There are so many ways that coaches and holistic healers can get a website today.

You can go the ‘old fashioned’ route and have a website designer build a pages in HTML. You can use some of the pre-made services you’ll find on any number of hosts (though most of the designs look like they’re 10 years old). Or you can have your website created on one of the myriad of publishing platforms available today.

Of course my favorite publishing platform for coaches, healers and the other service providers I work with is WordPress. There’s others, of course. But having use other platforms I find WordPress to be the right combination of ease-of-use, expandability and power for my clients with their coaching and healing practices.

And since I’m constantly getting asked why I like WordPress so much as a platform and content management system for coaches and healers, let me offer a bunch of my reasons:

1. WordPress is free!
   That’s right, WordPress itself costs nothing. It’s open source code and protected under GPL licensing so that no one can directly sell WordPress (keep that in mind when you speak with your website designer). Now that doesn’t mean your designer shouldn’t get paid for their time – they should. And it should be clear that what you’re paying for isn’t WordPress, but the skills, time and support from your website designer.
2. Easy Editing
   Adding and editing your content in WordPress is a snap. Click a single button and WordPress creates a new page or blog post for your site. And the editor works in very similar way to Microsoft Word – take a look at this video. So with your coaching website on WordPress there’s no need to pay your web designer to do simple updates to you copy or even add new pages to your site. Huge time and cost savings.
3. Easily Add Audio/Video
   So many coaches and healers I work with today are using video and audio to promote their businesses. Well, WordPress makes incredibly easy to add either (or both) to your website. No more sweating through code trying to get that YouTube video on your site (if you even dare).
4. Easily Change Your Navigation Bar
   Your navigation bar is one of the most important parts of your website. Being able to add new links, change their names or reorder them has long time been reserved to coders. But with the most recent versions of WordPress you – the coach, healer or service professional – can have complete control over your navigation bar with a simple drag-and-drop feature. This is yet another way to that you have control over your site and can save tons of money in updating your site.
5. Small Learning Curve
   I keep talking about how easy using WordPress is to use. One of the reasons is because the learning curve is so small. Now I’m not talking about using all of WordPress. I’m simply speaking as a publishing platform and content management system. I usually teach my coaching clients how to create, publish and edit their first page in about 10 minutes. Pretty small learning curve for a huge capability.
6. Integrated website and Blog
   As I write this I keep watching myself want to write ‘the most important thing’ about WordPress. But you can’t really have more than one ‘most important’ thing. That said, having your website and your blog on the same domain name is vital. Not only does WordPress allow you to do so, it allows you to completely manage both the pages and the blog posts of your coaching website from one place.
7. No Limits on Size of Your Website
   Your coaching website on WordPress can be as small or large as you need it. There’s no limit to the number of pages or to blog posts. This site, for instance, has more than 500 posts and over 130 pages – and I haven’t written that much in the past couple of years. So your coaching website on WordPress can scale to handle whatever size site you need.
8. Integrates Easily with Social Media Sites
   People offering a service build their business on relationships. Nowhere on the web are relationships more accessible than social media. There are so many ways to get WordPress to work well with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +1 and a whole slew of social media sites that it would take many posts to explain even a bit of what the possibilities are. Just assume that your WordPress website will be able to do anything you’ve seen done already on the web – often very easily.
9. Plugins
   Plugins are add-ons to WordPress that give it expanded functionality. While at this moment I don’t know how many plugins there are, there must be thousands. Think of anything you want to do on your website – anything to better promote your coaching or healing practice – and there’s a really good chance there’s a plugin (or ten) already created to do it. Nearly all are plugins are free as well.
10. Themes
    Themes are basically designs in WordPress (though they can do more). The great news is there are thousands of free and paid themes available from a massive source of designers. Want something custom? That can be done too. Basically, if you see a design you like it can be built as a WordPress theme. As a matter of fact, I often rebuild existing coaching and healing websites as WordPress themes.
11. Security
    No system on the internet is hack proof. And WordPress has gone through some growing pains when it comes to security. Yet security in WordPress is excellent. You can even go the extra mile and make it even more secure through specific plugins and coding. I have a package I call the WordPress Security Protocol which  you’re welcome to ask me about.
12. Google Loves WordPress
    Google loves content and WordPress allows you easily publish what you want when you want it. Combine that with the clean code, a number of SEO features both built in and through plugins, and easy content submission through sitemaps and RSS and you have a powerful system for getting your coaching website found in search results.
13. Forever Expandable
    The same way there’s no limit to how many pages and posts your site can have, WordPress makes expanding your site incredibly easy. Want to add a membership or shopping cart to your coaching site? No need to a full redesign or even another ‘part’ to your website. WordPress, with a bit of coding and some choice plugins, can grow to whatever you need your site to do.
14. Lots and Lots of People Are Using WordPress
    If your coaching or healing site isn’t on WordPress chance are you know quite a few people whose are. Not only can they tell you about how great and easy WordPress is to use, but they can also show you around a little bit. And because WordPress is so widely used now, there’s very little chance of it ever going away.
15. Support
    Of course I support all my clients through one-on-one training and access to my large catalog of short, topic-specific video tutorials. But beyond me there’s tens of thousands of active WordPress users that you can likely find an answer to just about any question you have around your WordPress website.
16. BONUS: WordPress.tv
    This is a great site that has all sorts of professionally recorded video relating to WordPress. There’s even a great ‘How-to’ section that covers a number of topics.
17. BONUS #2: Autonomy
    Before I ever became a WordPress fanatic I had two question – how much control can I give non-techie users over their sites and how easy would it be to learn? Well, WordPress is so easy to use I often teach my clients how to blog, add and edit pages, change what’s in their sidebar and change their navigation bar in as little as 20 minutes. Seems odd, but my goal is to make myself unnecessary to my clients. And WordPress does a great job at that.

Oh yeah, and let me clear one more thing out of the way – your WordPress website DOES NOT need to look like a blog. As I said above, anything that can be done in web design can be done on a WordPress website.

WordPress rocks! It really does. And here’s my bottom line statement on how it can serve you: If you can’t currently edit your own website’s content, then you should move your website to WordPress. There are many options for doing so – each of which we can discuss in a short, no-pressure phone call. Remember, in moving your site to WordPress you can:

• Keep your existing design the way it is – we just make it a WordPress theme and show you how to use it.
• Keep part of your existing design and make those updates you’ve been wanting to make as we turn your site into a WordPress theme.
• Get a completely different website design with features and functions you never had before.
• Any other combination you can think of.

Just get in touch with me to talk about how WordPress can help you specifically. I take calls from people everyday who pick my brain and get their questions answered. As I said, no pressure – just help, advice and guidance.

The list of why you should be using WordPress for your coaching, holistic healing or professional service website could go on. But WordPress only matters if you’re using it. So find out how you – and your business – can benefit from this amazing publishing platform.

And if you’re using WordPress already for your site, tell me what you love (and don’t love) in the comment box.

(note: image from Lincolnian (Brian) on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Do a Google search for click here. What you’ll find is around 1.7 billion (yes billion) instances in Google’s database where website owners have used “click here” as linked text on their website. Let me guess, that includes you, right?

But click here is seldom the best option for linked text. Take a look at these two examples:

To find out more about how I can help you grow your business, click here.

or

Find out more about how I can help you grow your business.

Which link tells you, as the site’s visitor, where you’ll go when you click the link? Isn’t it clearer in the second example that the link will lead you to how I can help you grow your business?

This may seem like splitting hairs a bit. But really, it’s not. There are a number of reasons to use descriptive linked text rather than click here. Here’s a few:

• Clarity – Descriptive linked text makes it much clearer where the link will you while click here basically just offers the command – click here. There’s no real clarity of why you’d click here or where you’ll end up.
• Scannable – If you scan most website pages, the links will stand out. They’re usually colored and styled differently than the text around them. So when you use descriptive linked text your visitors can scan your page for where they’d like to go next. Click here simply doesn’t offer the same advantage.
• SEO – If you care the least bit about search engine optimization, and you should, adding keywords in the links is one method of optimizing your text for search engines. Think about the 1.7 billion instances on websites that are using click here. Is that really what they’re hoping to rank for?
• Usability – As a big fan of the ‘don’t make me think’ principle of website design, I don’t want my users to have to interpret, guess or consider where my links will lead them. And that’s exactly what click here does – forces my visitors to think.
• Accessibility – Remember, not all your visitors will be using beautiful, graphics browsers to view your site. Some will use braille, aural or text browsers. Think about how visitors that are blind or have reading disabilities will use your site. Asking them to ‘click here’ gives them no idea where they’re going to end up.
• Readability – Isn’t it simply nicer to read content where the links have been crafted into the content rather than breaking it up with the old click here?
• Printability - More people print out your web pages than you might realize. Click here just doesn’t mean anything on a printed page and often breaks up the flow of text.

That said, you can use whatever linking strategies you like. Sometimes you can get higher response rates by directing people to click on a link. I suggest, however, not making a habit out of it. Use terms like ‘click to continue’ or ‘read on’ sparingly and only when you really need too. Otherwise, let your visitors know where they’re heading when then select a link.

So, how are you using click here. And what’s your overall in content link strategy?

(note: image from ovizo0n on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

But I know there are some people who read my blog regularly who don’t have any experience with WordPress. Perhaps they’ve heard of it and have no idea what it is. Maybe they’ve even used it but haven’t really understood how powerful it can. And yet I know there are others who haven’t heard of WordPress at all.

So I’m going to share a few short screencasts I’ve made over the past year to introduce some of the most powerful user features in WordPress and show you why you want to consider using it for your next website.

Now, just so we’re clear, this set of screencasts are meant for website owners who are running a business and who want and need to manage their websites themselves without having to deal with code. So these videos are made not for the coder or web developer – there’s plenty of that stuff. These videos are for coaches, healers and anyone else who has a service-based business so you can see what’s possible with a WordPress website.

So, let’s get started…

Using WordPress to Create, Update and Edit Your Website’s Content

Being able to publish and edit your own content whenever you want is a vital part of having a successful business website. And with WordPress you can do so without having to know a lick of code or hire a webmaster to do it for you. This saves you huge amounts of money and time. And streamlines you opportunities to make money. Watch how easy it is to edit your own content in WordPress:

Easily Manage and Update Your Navigation Bar

There were ways with systems before WordPress to edit your own content. But there’s almost never been an easy way to put control over your website’s navigation bar before WordPress 3.0. Take a look at how easy you can add, move and rename your nav buttons:

Change Your Design Whenever You Want

You can see from the two videos above that WordPress gives you incredible power over your website without having to know a lick of code. Well, it gets even better. The last feature I want to show you is how easy it is to to change your design using WordPress.

Now you still may want or need to hire someone (I can recommend somebody) to set WordPress up the way you want it with all the features and create for you a custom visual design that brands your business. But once your site is in WordPress, changing designs is as easy a the click of button. Watch…

As I said, you may still want to work with a web designer to get your site initially setup in WordPress or build our customized website design. You may even want to hire someone to create your next design or modify one of the thousands of existing WordPress themes for you. The bottom line of why this is so, as I say, ‘game changing’ is because you’re using WordPress the cost and development time of a redesign is cut greatly. I can’t give you specifics as price will depend on your needs and your developers skills and offer (for instance, I merge website design with business coaching so my clients learn how to use their websites to meet their business goals).

As you can see, WordPress opens the web to you in ways that just weren’t possible just a couple years ago – at least for those who don’t know how to code websites. That’s why I say that every website needs to be in a system like WordPress.

So if you’re website isn’t in WordPress or if you’re about to have your first website built, let’s have a short conversation about how to get you using WordPress. Feel free to contact me and we can discuss your specific needs.

What sort of questions does this bring up for you?

What website do you have that you’d like to move to WordPress?

note: WordPress is open source software licensed under GPL. It is open to the public to freely use and modify and it is never for sale – meaning no one can charge you a license fee for using WordPress. Setup, design, customization, etc – yes. But to charge you for WordPress is against the license.

note: image from Nahh on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Obviously, the advertising industry picked up on blogs and social media pretty early on and revenue streams based on advertising has matured quite rapidly. And like with anything on the web, the internet marketing crowd, with their usual approach, moved into the social media space.

But for the most part businesses that offer services are only beginning to scratch the surface of how to use social media to create a space in the market and grow their business. And with the constant growth and massive potential blogging and social networking provide, it’s pretty obvious that social marketing is anything but a fad.

Just think about it for a moment. What’s one constant of marketing – that people will forever be looking for ways to solve the problems they face. Getting married and want to find the perfect wedding planner? You can likely find her (or him) blogging. Traveling for the first time to Fort Collins, Colorado? You’ll probably want to comfortable hotel. Want to increase your business profits 50% over the next 12 months? There’s a business advisor (who I happen to know personally) who can likely help you do it (just give him a call or shoot him an email).

You see, publishing to a blog can establish your expertise in the area you’re an expert in. Your blog serves as a platform for sharing what you know. And when you share what you know with the people who need what you know, you’re creating a space for yourself in the market.

But the blog lets you go even further. Better than creating a market, your blog lets you create a community. Through conversations in the comment box and an open line of communication, your blog, and hence your business service, can become vitally important to your reader’s success. In other words, you can find your own niche within the market.

And here I’m talking only about blogging. Add in relationships in Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Combine that with all the social bookmarking and social sharing sites that allow for the spread of your excellent content and what you have is an entire social marketing platform based in conversation and relationship.

You see, it’s relationship that drive the market. Always has and it always will. Things got a little sidetracked as we moved from the quaint neighborhood drugstore and small-town lumber yard to the CVS and Home Depot monopolies. We gained price savings, but what we lost was the relationship.

Social media is bringing back the relationship into business. This is one of the reasons why I feel social media has exploded. Consumers can once again have control over the marketplace by choosing who they want to be in relationship with. And it’s why I strong feel that social marketing is not at all a fad. It’s here to stay. It’ll evolve, just as the internet always does. But the web based on individual control and relationship-driven services will continue to prosper.

The the only question remains is how are you using social media to increase your business? And if you’re not, why not( Maybe a call to that business growth advisor I spoke of would be a good idea)?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from kalandrakas on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Sounds sort of crazy, huh? No one in their right mind would ever conceive building a neighborhood or developing a community that wasn’t linked with ways to get in and out. In essence, without houses being connected by sidewalks and streets, there would be no community all – just a bunch of unreachable, free-standing (and empty) homes.

Well, if your website isn’t developing a community around it, then you’re not thinking too differently than the subdivision developer who doesn’t build streets. And if you’re not building community around your website, then it’s likely your business is suffering online.

The reason is people want to belong. They want to find like-minded people with similar interests to connect with. They want to associate with other people who are in similar situations. In other words…they want community.

Nowhere is this more evident today then in the explosion of social media on the internet. What do you think the 500 billion people are doing on Facebook? And what are all these ‘tweets’ on Twitter about? Why are people using these sites in record numbers?

Because these sites allow people to connect with other people. In some cases, people with similar interest. In others, people they can learn from. And in still other cases people who can help them solve their problems – whether they’re personal, professional, health or business and so on.

Everyday the internet becomes more and more of a space for social engagement. And so should your website. Your website needs  to evolve with the changes toward a social internet or you’ll quickly watch it fall behind. Right now, this moment, sites that are socially oriented are building communities and, through those communities, growing their business. Sites that are not community-oriented are merely becoming placeholders for outdated and uninteresting content. Sorry, it’s just the fact of the matter. People don’t just want to read, they want to feel they’re connected to something. That something could (should) be you, your website, your business, etc.

So what does all this mean for you?

Basically you need to engage your target audience where they are! And right now, they’re on social media sites connecting with other people (read: other service providers).

You need to develop a website where you can engage your audience – and them you. You need to develop a web-based marketing plan where you’re actively engaging real-life people through these social spaces using these social tools. And you need to remember that business happens most easily, most often from relationships. A community, remember, is just a group of relationships – nothing more really.

As for the tools – Twitter, Facebook, Biznik, LinkedIn, etc – forget about all the hullaballoo and fancy marketing tactics. You don’t need to know any of that stuff. All you need are to know can be summed up in these two words: Listen and Engage! Listen to what people who have similar interests as you are talking about. And then, engage them in conversations. From conversations you build relationships. String together a bunch of relationships and you have a community.

Listen and engage! Listen and engage! Listen and engage. That’s it. Do this and it will change your business, your understanding of the internet and bring you into relationships with people who you have a natural affinity to. Listen…and…engage!

How are you using social media and your website to engage potential clients?

Are you listening to what they’re talking about? If so, how….if not, why not?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Luke Chan on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

If you have a website, it serves one purpose – to sell something

Whether you’re selling goods and services or ideas and opinions – websites are about selling. If you have an offer, you want people to buy it. If you like something, you want people to try it. If you believe something, you want people to believe it too. And if you know something, you want other people to know it as well.

It doesn’t really matter how you slice it, the point of a website is to sell something. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a website? To display pretty pictures for everyone to see? Of course not. Websites are about selling because as people, we’re selling all the time. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

You see, selling is merely an exchange of something that’s valuable to someone. That’s it. Selling is nothing more than an exchange. It’s nothing to avoid, be concerned about or even fear. We’re selling all the time. I’m selling you my opinion right now. And if it has value, you’ll buy it and make it part of yours.

I think where selling gets a bad wrap is when we remember those annoying little experiences when someone was trying to pressure us into something we didn’t want. You know what I mean. The appliance salesman who really doesn’t get that sales is about relationship rather than the next commission to be made. Or the car salesman who follows you around the lot when you just want to look around. In these cases it’s pretty obvious that some sales people just don’t understand that selling is a natural, human process. They try too hard, really. And from our experiences with these sort of people, we feel icky about selling.

But there’s no need to fell bad about selling. As I said, we’re selling our ideas, our thoughts, our beliefs and our opinions all the time. So really, selling is as natural as having a conversation. And it’s through conversation that we go about selling –

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even on our websites. We use the conversation on our websites to develop relationships with people who may want to buy what we offer (e.g. what we’re selling). That’s the entire point of having a website.

So here’s some pointers I’ve put together to help you with selling on your website – and in your business as a whole. Use these suggestions and don’t be afraid to see yourself selling what you know, think or believe. Embrace it and find a new freedom in giving what you have of value to people who value what you know.

1. Don’t try to sell. If someone’s contacting you, they have some level of interest already. Find out what their want or need is first. Then, give them the information they need to make a choice. On your website, identify their problems and help them see that you can help them solve them.
2. Engage people. One of the most important aspects of selling is engagement. You want to engage your prospective clients and customers fully. Use your website to meet people where they are and engage them in conversation. Stay in the conversation as it organically moves toward a transaction. Not all will, but if you engage more people will buy than not because you’re showing them you care.
3. Care damn it! Really care about the people who you engage and who visit your website. Caring is the single most important aspect of selling. Listen to what they want, be empathetic about where they are and just give a crap about them as people. They’ll know the difference.
4. Be authentic. Selling is a natural as having a conversation. But we don’t often approach it that way. All you need to do is be yourself. People will naturally gravitate toward you when you’re real with yourself and with them. And forget all the sales techniques and just be a person trying to help people. You’ll refine how as you go.
5. Be transparent. Be a real person being real with people. Read that again! If you don’t know something, be honest about it. There’s nothing wrong with finding out the answer and getting back to someone. People will be pleased when you say you don’t know. More importantly, it will build trust with them.
6. Know what you’re selling. Clarity in what you’re selling is so, so important. If you don’t know, you certainly can’t share it and if you can’t share it you can’t sell it. So find out everything you can about what you’re selling. See it from different angles and approaches.
7. Know why you’re selling it. So often overlooked is this question of why. But you must know the answer. Is it just to make money? Or are you wanting to make meaning and a difference in people’s lives? If your product or service is about helping people, then know it and sell it that way.
8. Know who you’re selling too. This is so often missed…you’ve got to know who you’re selling too. Not the person so much, as their need, their likes, their dislikes. That means, listen. Listen to what their need is first. Get as much information as you can about what they believe they need.
9. Match your solution to their problem. If you listen well, people will tell you exactly what problem they’re trying to solve and specifically why they called you to solve it. At that point you merely need to match your ability to solve their problem to the problem they believe they need solved. Don’t change or reframe their problem for them , reframe your solution.
10. Remember, it’s okay to sell. Selling isn’t a dirty thing. Remember what I’ve said above, we’re selling all the time – our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, etc. So selling is natural. The oddities come in when money’s involved. And there’s nothing wrong with selling what you have to someone who needs it and making money, even a lot of money, from it. It’s just an exchange.

Now, don’t treat this like every other blog post

Really, I mean that. Don’t just read this post, leave a comment and then go on to the next thing to do. Use what I’ve given you here. Sit down with it and look over your website, your marketing, and how you convert your prospective clients. Refine your sales process. And if you don’t have a sales process, create one. Honestly, it will make a massive difference in how you do business.

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I’ll even make the 10 key points here into a PDF for you to download. Just click the icon at the right and you’ll download the 10 keys here right away. No email address or opt-in of any sort. All I ask is if you find value, share it with your friends:

• Retweet this post on Twitter
• Post it on Facebook
• Vote it up on Biznik

Remember, selling isn’t a scary thing and it’s not a bad thing. Selling is a natural part of being a human being. So embrace it. You can sell with integrity and give your more people the chance to be helped through your products and services.

How comfortable are you with selling? What’s your own sales process?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from darma communications on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

It’s just the nature of creating something – specifically creating something that involves other people. And if you’re selling anything – ad space, products, services, etc – you’re creating something for other people.

So when you find out you’re marketing isn’t working like you thought or that your great idea isn’t seen as such a great idea by the people in your market – what do you do?

When the sales slow down and the bills aren’t getting paid – what do you do?

And on those days that you have no motivation, no real desire to grind away at making your business work – what do you?

In other words, what keeps you going?

For me, personally, it’s my vision. Certainly it’s the goals I want to achieve, that’s part of it. But it’s not all of it.

What keeps me going is wanting to live the lifestyle I want – to have a flexible schedule and to be able to work from the hotel while my family is enjoying the beach. Or the ability to work a 3 day work week (3 long days, mind you). Or the opportunity to work at night in the summer so that I can spend the days with my wife and kids. Or taking 4 day weekends to go camping. Or taking a day off so my wife can rest when she’s sick. And the list goes on. For me, as I said, I want flexibility – having the flexibility in my schedule and my location that allows me to do more of what I want when I want.

But I don’t just want to talk about my lifestyle or dream about it – I want to actually live it. And living it means actually taking the time when it’s available. It means being active and spending gobs of time with my kids. Ultimately it means balancing work with life.

You see, I don’t want a life where I’m bogged down by my work. If I did, I could go out and work for any corporation, put in less effort and allow someone else to dictate my lifestyle. Sure, I want – and do – make a nice living. But I don’t want my pursuit of money to become more important than what’s most important to me – quality time with my family, hiking, my spiritual practice, etc. All these things I put above making money.

BUT, I still focus on making money – as a means to the ends I wish to live by. So I work in my business to make money solely so I can have the lifestyle I want. And that’s what keeps me going on the days when it’s just not so easy or comfortable to work for myself.

So that’s me. How about you, what keeps you going when it’s less than easy?

(note: image from Potatojunkie on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

I know it’s a big question. And I know it’s a question that you can break down into categories.

However, for just these next few moments, don’t think about the parts of your life that you can answer yes about. And, don’t consider that you’re sort of doing what you want with your life or that you’re close. For the next few moments just answer the question – honestly: Are you doing what you want with your life? – yes or no?

For me, personally, the answer is no. May sound odd since I have pretty rich life. But I’m not doing exactly what I want with my life. Sure, I’m successfully self-employed with a business that continue to grow each year – even in this crazy economy. Yep, I’ve been blessed with four phenomenal children and the most lovely of women a man could ever dream of as my wife. What else could I want?

Yet there are areas of my life where I don’t feel settled; where I still don’t feel that I’m living to my potential. There’s even areas where I feel a bit off from my life’s purpose as though I’m wandering. And neither my wife nor I are settled on where we live. We’re grateful for our house and large yard, but we don’t feel like where we are is really ‘home’ yet.

Then there’s my business. If I keep doing what I’m doing, we’ll live comfortably for years to come. Building websites, coaching clients for marketing, business and social media strategies and helping build my client’s following as been good to us. No complaints there (and thank you, by the way).

However, it’s clear to me that I’m not fully tapping my potential. There’s so much more that I want to do; so much more I can do with my business. But it means changing things. It means getting out of my comfort zone and shaking things up a bit. It means trying something new and taking risks. Something that was much easier to do when I didn’t have a family to support.

Now by risk, I’m not talking about closing down or destroying my business so I can go after some new endeavor. That’s not risk – that’s stupidity. The risk I’m talking about isn’t about putting my life or my family in danger. Rather, I’m talking about the risk that puts my comfort level in danger. It’s my comforts that keeps me where I am. And while being comfortable isn’t bad or wrong, it can keep me back from growing my business and improving my life.

William James, the pragmatic American philosopher once wrote, “Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.”

Yet, to find our second wind, we have to get out  of our comfort zone. To get outside our comfort zone we have to be willing to push ourselves past our fear, past our disbelief, past our self-limiting thoughts and continue striding toward our dreams. If you can walk a mile, you can strive to run a mile. If you can run a mile, you can push yourself to run two. In other words, with a little learning, a little striving and a bit of hard work, you can go further, faster than you ever dreamed possible.

And while it may seem fitting at this point to share with you the areas if my life where I feel I can be more, I’d rather not at this point. This article really isn’t about me, my process or my own dreams. No! This article is about you. It’s a call from my heart to yours to ask you to take a risk; take a risk toward what you really want to be doing. And work at it. Give it your attention, your efforts. Stride to your dreams…and watch for your second wind.

You’ve made it to the bottom of this article. So what will you do now? Will you just go about your day believing those limiting thoughts about what you can’t do; what you can’t have? Or are you going to take a risk in the direction of your dreams?

I know what I choose.

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Two Steps Behind on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Studying philosophy makes you think. It opens and expands your mind to all sorts of different, sometimes penetrating ideas. And in many cases, philosophy is perfect for working on business strategy and tactics. Nowhere is that more obvious than salespeople, the world over, studying Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War – the great work on military strategy – to try to gain an advantage over their ‘opponents.’

If we could consult another great Asian philosopher, Confucius, what might he teach us about running our business? What wisdom might we extract from his in depth look at life and the reality of things? Let’s take a look…

Perhaps one of Confucius’ most famous quotes is: I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Think about how that applies to your business. All day long I can give you advice about how to better your business, how to clarify your marketing message, how to generate more leads or how to close more sales. And you can spend all sorts of time watching what others are doing. But it’s not until you do it for yourself that it becomes yours. And it’s not until you take action that you can truly say you understand. Understanding comes through doing.

Another great and famous quote is: It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.

So many small business owners start out running. They get an idea for their business, and go full-forward at it. Soon, however, they fizzle out. The sprinter can never outrun the marathoner – and business is a marathon. There’s no need to be in a rush. Solid houses aren’t built in weeks or months but in years and decades. Give yourself the chance to be in business for five years or more by working as though you want a business to last 50.

One of my favorite Confucius quotes is: Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

Look, as a business owner, you’re going to stumble, you’re going to have setbacks and you’re going to fail. Plan on that being the case. Successful businesses aren’t built by always being successful. Quite the contrary actually; successful businesses are built on the backbone of what’s learned in making mistakes. So when you make them, don’t allow them to be lessons in how to move forward and not nooses in which you hang yourself with.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

This one stands on its own. As a small business owner, it’s important to learn. It’s also important to think about what you learn and how it applies to your business. Most small business owners simply take advice or watch what others are doing and try to implement it. Often, they end up gaining little or no success and figure that either they missed something or that they’re just not as smart as the other guy. But when you learn something about your business, you need to consider how (think about) it fits into your business. How does it enhance your business? How does it alter what you’ve been doing? And what sort of response to you expect to see by trying it. Not everything done by others should be done in your business. Rather, find what compliments your business model and integrate what you learn.

Truthfully, I could go on and on with Confucius and his wisdom all day long. These are a few of my favorite quotes from Confucius – from amongst the tens of thousands of quotes I’ve collected over the years. We can learn so much about ourselves and our futures by looking to the past.

Who, in history, has inspired you and your business? And where have you found critical advice in those who came before us?

Let’s talk about it…

(note: image from Rob Web on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Whether it’s been remodeling my kitchen, building a pole barn, learning to kayak or developing websites, I’ve been one of those people who like to do things myself. Usually I read a little, research a little, make a plan and jump right in. And it’s worked pretty good – most of the time.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with doing everything yourself. It’s certainly serviced me well. I’ve learned a great many things and have gained a number of skills over the years. And the confidence I’ve gained in doing things myself has led me to take on projects I might otherwise shy away from doing myself.

It’s also meant that sometimes things don’t go so well. Sometimes I waste more time and spend more money than I would have having a professional help me. For instance, redoing the lighting in my kitchen during a remodel. What would have taken an electrician and his crew less than a day took me 5 long days doing it myself.

So while I’m definitely an advocate of doing it yourself, there’s times when doing it yourself isn’t wise…

What are you willing to do?

Planning for success is one thing. Executing for success is another.For instance, going back to my kitchen remodel, when I think of tiling my backsplash behind my countertop, I cringe at the idea. Now I’ve tiled before, so I know how. And, I know just enough to know that the backsplash is more tedious and time consuming because of all the little detailed cuts involved. So I hired that job out.

It’s the same in your coaching or healing practice. There’s plenty of things you should be doing to increase your reach, market your business and get more clients. But how much can you really do on your own? How much time to you truly have to learn it all on your own? More importantly, how much are you willing to do on your own?

Knowing when to get help.

To be successful with your business – meaning getting more clients, or selling more products or courses – it’s important to know when you can realistically do it on your own and when you need help.

With most coaches or healers I speak with – many who aren’t my clients – it becomes painfully obvious rather quickly that the reason their businesses aren’t full of clients is because they’re trying to do too much themselves. They believe that by doing it themselves they’re saving money and increasing their bottom line. The thing is, nothing could be further from the truth. The real truth, though it’s difficult even for me to admit all the time, is that…

You can’t do everything well that you do yourself.

It’s a hard truth to swallow sometimes, but it’s true. Trying to do everything in your business yourself will lead you to going crazy, wanting to quit or working so much that you never enjoy the reasons you began working for yourself in the first place. None of these are good. All of these lead to burnout and little success. And most of us know what that looks like.

Take marketing, for an example. You know you need to market your coaching practice to eventually end up with more clients. But what you do? How do you market effectively? How do you reach the people who are looking for what you offer?

And once you do, how do you convert them into leads, move them along into becoming prospective clients and then convert them into paying clients?

All this is a process. Each step has a number of proven solutions and task that can help you land more clients. But which do you choose? And if you do choose a program to follow – such as Robert Middleton’s Action Plan approach or Mark Silver’s Heart of Business model – how do you know you can even implement what they’re suggesting?

It’s okay to get the help you need.

It really is. Not only is it okay, it’s necessary to get help in order to be successful. Apple, Inc knows this which is why they have a Board of Directors from diverse backgrounds. Richard Branson of Virgin fame knows this which is how he can run dozens of companies under the Virgin moniker and have nearly all of them successful.

A little closer to you and I – every single person you know who’s been successful, either offline or on, has done so because they’ve asked for help from people. The gurus of marketing, whose programs you’ve probably bought – have learned what they know from other marketing experts and then adapted it for their own business. The highly successful coaches out there have hired people to teach them how to be successful and grow their businesses to such levels. Even your friend from your coaching course has likely hired someone to help them learn how to build a website or write marketing copy or build a list.

Somewhere along the way, those who are successful have asked for and gotten the help they need.

So what’s stopping you from getting the help you need?

Truly? What’s stopping you?

Is it the cost? Just ask yourself how you expect to make more money all on your own. Can you do it? Well if you can – forget what I’ve said and get to it. But if you can’t then you need to seek out someone who can help you. Failing to do so is actually costing you money in lost opportunity and growth.

I went through this one myself and realized that if I paid a coach (a really good coach) $2000 per month for their help that in a few short months I’d be making enough to cover what I was paying him – meaning I’d be breaking even. And everything after that would be increased profit for me. So I figured, if he can show me how to make back his fee in a few months, then he could show me how to make much more than his fee. And it’s worked.

That’s why I say that if you’re not getting the help you need – it’s costing you money. It’s costing you lost growth

Is time the issue? Well, that’s something that just has to be broken through. Time is an issue for every type of business owner – coaches and healers included. You simply have to make time to work on you business while you’re working in your business. I say it that way on purpose. Working in your business is all the stuff you do to get paid – work with clients, bookkeeping, followup, etc. Working on your business is visioning, planning, developing new products, etc.

You must be working on your business to grow. It’s so vital to your growth that if you don’t, you won’t. Meaning, if you’re not working on developing new parts to your business, then it’ll be very difficult to make more money than you are now.So you need to set aside so many hours each week for doing things to expand your business. And what should those things be? Not to be trite, but that’s why you’re asking someone to help you – so it can be specific for you, your vision and your business.

Whatever is stopping you from getting the help you need, push it out of the way. You can find someone who will help you. Just be sure to find someone you trust, who  you communicate well with, and who you feel you can collaborate best with toward reaching and increasing your business goals.

Can I help you? Possibly. Best that we have a short phone conversation first to see if we’re a good fit for each other. But even if we’re not, keep searching for someone who is. It’s just that important! But if you want to talk with me, here’s how to get a free consultation.

Are you currently getting help from a coach, a business consultant, an advisor, a marketing guru? How’s it been? And if not, why not?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from H4NUM4N on Flickr, some rights reserved)