Have you ever faced these or similar challenges in your business?
- Deciding whether to hire a team, to outsource or do it yourself
- Setting a boundary with a challenging client / losing a client
- Increasing your fees
- Prioritizing what to focus on with many conflicting priorities
- A vendor who isn’t fulfilling their obligations
- A family member who doesn’t respect your business goals
- Investing in a needed resource in your business
- Borrowing money to grow your business
These and similar challenges are faced daily by many entrepreneurs. Do you find when faced by these yourself, it can stop you cold? I know for myself it used to, and it can for many of my clients.
Change your questions
When these situations show up, it’s natural for you to ask yourself questions such as?
- What can I afford? Do I really need it?
- How can I keep this client happy ?
- What do I need to charge to get the sale?
- What do I do first?
- What should I tell so & so? What if they get mad ?
- What should I do?
What drive these questions is fear, money worries, uncertainty, worrying about what other people think, distractions, over-thinking and overwhelm etc. Many of my clients ask me these same questions.
So the last couple of weeks I have taken almost all of my clients through an exercise designed to get them to start asking different questions.
Creating a paradigm shift
I asked them all to take a piece of paper and write down their current income on the left hand side. And then I asked them to draw a line down the middle and and then on the right hand side to write down that same number and to add a zero to the end of it. I was met with gasps, shock, laughs and giggles and “oh come on!”. And I insisted. And they all cooperated. (I love my clients!)
A sample of the questions I asked them:
As someone who makes that kind of income:
- What do you focus on in the day?
- How are you supported? & Who do you surround yourself with?
- How do you show up with your clients?
- What do you absolutely not tolerate?
- How are your boundaries, and how do you take care of yourself?
- What do you wear (yes, I went there – topic for another article…)
I really enjoyed it as they wrote down those answers under the 10X income column. There was such clarity and conviction as they answered from a place of awareness and what ultimately mattered to them.
And then I asked them to answer those same questions on what they are doing right now in the current income column. It was eye opening for sure. There was a big difference.
Different actions = different results
It was amazing to hear the aha’s and awareness that opened up for my clients – here are a just a few:
- “I would be working with a totally different niche”
- “I would not be afraid to speak up to a client that is disrespectful”
- “I would let go of relationships that hold me back”
- “I would always have a business coach and mentor”
- “I would hire an assistant”
- “I would look at my P&L weekly”
- “I would have regular team meetings”
- “I would not tolerate a messy office”
- I would charge what I am worth
There were so many more, but I wanted to share just a few with you. The next question I asked them was “why aren’t you doing that now?”.
So each and every one of my clients made a commitment to doing at least ONE thing the way they would if they were currently earning 10X their income. And you can imagine the results that will shift for my clients once they implement these decisions NOW.
You will not achieve a different result without different actions.
I encourage you to do this same exercise. Unless you start making decisions and taking action at the level of your desired income you will never get there. At the end of the day, what you are currently earning is the result of the decisions you have made up until this point. So when you change your decisions, you will change your results.
Please share with me below what your big “aha” was and what you will be doing different! I’d love to hear ! (Your email address will NOT be published)
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