When Things Get Tough
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First, my apologies for being out of touch, but I believe you deserve an explanation as to what’s going on over here at my offices.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a guest post for JulieAnne Jones’ blog about what to do when things get tough in your business. In it, I offer six tips for navigating tough times successfully. One of those is to be honest with your “tribe” when things aren’t perfect. So here goes…
You may or may not have already heard, but we did, in fact, cancel the live event that I had planned for this weekend.
The Renaissance Mom Experience was to be one of those “powerful, life changing events” – leaving a big impact on each of the attendees. At this point, I believe we have refunded everyone. If I missed you, please contact my team.
We’re still planning to do something in terms of a virtual event. That will begin on Sunday, August 29. If you are on the event notification list, you’ll learn more soon enough.
But in the meantime, I’m putting out all kinds of fires at headquarters. So many unexpected “emergencies” have developed (from cancelling the event and other things), that I’m doing all I can to keep my head on straight this week.
Like finding out that the IRS has fouled up every payroll tax filing for me for the past YEAR. So now we’re digging through the archives to clean up THEIR mess (Bonnie, if you’re reading this, don’t worry. Your payroll tax payments are fine, it’s the paper returns they’ve goofed up! No worries!)
And that’s just the tip of this week’s iceberg. Some of the issues directly impact me, others indirectly (like my bookkeeper’s family issues), but all of them are weighing heavy on me right now.
Which means all of my normal “routine” activities have gone by the wayside.
That’s the bad news.
Sorry, there’s no newsletter, no blog posts, and very little contact from me at the moment.
Add to that the fact that we’re closing the offices for the Labor Day Holiday and you can see I’m “up to my elbows in alligators” as an old friend used to say.
Our offices will be closed from September 2-7 (me and all the staff are taking time off. No promises on if we’ll be checking email much or voice mail at all). We’ll re-open on September 8.
There’s a reason my company’s logo is a phoenix.
Some awesome new products and services will be rolling out in September and later this fall. But between now and then, I’m going to be very hard to connect with as the dust settles from the fallout of this week.
Why am I telling you all of this?
Well, in all honesty, because I’ve been feeling like a fraud for NOT telling you sooner. I mean, I coach YOU to be completely transparent in your business and let your teams, your clients and your associates know what’s really going on. People know you’re not perfect, so to present that illusion to the world is tantamount to living a lie.
I would be a fraud to pretend that all is well in the land of Lisa this week. It’s not. Far from it.
But this, too, shall pass. And then, we’ll be back on track and right as rain.
Yes, you’ll be hearing from me in the interim, but not on any particular schedule. Those of you active in any of my coaching courses will see a delay in course delivery – BUT all content WILL be delivered. As always, you can email or call and we’ll do our best to help you with any questions you have, just realize it might take us longer than usual to reply – especially during the Labor Day holiday.
I’m doing everything in my power to keep all the promises I’ve made to everyone and not work myself to death in the process.
Lessons Learned
Every once in a while, you have to make time to take time to deal with life. I would be a fake and a phony if I didn’t practice what I preach.
I know there are at least a few people that would try to cover their tracks and put a marketing “spin” on something like this.
“We’ve decided to ‘go virtual’ to let more people experience the event.”
“Special pricing is open AGAIN – but only for twelve seconds.”
“Bring your friends, your dog, your cat, and a total stranger for FREE.”
“Get fifteen extra bonuses when you sign up before the sun sets today.”
Blah, blah, blech.
No can do. We priced this thing at an incredibly affordable rate (less than $1000 including your room and meals), so I’m not going to cheapen the value of the content by playing those games. The plain truth is that we didn’t sell enough tickets for me to justify keeping everyone’s money (including our awesome sponsors) to bring out these amazing speakers to share their story with a teensy weensy audience. I could have kept the money and played to an audience of twenty people, but it just felt inauthentic and unfair when we were touting this as a large scale event with about 300 people.
Other people may feel comfortable playing that game, but to me, it’s just dishonest and makes you look desperate.
If I were a speaker, I’d want a better return on my time investment. If I were a sponsor, I’d want all the eyeballs originally promised. As an attendee, I might be excited about a smaller, more intimate group, but I might be bummed that I wasn’t meeting enough people.
In business, you have to know when to cut your losses, and sometimes that means nixing a pet project. Cancelling this event was one of the top five heartbreaks of my life. Not because it meant losing income (it’s only money, after all), but because of the mission I still feel compelled to serve – to help mompreneurs bring balance to their life and their work without apologies.
Time and again, that was what I was hearing – apologies about how it was too far, too short notice, too many days, etc. Which tells me the idea was good, but the offer wasn’t good enough. But that’s another post for another day.
Simply put, I know there’s a demand for the material, so we’re working out a way to deliver a portion of the content from the live event in a virtual format starting August 29.
When you cancel an event like this, there are lots of egos to stroke and apologies to be made – and that’s just at my house! The stress my husband and I endured during the summer was epic. Cancelling the event led to all kinds of inquisitions, concerns, and arguments. Again, another post for another day.
Then there’s fees and contracts you have to honor. We’re still working on that.
And THEN the IRS rears their ugly head? Yeesh. Is it any wonder I need a break?
It’s created a lot of chaos, uproar, and difficulty that I simply can’t ignore. Nor would I want to, in truth. So I’m asking for your patience and a little understanding over the next couple of weeks. I’m not ignoring you. We’re just SWAMPED!
And to be clear, no one’s dying, and we’re not closing up shop any time soon. I just need a couple of weeks to get these fires put out and get business back on track.
The GOOD news, is that after the Labor Day holiday is over, we’ve got a TON of great things planned to help you make the last few months of the year your best ever. It pains me to have to wait to share it with you, but I’ve got to clear the path, first.
When the dust settles, there’s gonna be a major blog series about this, you can be sure.
Until then, there are a couple of things you might be interested in:
- If you’re in direct sales, we’ve got special pricing on the videos from Home Party Solution LIVE until August 31. This is the video from last year’s 3-day event. We go end-to-end through the book, with additional bonus content.
- Get registered for the virtual version of The Renaissance Mom Experience (free, even though the site’s not completely updated yet. It’s on the to-do list for the week)
- 30 Days to Renaissance (also free, you can register in the sidebar over there —>) is a 30-day e-course to help you get from Reluctance to Renaissance in your life and business. Just proves I try to practice what I preach.
LASTLY, if you have questions, concerns or comments, we ARE checking the email and the phone messages (and you can DM me on twitter). Just don’t expect an immediate response. Things are plain crazy here at the moment.
In more than a dozen years of business, I have never felt so much in a pressure cooker before. And if you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know how seriously I take my client relationships. For me to basically put business “on hold” to put out fires is a strong indicator of the level of chaos we’re feeling right now.
But sometimes, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Thanks for your understanding.
Embracing Eclecticism: The Multi-faceted approach to business
Think Richard Branson, Oprah, Kathy Ireland, and the like.
These multi-passionate entrepreneurs have gone big time by embracing their eclecticism, and there’s a good reason for it.
It works.
Simply put, embracing all the facets of who you are means you’ll feel more satisfied in the work that you do. I’m a direct sales coach, and a mom entrepreneur. I fought hard to carve out a niche in the coaching arena and realized that it was only a fraction of who I was, and the work that I do well. In reality, I like working with all kinds of entrepreneurs, and my heart most resonates with parents – and entrepreneurial moms in particular.
So do I give up coaching direct sellers? Hardly! Not only am I good at bringing fast results for direct sales professionals, I LOVE it. Why would I give it up?
However, there are so many hours in a day. Any mom can tell you that. How do you bring all the things that you love under one roof? Here are my strategies for embracing eclecticism:
- Focus on one project at a time. This is a challenge for entrepreneurs, but in order to find success in anything, you’ve got to focus on SOMETHING – even if it’s only for a short time. I completed my book and developed my coaching client base so that I had enough income to pursue other interests. The more money you have to throw at a project, the easier it is to keep multiple plates spinning at once.
- Develop a reputation for excellence. If you sell crap, people will talk. If you deliver the goods, consistently, reliably, and with quality, people will also talk – and they’ll trust you when you branch out into other categories or markets. They’ll refer others to you based on their history with you – even if they’ve not sampled your new venture. When I launched The Renaissance Mom this year, I was able to introduce my existing clients rapidly to my new venture. I just launched the first product for the new company, The PEACE System, and I had more than 80% attendance on the live preview call (I’ve NEVER had that kind of turnout, and I’ve been told that 30% is more typical.) Some clients embraced it immediately, others sent me referrals because they knew my reputation for delivering a quality program. A reputation for excellence begets clients more rapidly.
- Diversify slowly. Don’t throw 15 irons in the fire. Give your new project enough focus to have a fighting chance for success. Oprah incubates projects under her care. Branson has an entire panel of people considering new venture investments. When you decide on something, take action to make it successful, but take your time when adding to your business “portfolio”.
- Grow your support team. Whether it’s support staff (VA’s, employees, etc.), an emotional support team or a mastermind group, you can’t grow beyond yourself by yourself. A solid support team makes exponential growth easier, and more possible.
- Enjoy your success. It doesn’t mean a hill of beans if you have an incredible team of people and a highly profitable business if you can’t take time off to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Find ways (even small ones) to reward yourself and celebrate your accomplishments. It’s a form of self-care that shouldn’t be ignored.
- Rinse and repeat.
What about all those ideas you want to work on? Start with the low hanging fruit first – do what comes easiest, and add projects as time and money allow. I keep a mental lock-box of ideas for later use, and incorporate them into my PEACE System process each day. It’s fun to be able to pull them out (and dust them off sometimes), and figure out where they fit in the grand scheme of ”my business empire.”
Don’t panic if you have a ton of ideas. Sequester them, assess them, and decide where to move first. Then you can come back later and add the others to your arsenal. You, too, can become the multi-faceted, multi-passionate entrepreneur you’ve always dreamed you’d become.
Exploding Websites for Fun and Profit
I am jealous – a little.
Okay, a lot. But it will pass soon enough.
My pal @elizabethpw remodeled her website. I’m sharing some of the pertinent insights to my audience on my direct sales blog, but today, I wanted to share the discoveries that are pertinent to you.
See I created that site eons ago, when I was just a fledgling online person. I shunned WordPress (not one of my better decisions, I’ll admit). I was creating pages by hand (still do sometimes). I thought I was doing well.
Then the other day, I got an email from Liz Pabon, where she wrote this:
Our inner knowing is like an attic filled with great treasures made up of our knowledge, experiences and wisdom. And sometimes those treasures are blocked or hidden by the cobwebs of self-neglect.
And I got to thinking about all the “stuff” that’s crammed into that site. 2 years of teleclasses (yes, 2 freakin’ years worth). Classes, courses, downloads and handouts. All of it muddled, mixed around, and hard to navigate.
I was making it difficult for people to buy from me.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like earning my keep. I enjoy getting paid for the contribution I make. I think I do a pretty good job of sharing what works, and it’s important to my family that I’m compensated appropriately for my “genius work” as my coach calls it.
But buried within layers of links, pages and other subterfuge, it wasn’t easy to do business with me. And the irony is, I tell people time and again to make it easy for customers to do business with you.
I’m accessible. I’m probably too accessible. If someone sends an email, a tweet or a facebook post, I usually respond – and pretty quickly when I’m able. And I answer questions, provide tons of advice and strategies to help my clients and strangers who may never be my clients.
But on more than one occasion, I’ve had people say the very same thing that I read at the top of Elizabeth’s blog post (except that my name’s Lisa and not Elizabeth).
But in my own head, I thought I was being really clear. I was following all the “rules” about building an opt-in list, creating info products, doing launches, and sharing “free content” with my followers (you know, “the what” but not “the how” stuff we’ve been fed).
So I’m blowing it up – for fun AND profit.
I’ve had this vision for an entire training program much like a college curricula for direct sales pros that want to run their business like a real business. But it’s built around small group coaching – classroom style – and that violates “the rules” of online marketing.
See, according to “the rules”, I’m supposed to create content once, get paid to do it, and then re-package it into an info-product I can sell over and over. It’s a great way to produce “passive” income, but if you follow “the rules”, the bulk of that revenue comes during the product launch, and then trickles in over the lifetime of the product. The more affiliates you have promoting the launch, the more money you stand to make when it launches. Which is why you hear a LOT about people that have multi-million dollar launches, but then you never hear how the product does on the back end.
Things that make me go hmmm…
I’ve been doing this “info marketing thang” for a couple of years now, and when I was green, I was following “the rules” religiously. Step-by-step, cranking out teleclasses, setting up continuity programs, etc. And in the last three weeks it hit me that I wasn’t being authentic in my business.
For as much as I enjoy “passive” income. I had become a slave to “the rules” – and they really didn’t fit me or the way I wanted to do business.
Here’s the truth I’ve learned in the past two years in my online business:
- People will buy info products, but they’ll pay more to work directly with you.
- Info products by themselves are mostly worthless. They sit on shelves and collect dust. I think it was Dan Kennedy that said 20% of your customers will never even open the product. And to get USED to that. Um, sorry. That does not compute for me.
- My business is seeing a shift towards hands-on help that guides people through the info products. And that’s because…
- People get better results with hands-on help.
- Small groups rock. The synergy, the energy and the masterminding that goes on is exponentially better than self-study, and bridges the gap between info products and live events.
- The biggest payday happens at product launch. BUT…
- Big launches leave big gaps in your cash flow.
There’s nothing wrong with helping people and getting paid to do it, folks. That’s what teachers and mentors have been doing for centuries. The catch is to price yourself accordingly for the services you perform. There’s always someone who thinks you’re too expensive, and someone that sees you as the bargain basement extra meal deal. The key is to find your own value in that mix and be fair with your pricing. There’s NO disputing the fact that hands-on help is worth more than info-products all day long.
That’s why you’re seeing a surge in live events, big ticket “masterminds” and ultra pricey one-on-one coaching programs – complete with swarming, affiliate-driven promotional launches.
But you can’t feasibly launch a big ticket item every month to keep cash flow consistent.
Even the “guru’s” are filling those gaps with smaller ticket product launches, generally joint ventures in a teleclass (small group) format. They can launch them every couple of months, and both partners benefit. In fact, one multi-million dollar guru has already launched 6 products in the first 3 months of the year. Talk about bombarding their audience!
But between affiliate and JV promotions, the cash flow keeps coming in.
Take a look at who’s doing what this year. You’ll see most of them moving away from continuity-based models (especially in light of the new California legislation), and towards more mid-price ($300-500), “one-time-only” tele-series and product launches. It serves the same purpose, but at a higher price point, and with fewer customer service issues.
My own business is taking a similar stance – albeit at a much lower price point in most instances. We’re blowing up HomePartySolution.com – and the entire online community that goes with it – to create a more streamlined user interface, and a more lucrative business platform for the direct sales portion of our coaching business.
In short, I’m going to make it so easy for people to do business with me that my clients will wonder what happened.
It’s not an easy process, by any means, and we’re considering documenting the process to help YOU shorten the learning curve if you ever want to do this in your own business. I estimate the entire site will be down about a month to test everything and make it all operational again – with all the new content we’re adding to boot.
The only thing that will still be live on that site is the home page opt-in for new ezine subscribers. I still plan on sending out the weekly ezine, and generating content behind the scenes. But we won’t be selling anything for about a month over there.
So how am I going to keep the employees paid and the family fed?
With a GI-NORMOUS product launch over here. 
Tickets for The Renaissance Mom Experience are slated to go on sale April 15. You can sign up for the advance notification list on that page. You have been warned.
The cool thing is that I’m able to continue to do what I love in a way that I truly enjoy. I am able to connect with the very people I enjoy helping and they are seeing better results because of it. I’m able to leverage myself as well (more on that in another post), and continue to grow both segments of my business (both here and on the direct sales side of things). I can’t wait for you all to see what new things we have in store this quarter.
What about you? I’d love your thoughts and feedback on this. Share your comments below, or send me a note on twitter.
Don’t Have a “Fallback Plan”
My mom, as much as she had my best interests at heart, did me a huge disservice. Chances are good your folks did too.
At least, if you’re an entrepreneur like me, you might believe as I do that the phrase “fallback plan” is the most life-usurping ill-advised phrase our loved ones could ever offer.
As a child, my vision was to become a rock star. I had Mozart-like tendencies as a kid, composing music before I stared Kindergarten. And no, not “Mary Had A Little Lamb” kinds of things. I had compiled an entire album of music in a variety of genres by the time I was in grade school. Talent shows were my platform to share my prowess, and I was even party to an all-girl group a few of us founded in 6th grade that performed an original pop-style tune at our talent show.
We rocked the house. It helped that the house was packed with family, but we all had vocal ability, and being in the gifted program, none of us were dumb as a box of rocks.
By Junior High, I had compiled and submitted to the U.S. copyright office my first collection of compositions. I was looking for music composition or music business programs at my universities of choice, and was taking every opportunity to hone my craft. The singer-songwriter route to stardom ain’t an easy one, and I figured I needed to get started ASAP if I was going to “make it big” some day.
I graduated high school with a couple of fly by night record deals – but it was enough to impress my friends and leave me feeling like I was really going to be somebody. As I prepared for college, and focused in on a music composition degree, my mother “gently coerced” me into considering a degree in music education.
“That way, you’ll have a fall back plan if the rock star thing doesn’t work out for you.”
Arrgh.
It takes a certain kind of person to be a teacher – especially in a public school setting – and I ain’t that kind of person. Too many of my aunts, and even my mother, stood at a whiteboard/chalkboard and tried to maintain order in a classroom full of students that didn’t always want to be there, and even worse didn’t always appreciate the hard work they were putting in for so little pay.
Not my idea of a good time, and certainly not a cushion I’d like to fall back to if things in my dream career didn’t work out.
Now I know what Mom was getting at. She didn’t want to see me trodding home, tail tucked between my legs when Universal Music sent me a rejection letter (they did, sort of). She didn’t want me to get my heart broken or end up drugged out on the road. She didn’t want to see me lose everything to an unscrupulous “manager” or something else like that.
She basically just wanted me to be safe, have a nice comfy job with benefits, put in my 40 hours and go home healthy and happy.
Because to her, SOMETHING was better than nothing.
What she didn’t realize is that, for an entrepreneur, that life isn’t something. It’s more NOTHING than you could possibly imagine.
Or maybe she did.
Mom constantly had her hand in some entrepreneurial endeavor. There was a running commentary in our family about the new business venture my mom had every season: snow plow, antique store, ebay, etc. As a child, I remember staying up all night pressing the “print” button over and over for a document she sold in local stores that charted the winning lottery number trends for the past 10 years.
She was quite an entrepreneur. Yet she never climbed out of the poverty bucket. She was a true “Shin-Ob-ite” as I like to call it. Always being pulled from one money making venture to another. As soon as the income would slow down in one venture, she’d move on to the next.
And therein was the dilemma that shaped her perspective and desire for me to have a fallback plan.
She didn’t want to see me starving, scraping together every penny – picking up pop cans, recycling copper wire, holding endless garage sales – just to keep my kids fed with a roof over their heads. She wanted me to have stability, financial security, peace of mind.
That would be great for someone that actually valued that stuff. Much to my husband’s chagrin, those are lesser priorities for me. Yes, I want to be sure my mortgage is paid, and that the kids won’t starve, but for me, taking a risk is part and parcel to the entrepreneurial life I’ve chosen.
The plan b breaks my heart – it’s a crutch. It keeps so many amazingly talented people from ever living their dreams because of fear.
I filed bankruptcy after my ‘young and stupid days’ in my 20′s. Here’s what I learned: If you go bankrupt, your credit will be in the toilet, but you won’t die. You just have to learn to live on less, and financing (credit, etc) is a little harder for a while. You can survive and come out even stronger on the other side.
I worked as a financial advisor for a while. Here’s what I learned: most people have some kind of financial horror story – student loans, old debts from bad relationships, overspending, secret credit cards – and all of it can be resolved.
I was on welfare for a while. Here’s what I learned: It sucks. The way the system worked in my community made it virtually impossible for you to pull yourself out of the system as long as you were using the system. So I got off welfare, and busted my butt to get the bills paid.
Plan B will hold you back. I never got that music ed degree. I do have a degree in music theory/music history, with a minor in vocal performance and 2 albums to my credit. I toured, recorded, promoted and THEN decided to make a change. I wasn’t a Rock Star, per se, but I did all the things I wanted to do as a rock star – including getting a standing ovation from an arena of screaming fans. I didn’t have to live a rock star lifestyle to live my dreams.
Did I settle for a Plan B? Nope. I changed my vision for my life.
I got the degree I wanted, but I still don’t use it in my daily life. I once read somewhere that about half of the degrees in the U.S. go unused because we end up working in different fields. I wanted to be a musician. I did that (I still do from time to time). Then I decided that having a family would be cool. So I’m doing that now. And as my vision evolves, so will my plan A.
But I will never have a “fallback plan” like my mom envisioned. To me, that’s like chickening out.
No one ever aspires to their “plan B”. That’s the safety net we think we’re putting in place “just in case”. What ends up happening, though, is that we spend so much of our lives focused on laying the safety net that we never actually pursue the dream. “Plan A” becomes a “woulda, coulda, shoulda” in our pile of past regrets, and we often never get back to it.
We need to be a little more fearless, and take risks while we can. Pursue our dreams relentlessly.
I was recently interviewed by a smart and amazingly talented high school student. She aspires to be an author some day and wanted feedback about how I wrote my book, and any suggestions I could give her to help her on her way.
“Start NOW.” I said. “Don’t wait. Write all you can now so that you can get better and better over time.”
She’s creative and tells great stories. She’s also self-conscious, as most teenage girls are. She has no clue how much her life will change in the next few years, and the stories she starts writing now may end up being fuel for some of her best work when she’s older.
To her folks, who I’m sure would prefer she select a “safer” profession, I say: don’t let her have a fallback plan. Let her chase this dream relentlessly. Teach her how to manage the little bit of money she’ll earn along the way. Expose her to other options, but never pressure her to choose safety over her dreams. Encourage her to study and hone her craft and fund it without taking on debt. Help her be the best she can at whatever she ultimately chooses as her career path, and above all, let her know that no matter what she chooses, she is loved just as relentlessly.
Let her stumble. Make her sleep on the couch if she comes back home, and don’t make it too easy for her. If she really wants to chase a dream, she’s got to be up for the run – it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. As long as she finishes the race, she’s won it.
And if she decides she’s not up for the run, that’s fine, too. Then she’s just revising her vision. It’s NOT a fallback plan.
That’s what I would have wanted my folks to do for me.