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May 6, 2015 by Jesse Koren

What To Do When Everyone Else Seems More Successful than You

Recently, one of our Thrive Members courageously posted in our private Facebook group that she was both inspired and saddened by the financial successes that some of our members had just posted about.
She wrote: “Why not me? What’s wrong with me?”

featured-post-May14Have you ever seen other people’s financial success and asked yourself these questions?

If so, you’re not alone.

No matter how successful you are, there will always be others who are more successful. And when you compare yourself to them, it’s painful.

But you don’t know the Full Story…

In the comments below her post, one Thrive Member shared:
“Thank you for sharing and being vulnerable! This was the first time I have really openly shared a financial success and in the 7 years I've been self employed, I felt the same way, "why not me? What's wrong with me?" It has taken a lot of soul searching and exploration, lots of professional development and coaching to get me, first, in the right mindset and energy wavelength, and second, teach me the strategies I was missing.”

When you see other people’s successes and compare them to your struggles, it’s SO easy to make up that these other people never struggle and they have it so easy. But everyone struggles at times, including me and Sharla.

We’ve grown through our tougher times, and while they were very uncomfortable, we would not trade them for the world, as they’ve made us who we are today.

Instead, we recommend you ask yourself, “How is my struggle making me stronger, wiser and more compassionate?”

Can you have compassion for yourself?

Our member who posted about her jealousy went on to share that she had been grieving the loss of her mother for the last 3 months...

And so I commented, “There is a time to crawl up in your shell, do your healing work, and slowly move your business along like a tortoise. And there is a time to sprint in your business and create HUGE momentum in a short period of time, like a hare.

The problem is that many people tell themselves they should be a hare when everything inside of you is telling you to be a tortoise. Losing your mother is a BIG deal and it’s important to give yourself time to heal so that when you do move back into “hare mode” you have been transformed by this event and have a deeper well of wisdom, love, compassion and safety to draw from and to give to your clients.

Honor Your Successes (no matter how big or small)

It’s so easy, when you see someone else’s success to feel like your own successes are insignificant in comparison.
Later in the post, she shared that she had three workshops and one speaking gig lined up for the summer.

This is HUGE! These 4 speaking events, when coupled with the templates that we provide in our Six Figure Speaker program, are enough to generate tens of thousands of dollars in new clients.

Can You Turn Your Jealousy into Desire?

When most people are faced with the extremely uncomfortable feeling of jealousy, they try to numb it with food or drugs or work or alcohol. Or they try to talk themselves out of it or try to think spiritual thoughts...
Instead, breathe into it and FEEL it. Feel the power. Feel the desire. Feel the longing. Feel the strength that is inside of you. Feel your desire to have the life you think they have... or to be the person you think they are.

And then, turn that desire into a deeper commitment to fulfilling your deepest commitments. This is a time to ask yourself what are you most committed to? And how important is it to you? And what are you willing to sacrifice for that commitment?

You may find that you want to experience what you think the person you are comparing yourself to is experiencing. Or you might discover that you’re actually not committed to the kind of life that that person has... and that there is a deeper truth to what you want.

For example, we have friends who are making $5 million, $10 million, $20 million per year... when we compare ourselves to them, we can start to feel bad about not being there yet.

But when we get really honest with ourselves (and remember that our boys are almost 4 and almost 7), what we want more than a HUGE amount of money is the freedom to vacation on houseboats, and ride ATV’s, and go swimming, and sit courtside at the NBA finals. We want afternoons with our kids instead of shipping them off with nannies. We want to have NO REGRETS and want to fully enjoy this time... rather than storing away millions of dollars to spend after our kids are teenagers and want to have nothing to do with us because we were not present for their lives.

My friend, Peter Sol, recently passed away. He posted this on Facebook, about two weeks before he passed:
“The most dangerous risk of all- Spending your life not doing what you want on the bet that you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.”

So I have to ask you…
What would you do with your life if you never compared your struggle to someone else’s success ever again?

Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below.

Filed Under: Business Tips, Commitment, Speaking to Get Clients, The Inner Game of Growing Your Business

April 22, 2015 by Jesse Koren

When Your First Group Program Doesn’t Fly (Should You Cancel It)?

Yesterday, in our private Facebook Group, one of our Thrivers posted about how he was frustrated that he was only able to get 3 people to attend his first group program and felt drained and disappointed. 

He mentioned that maybe he priced it too low ($500) and perhaps people didn’t value it. 

featured-post-Apl23Here was my response:

First, I want to acknowledge you for creating a group program, and doing your very best to fill it. I also appreciate your courage in sharing what you describe as draining and disappointing. 

I'd like to speak to both the Outer Game and the Inner Game when it comes to filling programs:

Outer Game

My first question is less about the price of your program (although being aligned with your price is very important). I want to know how you went about filling the program. We've found that, by far, the easiest ways to fill your first few group programs is by delivering free consultations and/or speaking to groups. 

When you master the art of delivering Free Consultations, you can expect about 50% of your people to say Yes. So if you want 10 people in your program, you need to do at least 20 free consults. 

(Some of our clients consistently get 90% conversion, but 50% is pretty typical for having mastered free consultations.)

And when you become amaster at speaking to groups, if 25% of the people say YES to your program, you're doing amazing. So you would need to speak in front of 40 people to get 10 YES's. 

(25% is pretty conservative... Sharla and I have been getting 40-45% conversion for our high end programs when we speak to groups live.)

If these numbers are not happening, there's nothing wrong with you... it just means you need to practice and get more mastery in delivering free consultations and speaking to groups. 

And once you master filling programs through free consults and speaking to groups, you can start to look at other ways to fill your group programs, such as teleseminars, webinars, and/or videos, which is a more advanced skill we teach in our Get Leverage Program. 

Inner Game

I believe that the biggest mistake most coaches and holistic practitioners make when they create their first group program is expecting to hit a home run on their first or second time at bat. 

I've found that without exception, group programs take LOTS of energy to launch. Because you have to create the program AND fill the program. It's a little bit like birthing a baby... the baby doesn't always come out when you want it to come out, at the size you want, and with the disposition you were hoping for.

The people who get GREAT results the first time out, almost always put in a TON of energy into launching their program. 

Not everyone has the time and energy to hit a home run on their first time at bat, and it's easy to make up that if your program doesn't effortlessly fill, that you're failing... 

What you're really doing when you launch your first group program is gathering momentum. 

For example, we put a TON of energy into our very first Client Attraction Summit more than a decade ago and had 88 people show up. 14 of these people signed up for our Client Attraction Mastery program which we offered for $1,000 at the time. We were pretty excited. 

The second time we led the Client Attraction Mastery program, we didn't put in as much energy into filling it, and only 6 people signed up. We were disappointed and embarrassed. How could we teach client attraction when our attendance dropped by more than half??? 

But we didn't cancel the program and we didn't quit. We just kept building momentum. 

It's now been more than 10 years and we've had well over 1,000 people go through our Client Attraction Mastery Program (the live event version). And with all of the energy we put into our recent launch, it feels like our momentum has greatly increased again. 

I believe a good portion of our success is due to the fact that we have never cancelled a program, no matter how many people were enrolled in it (and we could have cancelled many programs over the years). 

Now, I will say that every once in a great while, cancelling a program is the most compassionate thing you can do for yourself. For example, you may recognize that by running a program you might end up putting yourself in a dangerous health or financial position. Or you may just get a clear no to running the program, and realize that it was the wrong niche or needs to be majorly restructured before you introduce it again. In this case, do what you need to do to cancel the program with impeccable integrity. 

But most of the time, I believe that cancelling your program for lack of attendance is an act of self-sabotage and three things happen:

1) You send a message to the Universe that you're not that serious about bringing this program out into the world. 

2) You break the momentum of your program. There are people who need to hear about your program a few times... and might "coincidentally" hear about your program from people who have taken your program and loved it... You lose out on this momentum when you cancel the program and give in to defeat. 

3) When you are willing to cancel a program because of lack of attendance, you are at best 99% committed to the program. And when you're 99% committed, your people will feel it, and will be more likely to waffle in their commitment to you. 

So, I recommend you don't give yourself a back door by saying: "if I only get ____ people, I will cancel the program." 

Instead, shut the back door and lock it by declaring: "I'm leading this program NO MATTER WHAT. So UNIVERSE, send me the CLIENTS who will most benefit from my work. I am willing to do the inner and outer work to get the clients... Show me the way." 

If nobody signs up for your program, then lead the program to yourself. While you're leading it to yourself or 1 person or 2, or 5 or 10, ask yourself continually "how can I make this better?" 

And visualize leading this program to dozens or hundreds or thousands of people. It's amazing how much momentum you will create through your unstoppable commitment. 

In any case, I honor you for what you have done. You are on the right track and the Universe is on your side. I look forward to hearing about your soul-rejoicing success.

Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below.

Filed Under: Business Tips, Commitment, Speaking to Get Clients, The Inner Game of Growing Your Business

April 8, 2015 by Jesse Koren

Behind-the-Scenes Lessons from our BIG Launch

The past month has been amazing, insane and fulfilling all at the same time.  

Nearly 25,000 people opted in to see our video series and attend our webinars.  

And we welcomed in new clients from 19 different countries and 5 continents.  We are so grateful!

featured-post-Apl9If you followed our launch, we hope the experience was valuable, inspiring and beneficial for you. The comments we received were heart-warming.

And Sharla and I (Jesse) feel so fulfilled by this launch, that we have decided to offer you a HUGE gift that we are preparing for you now... look for an email from us next Thursday about this gift. We think you’ll LOVE it! 

Why was this launch so amazing, insane and fulfilling?
Sheesh!  We knew this launch was going to be a ride, but we didn’t realize how much of a ride it would be.  
Behind the scenes, we learned TONS! 

Whether you’re planning to launch your business (someday, maybe) or on the verge of launching something REALLY BIG, we hope you can learn from our experience and not repeat our mistakes. 

The Top 5 Lessons from our Launch

1) Plan Your Success and Celebrate (no matter what happens)

It’s embarrassing to admit that in our first years of business, we were so busy “working hard” that we never stopped to plan or celebrate.  Can you relate? 

We prided ourselves on “flying by the seat of our pants,” LOL!  Not so funny for our team...
We used to drive them crazy with our last minute changes and never-ending work ethic.

This time, we knew the launch could get really ugly if we didn’t gather our amazing team together to plan our success and to make sure everyone was on the same page.  

We met with our team many times throughout the launch, to stay on the same page.  

It was so inspiring to feel that our team was genuinely excited for the Thrive Community to grow, even though the launch meant there would be some long days and late nights approaching for them.  We are SO lucky to have such an amazing team.

Yesterday we gathered with our team again to celebrate and acknowledge the great work we did together!  While it was our biggest launch ever, we were excited to report it was also our smoothest launch ever.  And it was really sweet to see how fulfilled our team was to see our Thrive Community double in size, practically overnight... 

One of our Thrive Coaches, Erin Delaney, said it was great to hear so many different accents from all over the world, on our teleseminar we led yesterday.

No matter whether you have a team or not, we encourage you to plan your success and then celebrate (even if it doesn’t feel like a success!)  You do this enough times, and you’ll need a big team supporting you.

 

2) Make Your Commitment BIGGER than your circumstances

We set a launch schedule that was barely attainable under the best of conditions. 6 weeks to create 4 value-packed videos, a webinar, 22 emails, and all web pages, etc.

If you read our last blog post, we were on the brink of disaster, you know that our whole family got sick, including nannies, which threw everything off... 

Our #1 commitment is to our boys, so Sharla or I stayed with the boys during the day, and we worked late at night to prepare our content for the videos.  

Did you see the amazing videos Sharla released? She recorded them with a burning fever, stopping only to quell coughing fits.  You might have been able to hear it in her voice.  But Sharla’s spirit shines so brightly, that if you watched the videos, you would hardly know she was sick.  

This is because Sharla lives what we teach: 

When your commitment is BIGGER than your circumstances, you become magnetic.  

The world is starving for people who kick the back door shut, and say “I’m in, no matter what happens and no matter how I feel.  I’m in!!!”   Nothing was going to stop us.  “In sickness or in health, ‘til death do us part.” 

Many Coaches and Holistic Practitioners are not magnetic because they never fully commit to their business.  Or if they do commit, they are committed, unless X happens.  Or, unless they feel Y.  Then, they back out.  Magic happens when your commitment is BIGGER than your circumstances. 

 

3) Don’t Let One Part of You Sabotage Your Entire Effort

This month, I worked harder than I have in a long time.  A part of me LOVED it.  I felt like I was in my 20’s again, unstoppable, superhuman, and ready to change the world.  

But another part of me was not having it.  This part wanted to play and rest and roll around in bed with Sharla, and didn’t give a flying *$#@ about the launch.  I shoved this part to the side for weeks... finally, during the last week of the launch, this part of me got super pissed off.  And very whiney!  And made my lower back ache like crazy.

So I took about 15 minutes to journal with this young part of myself.  And it wasn’t until I promised him video games, and spaghetti dinners, and long cuddle sessions with Sharla that he finally backed off…and I felt “normal” again.  But I’m telling you, had I not done the journaling, my little guy would have ended up sabotaging the whole launch.  

So before launching anything, we recommend you gather your “inner team” together and literally get them all on the same page.  

What this means is: journal with the various different parts of yourself.  Chances are that you have a part of you that is EXCITED to expand.  And another part of you that is scared to expand.  And another part of you that wants to work really hard.  And another part of you that just wants to rest or play.  You can add more parts and invite them into the “part-y”.  Name these different parts of you, and let them have a conversation on paper... because one part of you who is not on board, can sabotage the whole thing.  And, it pays to get everyone on the same page.

 

4) Fail Gracefully

“The more you fail, the more you succeed.”  You may have heard this before, but how do you let yourself fail?  Especially if you’re a perfectionist and often beat yourself up for not being perfect.  And how do you fail gracefully?

Well, one thing that’s helped many of our clients is a distinction we introduce at the beginning of the Client Attraction Summit.  When you make a mistake (which is inevitable) instead of saying “I’m so stupid” you can just switch the words to “I’m so Sexy!”  

Here’s how it works in real life:  

During one of our webinars, the slides that we had spent thousands of dollars to design (and Sharla had personally spent at least ten hours working on) did not upload correctly.  

With about 700 people on the webinar, it wasn’t a great time to have a big breakdown like this.  And she couldn’t say, “Give us about 10 minutes to fix the slides.”  So instead of freaking out, Sharla said “I’m so sexy,” (and then explained what “I’m so sexy” really means) and then did the webinar without slides.  

During several of the other webinars, the slides continued to get messed up in the uploading process, but Sharla did not let that stop her from staying in her heart and delivering the content we had planned to deliver.  Even if she was super sexy in the process. 

 

5) Make Connection with Your People More Important Than Marketing Advice 

Sharla got hundreds of beautiful, positive, inspiring comments on her videos... everything from her clothing selection, to her radiance and beauty, to how valuable the content was. But we also got a surprising number of negative comments about one thing: The timeline!  People were frustrated they didn’t know how long the video was and couldn’t rewind if they wanted to hear something again. 

Many marketing studies state that video engagement is higher when you don’t have timelines. So we initially defended our decision by saying that we didn’t want people to skip through the videos and consume them fast food style... but the frustrated comments kept coming. 

So after releasing video 3, we emailed our launch list with a heartfelt letter, sharing that we finally got it... and we were adding the timelines to the videos.

We got MANY emails and comments thanking us. And funny enough, the engagement with our videos actually increased after we added the timelines!

If we had it to do over again, we would have put the timelines in much sooner.

Okay, that sums up five of our biggest lessons.  If this was valuable for you, share it with friends.  And, leave us a comment and tell us your thoughts. 

Let us know what you think in the comment box below.

Filed Under: Business Strategy, Client Attraction, Leverage, List-Building, The Inner Game of Growing Your Business

March 18, 2015 by Jesse Koren

We’ve been on the brink of disaster...

Whew!! What a ride this last month has been.

We are about to do our biggest online launch ever! We have 38 JV Partners who are going to be sending the people on their email lists over to learn some of our hottest tips on attracting clients.

Together, these partners have a collective reach hundreds of thousands of people. It's VERY exciting!

So, we want to do this launch REALLY well, right?

We plan to lead with generosity, share some of our best content and create an amazing relationship with a whole new group of people...of course!

Well, with our event schedule (and two young boys) it was already going to be nearly impossible to pull this launch off.

JesseAnd then Zachary, our 3 year old, got sick...Really sick. He didn’t want to leave Sharla’s side for 3 days.

Being the amazing mother that Sharla is, she made Zachary our first priority and I stepped in to help create the launch content.

It was still nearly impossible (but still possible) to prevent this launch from being a disaster...

Until Sharla got sick...Really sick. The day before the first video shoot, she had a fever. She took all the Chinese herbs she knew to take to help kick it out, but she woke up still not feeling great.

But being the amazing woman that Sharla is, she stepped into the recording studio with a burning fever, sweating the whole time...

And she still recorded some incredible videos.

As I looked at the footage, I could not even tell that she was sick (besides her sounding just a teeny bit nasally) because her Spirit shines through so brightly.

How does she do this? I wondered.

She practices what we teach, which is to make your commitment bigger than your circumstances.

We’ll send you Sharla’s first video tomorrow.

But before we launch into the launch, we wanted to acknowledge that you may have been on someone’s email list when they launched something.

We have...Many times.

When a launch is done well, it can be inspiring. And, when it’s done poorly, it can really turn me off to someone I had previously really appreciated.

So we’ve committed to doing our launch in this most generous and inspirational way possible.

If you ever launch anything in your business, it’s a great idea to avoid these mistakes.

Mistake #1: Being stingy with your content

Some mentors we worked with long ago taught us to teach only the "what” and the "why it's important”, but not give away any of the how (in any free content). We have decided to buck this trend.

We will pack as much hot content as we can into the three valuable videos in the series, and also on the webinar. Our intention is to give away so much valuable information that you are blown away.

Because of this, we have decided to give away a few of our most prized templates in this launch. Templates that, up until now, we've only shared in our Client Attraction Mastery Program.

We have done this because we wanted to lead with generosity and value. And from a business standpoint, we trust that when our people get a taste of our templates, they’ll want more.

Mistake #2: Making the short-term sales more important than the long-term relationship.

We expect tens of thousands of new people to join our email list in the next two weeks. This means that we get to make a difference in the lives of a small city of people.

Of course we want to make money (we are running a business, after all), but we have consciously decided to put money in the back seat and let our true intention drive us.

Our intention is to equip this new community of Coaches and Holistic Practitioners with the tools, inspiration, and confidence to attract the people who are truly waiting for them.

Because we know that when your people fail, more people suffer.

Mistake #3: Not letting them opt out of the launch list

We know that some people will get clear that the program we will eventually offer is the next logical step to have them attract more clients and make 2015 their best financial year ever.

Others will know that this program is not right for them right now. And they won’t want to get a handful of emails about a program they’ve already decided not to do this year.

Usually, the choice is to:

A. Get a bunch of emails that are no longer relevant or
B: Opt out

But when people opt out, they lose out on all the valuable articles and blog posts we’ll send after the launch is over.

So we’re providing a third option which is to opt out of the launch list, but stay on our regular email list so they can continue to get valuable articles and videos from us.

We hope you join us for our launch and take a front seat as we do our best to inspire you and deliver the best content we can to your inbox.

Let us know what you think in the comment box below.

Filed Under: Business Strategy, Client Attraction, Leverage, List-Building

February 11, 2015 by Jesse Koren

How to Position Yourself as an Expert without Being Arrogant

When you were growing up, did you receive any of these messages? 
Don’t be arrogant.

Be humble.

Be modest.
Don’t say anything that will make someone else feel bad about themselves. 

Don’t get a big head.
Let go of your ego.
Don’t brag about yourself.
Don’t take yourself so seriously.  

blogPhoto20150213I heard these messages a lot. In fact, so many times that I started to believe that being modest (and hiding my greatness) is what actually made me a good person.  I was an AWESOME soccer player, but when people asked if I was good at soccer I’d say, “I’m okay.” 

I spent many years dimming down my greatness and playing modest.

And it worked. Nobody could say I was arrogant!

But when I first started my coaching business, my "be modest, hide my greatness, don’t take myself too seriously" gig didn’t work so well.

I couldn’t get even one paying private client.  I couldn’t even almost get a client.  Why? Nobody was taking me seriously as a life coach because I wasn’t taking myself seriously.

And so, after a year of trying, I gave up. 

The bummer was that I was just missing one skill...  

Had I mastered this skill, my potential clients would have taken me seriously and I would have had a full thriving business.

What's that one skill?

It's the skill of Positioning yourself.  In our Client Attraction Mastery Program, we call “Positioning” the 6th Element.

Like it or not, every time you meet someone new, they are judging you.

Are you a potential mentor?  A potential friend?  A potential client?  A potential date? 🙂

You may feel that you are subject to the whim of their judgments, but you actually co-create their judgments.  

If in the first couple of minutes of the conversation, you say something impressive about yourself, your potential client will look up to you and respect you.  

If you don’t share anything impressive about yourself or even share something unimpressive about yourself, they will not view you as a potential mentor, no matter how great you actually are. 

Now this sharing something impressive about yourself crap may bring up a lot of your old conditioning...

Be modest.  Be humble.  Don’t take yourself so seriously.  Don’t say anything great about yourself and risk making your potential client feel bad about herself, right?

Wrong. 

If you are trying to help someone get to the top of a mountain, would you rather get underneath them and push them up?  Or stand above them and pull them up?  

It’s a LOT easier to stand above them and pull them up to your level.

When you share your impressiveness and then--- wait for it--- acknowledge them for their greatness, your acknowledgment goes in much deeper because they are being acknowledged by someone they have classified as impressive.  You become the best kind of potential mentor.  A great person who is committed to helping your potential clients see themselves as great. 

If on the other hand, in the first few minutes of the conversation you withhold your impressiveness and even share things that "de-position" you or have you look bad in their eyes, they will not see you as a potential mentor and you’ll have to exert a LOT more work to get them as a client and you'll almost certainly fail.
Does this mean you have to hide all of your insecurities?
NO!!!!  

Your insecurities make you human. They make you likable. They make you approachable. 
In order to position yourself without sounding arrogant, you share your Expertise AND your Humanity.

But the time to share your humanity is AFTER you’ve positioned yourself in a way that makes your potential client say “WOW!”

Here’s a short positioning template:
Even though I ______________(share something impressive about yourself) I still ____________(share a vulnerable insecurity you have.)

For example:
"Even though Sharla and I have led about 200 events and have taught over 25,000 people how to attract more clients, I still get nervous before I first walk on stage at one of our events."

You may be wondering what to say about yourself that would position yourself as an expert.  

Next week, we’ll share with you 3 ways you can position yourself (information that we have never shared before except in our Client Attraction Mastery Program).

In the meantime, leave us a comment and let us know how you feel about Positioning.
And please share this article if you think it would support a friend or colleague who is looking to attract more clients.

 

Let us know what you think!

Filed Under: Business Strategy, Client Attraction, Referrals

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