Acting Successful from the Start
Acting Successful from the Start
I’ve seen the same strategy in other business owners. At an ICF Chapter meeting, I spoke to a Life Coach who exhibited in every word she said and the way she showed up that she was highly successful already, yet I found out later she’d only been coaching for weeks! Right next to her was another professional coach with years of experience, yet she seemed like a very new coach.
Choose Your Attitude
The first coach wasn’t posing or pretending. Her solid presence came from choosing to act successful from the beginning.
There’s a not-so-winning mindset that often comes with the first few years of being a service entrepreneur: I am new and therefore I should take any client I can get for any price.
That’s how it was for Susan. . .
Susan finished coach training over a year ago and has logged over 100 hours coaching, but she still feels new. She has trouble asking fees that will make her enough money to sustain her coaching business. She imagines that her friends, family and even some prospects don’t take her seriously as a professional coach. But the truth is that Susan doesn’t take herself seriously, and she shows that with many of her actions.
* Taking on less than ideal clients.
* Agreeing to sessions at times she’d rather not work.
* Discounting her fees to get a new client or reducing her terms to less sessions each month to please a current client.
* Setting up barter arrangements with clients whose services she doesn’t really want.
* Giving sample sessions that sometimes last hours or giving away additional sessions if the client doesn’t hire her on the spot.
Susan is a natural coach and her clients get great value from their work together. But, no matter how much positive feedback or experience she gets, Susan still acts like a novice coach by:The discount approach is not paying off for Susan. She’s sending an unintended message: “I’m desperate”. Even though they are not consciously aware of it, prospects pick up her message and it dampens their interest in hiring her.
Scarcity Thinking is Contagious
You may be thinking, “Well, it is better to have any client at a lower fee or for fewer sessions than to have none at all.” Possibly — if what you’re after is experience only. But rarely will those non-ideal/half time/half fee clients become ideal clients and pay your full fee in the future. Nor are they likely to refer others to you.
The same energy that led you to compromise on fees or time may influence them to value the coaching less, to lean on you, and to under-invest in the co-creative process. The result is, you’ll work harder for less money, and your clients’ outcomes may suffer too. It’s a losing game.
Perfection Not Necessary
This is not about pretending to be better than you are. It’s about valuing who you are right now, recognizing all that you’ve already accomplished, and seeing yourself as already successful. Another coach, less competent than Susan, may get more clients and may actually serve them better by perceiving herself as a successful professional and valuing her services accordingly. Positive self-perception is a powerful attractor.
What do successful professionals act like? They consistently:
* Highly value their time. Whether it’s coaching hours, marketing hours or other business pursuits, they dedicate their time to achieving their ideal business.
* Think of themselves as already successful, charging corresponding fees and setting boundaries.
* Only enroll clients that fit their ideal client profile and graciously refer clients who are not the best fit.
Think about it… If you’re already successful, your time is at a premium. New clients happily fit into the time slots you have left because they really want to work with you! They don’t balk at your fees or terms because they perceive that you’re worth it. You can have this effect on prospects just by believing and acting successful right now!
Acting Successful from the Start - To learn more about this author, visit Rhonda Hess's Website.
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Several decades ago in an interview, Tom Watson, the founder of IBM, was asked: "To what do you attribute IBM’s phenomenal success?" He replied that he started IBM with a picture of how he would act when they’d achieved success. Then, he acted successful from the very beginning. His success strategy began with a winning mindset.
I’ve seen the same strategy in other business owners. At an ICF Chapter meeting, I spoke to a Life Coach who exhibited in every word she said and the way she showed up that she was highly successful already, yet I found out later she’d only been coaching for weeks! Right next to her was another professional coach with years of experience, yet she seemed like a very new coach.
Choose Your Attitude
The first coach wasn’t posing or pretending. Her solid presence came from choosing to act successful from the beginning.
There’s a not-so-winning mindset that often comes with the first few years of being a service entrepreneur: I am new and therefore I should take any client I can get for any price.
That’s how it was for Susan. . .
Susan finished coach training over a year ago and has logged over 100 hours coaching, but she still feels new. She has trouble asking fees that will make her enough money to sustain her coaching business. She imagines that her friends, family and even some prospects don’t take her seriously as a professional coach. But the truth is that Susan doesn’t take herself seriously, and she shows that with many of her actions.
* Taking on less than ideal clients.
* Agreeing to sessions at times she’d rather not work.
* Discounting her fees to get a new client or reducing her terms to less sessions each month to please a current client.
* Setting up barter arrangements with clients whose services she doesn’t really want.
* Giving sample sessions that sometimes last hours or giving away additional sessions if the client doesn’t hire her on the spot.
Susan is a natural coach and her clients get great value from their work together. But, no matter how much positive feedback or experience she gets, Susan still acts like a novice coach by:The discount approach is not paying off for Susan. She’s sending an unintended message: “I’m desperate”. Even though they are not consciously aware of it, prospects pick up her message and it dampens their interest in hiring her.
Scarcity Thinking is Contagious
You may be thinking, “Well, it is better to have any client at a lower fee or for fewer sessions than to have none at all.” Possibly — if what you’re after is experience only. But rarely will those non-ideal/half time/half fee clients become ideal clients and pay your full fee in the future. Nor are they likely to refer others to you.
The same energy that led you to compromise on fees or time may influence them to value the coaching less, to lean on you, and to under-invest in the co-creative process. The result is, you’ll work harder for less money, and your clients’ outcomes may suffer too. It’s a losing game.
Perfection Not Necessary
This is not about pretending to be better than you are. It’s about valuing who you are right now, recognizing all that you’ve already accomplished, and seeing yourself as already successful. Another coach, less competent than Susan, may get more clients and may actually serve them better by perceiving herself as a successful professional and valuing her services accordingly. Positive self-perception is a powerful attractor.
What do successful professionals act like? They consistently:
* Highly value their time. Whether it’s coaching hours, marketing hours or other business pursuits, they dedicate their time to achieving their ideal business.
* Think of themselves as already successful, charging corresponding fees and setting boundaries.
* Only enroll clients that fit their ideal client profile and graciously refer clients who are not the best fit.
Think about it… If you’re already successful, your time is at a premium. New clients happily fit into the time slots you have left because they really want to work with you! They don’t balk at your fees or terms because they perceive that you’re worth it. You can have this effect on prospects just by believing and acting successful right now!
Acting Successful from the Start - To learn more about this author, visit Rhonda Hess's Website.
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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