Kat Millar

by Leave a Comment

7 Mistakes People Make When Running Online Events

Have you ever thought that you’d like to run online events?

Do you currently run online events and would like to make them better?

Running online events, like webinars or virtual workshops, is one of the fastest ways to attract your ideal clients, especially right now.

Having run over 100 online events, each one getting me clearer and clearer on what works, I’ve tested and measured the best ways to do them effectively and successfully.

There are so many things that you have to think through prior to an online event, like how to best use technology, what marketing to do, how to effectively structure your talk, and how to get people to turn up for your event.

Over the years working with so many different people, I’ve noticed that there are 7 core mistakes that people make when it comes to running online events.

There are some critical things that people get wrong and in this video and article, I unpack them, so you can avoid making the same mistakes.

Before I go into the 7 main mistakes, I want to first share with you 4 reasons why running online events is SO effective:

1 – Online Events Help You Grow Your Email List

Your email list – your database of people – is one of your most valuable assets in business. Obviously we don’t own anyone’s details on social media, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn, so it’s important to build your list.

We do this by having landing pages where people can opt in to your event, so that you now have their email address so you can continue to give them value and share other offers with them.

There are always people who sign up for a workshop and don’t turn up, but you’ve got their details and you can continue marketing to them and nurturing them in the future.

2 – With Online Events You Can Speak to More People at One Time

If you’re only ever doing one-on-one coaching, you’re very limited to the impact that you can have.

If you want to make more money, help more people faster, have a bigger reach and make a difference to more people, then online events are a beautiful way to do it.

3 – Online Events Can Help You Get People’s Attention Fast

Holding online events it’s a fast way to get and hold people’s attention. It’s very hard to hold someone’s attention by just a social media post, a blog or even a Facebook Live video.

If you run an event people get to know you, like you, trust you and build rapport with you because they have longer exposure to you, so you can inspire and educate them.

4 – Online Events Raise Your Positioning and Credibility

Your positioning and credibility are increased because not everyone is willing to take the risk of putting themselves out there.

If you’re willing to do this, it puts you more in the position of being an expert. It also enables you to educate and inspire people to take action.

Not everyone’s ready to buy straight away and they need your education so they will see the benefit they will receive when they make a change in their life.

A lot of people are resistant to change, so you can use events to educate people and them overcome their limiting beliefs.

Running online and live events has opened up so many opportunities for me and I get most of my clients through running events.

Online events are not going to go away, in fact they will only grow and ramp up – so now is the time to get in!

Now you know WHY you should be holding online events, here are the 7 mistakes I’ve found people make when running online events:
1 – Not Tailoring the Talk to the Audience

When running online events, I’ve noticed that some people speak on what they want to share, but what is so important is that you tailor the message to your ideal clients.

So you’re not being general or broad, but you’re solving the exact problems that your ideal client has.

I’ve never given a talk where I haven’t asked people for some prior input, like a survey. I’ve asked them what they want to learn about, what their main challenges are, what their dreams and goals are.

At one company I spoke at, I had one of the board of directors sit down and interview all of the instructors and staff. I listened to the recordings and created the talk based on that.

You don’t want to try and just wing it and guess.

If you are giving people what they want, if you’re speaking their language, then they’re going to get so much value from it.

You need to do your research by talking to people, going to networking events, seminars and talking to and listening to people to find out their needs.

You can poll your Facebook community, get people to complete a survey before a coaching session or at the end of a workshop or webinar.

2 – Failing to Set Frames

A frame is something that you build an idea around that you want people to have. For example, when people come to an event, you’ve got to quickly set the frame so everybody is sitting within the same frame.

There’s different types of frames, and they can include things like; the rules about the event, how you want people to behave within the event, and also beliefs that you want people to have through the event.

When people come to my workshops or my webinars, I always have a slide that says, ‘I’ve been at the top like the most successful people’. And then I’ll give a list of things that successful people do.

I put things like, ‘Successful people show up ready to learn, they stay focused, they take lots of notes…’

I’ll read through this list and that is setting a frame of how I want people to show up in that event. And if I miss that slide the event can be a bit chaotic.

I don’t want people to come and just be chilling out. If they have a question I want them to write it down, or put their hand up or write it in the chat box.

There are also frames are around how you want people to behave. There are also logistical frames, so I always have a slide that talks about making this a world-class learning environment and that we keep everyone’s information confidential.

I also let people know they will be put in breakout rooms. There’s also a disclaimer about being able to have participant’s photos taken and things like that, so you set all those frames at the beginning.

The other frames that are really important to mention are beliefs that you want your participants to have. Often I will show my private community Inner Circle’s manifesto which says ‘In the Inner Circle, we are on-mission action-takers. We operate from a growth mindset, we free ourselves from blame, excuses, and denial, we choose to value people, contribute, pursue our vision and loads of fun…’ etc.

This is setting the ‘frame’ that shows participants that in this event, we don’t focus on our excuses, we have an entrepreneurial mindset – we show up, we give things a go, we never give up and we see challenges as an opportunity.

3 – Not Adding Enough Value

I find that people often will not plan their event enough, where they give people ideas or concepts that they haven’t heard before, or they maybe haven’t heard it in a sort of way before. They haven’t really thought through what’s going to be truly valuable.

Value is what gets someone to take an action right away. Are the facts you’re presenting inspiring and educating enough to make people take action? If not, then it’s not valuable.

Value also means spending time practicing, thinking through what is going to be really useful for people. People love examples and stories of others who have taken a concept and put it into action in their life.

People also love templates and they want their questions answered. They want to be able to share with other people. This is all part of adding value.

Value is not squeezing in the content. I once heard someone say that if you squeeze in the content, you squeeze the audience out!

You want to make sure that your content is valuable, that people can apply it right away. And you need to give people plenty of time to think through things also, so they can digest the toolkit of ideas you’ve given them.

4 – Giving Away Too Much Information

This is probably the one that I have found the hardest. I just want to share so much of what I know because I’ve studied this stuff for over a decade and I’ve been in business for 17 years.

If you give too much information, it could be like standing in front of a fire hose to get a cup of water. It’s actually doing your audience a disservice if you give away too much information, because they can’t apply it.

If you say to your audience that they will learn all they need to know from this event, they will leave thinking they know everything and that’s not possible, so it’s doing them a disservice. They also won’t buy from you because they’ve got everything they need.

You also need to create curiosity. It’s called the Zeigarnik Effect and it’s about opening loops in people’s minds, where they actually realise they’ve got to spend more time with you as the educator.

Show them how many hours worth of knowledge there is to know about that subject and one way they can get that knowledge is through using your coaching.

5 – Speaking Without Structure

People want organised knowledge and people pay for organised knowledge. When you’re creating an event and you show up and try and pour out everything you know about the topic, that is a mistake.

You don’t want to just give people a whole heap of content or information and leave people to have to figure out what to do with it. You want to make it digestible and palatable for them, by breaking it down into steps or pillars.

The best speakers in the world have organised the information into a structure. If you think that they’re just winging it and speaking intuitively, believe me – they’re not.

It’s also good to refer people back to the beginning of your talk. You don’t just take them from here all the way from the start to finish, it’s good show them where they are in the system.

You also want to make sure that when you’re delivering your content, you use diagrams and images, so people can see a clear visual of what you’re explaining and show how things fit together.

6 – Being Unprofessional

This goes without saying, we all know that we need to be professional, but what does that look like?

Being professional means:

  • Having a nice quiet environment and making sure your audio is good and clear with no background noise
  • Making sure that you’ve got a good lighting system
  • Setting your computer or tablet up at eye level
  • Making sure you start on time
  • Ensuring you have nice professional PowerPoints, if you’re using slides
  • Practicing your talk before you deliver it

All of this is part of being professional.

This doesn’t mean you can’t be personable though. It really helps to add humour and your personality and flavour to it. Professionalism is not perfectionism. It about giving the most value while still being yourself.

Remember that everyone who comes to your online event or talk knows at least 50 close people that they can potentially refer you to.

Always be thinking that it’s not just the people that show up, but those people potentially know 50 others that you can reach.

Even if just 2 people show up, always give those 2 people your 100%, because if one person makes a change from what you’ve shared, it’s worth it right? And they will tell their friends.

7 – Focusing Too Much on Themselves

People are so self-conscious, they put off running events because they’re so concerned about what people might think of them and they are scared of judgment.

There are fears around if the technology doesn’t work and fears if no one turns up. I’ve had all these fears and different limiting beliefs myself.

Instead of focusing on the fears, focus on the good result possible, not the negatives.

I’m completely detached from who comes to my events. I care about the people attending as people, of course, but I believe that whoever turns up are the people who are meant to be there.

I don’t focus on money, I focus on doing your best work and preparing well for the event and give it your all.

I put aside days and days to create my events. I give myself feedback after events on all the things I could do better next time and I take on board all the feedback that I get from people who attended.

Turn the focus away from yourself and onto focusing on the value you can offer people.

That’s how you grow your business.

Here’s a review of 7 mistakes people make when running online events:

1 – Not Tailoring the Talk to the Audience

2 – Failing to Set Frames

3 – Not Adding Enough Value

4 – Giving Away Too Much Information

5 – Speaking Without Structure

6 – Being Unprofessional

7 – Focusing Too Much on Themselves

Would you like to learn the presenting formula that I use, so you can run online events that attract new clients?

I’m running a workshop on Saturday 4th July that will show you how to present effectively, and use online events to attract clients and build your business.

In this workshop, you’ll pick up the tools that you can use to run effective online workshops and webinars….

…so you can not only be successful in your presentation, but know exactly how to get people to show up, engage and take action.

Click here for details of the ‘Grow Your Business With Online Events’ workshop

 

See you online soon!

Kat

 

by Leave a Comment

5 Powerful Ways To Be Engaging And Effective On Video

Would you agree that it’s pretty important in this day and age to be effective and engaging on video?

Have you noticed that there are some people who are charismatic on camera, and there are some other people who are boring, and cause you to switch off straight away?

Have you seen people who have great knowledge to share, but don’t deliver the content well?

Right now so many people are online, more than ever before in history!

So it’s even more crucial that you have the ability to be able to show up on camera confidently and be able to connect with people, fast.

Do you want to be able to show up and be able to connect with people super effectively  on video?

Would you like to create a better connection with your audience so you can build rapport with them and influence and serve them better?

In this video and article, I share with you 5 powerful ways to be engaging and effective in your videos.

1 – Speak to Your Ideal Client

It’s so important that when you’re sharing on video, that you speak to your ideal client.

The reason that so many people get nervous, is because they try and talk to everyone. They’re talking to the masses.

Right now, for example, I’m not talking to the masses, I’m talking to my community. You have chosen to read this if you’re an entrepreneur or you want to be an entrepreneur.

So that means I don’t have to get nervous and fearful because I know that I’m speaking to you, one person at a time.

I know that you want to hear what I’m talking about otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this!

So, it’s so important when you’re sharing a piece of content that you don’t get worried about what people might think and that you’re not trying to speak to everyone.

If you try to speak to everyone you miss everyone, and no one connects with you.

It’s so crucial that you use the right language that’s going to connect with that person so that they feel like you understand them, that you understand the problems and challenges they are facing.

Many people struggle to do Facebook Lives, so if that’s you, you’re not alone – you are among the many people who struggle.

I definitely struggled when I first started. I resisted doing them for some time because of fear. Our bodies do interesting things when we are nervous and fearful, but it’s the meaning we put to it that determines our body reactions.

Being nervous is a similar physiological effect to being excited.

So instead of saying to yourself “I’m scared” or “I’m nervous”, tell yourself that you’re expanding. You’re growing, you’re stepping out of your comfort zone – and this is exciting. It’s an amazing way of developing your self-worth.

Make sure that you keep showing up and proving to your brain that you’re fine. No one died and nothing dangerous happened!

2 –  Aim to Be Professional and Personable, Not Perfect

You want to be professional. By professional I mean, be organised, structure your knowledge, make sure that you have it set out in an organised way.

Have 3, 5 or 7 points. Our brain loves odd numbers and it’s been proven by research. If in doubt go with 3 points! The brain loves that number 3 as it feels like completion.

Make sure that you show up in a way that’s beneficial to your viewers and that’s what I mean by being professional. You do not need to be super polished and perfect. In fact, the time that you do a perfect Facebook Live, it may well be a boring one!

The things that go wrong last minute, make you human and real. Make sure that you’re personable, friendly, tell stories, and be humble. Don’t try and show that you’ve got it all together. People can relate to you not being perfect.

Make sure that your content is digestible for people, so it feels easy to apply. Don’t use a lot of jargon or confusing words. People want simple, real, authentic and they want it to be personable so they can relate.

3 – Maintain a Quality Connection

There are 3 main problems that I see that people come up against when doing a live video when it comes to maintaining a quality connection with their ideal clients.

1 – I notice people don’t use a formula or structure, so people are winging it and go off on tangents, losing their connection with the viewer.

2 – People focus on themselves and not on their message. People are concerned about how they look or are coming across instead of being present. Not being present when speaking to people is a big way to lose connection.

3 – People don’t know how to effectively maintain a quality connection with people on video. To maintain a connection, be sure that your camera is set up at eye level so you are looking eye-to-eye with your viewer. Make sure you look into the lens.

Finally, don’t use notes. Trust yourself that you know your content and stick to your genius zone.

4 – Speak Within Your Genius Zone

Make sure that you are speaking about topics that you understand and that you are an expert. This will help you with not needing to use notes. Always stick within your genius zone.

Don’t be researching, an hour before you’re about to go on Facebook Live and reading everyone else’s stuff. Stick to speaking about your real-world, tangible results and talk about the things that you’re the expert at.

Don’t just state facts and information. People can get information from Google. They are showing up to listen to you on video because you have personality. You have different ways of saying things, stories you can talk about and share with people what’s in it for them.

3 really powerful words you can use that are simple little words that make a huge difference is ‘so you can’.

If you add ‘so you can’ to the end of your content and insert the benefits your clients will achieve, suddenly your content comes to life.

An example of this is saying, ‘Do you want to show up effectively on video so you can be the trusted expert in your field?’ ‘So you can’ raises your level of positioning in your client’s mind.

I’m also clear on the benefits of what I do as a business coach. I’m not afraid to talk about those benefits, because I’ve worked with hundreds of people that have had life-changing results.

You’ve got to be confident in your benefits and don’t just talk about the features of your coaching program. Talk about what’s in it for them and why they should invest this money and time into your coaching program.

Finally, have fun, smile, and enjoy it.

How do you feel when someone’s super serious and rigid, like they’re giving a university lecture?

You lose interest right away, right?

So smiling, and having fun helps build and hold a connection with people.

5 –  Follow a Formula

Following a formula allows you to build a deeper connection because you won’t be going off on tangents, trying to think about what to say.

Instead, you’ll feel organised and structured, speaking with a framework. You can be intuitive within the framework, but you don’t want to just rock up and rely on your intuition to tell you what to say without any planning or organisation.

The best speakers in the world all follow a formula. They are not just winging it. If you think of the best speeches you’ve ever watched or some of your favourite speakers, they have practiced and rehearsed it following a structured formula.

When you’ve practiced, created a great structure, you’ve got your points and you really know your topic well, you can be more intuitive and it will come across natural and will flow.

If you don’t have that structure or formula, that’s where you get nervous and can ramble.

So it can help to have the values, benefits and plan in your mind when you’re delivering a piece of content.

Would you like to learn the full presenting formula that I use and teach, so you can grow your business?

I’m running a workshop on Saturday 4th July that will show you how to use online events to profit from presenting and make a bigger difference in the world.

In this workshop, you’ll pick up the tools that you can use to run effective online workshops….

…so you can not only be successful in your presentation, but get people to show up, engage and take action.

I’ll be going through all of the strategies that I’ve used to not only present effectively, but how to use online events to attract clients and build your business.

Learn More About The ‘Grow Your Business With Online Events’ Workshop

Kat

by Leave a Comment

Checklist of Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly Actions to Grow Your Business

Do you ever find that you can wake up in the morning, open your laptop, and not know where to start?

Do you get caught up in consuming things like emails and Facebook, rather than creating and taking more planned, productive actions?

If we don’t have a plan for taking intentional, purposeful action, then we can do a bunch of things and not achieve a lot!

I’m so excited to share with you some really handy action steps that you can take to grow your business.

This is a step-by-step guide of exactly what you need to do to get more clients if you’re a service-based business owner, a coach consultant, a practitioner or any kind of service professional.

I’m going to give you some suggestions of things that you can do daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly, no matter where you’re at in your business.

You can download the checklist with all the actions here

Daily Actions

These are important daily actions that I recommend you do every single day before you do anything else, including emails.

I recommend that you set your intention for the day and then plan your day.

Your intention might be to stay focused. Be proactive and clear about this intention and write it down on a card and stick it to your laptop or on your desk so you can see it!

1. Plan Your Day

I usually take about 10 minutes to plan my day because I do a weekly review and a plan on a Sunday or Monday. I grab my old-school exercise book, then I go to my master To-Do list on my spreadsheet, and choose the most crucial action points for that day.

Always start with being intentional and that way you are not reacting to life. You are in control of your business, your life and you are the one that’s driving your business.

There’s no excuses,  no blame,  just you in control, taking the lead and setting the tone for your day to be really productive. Being intentional helps prevent you from getting caught chasing rabbits down holes!

2. Respond to Social Media Comments, Messages and Analyse Advert Data

The next thing I do is respond to any comments or messages on social media so I’m not getting caught up on social media throughout the day. I set a timer so I don’t get stuck on my socials.

In this time you can check your Facebook ads and analyse the data.  If you are running Facebook ads, you want to be in there analysing the data. You don’t want to be just leaking out money on Facebook or on your other social adverts.

If you’re doing some split testing of ads A and B, you want to be on top of that daily, especially if you’ve got an event coming up.

3. Post on Your Socials Daily

Try to post on your social media business page daily if you have time. You can use the same exact post, image and content because you’re directing it to your social media plan.

I use Buffer for this, which is scheduling software.  Buffer helps you push your posts out looking cleaner.  It’s a lot more time-efficient and you can go in later and add hashtags.

You don’t want to change your posts for every single platform unless you’ve got all the time in the world.

Weekly Actions

Set your intentions for the week and plan your week. Some people do this on a Friday so that they can go into Monday knowing exactly what they’re doing. Some of you might want to do it on a Sunday night or Monday morning.

1. Update Your Online Calendar

Make sure that you have all of your priorities listed out however you’d like to do it. Then, what I recommend is you have an online calendar like Calendly and block out your dates and times for the week.

I do this at the beginning and end of the week to ensure it’s up to date and refreshed.

Every week you want to ensure you are inviting people to like your business page, so if you’re adding new friends, make sure you have a system for inviting them to like your page.

You also want to quickly invite people to like your business page and if you have a Facebook group, every week make sure you’re inviting new people to that weekly.

If you don’t schedule it and its not part of your system then it can get left behind.

2. Write a Blog Post 

I recommend that you write a blog post every week.  I do this by getting my assistant to transcribe my video into the blog you see on my website. She downloads the video from Facebook, transcribes it and uploads it to YouTube. She takes care of my waffle!

You might want to do that as a system: Do your FB live, write your blog, then send it out in an email to your community. Your people deserve to hear from you, every single week you’ve got so much knowledge.

Make sure that you’re showing up and serving them.  Send an email at least once a week.  Making a system helps you connect with new and potential clients.

3. Reconcile Your Accounts and Do a Weekly Review

I do this every Friday. I’ll go through and reconcile my accounts and look at my income and expenses, every single week.

The other thing I do every Friday is a weekly review. I’ll sit down and I’ll write out my wins and my learnings in my reflections.

If you don’t track information and mark your progress, you won’t feel that feeling of satisfaction when you achieve your goals, which is incredible. And you won’t really analyse and reflect on what you could have done better.

So I literally just do a massive brain dump on a Word document every Friday and it just keeps me on track. If you have a community, you can ask them to do it with you as well.

In my private Inner Circle Facebook Group community, I always get them to post their actions on a Monday, and then on a Friday I get them to post their wins, their reflections their learnings and we all celebrate.

We need to celebrate our successes and it’s really nice to do it together as businesses.

Monthly Actions

I recommend that you have a system that you revisit your website and refresh it monthly, updating any wording or images to keep it fresh.

You might need to update events that you’ve got coming up, depending on how many you do. I tend to do a meet-up every month when we’re not in isolation.

I do a webinar about once a month. If you do 12 webinars a year then you are consistently bringing in new leads to your business. All the people that register and don’t go end up on your email list.

Webinars are an amazing asset to have in your business, and they’re working so well at the moment. Once we get back out there into the marketplace and actually seeing each other in person, then I recommend a meetup event where you are showing up as the expert, the educator and the authority.

Quarterly Actions

If you don’t have quarterly goals, I recommend that you consider creating and aiming to hit quarterly goals so you know exactly what you’re working on for the following three months.

if you block out your year into the three-month blocks you can work out how many quotes you need, how many webinars, conversations and discovery session to fill your quota.

Each quarter I go away and do my quarterly review. I actually book a place at the end of March, June, September and then have the big one at the end of the year.

I do all my planning in this time for the following quarter. I set my goals and I’ve got my vision board. I set my habits, targets and reflect on the past quarter.

You might want to revisit your business vision and mission and values during this time.  It’s always good to sit back and work on your business, rather than in your business. This helps you to take a step back and take a strategic look at your business.

You also want to plan some events, launches and workshop days for the following quarter. Every quarter I do a free workshop. Free workshops are a lead magnet that I get to meet new people and bring them into my business.

I also recommend that you create a new freebie as a new lead magnet every quarter.

Want to know exactly HOW to do these actions, so you can get new paying clients fast?

I’m running a FREE workshop THIS Saturday, 23rd of May ‘Attract New Clients With Ease’.

This workshop is exclusively for service-based entrepreneurs, running their own small business.

During this workshop we’re going to cover step by step, exactly how to attract new paying clients who are willing to pay you what you’re worth.

You’ll learn how to create an effective online strategy, great content that connects with your ideal client and a streamlined automation system.

You will discover my proven 5-Step Client Attraction Formula – it’s a step-by-step process of everything you need to attract new clients. It’s been tried and tested and it works.

You’ll walk away with a clear, step-by-step marketing roadmap that takes away all the guesswork.

There’s no catch, no hype, just valuable content and action-taking. These online workshops are quite small, because I do limit the amount of people that I allow to register.

So, are you ready to start attracting your ideal paying clients?

Click here to learn more

I can’t wait to see you soon!

Kat

 

P.S You can download the checklist with all the actions here

 

by Leave a Comment

5 Ways to Future-Proof Your Business

We’re in interesting times and things are changing day-by-day. More than ever we need to be investing in our businesses by keeping up with trends, the current technology that’s available to us as business owners, and making sure that we’re not getting left behind.

If you’ve ever had thoughts about whether you want to go into business full time, part-time or have a side hustle for yourself, then you’ve probably thought about the fact that the world is changing a lot at the moment.

You may have questioned what this means for business owners? We’ve always got to be up-skilling and keeping current, so here are 5 ways that you can make sure that you future-proof your business.

Number 1 – Be Tech Savvy

Technology is evolving at a rapid rate, and if we want to future-proof our business, we’ve got to be able to keep up with it. As a business owner, here are 3 things I recommend you’re on top of regarding technology.

1. Video

Doing videos is important, especially at the moment as we can’t run live events. It’s so important that you get your skills up to speed with video software, Facebook Lives, plus online platforms like Zoom, where you can have group chats and conversations online.

There are so many amazing functionalities with Zoom. I was crewing and assisting in a coaching certification course over the last six days, where there were about 70 participants on the Zoom call. The International Coaching Federation changed their rules during the COVID-19 season, to be able to qualify coaches online.

We are now in a world where people can coach each other in an online platform, and I was able to jump into the different breakout rooms and assist and help people by observing their 1-1 coaching. It went from 10 am to 6:30 pm for six days.

At the end, they did a poll and 79% of people said that they enjoyed doing the event online, more than they did the live event, which I found fascinating.

It’s so important that you stay up to speed with technology and you don’t have to be a total tech whiz either. There are so many programs that are really user friendly, but you’ve got to learn it.

2. A C.R.M System  

I also recommend that you make sure that you have a C.R.M (a customer relationship management system). It’s so essential to being able to email your clients in a professional and effective way.

Using a platform like Mail Chimp, you can separate out your audiences, segment your email list and target different people for different needs.

You can automate your emails and link it all to your other platforms.

And you CAN have a really automated business that runs smoothly and streamlined without losing a quality client experience.

3. Funnels

You also want to make sure you have landing page software. I love using ClickFunnels, it’s by far is the one that I find most user friendly, and it has most functionality for what I want to do.

I host my webinars, online course, and landing pages for 1-1 sessions, freebies, and events on ClickFunnels and it’s all automated and synced to auto-responders.

Funnels are life-changing! They allow simple automation and save LOADS of time.

I never thought that I would be the kind of person that would sit down and learn how to create marketing funnels, but I’m so grateful that I have because now I’ll get an idea, create the landing page in the funnel and everything is all set up.

I can do it in about 45 minutes now from start to finish. From an idea that I have in my head, all the way through to having the funnel set up in less than an hour.

4. Online Calendar

Automation is key with business. You want to make sure that you’ve got an online calendar that people can easily book in with you and also change appointments. I use Calendly and really like the functionality of it.

It saves loads of time going back and forth with people, and means people are more likely to book in because they’re doing it on the spot, rather than waiting for you to get back to them. It’s a game-changer.

5. Online Payment Processing

Having an effective online payment system is something you need when looking at automation, so you can take payments from people – and not end up being a bank! You don’t want to chase people for money. You want that system to be seamless.

You want to be able to send invoices to people, and it’s all done in an automated way rather than manually, so you save loads of time.

I promise you the technology is there, you can do it, but you do need to up-skill in that area.

Automation is an important key for how we future-proof our business. There can be a lot to learn, but if we don’t we’re just going to be left behind.

Number 2 – Build Your Personal Brand

Building your personal brand is so important.

A brand isn’t a logo, it’s not your pretty colours. That’s part of your branding. The most important thing in branding is that you’re showing up that you are giving value, and that you are helping people.

You are providing value with your content, your videos and through your writing.  It takes intentionality.

You always need to be visible, out there and talking to your people. There’s a tribe of people that you are here to serve.

You need to grow and develop your community and be a community leader. Step up as a thought leader. You have skills, knowledge, experience, stories, hard work and personality that makes up who you are and your brand.

No one is like you, as no one can do it the way you do it. No one has got your unique D.N.A, your unique mission here on this planet.

People are struggling and you can help them. You help people by showing up to your Facebook group and to your communities online, jumping onto video so that people can connect with you, giving value to your community – it’s all part of building your personal brand.

Number 3 – Extend Your Network

At the moment, we’re not going to in-person business breakfasts, seminars, workshops or conferences, but we’ve got an incredible opportunity to network in the online space.

What I recommend that you do in order to position yourself as someone who is a thought leader, has influence and adds value, is to start running your own online events.

There are a whole lot of things you can do – like a webinar, summit, Facebook challenge or one-day online workshops.

This helps you raise your positioning which can open up opportunities for you to be a guest speaker in other people’s spaces.

I’ve done about seven of these during this pandemic season. People have asked me to come on their podcasts, and I’ve done a range of summits and talks.

Put yourself out there by showing up online with value, so that you’re more likely get invited to be a guest speaker about your expertise.

It really gives you exposure and expands your reach. It puts you in touch with other audiences and networks. If you don’t have a big email database, then you want to tap into other people’s communities.

The reason I get invited is that people have gotten to know me, because I’ve built a Facebook group and a YouTube channel and I’ve consistently put out content. That’s when you start to really extend your networks and people start inviting you to speak and introducing you to their networks.

Number 4 –  Develop Your Key Skills  

There are five main skills that I recommend that you develop if you want to future-proof your business.

1. Marketing Skills

Marketing skills are so important and investing in these skills will only help your business.

Be honest and rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 regarding how good you are at marketing, how good you are at attracting clients and running Facebook adverts. If your skills are on the lower end of the scale, then invest in some marketing training.

2. Sales Skills

How good are you at having sales conversations and being able to connect, engage and influence people? How good are you at getting money into your bank account by these conversations? If this is an area you are lacking in, then up-skill in sales.

3. Copywriting Skills

Having the ability to write in a way that draws people in is a key skill. How good are you at writing landing pages, sales letters, emails, captioning your social media posts? Rate yourself on a scale of 1-10. If you are on the lower end, then up-skill in copywriting.

4. Your Ability to Present

Your ability to speak on camera is key. Being engaging, building rapport and connection is important for future-proofing your business.

Being able to stand up in front of a group and present is a skill that if you can do it, you will easily be able to get clients  and you will also position yourself as an expert authority.

5. Technology Skills

Developing your tech skills is so important. Learning how to create funnels, put together landing pages, set up Zoom, synch your emails and calendars are important tech skills that are needed in business at this time.

I recommend that if things aren’t working for you, if you know that you’re not making as much money as you want to and don’t have as many client’s as you want, then commit to up-skilling to future-proof your business.

5 –  Build a Growth Mindset

A growth mindset embraces challenges. It loves a good challenge! That’s the entrepreneurial mindset. When problems come along, you don’t get dramatic, you don’t get emotional, you don’t get stuck in the problem, you don’t blame others and you don’t make excuses.

You are on! You’re switched and when the challenge comes, you know you’ve got this! This is a growth mindset. There are a lot of people that start in business and don’t make it, because they’ve got a nine-to-five mentality. They’ve got a fixed mindset.

It’s so important that we keep up-skilling and investing in our businesses, because businesses are an asset.

If we continue to invest time, energy and money, we will continue to future-proof our business.Want to know how to apply these strategies to your own business, so you can attract new paying clients?

I’m running a FREE half-day online workshop on Saturday 23rd May ‘Attract New Clients With Ease’.

I’m sharing my proven 5-step Client Attraction Formula. It’s been tried and tested and it works.

Click here to learn more

Hope to see you soon!

Take care,
Kat xo

by Leave a Comment

5 Stages of Mindset Change

 

We are collectively walking together through a crisis period, one that is filled with great uncertainty for many of us.

We are in a time of loss. We still have so much to be grateful for, yet we have also lost a lot.

And I believe important to acknowledge that and grieve the loss in a healthy way.

I think it’s wise to acknowledge and feel our feelings, whatever they are.

None of us have ever been through this. And many of us are struggling to adapt to the changes that have happened so fast.

Stress happens when our bodies feel fear and we don’t process our thoughts and feelings in a healthy way.

We can’t function and perform well for ourselves, our clients, our communities or our businesses if we live in a constant state of stress.

We can’t pour from an empty cup.

So the first step is becoming aware of what’s happening internally.

How we walk out this crisis is determined by the mindset we choose as we navigate through it.

I’ve recently noticed a cycle in my own thinking through this time, and also in the thinking of some of my clients and friends.

I have named this cycle the 5 stages of mindset change.

In this video and article I share the 5 stages in the cycle and how they manifest in your life, so you can determine how to move to the next stage and use this time to become more resilient.

Stage 1 – React

The first mindset change is to react. We are all reacting very differently to the circumstances around us.

There’s one thing we can’t control and that’s the circumstances around us.

The circumstance is neutral until we put thought and meaning to it. A circumstance cannot make us feel anything.

There are plenty of things we can control, like our thoughts, our emotions, our actions, and our results.

This isn’t anything new, this is well-known in the world of psychology.

This is the way our brain works and what happens when we realise that our reaction to a circumstance is within our control.

We might not control our initial impulse to react, but we can control the meaning we give to the circumstance.

We can control our thoughts about the circumstance, which then controls our feelings about it. Our actions and behaviours follow on from there.

Realising there is so much we can control is very helpful when we feel out of control with a lot of uncertainty in our lives.

We all react differently. Some people are in different stages.  If you think about the stages of grief, there is shock, then there’s numbness. I’ve definitely had some numbness where I’ve found I’m not remembering things and my brain is foggy.

Some of us do what I call going to ‘BED’.

B is for blame

E is for excuses

D is for denial.

We might rotate between blaming other people and blaming ourselves for how we feel. We make excuses. We can start saying that we are not going to achieve our goals or we are not going to move forward.

We can deny our feelings and the changes and almost ‘pretend it’s not happening. In this stage we are reacting to what’s happening rather than taking control of our responses. It’s like we want to just hang out until it’s all over.

Stress occurs in a number of ways and can show up in physical, mental, emotional and behavioural red flags.  We might feel irritable, moody and unmotivated. We might find ourselves over-consuming and indulging in bad habits. These are all symptoms of stress and occur in the ‘react’ stage.

Stage 2 – Reflect

In this stage, we start to reflect on how we’ve chosen to react. Some people never make it to the reflecting stage.

Have we chosen to retreat or advance, to become stronger and grow, or have we hidden from facing the reality of the crisis?

To reflect is healthy. Be open with yourself about how you are feeling and how you have been handling the situation.

Reflection allows us to GROW from this situation.

We can choose a growth mindset that takes what’s thrown at us and we can use it to become stronger, more powerful and more evolved.

We can live at the ’cause’ side of the equation.

Or we can live at the ‘effect’ side.

We all have a choice. We can choose to retreat or advance, choose to become stronger or diminish during this time. This all starts with reflection. 

Stage 3 – Recover

The next stage that a lot of people move to, is what I call recover.

In the recovery stage, we’ve reflected on how we’ve reacted, and then we start to recover.

We start to become more self-aware, self-accepting and accepting of the situation.

We may have been frustrated or angry at having things taken from us.

For example for me, I was so frustrated that I couldn’t use the gym! Going to the gym has been part of my life for 25 years and it was wired into my habits and lifestyle and even identity. It was a coping mechanism.

I would go from feeling frustration at not being able to go to the gym, to feeling guilt and beat myself up for being silly that it’s such a ‘first world problem’. Then I went to feeling compassion for myself for the loss. Even if it seems small and insignificant to someone else.

I’ve realised that I had to grieve the loss of that part of my life. That it’s ok.

Have you lost things that form part of your identity and are also a coping mechanism? If that’s you, I understand.

There is a sense of loss and grieving that comes with any type of loss of something or someone we’re used to.

When you start to recover, you look at the possibilities.

You ask yourself things like “How do I want to be in this season? What can I do differently? How can I meet my needs in a different way, now that restrictions are in place?”

Stage 4 – Reset

The reset stage is a stage where you need to have empathy for yourself and for others.

This is the stage to show yourself kindness, grace and compassion for what you’ve been going through.

This is where the rebooting and recharging kicks in and your creativity gets turned back on.

Recently, I’ve been wanting to plant some things on my balcony. I want to do some painting and I want to write more poetry.

I want to sort out my online systems and I feel more motivated to make changes, whereas in the first few weeks of this, I was feeling numb, confused, lost and a bit all over the place.

In the reset phase, we make empowering changes.

For example I’ve committed to a friend to meet in the park and motivate each other, go for bike rides and take the weights out.

I’ve committed to some non-negotiables of daily sunshine, nature and movement.

I’ve committed to showing up online, regardless of how I feel. I’ve committed to being productive.

The reset stage is putting in some routines, making sure that you have a schedule and keeping some sense of certainty.

Your brain is freaking out right now because there are so many unanswered questions. We don’t know how long this is going to last. There is so much uncertainty.

Having routine brings certainty to your brain. I need a sense of routine every day. I need to stop staying up late. I need to go to bed earlier and get up with a plan every day. I need to stick to my daily plan and weekly goals.

If you’ve fallen down and gotten off of the track, forgive yourself, pick yourself back up again and start showing up in a way that inspires you.

Stage 5 – Resilience


Resilience is your ability to bounce back from stress.

This is where we shift from the stress response to being strong.

Resilience is about acknowledging your feelings of stress and being kin

d to yourself and deciding to use them to grow.

When we are in the resilient stage, we feel strong, resourceful, creative and powerful.

But then something might happen and we find ourselves back in stage 1 as we react again and go back around the cycle again.

We’ve all been feeling certain levels of stress. It’s important to acknowledge that it is stress and that your brain doesn’t feel safe due to the upheaval we have all been experiencing.

When you feel stress rising up in your body, take a moment to do some stress relief actions:

* Deep breathing or meditation.

* Increase your movement and intake of healthy food.

* Externalising your thoughts – journaling, or processing with a coach or friend.

* If you have nervous energy and find yourself scrolling, find something to create something and do things with your hands.

Remember that comforting yourself is different to caring for yourself.

Most of all – be kind to you. You’re doing great, my friend. Even if you don’t think you are.

I know we all try to be strong and independent, powerful leaders, but we’re all going through this together. It helps us if we are open, honest and vulnerable.

When we face these feelings, it allows us to move on to the resilience stage more quickly.

You don’t need to rush to resilience. The by-product of reflecting, recovering and resetting will be resilience.

Love to hear your thoughts.

Are you a service-based business owner?

Do you need help setting up an online funnel, so you can attract new clients?

I’m offer a free 30-minute strategy session here

*First-time sessions

I’ll help you clarity your next steps to building your own, profit-producing marketing funnel, fast.

Looking forward to helping you get more clients online!

Take care and stay strong,

Kat

Download Your Free Client Attraction Checklist

Grab your copy of the Checklist now

Let’s Connect!