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My VIP Client Pip McKay and me excited about her new business brand

My amazing Mastermind Group!

Have you worked through all the usual limiting beliefs, have set your goals and are still not moving as fast as you would like?

Chances are you are missing this one essential Mental Success Factor. I wanted to share this very personal insight with you, as I feel it is extremely important and really a bit of a tabu topic in mainstream personal development.

I am a big believer in being able to have whatever I want in life and never giving up on something that I love. And yet, sometimes it’s important to do just that – let go.

Letting go of things you no longer love (or never loved) is easy. But what about the things you do love but that are in the way of your own personal growth and your progress in life? That’s more tricky. You don’t want to let them go because they are dear to you.

Once upon a time, 9 years ago now, I had to make such a decision for the first time. I had married my true love, Sydney man Bruce, and it was either life with him in Australia and giving up my established life in Germany or staying in Germany and loosing him. Well, no real contest there, I packed my bags, sold everything I owned, said good bye to family and friends and moved to Sydney. It has been an amazing 9 years, in which I had a great corporate career, started a business, healed emotional pain for lots of people and am now looking at the next big adventure, my new business launch. I am convinced my life is so much richer now because of the decision to let go of something very dear to me – my life in Germany. Sometimes we don’t realise how much something has held us back until we let it go. That was certainly true for me, it is most likely that I would live a much ’smaller’ life had I stayed in Germany.

While I generally life by the motto that “I can have and do everything I want” there still are times when I get myself gridlocked in life and I realize it’s time to let go of something. . For example, letting go of wanting to help everyone that needs emotional support, letting go of wanting to be an expert at too many things, letting go of things I love doing to make room for something new: a new passion and energy.

It took me over a year to fully accept that it was time to let go of some parts of my business that I was still very attached to and move on to something else that clearly fitted into my future path and fuelled my passion.

I finally made the step and I look forward to unveiling this week!

Business Mindset Breakthroughs Assignment:

• What are you holding on to that is preventing you from really striding forward towards your goals?
• Examine all the things that capture your attention, energy, time and money. Don’t hold anything as sacred and untouchable and reevaluate, what is really holding you back from moving forward?
• Then imagine yourself in the near future, having let go of that identified part of your life. How is your life different now? What do you have in your life instead that wasn’t possible before?
• Was it worth letting go to gain that?

Take some designated quiet time to do this assignment, it can create profound change for you if you really listen to your heart (and your unconscious mind).

Please let me know how you go, leave me some feedback!

Here is to your Empowerment,

Yvonne

Work and Play - the ideal North Coast Holiday!

Even on my holiday week I couldn’t stay completely away from my computer watching the progress we were making. Here I am at our holiday house in Laurieton at the North Coast where Bruce and I had a fantastic week!

My team and I have been busily working behind the scenes for what has turned out to become a complete relaunch of my business. I am so excited to be sharing this with you when we go life on Wednesday.

I won’t reveal too much just yet, all I can say is, if you are a coach, consultant, therapist or wellness professional and entrepreneurially minded then this is going to rock your world!

So keep your eyes pealed on Wednesday for an email from me!

To your Empowerment,

Yvonne

I feel so fortunate to have chosen a mentor who fits me so well for where I am now! I thought it was timely to talk about making decisions and how to choose the right people to come into your life. Because this is absolutely critical for your success. You have probably heard that your life is a reflection of the five people you spend most of your time with. So choosing those peope is VERY important.

Have you ever felt like you made the wrong choice in employees, mentors, clients or even a your partner?

Have you ever
- been disappointed by a mentor who you felt didn’t deliver what you wanted?
- attracted a business partner/supplier and then felt ‘ripped off’?
- attracted an employee that didn’t work out as expected?
- had a partner that caused you heartache because you just weren’t a good fit for each other?

Most people would have experienced at least one of these scenarios, I know I have. So how does this happen and how can we prevent it?

There are two main reasons we make the wrong decision about people:

1. We don’t have enough criteria for making the decision and the ones we have are not specific enough

2. We put up the wrong criteria down because our self image keeps us thinking too small of ourselves and our possibilities.

Let’s deal with Obstacle No 1: How can you make a good decision if you don’t have enough criteria? How many are enough?
Take a piece of paper, think of a decision (for a client, partner, mentor, etc.) you have made recently and write down your criteria for making that decision. How many did you come up with, 5 or 6? If you came up with 10 you are better than average. Now you want to double that at least! Yes that’s right, I am serious you need at least 20 criteria. If you are looking for a partner, you want to have even more than that, at least fill an entire A4 page.

What will the criteria be?
First and foremost think of how you want the relationship to be with the person. Most people don’t do this and only focus on characteristics of the person. Big mistake! The relationship with you is what counts the most (eg. for a client: treats me with respect, shows up on time, raves about me to others…) that’s what will ultimately determine your success or otherwise.

A lot of people feel that this approach limits them in their choice and that’s just not true. If you don’t know what you want, anyone or noone is right. If you are clear about it your eyes will open to the specific people that truly would be a good match. It’s kind of like when you decide to buy a blue Toyota Corolla hatchback and then you see them everywhere on on the street. They were always there but you just didn’t see them before.

Be as specific as possible: What do you see, hear, feel that tells you the relationship is ideal?
Be positive in your description: EG. don’t say “he’s not lazy” say “He’s proactive in suggesting improvements”.
Remember the basics: If you want a male partner, make sure you put ‘male’ on your list!

Now to Obstacle No 2:

What is your self image? How confident are you of your own abilities? For Example: If you want a mentor for yourself and you feel intimidated by the idea of sharing your ideas with them you may attract someone who is too directive, takes over or simply underdelivers to your expectations. It is important that you see yourself as an equal, that you are clear what you want to get out of the relationship and how you need to behave in order to get that result.

Ask yourself: What are my beliefs around this relationship?

Here is my example for attracting the right mentor: I believe that
- my mentor is a resource available for me and my responsibility for using to my advantage.
- the investment I make into my mentor has to repay itself quickly and I need to reach a set Return on investment within a year from the relationship.
- I am an equal to my mentor, they simply have more skills and experience in an area I want to grow into
- It is my right and responsibility to speak up when something about the relationship isn’t working.

These beliefs keep me empowered and help me to make the most of the mentor relationship.

So can you see the benefit in this approach?

It’s your turn now:

Business Mindset Breakthrough Assignment:

1. Think of a person you want to attract into your life (can be a partner, mentor, employee or client).
2. Make a list of all the criteria they need to fulfill, be sure to write a minimum of 20 specific ones
3. Check your beliefs around the relationship you want to have with them. Are they keeping you powerful? If not, what do you need to believe instead to empower yourself?

Watch out, amazing things happen when you do this, the ideal people come out of the woodworks, maybe tomorrow maybe in a couple of weeks, you’ll see.

I would love to know how you went with this process and what it did for you, so please leave me a comment here on my blog.

To your Empowerment,
Yvonne

Meeting Kendall, my Million Dollar Mentor in Tucson Arizona!

I had an amazing time at the Money, Marketing and Soul Coach Certification training in Tucson Arizona. As you can see, I am evolving and my business is evolving with me. I had been searching for a long time for a way to combine my business expertise with my NLP and Coaching skills and I have finally found it. I now have the tools to not only transform my own business but to help other coaches, consultants, natural therapists and other solopreneurs to transform theirs .

What does that mean exactly? Well, it means evolving my business model to include multiple streams of income, leveraging my time so I can serve more clients while having more time off and yes, making a lot more money. I have no qualms about this, I believe that it’s important to find a way to follow your passion and be paid very well for using your talents.

The business and marketing models I am planning to adopt are unique in the Australian marketplace. I am so excited to be at the forefront and pioneer this exciting stuff before passing it on and having others benefit from it. Stay tuned for more information on this if you are curious to find out how it could help you. I will soon open a separate subscription to weekly Articles on Marketing and Business Building Topics for Coaches, Consultants, Wellness Professionals and other Subject Matter Experts.

Congratulations NLP Practitioners!

Graduation Day 31st May! We had a great time, didn’t we?

Have you ever had a client ask for a discount and quite aside from the fact that you can’t afford to give it because your margin is tight, you don’t want to do it as a matter of princple? You are feeling a bit squirmish about it, and it’s quite clear:

You will need to deny the discount request.

So how the heck do you do that graciously?

I feel the need to go back to the mindset here:

It is important that you are totally at ease with your position, which means:

Assuming that you succeed in communicating your decline of their request tactfully, if the client still chooses to be offended and take their business elsewhere, then that will need to be ok with you.. It is important that you can stick to your principles here.

Let’s take a specific example and play it through:

You provided a proposal to a client, they asked you for a 20% discount to go ahead with the proposal. You don’t want to give any discount because you feel the price is totally justified and lowering would sell you short.

Here is what to check:

- Have you done a good enough job on establishing the value for your client in what you propose?
- have you set out exactly what you will provide and the value of each item?
- have you provided choice (eg. two packages of differing value to choose from)?

Assuming you have done that, and they still want a discount:

Be surprised and ask “oh, I thought you could see the value in this offer, which part of the offer do you not see as valuable enough to justify the full price?”

Now they have to name one, you ask “Is that the only one?” and you can have a specific discussion about the value of that item and all you need to do is demonstrate how that item justifies the value you put on it.

If your client is quite upfront and just wants a special deal, be upfront with them as well by saying:

“I can appreciate that you want to be sure to get exceptional value and when you look at the Return on investment with this offer which is at (say what it is for them) you will see the offer at this price is exceptional value already. I want to make this a true win win for both of us and that’s how I have priced it. Giving you a discount would mean I would feel that I am underselling my value and that’s not a good frame of mind to be in when delivering highest quality service which is what I am striving to do for you.”

This is generally enough for clients to pull back. Nobody wants to have a service provider that feels resentful and therefore provides only second best.

If someone still doesn’t ‘get it’ , I’m afraid you will have to be pretty clear in saying that you don’t give discounts. You believe that you are providing the best possible solution for the job and that’s what you are focusing on. At this stage the client request will be more a haggling contest that you don’t want to engage in.

If you have done good work in your sales process and if you are making it clear in your unique selling proposition that you are competing on quality, not on price, then that should preempt this discussion completely.

Preframing is alwasy easier than reframing after the fact!

Your Business Mindset Breakthroughs Assignment:

1. Apply this tactic either to a discount request or any other request that you need to decline.
2. Share your thoughts and experiences in leaving a comment on this blog!

To your Success
Yvonne

Have you ever been in one of these dilemmas:

- You had agreed to participate in a certain project and then you changed your mind/your circumstances changed and you want to pull out
- a client asks you for something extra on a project that you hadn’t budgeted for and you feel it is unreasonable but don’t want to put them off
- a friend empahtically and really nicely asks you to go out with them but you just don’t feel like it?

And then you ponder it in your head, should I do it or shouldn’t I do it….? and If I was to say ‘No’ or “I changed my mind’ how will they take it and more importantly how will I feel when seeing their disappointed face? Will my benefit be worth the guilt trip I will be on for a while after saying ‘No”?

I know what it’s like, I’ve been there.

Until I understood that it was my mindset that was causing this whole dilemma, meaning I could change it.

Let me ask you this: If your kid’s or partner’s or your own life depended on it, would you be able to say “no” to the person?
Of course you could. Which tells me one thing:

Feeling guilty about saying it, or not saying it at all, means in your mind the other person’s outcome is more important than yours. And that is just not true!

Read this: You getting your outcome is the most important thing!

And before you protest, let me clarify this statement: Sometimes, saying ‘yes’ to someone and going the extra mile is the outcome you want because there is a long term payoff (eg throwing in an extra benefit for a client with whom you want to build a long term relationship). That means you do get your outcome in the end, so you both win!

However, there has to be a strong enough win for you at the end. And please don’t use this way of reasoning to talk yourself into something you don’t want to do.

Way too many people in business and in their personal life, think they are being so good by constantly looking out for others and putting their own needs last. And then they start to feel resentment, exhaustion, depression and burnout. I see it all the time in my coaching practice. These people feel selfless when they do it, not realising that without them receiving something in return so the scales even out, they will burn out. Because on an unconsicious level there always has to be an exchange, you need to get something back, otherwise you can’t sustain yourself in the long term. On an unconsious level we always expect there to be a return even if we don’t like to admit it consciously.

So you might as well be honest with yourself about it upfront. Remember if you don’t eat and drink to become strong yourself you won’t have the strength to help others who need help to feed themselves. It’s the same here, giving too much in the short term will only mean you can’t sustain what you do in the long term because you will burn out.

How do you know then, when to say ‘no’ and when to say ‘yes’?

Your Business Mindset Breakthrough Assignment

Next time you face a dilemma like this ask yourself:

1. What do I get out of saying ‘yes’ to this request?
2. Do I value that outcome highly enough, in other words is my return (emotionally or financially) higher than my investment here?
3. Does my gut feeling say ‘yes’ or ‘no’?
4. Listen to your gut feeling as it is always honest, while you might be kidding yourself by talking up your benefits if you are afraid of the other person’s reaction to your ‘no’
5. If you still feel you should say yes, ask yourself “who says you should?” usually it’s an old piece of programming from our parents that says we should and it most likely doesn’t apply to you anymore!

Watch out for my next post where I will give you some language tools to say ‘no’ in a graceful and elegant way, so relationships are maintained while you get what you want!

Until then,
Value yourself, because you are worth it,

Yvonne

Yes, why should you? It’s an annoying habit isn’t it? You know you have a huge to do list and you’re sitting there doodling on the internet. You keep putting off the big projects or the little things that are just plain boring, until you feel so bad about it or the deadline comes so close that you get onto it. It’s all a mad rush and no fun at all.

So why should you make Procrastination your friend?

Because it shows you something that you need to see.

If you find yourself procrastinating, something is wrong. It has suddenly become more ‘painful’ for your unconscious mind to consider moving forward than it is to stay where you are. There are a number of reasons for it. Here is one of the most common ones:

You don’t really believe that what you gain as a result of doing the task is worthwhile the effort you need to put in. So, why are you doing it then? That’s the question that your unconscious mind is asking, and unless you find a good answer, procrastination will be your constant companion.

The flipside is that you may have too much to gain from staying where you are. Often it’s the fear of loosing security and stepping into an unknown. It’s the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know. And sometimes there even is a REAL gain eg. someone doesn’t want to see a doctor or therapist because they fear that they may loose the attention they are currently getting from their loved ones when they get better, so they don’t.

This is the main reason why people don’t succeed in loosing weight, setting up a successful business, leaving an unhappy marriage and all sorts of other endeavours they always say they will start one day. They don’t believe they can get it and the perceived gain is just not great enough.

Breakthrough Assignment for those procrastinator moments:

Ask yourself:

1. What will it do for me to get this goal?
2. Why is that important to me?
3. What do I need to give up in order to get this goal? And is it worth it?

And here one of the most important questions:

4. What would be another way to get what I think I need to give up while getting my goal?

How did you go with the anwers? Let me know your thoughts!