Alicia's Plog

The Simple Way to Practice What You Preach

As I'm wrapping up a slew of private retreats with my clients this month, it's become clear that it's time for me to get focused on practicing what I've been preaching - or more specifically, to put myself through the same intense process and plan that I take my clients through.

This thought popped into my head several times during the retreats, but really came to the forefront of my thinking over the past week or so, as I have been making some very big decisions in my business that's going to majorly shift things going forward.

So, here is what I've noticed that's going on with me in my business that I'm hoping will shed some light for you as well:

Problem: Not taking action on a particular task.

If you're finding yourself low on energy around moving forward on a certain project or idea, it pays to take a look inside for the reason why.

As I learned from Andrea Lee, my private coach for nearly three years, everything is energy. And when I'm stuck - *especially* when I know what to do next - there's something wrong inside that's blocking forward movement. Because, after all, I am all about taking action.

Solution: Ask yourself...

1. What is one thing I coach my own clients on that I can apply to myself?

2. What is one way I show others how to operate their business that I can apply to my own?

3. What is one method I teach that I can implement more fully in my own business.

In other words, how can I practice what I preach more thoroughly?

The answers to these simple questions are the key to getting unstuck and moving forward.

Take it to the next level...

Exercise:

Complete the following sentence 30 times:

"The results my clients get from working with me are_______________.

And don't skimp - come up with 30 answers. If you have trouble getting more specific, ask your current and past clients to help you fill in the blank.

What are the benefits to doing this exercise?

Many, but for the purposes of this conversation, the value is in bringing forth the things that are the most beneficial for you to make sure you're focusing on in moving your business forward - both for yourself and for your clients.

So take your answers and turn them around to apply them to your own business!

Turning on Your Money Taps

One of the things I've been working on for several years is cleaning up my money issues. That includes everything from thinking I have to work really hard to make a lot of money, to taking care of old debt, to having a plan for paying down new debt, to plugging even the slightest money leak.

The truth for me is that I tend to not pay attention to my money as much as I should, so inevitably something happens where money MAKES me pay attention. It's not usually a positive experience. ;-)

I've made some big strides in this area, and along the way I discovered that once I started really paying attention to my money, it started showing up a lot more in a lot more positive ways.

Here are the 4 tips that have helped me immensely to turn on the flow of money into my business and my life that I know can help you too.

TIP 1. Keep a daily tracking sheet of what comes in...

I learned this direct from my million-dollar mentor Kendall SummerHawk. I track every penny that comes in on one simple sheet each day. When I first started doing this, I had days where I didn't have any money coming in, but within just one month, it's rare if there's even one day that doesn't have some sum attached to it.

TIP 2. Have a purpose for each income stream

I've always done this without really thinking about it, but once I started getting crystal clear about the 'what' and the 'why' for each and every one of my income streams, they turned from trickles to rivers.

TIP 3. Take care of any outstanding money issues

Just recently I sat down with files and phone numbers in hand to cancel some memberships I wasn't utilizing, get a refund on an erroneous charge to my bank account, and asked my assistant to send reminders for two overdue invoices. In that day's mail, I received checks totally almost $3000. See, money likes being paid attention to.

TIP 4. Find and plug those money leaks

In every business, there are places where money is leaking out. It could be the webmaster who charges by the hour and takes too long to complete a task. It could be a monthly subscription that you either don't utilize at all or that you aren't clear on its return on investment to be sure it's actually a good one to make. It could be paying monthly for a service you use all year in your business, and that you could save 10% on if you chose the annual payment plan instead.

When you start to pay attention to your money, it will immediately open up the flow of it into your business and your life.

Which one of these tips are you going to start doing today?

4 Simple Steps to Starting Your Affiliate Program

I was one of those online business owners who was hesitant to add an affiliate program to my business-building efforts. But once my clients and customers starting asking me if I had one that they could join, I knew it was time to bite the bullet and conquer this particular piece of technology.

Now, of course, I wonder why the heck I waited so long (talk about leaving money on the table!). It couldn't be simpler to get started with your own affiliate program. You can get very elaborate, but the basic set-up is easy, and once you do one campaign, the next one is a piece of cake.

If you're not yet familiar with what an affiliate program is, it's basically an easy way for your clients and customers to tell other people about your products and programs, by way of a special link, that rewards them with a commission on each sale they make for you. Basically, they get paid for referring clients and customers to you.

The great thing about affiliate programs is that they're very easy to enroll your clients and customers into, because it's a win-win proposition. They make a certain percentage in commission for each sale, and you make a sale you might not have otherwise.

And if you write the marketing copy for them, whether it's for an email promotion or a simple graphic that your affiliates can post to their own websites or pre-written tweets or blog posts, you'll make it almost effortless for them to promote your offerings.

For you, besides the benefit of having a sales force on your team that you only pay when they make the actual sale for you, you don't have to pay for advertising that may or may not pay off. It's like Google Adwords. With Adwords, you only pay Google when someone clicks on your ad. With an affiliate program, you only pay when your affiliate makes a sale.

1. Choose Your Tool

Most shopping cart systems (like 1ShoppingCart) offer an affiliate program as part of their service. Or you could choose a stand-alone affiliate system. I like and use 1ShoppingCart's affiliate tools because they integrate with the rest of the technology I use in the cart as well as with some of my other systems, which makes tracking and managing my campaigns easier. And 1SC's 'look and feel' is very familiar to online buyers, which helps attract potential affiliates.

2. Choose Your Tier

Then you'll need to decide whether to offer a 1-tier program or a 2-tier program. Simply put, a 1-tier program is set up so that you pay your affiliates for any sales they make on your behalf. A 2-tier program is set up so that you pay a small percentage of any sales generated by affiliates they referred to your program. To start out, I suggest keeping it simple and choose a 1-tier program, as you can always add a second tier later.

3. Choose Your Campaign Method

For each product or program you want to offer an affiliate fee on, decide how you will promote it, whether it be via unique affiliate links, banner ads, or other product graphics with the affiliate links embedded.

Regardless of how you'll format your links, you'll want to provide promotional copy for your affiliates to use. It's much easier for your affiliates to promote your offerings when all they have to do is cut and paste an email or a tweet you've already written for them (and you're really the best person to do that anyway, since you know your offering the best).

If you make the process of promoting as easy as possible for your affiliates, more of them will take action and promote your offerings, and you'll both make more money.

4. Choose Your Commission

It's important to pay your affiliates a great commission for each sale they make for you. Frankly, the more you pay, the more you'll earn, because your affiliates will be much more motivated to promote for you. Not only do you make a sale that you wouldn't have otherwise, you also now have a new client or customer, who is likely to become a repeat buyer (because as much as 40% of people who have bought from you once will buy from you again).

There you have it - 4 simple steps to creating your own affiliate program. Now the next time someone wants to refer someone to you for your product or service, you can thank them by way of paying them an affiliate fee.

8 Ways to Grow Your Business During a Summer Lull

Have things slowed down for your business now that the warmer months are upon us and people are on vacation or otherwise taking a break from their usual routines? Use this downtime to focus on getting your business ready to rock for the fall by implementing some of the 8 ideas below:

1. Evaluate your staffing needs

If you haven't hired an assistant yet, whether that's a virtual assistant, an in-person assistant, or a combination of the two, now is a great time to do so. Begin by creating your ideal profile of what you want your assistant to look like, and then start putting out feelers to your networks about exactly what you're looking for in an assistant.

Once you've found the right person for you, the summer months are a great time to train someone so they are up to speed come the busier fall months.

If you already have help, take some time to evaluate their performance. This includes taking a look not just at your current assistant(s) but also any outside vendors you work with, like your web designer, your shopping cart system, your list service, or your copywriter.

If you're finding their work to not be meeting your needs and expectations, follow the same process as you did for hiring an assistant. Start with creating the ideal profile of who you're looking for and then put that information out to your networks for recommendations.

2. Increase your learning to increase your earning

The summer is a great time to educate yourself on whatever it is you need to know to take your business to the next level. Choose a business-building project, like building your list or increasing your search engine rankings, and invest some of your education budget into a program or product that will help you learn what you need to know. Then plan the time to actually learn and implement the material, and you will reap the benefits come the fall.

3. Makeover or create your ezine

Take an objective look at your ezine, and ask a few colleagues if they'd be willing to offer you some feedback on it as well. Make any changes you think might help it be more effective as marketing and sales tool.

If you haven't started your ezine yet, the summer is a great time to put one together and start sending it to your list regularly.

4. Clean out and organize your email

Is your inbox an energy drain?

Mine was! So I committed to having an empty inbox before leaving for vacation this summer, and I can't tell you what a sense of freedom and lightness comes with an empty inbox.

How did I do it? Delete, file, delegate, respond. DONE.

As I've been chipping away at this, I could feel the energy drain slipping away. Take some time each day to delete emails or unsubscribed from unwanted lists, delegate what you don't need to answer personally (which is more than you think), reply to ones that only require a quick response, and set the 'rules' feature to automatically sort future incoming mail into appropriate folders.

5. Revamp your office

In preparation for a move to another state, this was another task I worked on recently. It felt great to purge so many old files and papers. And by doing so, I created space for more clients and more abundance to come into my business!

But revamping your office doesn't just include cleaning out and reorganizing your stuff. If you also have tools that aren't working the way they should, get them fixed so they do, or replace them. So, if you're printer only works when it feels like it, get it fixed or get a new one.

6. Clean up your computer

Tired of wasting time searching for stuff on your computer? Take some time this summer to clean up your files, delete ones you don't need anymore, reorganize what you do need into appropriate folders, and remove old software that you no longer use. Your hard drive will thank you!

7. Write down your accomplishments so far this year

It's important to pause periodically and recognize your successes. And now that we're halfway through the year, take some time to write down and savor your accomplishments so far. Then plan out what you'd like to achieve for the rest of the year. This will motivate and inspire you going forward.

8. Enjoy yourself!

Summer is a special time of year, where people are more laid back and life takes on a more leisurely pace. Make sure you take some time to enjoy it. After all, isn't time freedom one of the reasons you went into business for yourself in the first place?

Pick a Topic, Pick a Date

Have you been thinking about offering a teleseminar, webinar, or live workshop, because you know that it will increase your list numbers, showcase you as an expert, bring you new clients and customers, and be just plain fun, but you haven't actually moved forward with the idea?

Maybe you have too many topics to choose from and you don't know which one to do first. Maybe you have a general idea of what you want to do, but you haven't actually spent time giving some structure to it. And maybe you're a little afraid of putting yourself out there in such a public way.

So even though you know what a boost holding an event like this would give to your business, still you hesitate actually implementing it.

That's exactly how I felt about leading a teleseminar about Google Adwords. Here was a topic that I only knew a little about, and which can be pretty complex. But I also knew how powerful Adwords could be for my own business growth, and I decided that I really wanted to learn it inside and out - someday.

Then I was presented with the opportunity to teach a class for someone else's membership list. I could choose my topic, so I took the leap and offered to teach a class about Adwords. I knew that "someday" would eventually come, but here was a chance to do what I said I wanted to NOW. So I committed to teaching the class, which meant that I was committed to learning what I needed to by the date of the class!

If I had waited until I had time to learn Adwords, or until I decided that I was ready to teach what I knew, I'd still be thinking about it as an idea of something I wanted to do - someday. But because I picked a topic and then picked a date, it actually happened.

And because it did, I ended up gaining two new clients and developing a series of classes on this topic. And as a bonus, my conversion rates for my own Adwords campaign are at 27% (which is really good!) because of what I learned in order to teach.

What ideas are populating your mind but not your product funnel at the moment? Pick one, take out your calendar, pick a deadline for having it completed, and then make a public commitment to having it ready by then to your coach, your colleagues and your email list.

Then write and post your sales page, and start registering people for your event. Once you do that, I guarantee you'll have it done and ready by your deadline!

7 Easy Ways to Ease Ezine Writer's Block

If you publish an ezine regularly, inevitably there are times when you get stuck and can't quite come up with the perfect article for your issue. Sometimes just taking a break and coming back later will give you a fresh start. But other times you need more of a "writing prompt" to get you going.

The following 7 ways should help you get unstuck and get writing:

1. Write a Tip Sheet

Sometimes it's easier to get started by creating a list of tips:

How to...
The 5 Ways to ...
Top Ten Tips to ...

Write a couple of sentences for each tip, and before you know it, you have a completed article full of practical information for your readers.

2. Answer Your Most Frequently Asked Questions

As your clients interact with you, you'll likely get the same kinds of questions over and over. Take one or two of your most frequently asked questions and answer it in an article.

3. Use a Client's Scenario

Protecting your client's privacy (or not, if they give you permission), use their scenario as a case study. Explain the client's situation and what recommendations you gave, as well as what the results were. This will help build your credibility in your prospect's eyes as well, as this gives them the chance to see you "at work."

4. Comb Through Your Reading Box

Do you have a Reading Box (or tray, file, pile)? If you're like me, I get a ton of info via email everyday that I really do want to read, so I have a box where I toss all the stuff I print. Go through your own pile, and see what ideas pop up for you from there. (I do this often when I'm trying to switch from mommy-mode to businesswoman-mode.)

5. Learn Something New and Pass It Along

Did you learn something new recently that you can share with others? Or is there something you want to learn more about? Go and do some preliminary research and share your findings with your readers.

6. Interview an Expert

I love this one, but don't overdo it. Your readers want to hear from you, which is why they are reading YOUR ezine. But once in awhile, having an interview as an article, as long as it provides valuable content for your readers, can be a nice change and even fun.

Send your expert 3-5 questions to answer, and turn the interview into an article by adding an introductory and concluding paragragh.

7. Get Back to Basics

Think back to when you were just starting out in your business. What were the things you found most challenging? Choose one or two and offer your advice on how to get beyond those stumbling blocks.

Any of these ideas should get you started, and then the words will start to flow. I know when I'm writing sometimes, I'm thinking "ugh - not in the writing groove today at all" but once I get going, I'm usually pretty happy with the end result (but I do LOVE to revise, and revise, and revise... :)).