Final Business Is Different for You: Time to Lead!

inspiredthoughtleader

So, by now, you see that as a “transformation artist,” here to empower people, you are a different type of entrepreneur, and so you need to do business differently. You need to stand out differently, and yesterday, I showed you how: interrupt long-held patterns your audience is holding on to tightly. It grabs that brain’s attention and it can’t look away.

This is the domain of the thought leader. But, as I said, you can’t just rattle cages: you must inspire those within them to want to fly: that’s what the inspired leader does. Your destiny is to become an Inspired Thought Leader.

(To read from the start of this series–highly recommended–click here.)

Inspired Thought Leader Message Elements

There are elements of an Inspired Thought Leader message that are dramatically different from any message you’re delivering now. You still need the basics—a thorough understanding of the pain and desires of your narrow market, and a single identity (you don’t offer lots of things; you offer one)—but once they’re in place, you unleash these:

ITL PIllars Visioning

These are the elements I work deeply on with my clients in my 7-session program, The Powerhouse Method (TM).  Each one is a message in and of itself (and written as a single sentence)—but then we weave them together into a final argument, or Inspired Thought Leader message.  

Let me give some details on each.

Future Visioning. As a thought leader, you must be both a “futurist” and a “visionary.” As a futurist, you have your finger on the pulse of today’s culture and trends and you make predictions about what your market will want and be able to do over the next 5-10 years. As a visionary, you see a future for your market if they rise to their potential. It’s a future, a vision, they have not seen for themselves and want very much to aspire to.

When you frame a picture of the future and paint your market into it, GOOD AND BAD, you are leading. You are saying both “these are the imminent dangers” and “this is the Promised land.” You see where the train is going and position your tribe to get on early.

Myth-Breaking. The very POINT of being a Thought Leader is to wake people out of denial. Your market is deeply asleep in some area; profoundly conditioned. It’s your job to deploy an arrow that shatters their cozy world-view. They are sleepwalking along, thinking they are doing the right things and thinking the right things…and you come along to say, “You’ve got it all wrong.” You break limiting and outdated myths.

With all of my clients, I seek to find something that will shatter status-quo ideas—and that requires a lot of inquiry. Most people dance on the surface of their thinking, keeping the edgiest ideas out of sight and out of reach. Again, my clients and I develop this together as a single sentence to ensure cogent thinking and clear and succinct articulation. 

Core Beliefs: There exists in you a belief about how to live life and how not to live life. It comes from deep within—so deep, you may not know what it is consciously. What’s different about this belief that I have clients craft is that it is a message for all of humanity. It is their belief about humanity’s greatest problem and the solution. When you have a solution that would solve the world’s greatest problem, you truly step into the power of a leader—and particularly, an inspired leader with the great ability to influence.

Things are different for you, so it is CRITICAL that you have this message when building a business, so it’s woven into everything you create, and that you have it in your marketing. In my 7-session program, I use it to brand my clients, as I’ve branded myself from mine. “Leaving the pack” is the essence of my core belief, and it is the pulse beat of absolutely everything I offer in business: I leave the pack as a leader, my programs leave the pack, and I make sure my clients leave the pack with one-of-a-kind brands and programs. That’s my brand and it came straight from this core belief, single-sentence message.

New-Paradigm Solution: An Inspired Thought Leader is nothing if she doesn’t have a solution that breaks with the old way of doing things and thinking. This is a solution that has not been offered anywhere before—in part because it involves a proprietary process that only you have, but also because it is drawing on future trends that others have not considered and therefore takes people into new territory.

Tribe Building: With this message, you build a potent, irresistible bond with your tribe—in your marketing–by causing them to feel special, outside of the “norm,” unique. You create an “us” and “them” construct that (unlike some leaders we know) does not emphasize the weakness of “them” but does emphasize the specialness of “us.” I have done that in this series by telling you that you are “transformation artists”—a different breed from all other entrepreneurs. I don’t say anything is wrong with “them,” but I make it clear you are different from them.

In building this bond, you also assign your tribe a mission— something enormous to aspire to. It should be a big and vivid. Imagine being on the team in the 1960’s whose mission it was to put a man on the moon. Or to be at Elon Musk’s SpaceX, whose mission it is to colonize Mars. Make your mission as vivid as these.

Again, this is where the Inspired Leader comes charging in, full-on, and influences her tribe by stitching them tightly together with special, common traits and an aspirational mission.

All of these pillars must be woven into a coherent message: a well-crafted ARGUMENT. Think of your business messaging and brand as one giant, dynamic, alive, world-changing THESIS paper. LOL. You must be able to influence and persuade your market with a well-proven point.

In Summary

So, this is how you market. THIS is how you present. And this is what you SELL! Not your time, not your services, but a VISION of what your tribe can be–a new-paradigm proprietary methodology that sets you apart from everyone else and takes them where they never thought they could go.

THESE are the elements that leave a lasting impression and change lives. And changed lives ACT. And taking action is the only result you are looking for as both a world-changer and a business owner. When you break their patterns and inspire them to go where they haven’t imagined going…they will act.

Business is different for you! LEAD!

But, of course, WILL you? As I’ve been saying, almost no one is delivering this kind of leadership message. Afraid of being rejected or criticized or otherwise uncomfortable, most people born to lead, don’t.

They haven’t shattered their own paradigms yet, and so stay cozy in the middle of the curve where the crowd insulates them. Who can condemn “satisfactory,” and “good enough,” after all, when that’s what everyone around them delivers?

Yet, in doing this, you are slipping deeper and deeper into the crowd. Where no one can find you.

And where we can’t hear the IMPULSE within you any more that woke us up to this work. It’s just a faint, far-off pulse-beat.

ICFCTSimpleSmileShotCROPPEDI want to ask you:

Is it okay with you to be where “good enough is good enough”?

Is it okay with you to settle into the middle-of-the-curve and follow–when you have been called to lead?

Give me better than that audience did back in part 1!!!! Let me here a resounding, “Hell, no!”

Whoa!! Not bad!! !

Now, go out, get your Inspired Thought Leader brand and message and deliver it in your marketing. And if you want my help, click here.

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 2

This is the 2nd in a 6-part series on mastering who your sliver-population market is. I’ve said to my students and clients for years that your market *is* your business. Without a market, you have either an unwieldy, undefined business or you have no business at all.

It is your market that will determine how you sell to them–the communication that will actually work.

Your market that will determine the free and paid programs you offer.

Your market who will create your expert-status.

Your market who will make you money.

And your market who will determine your destiny. If you are here to change the world, it is only a very segmented population that will help you do it.

There are many things I ask my private clients that enable them to take the vital step of shaping their all-important market, and recently, I’ve been directing them with these 6 tools. Today, I’m giving you the 2nd one.

 

2.    The 4 Criteria

I have found these 4 questions quickly answer whether or not a market is a smart decision. You need to have a sense of a market in order for this to help, but once you have an idea of one or even two markets, measure your options (independently) against these 4 criteria:

On a 1-10 scale (0=not at all; 10=extremely), how would you rate your TM option on the following:
 
1. How “on the surface” is their awareness of their pain?

2. How credible are you to them? (They would believe you; respect you; resonate with you.)

3. How passionate do you feel when you think of working with them?

4. How able are they to pay for you?

Every single one of these is important.

And you want to be answering at an 8 (lowest), and preferably a 9 or 10.

If a market is a 9 or 10 in awareness of their pain, this is very good. It means they have an urgent need, and your business *must* be “urgently wanted”–or you will simply sit on the shelf as a one-day possibility (if you’re lucky.) Sound familiar?

You are credible to a market if you have been through what they are going through; if you have overcome what they’re in the midst of; if you express beliefs that immediately align with theirs. If you are an 8-10 in credibility, there is a high likelihood that they will buy you.

You must be at a 9 or 10 in passion for your  market. If you are a follower of mine, you are here to effect change in the world and must want that change for a particular segment far more than for any other segment. You must be passionate about what you see is possible for them; what you think they’re here for–after all, you’ll be helping them get it. I am off-the-charts passionate about visionary entrepreneurs, those who are here to inspire change. I could do what I do for corporations, but I believe the world should be run by entrepreneurs, so I have no interest in helping executives. I used to work with any type of coach and consultant, but then decided that I only had interest in working with those who want to have a powerful impact in the world. I believe they have a purpose on the planet at this time and am extremely passionate about that and them. So, they are now the only type of service provider I work with.

And finally, needless to say, you want your market to be able to pay you at an 8, 9 or 10 level. If you answer anything lower than an 8, you will pay for it.

So, what are your answers when you take yourself through all 4 criteria?

The Sacred Walk: From Habit to Purpose

Today, a favorite client finished The Powerhouse Method™, my 7-session private program that develops one-of-a-kind business identities (and hers rocks!). For a series of reasons, she is unable to continue with me now, so I asked her a laser “completion” question that is relevant to anyone embarking on a new business venture.

“What is the single thing you could do to derail this initiative?” (It is actually a “movement” that she is starting.) She thought a moment and replied, “Believing that I’m not equipped, that I can’t pull it off.”

I said, “What does it take to ‘pull it off’?” She rattled off at least five or six attributes and character traits of someone who would succeed at building a movement. I then asked, “And in which of those do you have the least trust in yourself?” She knew right away: “Organized daily commitment. I get side-tracked so easily and am always learning and searching and telling myself that ‘somehow I can use this.’ But what I need to do is be really focused only on the daily tasks that will directly get me where I want to go.”

So, I asked her to make a commitment—and to only speak it if she meant it. She paused and then stated that she would work a designated number of hours per day and that all of those hours would focus only on the blueprint we had laid out for her to follow over the next three months.

Then I asked, “How will you celebrate yourself for successfully doing that each day?” She gave some typically-human weak answer like, “Just immersing myself in this movement will be celebration enough.” I said, “Nope. You have to celebrate that you have mastered a new habit for the day.” And I suggested that she put some money in a jar every day, from $2-5 dollars, and then to “cash it in”–in 2 weeks at first, then 4 weeks—on some treat: a lunch out for herself; a manicure; a round of lattes with some friends. She loved that idea and committed to doing it.

And finally, I asked her, Why are you going to implement this new habit–i.e. work these very targeted hours each day?” And she said some powerful things like, “Because I cannot die with this in me. It is my life’s purpose and now that I have it, I’m not giving it up,” and, “Because it will totally make my life big to do this.” I then encouraged her to think of her market—those who will comprise the movement. “Why are you doing it for them?” And she said, “Because they will be totally expanded–completely changed forever. And so will the rest of the planet.”

I underscored her potent words by saying, “Your doing this every day, then, is a sacred walk to your purpose and to their transformation. ”

She was silent for a while and then gruffly said, “You totally got me with that, Lizabeth. It is absolutely a sacred walk.”

“So,” I summarized, “what you could do to derail this, since I won’t be there to keep you on track—believing you can’t pull it off–will be summarily extinguished with measurable habits, celebrations of those habits every day, and the daily recognition that doing this work is a sacred walk that will change, one day, millions of lives.”

This was a potent few minutes I took her through–and so I encourage you, reader, to go through a similar process:

In whatever it is you are intending: what could you do to derail it?

Answer quickly. Now.

Ask yourself, “What does it take to _______?” or “What does it take not to ______”? [For instance, you may have answered that to achieve what you want would take “not being attached to the outcome.” So, what does it take to not be attached to the outcome?]

In which of your answers do you have the least trust in yourself? Choose just one.

Make a commitment about it. But only  make it if you’re going to mean it.

How will you celebrate your habit of keeping that commitment each day?

Why will you keep it? Why for yourself? Why for your market?

Do you see that it is a sacred walk to all that you are here for and all that your market can become?

If so, hold your new habit as a sacred act every single moment.

If not, contact me. 🙂

8 Sessions with 2 Financial Coaches Who Want Clients

I had an 8-session consultation with two financial coaches
who wanted more clients to walk in the door. There was one
thing they were clear on: once they had clients, these two
coaches would do amazing work with them. The trick was
getting them in the door! Sound familiar?

Over the next 8 days, you’re going to get the chance to
“eavesdrop” in on my sessions with “M&M” and get some
ideas for your own business. This is just a sampling of
the work I do and I decided to make it public—not just
in these blog posts, but in a CD product I’m launching
next week
! You’ll be able to get the actual sessions,
plus 2 great bonuses, starting next Tuesday.

So Session 1 with M&M. Of course, I need to get the lay of
the land: how long have they been coaching, who have
they been coaching, etc. They tell me they were trained
through Dave Ramsey and have been coaching couples
on and off for ten years, mostly giving their coaching
away. Now, they’re ready to make money! I am pleased
to see that they have a somewhat Brain-Sticky differentia-
tion already, promoting themselves as, to paraphrase,
the “seasoned couple working with younger couples.”
This is, of course, very appealing, as what younger couple
wouldn’t want to be guided by an “older and wiser” couple,
who had weathered financial storms in marriage?

I am also pleased to see that they have a target market!
I can’t tell you how many service entrepreneurs don’t.
“Couples” is still too broad, but we can begin to focus this
down by looking at the age of their market’s children. Do
M&M work with very new couples, who have newborns?
Or those who have preschoolers? Or are they in high school,
facing the issue of college? Each “era” has its own difficulties
and it is critical to know which difficulty they want to
address as coaches. They tell me that most of their clients
have children in elementary-school, indicating that (generally),
the parents have been married at least seven years, and up
to 14 years.  These are often pressure-cooker times, when
the honeymoon is over, financial issues are no longer
ignorable and volcanic eruptions occur.

I begin to take M&M through a process I call the “Trigger
Event.”
The fact is, humans walk around thinking they can
handle most of their issues by themselves, or at least with
the help of friends and family. But something happens, one
day—in fact, one moment—that triggers their dawning reali-
zation that they need help. This is a tough exercise for most
people, and M&M and I move right in like “Google Earth” on
their couples, looking in on a typical scene when such an
awakening might occur. They decide the couple is reviewing
a new credit card statement and we move through the entire
scene: what the conversation is like, what eruption occurs,
and what finally “pops the cork;” has one or both of them
blurting out, “We can’t do this alone!”

Why is this important to know? For starters, it is critical
to understand that you won’t make money if your market
isn’t hungry—and they aren’t always hungry. I always tell
my clients and students that your greatest competition is
not someone else, but rather the idea, “I can do this myself.”
But there will be a tipping point when they are in such pain
or frustration they are finally ready to spend money. And
you want to know what that pain is—on a very specific level
—so you can refer to it in marketing copy, creating intimacy
with your market as they “self-identify,” saying, “That’s me!”
—and so you can potentially influence that trigger event in
those who haven’t had it yet. The trials and tribulations are
there in the background, like a humming furnace, but they
haven’t realized they need help yet. You can help them
realize it, by talking about those moments, only if you know
what they are.

So, what is a moment that would wake up your market
from enduring and tolerating whatever is not working for
them? Would love to hear your ideas below! And be sure
to come back tomorrow, when M&M decide on the strategy
they’re going to use to get more clients!

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