You’re amazing at what you do.
People know about what you do.
They even act interested in what you do.
They slap you on the back and tell you how amazing it is that your business exists.
They may even say things like, “Man, I should hire you for that.”
And you are one SMART COOKIE.
So…….
Why are PROFIT and INCOME still an issue? Why aren’t people buying? Why does profit seem so “slippery” at times? Like you can make money, but not consistently…. Or like your income is somehow “fragile” and “at risk.”
For any newbies in the Women Who WOW world, I have been without money in my business.
Not in the “I can’t fly first class to France” example of being without money… but the OTHER kind of being without money… the REAL kind of “without money.” You know, the “we need saline solution, but that costs $8 and we only have $4 in the bank. I’m sure using tap water won’t hurt.”
THAT kind of without money.
But the WORST part of being without money isn’t having to use tap water for my contacts. (Actually, not so bad…)
The WORST part is that soul-killing feeling that you’ve got to PLEASE this person or THAT person in order to make the money you NEED…. make them LIKE you, bend over backward… YES, I can do that… OF COURSE, I’ll throw that in for free… DEFINITELY, I’ll take payments, or wait on your check, or twist myself into a human pretzel…. ANYTHING to get the money I “need.”
THAT was the worst part.
Fortunately, two things broke me out of this heartbreaking “NEEDINESS” in business.
FIRST, I realized the truth: I never NEEDED any client to give me money. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a realist. We all NEED money. But, the shift for me came when I realized I didn’t need THEIR money…. when I realized that there were SO MANY WAYS I could create money.
I’d literally make a list.
I knew I could get money from waiting tables. (I came close to this reality…. and even applied and interviewed for the job.)
I knew I could get money from little quirky ideas I had…. “promotion commotion” or “welcome wagon,” or at home secretarial services, or selling something I owned but no longer used, or babysitting.
I did all of those things and more, EXCEPT babysitting.
So, that was first. I had to BOOST my money confidence by reminding myself that there were INFINITE ways to create the money I needed.
This eliminated my neediness in sales conversations. It allowed me to restore the necessary “balance of power” between client and service provider. It allowed me to “stick to my guns” and state my own terms. It allowed me to SERVE from a position of strength and not from a posture of neediness.
That was step one.
The second thing that helped was CREATING A PREDICTABLE PROFIT ENGINE in my business…. A way to generate leads, nurture them, sell to them, serve them… on repeat.
I bought as many courses, books, etc. as I could afford to help me make sense of this whole “profit problem” and I found them lacking.
Unnecessarily complex.
Complicated.
Weird.
Salesy.
Contrived.
Yuck. None of that would work for me.
So…. I created my own profit engine. If you’d like to get a 4-page “PROFIT HACKS” guide, you can get that right here: https://www.bmichellepippin.com/start-here/ for FREE. (If you’re a woman who WOW member already, I’ll post this in the Facebook group so you can find it easily and won’t have to enter your name/email.)
Here’s what I discovered: There are THREE TOOLS that are critical to ANY Profit plan that allows you to increase your income, AT WILL, anytime you’d like:
CLARITY. You must be crystal clear on what you’re selling and who you’re selling to, of course. BUT, you must also be crystal clear on why they should buy from you over ANY and ALL Other options available to them and why they should buy NOW.
Without this clarity, you will forever be clawing your way out of profit gaps in your business…. 3 steps forward, 63 back.
POSITIONING. Who are YOU to your market? If you are “just another option,” you’ll struggle to bring in consistent or impressive income. Being “just another option” sends the message that your market can get WHAT YOU OFFER any myriad of other places. It invites price comparisons and allows your market to delay buying. You MUST position yourself DELIBERATELY within your market. I think this is where I excel with my clients…. identifying what makes them SUPERIOR.
PRESCRIPTION. Your market, your prospects are like you. They have a LOT going on and APPRECIATE you prescribing an ideal course of action for them. Why? Because otherwise, you give them MORE options to consider and make them WORK HARD to decide what’s right for them. Instead, listen…. ask questions…. and then PRESCRIBE a course of action that will help them do whatever you help them do. Don’t make them work to figure out what’s next. PRESCRIBE next steps. “Based on what you’ve shared with me, I’ll give you a couple of options, and tell you which I think would be best. Then you choose what works best for you based on budget and sense of urgency.”
P.S. Do you KNOW the relationship between mental toughness and MONEY? Confidence and Cash? Immunity to Criticism and Income? Positioning and PROFIT? I’ll give you a hint: The relationship is critical. It is finite. And it changes EVERYTHING. More here: bmichellepippin.com/mentaltoughness.
