What is the number one challenge for 76% of businesses?

When you learn to drive a car, you start off driving consciously, thinking every gear change, brake, accelerator, clutch movement. Then, over time, it starts to become more and more natural.

Then one day you brake into a corner, accelerate around it and slip through the gears, 3rd, 4th, 5th without thinking and you then realise what just happened and go: “That’s was cool!”

Business can be like that too and it changes when all the things you once did consciously now become second nature and the learning you’ve been doing becomes knowing.

The knowing comes in the results – from the growing expectancy that you now are actually succeeding and can literally see your dream coming true. In driving it’s when your movement becomes instinctive. In business it’s when you have ideas that are grounded in habits, strategies, systems and processes and you know what tool to apply to what problem so that your dream continues to unfold naturally and effortlessly.

The expectancy comes in signs the results are coming. In business that might be signs that a product is right because the research checks out or sales start clocking up or that a marketing campaing is working because it’s generating leads and sales.

But the decision to succeed is made earlier. It’s made when we commit to doing the things you need to do to succeed. It happens when we stop making excuses. It happens when we stop saying “I can’t” and start saying “I will.”

Let me give you an everyday example. A recent CommunitySoul poll said 76% of businesses number one challenge is finding new business. So let’s use that as an example.

Let’s say your currently worried about where the next client’s going to come from and you’ve got a bottle neck of other things that need to get done. You’re waking up in the morning saying I don’t know where to start… I wish I could find more clients… I wish I could make more money… but before I do that I have to do deal with XYZ.

And you’re right. You have to deal with XYZ. In fact you have to deal with it to the extent it’s eliminated or severely reduced because right now it’s choking you.

Many years ago I worked with someone who complained they had no business coming in. I asked them to give me a breakdown of their typical working day. They told me they did yoga at 9am. Meditation at 11. Made lunch at 12. Walked the dog at 1.30. Did computer practice at 2.30pm then began the evening meal. This was an extreme case. But it clearly shows how the hours of “doing stuff” go by. Now for you that stuff might be emails, phone calls, admin, office tidying – it’s all the same.

But you have to realise that all that “stuff” is stopping you from success and all you need to do is put that aside and decide that you’ll stop doing that and start doing the work that will actually keep you in business – making a difference to others and making money while you do that.

With good wishes
Neil

I Can Show You How To Add A Thousand People To Your Mailing List

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What’s your challenge? Would love to have you leave a comment.

How do you feel about making a difference and making a profit?

For some people that means you’ll be taking your great ideas and maybe doubling your income. And that means your great ideas, your passions, the things you really care about are going to be reaching more people and having a bigger impact in the world.

If you’re going to double your business income, you might be forgiven for thinking, “Uh-oh does that means I’m going to be working 2-3 times harder or longer?”

I hope not! If that was true that would mean you might be working 22-23 hours a day and that’s not what you really want to be doing.

So, what is the way to create a business that doubles in profit on a regular basis, reduces the time you spend in it, and contributes to making a better world?

That’s a big question, but it’s a great question because it drives at the kind of lifestyle most of us got into business to have – one that makes money, gives us freedom and flexibility and creates a contribution or a legacy.

So how do we do that?

I was listening to a former Olympic medallist speak the other day and he was saying, that no medallist wins because they work 2 or 3 times harder than the rest. No one wins a race by 2 or 3 times as much as anyone else. It’s fractions of an inch and 100ths of a second that make a difference.

So it’s the little things they do in training, day after day, that make the difference when it counts. And it’s these little things that will win you medals. It’s these little things that  save you time, energy and money. And it’s these little things, subtle things I want to show you, so you can make a big difference, without selling your soul.

So, how does this translate into business?

In your marketing it may be one subtle thing that makes the difference between no sales and a bucket load – this is your fraction of an inch and your 100th of a second.

And it’s the person who claims gold that goes down in the record books and who hits the headlines and the guys who end up second, third and fourth who get forgotten.

The frustration is to have a product or service that is fantastic, but to end up being forgotten, just because of a 100th of a second or a fraction of an inch… especially when your service or product makes the world a better place and the person who gets gold doesn’t.

It may just need the fine tuning to your business techniques or mindset to make your business rock and for you to profit from your heart-felt passions and ideals.

We know that people reading this have glorious visions for what they’d like to achieve, but often they’re not striking gold. This can be solved. You just need to find a place  where you can get the resources and the inspiration of resourcefulness.

A little goldmine of help can be found at www.communitysoulbusiness.com

Go and take a look

Neil

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Leave a comment below and let me know how YOU feel about making a difference and a profit. Would love your input.

Bev was stuck…

She’d been stuck for a while. Her income had plateaued. She’d run out of time. She was running out of energy.

And that’s when a wise man pointed out a wise principle.

He said, “80% of your business time is swallowed up by activity that produces just 20% of your income.”

Bev said that wasn’t true. But the wise man pressed her. “Think where 80% of your business time is swallowed up.”

Bev thought about it. “Okay. Emails, phone calls. But I can’t not do them.”

“Do you want to create more time to help more clients or not?” the wise man asked. This didn’t need Bev to think. She immediately nodded yes. “So your task is to find a way to get those emails and phone calls done more effectively.”

Bev found a solution that worked for her.

And the question I have for you today is: where is 80% of your time being eaten up in small income producing activity.

Make a note: what is the task that – if you could stop, automate or outsource it – would give you more income earning time or bring you some sort of relief or new energy.

The benefits for doing this exercise are huge. For you, you create more feel good in your business. For your clients, you could create more intensity or depth because of that new energy. You never know you may also create more room to serve more people who need what you do!

Good wishes

Neil

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Information products, sold on-line or via your website, provide another income source for your business and this is really useful for those of you who already have clients and who want to develop another income stream that doesn’t require a lot of management.

What this allows you to do then is earn more money and help more people, or help people in a deeper way, than you can currently do, without you needing to be there to deliver it.

For those of you, who are starting out, or who are not yet earning what you want to earn, creating info products are a great way to give your clients a way to learn more about you, and this can supplement the other income you make from elsewhere.

I know that a number of people are ready to create information products that can be downloaded, but they are challenged by how to make these quickly enough and within a budget.

Also, there are a number of people who have already started creating products and are coming up against… what I see as… fairly typical issues.

Others have a stream of income which is growing, but you can see that you are just selling your time for money and in order for you to work less and earn more, you need to create products that you can sell on-line, so you create additional income, without using any time beyond what it takes to make and market the product.

So it’s clear there are lots of reasons to create product and sell them via a website or blog. The question is: how?

So here are a few quick tips:
1. Do not use a web designer or even marketing experts for this, but instead invest in someone who knows how to do this already and does it for a living
2. Make sure you use marketing systems that support your goals – don’t be cheap, invest in what you need
3. Reuse things you have already created where you can, but use them in inventive ways that make your new products a cut above the rest
4. When creating new products, try to create them from a talk or tele-seminar or webinar, rather than booking special time for it.

I hope that helps get you started

Good wishes
Neil
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When I notice my energy pouring away, that’s the point where I realise I need to get out of the process.

I realised this a long time ago. I’m simply not good at putting together the systems and processes of a new product.

I like the creative parts, the bit where I come up with the idea, the bits where I can speak to a group or network an idea.

We all have different skills and we can all use them in different ways. The trick is bringing all those people together into a project in different ways that create a pay off.

In our industry people often talk about having a “passion”. And this is fine. But you also need to make sure you can earn a living from that passion.

There is a mistake people make in our industry in following a passion. Let me give you an example…

If you have a passion about yoga and you want others to experience the benefits you have experienced from yoga, you don’t have to become a teacher and try to market your own yoga classes.

There are different ways to earn a living from yoga. For example, your natural gift might be marketing, so team up with a yoga instructor who doesn’t like marketing and show them how to reach more people.

You may also be someone who can create a product that hones in on a specific pain point for people who would benefit from yoga. So, help a teacher create a product.

My own passion is helping people have a better experience of life and while I can, and still occasionally do, mentor or coach, my real passion is elsewhere.

There are already a multitude of amazing teachers, speakers and writers, but where our industry needs the support is in the marketing and PR professionals who can help that message reach the market.

My own passion these days is creating joint ventures for clients – knitting together two people with passions so they can work or market together. Plus we have a great platform to help launch those ventures.

Think about your passion… is it really in the way you are doing what you are doing?

You’ll know by how much energy you have for your work. If it flows and you feel you are thriving, you have it right. If energy feels stuck, something isn’t right – you may be in the right niche, but in the wrong role in that niche.

Good wishes
Neil

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What if you could double or triple your profits, while cutting your working hours in half?

The information I’m sharing in this article put me in the real flow of my business and we’re going to be looking at how you can do it too.

First off, let’s look at why this subject is important…

I know that a number of you would like to work less hours than you do and you are just not sure where to start.

Also, there are a number of you who have already achieved a level of success and the problem you may have is that you just don’t have enough hours in your day to grow further.

It’s also fair to say that many of you know you need to do something different in your business in order to grow it further, but you’re resisting it because you have a fear – maybe that’s about giving away some control.

If I go back a few years, I worked long hours. Sometimes I’d be working at 2am and would start again at 6am. I was frustrated. I was working long hours, but just didn’t feel I was getting the returns I wanted.

I remember Jo and I talking about this and we decided I should take some of my own medicine. For a while I’d been taking my own clients through a process of how to save themselves hours in business and yet here I was not doing what I taught.

So we began the process, which took 6 months initially.

The first step was to look at what only I can do, that no one else can do. And to cut a long story short that means public speaking, building key relationships and creating resources for our team.

That means that anything else I do, needed to be handled another way.

As I began to look at every task, strip it down and then outsource it, big holes in my diary began to appear where I now had more time to do the things that were most important for me to do.

Just taking this one action meant I had more time and the business had more potential.

Take a look at your daily routine and see where you are doing things you don’t need to do. Look at what someone else can handle for you.

Good wishes
Neil

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Do you try to do it all yourself? Would love to have your input — leave a comment below.

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

One of my favourite experiences is making on-line sales.

I like these sales because once the product is set up I never have to do anything again.

Strictly speaking, information products include all books, audios, videos and reports etc. In the internet context, the term refers to electronically deliverable, knowledge-based products.

Information products are also referred to as “digital goods” and “knowledge-based goods”.

If it delivers knowledge and you can e-mail it to the customer or offer it as a downloadable file, then it qualifies as an information product.

I’d also add to that definition that an information product is something that you could create into a CD or CD set, or make downloadable onto an MP3 or an ipod and it is also something that you can post out on a Cd or DVD.

So that’s what an information product is. What I want to show you are how to create INFORMATION PRODUCTS quickly and easily and in a cost-effective way to grow your business.

•    Information products can be created with little or no money. When I started I paid for a domain, hosting, a copy of Acrobat so I could make PDF files. Then I progressed onto audio products and to do that all I did was downloaded a free version of audacity.

•    So I’d then record in audacity, create an MP3 file and load it up to the internet. I then bought some recording equipment to record live talks – so that was a wireless mic which I think cost about £70 and a hand held Olympus recorder which cost £30 and then later I got a Sanyo video camera which has a mic jack, for recording good sound quality.

•    What I’m saying here is you can create, audio or video for under £500.

•    A great advantage is that information products can be reproduced in any quantity – it is as simple as copying a file. Even if you sell a million copies, production costs stay at zero… if you make them downloadable. So once you created the product, other than you marketing, the product cost can be zero.

•    With information products, inventory and the problems around keeping an inventory are completely eliminated.

•    With information products that are downloaded, shipping costs and problems around shipping are completely eliminated too.

•    Because it is delivered electronically, the time-lapse between purchase and delivery is often just a few seconds and from a customers satisfaction point of view this is what people want.

The message is that information products are cheap, easy, convenient and fast. They are the kind of thing you can create and sell all by yourself.

Best Wishes
Neil

Would love to hear your thoughts: Have you created information products for your business? What impact did they have on your bottom line?

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

When you gain a new customer or client what journey are you taking them on?

Let’s say you are selling to a business. So the journey you might take a client on is that you might offer the client a service that saves them time. Because you save them time, they now have more time. They might reinvest that time in a number of ways… to innovate in their business, to set up a charity,  to have more time with their family. Because you have saved them time, they have the potential to increase their income, give back or spend more time with their spouse and kids.

A recent personal example I can give you is what one of our web guys did for me. Recently I asked one of our team to do a job for us. It was a job I could have done, but I know it’s something he is niched in.

Because I thought of him and knew clearly what he could do, I was able to give him the work. That left me the time to think about one of our other services and how I improve that. What happened was I was able to reduce the few hours per week Jo puts into that project.

The result was Jo now has more time to spend working with her clients, created more space to make a bigger difference to our clients, which increases our income which means we can again make a bigger difference… and it also represented income for us of over £4300. So when the web guy sends me a bill for $60, around £45, do you think I’m happy?

Another journey you might take a client on is making them money. As someone who mentors businesses on making a difference and a profit, I know that when I work with someone and they follow the steps I give them, they will increase their income.

But I also know increasing their income is just part of the journey. This is true because income is so closely related to what the business owner thinks about money and how they feel about making more.

Sometimes someone needs to increase their income to sustain their family, but they don’t feel comfortable asking for money or closing a sale. So, I know when I work with someone to increase their income, they will go through many things.

As our income shot up, I hit a barrier. And I had to adjust my thoughts to go beyond it. I had to adjust my thought process to avoid self-sabotage and it was an interesting time of self-discovery where I had to really come back to the reasons why I do what I do.

A lovely appreciation to have  as you go about your week is that as you evolve, your clients and customers evolve. And as they evolve, so do you. You’re in it together!

Best Wishes
Neil

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

When you set up the vision for your business… when you’ve written down the goals and visualised it all as you want it to be… the next part – and  the part that most people struggle with is – getting out of your seat and making it happen.

YOU can make it happen!

In this article we’re going to look at how you address this…

A good place to start is with these questions: “What is it you need to do next to have your vision happen?” Do you need to write a business or marketing plan? Get a mentor? Pick up the phone and ask for help from a colleague? Is there a book you need to read? A website you need to go to. What do you have to do?

Make a list of all the steps and set a time aside. A mentor of mine once said, “If you make the first 90 minutes each day about your goal, it will happen.”

I want you to take note of the things that cause you a bit of discomfort. For me, I often left detail. I didn’t tidy up the little snags. I also haven’t always been as determined as I might be. For you, you might notice other things.

What I did is notice where the detail wasn’t tidied. For a time I went over it until it became perfect and until that perfection was no longer a pain but an absolute joy.

Of course another way is to outsource what you’re not good at, and I do more and more of that as time goes by… because I found that this was a faster way to joy!

And while we’re talking about overcoming pain and gaining pleasure I should mention self-sabotage. When we begin to do better than we’re comfortable with, we can have glitches.

Anyone who has weight problems will probably be able to tell you that maybe on a certain day, when they suddenly feel lighter or maybe on a day which was stressful, they hit the self-sabotage button and revert back to the old way.

It happens. Why does it happen?

Well, one of the reasons is we hit an upper limit of success – we hit the ceiling of what we can cope with for that moment. We’re unable to accept our self as something else… in other words, the success we once wanted now feels uncomfortable.

It’s important we know this happens and we take the time to handle this, or you might be hitting that self-destruct button… and you don’t want that.

Best Wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at 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