My partner Lynne and I set the intention two years ago to work easy.  Since then we have worked collaboratively to teach people how to release their emotional baggage quickly and easily, giving them back their life.

Working collaboratively has been invaluable for both of us in our business. The benefits we have received are as follows:

Less Money

I knew I needed to do more to promote my coaching practice but believed I would need to invest more money to do so.  Working together we combined our resources for Maestro Conferences and Constant Contact to promote our businesses.  Plus we invested in the development of the www.workeasy4lifebalance.com blog.

Saves Time

We joined forces to collaboratively promote our businesses by jointly writing a monthly newsletter and blog articles.  In less than an hour each month we were able to quickly outline each month’s newsletter.  Developing the articles felt like a breeze. Plus jointly developing and delivering our Emotional Hot Button Removal Workshops, rather than competing, saved both of us a lot of time.

Creativity and Productivity

Working together we came up with more creative ideas to promote our services. Instead of struggling on our own through the process of coming up with ideas for articles, in conversation knowledge that we want to share freely flows out of us. We decided to start the free monthly Catalyst LIVE! tele-call to share our expertise for living magical lives with listeners.  Working collaboratively greatly increased productivity as well as enhancing the quality of ideas generated.

Learning

We each have unique talents and strengths that we can share as partners. I always learned something from Lynne who has spent 20 years exploring spirituality in both formal and informal learning settings.  I bring a vast knowledge of business to our relationship that Lynne can draw from for her business and to support her clients who are entrepreneurs.

Support

Mastermind partners are a huge source of support.  This is especially true for Lynne and I as we are both coaches.  We use our coaching skills to support each other’s personal growth and business development; especially if either of us is emotionally triggered. We are able to use our unique coaching techniques to bring our emotional reactions to completion and keep moving forward. I know I have certainly benefited from all the coaching that Lynne has provided me.

Accountability

Our agreement to meet regularly every Monday morning has kept us on track to keep building our businesses. Our commitment to one another has been invaluable to take on new challenges.  Over the last year I was very dedicated to writing my book “Divine Divorce” and without our scheduled meetings it would have been very easy to lose my focus on the promotion and development of my business and to let our workshops lapse.  Most of our business meetings start with a check in, allowing us to clear anything that might keep us from being at the top of our game.  Our partnership has kept both of us focused on all aspects of our business.

Fun

Finally, another intention we set was to have fun and do work that we love. This way work would feel easy rather than hard. By bouncing ideas off each other we inspire each other, giving us more energy to pour into our work and life. We have fun, get things done with ease, and produce better work together than either one of us could have done on our own.

Working together really has made our lives easier and given us life balance. Who could wish for anything more for their life than inspiring work they love and a sense of balance in their life?

Who could you work more collaborative with?

To have healthy balanced lives we also need to take time off and unplug.  After six months of focused work I completed another milestone on my book Divine Divorce.  Through this period of time I worked with focus and took very little time off to play, which is what work is like for many of my clients.  Many of us are working very long days, sometimes six days a week and then having to find time for the family.  Life is hectic and we are on the go all the time with very little time for ourselves.  Doesn’t it make sense then to take some time 100% for ourselves and unplug?

During my two week break from technology; no internet, no land line, no cell phone, and no texting.  I was 100% out of communication, except for the people that were immediately in front of me.  I had many nights of ten hours plus of sleep.  My body needed the rest and relaxation to rejuvenate and be fully ready to take on the next project that I design for my business.  When we take time off we give ourselves a break from the everyday pressures of life, our brain and body begin to de-stress allowing for more creativity to occur.

I was actually astounded at how much sleep I needed to allow my body to rejuvenate. My project inspired me to get out of bed at 5am each morning and keep working to meet the deadline I had set. Even though I got the minimum 7 hours of sleep a night, I was still tired.  Sleep deprivation is a major problem, with sleep disorders affecting 40 million people in the US, 1,500 people die of motor vehicle accidents and 40,000 are injured from falling asleep. If we are tired or injured we are not as productive at work or happy in our daily lives.

Take a little downtime, unplug on your next holiday or even for a whole weekend;  be healthy, happy and safe.

In the past (and maybe still today) I interrupted people because an idea would pop into my head and I wanted to share it.  That was my ego wanting to be seen and prove how smart I was so  I could gain your recognition and approval.  Basically I wanted your love.

Yesterday I had the opportunity of having someone interrupt me from sharing a thought because they were concerned about what I was going to say.  It sounded like “this is not the appropriate time.”  How would they know if it was the appropriate time or not, unless they knew exactly what I was going to say?  We never know what someone is going to say, because we are not them and we can’t know their thoughts.  We need to be vulnerable in the face of our fear and have the courage and patience to listen.

Being told not to speak created an emotional reaction in me such that I no longer wanted to be part of the conversation or share my ideas.  On the way home I realized an Emotional Hot Button had been pushed.  My father would interrupt my mother on a regular basis and tell her that she didn’t know what she was talking about. I have emotional baggage around this.  It doesn’t feel safe to express myself.  Synchronistically,  I was working with a client yesterday who was holding old emotional energy in her mouth and throat.  She said “I feel like I want to scream.”  She felt like there were people both at home and at work who did’t want  to hear what she had to say.  Her ability to self-express had been shut down.

We can have a profound impact when our fears or ego shut down another person’s communication. We are telling them it is not OK to speak. Now I know why I’ve observed so many people sitting in class rooms or around the boardroom table who never wanted to speak.  They had been conditioned to believe it wasn’t safe, and no one wanted to hear them anyway.

Zoots Cafe

Melanie shares her tips from Zoots Cafe

Melanie’s business success tips are as follows:

• Create an elegant environment where customers feel comfortable
• Personally greet your customers within one minute of entering your location
• Be a “war bride” count your pennies in the back of the house by reducing wastage as much as possible.

Having provided bank financing for ten years in my previous career it is evident to me that Melanie’s tips are great for anyone in business.  May they be a quick reminder for you to ask:

• How does it feel to enter the door of my business?
• What is my level of energy when I greet clients?
• How can I support my staff to be better?
• How well am I controlling costs?
• What expense can I reduce or eliminate?

 The irony is, 80% of my clients are small business owners themselves and I help them over the hurdles of starting their businesses, which of course, includes sales and marketing.  They are assigned to me, so I don’t have to sell my services to them. The blind leading the blind you might comment. 

On the contrary, knowing my weakness, I invest heavily (time as much money) in professional development activities to compensate. The point is, I know enough about what to do, my challenge is actually applying it to my own business.  

 Frankly, it’s much easier to coach others and help strategize marketing plans to fit their businesses.  Providing a sounding board, and asking the right questions, really helps to test assumptions and clarify directions for promoting a business. Plus, I get to share gems from the Sales and Marketing Experts I’ve learned from. Gradually the message is getting engrained in my psyche and I’m starting to put into practice what I’ve preached.

 One of the most effective approaches I’ve come across lately is Charlene Brisson’s 3 Step Marketing (for non-marketers).  Charlene’s marketing expertise spans executive level marketing positions for major media and telecommunications corporations, operating her own small businesses and teaching sales and marketing. She has been through the trenches and has helped hundreds of businesses succeed. 

 In a recent interview with Ann Pustil, of ‘In A Nutshell Coaching’ Charlene talked about MSS: Marketing Stress Syndrome It was a really entertaining conversation and they had me giggling about how much we struggle with this stuff.  MSS occurs from

• overwhelming confusion – wondering where to start, what to do, frustration, spinning your wheels.
• Paralyzing fear of spending in the wrong place
• Marketing Insanity: repeating the same things and expecting different results
• Breaking into a Cold Sweat with the idea of cold calling
• Wallet Fatigue: spending and not getting results
• Procrastination and head-spinning indecision

 Charlene’s message is to keep it simple, with three steps to overcome the madness.

1. Know your ideal customer. Pinpoint all of the factors: geographic, demographic, psychographic, so precisely that you could give your ideal customer a name and write a story about who they are and what they do.  This gives you a foundation on which to develop your strategies. Use surveys and research to support your assumptions.

2. Craft a message that speaks to your ideal customer.  What you now know from step one helps you to know what to say. Let them know why they should do business with you; and what they can expect from your services.  State your Value Proposition or Unique Selling Position – What you do that is bigger, better, faster, than everyone else. State your clients’ situation and guide them through the resolution process in real time.

In addition to other brilliant examples on the call, they shared Anne’s marketing message for her business. “In a Nutshell Coaching: Gets to the heart of the matter quickly and resolves it quickly.’

3. Select effective marketing tactics to reach your ideal customer.  Strategically and optimally target your tactics to get the response you want. Tactics won’t work if they are not aligned with methods used by your ideal clients.  Always ask yourself if your ideal client uses the media you are planning for.

Granted there are so many traditional and new media marketing tactics: to choose from it can still be daunting. Charlene has solutions for you in her new book “148 Ways to Advertise & Promote your Business”. 

Have fun working easier with your marketing!