Posts Tagged "elizabethpw"

Imperfection Is Your Expertise

Posted by LisaYoung in Uncategorized | 0 comments

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”

- Anna Quindlen

I’m part of Elizabethpw’s #18daystoLYT program (I’m kind of addicted to her whole “Live Your Truth” mantra, in honesty). At one point in the course, she talks about how the thing we’re still learning is the thing we are most expert in.

Wha…?

My imperfection is my source of expertise?

I need to chew on that a bit more – care to join me?

That thing I’m hiding behind, struggling with – that’s pulling me around from day-to-day… THAT is my expertise?

Hooboy… It makes so much sense, but it’s also pretty scary.

Be The Fear Inside You

Posted by LisaYoung in Uncategorized | 0 comments

“Always do what you are afraid to do.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The scariest thing in the world to me is to stop doing. I’m compelled to be doing something all the time. Like, if I don’t do something, I’m not doing anything, which makes me a drain on society, instead of contributing to the greater good.

Don’t get me started on self-care and the guilt/necessity circle that rages in my head from time to time. I know self-care is an act of doing. I have a client that likes to say “taking care of yourself is taking care of business.”

But when Mary Jaksch asked what’s scary to write about, I got to thinking how much I “do” because of that fear, and how many people have the opposite problem. They are paralyzed by fear.

I Am What I Am

Posted by LisaYoung in Faith | 8 comments

Land ho!

My ship docked on Wednesday, and what a whirlwind it’s been since then. All doused with kerosene, I lit the match, and stood on the shore for the last couple of days making SURE it was cinders and ashes.

I’ve been sort of dreading this post, and sort of looking forward to it, because so much has happened in the last 60 days, but I wasn’t really sure how to best articulate it. While this blog talks a lot about my personal journey, I also mean for it to be a tool that you can use to live and grow by.

Then this morning, my youngest climbed into our bed and promptly pulled the covers off me. I took it as a sign to get moving.

I did my morning PEACE System practice, and as I opened my laptop, my eyes fell on an email from my first coach, EPW, with an assignment for an upcoming class. She encouraged us to watch a video she created outlining a process to help us determine our four words.

Meh. I already have my theme for the year, and was planning on sharing it in an upcoming post. But since it was only 25 minutes, it was too early to really do anything else, and I figured the noise might get my husband out of bed, too, I acquiesced.

Now, I can frame this post in a way that’s meaningful to you.

This 60 day journey has been about trying to figure out what in the world I’m really supposed to be up to on this rock we call Earth. I know many of you resonate with the “jack of all trades, master of none” concept, and I’ve grappled with that identity myself for years. People still ask me “what do you do?” and I have a horrible time painting a complete picture.

Then there’s the marriage. What the French? How can you stay married to a person who shows little emotional presence, claims to love you, and feels like he’s bending over backwards to serve your needs because he did a load of laundry and changed a diaper? I was at an incredible crossroads in my marriage. Part of this 60 day journey was spent working through The Love Dare – and meeting with frustration after frustration. Ultimately, it wasn’t about “fixing” our marriage. It was about coming to terms with who I am, and how to make a marriage work in light of that revelation.

And, of course, there’s the family, the business, and a litany of other “stuff” that came up during the past two months.

One blog post seemed almost ineffective, until EPW’s email today.

See, I’ve done the “theme words” thing before: Pick a few words that lay the foundation for the year ahead, and build your life/business on those qualities. It works, but I figured I already had it down for the year.

This wasn’t that kind of exercise.

One of the questions in the exercise was this:

“If you were a fairy godmother and could bestow states of being on the people you love most in the world, what  qualities would you grant them?”

Then, as the exercise ended, she asked us to prioritize everything and select only 4 words from the list of qualities we had created.

That wasn’t too hard.

Then the revelation: You ARE those four words. These are not aspirations, but you actually live and breathe them. They are your being. Not core values, mind you, but the very essence of you. Your birthright.

And suddenly, I knew how to translate this 60 day experience to you.

I am Faith. It paves the way to everything. I’m not talking about thumping a bible in someone’s face. I’m not necessarily even talking about God, although that’s my personal faith vehicle. I’m talking about the willingness in your spirit to take the next step on your own journey – without knowing the end game. Cheryl Richardson once said that “faith is doing without knowing the outcome first.”

I’ve struggled with wanting to know the end game from time to time, and yet I do a LOT of stuff without knowing for sure where it will take me, just trusting that everything will work out. On this journey, I’ve explored what faith really is – and what it’s not. I made some huge discoveries – well, huge to me – that I’ll be sharing in the coming weeks. The biggest is that faith pervades all I am.

It’s one of my 5 Key Areas of Success in The PEACE System. It’s one of the most populated categories on this blog. It underpins so much of who I am and what I do, that it never dawned on me that one of my reasons for being is to actually BRING faith to the world – or at least my part of it.

I am Enthusiasm. This was the theme I had selected for the year. It was a hard-won word. I wanted to find something that would encapsulate “going all in” and not “going through the motions” of my existence. It also resonates happiness, joy, mirth. And yes, there’s that whole “God inside” definition, and the zeal that goes with it.

For me, enthusiasm is about doing anything you do with vibrancy and commitment. Not being half-hearted, and being willing to burn the ships – with a smile, grit, determination, and a bit of duct tape for good measure. Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean you have to do it begrudgingly. Some of the sweetest rewards come from the most difficult harvest. To that end, my marriage is no longer a negotiable piece of my life. It IS. And I choose to be married with enthusiasm!

I am Clarity. Which sounds exceedingly antithetical to being Faith, I will confess. Yet, one of the things I am best known for is my ability to ask difficult questions and bring clarity to a situation that once seemed too foggy to navigate. I’ve been asking “why?” since I was a toddler, trying to get a grip on what the truth of a situation is. With my clients, I demand transparency and full disclosure so that I can make the best possible decisions for suggested courses of action. In as much as I know I can’t predict the future, I can get as clear as I possibly can, and step out in faith to see what comes next.

Asking questions has never been a big deal to me. I was taught to question and seek truth at a young age. Little did I know that seeking that kind of clarity was not only a part of who I am, but sharing and “bestowing” that kind of clarity for others is part of my mission in this world.

I am Passion. Believe it or not, this was the easiest for me to grasp. To me, passion and enthusiasm are not the same – nor are they mutually exclusive. They feed one another. Passion is a fuel, a fire, an intensity, a deep desire or love for something. It’s a modifier to life. It magnifies the moment. Sometimes we need a magnifier, sometimes not. Thus, it’s not my primary word, but it’s still a very necessary one.

When I was in high school, our swim team’s shirts read “Go Hard or Go Home!” That phrase has stuck with me ever since (even though I was NEVER on the swim team). To me, the idea of having an intense love or desire for the thing you’re about in the world makes it addictive – not just for you, but for the people around you. It becomes intoxicating. It starts movements. It incites people to action. This world would be far less interesting without the passionate people of the world. But if all you have is passion, you end up bumping into a lot of walls along the way.

So the last 60 days have been about connecting (or re-connecting) with who Lisa really is – at her core, as her birthright. I am what I am, and now, I have a better understanding of what that means. I also have a clearer view of what I do for my clients, and how I’m meant to bring that vision to a larger audience. I’m hard at work on a new business project that will serve that audience. More details to follow.

What say you? What are you about in this world? Where do you find yourself being called to serve? I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments!

Exploding Websites for Fun and Profit

Posted by LisaYoung in Big Ideas | 0 comments

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.

Confessions of Self-Worth, Part 1

Posted by LisaYoung in Big Ideas, Faith | 12 comments

What was supposed to be one of my shortest posts ever, has become sort of a manifesto that feels best presented in “parts”

And so it begins.

I’ve been ruminating about a lot of stuff related to being a coach, developing this new business, the LIVE event we’re planning this fall, and a bunch of other seemingly disconnected ideas. Like ElizabethPW‘s post on the many reasons why she sucks (she doesn’t really, at least not IMHO, but I digress), and overpriced “gurus” and my kid at camp, and how my hubby’s such a baby when he’s sick, deadbeats that don’t pay their child support (thanks, @unmarketing), and a host of other, um, stuff.

Then I found a connection: Self Worth

This funky little thread that ties it all together.

And I owe a heaping helping of gratitude to the amazing Marcia Hoeck for clicking it all together for me. See, I’m one of a handful of clients that’s working with her in the “End of the Elevator Pitch” small group coaching program she developed to help us clarify the “what do you do” question without using an elevator pitch (apologies to Barbara Lopez!).

I love my elevator pitches. They’re great. I don’t plan on ditching them anytime soon. This course, for me, was more to help me hone in on my ideal client for The Renaissance Mom as we finalize the plans for our Live event in the fall.  I wanted to have the right words to say to bring clients that resonated with the message of the event – because I want to have a packed house. I figured Marcia’s marketing experience would be a great place to start – and I might meet a few people in the group that would resonate with it.

As usual, I got WAY more than I expected – just in the first session.

In one of the exercises, Marcia walked me through a process to help me understand the value I bring to the table. The irony was that it’s something very similar to what I do in my own coaching practice. Godly enough, Marcia is quick to remind us that even the sharpest knife can’t carve it’s own handle (Thanks, Marcia!).

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve known at the core that my best work is in helping people understand their value. I’m very good at showing a person how they are LOGICALLY worth more than a few measly bucks an hour – particularly women. I’m not talking about jacking up some inflated pricing scheme, but really helping a person to see the value they have as a business owner AND as a human being. To me, that ‘human’ thing is more important, anyway.

What I didn’t get was WHY I was so good at it, or more importantly, why I was feeling called to serve people in this capacity.

I mean, I’ve got a great business working with direct sales reps, and I’ve been happy to plug along in that niche for the past 2 years. Frankly, I’ve rebelled at the idea of being some kind of mom-preneur. It felt like a stigma or some kind of slack being cut for not being a “real” entrepreneur (whatever that means). I’ve railed against the notion on countless occasions. To me, I’m a mom and a business owner, there’s no need to cloud either issue – or use one as an excuse for not succeeding with the other.

That’s my “logical” brain trying to have a say in things.

So it made no sense to me why I should be the one to launch this brand. I mean, yeah, I’ve got a special needs kid with some issues. There are times when my husband could be more supportive. There are times when cash flow could be a bit more on the upside of the wave. But isn’t that what life is? Everyones got issues, everyones got obstacles. The success comes in finding ways to overcome it.

What made my story any different than the clients I already worked with? The moms of multiples who have to cart their kids to special therapy sessions and still juggle their business meetings. The single mom that moved across country to make a better life for her kid – only to find out the job she went there for dried up while she was en route. Why was I the one that was being singled out to “lead a revolution” as one person pointed out?

Because I’ve got the big mouth, that’s why.

I’m still not comfortable with being called ‘fearless’ – though I get that a lot. I am VERY comfortable with saying that I’m direct, kind of blunt, and not willing to put up with a lot of crap – most of the time. I can pretty much call it as I see it. I may not always see it correctly, but I have no problem with saying “my bad” if I screw up, either – most of the time.

So I’m working through this process with Marcia, and all these threads start coming together. The deadbeats, the sick hubby, the kid at camp, the women I work with, etc, and I made a statement something like this:

We get so caught up in not letting people know who we are. We think we’re a bad mom if we spend time working on our business and a bad business owner if we have to take our kid to the doctor. And worst of all, we feel like we’re alone… isolated on some kind of island where we can’t – or we’re not allowed to share this pain, this struggle, this experience. We think we’re the only people going through this, and the truth is, we’re not alone . We just need a connection, wind my key and point me in a direction so I can fix the issue… My clients don’t want hand holding. They want to know they’re not alone in this fight and that they can be successful. They’ll do just about anything. They get stuff done. They just need a connection, a support, and to know they’re not alone. But it’s this dirty little secret we harbor because we look at these millionaire mentors we’re supposed to be ‘modeling’ and we tell ourselves, ‘well SHE doesn’t have to put up with the stuff in MY life’ or ‘if I had HER life, I’d be successful, too’ and that’s crap. We’ve all got issues, and there are women out there with the same story telling themselves these lies because they think they’re the only ones. I’ve got six and seven figure income earners calling ME and asking me how I do it, and I’m like – ‘are you kidding me? I didn’t think there was any other option. You either succeed or you fail. And I’m not a big fan of failure, so you figure out a way.’ And that just blows me away, because people don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes… it’s this ‘dirty little secret’ that no one wants to talk about, but there are SO many mom entrepreneurs going through this right now. And they are HARD working moms – dads too!

And that’s when it hit me. The clouds just kind of rolled away.

It’s all about our own self worth. And when I say that, I mean how we truly value ourselves – not as business owners, but as human beings.

One of the things I tell my clients is that if YOU don’t believe you’re worth $500 an hour, no one else will either – including your family, friends and clients. Why should they, if yo can’t see your own value?

The other thing I recount time and again is the firm belief I have that YOU (as a business owner) are the single most important product your company has to offer. Period.

The problem (and the solution) comes in the belief. When a client believes (in their core) those two statements, I’ve seen incomes double or triple overnight. Literally. It’s kind of freaky, really. But when a client struggles to believe in their own value as a person, it echoes through every other piece of their being: business, family, life in general.

And THAT was the ‘ah-ha’ that brought it all together. I’ve been wanting my live event to be something remarkable. Not another “rah-rah” kind of thing, and certainly not a giant up-sell or pitchfest for some awkwardly presented ‘mastermind group’.

In short, I want it to be an event I would shell out my hard earned money to attend – no matter where it was. Something that made me feel like I was a better PERSON for being a part of it. Not to learn sales tactics, or new marketing trends, but ways to give my business and life more significance by recognizing my own value and what I brought to the world.

And I realized in that moment that the person I was trying to reach was more like me than I had ever care to admit.

Then I understood ‘why me.’