Inside Out Empowerment

Get a Shopping Cart

If you are serious about creating an effective online presence, then you will have to have a shopping cart. This is a software program that basically automates your business. It will keep the email addresses of your potential and current clients organized, provide autoresponders, send out targeted email broadcasts and allow your products to be bought and sold online.

I highly recommend 1shoppingcart as an excellent shopping cart program for the money. I attend many conferences on building your web-based business and I have heard 1shoppingcart recommended more frequently than any other program out there by far.

When it comes to a shopping cart, you want one with a proven track record. I benefit in no way from you choosing them. Go ahead and check it out.

If you are thinking about choice training, then please check out our Choice Coaching Institute. We provide comprehensive training and coaching for coaches. or those thinking of a coaching career. We have a week of training scheduled to begin August 10, 2009. Don't detail. Spaces are limited.

Choice Theory and Righteousness

Question: Now that I have been learning CT/RT and have bought into the theory, I find myself being very judgmental of others who use external control. I find it difficult because I always feel the need to interject my thoughts onto others who are using external control. Do you find this difficult? How do you deal with other using external control?

Answer:Yes, it is difficult not to be judgmental of those using external control. I find the best way for me is to remind myself that not everyone thinks like I do and they certainly have a right to do it their way. I just remind myself to stay true to my course and at every opportunity, I try to ask questions of the external control people about how what they do is working for them. I am also prepared to take it further if they say it works, great! For example, do you think that person will now do what you are asking when you aren’t around? What do you think he is thinking? What do you think he will do when you are out of sight? Do you think you are strengthening or weakening your relationship? Do you think relationships are important? Do you find him responding to anyone else better than he responds to you? What do you think the difference is?

Remember, we know learning is best done inside out. You need to function as a self-evaluation facilitator instead of giving your unsolicited opinion. Eventually, many of those you are attempting to influence will “get it.” The other thing you need to remember is your relationship with them. You will lose your ability to influence them without a positive relationship. You can’t get them to give up their external control if you are attempting to externally control them. Remember, they are doing the best they know how at this point in time to get something they want. They need to be invited to try an potentially better way.

Information Management

In this information age, it is easy to become overwhelmed with all the information that bombards us every day. In the past, we talked about the concept of time management but today, I believe the critical piece to time management is information management.

It is NOT possible for us to know everything we need to know about every aspect of our business. Even if we tried, there are not enough hours in the day to learn all we need to know on every subject. It would be wise to hire those people who know more about a subject that doesn’t particularly interest us and delegate tasks to them in that area.

According to IBM, information on the Internet will double every 11 hours by 2010. Doesn't that just boggle your mind? How can we possibly learn all there is to know? And in the process of attempting to, we often are distracted and go off on many tangents which in effect, wastes our valuable time. In many instances, it is wisest to “Just say no” to information overload so you can function at peak level for top performance.

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Quote: David Hawkins

“To be a success, it’s necessary to embrace and operate from the principles that produce success, not just imitate the actions of success full people.”

—Dr. David Hawkins

Dr. Hawkins makes this point in his book, Power vs. Force. He is saying that it isn’t enough to copy what successful people do. You really have to become like they are in full integration. Your acting, thinking, emotions and spirituality must be aligned in order for you to enjoy the same level of success. Studying successful people is a great way to get started but understand that there is much more to a person than the simple tasks you can see him or her perform. Get the big picture and go about beginning the transformation.

If you'd like to begin your own transformation, our Goal Attainment Tip Sheet can help.

De-Escalation Skills Tip Sheet

Are you someone who is confronted with angry people in the course of your job? Angry co-workers, angry managers, angry customers, angry clients, angry suppliers, angry subordinates? Want to learn ways to take the wind out their sails and have them communicating more cooperatively?

In this special tip sheet, gain some insight into your own anger and methods for getting it under control before attempting to intervene with someone else expressing anger. Also, learn the five proven techniques to de-escalate an angry person that greatly increase your odds for success.

Your staff will be more confident--they will know how to handle difficult situations. Problems will be solved on the front line without the need to pass “situations” on to supervisors. These skills will help you and your employees handle customers and clients with ease. Customer satisfaction will improve, thus helping you increase sales or referrals. You will stand out above your competition.

If you work with residential clients, you can significantly decrease any physical restraints. Don’t let this information pass you by! There is nothing to lose. If you are not satisfied with the information presented, just send me an email and I’ll return the money you paid and you can keep the report.

Your Business is about Relationships

The most important thing a new business owner can do to promote the success of his or her business is to cultivate the relationships that already exist and be willing to go above and beyond to cultivate more. People tend to buy from people they like. People want to feel special and important. The more a business person can make others feel that way, the most likely the buyer will be to invest with them. Relationships are the most important thing in a business.

I believe it is about helping buyers feel safe with you. Provide them a guarantee. Stand behind your product or service’s quality.

Get connected with them. Find something personal you can connect on. It might be family, where you grew up, favorite TV show, sporting event, or the kind of car you drive. Find something you can share and then go out of your way to cultivate that connection.

Customers need to feel as if you are listening to them. They want to feel important and respected. Always give them your undivided attention. Do things to let them know they are special to you.

Make sure your client has some choices. No one like to feel boxed into certain things. Always provide at least three options. There’s always good, better and best, for example.

Attempt to create some fun in your relationship, but never at the expense of the other person.

When you are able to provide all these things to your customers, your business will grow by leaps and bounds. You will far surpass your competition. Remember, relationship is the root of all influence!

Creating an Effective Online Presence: Press Releases

I have learned so much over the past five years about creating an online presence. There is so very much to know and most people who start their own businesses really don’t know how to create, maximize and leverage their online presence.

I know I have only scratched the surface but if I can in any way reduce your learning curve by sharing the things I’ve already learned, then that’s what I want to do.

Press Releases

Whenever you are rolling out a new product or service, you want to do a press release however, you want to tie them to something newsworthy so it doesn’t seem like an advertisement described as a press release. Do this by connecting your news or product offering to something currently in the news.

In general, a press release shouldn’t be longer than one page. Keep it concise and write in journalistic language answering the basics of who, what when, where, why and how in the first paragraph. Deal with the facts and avoid marketer’s language. Write it in the third person voice. If appropriate, provide quotes from those in the news. End the first paragraph with a “hook,” that will keep your readers interested and reading more but also must be relevant to the news editors.

In about ten words, create a grabbing headline that summarizes the content of the release in an exciting way.

Write the rest of your press release with the most important information first so that if the editor must cut the length of your release, the less important information is at the end of the release.

At the top of the release write the release date or “For Immediate Release.” Be sure to include your contact information: name, title, address, phone number, fax, email and website addresses.

There are three press release sites I would recommend: PR Web, PR Newswire and 24-7 Press Release www.24-7pressrelease.com.  They have free listings but if you want to increase your exposure and the likelihood that your release will be picked up by more venues, then you want to pay. Paying also allows you to include hyperlinks in your release that direct traffic (and search engines) track back to your site, another way to increase your traffic.

What tips do you have about writing and submitting press releases? One thing I recommend is to contact the person at the venue in charge of press releases and ask how he or she likes to receive them--hard copy in mail, fax or email. Each one will be different and you want to give them what they want. Please share your ideas and successes here.

Creating an online presence is particularly important for coaches. If you are interested in becoming a coach or developing your coaching skills, we are starting a new coaching school based on Choice Theory, affiliated with Prairie State College. It is starting in August. If you are interested in learning more, check out the Choice Coaching Institute. You will learn more details about creating an online presence in that program.

Creating an Effective Online Presence: Writing Articles

I have learned so much over the past five years about creating an online presence. There is so very much to know and most people who start their own businesses really don’t know how to create, maximize and leverage their online presence.

I know I have only scratched the surface but if I can in any way reduce your learning curve by sharing the things I’ve already learned, then that’s what I want to do.

Writing Articles

Writing articles is a tremendous way to get your name out there to the general public. I write at least two articles each month. I used to have my virtual assistant submit each one to online article banks individually. Now, for $100, I submit my article to I-Snare and they do the submitting for me. They will submit 100 articles for my $100 which is much more cost-effective than having to pay my assistant to do it.

There are still some specialized article banks I have my assistant submit to. I submit directly to eZine Articles because they post my submission directly on Twitter for me. It's a great benefit. I also submit directly to selfgrowth.com. You will likely have some you want to go directly to as well.

The purpose of writing articles is to help readers get to know you and what you have to offer. When you write, you are not necessarily trying to sell something—you are basically providing useful information, just like this article does. And you get to include a bio box at the end with a link back to your website home page, a product page or a sales letter. This will help increase the traffic to your website and it will be a targeted audience, meaning those who are already interested in what you have to say.

What tips do you have about writing and submitting articles? One thing I do is try to have a number in the title because these articles are read much more often than ones without a number. "Top 10 Reason to . . .," "Five Steps to. . .," or "Three Ways to . . ." are all examples of great titles for the Internet. Please share your ideas and successes here.

If you are interested in becoming a coach or developing your coaching skills, we are starting a new coaching school based on Choice Theory, affiliated with Prairie State College. It is starting in August. If you are interested in learning more, check out the Choice Coaching Institute. You will learn more details about creating an online presence in that program.

Creating an Effective Online Presence: Sales Letters

I have learned so much over the past five years about creating an online presence. There is so very much to know and most people who start their own businesses really don’t know how to create, maximize and leverage their online presence.

I know I have only scratched the surface but if I can in any way reduce your learning curve by sharing the things I’ve already learned, then that’s what I want to do.

Sales Letters

Sales letters are very important. If there is one thing I’d like to outsource, it would be sales letters. They are not fun for me to do but they may be fun for you. There are several things to be considered in a sales letter. First of all, research has shown that the length of the sales letter should be proportional to the price point. If it's a higher priced product, then the sales letter should be longer. If it's a free product or low-cost, then the sales letter can be shorter.

It must have a captivating title. It must be filled with information about WIIFM—What’s In It For Me, meaning your readers or potential customers. This is again tied to my original point about niche marketing. Your sales letter will be most effective when you can write as if you know the mind of the reader. You must understand their pain or speak to a goal they have. How can you be specific enough if you haven’t narrowed your niche? You can’t.

The letter should be crafted with both the skimming reader and the detail reader in mind. This means making main point subheadings so the person who skims can get the general idea of what you are talking about just by skimming the headings. However, include sufficient detail to convince the person who is interested in lots of facts and statistics. You don’t want to write your letter with only one group in mind because then you will lose out on the possibility of selling to the group you omitted.

Create products and services your niche is hungry for and then tell them why they must have your product to either solve their problem or help them become more successful. You want to detail the features, benefits and advantages of the product you are offering.

Sales letters must have an urgent call to action. Create some type of advantage for those who act NOW. Research shows that even if a person is interested in what you are offering, if they don’t act as they are reading your letter and decide to wait for another day, they never come back to it. Get them to act now by making it worth their while. You can even offer an extra incentive for the first 20 people who respond. It’s up to you.

What tips do you have about writing sales letters? Please share your ideas and successes here.

If you are interested in becoming a coach or developing your coaching skills, we are starting a new coaching school based on Choice Theory, affiliated with Prairie State College. It is starting in August. If you are interested in learning more, check out the Choice Coaching Institute. You will learn more details about creating an online presence in that program.

Creating an Effective Online Presence: List Building

I have learned so much over the past five years about creating an online presence. There is so very much to know and most people who start their own businesses really don’t know how to create, maximize and leverage their online presence.

I know I have only scratched the surface but if I can in any way reduce your learning curve by sharing the things I’ve already learned, then that’s what I want to do.

List Building

This is perhaps the most important asset to an online business—the email list of potential customers and prospects. When doing business online, it is critically important to capture prospects' email opt-in addresses so you can begin to market to them. The best way to get people to give you their email address is to offer them something compelling. This is intricately tied to your niche. Find out something they are looking for—create a giveaway product in exchange for getting their email address.

You can see how critical it is to have correctly identified your niche market because if you offer a list of cat owner’s information on how to train their dogs, you realize that might not entice them to provide you with their email address. It must be information they are hungry for.

The opt-in part is also important. You can’t just go add people’s email addresses to your mailing list. That is considered spamming. They must have the opportunity to opt-in and many are using double opt-in lists now, as well as the opportunity to remove their address from your database. Don’t ruin your business before it gets started by tainting your reputation unnecessarily.

One thing I have started recently with great success is to capture email addresses during my speaking engagements. This was a little tricky for me to figure out since most of the time I speak, I am doing so at the invitation of someone who does not encourage promoting one's own business. One way around that is to offer the audience something only they can get if they provide you their email addresses. That way you are not doing shameless self-promoting. You are offering the audience something of value they are interested in. Everyone wins. You get the email addresses. Your audience gets your free, high-value product. And the sponsor wins by providing added value to his/her audience.

How do you grow your list? Please share your ideas and tips here.

If you are interested in becoming a coach or developing your coaching skills, we are starting a new coaching school based on Choice Theory, affiliated with Prairie State College. It is starting in August. If you are interested in learning more, check out the Choice Coaching Institute. You will learn more details about creating an online presence in that program.