Have you been thinking about being a professional speaker and growing your business? In this blog, I’m going to share three different ways that you can speak to…
Who is a professional speaker? I'm part of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. In the US, there's the National Speakers Association. There are also many other professional speaking organizations, including the Global Speakers. The key thing is, speakers are people who get paid to speak. Whether you are a keynoter, workshop leader, facilitator, group coach, professor, emcee, (and there are many more), you are a speaker. For CAPS, you have to have made $50,000 from speaking, minimum in the previous 12 months to be a member. Different organizations or associations have different criteria. Plus, ethically, you have to be a good speaker. Now, there still are professional speakers out there who are being paid to speak, who are amazing, who don't have a designation, who aren't part of an association, that's up to them. When you are part of an association, it does give you credibility. It also can connect you with the right bureaus, the right opportunities, and you're professionally part of a group of your people, your peers, or your colleagues. I'm sharing this so if anyone does want to go that route, there's that option. Also, if you're wanting to practice your speaking and you're new, I do suggest you go and join Toastmasters. That is something I did in order to refine my speaking ability, to be able to practice, and to get feedback in a professional setting. But that doesn't necessarily teach you how to grow a speaking business. The 3 ways to speak without being a Professional Speaker How can you be brought in to speak even if you are not a professional speaker? I have already shared with you about fee-paid speaking, where you would get paid to speak. Now I’m going to share more about speak-to-offer, where you don't necessarily get paid to speak, or you get an honorarium or you don't get your full fee, but you get to make an offer. There are also many opportunities where you speak and talk about yourself, promote yourself by providing education, answering questions, and maybe a presentation. Some of them are free and some of them have an investment by you to speak, but you get to make an offer or promote yourself and capture emails with a lead magnet. Think of these 3 different opportunities as marketing and sales opportunities. When people come to my free online community, Dynamic Women Global Community on Facebook, I ask them, “What's something you want to learn about?” A lot of times, people are saying marketing, so speaking is one really amazing way to do marketing for your business. As I go through these opportunities, I will also share some really conservative results that I got. I've had way bigger results, but I'm going to keep it super duper small so that you can think about what is realistic for you. I'm not guaranteeing these numbers, but they are possible. They are showing the reality that even if you don’t have a very big audience, there are many opportunities and really great results you can get from other people’s audiences. #1: Speak at events Sometimes, there are networking groups who will invite someone to come in and speak for 5-12 minutes about themselves. It might even be lunch with a speaker, but the speaker is going to be actually giving a proper talk for 45 minutes to 90 minutes. For those, you’ll want to prepare and practice, so you can build some confidence and some experience in speaking. At these events, you can definitely have the smaller speaking spots. I'll speak about the virtual world, but know that these can definitely be done in-person. This way, if you're thinking virtually, that expands the number of people you can speak to. It also expands the number of opportunities that you have. Here’s an example of me being given a 10-minute speaking spot: I was talking about life balance. At the end of it, I said that I'm giving away a free audit of what you need in order to be balanced in life. There were only 10 guests at this event. One of them was the host. One of them was me, so there were only eight guests. I had two of those people (that's 20%) ask for audits with me. Out of those two, one of them became a sale. One of them bought a program for $997. Me going and speaking at that event got me one client at $997. That's pretty good, right? Of the 10, 20% came to connect with me. One of those, so 10% of the people, I was able to turn into a client from the lead. (Remember this was a poor result compared to numbers I have done.) If you could make $997 from 10 minutes of your time, would you grab the mic? Events are great because I also got to know the host better. The other cool thing is one of the people there reached out to me later about speaking to her group. It's not always about marketing to a client, it could be marketing to another host of another event, or to another opportunity. Plus, it’s relationship building with the event host. The key thing is you want to do your best to educate them in that 10-25 minutes. You're not going to pitch to them. You're going to give them something like a gift, which is your lead magnet. It could be a report, checklist, audit, blueprint, templates, etc. Listen to this Podcast episode to learn more about Lead Magnets. #2 Summits Summits can be a day, two days, or it could be longer. Think of it more like a conference where there are multiple speakers. Some of these are going to be interview style or some of these will be you taking the stage to talk about your topic. If you're not a professional speaker, it's really great when these are interviews as it takes the pressure off of you preparing a talk. Those are going to be ones to look for. When they're interviews, you also want to look for ones where you get to provide the questions so it takes the conversation to a place you want to go and can help you to prepare better. You're not going to read your answers, but you’ll know what will be asked and what you want to share. It’s going to give the audience the best content. For me as a host, I want my guests to be able to provide the questions so I can ask the best ones to make them look good, and my audience gets the best content. Here’s an example of when I spoke at a summit: In the audience for my talk (because there were multiple talks happening at the same time) there were only six guests listening to my interview. At first, I was disappointed because there were supposed to be hundreds, if not 1000s of people on the summit because every speaker was supposed to promote it and so I shared the summit info with my list. I tried not to be discouraged by this. I gave away a lead magnet at the end, I don't remember which one it was. But from that, I had two leads. Those two leads became two clients, each of them purchasing something for about $1250, so the total profit was $2497. If there were six guests there, that was a close rate of 33%. Now, they both didn't happen at the same time. One happened pretty soon after, and then a while later another happened, which was a great surprise. (Again, remember this was a low result compared to numbers I have done.) If you could make $2497 from a 30-min interview would you do it? The other benefit of summits is all the other people there speaking. You can connect with them, you can go and see where they have spoken at, and you can then potentially go and speak at the summit for the next year of this talk if it goes really well. You might also have the opportunity in summits to provide a VIP gift. Now, the VIP gift is usually something you will normally charge for, but you're going to give it for free to the VIPs. The VIPs at the summits are the people who have paid to be there and paid to get the recordings, or paid to be able to get extra bonuses. These are really great people to be offering to because the VIPs are already comfortable paying for things. These are the people you want to give a VIP gift to. If you're asked at a summit if you can provide a regular gift plus a VIP gift, say yes, and figure out what to give them. I encourage you to give something that is going to be passive for you. For example, a mini course, a group session, a recording, or something really good that would position you as an expert. #3: Podcast Guesting The third opportunity is to be on someone's podcast and usually it’s interview style. Here’s an example of when I was a guest on a podcast: Since no one was there live with us, I had no idea how many guests, or how many people would listen to it, and how many potential buyers there were. No idea. Absolutely no idea. However, I gave a gift - another lead magnet. I had a bunch of people sign up for the gift. As time went on, more people have been signing up for the gift because a podcast lives on (it’s evergreen). An event is only for the people who are there. A summit is for the people that are there and the people that paid for the recordings or are getting the recordings. But a podcast lives on and lives on. The even better podcasts are the ones that also promote it on their YouTube channel. For example, every time I do one of my Dynamic Women podcast episodes, it also goes on my YouTube channel, Diane Rolston YouTube channel. That gives you two opportunities to be heard. If you're going to be interviewed on a podcast, wouldn't it not be amazing if you could be on both platforms, as a podcast and on YouTube? Now just like the summits where I talked about being interviewed, that's the common way to do it, podcasts also have interviews. Now, if the podcaster has some sort of special way they do it, you want to be listening to a bunch of episodes to see:
Providing your questions for a podcast host is really beneficial. When I have people as guests on my podcast, I ask them, “What questions do you want me to ask you?” For a 25-minute podcast, think about offering maybe five-seven questions. It also depends on how long your answers are. You want it to feel like a tennis match back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. They'll ask you the question, you give an answer, but don't drone on for 10 minutes because they're not going to be able to ask you all the questions, and the audience will get bored. Let’s get back to my example. (Reminder: These are all super minimum examples, not my best results. I'm giving you almost the worst results so that you can just see what the opportunities are.) Again, one of the podcasts I was on, I had no clue how many people were listening to it or have listened to it. I received one phone call from someone who left me a message and said, “Diane, I just heard your podcast episode with so and so. I'd like to talk to you about coaching.” Great. We jumped on a phone call so that was just an investment of my time. Then they signed up for one of my coaching packages. That was a value of $8,820. Would you say yes to a podcast, then a sales call so you could make almost $9000? I’m guessing yes! Wrapping Up When we add this up, I did three separate talks, which you can easily do even without being a professional speaker, other than an outline or some basic questions. I did not practice them. I did not create a PowerPoint slideshow or a presentation of any fashion, no handout, nothing. I was able to bring in about $14,000, from let's say, an average of 90 minutes of being either interviewed or speaking. There are ways to be more professional or to do a better job for sure, but I was not a fee paid speaker in this case. I made money on the back end by marketing myself very wisely in these opportunities. I have some speaking opportunities where I’ve made $80k on the back end. What do you think? Do you think you could take on one of these opportunities? Could you go and look for events to speak at? Could you look for summits to speak at? Could you look for podcasts to speak on? You totally can, and I encourage you to do so. If you want to be a guest on the Dynamic Women Podcast, just go to this link and apply. Now, if you want to be a speaker at one of our future events, you can apply here. So what's the next step for you? Is it to reach out to me and my team and to be part of these opportunities? Is it to go out into the world and see what else is out there for you? I hope so because one amazing way to market your business is through speaking. Watch out for my next blogs! I will talk more about the benefits of speaking on other people’s platforms, the myths you’ve been led to believe that are costing you speaking opportunities, and the keys for you getting off to a fast start to grow your business and build your income with speaking. Read my other blogs:
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In my last blog, I talked about why you don’t need to prove yourself to everyone before you offer. Now, let me share with you 5 things you can do to increase your confidence about a product or service offer. You don't have to do all five. You don't have to do any of them if you don't want to. But it gives you at least some knowledge about the things you can do if you want to elevate your confidence before you make that offer and potentially make a better offer. #1: Conducting research A lot of times before I offer a new product or service, I do market research. I often start with a SWOT analysis. I'm going to look for my strengths, my weaknesses, my opportunities, and the threats to me and in my business, but you can also do this with a product or service.
This will also help you when you move into market research and start interviewing your target audience. It'll help you to understand their needs and wants much better. Sidenote, it might also move one of these people helping you with market research to eventually purchase from you. You might be able to move them into being one of your customers because you're going to give them exactly what they're wanting. Another thing under this umbrella of conducting market research or doing your research is that it'll help you identify potential competitors and gaps in the market that your product or your service can fill. That's how I started the Dynamic Women group because I was out networking, and I was so sick of surface-level, pressure-based, sales-driven networking, where it was just about selling to each other. If they couldn’t make a customer out of you then they’d have no use for you. There was not enough relationship building. I saw there was a huge gap that needed to be filled, so I offered the Dynamic Women Global Club. Also, by doing research, it's going to help you to be able to refine your product or your service. Why? To better meet the needs of your target market, not to refine it to make it perfect per se, but to just give them exactly what they're looking for. This is how research is one way you can increase your confidence and provide a better product or service. #2: Gathering feedback You can go to potential customers, so not just market research, but potential customers and gather feedback from them. It can help you understand, “How do they perceive this product, this service that I'm going to offer?” You can identify at that point, any issues, any concerns they have about it, and make improvements before you launch. In my previous blog, I shared about how we don't have to offer free or beta products. Also, that we shouldn't fully develop a product or a service, like a course, until we kind of start to jump into it and offer it and make sure there's a need for it. Gathering feedback and developing it as you go will allow you to launch earlier. I had a course I fully developed before I launched it. Then when I did, no one bought it. That's because the name was wrong. The name made people feel intimidated. Instead, I thought it would give them permission to not have that trouble. But instead, it evoked a limiting belief in them. Just by a simple name change, I was able to have a better course that actually sold, but not until I rebranded it. The problem was I had already recorded the materials and so I had to re-record videos and remake handouts, which was really annoying. Gathering feedback would have really helped me to make this improvement. You can do this in many different ways like surveys, focus groups, and yes, you can do a beta version, but let's not call it beta. Let's just reach out to people and say, “Hey, I'm going to offer this course, program, or service to a small group of customers, I'm inviting you before I offer it to the general public.” I did this with the Dynamic You program the very first time and 25 women paid to be in the program, invest to be in the program. I got paid, and they got results. Is the program better now that I've run it a few dozen times? Of course, of course it is. Did they invest less money than people do now? They did. So I think that was a complete Win-Win! #3: Test your product or service Now, when you're testing them, you want to make sure you're testing in real world conditions. If you're going to test a course, or test a product, make sure it's with who is actually going to be the end user. When I first started coaching, I offered 30 sample sessions in 30 days so that I could get better at coaching. What I said to people was, “I don't want you to say yes to having a session if you don't really want the coaching, and you just want to help me reach my goal.” You see, it’s nice, but that's not the real world for me. I want the people who are actually going to use it, not just family or friends or people who would never pay for it. Try to find the right people to test it in the right conditions because that way, you're going to really be able to identify any issues, any bugs, make any improvements before launching. It can also include conducting tests on “Is this usable?” You can run a pilot program to test for results if you want. Just offer it to a small group of customers before you make it public, get the feedback, make the changes, and then put it out there for real. #4: Develop a marketing plan This is often something that people don't do, even though it makes sense you would do it, even if you're going to offer a course pretty quickly. When you have the right marketing plan, it's going to help you to reach your target market. It'll help you to get the right interest in your product or service. If you're just going to throw it out there and hope that people find it and buy it, it's probably not going to happen. Then that's going to kill your confidence. Some pieces that you're going to want to have in your marketing plan are:
When someone asks me, “Which way should I market this?” I'm like, “Write them all down, and then pick as many as you want.” You might want to only have one way you market. There are some people that only do Facebook ads. Some people will only offer from the stage. Some people will only do podcast interviews. My feeling is why not do as many of these different options as you can. Do all of them so you can bring the required or your ideal number of sales in. It's much easier when you have multiple ways to market your product/service, and to bring the clients in. That will increase your confidence rather than just trying to put all your eggs in one basket. #5: Build a strong team They can help you execute putting together the product or service, the marketing and the offer. They can also help to address any issues, any concerns that arise. I am so grateful that I have my two main virtual assistants, Kristine and Karissa, who help me to develop and market my products and services plus delivery to my clients. I can be more confident because I’m not that great at building landing pages, email sequences, all these things. I can do them all, but do I want to do them? No. I want to stay in my own lane, which are skills in my zone of genius like talking on summits, having my own podcast, speaking from stage running events, doing sales calls and serving my clients. These are the things that I want to do. Having a team who can do everything else is great (and a relief). Also it might mean that you hire experienced professionals. I have a business advisor. I have a speaker business coach. I have other professionals around me who provide different expertise in different areas, especially when I'm going to offer a product or service. Things they can help with might be product development, marketing, customer service, it might just be mindset. A bad mindset is a thief of action. Sometimes it's clarity on what to do. So clarity, confidence and getting into action around the thing you're doing. Other times you need someone there to do the coaching piece to kick your butt and keep you accountable to be moving things along. Wrapping Up I just gave you five different things you can do to increase your confidence when you're offering a product or a service: conducting research, gathering the feedback, testing your product or service, developing a marketing plan, and building a strong team. Take the steps. It can't hurt. You can do all of them. They will increase your confidence, and make your product or service even better when you make your offer. It can help you be better positioned for success when you're making your launch. Which one are you going to do? All of them, some of them, one of them, or none of them? Let me know in the comments! I'm encouraging you. If you have a specific topic you’d like me to answer or talk through it with you, then email me at diane@dianerolston.com and let me know what it is. Read my other blogs here:
Are you sitting on a course, product or a service you feel like you have to prove yourself to everyone first before you offer it? I've been in business for 12 years in my coaching practice, and I totally understand why people have these feelings before they offer because I personally have experienced them:
Where does this come from? I've heard this from clients. I've even heard this from mentors of mine. Over the years, I've met colleagues and people when I've done speaking engagements who have said, “Yeah, I've always wanted to do that, but I haven’t” or “Oh, I'm developing it”. But they've been developing it for years. If you continue to develop yourself or your offering forever without making an offer, what could happen is that by the time you are ready to offer, it's not what your ideal client needs anymore. Or by the time you offer, it is not something your clients even wanted. But you have now spent so much time, energy, and money into developing something fully. Then you're not even going to get the rewards from it. I'm quite passionate about this because so many women out there have really amazing offerings inside of them. They're hesitant. They feel like:
I had a client, and we talked about how she was going to start offering her courses. She's an expert in her industry and great at what she does, so I was so excited for her saying, “Okay, let's get these out there, Did you want to start with the ones you already have, the ones you're currently developing, or the new ones your clients have asked you for?” Then she sent me a message and said, “You know, I haven't done it yet because I feel like I want to spend the next two months doing research and getting things ready. Then I’ll be able to prove myself because not everyone knows me yet.” Well, that's right, not EVERYONE knows her. But how many times have you bought a product, and you didn't know the company's owner or you didn't know about the company? You just thought, “Oh, yeah, I want that” and you bought it. That's what happens so often. When you offer the most amazing product that is perfect for your client, they usually don't care who made it. They're just like, “Can you deliver on what you're offering? Great, I want to get it.” You don't need to prove to everyone in the world that you can do something before you offer it. Otherwise, how will you ever be ready to offer the course? I'm going to talk mainly about courses, but if you have a product or a service, please think about that as I continue on. Also, if you’re making a product and you’re going to manufacture it, and it will be a huge expenditure, then please do your do-diligence and do full research and a SWOT analysis. Take the time to do the backend of things because your upfront costs are so much higher than offering a course or a service. It is possible to offer (sell) your courses before you fully create them. What do you need to be able to do that? Here are the 3 things:
The key part is you don’t have to develop every single module, with every single video, and every single handout already locked in. I'll tell you a little secret. The Dynamic You program was basically developed in 24 hours. The first module was developed, 24 hours before my clients started the program. Then as soon as I finished the coaching call about that first module, I’d be developing the next module and then the next day they would get it. I was only ever a day or two ahead of them. The benefit of that, for me, has been that I can see what my clients are going through in the moment. I can add things. I can change things. I can change the order of when they learn different pieces. So know it’s an opportunity for you. It will answer questions such as:
Why is it okay to offer a product or a service before you have proven results? Do you want to know probably the one reason your limiting beliefs are going to lock into? It is common practice in many industries, particularly in startups, small businesses, new ventures, where the product or service is still being developed or tested. It's common practice. It's normal to put things out there even in the start-up stage. Now even if we think about products in the food industry. How many times have you seen a fast food restaurant say, “For a limited time” and they'll offer a special burger. They're testing it out. They're seeing how it does. Know that for the course or program you're offering, you can offer it for a limited time to just test it out. Then if it doesn’t work you pull it. What you can do There are several things you can do to improve your confidence about a product or a service. I was talking with someone who I saw as my mentor in my early years of business. I brought her my concerns, my questions, my worries, and my obstacles. I also shared my successes with her. One day she was sharing about how she needed to take another course and do another set of schooling before she would offer her course or program. I said to her, “I bet if I brought together a group of people tomorrow, gave you two hours, you could teach them.” She said, “So of course, I could.” Well, there you go. There's your answer. She just felt she had to be more. But you don't. Here's what you can do instead: The 5 Steps Now, you want to know the real secret here? It's five steps, actually. Step 1: Pick what you're passionate about.
Step 2: Run it Just run it. Now a lot of times people say, “I'm going to run a beta course and I'm going to make it free.” You don't have to. Now, here's the one thing if you don't have the education behind it… if you don't have the knowledge. Don't offer. This is the problem with overnight coaches: the people who haven't done any of the schooling or certification to be a coach. Please don't go out there and offer courses, services, and programs if you don’t have the background. On the flip side you don't need to get yet another certificate before you can offer. Enough already. Make your offer and don’t give is away for free or peanuts because you’re new or it’s new. Not sure where you fit in this? Here's the question, you can ask yourself: Will your clients or customers have the intended result by the end of that course or program? Can you guarantee that? Step 3: Deliver on your promise This is a key thing - deliver on your promise. If you're guaranteeing they’re going to make a million dollars by the end of your 30-day course, you better make sure they can do that. If you’re guaranteeing they're going to have a plan or a blueprint filled in for how they're going to increase their marketing, their sales, their confidence, whatever it may be, if you can guarantee they're going to get to the end and be able to do or have what you say they can, then by all means, go and offer. It's that easy. If by chance your customer or client doesn't have that intended result, what are you going to do about it? If they don't have the intended result, and they’ve done all of the work to get there. We have to be responsible for it. If a client says to you, “Oh, I didn't get the result you promised.” Look at their progress. If they didn't do the work. They didn't fill in the activities and didn't attend the sessions. Of course, they didn't get the result. They didn't go through your process. They didn't finish it. If they did all the work, if they went through the program, and they didn't get the intended result, what would you do about it? Will you offer to support them on-on-one until they have that result? Will you let them go through the program again? Will you give them a refund? What's your guarantee if they don't get the results? If you commit to making it right then you can offer. Now, one thing with your customers too, as you develop a new program, you need to manage the expectations of your customers, you need to be very transparent about where you're at with the development. For example, I'm often on Kickstarter. I'm supporting businesses that are starting out. One product I backed about a year and a half ago and I still don't have the product. However, they give me updates every month or so about where they're at with it and why it's not ready. I appreciate their transparency and communication. Also, in the beginning with my VA Made Easy program, I said to the first eight clients, “Okay, we're going to figure it out as we go. I'm going to put all my effort in, and I'm going to give you the process I see best at this time, but things will probably change.” Now that I have 38 clients in the program who are using my virtual assistants, I've said to them, “Some Modules will be recorded again.” I keep communicating clearly about what's happening. As I learn more, the program grows. The way you offer something in the early stages might then be different later on because of unforeseen issues, new learnings, and an evolving process. My Dynamic You program started off as a 45-minute workshop. It’s now a four-week program with modules, group coaching sessions, or it's a one-day live event with pre and post-sessions. It also became a retreat. There are many different ways I've been offering this over the years in order to give even better results, a more powerful experience and deeper impact. Step 4: Get feedback and testimonials As you go through your program or course, get that feedback and get testimonials. How have I been able to do that? Here's the key: gather feedback along the process. Gather feedback from those early customers. This will help you to be able to develop that product or service over time. It also ensures that what you're offering is meeting the needs and the expectations of those customers or clients who purchase from you. Step 5: Do it again Do it again. You’re not done. Do it again. Offer it again. Unless it's absolute garbage, you're going to offer it again. You're going to make the changes, and you're going to offer it again. Wrapping Up: For anyone who’s sitting there and saying, “I have to prove myself to everyone”, trust me, in every level you get to, you'll feel like you need to prove yourself at that new level. I don't know how many times I bought things online or from people, and I haven't asked their background. I haven't asked how many courses they've taken or how many certifications they have. I just look at the offer, and ask myself if I think they can take me from point A to point B faster than I can take myself, easier than I can take myself, and less painful than if I did it myself? If I see they can do that for me, great I buy itt. If they don't deliver on it, then well, I'm going to have a plan to recoup my time, energy, and money. When you follow the 5 Steps, your clients/customers will be getting a great product from you and your expertise. So don't delay. Jump out there and put your offer out within the next 30 days. Give yourself a timeline. If you don't give yourself a timeline, it won't happen. If you are thinking that this is, “Ok Diane, but I want to write a book”. Same thing. You don't need to prove yourself to anyone or everyone. How are you going to put a book out and already have social proof you’re a great author? It goes for everything that you do. You just need to step into it and make it happen. I'm curious, what's the thing you're going to put into the world? Leave me a comment. Let me know. If you're still feeling like you could really use some support to make this happen, why don't you reach out to me and we'll have a conversation. You can just email me, diane@dianerolston.com. We'll have a chat, and see how I can better support you to achieve your goals. If it’s putting a course out, definitely. I have a lot of lean strategies, a lot of efficiencies around getting it out there. If you want my team to help you put it out there, my virtual assistant team can make that happen. Read my other blogs here:
In my last blog, I talked about the 5 ways that will prepare your business for economic declines. Now, is it possible to grow your business in a recession? There are steps that you can take to grow your business in a time like this when things are just so unpredictable. Recessions bring hesitation to purchase. As business owners, it's kind of a crazy time because it can cause you to experience reduced sales and increased competition. To grow your business during this time, it may be helpful to take some steps and put some things into place. The 5 Steps Here are five steps I am currently doing in my business and will continue to do. I hope you will find them helpful to recession-proof your business now, and even during a recession they’ll help you to continue to build your business or at least maintain where it is. We definitely want to make sure you’re in a place where you feel confident that you can still build or at least feel comfortable you can just ride out the storm. While I go through these five steps, ask yourself these two questions:
#1: Cut costs This is something I am constantly doing. What does that mean? Costs are either operating costs or expenses in your business you have to pay for. It could be your:
The key thing here is to review your expenses. Look through every month what you're doing and spending your money on. I say spending because maybe you're throwing away money. Hopefully, when you put money into your expenses, it’s an investment because you know you can make your money back. Review your expenses and identify areas where you can reduce your spending. We want to not only reduce, but consistently be able to reduce. When you focus on cost-cutting measures, it's going to help you reduce those costs you have every month, therefore increasing the profit that you get to take home without compromising the quality of your products or services. There are some places you don't want to cheap out. There are some apps and some connections to my different programs that really help things to connect. If they don't connect, then it means maybe people have to be the ones to do that work. It may be costing us time in wages and labor. Maybe the customer experience isn't as good or mistakes are being made. Another thing that I just did almost a year ago was cut down the platforms I use. I had a lot of platforms like Thinkific where I keep my courses, and I was also just about to purchase a membership platform. I also used ClickFunnels. I also have a CRM called Infusionsoft, which is really robust and quite expensive every month. I was looking at all these pieces of software and thinking how can I get rid of some of them. Then a client offered me a platform, and I responded, “Oh my gosh, I don't need another piece of software that I pay for.” But the cool thing was I could replace Thinkific, which was like over $600 a year. I could replace ClickFunnels, which I think was $150 a month. I could potentially replace my CRM, though I have decided not to and I didn't have to purchase a membership site. That's a huge savings every month if I can just pay for one or as I look at it, invest in one piece of software that takes care of 3-4 or even more platforms. It's also a lot easier to deal with one than it is with all the different ones. The other amazing part was this platform has a lifetime deal. I could invest once rather than monthly, so I figured out it was saving me at least $400 a month. So it would take only six months for me to be able to recoup the investment in that platform. You can try it out for free or get the same lifetime deal. Getting lifetime access to any platform for one low investment has been amazing. Another way you can cut your costs is with your employees, or team members. Rather than paying for someone local or even within the United States or Canada, where you could be investing in someone who is $40-100 or more dollars an hour, you can cut costs by bringing on a virtual assistant from the Philippines. It's a service I offer. In my business, I've been able to increase the hours that I have with an assistant and decrease my costs by bringing Filipino VAs on board for my own business. That's a benefit you can have, too. Plus, when you hire virtual workers you don’t need to pay to rent an office, furnish it or pay the office electricity and Wifi bills. #2: Customer retention Do you know it’s much easier to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones? You may have heard this before, but now is the time to be providing excellent customer service and building strong relationships. For longer than I probably needed to, I have supported or used certain services because we have a strong relationship. There's actually someone who sends me a monthly newsletter that comes to my mailbox. Even though I haven't used their services in 13 years, I'm more than likely to reach out to them because they have kept in contact with me. How can you provide a better customer experience and a better customer journey so that you can retain more of your customers?
If you’re thinking, “I can't discount my services.” Can you add to the package so they're getting more value, but it doesn't cost you more? One idea is if you’re selling a program, course, or coaching and you throw in a group session, an online training, an e-book or something that you already have that doesn't cost you out of pocket to hand it over to them as a bonus. #3: Marketing You still have to invest in marketing. You cannot go silent. Invest in marketing and invest in advertising. Make sure your business is visible to your potential customers and consider some new marketing channels. Which social media platforms are you not on yet? Maybe online advertising makes sense for you, like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, or YouTube Ads. Maybe it’s about developing a better marketing strategy. Do you need to be consistently visible online? If you only put out one or two posts a week, could you put out more? Could you be on more platforms? If you're thinking, “Ah Diane, that's too much. I'm already busy.” This, again, is where a virtual assistant would come into play. We're also bringing in-house content creation now to take care of this for business owners to create more visibility and consistency for your marketing. During a recession, you really have to think about customers who tend to be more cautious with their spending. They're holding their wallet a lot tighter. That’s why it's important to adjust your marketing strategy to reflect this. You can focus on a few key aspects of your offering: how it’s a wise decision for specific reasons, the value, affordability, focus on the necessities if possible, in case people are thinking it’s just a luxury to have your service or product. Another area to highlight in your marketing are customer testimonials, so your ideal client sees social proof. They’ll tell themselves, “Oh, okay, that person used their service, and that worked out well for them. Maybe I can get the same result.” Also put your face and your voice in front of your ideal customer so they can get to know you. We all know the saying: know, like, and trust. We want our ideal customer to get to know us and feel like they can trust us. Then they're going to be more willing to open their wallet to invest in your services or your products. #4: Being adaptable During the pandemic, we heard the word “pivot” all the time, instead we want to be adaptable. That's part of why I like the word dynamic because it's about active change. We should always be changing in our businesses, not only to match the economy, but to match our customers' needs, wants, and desires. What they're telling us they need. That's why I brought in the VA Made Easy Program, and now offer a lot of virtual assistant services because this is what people are needing. I saw they had a lot of ideas, they had all this strategy from their coaches, from advisors, and from experts, but they couldn't implement everything. The businesses were growing, but they were getting too busy. Being prepared to change all the time is a business strategy, especially being open to new opportunities that might present themselves to you. Be prepared to be flexible. If you can move your business strategy, then you're going to be able to change with the market's conditions, no matter where they're at. #5: Seek advice and support. Don't hesitate to reach out to mentors, coaches, business organizations, or other resources that will provide guidance and support. Maybe there's government support out there. So look for government programs, grants, and incentives that can help you and your business weather the recession. Getting advice and support could save you lots of time. It can also save you lots of money. By getting a strategy session here or a coaching session there or paying an expert to lay out the plan for you, you know that you're going to be in good hands and you're going to be able to take the next steps more confidently, especially in a time when things feel very challenging. Wrapping Up You've now got five steps you can take to still build your business during a recession. Which one of the five will work best for you? Start to order them in importance, put one into place, then the next one, and work your way through. It's not just about how we deal with the recession, but more important how we prepare for it. Read my other blogs:
1. Top 5 Dynamic Women Blogs of 2022 2. 3 Tips to Appear Confident 3. The Six Levels of Shining Do you feel like a recession is coming or the economy is about to crash? And what does that mean for your business? There are five different ways that can help prepare your business for economic declines - even if you think the economy is going to be good for a while or good forever (if you’re an optimist)! These 5 ways will still help you save time, money, and energy in running your business even if it’s a side hustle. #1: Seek advice and support The first thing you can do is to seek advice and support. If you can get advice in advance of an economic downturn, this is going to help you plan with that expert’s support. Maybe you have a financial advisor or a coach to help you strategize with your business. When the decline comes, you’re going to have a course of action that is set-in-place. It's time to reach out to mentors, business organizations, and other resources for guidance and support. Also, if you can take classes or get the training now, this is a time when you can focus. You have the emotional stamina and the emotional bandwidth to be able to handle and think about bigger planning and strategizing. You want to be able to do that now, rather than in the future when you're trying to put out fires. If you do work with a coach now, someone to support you, they're going to:
Then when the hard times come, they'll be able to support you through it because they already know you. They already know what works in your business. They are going to see what doesn't work. They're going to have background knowledge and history with you so they can work well with you and your business. There was a time when I needed my book printed, and I needed 2000 copies of the Dynamic Woman Success Secrets book. This was at a time when there was a paper shortage coming. Thankfully, the printing company who was printing my book had enough paper because they had someone supporting them who gave them advice in advance telling them, “Hey, there's a paper shortage coming, you need to prepare.” Because of their advice they rented a storage facility and bought as much paper as they could so they were able to withstand the paper shortage. Now, while that's not a recession, that would have been very detrimental. How do I know it was detrimental? Because a lot of other publishing companies went under. It meant that this company was able to withstand that time, and it's because they sought advice and support in advance of any trouble coming. They even took on other printing companies’ jobs because they were prepared. The first piece is to seek advice and support. Get someone on your team to help you especially if you're a solopreneur, small business owner, or entrepreneur, where you're doing a lot of the things by yourself. They will give you an outside view to help you make good decisions and plan things out especially when the going gets tough and then they’ll also help you through it. #2: Diversify your revenue streams This is something I have done in my business, thankfully, because when COVID hit, I got screwed in some areas. I do online and in-person coaching, events, and speaking engagements. I have a podcast, books, and online courses. I have a bunch of different offerings. That's not even all of them. But if right now, before a downturn, you can look for new products and services you could offer your customers, it gives you time to explore the current market you're in, but also, some similar markets you can expand into. If you look for new products or services to offer your clients, it will help reduce the negative impact. When a downturn comes, you're going to be able to flip into this new product or service. This is actually what happened to me. When COVID hit, I had a whole week of in-person events happening in Ontario I'd flown in for. I was at the hotel, and I was so disappointed in realizing, “Man, I have a social responsibility to cancel everything.” Now, the year before, this was an $80,000 week for me. That week was on track to be a $100-125k plus week. Can you imagine losing six figures in one week? That was pretty detrimental. Thankfully, I had diversified my revenue streams in advance. A question to ask yourself at this time is, “Can I repurpose what I already have whether it be a service or a product so that I’m ready to roll things out if something happens?” You might be thinking, “Well, if the economic decline comes then maybe people aren't buying what I'm currently offering.” Okay, well, what would your ideal customer always need? Always pay for? The reality may be, “Oh, yeah, that's a luxury” or “That's nice to have”. But…
Also, if you want to do any research around the diversity of your revenue streams and which offerings you should do, your target audience would be more willing to answer questions now than when things get a little bit crazy. Even if they’re answering questions in a downturn, you still should ask them questions now, to get some feedback about what they really need. It's better to ask now because you're going to really be able to hear them and they're going to be able to answer clearly. Then you can prepare the new offering while you're also emotionally regulated. #3: Prioritize cash flow management What does this mean in super easy terms? How much money is coming in, how much money is going out of the business, and really being on top of that. You need to know your numbers because then you know how long you can last and you know what you need to keep going and you know what profit will be coming in. When you know your numbers, it helps you to make better decisions. When you know your numbers, you can have money saved for a rainy day. As my parents would say, “Always, always save for a rainy day because you never know.” Well, business declines or economic declines come. They do. Whether it is from a pandemic or something else, there's going to be a time when things change. Knowing your numbers and having cash flow is important. If you feel like something's coming soon, maybe it does make sense for you to do payment plans on different programs you're taking or different software you're purchasing or different options. You might say, “I'm not going to pay for it all upfront. I'm going to spread this out even though it might cost me more, it's going to keep more cash flow in my business.” Then, once you know what your numbers are, really keep a close eye on the cash flow because you want to make sure you have enough cash on hand to meet all of your financial obligations. Just like in a family or with someone who has a mortgage, you want to make sure you have enough money to be able to pay that mortgage every month. You want to know your numbers so you can pay for your office space, your internet, your employees, whatever it may be because these are your financial obligations in your business, especially the things that you have to pay in order to make the money (your cost of goods). Those are key, and knowing which things you could maybe push off. Now, for some of you, I do want to go back to the payment plan suggestion. For some periods of my life, I know that paying all upfront for something did save me and actually helped me to clear that off and pushed me to work harder to pay for it. I can remember investing in a coach. It was around $15,000 US and right away I was like, “Boom, I'm going to have an event. I'm going to do this offer and pay this all off in one go.” I did that, so that might be a key thing for you. I shared a little bit about my story of that week in Ontario right when COVID happened. I have financial obligations, right? That day, literally, the income that I was expecting to come in, was gone. It was gone right away. I had to refund everyone for the events because I couldn't put another date on with all of the restrictions. I want you to ask yourself, if your income stopped tomorrow, how long could you last for? How long could your business run for? Where would you pull cash from? And going back to the other pieces, who would you ask for support, and how could you diversify? How could you do another offering? #4: Start to build relationships with your suppliers and your partners Start to build relationships with people you collaborate with, your suppliers/vendors and other people in your industry. Build really strong relationships. You want to do it now rather than when things get tough. Now, why would you do that? Well, you'll be in it together. A lot of times with my vendors, suppliers, and partners, we want to see each other succeed. So when you have these strong relationships with them, they are more willing to help you out.
It can also increase your chances of success because you'll have other people who are invested in your success. Actually, then it’s also their success because if you stop hiring them as your vendor, your supplier, or partner, they're going to lose out as well. It’s nice to have a mutual desire of wanting others to succeed. If I go back to that publishing company who had the paper, if you had a relationship with them then maybe they would help you out. There are a few ways this could work:
If you were unable to fulfill an obligation or hit an obstacle, do you have other people who could step in and support you? I hope so. So you can ask yourself, “Which of my suppliers, partners, people in my industry, or vendors do I need to build a stronger relationship with now to help me weather a storm if it comes?” #5: Increase your efficiency It’s important to increase the efficiency of you, your employees, and the company. Now is the time to make it a well-oiled machine, not when there's so much stress and fires to focus on. Now's the time to really put some strong systems and processes into place. Now you don't have to be the one to build the systems and processes, it might be time to bring in a virtual assistant to be able to document those processes for you and to help make things happen there. The other piece of this is it's time to invest in some digital technology and automation so you can start to reduce your costs and make things more efficient. Digital technology can be a more robust or efficient CRM. It could be bringing in other software or other platforms that are really going to cut down on the amount of time needed. Now, this is not just so you can get rid of people from your company. But it might be so you can make everyone's position more efficient. You can reduce the amount of tasks you do. You can also increase accuracy because there's less human error. If you're feeling like, “Ah technology, I don't like it”, again a virtual assistant might be able to be the answer for you to set up the technology and to keep the technology running. Since I have mentioned having a virtual assistant, I now have a team of 17 virtual assistants that work with 30+ CEOs/small business owners. The CEOs I work with who are passing off work to their virtual assistants are now able to strategize, plan, goal set, and prepare for an economic downturn. If you're thinking about, “Well, how do I find the time to create additional income streams or revenue streams?” Well, if you pass off work, you'd be able to do that or even better they can create additional income streams for you. This is also a very smart decision to make because when you want to prepare for something, you need time and energy. The best way to have time and energy is to pass things off. The other piece is that the VAs I hire are from the Philippines, so you're also able to reduce your employment, staffing, or contract costs in order to run your business. If you want to talk about this as an option for you, just message me diane@dianerolston.com. We can have a chat about it. Wrapping Up So now you have the five ways you can prepare your business for economic declines. You may think, “Ah, this is too much!” No, it's not. Just bookmark this, flag it, whatever you need to do. What if, over the next five weeks, you took one of these each week and implemented it? In five weeks, you'd be sleeping better, you'd be running a better business, and you're going to start to feel that you're prepared, rather than being worried. A lot of times in our lives, the worry is more debilitating than the actual negative situation when it comes. So I hope you'll put your own plan in place to prepare in case the economy goes on a downturn. Even if it doesn't, you have just put five great strategies into place, which are going to help you to build a stronger business, decrease your expenses, the time it takes, and reduce the amount of energy you need to put out. Who doesn't want more time, energy, and money? If I can be of any service, please reach out to me. Maybe there's a coaching program I have that would be supportive of you or building up that strategy. I'm curious, what piece was most valuable to you? Share a comment, hit like, and share with a friend because “Friends don't let friends not be prepared for a recession”. That's not really a quote, but it's the truth! Read my other blogs:
Have you been feeling like you've lost motivation for something in your life and you just want to find it again? If you had motivation in the past and you don't have it now, I'm going to share a little bit more about how I got fired up again for soccer. There are a lot of pieces to this, but I will really bare my soul in my soccer journey. My soccer story I have played many sports over the years: basketball, volleyball, track and rugby. But soccer since I was very, very little. I have played indoor and outdoor soccer with all girls and some co-ed. I played all year long. I played in school, in house league, and select then I moved into playing rep. I was captain a lot except when I was a teenager and moved up to play on an open women’s team. I played in a lot of tournaments, often one every weekend of the summer. The list goes on - and I still play today. I had injuries over the years with sprained ankles and was able to spring back, but after tearing my ACL playing rugby, getting it repaired, and having two children it was harder. There are a lot of physical obstacles that I've had to face including plantar fasciitis, back issues, my knee being weak and a Covid cough that has lasted seven months. I’m sure you've also had to face obstacles (not just sports related). It could be in your business, marriage, or house. This can cause you to lose motivation for some reason or another. About 13 years ago, I moved from a highly competitive league into a league that's just recreation, caused me to lose my motivation a little bit because I didn't have to try that hard to do well. Even after kids, I could still get away with not being super fit and not doing too much because the players aren't as good. Well, I’m now 43, had two kids, and I'm now probably carrying around about 50 pounds of extra weight that makes it hard. But what caused me to fee like giving up? As I mentioned, over the past few years I’ve had multiple injuries - ankle, knee, and back injuries - that then cause something else. For example, just as my ankle gets fixed, it would cause something else like a sore knee or back. Then I get over that and sprain my ankle just walking down the sidewalk. I cried. I cried not out of pain, but I cried out of frustration. I thought, “What is the point?” Then just as I am physically not injured anymore, I get COVID. With that first bout of COVID, I had the COVID cough for probably eight weeks, and because of how intense the restrictions were, I couldn't get any support from doctors because I wasn't allowed. You know how it is, right? You have to fill in the form, and if you say you're coughing, then you can't get an appointment. I couldn't get help. I wasn't really able to be on the soccer field because I'd be coughing. People would look at me like I shouldn't be there. So I finally get over that, and then I came back and I get injured again. You can just imagine how the story is, and I'm super frustrated. I've lost motivation because I feel like, “What's the point?” Maybe I'm done. Maybe I'm not going to do this anymore. But I’d miss out. Now how about you think about something you need motivation on? What are you missing out on because you’re not doing what you want to do? What I was missing out on was that competitive side, the athlete, the confident person who loved to play soccer, but also the social side of things. It killed me to just go and sit on the sidelines because I could see all my friends out on the field, and they were enjoying themselves and I wasn't participating. I lost motivation. Not even just motivation for soccer, but the motivation for me to be healthy again because I also had a second bout of COVID and the cough has still not left after seven months. It's made all of these comebacks super hard. Have you felt that? You come back from something. You're getting back into business, you go into that next level, it's a struggle. I've struggled and it's hard to get fit if you're always injured. It's hard to lose weight if you can't exercise. It's just this vicious cycle. It’s hard to be energetic if you’re coughing all of the time. How I get fired up again for soccer The motivation was not coming internally from me. It wasn't intrinsic, I really needed to have some sort of external motivation to push me. It shouldn't be surprising what it was, but it really, really positively impacted me. I loved the girls on my team and we played well together, but I knew I needed to change teams. What I was missing was a coach, practices, and full warm-ups. Now that I am on a new team that has a coach, I've really seen how this has increased my soccer brain and it’s causing me to up my game. The external motivation has helped to increase my inner motivation. The question to ask yourself about your situation is, “What do I need that can externally motivate me until I can get my internal motivation back?” Maybe it’s a coach. What a good coach will do for you
I feel like I'm playing at about maybe 25% of my ability, which is super frustrating because I'm very competitive, and I'm A-type driven and I can't do as well as I have been. I'm also a recovering perfectionist. When I can't do really well, it frustrates me. But I've given myself a lot of grace. What the coach has done for me is give me positive feedback:
That has helped me a lot to feel like I'm a valuable member of the team and that I matter. Maybe in your life in some area, you don't feel like you matter. Maybe you are coming to grips with that feeling of “My effort isn't important” or you don’t feel “enough”. Having positive feedback from him has caused me to feel okay again. It's one thing that I'm not as good as I was before, and I'm getting better, but to hear that you're seen as something positive really pushes you to step up, and step into what other people see for you. You could find this in a friend, a mentor, an expert to support you with something, in an accountability partner, or coach. Having an outside person to give you positive feedback is so helpful. Yes, I still receive constructive feedback, but the positive feedback holds more weight. I've really appreciated that in sports my whole life, probably the greatest gift my mom gave me was believing in me, which really built up my self-esteem, and built up my confidence. It makes me want to participate more. We want to participate more in something we do well, right? 2. A coach will see your potential and tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear I have always been at the top of my game in sports. I have always been the top player or one of the top players. I've always been looked at as the key to the team’s success. I haven't felt like that for a long time, and it's more like I’m a detriment to the team. My coach created a new position on the field for me. It's so great because I have been a center mid and over the years based on my injuries, lack of fitness and such I had to move to the defense. But then I was really struggling and coughing during the games and struggled to do the position properly. So he made a new position for me. When someone external sees YOU and your potential, they can suggest you try something new or do things differently. It can give you a new spark. It was so great. I loved the new position. “If this isn’t working for you, then how about this?” That's something that a coach, mentor or someone else can do for you. They can look at what’s not working or what the obstacles are and give a suggestion. What wasn’t working was me pivoting quickly and being able to race back. What is working is him pushing me forward. It’s so beneficial to have someone externally see things differently and offer a suggestion because you might have blinders on. I totally did have blinders on. I thought I needed to play defense. That I needed to hold that ground. But we had two other players who can really step up in that position, and then I could move forward, which is so good. Actually, it was so exciting. So I have this new fire in me. Rather than rebuilding the same fire, it was a new fire. I’m really thoroughly enjoying this position. 3. A Coach will expect more from you That's something I think everyone needs in their life. Somebody who will say, “Okay, you're here, so let's get you there.” Not “Let's get you all the way to the goal right now”, but “Let's get you one step closer”. They hold you to a higher level, but the higher level only needs to be 1% better tomorrow than today. It doesn't need to be 200% better. I am not going to be this phenomenal, top MVP player tomorrow. But could I be better tomorrow than I was today? For sure. Wrapping Up I hope you can look at that one area you want more in and be honest, “I need motivation, and I want to make things better.” I encourage you to find someone who will give you positive feedback, find someone who will see you and speak into the things that you need to hear, and someone who will hold you to that higher level. Someone who will hold you accountable to show up and hold you accountable to do what needs to be done. I hope you are able to regain motivation wherever it is missing in your life, and get fired up again. If you want to have a conversation about this to see how I can support you, I’m happy to do that. I do offer free 15-minute consults to just see if we’re fit - just email me and let me know a little more diane@dianerolston.com. Read my other blogs here:
Are you thinking about making a big decision, but you’re hesitating for any reason or you think it’s hard? Recently, I've had a few clients come to me with some big decisions they have to make. Some of them are about their career and some are about moving. Since they’re about different areas of life, it made me think about the trouble with big decisions and how we come to this place of having to make a decision on a new career, where to live, or a relationship. It's overwhelming wondering, “What decision do I make?” or “Do I make this or that decision?” You often have only two options. But sometimes, there are so many decisions, and then each of those choices comes with dozens of options which makes decision-making so hard. Today, I'm going to talk about the three stages to making these big decisions. Then I'll share a little bit about how to do well at each stage. Stage 1: Change Stage When you have a big decision, it is often putting you in the first stage, which is the change stage. For example, you are looking for your first job, you've just left a job, you were fired from a job, laid off from a job, or you're thinking about what new career you should have. You may have lots of emotions like grief, disappointment, anger, frustration, or if you are moving into a career change, there might be some excitement, overwhelm, fear, or feeling like, “Finally, I'm here. Finally, I get to make the decision for myself.” Check in first with your emotions: “How do I feel here? What is the change I've experienced” Then give yourself some time to be in this stage because if you're holding resentment, anger, fear or whatever it may be, you might have to work through that before getting into the next two stages, or at least to keep this stage and these feelings in mind as you go into the next two stages. For example, if you got laid off or were fired from a job, you might have that anger. You also might have hesitation in “Am I good enough for this next career?” What we really want to do is make sure you're self-aware in this stage so you can really feel and know what's happening to yourself, and then honor it. This might mean you do some sort of ritual or ceremony to show you are leaving that behind and moving forward. I often talk with clients, and we decide on something like writing a letter and then ripping it up and burning it. I encourage you to do this in a space that is safe and free to do it or in a fireplace. If you can, some people will then take the ashes and pour them in water. A really cool idea came up once about going out in low tide and writing a message in the sand and then having the waves come and wash it away and maybe be witness to that. If you're going to do one of these cleansing or letting go ceremonies or rituals, then I encourage you to have something fun to enjoy after. One example of this is if it’s summer and you decide to do it at the beach, maybe you go into the water as the fun part at the end or you have a barbecue at the beach with your friends after. Another thing you could do is go to the spa and be treated to some self-care. Maybe it's a massage, acupuncture, a facial, some time in the sauna so that there is some taking care of self that happens afterwards. In this change stage where you have some feelings, some strong feelings, just make sure you give yourself some time to intentionally do something to help you release them. Maybe you get some counseling, you know yourself best. Once you've dealt with the feelings and emotions, give yourself some space because if you were working really hard, then you need a little bit of a break, take that much-needed break and recharge because no one wants to make a big decision, feeling tired, or feeling hesitant or feeling scared. Stage 2: Exploration Stage The next stage is the exploration stage. I can remember when a man came to me, he had just sold a business (with his two friends) that brought them 75 million to split. At the time that I was talking to him, he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life in his early 30s. With all that money he could do whatever he wanted. He was feeling pressure because he just had a major win and a big success. He felt pressure to take on another business or to invest the money in something. I said to him in a session, “You're in the exploration stage. There is no way that you can make that big decision right now. You need to find the information.” In the exploration time, you have complete permission to just check things out, to learn, to research, to do information interviews with people who have a career you want or who've done what you want to do. While this is happening, I want you to make sure that you're exploring ideal options. Not things that have you settling. If you say, “Oh, that seems ok for me.” or “I think I can do that.” We need to be thinking about what's ideal. Brainstorm without the thought of reality. Brainstorm without that idea of, “How am I going to make this happen?” Ditch all the how-tos and listen up for any limiting beliefs, saboteurs, negative self-talk, or anything that pops up that is going to inhibit you from coming up with all the ideas. A lot of times in this stage when I'm helping my clients brainstorm, they have blinders on. They're not seeing options to the side of them. Sometimes they've got an opportunity so close to them that they don't see it. They're trying to look for something bigger, better, or different when they have the most ideal answer right in front of them. It's really a good idea in the exploration stage to have someone else that you're talking with about it. It can be a coach or a counselor. It’s still important to do research and information interviews, but having someone to sit with you to make sure you’re looking at what's ideal is crucial. They will make sure you don’t succumb to those limiting beliefs. Exploration is just that. It's time to explore different options. When I did this stage just recently with some clients, I asked, “What are all the ideas or the options you have for this decision? Okay, now, let's look at each one. How does it look? How does it feel? How much do you like it?” Getting those ideas from them, getting the truth of where they're at with it, and at the same time I'm listening for limiting beliefs and resonance (positive energy). It helps us to get to a place to make a good decision. It sounds like this, “I've got four options. These two aren't for me right now. They're maybe a long-term plan. The first two can help me get where I want to be. Which is the best choice?” I always look at the Wheel of Life as well. Sometimes my business clients say, “Oh, if I'm coming to you for business coaching, why am I looking at my wheel of life?” Well, the key thing with any decision you make, we want to make sure is in alignment with what's ideal for your future and what's ideal for every single area of your life. For example, in your business, if you want to do something quite physical that demands a lot of traveling from you, yet in another area of life, you really want to have a child or you want to move away from family, which is causing you to then lose your built-in support system, is that going to be good and help you or hinder you in doing that job that is very physical or doing that career that has you travel a lot? You always want to make sure that different areas of life are still honored while you go forward and take action on these big decisions that you have to make. Stage 3: Action This is the third stage: action. You’ll now want to take action on some of the options. It might not be the decision you end up with, but you have to take some action towards it to figure that out. When you have options A, B, C, and D, if B is the choice, what's the first step that you can take? The first step might be:
You need to think about:
Again, having someone on your side at this stage is really helpful because in talking about the action, they're going to help you to come up with what really is the first action. There might be 10 actions that you could take, but one of them is the right one for now. You also want to choose the one that is 150% something you're going to do because if it's not 150% that you're going to do it, then it's too big, it's overwhelming, or the limiting beliefs will come into play. Wrapping Up In making big decisions, there are three stages: Change Stage, Exploration Stage, and Action Stage. If the action stage tells you, “Oh, option B was actually not the best option. Maybe I want to try a different option now or I want to go back through the stages, you're allowed to do that. Just because you made that decision in November, and you realize by January, you made the wrong decision, you don't need to continue with it if it's not the right one.” It's not always about picking right the first time. It's seeing where you're off course to where you really want to be, and then making the decision to come back to something that is better. Since we can make a new discovery later on, with more insight, more knowledge, more skill potentially, more connections, more of a network, we only then realize, “Oh, this isn't the right one for me.” You have the experience of it, so you then get to remake your decision based on this new exploration stage or information that you've come up with. I hope that you will ask yourself, “Where am I in making a decision? Am I still in the place of needing to make changes and changing my emotion? Am I in that place of exploration? Or am I ready to take action? I do encourage you if you have the Dynamic You book to look at the five stages of change that I explained about in there. It'll also help you to know which stage you are in so you know how to move through those five stages of change. P.S. Here’s a decision you might need to make at the moment, deciding to register for the Dynamic Women Online Summit 2023! We’ll be pulling back the curtain to share how to be a more dynamic woman, and how to optimize opportunities, so you can reach your goals more easily and quickly. Grab your FREE or VIP tickets today! Read my other blogs here:
Have you done something new? I did! I tried something new last year - stand-up comedy! It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but when I first saw an online class for it, it was only a month after my dad passed away. I wanted to honor my grief first. I also didn’t want to cry on stage when delivering my set. After two and a half years, I finally joined. It was perfect timing. It was a five-week comedy class, and then we did an actual set in front of around 100 people! A couple of days after that, I did another set but in front of other speakers at the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers Conference in Calgary! It was a wonderful experience. As I go through the five things I learned from my stand-up comedy class, think of something you’ve done that's new. Or maybe think of something you're wanting to do. My hope is you'll learn something from these and it’ll help you to have more success and an easier time. #1 - You’re not as good as you think I think I’m a humorous person. I like to think I tell really good stories, that I'm quick-witted and can pop in little comments and make people laugh. I definitely can do that. I thought, “Ah, I'm going to go and do stand-up, and I'm going to be awesome. I'm going to be so good.” Yeah, I'm not a stand-up comedian. That's what I learned pretty quickly. If you've watched someone do something, and you're like, “I can do that.” Don't say that until you actually try it. Stand-up is so much harder than I could ever think. I thought, “I'm a professional speaker. I speak in front of groups. I'm comfortable with a microphone. I have no problem moving around. I'm a funny person.” Well, it doesn't matter. That doesn't make you great at stand-up comedy. Shocking, right? Absolutely shocking. You're not always as good as you think. Walk in with humility so you don't embarrass yourself because I was feeling pretty confident. Just don't say those things because you can look stupid when you suck. Thankfully I didn’t and I realized pretty quickly how hard it was. #2 - We can do hard things. We can totally do hard things. I did five classes plus a dry run of the show. Then all of a sudden, I'm in front of an audience of 100 people. Then two days after that, I did a longer set at CAPS, which meant I was throwing out jokes at the last minute. Literally, I was in the hallway, sitting at a table writing jokes on a cue card to then go and deliver it 45 minutes later on stage in front of, I don't know, 150-170 of my professional speaking peers. No pressure, right? No pressure. We can do hard things. In the end, I did it. I did it twice in three days. That's pretty amazing. When you think of it, I've been a professional speaker for like 10 years. I've been a stand-up comedian for two gigs in three days. I wasn't paid for them. Actually, I had to pay to be at the foundation night of CAPS. It's a fundraiser night, so I’m happy to pay for it. But it's just kind of funny how my stand-up career has started, though I don't think I'm actually going to be a stand-up comedian. The only open mic I did was in my dream (or nightmare), so I might just keep it in front of friendly audiences, rather than actually go and hit the stand-up comedy circuit. But what I want to do is move into humorous speaking, giving keynotes that are humorous and bringing my jokes there. #3 - Follow how others model it. Notice I didn't use the word "copy" at all. The number one rule in stand-up comedy is don't copy people. Don't use their jokes. You don't need to do that. But you can follow how other people model it. Think about whatever it is that you want to do. Do you want to learn the piano? Do you want to take up painting, calligraphy, or ice skating? What is the thing that you want to do? When I was up there I had my phone. I don't know if my eyes are really bad, but it’s hard to read jokes on your phone. It's just too hard. I needed to make the font bigger. I'm trying to read from here. I didn't practice in advance. I literally was in presentation mode: here's my joke, here's my joke, here's my next joke. That's not how you do it. Instead I needed to follow how other people did it. There were a couple of people who had graduated from the class that jumped into the class again. I took my cues from them. They started to act out by moving their body, moving their face in different ways to get the laughs, and they paused. They gave space for the laughter to come. And KEY thing, they brought cue cards in to read their jokes off of every week. Watching those three people do their jokes helped me so much. Then I decided, why am I not watching Netflix and all the comedian specials that are on there? So I did. I started learning about pausing better, started learning about repeating certain sentences that were getting the laughs, and I was like, "Oh, okay, now I know what I didn't know." I was unconsciously unconscious of how hard comedy is. There are formulas for how to write a joke. I didn't know that. Did you know that jokes should be one to three lines max, and you hit a punch line, and you make people laugh? If you're going to tell a story, the thing I learned is there needs to be laughs every three lines to keep the audience engaged. Those are just a couple of tips if you do feel like taking stand-up. Learning is you can definitely do something hard, even if you're not as good as you think because you can follow how other people do it. #4 - Have someone give you feedback in multiple ways and honestly. On the first night, our teacher Jan said, "Do you guys want me to be really honest with you so you do a great job and you don't embarrass yourself at the showcase? Or do you want me to be super kind?" I yelled out, "Be honest with me." I would rather my coach, teacher, trainer, whoever it is, tell me, "Hey, you got broccoli in your teeth" or in this case "That joke wasn’t funny" so that I don't go out in the world and feel awkwards or embarrassed. It's the whole bring your mess into the learning/coaching so you could be magnificent, but you need to have someone who's going to give you that honest feedback and support you to be better. I'll tell you, she was honest. She gave me feedback on my delivery. She gave me feedback on my jokes. You know, she'd say, "Yeah, that one where you just kind of blabbed on about being Christian. Yeah, we're gonna cut that. That doesn't sound good." It helped me to know, this stuff's good, and this stuff's not good. I'll tell you, one step further. Have someone actually work with you on it. If you're learning the piano, have them play the keys. If it's painting, maybe even have them hold your hand and brush stroke with you so that you can really be immersed in it. The two things that I'm very grateful for are that our teacher Jan said, "If you send me your setlist, I'll go through it.” She looked at our jokes for the night and cut things down, made them shorter or switched the order and gave us feedback. When she did that, I then saw clearly, 'Ah, I get it now. That's how you take a four or five-line story joke and cut it down into 1-3.' That's how you take a very long sentence that it takes a while to say, and actually get a laugh. She challenged me by saying, “Make something crazier at the end.” It really pushed me. I'll tell you one of my jokes I started off with, “I wrote my Christmas list, and as a mom, these are the three things I want.
Pretty good joke, right? You guys understand it. You're like, 'Yeah, as a mom, as a dad, as a caregiver, as a busy person, I just want 10 minutes to myself, too.' That is a set of three: boring or average for the first two, and then the third one has to be wacky. Is “10 minutes to myself” wacky, not so much. I changed it. The new version, and the one I delivered on stage: “So I've got my Christmas list ready, and there are three things I want.
On the first night, he was in the audience, so I just yelled out, “Hey hubby, can you take care of that for me?” There we go. Her pushing me to go wackier, and wackier got me to sister wife. I wouldn't actually move forward with getting a sister wife. However, it’s funny because if you're a busy woman with kids and a husband, is, 'Wow, could someone else come in and do all these other things for me?' So think of that thing that you're wanting to do, that new thing, that maybe seems scary to do, and how can someone give you honest feedback so you can have more success at it. #5 - Jump in and figure it out. This is something that I grew up doing: “Sure, I'll sign up for that. Sure, I'll do that.” Then, in the end, you've got to figure it out. I do believe everything is figure-out-able. Over the past few years, probably since 2019, I haven't felt fully myself with the challenges and stress. I just don't handle it as well as I used to. The problem with that is, I have to cut back on what I do. I've been experiencing a lot of anxiety lately. I used to have one event every night of the week, sometimes even two, and I would rush from one event to another without understanding why people found it stressful. "Oh my gosh, I have to go to two events this week." I'm like, "I’ve got seven, and I'm running five of them or something." I had a high tolerance for stress, but not in the past few years. I haven't felt like myself completely. It's not just because of my father's death, but also because of other things like COVID. We're all still figuring out our new normal, right? But the idea of me doing stand-up is stressful, yet I jumped in and just thought, "I'm figuring it out." That was my first commitment. I went to classes and did what they said so that I could have good results at the showcase. A few weeks later, Mark Black was putting on the foundation's fundraiser event for the CAPS Convention and they needed another comedian. I thought, "Okay, I'm going to jump in and figure it out." You know what, I learned other things like providing a one or two-sentence introduction that's not my work bio, but can be interesting or funny. I played up on that. Then I took my joke set from my class's show and thought, "Ok, the audience are speakers, trainers, emcees, my colleagues, and my peers. I need to come up with some special jokes for them." That pushed me to create some other jokes. Then I wondered if the audience could handle some edgy topics. I asked some humorists in the group, and they said, "Oh, yeah, bring everything." I still kept it PG, but I shared some things. The whole "jump in and figure it out" mentality led me to even add jokes at the last minute, causing me to bring my cue cards on stage that I had written only 45 minutes prior. I was okay with that because I'm not doing a Netflix special as a stand-up comedian, and I am not promoting myself as a stand-up comedian. BONUS: Ego The bonus point I'm going to give you is about your ego. Leave it at the door when you’re trying something new. Thankfully I didn’t get caught up in my ego about stand up. I gave myself permission to be average at it, to be okay at it, and to have notes. I don't have to be perfect. But I did it! How great is that? When you don’t focus on being perfect at it, it makes it much more enjoyable experience. Wrapping Up Is there something you've been considering doing, but you're worried, “I'm not going to be really good at it or maybe I'll embarrass myself.” Change that worry to… who cares? Think instead of the benefit, you have another tool in your toolkit! I have a whole new appreciation for stand-up comedy. I also have a new hobby, which is watching stand-up comedy. It has also improved my relationship with my hubby because now we watch live comedy together, which is really fun. It's made our relationship more humorous. So many things are coming from this. It's pushing me in my career, especially in my humorous keynote I’m developing. I could go on and on. I have gained friends in the class. People at CAPS said, “Wow, your set was really good, Diane, and your cadence was amazing.” They told me my pacing was great, and I sounded like a stand-up comedian, and that my jokes were hilarious. That's amazing. They enjoyed themselves, and that's what matters most. Now, in their eyes, I have this other aspect to me. The truth is you might find this too when you do something new. I have always thought of myself as a funny person. I just haven't always shared it with everyone. As you are reading this message, I want you to know that I'm committed to adding more humor to what I do. When I'm with my friends or hanging out, telling crazy stories, or throwing in one-liners or being witty and bantering, that's me, that's who I am. I just don't always get to show it. Sometimes I come across as super professional, polished, and put-together “here's your inspiration for the day” or “here are your five ways to do this thing.” I'm going to move away from doing only that. So just be ready. I hope this encourages you that if there is something on your bucket list that you haven't done yet, go do it. It doesn't have to be stand-up comedy. It can be cooking, knitting, running, or anything that can make you enjoy life a little bit more. P.S. Want to connect more or hear some jokes? Join the Dynamic Women Online Summit 2023 happening on April 21 and 22. Get your FREE ticket or upgrade to a VIP ticket to get access to recordings, courses, bonuses, and gifts in the mail! https://summit.dynamicwomen.biz/ Read my other blogs here:
In my last blog, I went through the first two ways to stop being a workaholic. Now, let’s continue! Third: Get over perfectionism. Now, this takes a journey. I’m just being honest that getting over perfectionism takes a little bit more time and consistency than I can do in a blog. But I'm going to give you three things that I've done myself and that I coached my clients about that we’ve found very helpful. How to get over perfectionism: 1. 80% done is better than perfect. A lot of times, your 80% is actually 120-150% of somebody else's 80%. 80% is better than perfect. For example, when recording my podcast, I sometimes fumble while talking about the different topics. I could have said that's not good enough. That's not 100% so I'm going to have to re-record it. But it really doesn't matter, does it? Will people think, “Oh, she fumbled over her words, so I'm not listening anymore.” No. The point is, I'm getting my content out there. My team is going to be able to put it in different places because 80% done is better than perfect. It helps me to have a whole bunch of 80% out there, which again, are probably over 100%. Rather than be just focused on getting perfect every time. 2. Bring someone else on board. That could be for two reasons: (1) skills and (2) accountability. For the skills, I was really suffering from perfectionism around my blog forever. In the beginning, what I did was get my blog to about 80%. Then I brought someone else on to edit it, format it, and put it online. She had the skills. The other benefit was I was accountable to get it done then could relax because I would pass it off to her. There was a due date. 3. Creating milestones for yourself. A lot of times with perfectionism, we procrastinate, we hold off on things, and we do it last minute because we're freaking out about not being able to do it perfectly. But if you have some milestones it’s easier. For example, “By this date, I'll have the outline done. Then by this date, I'll have the draft done. By this date, I'll pick the photos. By this date, I'll have it posted.” All the milestones help you to focus on the little steps rather than be overwhelmed with the whole project. You can also set expectations in advance. When I wrote my first book, we were in a time crunch and I knew I would want to be a perfectionist about it, so I broke it down into a repeatable process and focused on one chapter at a time. I was appreciative of my friend who said, “You know what, this is version one and edition one. If you notice there are errors or you want to do more with it, know you can make a second edition.” That took the pressure off. Fourth: Don't micromanage others. If you bring others on like a virtual assistant, a vendor to do some work for you, or someone under contract, it’s important not to micromanage them. How to avoid micromanaging others: 1. Be super clear on instructions. Be clear. Be brief, be gone sort of idea. You can pick one task, record a video on how to do it and have them document the process. Then do the task! 2. Ask them for updates. You can say, “By this date, give me this type of update or give me a weekly update” so that you're not having to follow up with them. They can let you know where they’re at on their task by sending you a simple message. We don't need to have a big meeting or conversation that makes you work more. 3. When you are in a place where you are the cog in the wheel, look at it, step back, and say, “Do I need to pass this off as well?” If you're the cog in the wheel, that means you're probably a workaholic, and you don't have time to do something. Therefore, it’s not helpful if you keep a task that isn’t getting done. Instead it’s better to pass that piece off as well. If you are working too much, have a look at what else you have to do, that you can pass off. Because if you're working too much, you probably have too much on your plate. Fifth: Be less accessible I can remember leading my Dynamic Year Program and asking everyone, “To get the most out of this program, please tell your loved ones, your friends, your co-workers, your team, whoever it may be, that you are in a full-day workshop and that your attention is here and that you're not going to be accessible.” Someone didn't and they were messaging during the program. We're all in a room together, and what she said was, “Well, my team member was asking me where a bit of info. was.” She was way too accessible that she was willing to drop what she was doing, her personal development, her business development, in order to text someone on her team, even though she said that she wasn't going to be accessible. How to stop being accessible: 1. Be very clear on your communication channels. What way do you prefer for people to reach out to you? I say to my clients, “Email me about something if you need support, so I'm in that headspace of supporting clients.” I tell them to only text me if it is an emergency, if you actually need to talk to me, or if it's a wonderful celebration. I'm very clear on those communication channels. My virtual assistants know that we use the project management tool to talk about our tasks. If they need something right away, they can WhatsApp me. Be very clear on your communication channels. Maybe this is one of the pieces that you need to take on board because you deal with asking yourself, “Where was that message again? Was it through text, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn messenger, Instagram messenger, or email? OR Was it on our project management platform?” Having so many ways to communicate makes you too accessible, and gives you a headache causing you to work more. 2. Turn your phone to “Do not disturb” On my phone, it’s actually constantly on silent. In Japan, they call it manner mode. I always have it on silent on the side. I also screen my calls. If I'm receiving a phone call or a message from someone, and I'm not ready or in the space to be able to take it or I'm working on something else, I don't answer it. Sometimes with friends, I don't answer. I send a message and say, “Hey, I'll call you in an hour.” Then I pull out my laundry and I start folding it when I call them or when I'm driving somewhere, I'll have a great conversation with them at that point. You can turn your phone to do not disturb or airplane mode, especially at night, so that you're not inundated with notifications because you need that time to refresh and relax. 3. Tell people you cannot be reached on vacation. You probably know how to set up the email autoresponder that says, “Hey, I'm on vacation, I'll get back to you on such and such a date.” You can even say, “Please email me back at that time because I'm not going to be able to go through all of the past emails.” Maybe the second day you're back so that the first day you have time to get back into the groove. Then if someone messages, honor that. Don't answer them or be very brief with your answer so they don't think they can keep calling you or texting you on your phone while you’re off. Wrapping Up Those are the 9 additional ways to stop being a workaholic (15 in total if we add the first ones from the last blog!) It's so important to stop being a workaholic because if you don't, it's really going to kill your energy, your passion, or even your spark. Which two or three are you actually going to bring into play this week? If you're interested in knowing a little bit more about if you're a workaholic or how much of a workaholic you are, you can do the FREE quiz How Much of a Workaholic Are You. P.S. Have you heard? The Dynamic Women Online Summit 2023 is coming on April 21 and 22! Be inspired, motivated and shown how to be Dynamic in your life and business! Grab your free tickets here. Read my other blogs here:
In one of my previous blogs, I talked all about how to know if you're a workaholic and how it's hurting you. (If you want to know if you are a workaholic and how much of a workaholic you are, I suggest you take this free quiz: How Much of A Workaholic Are You) Now, I'm going to dive deeper. Do you feel a little bit of burnout coming on? Are you wanting to work less and enjoy life more? In this blog and the next one, I’ll go through the five ways to stop being a workaholic. In each of those five, I’ll also share three practical steps to help you work less. Then, from those 15, I encourage you to choose 2 or 3 that you will implement in the coming weeks. The 5 ways to stop being a workaholic: First: Limit the hours in the week for productive work. You may be busy, but not productive. From Monday to Friday, how many hours do you really want to work? If you work on weekends, how many hours will you work then? Then block some time to relax and recharge. You need to stop overscheduling yourself. How to stop over-scheduling yourself:
Choose how many hours you will work each week and then how many hours each day. Once you decide you need to stick to not just, “These are the hours I'm working.” But also, “These are the hours I'm not working.” Block it in your calendar. That's important. 2. Put in time in your calendar for other activities. There are 10 areas of life - fun and recreation, family, friends, spirituality, career, finances, physical environment, significant other/romance, health, personal development/education. Often, our schedule is filled only with work-related tasks and things we strive for in our careers. Personal development oftentimes can be bumped out as well because we're focused on our professional life. We’re reading, taking courses and listening to podcasts for our careers, but it isn't the personal development area. Look at your calendar and see if there are other areas of your life on it. Think of the fun things that you want to do. Go for lunch with friends, see an exhibit, take painting lessons. Add in time for other areas of life. If it’s not there now, book some. 3. Book things for yourself during the day. You don’t just need to look to after work hours for your personal activities. Sometimes the workday is the best time to do things for yourself. For example, every Monday morning, I go to Pilates. This week, I have a counseling appointment and acupuncture scheduled. You might be questioning, “Well then when are you working Diane?” I have other things happening like evening events or I look things over like editing this blog. I take the time to do these personal things during the day, or else I get to the end of the day and realize I don’t have enough time for them. Booking them during the day means they won’t be postponed. Maybe you book a friend’s lunch, a doctor's appointment, read your favorite book, or go to the gym. You’ll be able to stop overscheduling yourself in these other areas by doing these other things. Second: Learning to say ‘No” This might be hard for you. I've done some podcasts and blogs on saying “No”. You can check out the one I did on How You Can Say No to A Client You Don't Want To Work With. How to learn to say “No”:
The key point is to be clear on what you want in all areas of life by going through the Wheel of Life. When you know what you want, it's easier to say “no” to the things that you don't want because you are saying “yes” to the things you do want. (If you want a copy of the wheel of life, email me at diane@dianerolston.com). 2. Say “yes” to the things you want so you can say “no” to the things you don’t. You may know you want to play your piano more, spend more time with your kids or grow your faith. For example, if you know your health is a number one priority, and you want to be saying “yes” to your health, you decide, “I’ll go to the gym at 9 every morning” or “I’ll walk on my lunch every day.” So when someone says to you, “Hey, do you want to go do this?” or “Can you be in this meeting?” You will be able to say “no” if it conflicts with your yes”. It’s because if it’s a strong “yes,” then it’s in your calendar and you would be more likely to stay committed to doing it. 3. You can share your “Yes” with others. If people ask,
You could say, “Right now, I'm focusing on my health, and so I'd love to, but I just don't have time for it right now.” I've had someone say to me, “Oh, I'm focusing on my family right now. My family needs more of me, and so I can't take on anything else.” I love that response. I replied, “Wow, okay, that's where your priorities are right now. That's amazing. Congrats to you!” You don't have to give any reasons for why you are saying, “No”. ‘No” is an answer. But for many people, including myself, being able to share a stronger “yes” can give you confidence to say “no”. It can also help people understand you better and back off, as you may have experienced people asking you again and again. Now you have 2 of the 5 ways to stop being a workaholic and the 6 ways to implement it. Which will you put into play right now? Then the next blog will cover the other 3. Read my other blogs here:
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