I remember the first way I used to create marketing plans. In fact, in my book, “Just Jump” I walk readers through a great process that results in very clearly identified plans and action steps for achieving their marketing goals!

Today I have a more creative process, but this blog isn’t how to do it. I address that in an earlier blog. Today I’m going to address WHY you want to have a calendar with all your plans mapped out for you.

• Reason #1 – I know you’ve heard this: Failure to plan is a plan for failure.
  Like I said elsewhere, you wouldn’t drive across the country without a road map. So, why would you take your business forward without a plan for how to do it? How will you know where you’re going if you haven’t come up with goals?
• Reason #2 – It frees you up!
  Every single person who walks through my Marketing Plan in a Day coaching program walks away with a sense of freedom! No longer do they have to spend wasted hours, day after day, coming to the office and trying to figure out what they need to do that day or that week. It’s already all spelled out for them! Then they can be more productive, complete their day faster, and have more free time.
• Reason #3 – The calendar is your key to success.
  Once you’ve created your Success Calendar, it prompts you to create HOW you will accomplish the goals you’ve indicated on there! Even if you’re not successful with what you’ve mapped out 100%, you’re still going to be more successful, and certainly happier, than you were without it!

Put your Success Calendar together now. It’s still January, so don’t let the opportunities waiting for you slip by. This is a hot time for wellness professionals, and your success is just a calendar (or 12) away.

Let me know how things go!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do YOU struggle with putting your marketing and promotional plans together for your amazing 2012? If you haven’t done it, yet, I suspect the answer is YES! Imagine really defining all your products, programs and services for the year, mapping out when you want to offer them, and then creating your marketing promotional plan, so you know EXACTLY what you need to do each month! Check out the Marketing Plan in a Day private coaching session by clicking here.

They say you can’t get there if you don’t know where “There” is. And in my book, “Just Jump”, when I discuss planning, I mention that if you were to drive across the country, you would pull out maps and plan your route. However, many wellness professionals just run their business by the seat of their pants, without any set goals or milestones, or any strategy planned out for how they will get there!

So, it comes back to where is “There”?

Here are 3 easy steps to start figuring out where “There” is:

• Step 1 – Look at everything you have to offer right now.
  How will that look moving into the New Year? Do you want to make any changes? You might want to start with what you know, but expand into other services. You might want to write a book or ebook, or offer some classes, live or virtual. Write it all down.
• Step 2 – Evaluate your pricing strategies with all you have to offer.
  How do people start interacting with you? Usually it’s as a result of something you offer them from your home page, like a free tip sheet. Then you can stay in touch with them on a regular basis, sharing when you have promotions coming up. (See my blog on 5 Parts to creating a Promotional Plan.)
• Step 3 – Decide how many people you want to sign up or purchase what you have to offer.
  This is your projections for the year! Granted, then you need to create your plan for how you’ll make that happen, but this will at least get you started.

That’s it! Let me know what you come up with, and here’s to an amazing 2012 for your wellness business!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do YOU struggle with putting your marketing and promotional plans together for your amazing 2012? If you haven’t done it, yet, I suspect the answer is YES! Imagine really defining all your products, programs and services for the year, mapping out when you want to offer them, and then creating your marketing promotional plan, so you know EXACTLY what you need to do each month! Check out the Marketing Plan in a Day private coaching session by clicking here.

I’ll always remember doing a ropes course and, in the middle of an oncoming hurricane, climbing a 30 foot pole. The temperatures were warm, but the rain was falling and the wind was blowing. As I climbed up that pole, the higher I got, the more it swayed. As I got to the top and realized I would have to let go of the pole with my hands in order to climb to the little platform, all my confidence and sense of adventure dissolved. Even with a harness on, and logically knowing I couldn’t get hurt, I froze.

But I’ll also never forget the thrill of power when I jumped off the top of that little platform into the air. That’s when I realized my true calling of empowering people to achieve whatever they imagine achieving. That jump again reminded me and reinforced my belief that all of us can achieve whatever we can imagine.

Until that time, I hid out. Yea, I may have known what I was capable of. But what if I FAILED?? What if I risked and fell flat on my face? But while hiding out, although my business did “okay”, it wasn’t “amazing.” It wasn’t until I was willing to REALLY step up, and RISK, that I saw amazing results. Not just results in my own business, but results for my clients, too.

I’ve always believed that we are all here for some purpose, though, and the last thing I EVER want to do is look back at my life… wishing I had…. wishing I had whatever it was I dreamed of doing.

As an example, I still remember my grandmother the year before she died telling me she wished they had traveled more. This was a woman who, after my grandfather sold his business, was never home! They took their motor home to every corner of the US and Canada and Mexico. And when it was too hard to drive, they then started to explore the world through cruises. Yet here she was, telling me she wished she had done MORE!

What do you fear doing, yet dream of? When will YOU jump off that pole of safety and risk greatness?

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do you dream of a thriving wellness business? Are you a health practitioner or registered dietitian who imagines not only changing the course of people’s lives, but enjoying a successful business at the same time? Then check out the Prosperity Secrets Platinum program for 2012 and see if that’s the course YOU need to take to achieve greatness for yourself. To learn more, go here.

I just had a conversation with a good friend/colleague about money. She knows she’s charging too little, but struggles with raising her rates. However, because she’s starting to feel resentful, she KNOWS it’s time.

In our conversation, with a little coaching built in, she finally came to the conclusion that she HAD to raise her rates, and I helped her with the language to use to do that, which would help her break the news to her clients and still maintain her comfort.

But then she said, “Then I need to add something to what I’m offering if I’m going to raise my rates.”

Sigh.

This is an amazing woman coaching VERY successful, well-known professionals, and she’s now questioning her own value!

I call this the “Chronic Overdelivery Syndrome” and it is based on one of the Money Mirrors – Deservability.

Does this sound like you?

• You overload your services with too much. Or, better yet, when a new client comes to see you, you tell them everything they would ever need to know, so you are sure you have provided them with value! Trust me; this backfires every time, and you never see them again. They feel overwhelmed… AND stupid!
• You give away your services without charging. You are SURE if you give them something of great value right up front, they’ll hire you! But that backfires, too! Why should they pay you when you just gave them what they think they needed?
• You often fault yourself for not giving MORE! Sigh; need I say anything, now?
• You give much more than what the client paid you for. I get it, because I’ve done it, too. I’ll always remember the in-home nutrition client I saw who paid me for 90 minutes, but I didn’t leave for FOUR hours!
• You make yourself too available. Is your expertise of value? Are you worth anything? Do you want a thriving business AND a life? I’d venture you say YES! So one of the first lessons is that your time is valuable and from this very moment on, you need to be paid for it. You can give people a choice: They can have this and that, a la carte, or they can have the entire, comprehensive program. Their choice. And here are the fees for each.

If you said yes to any of these, yep, you have it: Chronic Overdelivery Syndrome. So what do you do about it?

Here are 5 ways you can break free of this Syndrome:

1. Cut what you offer in half. Trust me; your clients will feel EMPOWERED, not as if they’re being taken advantage of.
2. Stop giving away your time. You’re not just saying “no”; you’re saying, “I have this service/program that might interest you, then.” When you give away your time, you’re giving away opportunities – opportunities to make money elsewhere, or opportunities to spend time with your family or kids!
3. Create a daily list of how you helped the people you served that day. This will help remind you of what impact you already make on people! We all are great at beating ourselves up, rather than acknowledging ourselves.
4. When a client asks for more help, you can let them know that that is beyond the scope of your agreement with them, but you do have this other service that could meet that need. As an example, in my Just Jump Into Business Membership program, if people want one-on-one coaching, they can sign up for a separate Coach on Demand session.
5. Establish clear boundaries – with yourself and with your clients – regarding when you’re available and when you’re not. Then it’s important to gently remind clients of those boundaries when they push them. People (like with kids) appreciate having boundaries they are clear about.

Pick just one of these and let me know what happens for you!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do you struggle with Deservability? Or maybe with how to even GET more clients so you CAN struggle with that problem! If you imagine growing your business into something of great satisfaction and success, come join us in 2012 in the Prosperity Secrets Platinum program.

When most people start their business, they tend to feel like an impostor.

A question I hear quite often is, “Why will people contact me instead of someone else?” They always site the fact that others know so much more than they do. This is absolutely normal!

You decide to step out of your comfort zone and take part in a networking event. This event consists of people in the local business community and you have just started your practice. It’s time to get out and mix, you decided. But, as you walk into the building, you’re wondering, ‘What WAS I thinking?’ After all your hard work to get the doors open to your dream practice, and although you are very clear about what makes you shine above the others, suddenly you doubt you can even have an intelligent conversation with these people who MUST be more experienced and sophisticated than you are!

Or are they? Do you realize that most of the people in that room feel the same way you do?

But what is this all about? For women in particular, they feel that, regardless of the accomplishments and education they have attained, they really have fooled others into thinking they are knowledgeable and deserving. One day they will be found out, they think! However, they continue to volunteer for high positions, get that next degree, and accept organizational honors, only to feel they just have everyone very well hoodwinked. If they continue to grow, maybe no one will really ever find them out.

It’s all about self-confidence and being ok with not knowing it all.

Part of developing that self-confidence is by practice. The way you practice is “fake it until you make it.” So, start practicing, now!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do you struggle with telling people what you do and who you are? If so, come join us for the Niche Breakthrough Secrets to Unlimited Client Attraction teleseminar series, starting on November 29.