Saturday, April 15, 2006
There's Always More to See
Last weekend I got to hang out with my good friend/mentor, Christian Mickelson. I was in San Diego for a personal growth workshop, so I stayed with Christian and his girlfriend, Chelsa. They are the neatest young couple. Connected, playful, and just fun to be around. On Saturday night after dinner, they began to play a computer game and invited me to join in. Now, I fancy myself as being one smart cookie, but this game made me feel like I had oatmeal between my ears! It's on Yahoo, and it's called Text Twist.
Basically the game is like a word search, where you are timed to see how many different words you can come up with out of the 6 letters they give you. You have two minutes to get 13 possible words, and my two pals were rocking, while I was slamming words out like, "it, or, be, so" and after one round.... I took my tired brain and dropped out. I felt like a kindergartner just learning how to read....slow and dorky.
Christian shared that playing the game has really expanded the way he looks at his business. He feels it has helped open up his creativity, and has allowed him to see so many more possibilities than he ever could. Wow. Do you have those people in your life you look to and say, "Dang...you are so amazing at what you do?" That's how I feel about Christian. In my mind Christian is 'the bomb' when it comes to marketing and creating programs, so to hear how playing a simple mind game helped him so much was like finding one of the insider secrets. Much like Willy Wonka and the gold bar!
If you want to learn more about Christian you can go to www.ChristianMickelsen.com. He is now narrowing his target market to helping coaches grow their business, so if you want to see some of his stuff, you can go to www.coachechangetheworld.com or www.kickstartyourcoaching.com.
Here's a photo of Christian and I last May at Adam Urbanski's Small Business Marketing Summit in California.
This also got me thinikng about one of the things I do for my clients. I have this crazy belief that there is always more money to be made/found/generated in your business. Often times it's not even about the need to work harder, but the ability to get creative with your services and offerings, as well as leveraging your time better. Here are a few examples of what I mean....
Let's say you have a business where you provide an hourly service like coaching or consulting. Most people think about charging per hour. What about charging for a month, three months, 6 months or a year? If you are bold and ask people to make the commitment, you will likely get clients who stay longer and get much better results.
If your clients can't pay your hourly or monthly rates, how else can you deliver the service? What about a group teleclass/seminar? Perhaps an audio program or specialized workbook? Ask yourself how you can move to serving more people and that's where your creativity gets to flow to show you other options.
This is where the 'marketing funnel' comes in. You can't just offer your free ezine, then jump to the $500 month coaching package. Think of the 6 other things that you can bring in that will 1) make it more easy for your clients to buy, and 2) free up your time, and 3) "show you the money."
What about if you offer a service like plumbing, air conditioning repair, etc. Think beyond the basic service calls. You could offer a quarterly 'check up' or a yearly 'retainer' which would also provide great service and more revenue for yourself. The possibilities are endless!
Just as Christian and Chelsa could find tons of new words in just 6 letters, give yourself the time to see where else you can provide something of value. Be in the question. Train your mind to work for you and not against you. I'd suggest that you make it a daily practice of just asking, "what else can I offer" and then wait for the answers to appear.
Now....go find 'more' in your business! And email me your success stories!
All my best,
Therese Skelly
www.AcceleratingYourSuccess.com
602-369-0091
