I want to give you an example of how, when you niche, you make it easy for people to find both you and what they need.

For a lot of people resistance to niching is what stands between you achieving what you want. Let’s look at it like this: if you don’t niche, you fail to stand out from the crowd and all the other white noise out there. What happens then is you go unnoticed.

When someone wants to increase their client base the first question out of my mouth will most likely be: ‘Who is this for?’ Often the answer I hear is words to the effect of: ‘Anyone who wants to buy my service.’

The problem with this answer is that while they ‘Could be anyone’… in ‘reality’, “they” are not ‘anyone’. “They” are “someone”.

The marketing message of  ‘Anyone can be my customer’ doesn’t speak to ‘anyone’. It doesn’t touch or move anyone. It’s plain and bland and as a result hardly anyone shows an interest and becomes a customer.

This is a point I’ve debated with lots of people who were struggling to find new clients. Their worry is that if they narrowed down who the customer might be too much, there would be even less chance of someone buying. This isn’t the case. In fact the opposite is true. Let me explain…

If you want to speak to ‘anyone in London’, you might be speaking to five million faceless unknowns who are busy in the City with countless distractions like: the hum and the buzz and of the City, catching a tube home, the stress and long hours of working in the City; or it might be about “Will I make the next connection?” or “Am I going to make my appointment?”

People in the City come from lots of cultural backgrounds and many of them will have moved to the City for work and come from different parts of the world  such as Germany. They might be struggling with the culture and just wishing they could be at home, say in Germany, and speaking their own language for five minutes and have a joke about how Londoners are. And they’re sitting there on the tube rubbing their neck and shoulders and really feeling that tension and feeling a bit lost, maybe a bit frightened, maybe slightly fed up, but maybe also okay with life and slightly enjoying the adventure they’re on working in London.

So, how do you get their attention when you’re say, a masseur?

If your marketing says: ‘anyone who wants me’ it just melds into the wallpaper of the City. But what happens when you bring it to life by saying: ‘Hello I help people from Germany who are busy, stressed and missing home. Come and see me, chill out, relax and let me drizzle the most fragrant oils in town over your tight shoulders… until London fades into the distance and all you can imagine is being back at home.’

You don’t need everyone to be your clients or customers, you just need a few… “someone’s” who love you and become raving fans. 50 clients as a masseur is probably worth around £2500-£3000 a month if you see your clients monthly. If you see them fortnightly then it’s double that. And all you need to find is just 50 people, not hundreds.

All the best, Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

A number of people are struggling to find the flow of clients they want, and they need to learn how to have clients come to them more easily.

Entrepreneurs know they need to niche, but they resist it because they have a fear of narrowing focus to a specific niche and perhaps losing income.

Others may have heard that they should niche, but just don’t know where to start. And that’s okay.

Consider the word gratefulness – that’s two words great-fullness… so this is like an overflowing cup.  And this is an overflowing cup of possibilities.

And you’ve probably heard the saying that what we appreciate, appreciates. So there is a great-fullness and approach to niching as an appreciation – or with a mark of respect.

With great-fullness we appreciate who and what we want to come to us. So through niching we really are activating the law of attraction and we are also beginning from a starting point of abundance, rather than lack.

The person, who truly appreciates and honours the potential customers bringing business, is the person who invests upfront in creating a great-fullness of opportunities for those customers – much the way our Insiders Secrets group works.

Now I know this is where many people come unstuck. You want people to respond to your offers. You want customers to return. You want referrals… And what’s missing is the appreciation and the clarity that attracts these possibilities.

This comes because you need the bit of the puzzle that will help you create that appreciation or because you are stuck, in fear, or coming from a place of lack where you think if you niche you will lose clients or opportunities or income.

The first thing to do is drop your resistance to niching and start with an open and abundant heart that will really serve others.

Love and best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Andrea was 33 years old.

In 16 years she changed jobs nine times. She had two relationship break-ups during that time and was just starting to notice cracks in her third relationship.

She tried getting married once. She even had a baby. She had a nice home. She had a lovely car. She often went out for meals. She watched all the soaps on TV and even went on nice holidays.

But something was still missing…

She often woke up feeling empty. She sometimes felt that the day ahead had no meaning. She would often go for a long bath to try to get to the bottom of why her life felt like it had this void.

She wanted her life to have meaning and purpose…

And what about Tim…

Tim had stuck with the same company for more than a decade, working in a call centre for a bank. He’d been promoted a couple of times. He was married, semi-happy, but often arguing with his wife for no good reason and he felt a growing restlessness.
For almost 8 years, he had felt like life was passing him by. He described his life as a rut and at aged and 35, he knew it was time for life to change before it passed him by.

There are some things we all know…

We all know what we do for a living…

We know our exercise routine, hobbies, habits, things that list of things that needs our attention and even our behaviours.
These are the things that we “do” to try to give our life meaning and purpose.

But are they “who” we are?

Doing  is ‘man’s’ reality…

Doing a job in order to be comfortable in a chosen lifestyle…

Doing well at school so you can be told you are good and go on to University and then earns lots of money…

Doing in accordance with religious beliefs so you can be-long to a group of people..

Doing like your friends and peers so you can be accepted.

Doing so your spouse will be happy with you and continue to love you…

But there’s another reality and it seems to be the reality most people are really searching for…

This is the reality of being. If the words about the do always come before the be.

Below I’ve changed that round and it makes a subtle difference that makes a big difference.

We can Be a certain person or certain way so the job flows with comfort and ease…

Being conscientious so you do well in school; being your spiritual truth so you may do whatever action is of your highest; being who you really are and doing what we know benefits the world and the people who live in it.

We can choose to do our job tomorrow and do the gardening at the weekend or we can be at work during the day and be in the garden on our days off. The difference is subtle, but the change in our reality – in the way we perceive the world – is profound.

Here are a few things about being that I’ve observed:

• ‘Being’ sounds that bit more gentle, distinctively more pleasurable and a lot less like hard work than “doing”.

• Being is about living knowing we have the world inside ourselves and knowing we have the power to create what we want or destroy what we have

• Being is about allowing yourself to become an expression in the world rather than forcing a way

• Being recognises that we are responsible for creating everything in our world and changing what we don’t like

• Being allows us to co-create with God/Universe/Tao/(or what you like to call the greater force that joins everything together)

• Being allows us to exit from painful vicious circles and find solutions

By “being” first – taking the time to think, act and observe – we get the initial sense that life is slowing down. Yet when we look in more detail we see the most rapid movement of incidents and events all leading up to in the moment experiences. Access the information that comes in those in the moment experiences leads us to more desirable outcomes and a life more on purpose.

You can read more on discovering life purpose here:  http://www.communitysoul.co.uk/lifepurpose.htm

Good wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Every successful entrepreneur holds a vision. It’s a vision of what they want their business to become. Because of that vision they can analyse what’s going on, play to their strengths and then work out what else is needed.

A vision also helps your team know if they should even begin the task or take on an opportunity.

If you contrast that with someone who is keen to succeed, but who doesn’t have a vision and fails to look at opportunities… they simply can’t look at the bigger picture, because they don’t have one.

When you have no vision, your main focus when an opportunity comes your way is: “Here’s an opportunity. I can make money from this?”

Today it might be network marketing, tomorrow it’s google adwords and an Internet sales page. It’s just chasing after opportunities, rather than holding an intention – like an arrow in – tension, aiming for the bullseye.

Sir Richard Branson says: “If you make your little decisions based on the big picture, at the very least you’re always heading in the right direction.”

And that’s sound advice. And we know this because Sir Richard Branson is someone who makes a difference through his business and makes a lot of money too, because he has a habit of getting things done.

An entrepreneur knows his biggest opportunity lays within his business, not  something someone is claiming is the latest hot product. Sure entrepreneurs know what else is available to them and when they need someone or some thing that will save time or money, market them more effectively, or create income streams, they use the service available… but it’s only ever in line with the goal… and more often than not, it’s all planned in advance.

What are the things you are doing right now that you think are opportunities, but that are actually off your vision?

What must you give up to get you back on vision?

What are the services and who are the people who can put your business or project into the flow faster?

Best wishes

Neil

It’s no coincidence when you feel your best at work, you attract the best results and the better you feel the better it gets.

Having your business be lighthearted and fun often is going to mean your business is going to continually evolve into something better and better. And that adds more and more greatness to your life and to the hundreds or thousands of people you come into contact with.

When you set your intention for your business, make it fun and don’t inhibit yourself with reality. If you inhibit yourself, you may miss out on the opportunity to explore, understand and grow and you might then miss out on the fruits of being self-employed – which is just about the experience of learning and growing.

For example, when you can start to wonder how you go from £30 an hour  to £200 an hour in 12 months, for a moment you stop thinking about lacking confidence. And while you sense you may be dreaming, you can start to see some natural steps if you watch out for them. You’ll get your focus on how you grow and expand  and you’ll start to ask:  Where will I learn? Who will I learn from.

When I was out with my personal trainer, he said to me, “Don’t worry about winning the race. Just stay focussed on the guy in front. Imagine he has a target on his back and keep your eyes on him until you overtake.”

In business, we have a list of mentors we want to emulate and surpass in various fields and in various ways. Equalling and surpassing the mentor is a milestone on the way to the stars.

It keeps us focussed on a specific task and we don’t lower the focus where we might have questions about belief and confidence. We just stay focussed on what we need to do to surpass the mentor.

Any goal you set is not about the end result really, it’s really about the adventure the goal takes you on -  the research you do, the people you meet, the mistakes you make and learn from, the fun you have, the down days when you beat yourself up into a new shape that somehow makes you stronger and more resilient, and the up days that excite you.

Yes, goals provide a sense of direction or purpose, and yes we can perform better with them, but the learning along the way is what we can take on the rest of the journey with us.

And that’s what I want to focus on now… the journey and the experience and, in particular, self-acceptance.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

What’s the dream you’re working on right now?

You may know the answer to this straight away, but if you pause for more than 3 seconds to gather loose strands of thoughts about things you thought about days or weeks ago, you’re going to find this article the catalyst to moving the goal posts to a time, sometime sooner.

The first component is focus. You have to know clearly what you want long term. That long-term focus might break down into smaller steps.

Let’s say the long term focus is a great relationship that has thus far been illusive. That then might break down into daily tasks.

Each day I look at my 5 points of focus and decide what one thing I’m going to do on each of them. This means each day I move a step closer to my goal.

In the relationship example maybe the short-term goal is to do some self-work, book on a workshop, uncover what your ideal mate will be into, become a better kisser, dress better, feel better about yourself – whatever you feel is appropriate.

Once you have the clarity, the second thing to look at is your desire to make it happen. You’ve got to want it. It’s all fine and dandy thinking you’d like something, but do you really have a desire to have it happen. There’s little point in deciding you want something, then getting passive about it.

If the desire is there, then the third thing to look at is belief. You’ve got to believe you can do it. I believe I’m capable of pretty much anything I turn my mind to. I believe that when I come from a place of playfulness and fun, I double my chances.

Fourth element to consider is self-acceptance. Do you believe you’re worthy of what you want? To pull it off you have to believe this down to your core.

Be… do… have…

With clarity, desire, belief and self-acceptance in place, it’s easier to begin to “be” what you want – to act as if.

For example, if you want to earn £250,000 next year and you work that out, based on the hours you’d work during the next 12 months as roughly earning £200 per hour, you’d be clear on what you want.

When you look at why you want it, you build the desire. When you look for examples of where you are close to that value each hour, you build the belief. When you look at why you’re deserving of your goal, you build the references around you.

So when you begin to “do”, you’ll discover more evidence of when you’re earning your hourly rate. You may also notice when you’re not. When you start to move to lower then £200 an hour tasks from your way, you begin to get ever closer to the amount you want to earn.

When your focus, attention and behaviour have been honed long enough on what you want, your dream will come true.

Until next time

Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

What I’m going to take you through in this article is a technique I use to constantly close the gap between where I am and where I want to get to. I’m sharing this so you can use it too.

When I sit down to write an article or I’m mapping out one of the Insiders Secrets webinars or training session I always start with a visualisation.

I imagine that I am looking beyond the page and seeing everyone taking notes, and magical golden fairy dust passing down the phone lines, enveloping you – and as a result of what I share, you become more prosperous.

And I appreciate that might all sound a bit fanciful, but it’s a technique that I know inspires me to create information that helps people and gets great feedback.

In the grand scheme of things this might seem small, but if something you take notes from becomes a way you do business, or helps you create something that changes lives or leads to your prosperity or the prosperity of one of your clients, then that’s a very cool ripple.

A vision I hold for CommunitySoul is that whoever walks with us becomes increasingly prosperous as a result of the association. Our aim is to help 12,000 business reach more than a million people and change their lives by the end of this year.

Part of the vision for these newsletters is that it’s fluff free, so let me ground what I’m saying here, before you accuse me of going off with the fairies!

Knowing the vision allows me to sit back after our events and evaluate. I’m looking at the details. What will help us to achieve our vision faster? Where don’t we match up to the vision? Are the presentations right? Did people learn all they could in the time we had? Who else can benefit from hearing this speaker? Could people listen in comfort? Is everyone moving forward? Timings? Overall message? The marketing? What needs to improve? Who will do it?

So, when you have a clear vision, you can see how easily you can begin to constantly close the gap between where you are now and where you want to get too.

It’s simple. Know your vision. Know your starting point. Close the gap.

Best wishes

Neil

www.communitysoul.co.uk

How many of your decisions are made based on your past?

In the insurance industry, they use the past to measure the future. It’s a predictable way to assess possible future risk, but even the experts can never account for the unpredictable storm that comes out of the blue.

And then there is us… human beings, doing stuff… going about life in a predictable way. We get up, shower, breakfast, travel to work, work, lunch, more work, travel home, eat, watch TV, bed, sleep and then do it all over again.

Week after week, on we go. Some are happy in the rhythm, others find it frustrating and struggle with breaking out from the spell of the routine.

If you’re caught in the spell and finding it frustrating to break, the key lies in understanding what you believe about your own capability.

The mindset that unbreaks the spell…

Rather than look at feeling trapped, I want to go straight to the mind set that unbreaks the spell and ask you: What would a person in your circumstances do, if he or she believed they were infinitely capable of making a difference?

First, they come from the mindset of being capable. If you took away a billionaire’s money, I’d bet they could return to financial wealth very quickly. They believe they can.

In life we don’t always have the resources such as education and money and when we lack those we have to create the resourcefulness.

Four months ago I was talking to Lynne, a single parent, who complained at being overweight and struggling with finances. She said she felt miserable, working part-time and struggling by, and she couldn’t afford a nutritionist, or a gym.

I asked Lynne what stopped her from getting a book from the library on nutrition and what stopped her from exercising by, say, walking with the kids. She said the kids didn’t like walking. So I asked her what would make it interesting for them. She said having friends along or maybe taking a bike.

I bumped into Lynne two weeks ago. She’d been reading, biking and walking, and she lost half a stone.

While none of us suffer from a faulty future, we do suffer from faulty thinking. That thinking is often caused by making mistakes in the past, or not having things turn out well. This creates a belief system that we’re not good at stuff and we therefore stop trying.

We all make mistakes, but we don’t have to continue to live that mistake years later. We can break that spell now.

Imagine you’re a superhero and you’ve just arrived at the situation of your current challenge. You have some special powers, but none of them are going to help you here. So you have to look for the natural resources around you – you have to be resourceful. What will you do?

Where do you start? What’s the next step?

Until next time

Neil

Have you ever set a goal and felt disappointed because you didn’t achieve it? Or have you set a goal and felt out of alignment with it immediately – or felt bad even if you did achieve it? Or have you ever set a goal and laughed at yourself when you set it?

I’ve done all of these at different times in my life. In fact, truth be known, I’ve done most of them more than once.

In the past goal-setting set me up for failure in one way or another, either because I didn’t achieve the goal or because I didn’t like myself while working towards the goal.

I had times when I’d begun working on my goals and felt physically sick. I’d get sweaty hands, have the shivers and go all dizzy. Funny thing was, when I backed off the goal, I suddenly felt better.

This shows the point I want to make about setting goals – and this point isn’t rocket science, but it is, unfortunately, something that can often be overlooked.

When setting a goal you must make sure that you are working towards something you really want – the desire has to be there 100%.

You have to make sure the goal excites you. I don’t mean logical, blokey, “That feels sort of right.” It can’t be “In the brain excitement.”

It has to be an in your cells, “Wow!” and the possibility of achieving the vision literally blows you away. Think back to when you fell in love for the first time and you couldn’t focus on anything else – that kind of excitement.

This kind of excitement will do a couple of things:

1. People around you will notice a transformation and will offer help, move out of your way or do something that helps you

2. You will want to start taking action sooner rather than later

When you feel excited things will begin to flow in your direction and you will start to take action that moves you towards your intention and your intention will begin to manifest in real life.

The more you practice this, the easier it gets. The less it feels like a “spiritual practice” and the more it feels like a part of the way you just do things and things you want and people you want materialise around you.

Best wishes
Neil

I know the title might sound odd – to aim beyond what you want, but I would prefer you to aim higher, rather than lower, and this article is about that.

Accepting lower than we aimed for is about an attitude of taking second best -  lowering standards, but I want to inspire you by talking about the amazing things that happen when you have a vision, take action that backs up the vision and then capitalise on the additional opportunities that come your way when you are in the dynamic flow of momentum.

Setting a vision is vital. Holding the vision is no less important. If you left the corporate world and set up on your own with just the skills, knowledge and qualifications earned, and a deep desire to do things your way and began your business with no more of a vision than that, you probably wouldn’t be the first.

I was 21 when I did that. After a faltering start – or more “stop” than “start” I did manage to get it to pay off.

The problem I had then was I had very little direction.

I like to look at direction as being intention – what we want to create. And I like to break the word in-tension down into two words and change a letter the “t” for and “s”– and create “in” and “tension”. And the kind of tension I’m talking about is the kind of tension an archer has when he’s aiming for the bullseye, rather than the kind of tension lots of people have when running a small business – which can often be caused by running around like a headless chicken because there was no real intention and therefore no idea of how to get from A to Z.

Let me start by giving you an example. Nicky Marshall, runs HolisticInsights.co.uk. Nicky had an idea of running events to help people with their well-being. Originally it was therapies and readings that might help people feel better and find some direction. That was her moon. But when she started taking action, she began to bump into opportunities that enhanced her intention and she moved beyond her original aims…

But let me give you another example. I used to be a business mentor passing on my knowledge. Then I started to dream beyond that.

I began by thinking I would pass on all my knowledge, then I thought, what’s better than that? Then I thought wouldn’t it be great to let other people hear what I’m learning about right now and what we are trying at the cutting edge of our business. Wouldn’t it also be great to be able to give people mentoring in a more cost effective way and wouldn’t it be great to create a community around it all? Here is what I created – http://www.insiderssecrets.co.uk/

So think about your business… what do you need to do to get the expertise in place that helps you aim higher? What can you offer your clients that meets their needs?

Best
Neil

—-

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit our website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk