Diary of an Online Business

Sigma Mindset (www.sigmamindset.com), my business, is all about powerful transformational tools for personal and business improvement. Today, I want to discuss what I think is one of the most powerful marketing tools that there is: Emotional Engagement.

In marketing, emotional engagement is all about connecting with the client. In fact, connecting with them to such a point that you:

• Have a strong emotional connection
• Understand what the client’s problems are
• Offer to solve that problem for them

People buy on the emotional benefits of the product but they also buy based on the relationship that is formed with the seller – how connected they feel towards you the seller. Now the seller can be you personally or it can be your staff and if it is your staff then you need to be conscious of the emotional engagement that your staff have to you and your organisation.

I’ve seen studies showing real estate people increased sales by 250 – 300% while insurance sales people doubled their productivity – this at least makes you stand up and take notice.

Here are a few factors that when applied have the potential to skyrocket your sales:

1. Establish rapport. It is possible to form the beginnings of a positive relationship within the first few moments of contact. Issues of safety and trust are paramount
2. Approach with a position of genuineness. Can you smell a fake a mile off? Well guess what? So can most of the world’s population. Whatever you do, do it with congruence
3. Understand the importance of women in sales. Women are responsible for 70 – 80% of the decisions about purchasing. Studies show that in marriage the most important component for happiness is emotional connection with their spouse. Do you think this emotional need could cross over into their purchasing relationships?
4. Convey enthusiasm and if possible, passion, for your product
5. People buy on benefits, not features. That is, “what is in it for me?” If you understand this then you will be looking to solve the customer’s problem
6. Listen. Sounds simple? Yes and no. You are on a mission to listen to the deepest needs of your client and there are skills involved.  Listen with an attitude of care and empathy and you cannot go wrong
7. If you have staff that sell for you then you need to cultivate emotional engagement between your organisation and your staff. It really is unrealistic to expect your staff to conduct themselves with emotional connection to their customers, if you yourself do not foster that within the place they work.

Obviously, there are skills involved in achieving these factors and I will be sharing these in another post so keep tuned.

In the mean time, let me know what you think of this approach to selling. Would you like to hear more about how to follow through with emotional engagement and online marketing?

I conduct training in the area of “Increasing Sales Through Emotional Engagement” so if you have any questions for me just use the “contact us” tab above.

Until next time – happy connecting

Julie

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My son in law gave me this wonderful little book by Seth Godin – “Tribes”
Have you heard if it?
For such a small book it really packs a punch when it comes to how to grow your online business. I was so excited about it that I thought I’d share a few points from the book.

“Most organisations spend their time marketing to the crowd. Smart organisations assemble the tribe” (p. 30) Seth speaks of how we need to belong to something or some sort of cause that inspires us. As humans we are social animals and actually need to connect with other human beings. So much so that we are waiting for someone to lead us. To show us the way. We are looking for innovation and initiative.

Now to achieve all of this we need leaders. People who want to inspire, influence and encourage. I have always maintained that we all have within us the potential to influence, inspire and encourage. It’s just that some of us do not want to take the time and make the effort to do this.

But what if you do? Then this is your key for growing a successful organisation either online or offline. Now this made me think about my career to date and I realized something profound (at least for me), that I had already been doing this very successfully offline and that really it was a small jump to do this online. Same principles really:

- have a cause that you believe in and want to share with others. For me I have spent a lifetime working with people in the worst possible situations. I often thought that it would be great to get the message out to 1000’s of people that there are a few principles in life that if you follow, life will be more successful and not so tough.

- have a vehicle to spread the word. Today we have the perfect vehicle with our communications revolution.

- believe in yourself. Have the convictions that you can lead, inspire and influence.

- live the life you are preaching – be congruent between your speech and your actions because if you are not people will see it.

- genuinely care about your tribe. In fact, leaders truly care more about their tribe than they do about their own gain and people will respond to that genuineness.

I hope these thoughts inspire you as they have inspired me.

Until the next time
Julie
PS. I really would love to hear your thoughts about this idea of tribes. Send me a line or two!
PPS. If you would like to know a little bit more about what I do have a look at a couple of my websites:
www.secretstoemotionalhealth.com
www.thrivingalifecrisis.com

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New Year’s Resolution Success

Well, it is that time of year again when with all good intentions we make our New Year’s Resolution – you know – all those important goals that we are determined we will achieve for 2010. Maybe some of these ring a bell:

• Lose weight
• Get fit
• Improve my marriage
• Earn more money
• Spend more time with the kids
• Further my education
• Start that business I have been dreaming about
• Travel around the world
• Find peace and happiness

Unfortunately, most people never complete their New Year’s resolution. We start out strong in January, continue intermittently during the year but by December we realize that we have fallen short of the goal and once again feel discouraged and lose hope.
Now, if I am writing to you then you have either visited my website www.secretstoemotionalhealth.com/signup.html or you have received a number of my free products via email. I was trying to think about what else I could give that would help people live healthier, happier and wealthier lives and I figured the best thing possible would be to help you achieve your dreams for 2010.

Follow these steps to the letter and you will achieve your New Year’s Resolution dream:

1. Write your dream/dreams down. It has been proven again and again that those who actually write down their dreams have a much higher success rate of achieving them. In fact, that was just how I met and married my second husband and soul mate. I wrote down the 18 things I was looking for in a partner and measured everyone against this list. You probably want to know if he got 18 ticks? Well, actually he achieved 17 out of the 18 so I figured he was a keeper. (see my website: www.guidetoonlinedatingtips.com if you want to know more about how to find the love of your life online)

2. Be very specific about what you write eg dates, full descriptions and even photos of what it is you are aiming for. If possible have a symbol around you all the time that reminds you of where you soon will be. One of our goals is to create great wealth. We have a photo of a bucket overflowing with water as this symbolizes to us that what is in the bucket is ours and what flows out is for the betterment of others.

3. Join a group or have people around you that can fulfill a number of very important roles. People to mentor you, to educate you and support you. We all struggle at times when on a journey to success and it is imperative to have someone to turn to who will both encourage you plus keep you accountable. This is a non negotiable if you really want to achieve your dream

4. Anticipate discouragement. I would find it hard to believe there would be one person on the face of this earth who has not felt discouraged at times when working towards their dream – I know that I have. Accept this is normal and be prepared with that great support network around you. It will pass if you keep focused on what is really important to you. If you would like to know more about how to tackle discouragement have a look at the article I wrote earlier on this blog

5. Cultivate an “I Know” attitude. “I know that I will achieve my dream” Talk to yourself like this all the time and be very specific eg “ I know that I will weight __kgs by __date” Believe in yourself and and increase your self confidence. Remember that you are the most important factor in your life success.

Now I know that many people want to improve their health, wealth and happiness and have been thinking about joining my mentoring program Secrets to Emotional Health but life happens and you just didn’t get around to it

FREE BONUS:
By now you should know how committed I am to seeing people’s lives turned around for the better, so just for this month (January), I want to make it easier for you and offer the first month in my membership site for FREE! Yes that’s right – FREE! That’s a saving of $49 and after that you will be billed at the normal rate of $49 per month. If you want to take advantage of this cash back offer just email me at contact@secretstoemotionalhealth.com and tell me of your interest.

Until next time
Julie Spain Author, Executive Life Coach, Public Speaker

PS. Would you like to know what my New Year’s Resolution is?
To give at least two talks per month on the inside secrets to improving your business, your health, your wealth and your relationships
So if you belong to an organization whose members could benefit from my 25 years of experience helping people to live their very best life, then contact me at contact@secretstoemotionalhealth.com

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Ok, am I the only one who at times suffers from self doubt?  Am I the only one who sometimes thinks this is all too much for me and I’ll never be as successful as all those other people out there who are running successful online businesses?

I didn’t think so! What human being has not suffered from some form of self doubt in their lives? Will she accept my offer of a date?  I don’t think that I’m going to be offered the job. Why is it that everyone else in the world is smarter, prettier and more successful? Or, here’s the big doozie: “Why does everything have to be so hard for me and so easy for everyone else?”

Come on now, be honest, surely I am not the only one who goes through this painful experience of self doubt?  The question here could be why write about this on a blog designed for online business success? For one reason only: self doubt could rob you of any opportunity to be successful with your online business – hey, even with me and my online business.

Most success coaches (that’s me believe it or not) would tell you that success is determined 90% by what we think and only 10% by what we do. There was an interesting experiment some time ago that looked at coaching success for basketballers. They took three groups: the first group was only allowed to think about shooting hoops, the second group was only allowed to practice shooting hoops and the third group was coached in both mental and practical basketball skills. Which group did the best? Group one and three both succeeded to the same level. In other words, the actual action of shooting hoops made litttle difference. It was all about training the mind.

Occassionally this self defeating blockage of self doubt pops into my head so what do I do about it? This is what I do and maybe it will help you:

1. Remember the dream. We have a dream book and I like to remind myself of exactly why I started this online business in the first place. It is a powerful motivator.
2. Allow myself a little pity party but after a short time of feeling the feelings and feeling sorry for myself, I take a deep breath and tell myself to get back on with the job.
3. I recall all the things in my life that I have already been successful with eg. raising three daughters and for part of that time on my own, completing two degrees, having  a  private practice for 15 years, managing a 140 staff successfully in the program that I run currently, surviving a terrible divorce and best of all finding the love of my life later in life. If I can do these things then I can continue to face life’s challenges and win
4. Mix with people who will pull you up, not pull you down. We all need encouragement. I truly hope that my blog is an encouragement to you and that in some ways I can be a mentor to others in need.

Let me know what you do to deal with an attack of the self doubts. I know that it will be of help to others who are reading this.

I’m off for a weeks holiday to beautiful Coffs Harbour tomorrow so no post for a week. I really am a firm believer in the need for self care and nurturing.

Until next time

Julie

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Recently, I read something that made me think about the challenge of winning or in other words, achieving success:
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize”
1 Corinthians 9:24
I really related to this quote and the fact that I just did not want to be involved in running the race, I actually wanted to get the prize when it comes to being successful with my online business. I started to think about what winners actually do to win and soon realized that all of these things were applicable to success with my online business.
If I want to be successful with my online business, then I need to follow all of the steps below:
1. Train hard. For more information on this go to Entry 2. February 18th 2009 “The Key To Unlocking The Secrets To Success” We must put the effort in. Practice, practice and then practice some more to perfect the skills. I just learnt recently, that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be truly good at something.
2. Take time to understand and respect your competition. You are not an island. You are actually competing against others for the coverted prize. Study and learn from your opposition. Learn to do things different and better.
3. Never give up. Winston Churchill said it beautifully: “We will never, never, never…………..give up”. The major point is that he said “never” for 30 mins. I think he made his point.
4. Practice discipline and routine. First decide what routine you will need to achieve your dreams. Then of course repeat it – over and over again. It only takes 28 days to establish (or break) a habit, so why not establish great habits that will lead you to exactly where you want to go
5. Focus, Focus, Focus. It is so easy to be distracted by 1000’s of other things in your life. By all means, enjoy life to the best of your ability but discipline yourself that at certain times you will be totally focused on the tasks required to win the prize you are chasing. Without focus you will just spend alot of time getting nowhere in particular.
6. Sacrifice. Oops! Not really a well loved term today. We need to sacrifice now so we can enjoy the fruits of the prize later. The athelete who gets up to train at 4 and 5am would probably much rather have a couple of hours extra sleep but when the stand on the podium to win their prize all the sacrifice is forgotten in the joy of the win. We need to sacrifice of our time, energy and resources.
7. Prioritize. Does anyone else have trouble with this? Sometimes we try so hard to prioritize what we believe to be important but still get it wrong. 5 years, 10, 20 years of hard work goes by and we still are not where we want to be. Stephen Covey tells us we spend 80% of our time working on things that are really only 20% important to us. Get hold of a journal and spend some time deciding on what is important to you and then start to prioritize. You will be amazed at what you can accomplish in a much shorter period of time.
8. Dream. “Without a vision, the people will perish”. Dreams keep us alive. They get us up in the morning with with renewed vitality and motivation to tackle the day with purpose. My husband and I have a dream book. In it we write the things that we want to achieve. Some are small and personal such as dancing lessons, others are large and longterm such as a successful online business to create passive income. Write everything you have dreamed of – no judgements. It will surprise you what is really in your heart
9. Never lose sight of the goal. This can be difficult when you are seeing few results. Keep coming back to your dream book. Remember why you embarked on this journey.
10. Build a good support team around you. The athelete has the coach and the physio to name just a few. You will need a mentor or coach. Hopefully, I can be part of that journey for you as we learn together. I would also like to recommend the people we use Andrew and Daryl Grant. Just go to the banner ad on the front page of my blog. I’ll be talking more later about this topic.
11. Understand your personal roadblocks, obstacles and weaknesses. They say that 90% of the battle is in the mind. This is the purpose of this blog and I will be writing much more on this topic.
12. Educate yourself about the process, skills and techniques that you will need to acquire to be successful at the internet business you have chosen. This is your fasttrack to success and as already mentioned in Point Number 1 see my Entry 2 post.
13. Remember to take care of your main tool – yourself. No one else is going to do this and if you burn out or go off the rails then your dreams of winning the prize will never be realized.

Let me know if you have any other points that would help other people in this area of running the race to win the prize. In particular, I would love to hear what roadblocks you have to achieving your dreams?

Until next time
Julie

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