Archive for the ‘Confidence for U’ Category

My husband Ernie and I rented the DVD of the Michael Jackson documentary “This is It” a couple nights ago. We watched in awe his amazing talent. His passing a year ago was like the passing of an era.

I was inspired by what Jackson was creating – by thinking it up and moving energy. You can argue Whacko Jacko was un-balanced. Watching this film you see his brilliance. He was in control of everything. He was energetic, engaged and happy.

I thought, “Who told Michael Jackson he could do this? Who gave him permission to become King of Pop?”

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Last week I met a new friend for lunch. We’re the same age, both child-free, and entrepreneurial. I wanted to know more about her. She wanted to discover more about living an excellent adventure. Tracey’s a graphic designer.

“Do you design websites?” I asked. Many graphic designers do. I was thinking about a client who needs tweaking on his website. I thought I could refer business her way.

She caught me by surprise when she replied, “No, I don’t do web stuff. If you want an ad laid out for a print publication, brochure, a business card or anything in print – that’s what I do.”

It would’ve been easy to say, “Oh, okay,” and drop it. I couldn’t. This woman has big plans. She wants to go places and change the world. And, she needs cash flow to make it happen. Truth is, print to a large degree, is going the way of the dodo bird.

I asked why she didn’t expand her skills to where the greatest demand can be found. She looked at me with resignation in her eyes and said, “My brain is full.” We both laughed.

At 52, we’ve experienced so much technological change. We both remember dial phones and manual typewriters. It’s a struggle keeping up. I’ll stick knitting needles in my eyeballs before keeping up with it all. At least I try to keep growing and expanding my knowledge.

I have another friend, Harold. We’ve been good buddies for years. He’s steadfastly pooh-poohed the expanding role of the Internet, social media, blogs, etc. I don’t know if there’s a connection but his business has been through excruciatingly rough times the last two years. I’ve lent him my copies of “Tribes” by Seth Godin and “Crush it” by Gary Vaynerchuk. I’ve showed him how to set up a fan page on Facebook and a WordPress blog. He still doesn’t quite fathom its vast influence.

You could’ve plunged a dagger into my heart last week when he said he believes a huge movement will turn away from the Internet toward more personal, one-on-one connections. Oh, if it was only true.

Both Tracey and Harold want great things. Each is brilliant and has much to share with the world. Unfortunately, neither are willing to go through the learning curve and change required to make it happen.

If you want to re-design your lifestyle so you can live an excellent adventure and you know you need to create income as you go – the internet is key. Look for a business that’s less about passion and more about efficiency so you can have your excellent adventure while working far less hours. It’s doable and you can make it happen.

Every morning we wake up and get a fresh new start to make our lives into whatever we want.

However, the longer we’ve been doing a career, a business, parenting, caregiving or any other activity that fills up our days, weeks, months and years – the deeper our “brain grooves” become. The deeper our “life grooves” become, too. We make commitments to others. We take on mortgages, children, business partners and more. We dig ourselves in. It’s more difficult to make a big life change. As we pass ages 40 and 50 it can seem almost impossible to re-design our lives.

Meet my buddy, Mark Michael. He’s 50 and has attended all four Excellent Adventure meetings I’ve conducted. At the first meeting what he wanted to do was vague, to say the least. It was about marketing seminars and the whole thing was filled with twists and turns. Plus it was an industry he had no experience in. As a marketing mentor I said, “Geez, you like a challenge don’t you? This is a difficult business model and nothing built in for repeat business.”

If someone fights for their dream and their passion I’ll back off and say, “If its REALLY what you want – let’s make some shifts to make it happen.” Mark didn’t fight.

At the next Excellent Adventure meeting he had a huge picture book under one arm. Not just a coffee table book – this book could be an entire coffee table. It was filled gorgeous pictures of the US National Parks. From the primeval forests of Washington to the sandy Florida Keys. I knew he had something great in the works.

Mark said, “I’ve been thinking. I want to take an RV and travel to every National Park. It’s always seemed like an impossible dream. THAT would be my excellent adventure.”

I said, “That’s great. Don’t be attached to it having to look a certain way. Be open to creative ways to manifest what you want.” Mark agreed and every day started looking at his book with the beautiful photographs. He started talking with people, too.

Yesterday Mark came to my get-together at Starbucks. He was brimming with excitement. When it was his turn to speak, he said he’d met someone with an RV who wants to do the same thing but is looking for a traveling companion. He still needs to work out some financial things – but it seems like he’s getting his ducks in a row quickly. Kudos to you, Mark! You are making it happen.

Have you ever heard that expression that perfect is often the enemy of good?

It means sometimes we feel we have to do something perfect. Unfortunately, this keeps us from actually DOING something because we don’t have it perfect yet – so we hesitate from pulling the trigger.

Today I woke up feeling like I need to get a handle on online marketing. I trotted off to my local Barnes & Noble to see what I could learn. I started online networking seven years ago. I’ve been getting clients online for years now. I’ve done blogs for several year. Tis isn’t my first rodeo. But there are a holes in my knowledge.

I have confidence in my ability to sell offline. I have confidence in my ability to write articles and posts that move people. I’ve sold a lot of my books from my website. I can talk a good game with most web designers. I have a lot of knowledge – but I haven’t put it together.

I’ve resisted because I’d rather write than figure out the tekky stuff. Honestly, just thinking about it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I get all goose-bumply. But keeping my head in the sand won’t get me anywhere. It’s time to get over the lumps and bumps.

While at Barnes & Noble, I found eight books (maybe nine) I felt I could learn from. A lot of what’s in those books may be a repeat of what I already know. Even if I get a few tips, well, that’s a big help.

Even though it may seem like you have a lot still to learn – get started. It may not be perfect. Start putting it together anyway. There’s nothing like doing. Far, far better than reading and observing.

What can you do in the next 24 hours that’s a tiny bit out there that’ll get you closer to your goals? Closer to your excellent adventure?

All the best,

Denise Michaels
Author, “Testosterone-Free Marketing”

By Denise Michaels

If you’re like millions of business owners you put on a happy face to the rest of the world that says, “Everything’s great!” but on the inside you’re concerned about what’s happening with your cash flow lately.

How do you stimulate your own economy so you get the results you deserve rather than getting caught up in the mass consciousness of lack that’s become so pervasive? This article provides seven stimulating secrets that’ll get you back on track. Wealthy people depend on these principles to keep their cash flow humming so when someone asks them about their business they can honestly and enthusiastically say, “We must be doing something right. My business hasn’t been impacted at all.”

• Stay away from the nattering nabobs of negativity. Whether its cable news with a constant stream of negativity, or, just the people you meet at a networking mixer who seem desperate, steer clear of anyone who’s less than optimistic. About 10-15 minutes of news a day is all you need to keep up to speed with what’s happening. Turn off the news and focus on the 99 percent of the world that’s just fine.

• Make progress every day and give yourself credit. Focus on doing what gives you the greatest results. Creating a successful business is about moving energy and building momentum. Consider all the thrust it takes to get a jet off the ground. Except the most important work you do may not be about running around. The most important work can be about consciously shifting your mindset. Then, when you take action amazing things happen.

• Speak with enthusiasm and passion. Wealthy people attract others to their dreams by speaking with passion, enthusiasm and confidence. They give the impression they just know their product or service is amazing and their business will be a winner. Once you launch your business stop looking for validation. Get over feeling like you need “permission.” If you offer good value and products or services that help others you don’t need permission or validation from anyone.

• Be bold. One bold stroke to get the word out can do much more than dozens of hesitant, little moves. This means expanding your comfort zone because your business growth doesn’t happen any faster than your personal growth. This mean when you decide you’re going to get on a radio talk show or do some other promotion that’ll make a big splash you do it with your head up, with boldness and confidence.

• Understand the importance of marketing. Marketing is about building relationships – but it’s more than smiling and chatting with other business owners at a mixer. Your marketing message goes out ahead of you. It precedes you. It should filter out people not likely to do business with you and filter in people likely to do business with you. Filtering means when you talk with a prospective customer chances are they already know about you and are partially pre-sold making selling easier.

• Be emotionally compelling. People still have wants and needs. What’s lacking right now is confidence. When people feel you understand, empathize and have a solution for their problem they will do business with you. Too many business owners try to play it safe because they think customers will buy based only on features or having the lowest price. They must see how your features and benefits help them solve their problems.

• Ask for the sale. Some business owners enjoy building the relationship however they’re afraid they might mess it up by asking for the sale. Don’t be pushy but be willing to confidently guide and direct a conversation. After I’ve explained everything about what I offer, my fees and answered questions and gotten strong signals that a prospective client is interested my closing question is, “When would you like to get started?”

By following these seven secrets you’ll crack the code on stimulating your own economy. You’ll discover more people are receptive and open to what you offer. They will come to trust you, have confidence in you and as a result your cash flow will increase. You will be in your own flow of wealth and abundance so when people ask you about your business you can sincerely smile and say, “My business is great!!”

Denise Michaels is author of the business bestseller, “Testosterone-Free Marketing” and founder of EmpowerUAcademy. Her mission is supporting people in going for their dreams and she’s known as The Marketing Maven and as an Empowerment Expert. You can also find out about one-on-one mentoring with Denise at her website MentoringwithDenise. All rights reserved.

By Denise Michaels

On Monday, I got a wonderful email from a client. He was so excited because after putting it off, after going through a lot of financial hardship this last year with real estate and stocks, etc. After losing a beloved brother who always encouraged him and made him believe he could do anything. After going through a serious car accident with broken ribs and more – he finally took a massive step toward starting a new life for himself.

My client, I’ll call him Ned, mentored with me on a regular basis last year and was making great progress. He is sort of a massage therapist to the stars. People like actors Ted Danson and Ben Affleck are his clients. He wanted to take his secrets of how to have a very successful, profitable massage therapy practise out to other massage therapists. He wants to eventually stop doing massage and focus much more attention on workshops, trainings and other info-products. He’s already taught at a massage school.

His vision is all about finding a way to take his expertise to others and make that a business model. So we worked with that. I sensed he had a lot of fear around doing this without his brother there for him. His parents are deceased as well. There were even moments when he felt a little hopeless – I’d encourage him and he’d pull himself back up and get going again.

We put a lot of time into figuring out the agenda for his workshop. Years ago a woman with a Ph.D. in Instructional Design helped me put together my first workshop – so I shared that knowledge with him and together we came up with a wonderful program for him. It felt true and authentic to who he is and his experience and he knew it would help other massage therapists while also being fresh and new. We also talked about getting the word out and how to fill the room with the right people. People who were willing to learn AND willing to pay.

Then September 15, 2008 happened. The stock market was in an upheaval and he lost money. You remember. He owned two rental homes and both his tenants lost their jobs and couldn’t pay rent. So he was struggling to keep up the mortgages. The number of people booking massages with him dropped – so his income from that source dropped, too. Consequently, he wasn’t able to keep up marketing mentoring with me. But once in awhile he’d pay me for one session at a time. And he’d keep me posted by email.

I’m not 100 percent sure when my last mentoring session was with him. I’d have to look through my calendar. I think it was August. In between – except for connecting with me on Facebook – I didn’t really know if he was still working at it or not.

He was.

Monday when I got his email telling me what a triumph his workshop was the weekend before, I was jumping up and down excited for him. It’s just a start but his information was very well received and he also made a profit. Whoooo-hooo! He did it with a healing rib from his car accident – but he kept breathing through it (I’ve heard healing ribs are painful) and he was successful. In the last paragraph he said, “Denise, I put payment for another mentoring session with you in your paypal account – just let me know when you can meet.”

You might already know I have a workshop coming up this Monday November 2nd here in Las Vegas. I have three seats remaining so if you’d like to find out more and attend click on the link at the top of this page that says “Denise’s Events.” But the reason I’m digressing like this is because I’m very recently aware of all the work it takes to put together a successful event even if your health is just fine.

Ned is turning his life around in the direction he’s wanted to go for years now. He’s inching closer and closer to living his dream. And I couldn’t be more happy for him – and thrilled to know that I had a little something to do with his new success. What’s you’re dream and are you getting help and guidance in making those positive changes to your business income and your life.

Denise Michaels, Author, “Testosterone-Free Marketing”

It’s been a little over a year since Sarah Palin burst on the national scene as the Vice Presidential candidate on Senator John McCain’s GOP ticket. Palin’s managed to not only stay in the headlines but her new book, “Going Rogue” to be released in a couple weeks, is already a bestseller on Amazon.com

Like her or hate her, Palin’s probably a pretty good example of the post-feminist woman. A woman who’s unapologetic about her confidence and willingness to take risks. A woman who doesn’t back down. A woman who’s never intimidated and keeps charging through life no matter what.

Back in the heyday of the feminist movement many assumed a “new woman” would evolve from the old “Stepford Wife” stereotype. This would be a result of a nation where women have a similar upbringing and the same kind of opportunities as boys and men have to succeed in life. This woman wouldn’t be compliant, cheerful, deferential and always standing behind her man. She would be bold, confident and a risk-taker. We saw this new woman as a positive improvement.

So how do you like that “new, empowered woman” now?

When Palin first became a national figure, I saw her as an example of how we’ve evolved over the last 40 years.

We talk about how important it is for women to become more empowered. She has no need to talk about “being empowered.” She’s powerful. She doesn’t need a fight for equal rights. She’s got ‘em. And, what’s your problem if you don’t feel equal or if you feel men have an edge? She doesn’t. She busted down the door of the world’s most entrenched “old boys network.” In contrast, Hillary Clinton spent years trying to figure out how to get invited in. There isn’t a “victim” or “martyr” bone in Palin’s body.

Palin grew up actively involved in sports. Her parents told her, “You can be anything you want in life.” Isn’t that what women want for their daughters?

I’m not in agreement with her uber-conservative points of view. I voted for the other guy. But I remain amazed by her super confidence and the moves she’s made over the last year. Not necessarily in agreement with them – but still amazed. As a marketing mentor I deal with women clients who love their business but feel uncomfortable and weird about getting the word out and asking for the sale.

So let’s step away from politics – because let’s face it – her political career appears to be over. What are your thoughts on the new woman? After all, if women today have big responsibilities like paying the mortgage and handling the finances – it just doesn’t work to be the woman who feels uncomfortable asking for money. What are your thoughts?

Denise Michaels is a marketing mentor, trainer and author of the business bestseller, “Testosterone-Free Marketing.” Find out more about her at her websites below:

Marketing with Denise
Empower U Academy – Get marketing and empowerment tips here!
Get Testosterone-Free Marketing
My Copywriting Ebook

By Denise Michaels, Author, “Testosterone Free Marketing”

People who are passionate about living an independent, financially free life often decide they want a mentor to provide insight and ideas to help them on their path. Maybe there’s someone in your industry you know, or, you just know of who could help you take your business to the next level. How can you get that person to share their wisdom and help you get on the right path? How can you rise above so they want to share and give you a little extra help?

I’ve been a mentor to people for years, but never more intensively than since I became an author, trainer, speaker and marketing mentor as my business. This article will help you know how women in business can approach a prospective mentor in a way that will make that person more positively pre-disposed to helping you succeed.

Read these ten tips and go find your mentor.

• Take an interest in the person as a human being. I have an Internet mentor whose wildly successful. After I ask him a question I always ask him about what’s going on in his life, share a joke or tell him something funny that’s happened. For example recently I wrote him and after asking I question I typed, “Tomorrow I’m speaking at a workshop, so right now I’m sitting in my desk at the hotel catching up on emails with hair dye on top of my head.” He wrote back that he laughed so hard he almost fell off his chair. You don’t have to tell your whole life story, but make yourself real. Make it light and fun.

• Don’t say, “I’d like to pick your brain.” My brain “done been picked dry” and I start feeling bored when I hear those words. I know the time I spend with that person will be nothing but an interrogation. Instead say, “I’d really value your opinion.” It’s gentler and I get the sense it’ll be a more pleasant conversation rather than an interrogation with harsh lights shining down. Besides mentors are like every other human being – they’re looking for win-win relationships, too.

• Don’t try to monopolize a lot of your mentor’s time. Especially at first. Connect in a way that’s quick and easy. Don’t invite them to dinner. That’s a two hour time commitment. If you’re at a seminar they probably already have meetings scheduled. If it’s at home, they probably want some “down-time” Offer to drive them to the airport or share a cab. Ask what they like in their coffee or tea. Bring it to ‘em and get 15 quality minutes.

• Be clear about what you’re doing and what you need. There is so much “murky thinking” in the world. I’m amazed at people who feel they must write five pages to express one idea. That means you don’t know what you’re talking about. Develop a clear elevator speech and mission statement. Think about one or two specific questions you need answered and think about your words and how to ask those questions clearly.

• Listen, listen, listen to what they say. Don’t think about all the reasons why you can’t. That’s part of the reason why you’re not where you want to be yet. Say something like, “I’m dealing with yada, yada, yada – how would you suggest I overcome those obstacles?”

• Don’t say, “I’m looking for a mentor.” It’s easy to deflect a statement like this with a smile and not make a commitment. Instead say, “Would it be okay with you if we connected by email or on the phone once in awhile to get your opinion? I’d really value that.” It would be hard to say “no” to a simple, clear request like that.

• Thank the person for their time. Don’t take well intentioned advice – especially when it’s offered free – without saying “thank you.” Tell them what you’re plan to do. When you take action, be sure to let them know. Always, always, always tell them when you take an action step. It’s so easy to follow-up with email and so gratifying for the person who’s mentoring with you.

• Many experienced people who avoid mentoring others do so because someone more novice will take their time and advice and never follow up. It feels like a one-way street. Over the years I’ve had people beg me for my time and experience and yet offer nothing in return. I’ve met a number of women over the years who’ve said, “Denise, but what do I possibly have to offer? This person is so much more successful than me.” I once had a business mentor, a highly successful millionaire, who met with me every 2-3 weeks to discuss my goals and I got his input and ideas on business strategy.

What did he get in return? He saw me as being successful in personal relationships, so he wanted my opinions, thoughts and insights on how he could be more successful in that aspect of his life. You never know what’s important to others. Never assume you have nothing of value to offer – you don’t know until you get to know someone.

• Reciprocate once in awhile. If you see an article you think they would enjoy – send it to them with a quick note. If you have a trade or a skill and can offer to help them out in some way – offer it. Don’t say, “How can I help you?” Then they have to figure it out. That’s effort. Say, “I’m really very good at _____. If you ever need _____ give me a call, I’ll be more than happy to help out any way I can.” Even if they never take you up on it, they will appreciate that you offered. Then, your relationship is one of equals.

• Make the link between cause and effect. Don’t put your mentor in a position where he/she has to figure it all out for you. You’re not a baby. The job of a mentor is not to take you by the hand every step of the way. Look in the dictionary under “mentor.” It’s to give you some guidance as you’re on your way. Your job is to make the link between what you’re told and how you’ll apply it to your life.

And one more tip as a bonus:

• Thank the person for their time. Don’t take well intentioned advice – especially when it’s offered free – without saying “thank you.” Tell them what you’re going to do and when you take action, be sure to let them know. Always, always, always tell them when you take an action step. It’s so easy to follow-up with email and so gratifying for the person who’s mentoring with you.

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