Success – Page 3

March 4, 2021 by katmillar Leave a Comment

What’s Most Important To Me In Business And Why

A few people have been asking me recently about what’s important to me in business.

Understanding your business values is one of the most powerful ways to prioritise and make great choices, and reduce decision-fatigue.

If you’re trying to roll out something in your business and you’re wondering why it’s not working, it may be because what you’re doing is not aligned with your values and doesn’t have the right energy and passion behind it.

When you outwork your values in your day-to-day life, you feel aligned. You’re not going in different directions – where part of you is really happy and satisfied about what you’re doing, and another part is frustrated.

The way you know you’re not aligned, is that you get tension in your body.

When you really stop and think about what’s most important to you in business and you strip away all the external things, like the incessant need to impress other people or the need to look good… you tap into the true source of inspiration inside you.

This is the FUEL that’s going to motivate you to keep going when business gets tough.

Business gets tough. It can be a roller coaster. It’s hills and valleys – it’s rarely smooth sailing. This is why we need to make sure we’re clear on our business values, because they keep us going and focused on the right things.

When we really tap into our ‘why’, and understand and honour what drives us at the deepest level, we feel aligned, relaxed, calm, and in flow. We feel motivated, energised and inspired to KEEP GOING, no matter what.

So I decided to unpack my business values with you, to get you thinking about what’s most important to you in your business, so you can plan and prioritise your actions that are aligned with your values.

I will take you on a journey to help you reflect on your business values, who you’re becoming, how happy you are with where you’re at right now, and how fast you’re evolving.

I’ll share my top five values in business and how I outwork these business values in my day-to-day life. I’ll share how you can determine your business values, how they’re different from your personal values, and how you can outwork them.

Answering powerful check-in questions at the beginning of a day, week, month, or quarter is one of the best ways to get alignment.

The more you ask yourself and answer powerful questions, the more you get powerful answers.

I ask myself who, how, what, where, and why questions regularly. These are valuable questions that help keep you aligned.

Here are the questions…

1 – Who Do I Want To Become More Of?

The first question to ask yourself is “Who do I want to become more of?”

Who are you becoming? Take time to think of your future you – your future identity, and future vision. This activity is SO powerful.

I learned this in a coaching course and I now do it with my clients.

Future Vision Activity

Imagine you’re 75 years old and someone’s coming to your house and interviewing you. And they ask you what’s it like being such a successful…(You fill in the blank.) When I did this, I said speaker, spiritual mother, philanthropist, author, and advisor.

When I’m 75, I don’t want to be retired. I still want to be writing, speaking, and taking more of an advisory role in my business. I want to be on the board of advisors for my company, and have a CEO looking after the day-to-day operations.

When I think about who I’m becoming, I’m thinking about that ultimate future. Who am I, becoming right now? Who do I want to become more of? If I keep taking the actions that I’m taking now, what trajectory is that leading me on?

If I want to become a successful speaker, I need to be doing things in my day-to-day life and putting things in my calendar, potentially every day, if not every week that grow me to become a successful speaker. These will eventually lead me to become that successful speaker and world-class coach.

You can also place characteristics around your ‘who’. So think about the character of who you want to be. For example, I want to be more kick-ass. I don’t mean intimidating, but to me, kick-ass people, are relentlessly dedicated to creating results.

I want to be that person who is kicking goals, in order to inspire other people, because inspiring people taps into my personal value of contribution.

Perhaps in your character, you want to be more patient. That’s one of my characteristics I want to develop this year, is being more patient. Maybe you want to become more kind, inclusive, or resilient.

If you want to be braver, you need to prove this to yourself by doing things that scare you. You prove it to yourself by doing things like Facebook Live videos or running a webinar even if you’re scared of tech and don’t feel like a good speaker.

2 – How Quickly Am I Evolving?

Ask yourself how. How quickly are you evolving? How are you evolving in business, or in your personal development? How quickly are you dedicated to catching what the issue is where you need to improve and working on it straight away instead of delaying it?

In order for me to grow quickly so I can help people who are struggling and suffering, I need to ask myself these ‘how’ questions, and so do you. We need to stop being doormen and start taking the fast lane instead of the footpath.

I was sharing in my Inner Circle group today about putting the accelerator on and choosing to stop cruising. How much time are you spending in the fast lane really accelerating your growth by facing the stuff that scares you?

How long do you spend facing those things that are in the next level of your comfort zone? If you think about your comfort zone as a boundary that’s around you, that boundary is made up of your fear, because you don’t want to go over that boundary into your next level.

Your next level life outside of your comfort zone is your growth zone, so your fear is keeping you in that boundary. f you want to grow quickly, you need to step out and face your fears. It’s here that you quickly evolve for the sake of the people watching your life and for the sake of those who you will help in the future.

3 – What Can I Do Today To Live From My Values?

Ask yourself, what can you do today to live from your own values? I really love asking myself this question. Sometimes I just go for a walk without my phone. And I just take one question with me. So just get the question in my mind and I walk until I get the answer for it.

What can I do today to live from my values? This question forces your mind to come up with your answer because you’re not asking ‘am I’, you are asking actually what can you do today to make living in your values a reality?

This is a powerful question because your mind is so resourceful and creative, and it will come up with the answers for you. And then you want to take action on them and actually do them.

4 – Where Do I Need To Improve?

Be honest with yourself, and ask yourself, Where do I need to improve? Where is it that I’m sucking or really failing at right now? Maybe you can fake it with other people, but don’t fake it to yourself.

If you’re eating a bag of chips every night, yet trying to lose weight, or if you’re scrolling on your phone for an hour every morning when you wake up, instead of doing something else that will progress your business or life, then you’re not being honest with yourself.

Really face yourself and don’t fake to yourself. Instead of thinking ‘one day’, take steps today to improve yourself. Let’s face it, we don’t know if tomorrow will come, so taking steps today is what is important.

5 – Why Is It Important For Me To Go To The Next Level?

Why is it important for you to go the next level? Why is it actually important for you to step out of that boundary where you’ve kept myself safe and small because of fear?

We’ve all got a next level to go to.

For some of us, it’s going to the next level in finances or to the next level in running events or writing a book.

Whatever it is, we’ve all got a next level and we’ve all probably been putting the next level off.

I feel like that’s the most common theme that I see with my clients. I see they want to do something and they procrastinate. We don’t procrastinate typically because we’re lazy, we procrastinate because we’re not clear on the benefits and the reasons why we should be doing something.

I often ask myself why it’s important for me and don’t just give a few answers. I will write at least 50 answers – usually 80-100.

I ask myself, for example, why is it important to do Facebook Lives each week, or why is it important to learn to do Insta stories or to write a blog each week?

My Personal Values

and

1- Freedom

My number one value in life and business is freedom. That’s why I left my full-time job in 2003 and I haven’t been a full-time employee since.

Freedom for me is about setting my own rules, being my own boss, and being free from the rat race I was in. Freedom is a higher value for me than security. It’s more important to me than a safe income.

2 – Growth

Look at how you spend your time and you will know your values. Look at your calendar. Is it filled with gym sessions, business events, etc. or is it filled with a whole lot of space where you sit and watch Netflix?

Look at what is on your walls and what kind of books you read. If you look at your audible account, what kind of books are in there?

You can see what your values are by looking at where you spend your time, energy, and resources. This will show you what you value.

3 – Health

Health and energy are really important to me. Having enough energy and making sure that I’m exercising regularly and nourishing my body, soul, and spirit.

Looking after my health and energy is about eating well, getting enough sleep, getting enough exercise, taking breaks, and going on holidays. These are all part of my health values.

4 – Connection

Spending time connecting with people and building relationships is one of my highest values. It’s part of the way I feed my soul. Connection is a value that I build into my business.

5 – Creation

It’s so important to me to create my own content, legacy items, and intellectual property and package it all up and share it.

My Business Values

With your personal values, you look at your life in every area.

With your business values, you want to think more specifically about what is most important to you in business. Think about how you’re serving people and what’s important to you in terms of your lifestyle. For example, to have integrity, to be honest, reliable, and give great customer service.

These are quite obvious, but there are some deeper things like what makes you unique and it becomes your manifesto. I like to set up business values that I’m aiming towards as guidelines and goals, rather than values I’ve necessarily arrived at.

1 – Radical Resilience

Radical resilience is doing what I know is the right thing to do, whether I feel like it or not. That encompasses discipline and encompasses consistency. It’s turning up with I feel like it or not – because I’ve made a commitment.

Radical resilience is also bouncing back. If I do an event and it doesn’t work as well as I wanted it to, I don’t wallow with it, I just keep going. I keep going until it works. It’s having an ‘until’ mindset.

When I look at my to-do list, I’ve got hundreds of action items on there. I’m going to just keep going through until they’re done, or I delegate them to someone. But I know that I’ll never give up. I just will not ever give up. Going back and giving up is just not an option for me. It never ever enters my mind.

2 – Authentic Expression

With authentic expression, I don’t always get it right. Sometimes I feel like I’m not fully expressing who I am. Sometimes I question who I am. I’m not really sure. I’m such a by-product of all my mentors that I’ve studied.

Am I really using my own authentic voice? This is something I keep working on and evolving towards. If you think of innovation, it’s often the combination of different ideas, plus someone else’s creativity added to it. So that’s something that I’m evolving to become.

3 – Extreme Ownership

Extreme Ownership is another of my high values. There’s a great book called Extreme Ownership. I recommend you read it. Extreme ownership is taking ownership of everything in your business and being responsible for it.

I’m 100% responsible for my reaction to what happens. I can’t control coronavirus, the economy, or all these other external things, but I can change my response to it and pivot to make my business better.

4 – Productive Organisation

Productive organisation and consistency are something I’m working towards. It doesn’t come naturally to me.

It’s something I have to train myself in as it’s not a natural gift or talent, despite people thinking that I’m very organised.

I strive to be organised. It’s like striving for excellence. Sometimes I have to launch things at 80% or 90% because the ROI of me getting that thing to perfection is just wasting time. And so I’ve got to just be consistent and be organised and just do my absolute best. But I have to let go of perfectionism.

5 – People-Focused Growth And Contribution

It’s not enough for me to just amass money, or just to build an empire. For me, it’s about how can I serve others or support them? How can I give back? How can I invest money into charities and causes that I care about?

I invite you to come up with your top five values if you haven’t already. It’s about growing every day towards your values.

P.S. Would you like to know exactly how to define your business values and outwork them, so you can accelerate your business faster?

I offer a free discovery session (first-time sessions) for people who want help to take their business to the next level.

I’ll map out a clear business roadmap for you to follow straight away, so you can get more clients and hit your freedom figure asap!

Apply for your free session here

See you soon,

Kat

February 18, 2021 by katmillar Leave a Comment

Content That Gets You Likes Vs Content That Gets You Clients

There is a big difference between content that gets you likes, and content that gets you clients.

And it’s not just the dollars that come with gaining clients. I have discovered 3 simple tricks that will make your content 100% more compelling.

Content that gets you likes may be interesting and entertaining. It might be a little educational.

But there are depths and layers that we can add to our content, which inspires people to actually take action as a result of reading your content, and this is our ability to influence through our content.

Influence is the ability to inspire someone to take action to get more of what they want. To influence someone, you have to go deeper into their subconscious mind.

Lots of people are producing content, creating videos and getting themselves out there online now, but not many people have a solid, consistent, client database and income.

Success is not about just people liking and commenting on your posts. The most successful people actually aren’t spending all this time on social media checking likes and checking comments.

The most successful people are too busy servicing their clients to worry about that.

Once you know how to create influential content that is compelling, your whole world expands and opportunities open for you.

It doesn’t mean you’re better, it just means that people position you and see you differently. More people contact you to speak on their podcast or in their Facebook group. That’s what happened when I shifted my live events online.

When I was started shifting all my events online, I had many invites to speak to various groups and on podcasts. This was because I was consistently showing up. I was willing to consistently show up with content that influenced.

I challenged myself to not just create ‘How To’ content or ‘Step by Step’ content, but to go deeper into people’s subconscious mind, because that’s how you influence. When you understand the drivers below the surface logic, then you can get more people booked into your calendar for strategy sessions and discovery calls.

Influential content is crafting your words in a way that makes people want to take action, and take that next step towards actually working with you.

Whenever I put out a new blog or a new video, or send a new email, I’ve really crafted it and thought about the how to make it compelling and influential. Typically people reach out to me and book into my calendar or webinars, or they contact me privately.

Crafting influential content works. You don’t have to have 1000’s of people on your mailing list, you just need to know how to influence people.

When you have developed the skill of influence, people will reach out to you for PR opportunities and for joint venture opportunities.

You will find the whole world opens up to you and it’s not by chance. It’s because you know how to arrange your words in a way that speaks at the subconscious mind.

It’s about knowing how to awaken desires within people, to make them want to learn more, and motivate people to move away from their pain.

Credibility doesn’t come from just having knowledge. They say knowledge is power, but it’s actually only potential power. Credibility comes from getting people results.

When people want to succeed, they seek advice from people who get results and who are further along in the journey than themselves. It’s not just about teaching something to people, it’s about your ability to communicate your value so that someone wants to follow you because you get results.

1 – Influential Content Is Conversational And Natural

Influential content needs to be conversational and natural. People want simplicity and they want something they can understand easily.

People are influenced when they trust you. Who do we trust the most? We trust the people closest to us. We trust certain family members, our friends, our partner, our close peers.

If we’re not being our natural selves, our content can sound formal, when we wouldn’t speak that way with our friends or family if we were chatting over a coffee.

When you create content, you need to speak to your clients as though you are speaking to a trusted family member or friend.

We also do this when we get on video. I look back at my first Facebook Live and I cringe! I was so unnatural. It’s not easy to be yourself when you get a camera in front of you.

When things are not natural and they are hard to read, or when you sound like a robot, your readers lose interest quickly and they scroll on by. So you want to write like you’re just sharing to a friend and write in a conversational tone.

That is what makes it influential. We are more influenced by our friends than we are by a marketer online, or by a business person online. We’re influenced by the people that we trust and the people that are closest to us.

Forget what you learned in English, in terms of things having to be in perfect grammar. When you write as you speak, your writing is going to be more influential and you’re going to be ahead of most people, so keep it casual.

2 – Influential Content Speaks To The Subconscious Mind

There was a study done by Harvard, that shows that over 90% of our buying decisions are made by our subconscious mind. When you think about buying, it’s all about influence.

When you buy something, it’s because you’re influenced in some way by the colour, shape, the words or the sound. Something influenced us to buy it. So if you want to influence people, the most essential business skill you can have is to be able to speak to the unconscious mind.

We do this by understanding the real drivers of human behavior. It’s not logic. It’s connecting with the pain, desires, values, shadow values, beliefs, and things that go beyond our logic.

For example, status is one of the 7 desires that I spoke about in the last training. The need to increase our status by something we buy is a strong driver. People are asking themselves if what they are buying will increase their status.

Other drivers could be the appearance of intelligence, looking smart, appearing powerful, being wealthy, or it could be something altruistic, like doing kind deeds. If you want to influence people, you need to understand these subconscious drivers of human behavior.

When we purchase something, we often aren’t thinking logically. It’s like doing a bungee jump. You don’t think through it as though you are going to get different benefits of it. You don’t think through the pros and cons of doing a bungee jump.

When I decided to do a bungee jump, I wanted to feel the thrill and the freedom of throwing myself off a bridge. I wanted to feel brave and courageous.

It wasn’t a logical decision. It made zero sense to throw myself off a bridge. My Mum was absolutely mortified and said she wouldn’t throw herself off a bridge if someone paid her $500 million!

But yet, I chose to jump, even though it made no logical sense because it actually is not logical. It was so scary. There were not many benefits. But I was driven to do it.

Influential content speaks to the side of someone that’s driving them, the side where they’ll find the money, they’ll find the way, they’ll find the resources that they need to make it happen.

If I think about the programs that I’ve invested in to teach me with my business, the most expensive one was $17,000.

I had no money at the time and I had 3 credit cards full of debt. I think now that it was such an illogical decision to put myself in another $17,000 worth of debt, but I didn’t think of it like that. I thought of it like an investment into my future.

I’m so glad I wasn’t logical because that was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever invested into. It gave me an NLP certification which absolutely changed my life and the way I think about myself and the world. It gave me a life coaching certification, speaker training certification, and a business certification.

I have seen a massive return on investment because I’ve made way more than $17,000 back from that investment. It was illogical, but it felt right, because the person who sold it to me influenced me, because he pushed on those values. He helped open my future vision of myself to be a successful business owner.

So too, you can deliver content that goes straight to those core needs. And remember, it’s about emotion, not logic. When you learn to speak to the subconscious, it transforms your content completely.

3 – Influential Content Speaks Directly To A Person’s Pain And Desires

Influential content speaks directly to a person’s pain and desires and this is how we wake up the emotions. You really need to know your ideal client and speak directly to them.

You can’t expect people to be influenced by your content if you don’t understand them. And you’ve got to speak their language and know specifically what pain areas they have.

What are their fears, frustrations, and struggles in their life right now? Then you need to articulate their pain to them exactly in a way they would say it.

We used to get taught paraphrasing. When you’re having a conversation you do open listening and you paraphrase back to the person what you heard and you repeat it back exactly how they said it. So if someone said they want to get rid of a muffin top, you wouldn’t say, “Oh, so you want to get toned obliques?”

You would repeat back using their exact language.

You’ve got to use your ideal client’s exact language. And to do that, you have to get to know your target market. And you do this by having lots of conversations with your ideal clients. I’ve done hundreds of free sessions with people who are ideal clients so I could learn their language, their pain points, and their desires.

So there you have it, the difference between content that gets you likes, and content that gets you clients.

Want help to grow your business?

Business is too hard to do alone.

If you need help to get more right-fit clients, free up more time and create a profitable, lifestyle-friendly business that you LOVE, I’m offering a free 45-minute next-level business strategy session, where you’ll get clarity and a clear action plan.

I’ll walk you through a roadmap to show you exactly what you need to do and personalise it to suit you.

Apply now for your free next-level strategy session

January 21, 2021 by katmillar Leave a Comment

3 Things Your Business Game Plan Needs For A Successful 2021

Having a business game-plan sets the course for your quarter and your year.

Without it, you don’t have a roadmap to travel on so you can get off track and lost… With it, you have more clarity, direction and inspiration.

There’s a way to design your plan so that it feels exciting, and there’s a way that feels depressing…

A study done by the University of Scranton found that 92% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. Why?

Because most people don’t have a successful plan to go with their goals.

We all need a clear plan for our business. Creating a clear business plan at the beginning of the year will help you achieve greater business success in 2021.

Today I’m sharing with you a powerful process that you can follow to create a successful business this year.

Here are 3 things your business needs to create a successful 2021 game-plan…

1 – Have A Clear Vision

The first essential element you need is a clear vision.

I recommend that your vision is always based on your ‘why’.

A powerful vision has a few elements to it…

1. Match your vision up with the identity of the person that you want to become.

I’ve done goal setting with clients for years and I’ve noticed the difference between people who match their vision with their future desired identity and those who don’t.

When I first started out as a personal trainer in 2001, I would get people to set goals around their weight.

After a while I realised that what was more powerful for many people is attaching their vision to an identity, for example being the kind of person who consistently goes to the gym, maintains a certain dress or pants size, does a marathon, or competes in a contest.

Make your goals line up with who you want to be. This is super powerful.

Think about the identity of the business owner you want to be.

Do you want to be a thought leader? Do you want to disrupt your industry? Do you want to be a fully booked coach? Do you want to be more courageous?

I’ve been a goal-setter since I was about 8-years-old. My first memory of setting goals was having a big scrapbook with a picture of dogs on the front of it. I would sit there on a Saturday afternoon and write my goals.

My goals back then were to have a million dollars, have a pet gorilla and own a lolly shop. Goals have always been a big part of what I do hahaha…

But when I was about 20, I started listening to Tony Robbins and that was when I really started writing my goals properly.

2. Break your goals into milestones

The second important factor is to break down your goals into achievable milestones.

This is a big game-changer.

If you want to be a guest speaker on a podcast, for example, you want to think through the steps you need to take to achieve this. What steps will you take to make the goal possible?

If your goal is to do 50 Facebook Lives this year, write out your plan for how you are going to do it. For example, you could lay out your steps of doing 1 Facebook Live a week to hit your goal.

3. Set Defining Words And Intentions

Every year I set 3 words for the year and these are the characteristics that I want to crown my year with.

In 2019, my words were discipline, fun and courage. And these words really shaped who I was in that year.

These aren’t tangible goals, but for example, if I’m the character trait of ‘disciplined’ then I will get my goals. If I’m courageous, then I’ll do consistent Facebook Lives and run more webinars and I will set my income goal higher.

In 2020, my words were explosion, ease and example. My life kind of exploded in the best possible way. Ease didn’t really happen as much as I would have liked, but that’s coming haha.

My 3 words for 2021 are fruitfulness, fulfillment and freedom.

Fruitfulness is being fruitful and having lots of self-care time, nature walks and taking time away from the business. However, when I am working in the business I’m really focused and productive.

Fulfillment is making sure you’re fulfilled in what you do. Tony Robbins says that success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.

Fulfillment is so important, especially if you have a massive vision and you’re in this for the long haul. Fulfillment comes when you are aligned with your values.

So you want to build your goals around your values.

Do you want to know what you value?

Look at your bank statements and see what are you spending your money on, because what we spend our money on is what we value.

Look at your home. What is on your walls, your bookshelf?

Look at your Google history.

All of these things tell us what our values are. And you can have different personal values to your business values, but they have to line up with the core of who you are and who you want to be.

One of my business values is radical resilience. Being resilient means I’m not going to stress out when things go wrong. I’m not going to react when technology isn’t playing the game. I might get a bit annoyed in the moment, but I’m not going to let it ruin my whole emotional state.

Authentic expression and creativity is another value I hold. I choose to show up, be real, and not be perfect. I share my vulnerability and my struggles to my communities.

I’m listening to a great book called ‘Extreme Ownership ‘and it’s the concept of radical ownership and responsibility. It’s owning our stuff and not being stuck in blame and excuses.

Extreme ownership is taking 100% responsibility for everything in terms of my thoughts, my actions, my beliefs, my values and my behaviours.

If you haven’t revisited your values and aligned them with your vision, I recommend that you take time to do this. Our vision can change and evolve over time, so it’s good to revisit them.

My vision is to equip, support and inspire millions of people to live on purpose, doing what they love, creating and contributing from a place of abundance and freedom. My vision is to help people be authentic and live the fullest expression of their potential.

Sometimes we need to grow into our vision. My vision is to inspire millions of people, but you start where you are at. Your vision needs to be inspiring, aspirational and energising.

If you haven’t revisited your vision wall recently, then I recommend that you do that. Put your vision up on your wall. Have it actually in your face and then make your decisions based on your vision.

Your mission then, is how you are going to outwork your vision. My mission is supporting and equipping business owners and leaders to do what they love and feel they are called to do. It’s to encourage business owners and leaders to use their unique brilliance and make a significant impact in the world.

When you have your vision and mission, then you can work out your delivery methods for how you will get your vision into the world.

2 – Have An Up-levelling Mastermind

Having a mastermind small group is one of my favourite things for enjoyment and group.

The whole purpose of the group is that it’s designed so that everyone grows into the best version of themselves and they do it together.

Doing things together is more powerful than everyone doing things individually. I love to do visioning with other people.

My sister Vicki and I do a regular summit. We call it our ‘KV’ (cavey!) Summit. We get together either in Australia or New Zealand, usually at a holiday resort or Air BnB.

If Vick is over we usually go to the Hunter Valley or Port Stephens. We spend 3 days together visioning, planning, goal setting and breaking things down into milestones at our summit.

This year we did our summer online because we couldn’t travel.

I also did a vision day with my partner Josh. We went to a beautiful park with a view and we just sat together and did the wheel of life. We talked about what we wanted, and did some coaching together which was awesome.

I did a mastermind with a couple of friends at my house also, where we literally spent 12 hours, visioning and planning. One person would take the hot seat and the other 2 would coach. It was incredible.

2020 was a huge year, and it was so good to sit back and re-vision what I wanted 2021 to look like.

I had to up-level my vision and doing it in a mastermind is so great, as everybody knows what each business vision is, and what goals they have.

Being in an up-levelling mastermind helps you stay accountable. You inspire each other and collaborate to bring out the best in each other. When you spend time with people who are going places and are reaching the heights, it’s going to rub off on you.

Who are you surrounding yourself with?

Are they influencers and high achievers? Do they want to push themselves? Do they want to hold themselves to a higher standard and potential?

Do they consistently want to meet you and not just have random meetups?

Are they committed to being reliable and supportive?

Having a supporting mastermind group is a game changer.

The great author Napoleon Hill talks extensively about the power of being in a mastermind and how it’s been such a key to his success. He is one of the world’s greats, so he’s worth listening to.

3 – Have A Focused Action Plan

Having a focused action plan where you know what you’re doing every day and every week and also where you’re heading towards that quarter is such a game-changer.

An action plan makes sure you’re not waking up in the morning and opening your laptop and getting lost in the sea of the internet and getting sucked into the internet black hole.

I moved house recently and I’ve created a bit of a different space in my office and set up my environment in a way where I don’t come into my little office until I’ve done all my morning self-care routine.

My morning self-care routine gives me a fresh mind and I can then sit down and know exactly what I’m doing each day.

I plan and schedule my day the night before. It sounds so boring, but we have to know what we’re doing, otherwise we will just waste so much time.

I’ve wasted so much time getting sucked into the internet and lost down rabbit holes. Instead of creating, we ended up consuming and it’s such a waste of our talent and our ability.

Without a game plan we become lost. Sports players have a game plan and they know if they are clear on their plan, then just need to execute it. The coach develops the plan for them.

To make your action plan, I recommend that you start with a brain dump of your priorities that you want to do for this year. It could be that you want to do more online networking, run more workshops, learn and develop certain skills like increasing your copywriting or sales and marketing skills.

Once you’ve got your priorities, then work out how you are going to measure your KPI’s. You might say you are going to spend 2 hours a week doing a Facebook course, learning how to create Facebook ads and test and measure them.

Or you might want to write 50 articles in 2021. So you set the big goal and then you set the numbers and steps to get you there.

An example is if I want to earn $100,000 in 2021 and you break that down by financial quarters. Then you have to earn $25k per quarter. So you would then work out how many clients you need each quarter to earn your target income.

Typically the year starts out slower and the growth increases throughout the year, so you might be a little bit more conservative in the first quarter. You then work out what you need to do to get those clients. That may be doing a certain amount of webinars or it may mean you need to create 5 new freebies and funnels with nurture sequences.

You work out the numbers so you have a focused action plan, so you know exactly what you are going to be doing on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Focused action plans help you keep on target with your goals and vision.

I’ve tried so many goal setting methods over the years, and I believe the 3 best things you can do straight away to ensure you are successful in 2021 is:

1 – Have a clear vision

2 – Have an up-levelling mastermind

3 – Have a focused action plan

If you’d like help creating a successful year in your business, my next free event is happening on the 6th of February, 2021.

I’ll be sharing how to write compelling copy that is going to help you attract new clients in 2021.

You can check it out here

See you over there,

Kat

P.S Want to chat one-on-one instead? You can book in for a free strategy session here.

January 6, 2021 by katmillar Leave a Comment

3 Things To Master To Hit Your First 100K

Is this your year to hit your first $100,000 in income?

Want to know the fastest way to do it?

Are you over watching everyone else succeed and you’re wondering when it’s your turn?

There are 2 numbers that you must know in your business and keep an eye on all the time. If you’re trying to build out your business, and get more clients, the first figure is what I call your freedom figure.

Your freedom figure is the figure that you need to make every single month to know that you’re free and you don’t have to work for anyone else ever again unless you want to.

Your freedom figure is the amount where you’re going to have enough to cover all your bills, expenses, your lifestyle and your savings goals and not have to stress about money. It could be $10,000 or $20,000 a month for example.

It’s the figure that will give you a lifestyle so you’re not burning yourself out, so you can take regular holidays and rest times, so you don’t have to be a slave to your laptop.

Your first 100K is usually the hardest, especially if you don’t have expert support and guidance, because it feels like there’s a million things to do.

In business, there is always so much we could be doing. Maybe you’ve got a lot of ideas, but you’re not really sure which one to focus on, and you need laser focus and clarity, so you’re not wasting time.

The second number that you need to know is how many clients you need in order to hit your freedom figure.

Let’s say your freedom figure is $100,000 per year.

You can decide your hourly rate based on your desired working hours, or you can decide your working hours based on your desired hourly rate.

If your goal is 100K, you need to make $2,000 every week for 50 weeks. You then have to divide that figure by how many hours you want to work and that’s your hourly rate.

Here’s an example calculation to work from based on desired working hours per week:

Yearly goal – $100,000

Monthly income goal – $8,333

Weekly income goal (50 weeks) – $2,000

Hours working per week goal – 10

Divide weekly amount by hours working per week – $2,000 divided by 10

= Your hourly rate – $200

Or, you might choose your hourly rate then decide that you will work as many hours as you need to hit your freedom figure.

Here’s an example calculation to work from based on desired hourly rate:

Yearly goal – $100,000

Monthly income goal – $8,333

Weekly income goal (50 weeks) – $2,000

Hourly rate goal – $150

Hours you need to work – 14

These figures give you clear goals to work from.

A lot of people don’t know their figures. They’re not clear and focused on achieving set targets. They just have an idea that they want to be happy and make something.

But successful people know where they’re heading and what they’re aiming towards, as it gives us motivation, drive and clear targets to aim for.

Once you’ve set your 2 numbers goals, it’s time to look at how we get there.

So here are 3 things you need to do well to earn your first $100,000 per year:

1 – Craft Your Signature Offer

The first thing you need to do is craft your irresistible signature offer.

This is something that a lot of people get wrong. You need to take the time to build an amazing and irresistible offer that’s a no-brainer for people.

People often price their offer incorrectly by charging too little or making it too expensive. They don’t have great bonuses, they don’t have great structure or a mapped out delivery method. In order to do this, you have to be really clear on your ideal client and on your message.

The way that you craft a beautiful offer that people want to buy, is by really understanding your ideal clients and what they want. You don’t want to craft a beautiful offer, full of value that no-one wants.

In order to create an amazing offer, you really need to research and get to know your ideal client so you know what they need. I didn’t know this in my first 100K in business. So I figured it out as I went along.

I had lots and lots of conversations with people and I hung out in groups at networking events. I coached a lot of people for free. I spent a lot of time with business owners and started to hear all the different problems that they had struggled with, things like copywriting, technology and sales.

These were the things that formed my offer. You don’t want your offer to only be coaching. No one wants just coaching. They want a signature system, a roadmap, a blueprint that they can follow that’s going to get them from their problem to their solution.

It’s your job to map that out and get your offer really clear, and then you need to get your messaging clear. Your messaging is the language that you’re going to use to basically show people the transformation journey. It’s the beliefs that you have that you need to communicate to your ideal clients.

You do this by educating them on the gaps so that they will also be able to get the kind of results that you’ve got. So I recommend that you spend some time creating your offer.

The way you get to know what your ideal clients want is by doing one-on-one coaching as much as you can. You will see the most transformation with people when they do one-on-one coaching.

When I first started out, I would create something for them and send it to them each time. If they said they didn’t know what to post on social media, then I would create a guide to teach them and then email it to them.

This is what started me creating my online course. I had created so many tools and resources for people, so I included them in my course.

Along with your coaching, you want to have videos and resources. There are tangible things like checklists and guides that can help people. You could create step-by-step videos for people to watch in-between coaching.

You want to have bonuses that relate to all the things that your ideal client is struggling with. One of the recent bonuses I’ve offered is my Client Attraction Accelerator program. Another was a copywriting makeover.

I’ve offered a technology session, where I get behind the scenes and share my screen with people and actually help them build out a funnel or an email nurture sequence or a Facebook advert.

The bonuses that I’ve put into my offer directly relate to the biggest problems that my ideal clients have. The added bonuses I offer is what gets them over the line with a sale.

In your signature offer, you might throw in a VIP ticket to one of your workshops or a mastermind session. This is why it’s so important that you understand your ideal clients and what they are struggling with. This helps you understand the types of things that you can create for them.

In your offer, I recommend you have 3C’s:

Coaching
Content
Community

To fast-track their results, many people now recognise how crucial it is to have a coach. Whether you coach people 1:1 or in a group, people need coaching for perspective, expertise, feedback and support.

People also need content – a step-by-step roadmap to follow. This is where you need to map out your system and then teach it to people, ideally in a portal as an online course with videos and downloadable resources.

And finally, people want a community.

A lot of people freak out because they think they don’t have a big enough following or a community yet. Don’t let that stop you.

When I first started as a business coach, one of the first workshops that I ran was in The Little Space at Bondi Junction. I ran a workshop there called ‘The Business Of Speaking’ where I talked about how to make money as a speaker.

The offer I was selling at that course was a 6-month course called Speak To Influence. It was $897 and only 2 people bought it. It was a very small workshop and I didn’t have many people attending.

It was such a valuable offer, but I just didn’t have enough people in the room. Every single week I showed up for 6 months – so 24 x 1-hour sessions of creating all new content for only 2 people.

Every week I would show up and often only one person would show, so they got one-on-one specialised sessions. It was a great offer and I learned so much through the process, even though there were only 2 people.

Obviously, it’s good to have a bigger community, but you just start with what you’ve got. You’ve just got to start small and you run it and don’t pull back. You can gift it to friends or discount it to build the community when you’re just starting out.

Over time I grew the community and now consistently have great people in my inner circle who all support each other.

People want peers in their community, as they like going on a journey together and supporting each other.

Make sure you are clear in your offer of the benefits, the value and make sure you get the price point right for your offer.

2 – Create A Sales Mechanism

The second thing you have to master to hit your first 100K is to create a sales mechanism to go along with your irresistible offer. Once you’ve created your offer, you have to figure out how you’re actually going to sell that offer and the sales process to get people to buy it.

Will you sell your offer on a discovery call or in some type of consult or strategy session? What are you going to sell it on? Will it be an order form, on a landing page in Click Funnels, or on your website?

If you are going to sell one-on-one coaching, (which is what I recommend), then you’ve got to have a way to get people to register for a free strategy call with you. This means you need a booking page that links into your calendar.

I use Calendly for example and I embed it into a landing page on Click Funnels so that people can book in easily online. Then they get sent reminders automatically. I have everything automated because you don’t want to be doing everything manually.

Doing business manually the old way is such a waste of time. You just want people to book in online, and for it to all be automated. Your client gets an email with instructions on what to do, like a zoom link or maybe instructions of how you will give them a call.

Maybe you will write a written sales letter before they jump on a call, or maybe they need to watch a video or fill in one of your surveys. These are all the things you need to think about with your sales process.

If you’re going to do a webinar, then you need to plan to invite attendees into a call at the end of your webinar. Or you may need to create a downloadable freebie, to get people on a sales call with you.

Working out your whole sales process does take longer. But coming up to the Christmas holidays, you know you’ve got a bit of time spare and that’s when I personally do the things I need to do to catch up with my business.

Usually, over the summer holidays, there are fewer clients, so I sit at home and build out my processes.

If you want to hit your freedom figure, you’ve got to put in the work. You can’t just post on social media organically and expect clients to come to you. It doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to build a mechanism and a structure behind the scenes.

3 – Create Compelling Content

The third thing you need to master to hit your first 100K is to create compelling content. Your content needs to be compelling, so it draws people in, attracts their attention and engages them.

The best way to have compelling content is to really understand your ideal client, because then you’re going to use their language and you’re going to speak directly to their specific problems and needs.

Your content cannot be vague or big picture. You’ve got to be very specific with it.

Your content is the way that you get people to see your offer or see your invitation into a sales call. So really, your content is a marketing piece. You need to have a great offer and a way to sell it. You need a traffic source and lead generation strategies.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email with a freebie gift that contained 400 lead generation strategies. I think the guy was trying to be really valuable, but it was just overwhelming and potentially quite confusing for me.

You really need to pick one strategy and focus on it for a week or 30 days, instead of doing a few social media posts here and there. Using the less is more principle is powerful.

You want to get the most leads as quickly as possible. Don’t do all the lead generation strategies at once, just focus on what you will do for the next 7, 30 days or even 90 days, whether that’s paid traffic or free traffic you are aiming for.

Typically your business page on Facebook is only getting about 1% reach, so almost no one sees it. So you want to build up free traffic or a combination of free and paid traffic.

When you’re first starting out, you want to be able to validate your offer, and run it past as many people as possible. You want to help as many people as possible. This gives you fuel for your business.

Even if you have to, reduce your price and say you are going to do a partial scholarship for the first 5 people who take up your offer. You could say you are going to take $500 off or 50% off for the first 5 people who take up your offer. This is a great way to get testimonials and to get practice at getting people to your door.

You don’t want to discount by saying you are doing a beta test, or that you are discounting it, as this makes it sound a bit amateur. But if you say you are helping provide a partial scholarship or having founding members who get a reduced price it a really great strategy.

You can create something really awesome and get it set up in a week, and actually start making a lot of more money. It’s not obviously all about making money, but it is about helping people. We can’t help people if we’re broke and thinking about ourselves struggling.

If you would like some help crafting your offer, developing your sales strategies or creating compelling content, I recently ran a webinar called The Client Attraction Accelerator Masterclass.

If you missed this masterclass, you can access it here for a limited time.

Kat

P.S. Do you need some personalised support in hitting your business goals in 2021? I have opened up a few spaces in my calendar for strategy sessions, but they are filling fast and are by application only.

You can apply for your 1:1 session here.

December 28, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

Fun Ways To Reflect On Your Year

2020 has been a crazy year for most people. It’s time to give yourself a pat on the back, chink your glass and celebrate your personal and business success!

With 2020 rapidly drawing to an end, I believe it’s important to look backwards at the year that’s been, before moving forward into the new year ahead.

At the end of every year, I take time for reflection on my personal life successes and my business successes and growth.

Taking the time to celebrate everything that you’ve achieved throughout the last year is so valuable.

It’s also a great way to take the learnings and grow from them.

I like taking myself on a date, where I go to my favourite cafe or park, sit under a tree, take out my pen and paper and reflect.

3 Ways To Reflect On Your Year

There are a few different ways I recommend you reflect on your year 🙂

1 – Do A Solo Date With Yourself

The first one is to do a solo date with yourself, which is my favourite thing to do. I love to go away by myself, somewhere out of the house, and sit with pen and paper and actually have a time of reflection, and just write and write.

2 – Do A Group Reflection

The second way is to do a group reflection, and I like doing this as well. I just tied up my Influences Inner Circle Program for the year, and we went around and encouraged each other and spoke out what we admired about each other.

I encourage this group to think about where they were last year in December 2019, and none of us knew about the craziness that was about to occur in the world.

None of us knew that in March a pandemic would impact our lives as much as it did.

I encourage you to acknowledge yourself for how you’ve handled one of the craziest years in your living history.

For me, 2020 was one of my favourite years, despite the loss, the stress and way our lives have changed, but for me it was a fruitful year.

Give yourself grace and kindness, because your nervous system has been through the wringer. Acknowledge yourself for everything that you have been through, acknowledge that it was probably one of the toughest years of your life and just be really kind to yourself.

3 – Create A Video Reflection

The third way of doing a reflection is to do a video reflection. You could record yourself a video and watch it back in a year’s time, or watch it back in a couple years’ time. You could do this on Zoom, FB Live or just a video on your phone.

Share some of your highlights, what you have gained and achieved, and what you would do differently. You can do this alone, or with your community.

3 Steps For Doing A Yearly Reflection

There are 3 steps that I use that might help you when you’re doing your yearly reflection.

1 – Go Through Your Calendar

The first thing I do is I go through my calendar, right from January to December. The easiest way to do this is to do a search. I compile a list so I can see it in front of me.

I write down the courses that I’ve crewed, the events, webinars and Facebook Lives I’ve held and the holidays I’ve had.

2 – Have A Logical Process

I put mine all my information onto a spreadsheet with filters on it.

I work out how many hours I’ve crewed for other people’s events, how many events I’ve run myself, how many Facebook Lives I’ve done, how many webinars I’ve held and I tally them all in a spreadsheet.

3 – Have a Creative Process

You may also want to have a creative process of reflection. A friend of mine took a day recently and created a snapshot of drawings of her year, a beautiful creative reflection of her life right now.

You might want to just summarise your year on one page, or put it creatively on a big piece of paper for what 2020 was like for you.

10 Reflective Questions To Ask Yourself

It’s important to have targeted questions that you ask yourself when you do a yearly reflection. This helps guide your reflections.

1 – What Went Well For You This Year?

Ask yourself what went well for you this year? What’s one thing or many things that went well for you?

I know it’s been a super challenging year for everyone, but this is important. You need to really acknowledge what you did well.

For me, being on lockdown forced my business to go full time online. This actually expanded my business. I took risks that I may not have taken if we didn’t have a lockdown.

I loved that this year I was not out and about all the time. I saved on petrol and I got to know myself a lot more. I got to see my non-negotiables, and what was really important to me.

I did my last live, in-person event in March. I did my very first 2-day weekend workshop, and then the WHO announced the pandemic. And so that was the last time I did an in-person workshop.

Despite things closing down around me, I pivoted and went fully online. This was a huge leap of faith for me and ended up being an incredible change for my business.

2 – What Are You Proud Of?

It’s important to write down what you are proud of. Is it doing your first Facebook Live? Or was it your first time doing social media posts?

What are you proud of that you’ve achieved in 2020?

I’m proud of my resilience. I’m proud that I quickly I just changed directions and pivoted to go full time online. I’m proud that I didn’t complain, I got excited.

3 – How Have You Grown Personally?

When entrepreneurs face challenges, it shows you what you are made of. We’re tough, we resolve challenges, we push through, we solve problems.

The leaders that are doing the best in the world, the most successful people are the ones solving the biggest problems. They create solutions and solve problems.

I’m proud that I’ve created solutions for myself and for my community during this crazy year of 2020. I can honestly say I’ve grown so much personally in this last year. Adversity forces you to grow and expand.

It’s in a crisis that you see what’s really inside of you. When everything’s calm, anyone can be calm, peaceful and joyous. But when the rubber hits the road and when the storms come, that is when your true inner strength comes out.

The storms show you what you’re made of. They force you to step up.

Write down all the areas you have grown personally this year. And boy, it’s been a crazy year where we have all had big chances to grow personally.

3 – How Have You Grown Professionally This Year?

The next question to ask yourself is, “How have I grown this year professionally?” Ask yourself what have you done professionally that has caused you to grow?

For me, I’ve been able to be able to build a strong community, which was really my big desire. For years, I’ve desired a really amazing community. And I’ve now got that. And I love every single one of my clients. I love working with them all.

I’ve said no to people throughout the year, so I can just keep saying yes to the right people. And I’ve finally got a book of clients that are incredible. I don’t just take anyone. I’m selective.

This requires a lot of faith and trust to believe that the right people will come to you if you allow the wrong people to pass by. I’ve let go of people that haven’t been the right match go, in order to keep spaces open to the right people.

I’ve run multiple different groups. I have the public community and I have 2 private communities. One community is the Client Attraction Accelerator and the other community is my Profit From Presenting Mastermind.

In these communities people grow professionally as individuals and they grow corporately also. I’m seeing the power of community and people encouraging and inspiring each others.

5 – What Did You Learn?

It’s important to ask yourself, “What have I learnt this year?” I did a lot of learning this year. I think learning can come as a by-product of life.

We learn from our business relationships and from the things we’ve invested in our lives. I’ve invested in 3 big programs this year, which was quite an investment for me.

I’ve always believed in the power of mentorship, but I’m really seeing my growth now. My business exploded as soon as COVID hit, and that was only because I had great mentors and because I pivoted fast.

Also I’ve attended and crewed many courses. I’ve learned so much more about marketing, copywriting, about Facebook ads, and there’s still so much more to learn.

I think it’s really good to be specific on the skills that you’ve been improving on and specifically the knowledge that you’ve gained in the year.

6- What Did COVID Teach You?

COVID really taught me the value of online technology. I know that sounds really funny, but we can sit at home and make money. We can have a 6-figure business, just sitting at home. And I think that’s incredible.

COVID has also taught me not to take things for granted, like going to the gym, going to church, hanging out with friends or just doing what you want. I’ve become so much more grateful for those things that I may have taken for granted before.

I’m very intuitive in business, and I’ve learned to listen to my gut feeling. I want to work with leaders who are committed, coachable and willing to learn and change. They don’t have to know a whole lot and they can be struggling, but I know I can help them.

If I don’t feel like I’m the best person to help someone, I will not take certain people on.

I know that when I invest my time and energy into people that that are going to do the work, then I’m going to grow also and the impact that I’m having on the planet is much bigger. This is all related to my values.

We’ve only got a certain amount of hours in our week. And it’s so important that you protect your own emotional energy. And you’ve got to go with what feels right.

7- What Has Changed That You Don’t Want To Go Back To?

COVID has changed a lot for a lot of people, but it has also brought positives. I’ve seen the value of being online. I love that people in New Zealand, England and America have all been able to attend my courses and events.

There are also downsides to online, and you definitely miss the energy of live events. I definitely want to go back to holding live events. That’s something that is on the cards for me and my community in 2021, as soon as we’re allowed safely.

But what I don’t want to go back to is just limiting my events to face-to-face events and not having that ability for people to be on Zoom and benefit.

I think what’s going to happen next year for a lot of events is it will be a hybrid – online and in-person, which I think is a beautiful thing.

Next year I’m going to be having more boardroom style in-person events, and also holding them on Zoom so that they can all be recorded and other people can benefit from them.

8 – What Is One Of Your Highlights?

I know this is a similar question to others, but what is one of the highlights of your year? What is one thing that really sticks out to you as being a real highlight?

I think one of my highlights was my birthday, because I got thoroughly spoiled, and it was just absolutely amazing.

9 – What Is One Of Your Happiest Moments?

What was one of your happiest moments in 2020? Just a time where you laughed and laughed and laughed and couldn’t control yourself.

Is there a happy moment that you can pinpoint as being one of your happiest of the year?

10 – What Advice Would You Give To Yourself In 2019, If You Could Go Back?

This is a fun one and it’s really interesting. What advice would you give to yourself if you were back in 2019? If you could go back and knowing what you now know, what advice would you give to yourself?

I think I would tell myself to be prepared for anything. To appreciate everything, because anything can just be taken away in a moment.

I encourage you to do these 10 reflection questions by yourself – take yourself out on a private little date with yourself and reflect, and also in a group as well.

This way you can go forward into the next year, taking the learnings from the last year and running with them into the new year.

Have a wonderful, happy new year and may your 2021 be very prosperous, successful and fulfilling!

Have fun with your friends and family, no matter what’s going on in the world and remember to take lots of deep, refreshing rest.

See you in 2021!

Kat