You can’t fly with eagles when you keep walking with turkeys

I feel like it has been a mad journey since October 2010 when I first made the shift to Infusionsoft, arguably the worlds greatest customer management system.

Then secondly I migrated my whole office from PC to Mac in December 2010 - I even have an iPad now.

Those who have followed my journey will notice I always take a quantum leap when I do things!

As usual I was overly optimistic about how hard this would be, and didn't fully factor in how long it would take. Infusionsoft was a beast of a thing to get set up, and I purchased just before they introduced all their cool new wizards. But now it's rolling I sit here daily and marvel at some of the things it does. I am really excited what it can do and I look forward to really being of much greater service to my customers going forward with all this awesome technology.


A strange thing occurred though as the technology bedded down.

As I started to get used to the new Macs (did I mention I have an iPad now) it has forced everything to a higher standard.

Same with Infusionsoft.

These companies can afford to employ some of the greatest innovative minds on the planet. So you either get into their mindsets and start to think like they do, or you have to return back to your old systems. I'm not a go back kind of gal!

There is a golden rule in the personal development industry that says, hang out with the people you want to be like, and a bit of them will automatically rub off on you ....... if you let it!

Another way of saying that is - you are the sum of the top 5 people you hang out with or even more simply - you are who you hang out with.

Or even more crudely from the Daggermouth song:

“You can’t fly with eagles when you keep walking with turkeys”

I have found this to be absolutely true, but until now, I hadn't fully realised that technology could have the same effect.

But its not just technology, it relates to everything.

When I've had clunky cars - I've been clunky myself. When the house is a mess - usually I have too much going on and no time to tidy up and the mess starts to drain me.

Your business is the same, if you aren't giving it the time, energy and effort it deserves, and implementing EVERYTHING I tell you, then you get naff results.

The only way to change a situation is to change something.

In the Attraction Program, one of the principles is to Tolerate Nothing. This involves going through and looking at every single thing that isn't working for you, from the button that is missing on your blouse, to really big things like relationships that aren't working for you.

Initially it seems a little bit negative to make a list of negatives!

But of course you become more attrACTIVE when you get more active and start changing or fixing the things on the list. So the idea is to switch the list to positives by systematically removing the negatives.

When I turn on "Big Mac" (with a 27 inch screen - bigger than my tv!) every morning, I save the TWENTY minutes it used to take for my PC to fire up. Big Mac is ready to go in under 30 SECONDS - I still marvel at that!

Imagine that: 365 days x 20 minutes = 7,300 minutes each year saved.

That's a whopping FIVE full days a year I DON'T sit watching a PC boot up. And no I didn't sit and watch it all the time, I would turn it on and go put the kettle on. That lead to multi-tasking and often I got drawn off to do other "stuff".

The difference is now, when I show up in the office - I am focused and working immediately. I find also I am thinking more clearly, planning more and getting more things done with ease, simply because my equipment is good to go when I am.

I am writing this on my iPad (did i mention i have one?) in bed, listening to the wind play through my trees and watching the sun send dabbled light into my room and enjoying the blue skies. Does that energy inspire and transmute to me - I'm reckoning it does.

I had been tolerating the waste of time and need to always be plugged into mains power for over a year as my PC died an agonising death.  That toleration was going on everyday as it crashed and burned it's way through the work load.

No wonder I was getting worn out!

I had been tolerating this for a very long time and it had been silently draining my energy.

Maybe do an audit of the things you have been tolerating and start cleaning them up as time and your budget allows.

Just about as attractive as my new iPad I reckon ........ did I mention have one :)

The Price of Perfection

Perfection is a wonderful thing when harnessed properly.

For most however, it is the personal curse they carry that stops them achieving all they could.

Perfection in and of itself is fine. Whilst standing alone it does not harm. Its when it gets between your ears that the problems start arising.

Perfection is the best friend of the “little voice” - that one that keeps telling you that you aren’t good enough.

So often I witness people who want something to happen really badly, but they spend so much time and energy waiting to get something perfect before they release it. What inevitably happens is that the project either stalls or they sabotage their success by creating a diversion around the release of their project.

Once sabotaged, it will never get to see the light of day, nor will it ever get to the right people to stamp their approval of perfection on the project.

I’ve seen people make themselves physically sick so they don’t have to go on stage. I’ve seen people manifest family disasters so they don’t have to release a project. I’ve seen people just disappear off the radar because their need for perfection overcomes their ability to deliver the so called levels of perfection they have set for themselves.

This behaviour is bogus because in business its not up to you to determine what is or is not perfect.

The people who are going to BUY what you are creating are the ones who determine whether it is perfect or not.

It becomes a very simple equation. 

If your customers buy your product or service or book a treatment with you and they don’t complain or they rebook or they buy something else in the future. Then your offering was perfect because it met their needs.

In business the only way you can figure out if your product or service offering is perfect - is to release it.

So why keep persecuting yourself trying to make everything perfect, when really you aren’t the best person to sit in judgment. Wouldn’t it be better to just get that product out to your customers and if it falls short of perfect, you can always tweak it until it is.

Some of the best things I’ve ever created took two or three goes to get right. It was the testing and tweaking and feedback that came from my customers that invariably created the perfection.

Of course I’m not asking you to put anything sub-standard out into the marketplace. All I’m asking is that you at least let it have a chance to be seen by others.

So what are you waiting for - get that thing out that you’ve been waiting to get perfect - dust if off - get it to a “good enough” standard and release it.

You might be surprised how perfect the imperfection in that action really is!

The power of silence to solve a problem

An old boss had this annoying theory called "do nothing". He used it a little too often for it to be effective but as I reflect back he was certainly onto something.

There are many times when action is the answer, but there is also a place for doing nothing or saying nothing.

Silence can be our friend in many ways.

As a speaker sometimes the most powerful moments are created in the space without words where you give the audience time and space to digest what you've just said.

In the movies sometimes the scariest moments or most poignant moments are when absolutely nothing is happening on screen.

The silence we create in meditative moments often gives us the clarity to take ourselves to the next level.

We rarely meditate on our business though and it can be a powerful tool when solving business problems.

My Back Deck Office

We also don't need to be on a mountaintop to meditate. Sometimes it can be as simple as making a cup of herbal tea and moving to a different spot. I have a back deck that allows me to sit quietly with my trees. When I remember to sit out there - solutions seem to arrive a lot faster.

Silence can be our friend in many situations.

A speaker uses silence to bring their thoughts together while the audience "simmer" in the soup of what has just been delivered.

My old boss when confronted with something he didn't necessarily have an answer for or an immediate solution to the problem or it was just too hard - did nothing in the hope the problem went away. Most times it did!

Our busy, overwhelmed techno world bombards us with constant information. We take in so much all the time and rarely get the chance to simmer on anything.

But doing nothing all the time is not the solution.

I know from my forensic days back in corporate that doing nothing can cause the worst nightmares, so it is important to not relegate everything to the "do nothing" pile. But even in those nasty corporate situations I often found the answer to problems no one else had been able to fix, simply because I was only focused on one thing. I was frequently relegated to the darkest corner in the office, often working solo. It meant I was surrounded in silence and could get perspective on the problem and had time to look at all the puzzle pieces. I find if have all the required information and you focus on something long enough, the answer comes clear.

So in the action vs silence conundrum it's about finding the balance.

That balance is frequently achieved when we go to silence first, gather our thoughts - then take the correct action.

Getting things right the first time is certainly a gift and going to silence and really thinking and planning out the next step means you often short circuit the problem you are about to create by going out with a firm path in mind.

Silence helps find that path.

Silence also helps if you have a problem. Going within, listening to your heart, gathering ALL the puzzle pieces (not just the ones you want to look at) and allowing the magic within the void that silences creates to do your talking, will frequently bring a solution.

Silence allows us space to gather our thoughts, gain clarity and calm our senses.

What problem do you currently have that could benefit from some silence?

Are you the irritating or cool kid on the facebook block?

This cracked me up today when I received it from Tina Forsyth in Canada. She is promoting social media training and one of her people wrote this to her:

"This [video #1] really resonated with me I am in that social media car right now. I thought my GPS was programmed then disaster struck. Those storms we've all been having knocked the satellite out of orbit and my GPS has crashed. I started off following people I tried engaging with them but its like I'm that irritating kid all the other kids hide from. Tina and Lena, I really need to be one of the cool kids and master my social media online - will you both help me?"

There were long periods of advanced "uncoolness" for me when I was a child and this funny but very true observation really resonated with me.

As a quiet observer of social media I've seen a lot of "suckiness" - "trying to push into the cool gang" - "try hards" and "skites" - the latter we were never allowed to attempt as kids - over tooting your own horn was seriously frowned upon.  As I've grown up, I've come to realise a bit of shameless self promoting is definitely ok when you really have something to celebrate..... but everyday - pleeeazzee!

Social media to me seems to imitate life - the internet in general is amazing in the way it does this.

Yesterday a friend was sharing the massive cull she had in her 5,000+ facebook list stating she couldn't be meaningful with that many people. I'd confess I don't know this person well but she sure went up many notches in my eyes with that one simple post.

As I sit looking in, I see yet again how being in your truth shines through and how having the guts to cull your list when everyone seems to be racing around friending everyone in sight and liking for the sake it, is the flavour of the day.  Their shallowness shows in these activities as much as they would if you ran around a cafe shoving business cards in the face of total strangers.

I've had a few of those float through my life over the years in many different guises.

When I was playing in bands you used to get it a lot - people loved to hang with you just because you were the band.  They never got to know you or figure out who you really were, they just wanted some of whatever they thought you had, to rub off on them.

At one point there were so many people in the band corner where we used to sit between sets, that the band couldn't even get in!  Curious because they were the worst seats in the house and you couldn't actually see the band properly from that corner anyway.  The actual band members eventually had to sit in the kitchen because there was no room for us.  The band corner was still pumping though, but they hadn't noticed to actually BE with the band you would need to move to the kitchen, but they could go to work the next week and tell all their mates they were in the corner "with the band".  Such is rock and roll!

But the people who truly were "with the band", were the ones who helped us pack up two ton of equipment at midnight and load it into the van in the rain, or consoled us when we bombed - those people's names I remember years on.  In fact I can remember every line on their face, every challenge they encountered and every tear they shed, because they just weren't there in the good times, we had a two way relationship and we were there for each other for the long haul.

It may take a little longer but being yourself, building meaningful relationships and speaking your truth, not just what you think everyone wants to hear will bring much longer term results.  I'm starting to observe a lot of people culling their lists - not just facebook but all lists.

Infusionsoft my new CRM system recommends culling your list every six months.  That was a very hurty place for me considering how hard I worked to build it.  But I figure they know more than me, so I've been putting pressure on my list to see who remains standing.

Remember that old saying from the 60's - it always had an accompanying butterfly picture :-)

If you love something
Set it free ........
if it comes back its yours
if not it was never meant to be

In a three month period I have lost a few, certainly not as many as I expected which is lovely but curiously the ones who left had never actually transacted anything major with me.  My new CRM system tells me a lot about people and guess what - most of the people who flew the coup were all the ones who had floated in, picked up the free stuff and left when the pressure went on.  So very rock and roll!

The other few were people who came on early in my ramblings and my message has changed and no longer serves them because they aren't therapists.  The rest have stayed put, I guess because the message is still meaningful or I've done things in the past that allow me some slack.

I've come to the conclusion, whether its business, life or facebook - shallow relationships don't always create long term gain.  It seems to me there will always be a place for smaller groups of loyal people, and from my experience, they are the coolest kids on the block!

Is It Time For YOU to Automate?

I am frequently asked how I manage to do so much stuff with just me in the business.
 

I always smile and say "I let machines do the work".

It was one of my pet sayings from my corporate days as well. If you embrace technology and don't run from it, there are many times when it can be your friend, saving you a lot of time and making you look really good.

You are in front of new clients all the time and if you can get the WOW effect - they will want to keep working with you too.

 

But to create a long lasting impression you need to create a miracle for them, within moments of them encountering you.

The best place to impress them is before they even come to see you.

If people get a good impression as they visit your value filled website, get drawn to click on the "book now" link and like magic find themselves booked in with you - then their first impression is good. If you WOW them in the session, it will make it incredibly easy for them to want to book with you again.

This is where technology can be your friend. Imagine how you would stand out from the crowd if you have an automated booking system that allows people to book with you anytime of the day or night. It automatically emails them a confirmation when they book. And then sends them a text to remind them of their appointment 24 hours before their treatment is due.

The lovely thing for you is, this can be going on while you are in a treatment with another client.

There is nothing more frustrating about wanting to book with someone and they have to get back to you.

This year I trialled three automated booking systems 

• Flash Appointments
  
• Clickbook
• TimeDriver 

Clickbook won because it did everything I wanted it to and I qualified for the f*r*e*e service - gotta love that price.  

Flash Appointments  also did everything and was slightly easier to use, but was $10 a month

TimeDriver  did a nice job of working in multiple time zones but wouldn't allow me to set the changeover time between sessions.

All these systems offer a free trial period and there are many other great products on the market and as always discern for self if they are right for you.

I'd have to say it took a little while for me to set it up and test it but the long term benefits have far outweighed that initial investment of time.

• No more naughty forgetful clients
  
• No to-ing and fro-ing of emails to get times set up (this used to drive me nuts!)
  
• Great reports in my inbox each day to remind me what I am doing

The system will only book people in the times I specify but I can over ride anything that is set up and book people whenever I like.

The challenges I see for someone who is a bit frightened of technology

• Trusting it can work for you - you won't know unless you try

• Letting go of your old systems - you can try before you buy

• Keeping your paper diary and forgetting to update it when you get a new booking

• Managing demand!

Seriously you wouldn't think the last point would be a problem, but there is a blog post on clickbook from someone who trialled the system for free but didn't go ahead because they got too many new clients and couldn't cope.  Good problem to have I would have thought!

Automation can also stave off the need to employ someone to answer your phones and take your appointments.  One of my clients has put a message on her answering machining telling people they can either leave her a message or book online right now.  She finds most just go and book themselves in online.

Clickbook offers people the next available appointment so you can fill gaps in the day while you are working with clients, maximising your takings for the day and not letting people down because they can't get hold of you to book.

People often comment on the ease of the booking process, which means they have been impressed.

An automated system has the potential to give you a competitive advantage over people who cling to their paper diaries.

Most who do automate, report clients loving the system and they find in most instances that people prefer the online option.

So why don't you consider making use of some downtime over the holidays and create miracles in your practice, simply by letting a machine do the work.

Full disclosure: NONE of the companies mentioned in this article pay me a commission for my recommendations - I mention them because they are quality providers

Ask and Tho Shalt Receive With a Cherry on Top

All weekend I've been banging on to the participants of Sanctum for the Soul about how we are totally in charge of everything now and not to forget to ask for the things we need - no matter how small.

Well I decided this morning that I needed a new Monthly Planner for 2011 so I can start getting next years events planned or as my new branding manager calls it my "launch sequence".  Its a bit oo-la-la huh - sounds like "mission control to mz margz" but what can you expect she lives in Dallas which is up the road from NASA so I guess they are a bit space ship oriented in Texas.

So to get my launch sequence happening I really need that 2011 planner.

I looked to see if I could get a monthly planner online and it turned out that I could but I need it now!  

So I decided I'd have a look in the newsagents in the town later today but resigned myself to the fact that I'd probably have to wait to get one next time I was in the city or breakdown and buy it online and deal with it getting damaged in the post - ever noticed how things never quite come out of the your post office box the same way they went in.

Then my next thought was lunch.

Finally the sun has decided to shine after days of rain so I put my walking boots on and I headed down the two blocks to the Hepburn General Store for a #4 toastie.  While they were making it up I had a wander around the shelves.  The Hepburn General Store has a unique ability to stock and serve either gourmet food options or things the local tradies love like Gillies meat pies.  But they also have some nice bits and pieces for the tourists to buy and they have a great range of magazines.

So I was having a nosy in the flash mag section and imagine my surprise when I thought I was looking at a pile of monthly planners.  Imagine my delight when I picked one up and had a look and it WAS exactly what I wanted.  The weird thing was that there were no other diaries on the shelf, no other stationery items just magazines and 2011 Monthly Planners.

We love the Hepburn General Store but they aren't the cheapest option because they don't have the buying power of the big chains. 

So what is most remarkable from today's lesson is that not only did I get exactly what I wanted in the most unlikely place in the world - it only cost $7 - the least I have ever paid for a planner is $9 from one of the big stationery suppliers in the city so this price truly fitted the "can't believe my eyes" category.

Talk about ask and tho shalt receive with a cherry on top!  

It really was a great example of letting go and not putting boundaries around the way things can happen.  Now I better fill those dates up fast because the Universe clearly have a few people they want me to teach.