goals – Page 2

July 23, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

3 Essential Skills For Getting Fully Booked With Clients

If you are a coach or service-based business owner, or you want to be, and if you want to get fully booked with paid clients that are going to pay you what you’re worth, you’re in the right place.

Over the years I’ve been so blessed to work with hundreds of business owners, and I’ve noticed there are 3 main problems entrepreneurs face when it comes to getting more clients.

The first problem is a lack of strategy.

When you don’t have a clear, effective strategy with actionable steps, that you’re doing on a day-to-day basis, it’s very hard to grow your business.

In my last blog, I shared how to create the right strategy. If you missed it, you can check it out here…

The second problem is a lack of skills, and that’s what I’m going to be sharing with you today.

The third problem I see is a lack of support.

Many entrepreneurs don’t realise the power of having a supportive community and a mentor. When they come up against roadblocks (which we always do in business, right!), they get stuck, discouraged and many businesses fail.

In this three-part series, I’m unpacking each of these three problems and how you can overcome them.

There are 3 essential skills that you need to have to attract the right clients – and not just any clients, but the right people for you who are going to pay you what you’re worth, and that you’re going to be able to help create breakthroughs and a brilliant transformation in their life.

I noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs, coaches, service-based business owners are really good at what they do.

For example, if you are a mindset coach you’re probably skilled at helping someone to release limiting beliefs, overcome fixed mindsets, and barriers.

If you’re a relationship coach, you’re probably skilled at helping someone overcome conflict and create a deeper connection.

If you’re a career coach, you’re probably skilled at helping someone find the right job for the.

But it doesn’t matter how good you are at these industry skills or at your craft, if you don’t have the right business skills, it’s like having half a business. And without these skills, you’re not going to make it in business.

There are 3 main skills you need to get more clients.

1 – Client Attraction Skills

The first skill is client attraction. There are a number of parts when it comes to marketing and being able to attract the right clients for you. Client attraction skills is about marketing specifically to get clients.

There is a difference between the way you market a service, compared to how you market a product.

So if you’re a coach or have a service and you’re selling time with you, or you’re selling your expertise as a subject matter expert, you’ve got to get good at marketing specifically for client attraction.

Content Creation

Getting really good at creating content is key. You’ve got to create valuable written and video content, and consistently provide value to your target market.

Are you consistently showing up and giving valuable, helpful, relevant content to your clients, at least once a week?

Are you regularly sharing valuable content on social media, on your website and on email?

There’s a saying in marketing “Don’t build on someone else’s land”.

What that means is don’t just try and build your business on social media. Social media is an amazing way to connect with people, to build rapport, to get people to know, like you and trust you.

Social media is about building relationships. It’s relationship marketing.

But you also need to be able to have your own land, which is your own website and your own email service provider.

You need to be sending out regular emails at least weekly, because email open rates are so much higher than you’ll ever get on social media unless you’ve got a massive budget to spend on Facebook ads.

It’s very unlikely you can build a really profitable, successful business just through social media. I don’t know a way to do it. And if you do figure out a way then let me know! But I’ve never seen it happen. Every successful business owner I know has a great email list.

Your email list doesn’t need to be massive, but you need people who you can market to, nurture, look after, and give value to through email. You also need to be consistently posting on your website.

Copywriting

Copywriting is the words you use to attract clients. You need to develop the skill of copywriting, because copywriting is usually what is letting you down if your marketing is not working.

If you try to launch an online course, a webinar, or a freebie and it didn’t gain you clients, more than likely it’s because of the copy you used.

Your video skills don’t have to be perfect, but your copywriting has to speak to your ideal client. You need to hone your skill of copywriting and it’s so important that you know the language that your ideal client resonates with so that you connect with them.

You want people to read your writing and think, ‘It’s like they have been overhearing my conversations!’ You want to have so many conversations with people so that you understand how you can best help them.

Ask people what they’re struggling with, what roadblock they are encountering, and ask people how you can help them overcome their problems.

I coached hundreds and hundreds of people with so many free discovery sessions. I would pour my heart into people, even if they weren’t going to sign up with me, because of all that I learned.

The coaching experience was such a valuable experience. Doing these sessions helped me understand what people needed help with, and where I could come in and help them. These sessions helped me understand my target market’s language.

The best way to get good at copywriting is to do it and to follow other people who are great at writing copy.

I consume a lot of copywriting. I love reading Facebook ads, because someone is investing money into making sure the copywriting on those Facebook ads is good. If you scroll past Facebook ads and you just use Facebook for fun, it’s not going to help you grow your business.

You might want to create a file of Facebook ads. I do this on Evernote, an organisation system. I have created a file called ‘Facebook ads’ and I put a whole heap of Facebook ad wording in there, to get ideas to get better as a copywriter.

Communicating your value

You also need to get really good at communicating your value and influencing people to take action – through your written and video content.

It’s so important that you know how to effectively speak to your ideal clients’ frustrations, fears, dreams and desires and clearly articulate how you can help people.

2 – Sales Skills

The second skill is selling. Many people cringe when they hear the word sales and selling.

I used to as well – I thought sales people were pushy and I would avoid it. I thought of sales as having to try to convince someone to buy from me. I didn’t realise that there’s a way of selling that feels enjoyable for both people.

If what you offer people improves the quality of someone’s life, you are doing them a disservice not to share it with them.

After doing a sales course, something clicked in my head that I was thinking too much about myself and what others might think of me, rather than actually helping them.

I had to totally reframe what I understood sales to be.

I now see selling as service. Selling is helping. Selling is caring.

If you’re ethically and authentically helping someone improve their life, why would you not want to tell people about how you can help them?

Every time I’ve bought from a mentor or an expert, or I bought a course or some form of education, my life has improved. In fact, the return on investment that I’ve had in investing in education and coaching is unbelievable.

I love buying education. I love buying from coaches and mentors. That is what accelerates your growth and gives you rapid results. When I started investing lots of money, I got incredible results.

By buying education, I now don’t ever have to work for anyone ever again! That is a BEAUTIFUL thing.

I can work for myself at home. I can make a six-figure income, because I’ve invested in coaching and education. I could never repay those people for how much they’ve helped me.

When you think of sales like that, when you think of the things that you’re so grateful that you purchased, it makes you want to inspire people to buy.

The word sales can have connotations of an 80’s car salesman. If you have that feeling, it may help to reframe it and think of sales as inspiring people to buy.

Think of it as sharing your message so someone can breakthrough into a new place in their life.

Developing the skill of sales is extremely important if you want to make it in business. You’ve got to learn how to do it correctly and authentically and then practice it.

When you have the skill of being able to sell, you can make money anytime, anywhere and that’s priceless.

3 – Presenting Skills

The third skill I recommend that you develop in order to attract your ideal clients is the skill of presenting. The world has changed and people are realising how easy it is to build a business through being at home.

But to make it as a coach or service-provider, you’ve got to get good on video. You cannot hide behind words anymore. People want to connect with you.

It’s different if you’ve got a product you’re selling. People don’t necessarily need to connect with you as a person.

But if people are buying time with you, they want to see you and hear you.

How willing are you to put aside your self-consciousness and show up on video?

A lot of people aren’t willing to do this. They hide behind written words. They don’t jump on video. Or, they jump on video but they haven’t practiced. They haven’t organised their knowledge and they haven’t put their knowledge into clear, actionable steps.

And when it comes to video, people are watching to see how consistent you are at showing up.

The skill of presenting is learnable. You don’t have to be an extrovert. I’m not. You don’t have to be super confident either. You just have to believe in what you’re sharing. You have to know it’s true. You have to have done it yourself, so you share with authenticity and integrity.

You’ve got to be willing to present yourself, show up with confidence, and give value.

If you take the time to hone these skills, learn from an expert, keep growing, improving and showing up, there’s no reason why you can’t get fully booked with clients, make an incredible income and help so many people.

You’re building an asset and a legacy that will keep going and going, once you know how to attract clients, know how to inspire them to buy and know how to present.

The sky will be your limit and your income will have no ceiling.

Then you don’t have to rely on someone else paying you every single week. You can make your own money.

If you can stop being distracted by everything that you could be doing in business and start honing these three skills, you can make money fast.

Something I LOVE about entrepreneurship is that the playing field is equal for everyone. You don’t have to have a formal education. You don’t have to have been born in a certain generation that understands tech. You don’t have to be a ‘natural’ marketer, sales person or presenter. All of these skills are learnable for everyone.

If you want to develop these three skills, then I highly recommend that you join me next week on Facebook Live in my Amplify Your Influence group.

We will be talking about the third problem that most entrepreneurs make, which is not having the right support that is what accelerates your growth.

I will be unpacking how you can develop these skills in a free workshop that I’m holding on August 8^th, 2020.

This is a new full-day online workshop. I will be showing you how to develop these skills, how to attract clients and I’ll also be giving you feedback on your own business, and helping you with where your gaps and your weaknesses are.

You’ll walk away with a clear marketing roadmap and you’ll also get my 5-step client attraction formula, with all the slides, the workbook, and resources.

Learn more about the ‘Attract New Clients With Ease Workshop

Looking forward to seeing you!

Kat

July 17, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

3 Essential Keys For Getting Fully Booked With Clients

Wondering how to get more clients?

In this training I share with you how to get fully booked with ideal clients who are reliable, consistent and pay you what you are worth.

Over the years I’ve been so blessed to work with hundreds of business owners, and I’ve noticed there are 3 main problems that many business owners face, when it comes to getting fully booked with clients.

1 – Lack of Strategy

The first problem is a lack of strategy.

Many business owners don’t have a clear, effective roadmap to put all the pieces together and join the dots. They find themselves busy, but not productive.

When you have an effective strategy with clear action steps, you can create a consistent pipeline of clients and a reliable income stream.

2 – Lack of Skills

The second problem is not having the skills. If you’re not regularly attracting paid clients, it’s probably because you haven’t developed the right business skills.

These skills include packaging, offer creation, marketing, content creation, funnels, selling, presenting, and technology.

If you’re willing to learn these skills, you will fast-track your results, so you can have a profitable business doing what you love.

3 – Lack of Support

The third problem is a lack of support. Without support from the right community and mentor, many people struggle to make it in business.

There’s nothing more valuable in accelerating your business growth than receiving clarity and guidance from an expert who has achieved what you want to achieve and believes in you.

This includes having a community, coaching (getting feedback on your business from an expert) and clarity.

Today I’m sharing about the first main problem, which is a lack of strategy.

Lack of Strategy

Having the right strategy is key for your business.

Do you ever find yourself sitting at your desk and staring at a blank screen, struggling to create content?

Do you try a little bit of one person’s ideas, then a little bit of another, and feel like you’re busy, but you still don’t have enough paid clients?

Maybe you’ve put out some free content like videos, but you’re not getting the results that you want?

Without an over-arching business strategy, you can find yourself busy, but not productive.

There are 3 areas that need to be addressed when building your business strategy.

1 – Predictable Pathway

You need a predictable pathway that’s going to give you a pipeline of clients, that’s going to give you a reliable source of income and a steady stream of clients.

Having a predictable pathway is having specific things that you do step-by-step, every day, week, month and quarter.

This way you can guarantee that if you do these specific tasks, and you follow this path every single week, then you are guaranteed to get clients.

If you’d like a free checklist of things that I suggest that you do every day, every week, every month and every quarter to actually build your business to get more clients, you can download it here.

Part of your predictable pathway may be you are going to get a certain amount of discovery calls booked in every single week. Or it could be that you are doing a certain amount of webinars or workshops every week, month or quarter.

With this you know that if you do this output each week, month, quarter and you know that you have a 50% conversion rate, you know that from 10 discovery calls, you will get 5 new clients.

Your strategy might be to run a webinar once a month, and a free workshop once a quarter. Based on your conversion rates and sending out a certain amount of emails and posting a certain amount of social posts or social ads, then from this you can work out your predictable client signups.

When you follow a predictable pathway, you can get consistent income within your business.

2 – Personalised Plan

What a lot of people get wrong is that they try and follow all sorts of mixed information and they are doing what I call ‘pick and mix’. They’ll use a little of one person’s method and then they’ll try another person’s method.

You need to think, ‘What is the best plan for me and my business?’ Don’t do a podcast because someone else is, and don’t write a book because someone else is.

You want to make sure that your plan is personalised for three different things…

1 – Personalise Your Plan According to Your Unique Personal Preferences

It is really important that you enjoy your business and there is a really big difference between people who are doing what they love in their business and people that are not. This is where identifying your unique personal preferences is important.

What are your unique personal preferences? You might not like showing up on video, but you might be a great writer. Instead of forcing yourself to be on video initially, determine to write a blog once a week.

I personally feel we all need to show up on video, so if you are struggling with that, I recommend working on that area. But in the meantime, you might have be a really good writer, so determine to show up every single week and write a blog.

If you love doing Facebook Lives, but don’t like writing, pay someone to transcribe your video into a blog for you. Choose what you love to do in your business that you are good at and outsource the rest.

I do recommend if you’ve been doing one-on-one coaching, that you definitely consider overcoming whatever your block is, so you can start doing one-to-many.

Your personalised plan might start with one-on-ones and when you get to 10 clients, then you will start doing one-to-many. Or your plan could be that you are going to research for 3-6 months and then you will start to create an online course.

Your plan needs to be tailored to suit your preferences of what you enjoy, so your business does not become a burden around your neck.

I love creating content and videos for my online course. I love updating my content. I love running webinars, plus online and live workshops. I don’t love writing blogs, so I get my Facebook Lives transcribed for me into blogs.

2 – Personalise Your Plan According to Your Ideal Clients’ Needs

What do your ideal clients’ want? How do they want you to show up? Do they want videos or do they want a podcast from you? Maybe they want to read your book or they might want to do a mini course or a six-week course?

What type of topics do they want to hear from you? The only way to get answers for these questions is to ask your ideal clients!

When I first started my Facebook group, I put up a poll asking people what they wanted. I talked to hundreds of people and asked them what they were struggling with and what their challenges were.

I started creating content specifically for my ideal clients based on their needs, not what I felt they needed.

Your personalised plan needs to be designed precisely for the kind of clients that you want to work with.

3 – Personalise Your Plan Around Your Values and Vision

You want to make sure that your plan is designed around your values and your vision. What is your 5, 10 or 20-year plan for your business?

My vision for my business is to have a big company, that’s helping thousands of entrepreneurs every year. I aim to employ coaches and have offices in other countries, and I aim to do national and international tours and retreats.

When I’m setting my goals, I’m always thinking about that vision and how can I get closer to that vision all the time. I ask myself what skills I need to master in order to get to that big picture vision.

I ask myself; What systems do I need to put in place to get to my vision? What support do I need? Do I need different coaching? Do I need an assistant? Do I need a virtual assistant? Do I need a marketer or a copywriter?

So you start with your values, then your vision and then you set your goals. I have my annual goals and then quarterly goals, so I’m always setting my strategy according to that quarterly plan.

My goals are always output focused and not always result focus. I do put results in terms of numbers and targets. I find it really motivating to say I’m going to write 50 blogs, so therefore I’m going to do 50 Facebook Lives in a year that will get transcribed into my blogs.

I encourage people not to always be focused on the results, but on the output you are doing. When I was a personal trainer, I would encourage people to focus on what they’re outputting over the results.

So if the goal is to run 100k’s a month, then aim for that and not the result of losing a certain amount of weight.

I recommend that you set goals for yourself and for your business, quarterly, and also weekly, where you have a set amount of output that you’re doing. With that output, you know if you are doing that, then you will get a great result.

Make your personalised plan that fits into your strategy, according to your skills. If you’re brilliant at coaching, then make sure that you focus on coaching as your core product. If you’re terrible at designing a funnel, then outsource it to someone.

If you think of it like a matrix, you’ve got the things you love and the things that you’re good at. These are the things that you should be spending your time on. This is strategic planning.

There will be things that you love and the things you’re good at. Then there will be things that you love, but you’re not so good at.

You need to decide if you should keep doing those things or if you should outsource them. And then you’ve also got things that you really don’t like but you’re good at them.

It’s important that you enjoy your business for sustainability. I just have to enjoy my business.

I have to have passion and I need to be smiling every day. I enjoy the people I’m working with. Because it’s your life and every hour you spend in your business is an hour of your life that you’re not going to get back.

It’s really important that you set your personalised plan according to your skills, the things that you are good at in your genius zone.

So many business owners spend their time faffing about on things that they either don’t like or they’re not good at, and it’s such a waste of time. We want to be putting out energy into things we love and things that we’re great at.

3 – Profitable Product

The third one that we need to think about when it comes to strategy is having a profitable product. Now by product, I don’t mean a physical product.

A product can be that you’ve pulled together your services into a program and offering that might have multiple pieces.

It’s like a fruit salad. You don’t just want to sell someone a banana. You want to cut up that banana, mix it with some cut up apple, melon and other fruit and sell it as a fruit salad. You’ve got to package it as a product.

I got this concept from Dale Beaumont. He says if you try and sell an apple for three bucks, but someone thinks they can go and buy it for 80 cents from the supermarket. But if you cut it up with other fruit and you mix it into a fruit salad, you can sell it at a café for $15. People eating a fruit salad aren’t asking what the fruit cost the café.

If you’re a service-based business owner, you want to think of your service like a product business, as if you’re selling something that has multiple paths to it. It’s not just time exchanged for money.

Time exchanged for money means you’re always going to be stuck and it’s not scalable.

You want to make sure that you’re starting to systemise and automate things. You package includes video trainings and you’ve got group coaching programs and you’ve got a community online – this is what I mean by having a fruit salad.

If I say to people, I’m $180 per hour, then people break that down and think $3 a minute is expensive. So you want to make sure that you’ve got this product that is a whole bunch of components that maybe includes one-on-one time with you, but then it also includes other things.

Maybe you have people join your private community, where they can network and get their support. Think about how to make a product and program that’s really appealing, irresistible and profitable.

When it comes to having a profitable product there are 3 things to think about:

1. Pain Points

Your product needs to address and solve people’s biggest pain points.

It’s not that your product improves people’s lives a little bit. Your product needs to actually solve the pain points your ideal client is dealing with. That’s what will make it profitable.

2. Practicality

The second one is practicality. You can sell a course to help people with their mindset. But how practical is it when they do change their mindset? What will they do with a new mindset?

It’s like selling weight loss. You need to be talking to people about what kind of clothes they will be wearing and where they will be going once they lose the weight. Maybe they’ll be dating or doing some rock climbing?

It’s not just about the scales and the losing weight, it’s what will people do once they’ve lost the weight. You have to explain the practical reality of what your product will bring into people’s lives.

3. Packaging

When it comes to having a profitable product, your packaging is so important. You need to package your product to be irresistible. There needs to be a clear price and a clear payment plan. I recommend you have a paid in full option and a payment plan option.

Your product needs to be branded well with nice design and show a step-by-step path so there is a clear start and end, with the result promised for the end. Then you’ll have a great profitable product.

What this means for you is that you will have a business which is an asset that will keep providing for you and is sustainably profitable. This gives you the flexibility, freedom and funds you deserve.

Want to more about know how to best attract new clients?

I’m running a free online live masterclass for service-based business owners who want to know exactly how to attract more clients and build their business.

You’ll discover a proven client attraction formula, step-by-step and pick up the tools that you can use to grow your business.

Click here for more info and to register your place

Remember – the world is waiting for your unique brilliance!

Kat

April 30, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

7 Reasons Why Coaches Struggle To Sign Up Clients

The restrictions might be starting to lift, however, the financial crisis could keep going for some time.

I believe that in this time in history, it is more crucial than ever to be able to sell our services.

Selling is the #1 way that we keep our businesses afloat.

Selling helps people to improve their lives. It enables people to get more of what they want.

It’s an incredible feeling if you are offering something to someone who is going to benefit and get a result that transforms their life.

Yet so many business owners avoid learning sales skills.

I believe that more than ever, it’s a time for us to serve people and make offers to people who need help.

Selling is not about convincing someone or changing someone’s mind. It’s about having good conversations and seeing if you’re the right match to work together.

Sales is the #1 way to increase the numbers in your bank account, which is going to give you more freedom and more choice in your life.

And the best part is that we get to do it while doing what we love and helping people!

Here are seven reasons most coaches struggle to sell their services…

Number 1 – Asking too few questions

Effective sales conversations come from asking effective questions. Unfortunately people have negative associations with sales. Effective selling is about asking effective questions. I call them power questions.

These questions open up your potential clients’ minds ways to overcome their limiting beliefs about themselves, about you and about what you’re offering.

Effective questions, help the person to come to the realisation themselves that they actually need, what it is that you’re offering.

We need to spend at least 70% of the conversation asking questions. This is not interrogating, but asking elegant questions.

Some examples of effective sale questions are:

Tell me what your life would be like if you solved this problem?
Tell me what it’s costing you to not have this problem solved?
How is it affecting you?
Why is it important to you to solve this?
How is this affecting your family, relationships and health?
If you could change, what would be your ultimate result?
What have you tried in the past, and what has worked for you?
What hasn’t worked for you?

By asking these questions, you’re really digging in and getting to know the person to find out if they’re a match for you and to see if that person really wants to buy what you have to offer.

Number 2 – Talking Too Much or Too Little

If people who are selling to me talk too much, it makes me want to get out of the conversation. Talking too much can kill a sale for you.

No matter how good your product and offer is, talking too much doesn’t give the person you are talking to time to evaluate their own needs.

I understand that we often talk too much because we are nervous and to fill the air. There is value in allowing breathing space for people to contemplate their needs.

Now talking too little can also kill a sale. If a salesperson is not talking much, it makes me question what they are not telling me and why!

Both talking too much and too little lead back to the base of using a sales call as an opportunity to build a relationship with a potential client.

Remember that relationships go two ways. Asking the right questions and listening to needs helps you both work out if you are a match to work together.

Number 3 – Coming Across Too Strong

There’s a concept that I teach called strength and warmth. Strength and warmth is the spectrum of how we need both sides to be compelling and influential.

There’s a great book called Compelling People. In this book, they studied influential people and found they had a really good balance between strength and warmth.

There’s a sweet spot in the middle of being both strong and warm. By strong I mean you are quite direct and confident. You’re telling the person that you can absolutely help them, you’re giving them lots of assurance. People respect it and feel safe.

You tip over too much to one end of the spectrum and it can come across very forceful and almost rude. Most of us are actually scared of coming across like that. And so, for most of you, I imagine that you’re not strong enough.

Number 4 – Coming Across Too Soft

The fourth reason that coaches don’t sign up clients is coming across too soft. If you go too much on the warm end of the spectrum you can come across quite fluffy and apologetic. As soon as there’s any sign that a person might throw an objection out at you, you accept it, because you’re scared of rejection.

So instead of having an open authentic conversation, you end up just being really fluffy and avoiding it. We need to be strong and we need to kind to help people through their limiting beliefs and rejections.

Building good rapport with the person is crucial. You can say something like, ‘I can feel that this really seems like a problem for you.’ ‘What other options do you have if you don’t go here?’ Help people solve their problem rather than just running as soon as there’s any sign of any doubt.

So don’t be too strong, and forceful and blunt and direct and don’t be too soft. Find that nice sweet spot in the middle where you’re having a genuine human conversation with another person to see if you’re a match.

Number 5 – You’re Too Expensive

Many people try and go quite high in their charging before actually testing the market. They put their price too high before they’ve actually got the experience.

Make sure that if you’re not signing up any paid clients, you might need to drop your price to get some results and some great runs on the board. If you’ve not got testimonials to back your service, then you’re going to struggle to sell yourself at a higher price.

Build up your client base and build your testimonials. Testimonials of your clients’ transformations are essential for your business. This may mean doing some free coaching sessions in return for a testimonial and to build up your experience.

Number 6 – You’re Too Cheap

You’ve got to be in the middle- not too expensive and not too cheap. If you haven’t had any paid clients yet, you might give a discount for the first three clients in return for a testimonial.

If you’ve been coaching for ages and you’ve got clients already, then this is different, but when you’re starting out, it’s really important that you get results and transformations. Then you can do things like webinars because you can only to webinars if you’ve had results for people.

If you feel that you’re a bit resentful when you tell people your price and if you feel like you’ve dropped the price because you are desperate for sales, then you may well need to increase your price.

People won’t value you if you’ve priced your service too cheaply. The biggest investment I’ve made into my business was a $17,000 business course. Because I had invested, I turned up and did the work.

If you are too cheap, people will just think that you’re not good, so please don’t undersell yourself!

Number 7 – Having Too Little Confidence

When we gain confidence to charge what we’re worth, we can have great conversations with people and we can confidently communicate our value.

When we truly know that we’re providing great value to someone and getting them results, it helps build our confidence. I’m working with clients, every single day. Last week I had 18 clients and this week I’ve worked with 27 clients and I’m getting them results.

I’m giving people value and helping them and this gives me a lot of confidence. So you’ve got to be good at what you do and you’ve got to be able to communicate what you do well and with confidence.

To gain confidence you need to do lots of practice sessions. I’ve literally given hundreds of free coaching sessions to people and it built up my practice and it also built my confidence in selling and making offers.

The next thing with confidence is making sure that you’re speaking to the right person. It’s very hard to sell to someone who genuinely doesn’t need what you’ve got. I try and prequalify people beforehand through a questionnaire.

Only work with committed people because your reputation is valuable. Your reputation and brand is more important than money.

Make sure that you’re only having sales conversations with people who you know you can definitely get a transformation and results for. That is going to build your confidence.

If you want to know the best way to sell during these current times, I recently ran a FREE 90-minute masterclass called ‘Selling Equals Service’

It was a powerful session and I received lots of great feedback afterwards.

I talked through 5 keys to effective selling and shared a 6-step VALUES based selling framework that I personally use and share with my clients.

In case you missed it, I’ve created a replay which is now available for the next 48 hours. ?

? Grab Your Free Access Here

P.S. The content is a game-changer if you want to sign up your ideal paying clients, so don’t procrastinate – take action and watch it today before it comes down!

Enjoy!

Kat

February 13, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

5 Essentials of Influential Social Media Content

Creating consistent content is so important in growing your business.

But to attract your ideal clients, it’s not about just posting any content; it’s about posting influential content.

It’s SO important that your content on social media is influential. You can spend so much time in your content, and if it’s not influential, that time can be wasted.

You could have been investing and doing something more important in your business that was actually going to get you a result.

If you post influential content, you’ll be way more likely to help people to move along with the journey towards you, and have them take that step closer to becoming a paying client.

You want to think about what the purpose of your content is, (rather than just posting for posting sake).

You want to ensure your content is really helpful, relevant and influential, meaning you’re helping people to actually take action to change their life, not just to entertain them.

Recently one of my clients said to me; “Kat, I’m thinking I need to post more funny stuff on my Facebook business page, because the funny stuff gets the most likes.”

I’m not sure if you’ve fallen into that trap before, but likes are not the goal. Getting people to take the next step towards you is the goal – the step towards becoming a paid client.

Be careful not to just chase engagement – in terms of likes, but actually encourage a relationship with that person, inspire that person to become someone to change, and to take action for themselves.

Really the test is: Are people coming through your funnel? Are you getting people off social media and onto your website, onto your landing page and onto your online domain?

Ask yourself; ‘What is going to get people over the line?’ ‘What is actually going to make people want to sign up for you?’

People will sign up with you because you inspired them to want to take action. It’s because you educated them on the importance of taking action, of the cost if they don’t take action and why you’re different. Entertaining them is important. I’m not saying don’t post funny stuff. Use funny stuff as a break from your day, but it doesn’t lead to paid clients.

Paid clients purchase premium products that inform, inspire and educate. The purpose of social media is for potential clients to get to know, like and trust you, so they want to take the journey with you.

We need to make influential social media content that brings our clients across the line.

Here are 5 Essentials of Influential Social Media Content:

1) Design the Purpose of Your Post First

Decide prior to commencing your post what the purpose of your post is. Use strategy and intentionality when developing your social media posts. Think through what will lead to bringing money into your bank account.

Remember as a business owner if money is not going into your bank account consistently to cover your lifestyle and bills, you will always be stuck in a job, working for someone else.

If you really want to be an entrepreneur and get money into your bank account from working with people, you’ve got to think about the journey your potential clients will take to get there.

Usually, a future client’s journey starts with interacting with your social media post. That post leads them along the journey to become a paid client.

Be helpful, relevant and have a purpose and reason for your post. Building rapport, connection and trust with your future client is the beginning of their journey with you. A piece of content might be made to overcome a specific objection a client had. It might be to show a little bit more about your story, so they relate to you a little bit more.

It might be to showcase how you can help them by telling an example of a great story that you’ve had with a client, a case study or something that happened to you that week that was an excellent lesson. The lesson should help them to take more action towards you. Be strategic and ensure your posts all have a purpose.

2) Speak Directly to Your Ideal Clients’ Desires and Challenges

A lot of people don’t have goals, but they know what they want. A lot of people have dreams, but they might not even think that they can achieve their dreams. Many people may have goals, but how many are actually realising them?

If you were to ask a person, ‘What do you want?’, most people know what they want. Ask a person, ‘What are you struggling with?’ and they will be able to articulate their struggles to you.

Speak directly to your ideal client, not broadly as thought talking to friends or family. Speak directly to the person that you want to work with, to your target market or avatar. Speak to their desires. Speak to their challenges. The deeper you go, the better for your potential future client.

It’s not all about demographics. It’s about psychographics. What are their thoughts, their feelings and beliefs? What are they thinking about themselves? What are they thinking about you?

Go deeper. WHY do they need to change? WHY do they want that goal? WHY do they need help with it? Start talking about that. Be really specific about their desires and their challenges.

3) Help Them Overcome Barriers to Action

‘How To’ videos are abounding on the internet. It’s the most searched term on Google. But we’ve got to remember, that it’s not just about people learning, it’s about people doing. It’s about people taking action on what you’re teaching them.

When you’re thinking about your content for your social media, ask yourself; ‘How can I help them overcome their resistance to changing?’ ‘How can I have them overcome their biggest objections to investing in themselves?’

You can address these questions through your social media content. So when you’re thinking about money in your bank account and your potential client becoming your paid client, you must work your way back to this regarding content. What is going to stop them from getting to this point?

And it’s not just about getting a paid client. It’s about transforming someone’s life. It’s about helping them become who they want to be. It’s about helping them out of their pain and helping them get relief.

You’re helping them to avoid, become or create something in their life and to be the person they want to be.

4) Show Them How Else You Can Help Them

Build into your pre-planned strategy, a way to incorporate further development for your future client. Show them how else you can help them. It might look like: Giving them one thing that they could go away and do. One small result so that you’re showing them that you actually have seven. ‘This is one part of my ‘7-step strategy’.

Or it’s one recipe that you’ve got, out of your 50 recipes. Or it’s one technique to overcome a limiting belief, out of all the 50 interventions that you do with people.

You’re not just giving them enough that they feel satisfied. You’re giving them a little taste, so they go, ‘Oh it tastes good’ and they want more. You’re showing them how else you can help them.

You’re not just giving them this false illusion that their problem is solved. We know that no one is going to change their life from one piece of social media content. It’s a layered journey. So build that layering within your strategy document.

People often know what to do but they don’t know how to apply it to them and that’s where you can come in and help. It’s about planting seeds in their mind so they think, ‘Ah, when I need to work on that, I will go to the go-to person’. Planning your strategy is key.

5) Have a Call To Action or Engagement

Your call to action is your next connection and interaction with a future client. It could be, ‘Jump onto the call with me’ or ‘Come to my free webinar’ or ‘Join my five-day challenge’. It could be, ‘Download my freebie’, or ‘Drop a comment or put a yes in the comment box’.

Your call to action is asking your potential client to do something with you and it also works to build engagement. The reason that asking for ‘comments’, ‘likes’ or ‘shares’ works on Facebook, is that Facebook sees these actions, and then pushes your content out to more people in the community.

To recap my 5 tips;

Decide the purpose of your post first
Speak directly to your ideal clients’ desires and challenges
Help them to overcome barriers to action
Show them how else you can help them
Have a call to action or engagement

Applying these 5 tips will help you lead your potential client on a journey towards being a paid client.

P.S. Want an effective content creation game plan, so you can start attracting more paid clients FAST?

? Check out our new exciting upcoming workshop…

CREATE CONTENT THAT CONNECTS

A 2-day live action workshop in Sydney

Get Your Entire Client-Attracting Content 6 Month Game Plan DONE… in one weekend!

Learn More About The ‘Create Content That Connects’ Workshop

January 12, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

5 Essential Elements of a 2020 Success Plan

How has the start of a new year, a new decade been for you?

I have a massive sense of excitement and energy and expectations coming into this new decade!

No doubt you are seeing all sorts of articles on goal setting and new year’s resolutions at this time of year.

According to research from the University of Scranton, a staggering 92% of people who set New Years resolutions never actually achieve them.

Over the years, I’ve discovered why I personally didn’t always achieve goals I set.

I looked at research, science and studied successful people and started applying what they did to ensure they followed through on their goals.

In this video and article, I share five essential elements of a success plan you can use to achieve your goals in 2020.

They can help you choose the right goals and follow through to the end and achieve them.

Here are the 5 elements:

1. A Why-based Vision

The first thing you need for your success plan is a why-based vision. What’s the vision that you hold yourself in your mission? I recommend your vision has a few elements.

The first one is the identity of the person that you want to become. A lot of people set goals about what they want to have and what they want to do.

But if you want to do and have the things you want, you first need to be the person that does and has those things.

Instead of starting with what you want to have and the things you want to do, think about the person that you want to become.

What type of characteristics do you want to have? Who do you want to be known as in 2020? That’s the “Why Based Vision” I recommended you grab a piece of paper, title your three columns Be, Do and Have, and brain dump.

I’ve been doing this task with my clients this week and there were some truly inspirational things they wanted to be- Thought leaders, authority figures, experts, courageous, trustworthy, brave, masterful at marketing, coaching, or presenting.

So ask yourself, what type of person do you want to be and build this vision of your self-image. Not just the material things you want but the vision about who you want to be and what type of person you need to be to create that vision.

Most importantly ask yourself why…. Why do you want this? Why do you want to be successful? Why is it important to you?

Think about the words that you want to resonate with 2020. What’s your intention for 2020? What would you want want to declare and put there as your words for 2020?

Last year my three words were discipline, fun, and courage and I look back at the last year and I was all those things. I was disciplined, I did have fun and I was courageous.

Set your intentions and build those goals from your why based vision from your identity of who want to be and the words that you want to put over the year and visualise it.

I’ve been working on my vision board with a couple of friends and I’m still building it out, but I have five words for 2020 that I want to focus on. Don’t just write down your goals and put in your draw or in a spreadsheet and forget about it.

Start with that vision of who you want to be and what you want, and then start building the plan based on that.

2. An Up-levelling Mastermind

This is one of my favourite things to have and this an up-levelling mastermind. The purpose of a mastermind is a small focus group that is designed so that everyone up levels, everyone grows, everyone goes into the best version of themselves.

Everyone knows what each person’s vision is and the goals they have. I was working with one of my masterminds today on setting our intentions. We started creating a manifesto for the group, we looked at things that we want to do together as a group.

We discussed what each of our strengths and weaknesses is so that we could collaborate and bring the best out of each other. We then had one person in the hot seat getting coached by three other people, and each person was given suggestions and advice.

When you spend time with people who are going places that are reaching for the heights that that’s going to rub off on you. Look at your surrounding influences, are they high achievers? Do they want to push themselves and hold you to a higher standard?

Do they consistently meet you, not just random meetups but are they committed to showing up, being reliable and want to help and support each other because have a supportive group is such a game-changer.

3. A Focused Game Plan

The third element to a successful plan for 2020 is having a focused game plan.

It’s just like in sports. The players know what they plan, they’re clear on it and they need to execute it. There are five things I recommend in your game plan.

I recommend you start with your annual priorities. Brain dump the priorities that you want to do for the year. It could be networking, presenting, workshops or skills like copywriting or sales that you need to build as a business owner.

Maybe you have goals for the year that you want your business to accomplish. Break it down into actual numbers, for example, I said I wanted to do 50 articles in 2019 and I chipped away at that goal and ended up doing 53 articles last year.

Every week I showed up because I wanted to give original valuable content that could really help people. It was amazing to have one strategy in place and committing to that goal with an actual number in place.

Your game plan could be that you want to write 50 blog posts, or you want to launch five new freebies. Break it down into actionable steps and create quarterly goals for each step.

For quarter one, what do you need to achieve by the end of February? It could be a webinar or a workshop, or launching a funnel, that’s your one big bold move for the quarter. Once you’ve got that as your goal, then you go into bite-sized goals.

Under that one big bold move. Let’s say it’s a webinar, you might say, I want to enrol 100 people to the webinar, knowing that maybe 50 will turn up, out of those 50 people, 10 people take me up on my offer for a discovery session and I close five of them.

Set clear number goals, those are your outcome goals. But then you need to set actual tasks. So under the webinar, you have all the different action steps you need to take in order to run a webinar.

There is so much to it. But once you’ve done it, it’s an incredible asset. But what a lot of people do is they put a project on their to-do list, and it mixes up with their habits and skills and the action gets confusing and overwhelming, causing your brain to say no, this is too hard.

Make sure that you separate your habits, your skills and your projects. Make sure on your action list, you take one step at a time. That’s your game plan- your priorities, goals, quarterly goals, and your one big bold move for the quarter.

Under that, you’re going to have goals, and your bite-sized action steps so that each week you know exactly what you need to do to get your result.

4. A Strong NO Commitment

A strong NO commitment is something you’re going to say no to.

I’ve realised that this year, that if I just keep piling things up on top of my existing schedule, goals and to-do lists, I’m going to get massively overwhelmed.

I realised that I need to decide what I’m going to say no to and it was a massive relief when I decided what I was going to say no to. I can actually achieve the goals that I have because I’m clearing things out of my schedule instead of pouring and piling things on, and creating white space for myself.

I was reading back diary entries from 2016 and writing that I needed more space, I need to create more margins. That was my goal for 2016. That was four years ago and I’m still saying the same thing!

This year, I’ve decided what to say NO to and I’m going to choose a new NO every month.

In order for you to have a successful life and achieve your goals, you’re going to have to clear stuff out of your life. It could be a relationship or friendships, it could be things that you’re wasting time on.

I was coaching one of my clients last night, and he was telling me, I don’t have time to study. I don’t know how to put it in without sacrificing my lifestyle. I asked him to open up his phone let’s have a look at your screen time. It turns out that his screen time was five and a half hours average per day.

We worked out that over seven days he was spending 35 hours on his phone. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s what most people do – hours and hours on the phone.

Can you imagine just one decision, a strong no commitment to eliminate your time online? For me, I said no Netflix in January, and no social media before 12pm and now I have all this space and energy that has opened up.

It’s incredible. I’ve been writing my goals and reading more books. I never thought that I could commit to something like that. But in order to get your goals, you’ve got to say no to things.

So what would you like to have as a strong no commitment?

5. A Monthly Habit Focus

And then number five is to have a monthly habit focus. Focus on one habit for a month. If you nail one habit, every month, by the end of 2020, you’ve got 12 brand new successful habits.

Remember, it takes time to build a habit. Some people say 21 days, 30 days, some say 60.

It really depends on you and it depends on the goal. Personally I like 30 days. I like using a month because it’s just a pure focus month on one goal.

Last year I had this app called streaks where you can add your goals. Last year, I had 12 habits I was trying to do; Daily meditation, daily journaling, daily exercise etc. and I did it for the first quarter and it was going really well, by quarter two I started dropping off and by quarter three I hadn’t even looked at the app.

Now what I’ve done is I’ve got two things on there, but my focus is daily journaling for the month of January. I know that if I write every single day it brings you back into mindfulness. It’s like that one Domino that knocks over the other dominoes in the chain.

If I can daily journal, it helps me stay present focused on my goals. It helps me brain dump, it’s like a cleanse at the end of each night. It helps me plan and do planning in my journaling. I write out my visualization and I write my goals. It’s just one habit that covers so many for me.

Charles Duhigg, in his book ‘The Power of Habits’, talks about one keystone habit that if you get that one thing, it’s going to affect every other area of your life.

It might be every morning going for a walk, and that one walk is going to set you up for success because of that one habit.

Set one habit that knocks down all the rest of them like a domino chain.

To recap, here are the five essential elements of a 2020 success plan…

1. Have a why-based vision, keep it in your face, and make sure that you include your identity, your words for the year, your intention for the year, and exactly who you want to be.

2. Have an up-levelling mastermind. A mastermind where you meet regularly in person with these people. These people are all about growth, up-levelling, supporting each other, holding each other to account and holding you to a high standard.

3. Have a focused game plan. in the game plan have your priorities, your goals, quarterly goals, bite-size goals, action steps.

4. Have a strong no commitment. What are you going to say no to in 2020 to allow all this space to the things that are most important and meaningful for you?

5. Have a monthly habit focus.

Draw a line in the sand for 2020, make it a priority to leave it all behind in 2019 and know that you can achieve anything that you set your mind to.

Put the action steps in place and check it off as you go. It’s not just about dreaming, it’s about having your head in the clouds but your feet on the ground.

P.S Want to know how to attract and sign up more clients in 2020?

My next full-day client attraction workshop is happening on Saturday, 1st February 2020.

? In This One Powerful Day You Will Learn:

? The BEST methods to connect instantly with your audience and INFLUENCE them to your ideas

? How to become a master influencer and build authentic trust and a powerful connection with your ideal clients

? How to use neuro-marketing to influence the SUBCONSCIOUS mind in your written and spoken content

? The MOST effective way to design your marketing plan so that you nail your message, and attract the right clients

? The BIGGEST mistakes Coaches make in their marketing and how to avoid them

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If you want to grow a profitable coaching business, this workshop is a must.

2020 is the year to finally let go of what’s holding you back and create the life you dream of!