’ve been speaking to a ton of accountants and bookkeepers over the last 5 years, they say 90% of their business is generated from referrals.

How awesome!

But not so fast.

Referrals aren’t the solution to growing an accounting practice.

Qualified leads are.

The Qualified Leads Problem

You have a long time client you’ve been doing compliance work for.

They refer you based on how they see you – “the tax person”, “the bookkeeper”, etc.

These days, accountants and bookkeepers want to get out of that day to day work that keeps them in the grind of more work, less time, and for less money.

You are looking for more advisory based clients.

But you won’t get those if your current clients sees you doing the compliance work.

How do you start to shift this?

You have to put your clients and best referral sources on notice.

This is the perfect opportunity to re-connect with your clients and start shifting away from calls that start with “How are things going?” to a more consultative call.

You need to go deeper on what’s happening for them in their business.

Start planting the seeds to becoming that trusted advisor with your CURRENT clients.

How To Train Your Referrals To Get Qualified Leads

Review your current client list and choose 5-10 that refer you business often.

Start practicing having a consultative call with your current clients.

Here are results you can expect:

  • New opportunities to work together
  • Clients will begin to see your VALUE beyond compliance
  • Train your best client referral sources to send you the RIGHT referrals!

Current clients will begin to see you in a different light.

Then they will begin to understand the VALUE you bring to the table.

Remember, you hold all of the gold when it comes to the inner workings of their businesses.

You are the PERFECT person to have these deeper level conversations based on your insight.

This way you start to re-train your referral sources on the type of work you are moving towards being that trusted advisor vs the compliance person.

Once your best client referral sources have that consultative experience with you, they can see your VALUE their experience.

And along with seeing your VALUE, they can start sharing their experience with the RIGHT referrals.

The right referrals = qualified leads.

Your referral sources can now become a more powerful force teeing up the best future clients to grow your accounting practice.

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How To Get Ideal Referrals For Your Accounting Practice

how-to-get-ideal-referrals-accounting-practice

It was the most miserable experience of my professional life.

So bad, in fact, I was ready to call it quits and go back to finding a “day job” in the corporate world.

I’d had generated 75 new leads and referrals from sponsorship at a big convention.

Over the next 6 weeks, I had those 75 phone conversations.

I was feeling great having all of these referrals to talk to!

It felt like I hit the tipping point in my business – it seemed like my revenues were about to roll in and my practice was about to EXPLODE!

But here is what I found…

  • None of these referrals were my “ideal” clients
  • I was giving away too much on my calls
  • They didn’t see the value in what I had to offer
  • They were already sucking up a TON of my time before I even started working with them

In the past, I had said “yes” to working with a lot of these types of referrals.

The Turn Around 

I wound up with clients that took up the most time, for the least amount of money, that left me questioning myself about my business.

How do you grow your business like this?

It seems like being stuck on a hamster wheel.

So, on this day I took a stand.

After all of these conversations – I walked away with $0 in sales.

It was exasperating.

It almost broke me.

I found I was making a key mistake in attracting the ideal clients and prospects that kept me in the trap of saying “yes” to my less-than-ideal prospects.

Finally making the decision to say “no” to the wrong clients and prospects (albeit scary from a revenue standpoint!) this became the foundation for a career where I’ve been able to find “ideal” clients, become a trusted advisor, and generate millions of dollars in sales and revenue for my clients, myself, full-time employers, and consulting clients.

Stop Helping Everyone

On each of those sales calls, I was feeling optimistic to serve these people coming to the call.

I was excited and eager to help!

About two minutes into each call, I could feel my heart beginning to sink into the pit of my stomach.

Phone call after phone call, I found these prospects were tire kickers, price shoppers and wanting to pick my brain for free.

Here was the reality – each of these phone calls were 30 minutes of my life I would never get back again.

But how do you get out of the cycle of having to talk to these “less than ideal” referrals?

Let’s use the example of the cardiologist vs the general practitioner.

Would you go to seek treatment from your general practitioner if you had a serious heart condition?

No! You would seek out a SPECIALIST.

Finally, there was the big “ah-ha” moment.

Are you operating as a generalist or a specialist in your business?

In my case, I was a generalist – wanting to help everyone. And that’s exactly what I attracted – anyone and everyone!

If you step into being a specialist – people can understand your value for your industry specific knowledge. It also builds in “go-to-authority” status, so the choice to work with you becomes easy and obvious.

But how do you start creating that? 

How To Get Ideal Referrals

Here are some simple action steps you can take TODAY to get you started:

  1. Decide – pick one industry you want to offer your services to. Don’t worry, if it doesn’t work out with the one you chose, just choose another!
  2. Data – review your current client roster, and see what industry most of them are concentrated in. Your advantage here is that you will have gotten know the specific accounting and bookkeeping problems in that industry through repetition in serving those clients.
  3. First-hand knowledge – if you have had any former experience working in an industry prior to your business, start there since you have first-hand knowledge of the challenges those companies face in that particular industry. You’ve sat in their seat before, so you understand these prospects and clients on a deeper level.

As painful as it was leaving those 75 referrals behind, it was one of the most impactful decisions I made to say “yes” to ideal clients and serve at a high level those people who don’t suck the life out of my time.  

Above all else, this laid the foundation for all of my future success. And it will for yours too.

Take the lessons learned the hard way by yours truly, you most certainly can avoid those mistakes on your next sales call and let’s get going on growing your accounting practice with your IDEAL clients!

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Breaking the Law

law of attraction

Have you ever seen this movie “The Secret”?

Wow, did they score lots of great mentors and inspirational speakers all in one place! I encourage you to see it…or to see it again.

As business owners, the Law of Attraction is one of the laws we love to hang our hat on and for good reason!  

We want to be successful; we want to have a life and business we love.

Here is the problem: when we try to put the Law of Attraction into play, and all doesn’t go down as planned and something negative happens, we say, “this doesn’t work.”

Weird, it’s one of the universal laws that make the world go round, why doesn’t it work for me?

It’s because most of us break the law before we even start.

If you decide to take this concept for a test drive, and you have the willingness to “try it and see what happens”, but, at the same time, have an expectation that this won’t work…you shut yourself down before you even start.

It’s like stepping on the gas and the break in your car at the same time. Hence, you broke the law before it had a chance to work on your behalf!

Next, you become exhausted…

You think this is too hard…

You say this doesn’t work for you…

And then you quit.

Good news is, if you’re looking to have another go with this law, we’re going to give you the rest of the story.

You’re going to receive the missing components to what you may have already learned about the Law of Attraction so you can use this effectively.

How To Use the Law of Attraction And Get What You Want Every Time

Choose a thought of something you want to see happen.

Starting by taking inventory of your thoughts around getting what you want – are they positive or negative?

Make a conscious effort to crowd out the bad thoughts and stick with the good.

Hold on to the good thought and then attach another good thought to it.

And another.

And another good thought.

If negative thoughts start jumping all around your head like an asylum of monkeys, stay with it.

It may take 15-20 minutes to clear them out. DON’T GIVE UP!

The Missing Links

MISSING COMPONENT #1: Get clear on what you want VS what you don’t want.

What you focus on manifests. Most people are clear on what they DON’T want. But it takes more effort to get clear on what you DO want.

If you focus on what you DON’T want – you will get more of that! So, be careful!

MISSING COMPONENT #2: Make a FIRM commitment to getting what you want.  

Here’s how many mis-interpret the Law of Attraction.  

If something gets in your way of getting what you want, many think it’s a “sign” that they shouldn’t move forward.  

That is simply not true.  

All this means is that the law is trying to guide you on another path to get what you want.

If something doesn’t work today, try again tomorrow.  

If going down one path didn’t work, chose another.  

There are a gazillion things to get in your way…negative thoughts, sick kids, a snowstorm, an abscessed tooth, losing your voice.  

None of these mean you can’t have what you want, it’s just saying “try again”.  

See your commitment through. Don’t give up.  Do what it takes.

Failure is not an option. There cannot be any doubt. You have to believe you are going to get what you want, and that there is no other outcome!

By the way, see all of those reasons above to break a commitment?

All of those happened to me when I was rolling out a new sales training.

All of it.

Five big, bold reasons to break a commitment, break the law, not launch and give up. Boy, were they good ones!

You can become superhuman; and abide by the Law to get ANYTHING you want.

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Fastest Path To Qualified Sales Leads

qualified sales leads

Today is a personal story that came out of an extremely painful experience.

One of the fastest, low tech sales strategies to grow your business – is speaking.

Early on in my business, I was a new mom. Short on time to say the least, and needed to jumpstart my business.

Speaking was what I chose to get there. I had experience with this strategy working for a company in the early 1990’s – this was our #1 way to generate leads and book tons of sales calls.

Soon after diving into the speaking circuit, I learned the hard way how to navigate this sales strategy.

I prepared intently to construct an interactive talk, got together great content, and was preparing to help by answering ANY and ALL questions from the audience. 

I was on fire!

On this particular sunny day in June, I got up on stage, started my talk, but it didn’t take long for my enthusiasm to be squashed. 

I made three critical mistakes that day that sent me home with zero leads to follow up with afterwards.

I Was Robbed

About 5 years ago, I had a smashing opportunity speak to a group of accountants, bookkeepers and coaching consultants.

About 40 professionals showed up.

Since my specialty is sales, I came up with a talk that had a bunch of tips that would help them focus on closing more sales in their business.

Sounds great?

Well, it was for them.

I started my talk with the usual introduction, and then moved into content.

As I was going though each of my points, the hands started to go up. 

Questions started flying my way, and I was actually quite happy with the way I was able to handle and fully answer them. 

The crowd LOVED it! 

They couldn’t get enough, so I thought… geez, I was only on tip number two (I had three more to go!) and the questions started to come even more fast and furious. 

I thought to myself, “Yes!  They love me, they really love me!”

Soon after, there were so many questions, the room started to talk amongst themselves. 

Then, things got so out of control with conversation, that another sales professional in the crowd felt the need to jump in with their expertise and appease the hungry crowd.

I lost control of my room.

I never got to finish my presentation AND now another sales person was wooing my audience! Nice opportunity for them, right?

I left there feeling terrible.  My talk ran out of time, and people told me what a great presentation I had, but left with no appointments after my talk.

3 Critical Steps To Booking Sales Calls From Speaking

Learning from my mistakes, here are three keys ways to conduct a successful talk, lead the room, and walk out with gaggles of sales conversations:

Step 1:  Always command the room. 

Make these types of requests throughout your talk – drive your audience to look where you want them to look; instruct them to take out a piece of paper and write down key points, get buy-in by asking them questions and to respond by raising their hands. 

This establishes your authority status as the subject matter expert, which translates into credibility and trust.

Step 2:  Avoid Q&A during or after your talk. 

This sounds counterintuitive, but stay with me here!

Have you ever owned fish?  If you keep feeding them, they will keep eating! 

This is no different than your audience. 

Think of your “free” advice during Q&A like fish food.  Your audience will consume it, and will always ask for more…as long as you allow them to do so! 

If you answer all of their questions, then what reason would they have to set up a sales call with you?

Step 3:  Turn Q&A into a one-on-one conversation after your talk. 

Invite people to schedule some complimentary time with you.  Bring your calendar, an assistant, and schedule time with them before they leave the room.

This way you don’t have to chase people, and fling endless emails back and forth trying to coordinate schedules.

Everyone’s situation is different, and carving out special time to be focused and attentive to their issues is a much better way to serve your people on a high level.

Be sure to get them scheduled before they leave the room.  Because once they leave, you are now an afterthought.  You will be competing with the 50 zillion other things that will come across their radar.

And you will walk out of your talk with gaggles of sales conversations.

These are the critical steps to keep audiences engaged, and gives them an opportunity to speak candidly about their situation once everyone has left the building. 

You will be able to find things out on your sales conversation that they would never share in a room full of strangers.

As for the person who robbed my talk? 

They had their own speaking event the next month, and they were sure not to give up their audience to the other sales professional in the room.

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Attitude of Gratitude

gratitude

Hoping you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday for those of you celebrating!

It’s wonderful to focus on what we are “grateful” for on this holiday each year.  Feels good, doesn’t it?

So, what if there was a way to keep the gratitude party going on all year long?  What could that bring you?

Well, gratitude can bring you a lot of things.  It can bring more of what you want to see happen in your life – more money, happiness, health, love, achievement; it can create a 180 degree shift in a moment of distress; and it can make you feel really good inside everyday…no matter how challenging life becomes.

And did you know, that the practice of gratitude is a huge part of the success formula for all of the uber-successful CEO’s on the planet?

If it’s good for the goose…well…you know the rest!

So, what if you had something available to you, that could keep you on track, a way to practice gratitude..automatically…365 days of the year without having to lift a finger or think about twice?

Here is something AWESOME that I want to share with you during this Thanksgiving season.  Something to keep you on the gratitude train everyday.  And it arrives like a present each morning…just for you!  Click here!

Fear Of Sales Calls Is Holding You Back

As a business owner, every morning I would get up ready to take on the world.

It became routine…

Get coffee.

Check emails.

Get more coffee.

Look at my schedule of sales calls for the day.

And then I could feel the churning in the pit of my stomach.

Early on in my business, I have to admit, when it came to sales calls, someone else was running my script. 

It surely wasn’t me.  

I’d like you to meet my former CEO – his name is “Fear”.

Fear came sweeping over me every time I had to have a sales conversation and talk about my services.

I HATED sales calls.

I was afraid of not being able to answer questions and sounding stupid. 

I spent too much time constantly trying to problem solve.

I didn’t know what to ask.

I was putting on dog and pony shows to try and convince prospects to do business with me.

I was blaming myself and taking things personally when they said NO.

And I wasn’t closing business.  

Talk about a hot mess!

Does any of this sound familiar?

Think about it…you’ve put in the time. You’ve read the books. You’ve attended seminars, rehearsed your lines, and mentally replayed the steps.

So why do you still freeze when it’s time to pick up the phone?

The answer is simple…really…

It’s fear.

The Impact of Fear In Selling

Fear is a completely natural response.  Here is what happens:

FIGHT:  you argue with yourself why you didn’t take action (excuses)

FLIGHT:  you immediately switch to another task (you’re so busy!)

FREEZE: you sit there; you stall; you take no action and beat yourself up later

The Sales Call Game Changer

Here’s the a game changer for you.  

I want to share something I learned that literally shifted my business overnight.

It’s one quote is from Bob Proctor, a popular motivational speaker.

He says, “Sales is not something you do TO someone, it’s something you do FOR someone.

**Mic Drop***

14 words of sheer impact. I had to take a breath.

If we break this down, a sales conversation is simply meant to help a person to gain CLARITY around their situation, so that they can make a decision to move FORWARD in a way that will better their life.

This is how you can serve your target market on a high level and be of service to a potential client.

How to Conquer a Fear of Sales Calls

Tip #1: When you are focused on yourself, you can’t help the other person.

Instead of thinking about how you are going to “convince” someone to do business with you, start asking questions about what is going on for your prospect.

Listen intently on what your prospect is saying, take good notes, and keep asking questions. Be curious!

This keeps you out of “convincing” and in service as a trusted advisor.

Tip #2: Start thinking how YOU can HELP this person. Not what can I can GET from this person.

Here is how you can start to shift this – think about a sales conversation as a GIFT. A gift of clarity.

This is one of the biggest impacts you can make with your prospects that will have to stand out from the crowd.

And be open to letting go of the outcome of the conversation.

If they move forward and do business with you – great! If not, you at least helped someone today get clear on a burning problem they have. This makes you “memorable”.

Tip #3: Get your prospect to do the talking

This is your opportunity to break from the pack. Your competition is doing the same thing over and over again on their sales calls. Talking about themselves, their credentials, and the alphabet soup of titles and certifications after their name.

Your prospect, quite frankly, doesn’t care.

Get your prospect talking about themselves. Make the conversation all about them. Get them to tell you exactly what is on their mind vs trying to analyze what their problem is.

These simple steps can help get back in the drivers seat of your sales conversations – and never be paralyzed by fear running your business ever again.

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Resolutions Won’t Make You A Dime: Here’s What Will

A BIG part of being successful in your business is not about your New Year’s resolution or your 2015 plan.  You can have all of that written out, with pretty branding, awesome graphics, bows and hearts decorated all over it.

Here’s what’s missing….

…stepping firmly into the role as the CEO of your company. Too many of you are wavering and not taking yourselves seriously. Planting yourself firmly into this role, and understanding the role makes the difference in making those well laid plans and resolutions stick.

What does that look like?

Well, here’s insight into the top 10 things CEO’s do that will get you on the fast track to success:

  1. Take themselves seriously – don’t joke about what you do or minimize it. Speak from a place of authority and show off your expertise, how you make your contribution to the world. Nothing is too small!
  2. Know the value of their time – be aware of time leaks.  And those around you who waste your time.  This is the #1 place to find lost revenue.
  3. Have a clear plan – here’s where your 2015 planning will pay off.  Be sure it’s clear and precise; money doesn’t land in ambiguity.
  4. Make decisions – as part of the human condition, we ALL have a fear of being wrong.  As a CEO, you just have to make a decision.  Right or wrong, you will learn something super valuable from it.  It also keeps you moving forward and out of the quicksand of being perpetually “stuck”.
  5. Attentive to personal needs – you can’t skip meals or workouts.  Your body is the engine that keeps everything in your life running.  Take care of it, and schedule it!
  6. Do what it takes – go the extra mile, call in an expert, gett up early to write your newsletter <wink> Commitment and consistency is a winning formula.
  7. Take full responsibility – don’t get caught up in the blame game.  If something doesn’t go well, someone wrongs you, or doesn’t get something done, you have to take responsibility for everything in your business. Period.  No whiners, no blame, no pointing fingers.  Forget it. Take the experience to build a better mousetrap and use it as rocket fuel to be better next time.
  8. Know their numbers – start making besties with your digits.  Know your revenue, your expenses, your profit, and cost of services at the drop of a hat.  Look at your revenue daily (at the very least weekly!), be sure your billing is going out and invoices are getting paid.  The 2nd largest place where money leaks occur, if you don’t follow the money…it’s going to follow someone else!
  9. Invest in training – CEO’s know they don’t know it all.  Surround yourself with experts.  People who know more than you.  Look at who you surround yourself with.  If you’re the smartest person in the room, change venues!
  10. Build teams of support – CEO’s know they can’t run their business alone.  Work with the gifts you’ve got, and outsource everything else. Delegate.  This can look like a cleaning person, landscaper, babysitter…even the kid down the street who can file for you 2 hours a week.  Once your company grows, hire experts in their respective fields who do what you don’t all day long…like social media managers, administrative assistants, copywriters, webmasters, etc.

And just to be clear, here is what CEO’s don’t do:

  1. Let failures make them quit
  2. Get distracted
  3. Let people violate their boundaries
  4. Work themselves into exhaustion
  5. Concern themselves about being “liked” or most popular
  6. Subscribe to being perfect
  7. Get paralyzed by fear
  8. Try to do everything themselves
  9. Think they can learn everything on their own
  10. Get caught up in cycles of blame

Look at how often you spend your time in which camp.  If you find yourself in the “don’ts”, take simple steps to move yourself up the latter to the “do’s”.  That way, you can be the boss everyday and drive your goals home.   Game on….

You’re Too Busy For This

Last week I was catching up with some former colleagues. After initially asking how they are, the first response was consistent across the board. They all said, “Busy!” And since they were all sounding so exasperated and occupied, I asked…”Doing what?” And their responses were kind of shocking. It clearly painted the picture of the corner we are backing ourselves into.

Next time you hop on a call and tell a friend or colleague that you have been “busy”, check yourself!

What have you been busy with?

Really…write it down.

Most of us are filling our days with annoying tasks, interruptions, and responding to our smartphones at the drop of a hat.

So, what are you busy with?

So many entrepreneurs are over working and not making the money they want and deserve because they are hanging out in “busy” land. That’s what got us paid back in corporate…showing the higher ups how busy we were. Busy = valuable employee.

But that equation operating as a biz owner doesn’t quite fly.

So let’s start to change the conversation (and the dollars in your pocket).

What if we could swap out “busy” and insert “productive and profitable”?  Yeah baby, I think I like the sound of that.

How do you do it?

Here are some helpful hot tips to get you there:

1. Schedule It!: Create a daily schedule for yourself. If you do things haphazardly, you won’t get anything done. Remember all of those other things vying for you constant attention? You can put non-productive things at bay, and schedule your day in a way to be productive…and get sh*t done!

2. Organize It!: All tasks are not created equal. Get a green highlighter and a pink one…let’s attack this to-do list. Highlight in green all of those tasks that could result in money coming through the door. For example: your follow-up phone calls with prospects.  Green = money. Now, highlight in pink all of the administrative tasks. Example: filing. Be sure to do all of your “green” tasks first.

3. Wrangle It!: Emails. If you want to wear the busy badge, just put your emails on blast. This is the biggest time suck of all.  Picture a little thief reaching into your pocket stealing your time and money. That’s email. It takes 5 times as much energy to respond to emails as they arrive, vs bundling emails for responses at one point in time. Pick 2 to 3 times of the day for response email times.  And, take off those buzzers, dings, and rings every time an email comes in. You’re not Pavlov’s dog looking for a treat.

Work these 3 hot tips and literally get back 2-3 hours in your day (yes, that is what you are wasting being “busy!”).

So, the next time a friend or colleague asks you how you are, you can now say, ”productive and profitable”.

Cheers to that!

Your Sales Receipt

As a heart-centered entrepreneur, you just want to do good in the world.  You want to be able to help people at a super high level, and make a difference.

You started your business, then realized you get tongue-tied when it comes to selling your services to potential clients.

Why does this happen?

Well, let’s see if we can start by re-framing what sales is for you.

As one of my mentors, David Neagle says, “Sales is not something you do ‘to’ someone; it’s something you do ‘for’ someone.”

Now, there is a difference! Going into a conversation thinking you have to “convince” someone to do something is setting yourself up for instant failure. NO ONE does anything they don’t want to do. And you will never convince or sell someone something they don’t want.

And that my friends, is where the gold lies. This is where sales gets really fun, and you get to do something “for” your prospects.

Picture it…a box with a big, red bow on it.

Now, here is what lies inside. People are coming to you for a reason. It may not be explicit, but they are there for some reason. They have a problem they feel that you may be able to help them solve. And they can’t get to the solution themselves. So, what do they need from you?

Clarity.

Welcome to Sales 101 ladies! It all starts with the “Gift of Clarity”.

In the initial sales conversation with prospects, it’s all about understanding three things: 

1. What they want.

2. What’s getting in the way of what they want.

3. What’s their level of commitment to getting what they want.

People start a conversation with you confused, and leave that conversation with the big “ah-ha” moment of clarity. That gift of clarity is seamlessly starting to create the roadmap of how you can work together to get to what they want.

No one else is doing this for them. It’s all you baby!

As the heart-centered entrepreneur, sales is a gift you give your prospects. Because when your prospects don’t have clarity, they are living in a land of confusion. And being stuck in that state of confusion is not serving them. It’s causing them discomfort and even sometimes physical pain. They know it. That’s why they are talking to you.

So, congratulations. Keep on trucking with your sales conversations and starting out the relationship on the right foot.

Giving people the gift of clarity will put sales in your pocket; but, for your clients, it’s absolutely priceless.