Entrepreneur Maria Thomas (Etsy), The DIY Guide to Growing a Company
Maria Thomas at Etsy talks about how to build a successful business. Don't lose the Essence of who you are. Operate with integrity, treat your customers and employees with respect, have clarity of purpose, know why your business exists and have a sense of social responsibility. Above all make sure your business has heart.
Future Leaders conference highlighted Gary Vaynerchuk. Here's a clip of Gary that I thought was inspirational.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqZ0RU95d4
Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library) talks about Building Personal Brand Within the Social Media Landscape.
He inspires us to care more about people then we care about ourselves. Love what you do, build brand equity in yourself.
Legacy is greater than currency. Today, information is everywhere. What’s really going to help your business is brand equity, which is believing in yourself and doing something that you love. If you love people, get out there and network; your business is your life.
What do you really want to do for the rest of your life? That’s what great businesses are built on. Have patience and do it with passion.
I'm taking a minute to post this link, because it touched my entrepreneurial heart and made me feel seen. It is only 2 minutes and 19 seconds long. The company who created it is called Grasshopper, and they work with entrepreneurs. The video stands by itself. It's about being an entrepeneur and what that REALLY means in the world.
Enjoy! -- Lydia
1. Start with a strategy. This is as simple as reviewing your top 5 clients that have given you the most dollars in the past year.
2. What were the common activities that they signed up for? What is the real issue that drove them to pull out their wallet for you?
3. What were the benefits that this group received from you?
4. What are the things you do that help clients achieve their goals? How can you organize this into a system and process that can result in products and residual income? In other words, get your system down on paper.
5. Build your own unique blueprint for success that will help potential clients, prospects or leads to achieve their goals.
6. Schedule sessions with prospective clients and tell them about your blueprint. Add value in a way that they will want to sign up for your 3 or 6 month program to achieve their own goals using your blueprint.
7. Have your own personal success story. What are the peak moments in your life and what were the steps that made you the person that you are today?
Three morals of the story:
1. You already have a unique system and program for success that clients can benefit from.
2. It is often hard for us to see our own genius. Get someone you trust to point it out to you.
3. Know that what you offer is totally, completely and without a doubt a unique and tried and true system that many of your clients can benefit from.
Thanks for checking in with my blog. Below are the times that I have available to discuss your tape and provide you with feedback. I'm looking forward to it, and please be prepared with specific intentions and goals that you wish to receive in this feedback session.
Monday, March 23rd
1:30-2:30 EST
3:00-4:00 EST
Wednesday, March 25th
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Thursday, March 26th
9:00-10:00 am EST
Friday, March 27th
10:30-11:30 am EST
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4:00-5:00 EST
My biggest lesson learned came out of Los Angeles, California. Last week, I attended Ali Brown's "Online Success Blueprint Workshop". I arrived to a room of 500 entrepeneurs. They were business owners, men, woman, all ages- the youngest entrepreneur was 20 years old, and the oldest was 88. They all had the same desire to connect their passions and what they really cared about into a successful and profitable business. One such person has already made a million dollars with her “Make every man want you” website. I met twenty other people who were in the million dollar plus bracket, living their passions and living their lives in full spirit and full heart. I watched Ali Brown introduce her Platinum and Diamond Mastermind clubs, and by doing so made 4 million dollars within the hour. This workshop was so much more than how to build your presence on the internet. It really was about each one of us, taking the best of who we are and bringing that out into the world.
4 morals of the story:
-You are in complete control of everything that happens around you and in your life.
-Step forward in faith. That will bring you everything you ever dreamed of.
- Be true to YOU. Be sure not to be busy trying to gain someone’s approval, doing things because you think that is what is expected, or looking for success by shadowing others.
-"Why be a second rate version of someone else when you can be a first rate version of yourself!" Judy Garland.
What we practice we get good at. Have you practiced really listening to yourself? Are you really listening to your words, to your body, to your intuition to hear what is most true for you now. Have you listened in between your own words to hear what the silence is telling you? How often do you hear your breath and listen to hear what is true.? How convinced are you that where you are spending your time and what you are paying attention to is the best and truest expression of what wants to happen through you now. What we practice we get good at . Here are some strategies to transform how you pay attention to what is in between your words and thoughts to find the truth:
Ask yourself what do you really want to achieve?
Go there for a moment and see, feel, taste, touch and smell it.
Breathe deeply and move into an expanded, connected, energetic state
Ask yourself again What is it that I really want now?
Speak the words outloud or take notes on what you hear
Ask yourself how does that feel, how true is what you are receiving?
Next ask yourself: What is the biggest potential coming through for you?
Call all others in the collective world who want to do that with you
Ask what is the next step to move forward
Speak insights and possibilities and ideas
Expand again energetically as in the beginning
Move forward holding yourself in the most magnificent and biggest self
Set the intention that you will align with your potential throughout the day
3 morals of the story
How often have you tolerated something hoping things will get better? How often have you hidden your emotions because you wanted to be seen as professional? How often have you tolerated a situation rather than make a change? Emotion can be extremely constructive and it can help you to point out your next opportunity.
"If you had understood in the moment that this was potential raising its hand, then you could have moved more graciously and powerfully into your next steps with it" (Visionary Leadership)
What if your emotion was simply a marker or indicator of what is next for you? What if your most current problem is really a source of your next biggest potential and greater purpose? Often emotion, even disillusionment is really beyond something personal. If we look at the bigger pictures and ask ourselves what was the reason for the break up? What was the reason for the change that occurred, that may have been devastating at the time? In asking these questions it creates the space for potential to show up. Often in time of change or great emotion we may not know what to do, leadership often shows up in the absence of knowing what to do. For example in my own business I have chosen to say no to certain activities just to have the space and to create the initiative in me to take the next steps towards what my leadership is calling for next. So the next time you experience a change, even an unwanted change, or negative emotion around that, you may simply want to get oriented toward what this emotion or change is telling you wants to happen next in your life.
3 Strategies to convert the energy of your emotions into trans formative movement: 1. Ask yourself from a big picture perspective what is the next big step coming? 2. The next time you are angry ask yourself what makes me care so much? 3. The next time you are frustrated ask yourself what makes me feel boxed in and smaller then I really am?
3 Morals of the story: 1. Emotion is constructive and calls you to your next leadership step. 2. Know that if you are experiencing negative or positive emotion, likely those you are in relationship with are experiencing the same thing. 3. Consider every feeling positive or negative as an indicator or a call to step up to considering new choices so that you can achieve your greatest potential.
How you see people is how they will behave. When you can hold someone in the most magnificent vision of how they can be they then align themselves toward that, and you behave that way towards them. As a leader you can often see the things that are wrong, not working and in holding that vision, we remarkably get more of the same thing. As a leader, I really search for the magnificence of who my client is and the potential of the organization they work for. Leaders, clients and friends easily move into that level of potential. In holding that energy, and what that means for you, for your business that actually allows the goal to manifest itself and be created very easily in the world. There’s something about the next goal and the next dream being truly in the mind’s eye and connected to your internal energy. So be clear on what you want, know it, feel it, and partner with it for its creation.
Three strategies: 1. Connect with potential. Be an open receiver for the energy of potential, vision and genius. 2. Physically breathe in the energy of the potential. 3. Visualize your most magnificent self and swim in the potential of that. Challenge yourself to move to the next level of potential. Physically hold that in front of you and ask what that is.
Morals of the story: 1. We choose our level of leadership and magnificence each day. 2. How we see others can determine the success and failure of those relationships. 3. True vision celebrates potential, possibility and something that can be.
When you are vibrantly open you are able to connect to your highest heart, your highest self. You’re tuned in to the highest possibility and the highest frequencies as opposed to the frequency of chaos and upset. In that higher state you find it easy to know what you need to know. You have abundant energy, you’re always inspired and able to transform yourself and others to move towards win/win outcomes for everyone involved. Part of accessing this vibrant open self is to say what’s true for you out loud, have someone witness what you have said or tape yourself speaking. You already know the answer you just have to hear yourself say it and trust your inner knowing. Check your knowing with evidence and facts and see the possibilities. Go and do the thing that inspires you, which you have passion for because that is exactly what you will do for others.
Three strategies to expand your vibrant leadership: 1. Physically expand and connect to your higher creative self. 2. Partner and align with your vision and integrate that within yourself. 3. Have a partner, colleague, mentor who you can speak to or email that will zing you energetically back to your vision and your goals.
Three morals of the story: 1. All power is from within and therefore under your control. 2. Tune into the bigger evolutionary purpose and potential and connect to it. 3. Set your intention to be inspiring.
