You’ve done everything right so far. You know who your ideal target is. You attend networking events to meet new prospects. You schedule a series of Get Acquainted Calls. The calls go really well! Your prospects get what you offer and they want it. But, instead of saying “Yes” at the end of the call, they want to talk to their spouses first about working with you.

How do you handle when a prospect defers to his or her spouse? This is actually an objection and it allows your prospect to put off the decision to work with you.  Usually the end result sounds something like:

• We can’t afford it right now
• After the kitchen is done
• The timing isn’t right, etc.

You are talking about an investment to work with you so no matter how good the relationship may be, it’s easy to see how resistance can come up about committing to work with you.

Here’s how you can handle this obstacle straight on. Give these prospects the selling point so they can talk to their spouses more easily and get them to realize the benefit of working with you:

1. Take the prospect step-by-step through handling the conversation with their spouse
2. Have them print out the ‘Conversation With’ pages from your website
3. Have them print out testimonials from your website
4. Tell them to say, “This is how (your name here) works. This is what people who have worked with (your name here) have to say about their exciting results.”
5. If you have any video testimonials – this can be very powerful. I’ve had prospects watch a video of my Success Panel from the Mindset Retreat so they can see happy clients talk about results firsthand
6. Send your prospect what I call the “Here’s what we talked about” email with everything spelled out for the spouse as well.

Keep this in mind – sometimes prospects use “the spouse” excuse because they don’t want to come out and say “It’s too expensive” or “I’m not interested”. So they blame the decision on the spouse. In this case, there is really nothing you can do to turn things around. You’ll get an idea if this is the case when you ask the qualifying question, “If you were going to do this, when would you be ready to start?” You can get a good idea by the answers you get. For example, if a prospect says “Next week” that would be more positive and likely than “After the kitchen is done” especially if that timing is an undefined point in the future.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Plan ahead and get your “here’s what we talked about” email ready now for those prospects who want to talk to their spouses. When you are prepared, you won’t need to scurry around trying to figure out exactly what you want to include in this important script. Being prepared for these situations will make you so much more successful when it comes to landing a new client.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction Home Study System™ gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

Today’s topic is about taking personal responsibility for the results that you’re experiencing in your business. One of the things I believe makes or breaks someone’s chances for success in business is that of personal responsibility. If you’ve been in my programs, my workshops or if you’ve attended any of my calls, webinars, live events you know that I believe strongly in personal responsibility. I often call it the No-Excuses Approach.

Here’s what I know for sure. The more you take responsibility for every single aspect of your life, the more every part of your life will improve at the same time. In fact, I do not believe that you can ever achieve big success without personal responsibility. It’s a topic that very few marketing teachers ever really talk about in depth, but it’s one that is crucial for success. (Click here to tweet this.)

I’m going to get vulnerable with you for a moment. In the past, each time I bumped up against a new level in my business a lot of my old stuff would come up. In the past, I’ve caught myself comparing my level of success to others who were experiencing more success and feeling resentful, ‘less than’ and sometimes even blaming others. These are just yucky feelings to make excuses for not being where I would like to be, in terms of success, at that moment.

It did not feel good to compare myself and to blame my circumstances and others, and perhaps you know exactly what I’m talking about. What I’ve noticed is I’m not the only one who’s ever experienced this. I have witnessed other people in my life who really want to move up to the next level, but instead they begin to feel frustrated. They start to point fingers, blaming their situation, the economy, their marriage, the price of gas, “the system”, the government, a program they took or whatever else they can find to shuck responsibility for where they are currently.

What I also noticed is that in the end we are all ultimately responsible for everything in our lives—every increase in income and success. Just as importantly we’re also responsible for every setback. I know this is really, really hard to hear, especially if you’re not where you want to be and it seems like the whole world is against you, but we have no one to point fingers at, but ourselves and here’s why.

Everything we have in our life exists because of the actions, behaviors, habits, words, and thoughts that we have. Every decision we make creates our circumstances and because of that we are ultimately responsible for every success, failure, happiness, unhappiness, financial situation, everything. Every day, every minute and in every moment of our business and our personal life there is a fork in the road and we have a choice. We can continue to do things as we’ve always done them or we can take a different path.

We create our current reality with every action we take and also with every action we do not take or everything we do not implement. It’s 50/50. For years I have kept an article by Brian Tracy close to my heart. If you’re not familiar with him yet he’s one of the world’s authorities on personal and business success. This article has become one of my favorites and I refer to it often. I even ask my clients to read it. You can Google the article by searching for ‘Brian Tracy personal responsibility’. You’re going to love it.

In the article, Brian talks about the fact that personal responsibility goes hand in hand with success, achievement, motivation, happiness and self-actualization. This is everything. It’s the ultimate minimum requirement for the accomplishment of everything you could ever really want in life. Accepting that you are completely responsible for yourself and your results and realizing that no one else is coming to the rescue is the beginning of peak performance.

The opposite of accepting personal responsibility is making excuses and blaming people and things for what’s going on in your life. Since everything we do is a matter of habit, if people get into the habit of making excuses they also get into the habit of avoiding responsibility.

Listen, I’ve been there. The reason I can talk about this is because I have been that resentful, comparing person.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

You have heard the saying, “Speak the truth and the truth will set you free.” Well, in this case I want you to be very honest with yourself in answering some questions that I have for you. Ready?

Have you ever blamed someone or something for the fact that you haven’t yet achieved what you wanted in your life or in your business?

Do you sometimes use excuses like “I don’t have time or I don’t have money,” so that you don’t have to take action in terms of getting clients? Perhaps you even use excuses just in case it doesn’t work out and then you don’t have to be embarrassed?

Have you harbored any resentment towards someone or something because you feel like you were gypped in some way? Are you pointing fingers saying, “This is the reason that I’m not making more money in my business?”

Have you compared yourself to someone else more financially successful than you currently are? Have you judged that person based on their success.

I have. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that. Personally speaking I know that I have been able to answer every single question that I asked you with a “yes” at least at some point in my self-employed career. Whether or not I knew it consciously at the time, it all resulted from avoiding responsibility for what I was creating in my own life. It didn’t feel good and certainly none of it helped me move forward towards success.

The key is to be honest with yourself about the level of responsibility you are taking in creating your current situation. No one else can create your life except for you because only you control your thoughts, your words, your actions, your behaviors and habits. Yes, you may have started out with some things going against you, but in every moment of every day you have the opportunity to change this because there is a fork in the road of your success.

This is your opportunity to step up in your business. Stop resenting or comparing yourself and maybe even stop blaming others for what you have or what you don’t have in your business. It’s about taking a No-Excuses Approach to doing what you have to do to get clients, to start being consistent in your marketing, to work through the programs that you’ve invested in or to clear your schedule to attend events no matter what else has come up.

Begin to take full responsibility and start making different choices. When you do, your life and your business will never be the same. That’s what I’ve experienced. That’s what my clients have experienced. I promise you, it works. Sometimes you just need to do the things that you’re unwilling to do to get results.