I just recently posted a quote about fear on my Facebook page, that got a big response. The quote goes like this, “The key to success is for you to make a habit throughout your life of doing the things you fear.” We all have fears that stop us in business—fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of humiliation, fear of criticism, fear of the unknown—you get the idea.

The list can go on for miles. As you probably know, I’ve worked with thousands of entrepreneurs and I witness how they stop themselves by allowing fear and self-doubt to keep them ‘playing small’ in their business and their lives. The thing is, they’re often not even aware of it. Here’s what I mean… People SAY they want something very badly, that they want a change, and theoretically, that they’d do anything to get it.

“Entrepreneurs often allow fear and self-doubt to keep them ‘playing small’ in their business and lives.” (Click here to tweet this.)

But when the rubber meets the road, it’s a totally different story. For many, when it’s time to take action, they’re just not willing to take the steps or do the work that creates the result. It’s that inner self-doubt and all the fear that consistently has them questioning every single move they make in growing their business and their income.

Watch this week’s strategy for the two steps you must take to break through that fear once and for all.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Ask yourself the following questions. Are you willing to trade short-term discomfort for long-term success? If so, are you willing to go where you have to go? Are you willing to talk to whomever you have to talk to? Are you willing to do what you haven’t done? Are you willing to stretch beyond your comfort zone?

If so, I’ve got great news for you—that is when the clients, the money and all the opportunities show up.

If you loved this concept and want to dive even deeper, click here to join me for a LIVE Video Presentation (it’s totally free) where I will be teaching you my proven process to master your Inner Game.

You may know that I teach hundreds of our clients and customers each year how to use video to get clients and build their list. One of the questions I get most often is, Derek, why is video such an important part of your marketing and do I really need it? My answer is invariably Yes! You really do need it. You see, video is an essential part of your online marketing strategy, specifically having a video on your website, because it helps you authentically connect with people who visit your website and allows you to engage with them in a very compelling manner. Depending on what you ask them to do in your video, they happily opt-in to join your list or call you to become a client (or both).

“Video helps you authentically connect and engage with prospects in a very compelling manner, turning them into clients quickly” (Click here to tweet this.)

Now, I know what you’re probably saying… But Derek, I don’t even know where to start with video… all the different equipment and technology that exists, I’m confused. Do I even have what it takes to create good videos? Is that you? Are you feeling stuck when it comes to doing video? Well, with everything that’s available at our fingertips with video technology and the world of online virtual assistance, there is really no reason you cannot use video on your website.

Why is video so important for list building? Video allows you to interact with your prospects better than anything else – except for face-to-face interaction, of course. And unless you can figure out some magic way to appear in person every time someone visits your website – you’ll want to use video, in a strategic way. There are three important elements of shooting a video that I want to share with you, specifically.

Watch this week’s strategy to help you get up and running with video for marketing your business in no time.

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Your Client Attraction Assignment

Ask yourself: how am I using video in my marketing? If you don’t have a video on your website that will help you when it comes to connecting with your website visitors and building your list, I strongly suggest you consider adding video to your marketing efforts as soon as possible.

We’ve been using video now here at ClientAttraction.com for a few years now on our website. It has been a game-changer not only for helping us build our list, but also attracting more ideal clients in droves and adding a lot to our bottom line. It’s time you do the same…

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In today’s video strategy we’re talking about building your list with article marketing. Article marketing is actually one of hundreds of marketing strategies for driving traffic to your website so that you can build your list. It’s a strategy that really works and yet it’s not something that a lot of entrepreneurs are talking about or know about.

Article marketing is quite simple. It’s the process by which you take your content, preferably pre-existing content from your blog or from your website, and you submit it to article directories on the web. Article directories are basically websites where you post your content so people can find you on the Internet.  Pretty simple. (Click here to tweet this.)

When someone does a search for a particular phrase on Google, for example, your website may not come up right away, but your article will if it refers to what they searched for. This is a great way to attract new people to you who would be interested in your content and ultimately what you have to offer.

Once you submit your content, you can categorize it based on the topic, keywords and the message you’re looking to share. You can even do things like set up an author profile with a bio, picture and links back to your website.

When you submit your content to several article directories, I recommend you do it on a consistent basis and not as a one-time-only thing. This will increase your exposure and ultimately your visibility in a huge way. It’s a great way to grow your platform and drive more targeted traffic back to your website to get a free gift from you, preferably what we at ClientAttraction.com call your Irresistible Free Offer, and then they can be added to your email subscriber list.

Your IFO can be a free report, a free checklist, a free video, a free audio or a free CD.  You have to give them something. When they sign up for your free offer they also get subscribed to your email list so that you can continue to give them great content and stay in touch with them. This is where the power of article marketing goes on overdrive – by driving traffic back to your site and at the same time converting those leads onto your list using your website.

The potential reach from article marketing is massive when you think about the number of new people who are out there searching for your content. They just don’t know about you or your website yet. It’s all about getting that out there.

The best part is you don’t have to go out and create more content to get this type of exposure and traffic. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We actually recommend that you use content that you’ve already created. Perhaps it’s an article that you’ve written in the past or a section of a book that you’ve written or any number of other pre-written content. That’s what we call recycling in the world of client attraction. It creates less work for you.

You’re basically leveraging content you’ve already created and using it to build your list. It’s a fantastic strategy. Now remember, just posting an article or a video to your blog or your website only works for nurturing the people that are already on your list. Article marketing is all about leveraging that same content on the web to attract new people to build your list even further.

Here’s the best part. It’s low-cost or really sometimes even no-cost to implement.  It takes very little time to do and it’s very little effort. It’s super, super easy.  Anybody can do it and get started literally right away.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

What is your article marketing strategy?  How are you, right now, taking your pre-existing content and actually getting it out to the web for increased visibility and bigger awareness to attract more visitors to your site?  What are you doing right now for article marketing?

The best place to start is just to do some research. Find a few article directories that are out there that you think would work the best for your market and start submitting your content beginning this week.  Yes, I said, “This week.” There’s no rest for the weary here at Client Attraction.  It’s about taking action and doing whatever it takes.

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One of the biggest things that affects your business and your income is your level of self-confidence. You’d think it would be marketing and yes, marketing is massively important, but if you don’t have confidence in your abilities, if you don’t have confidence in your business or in what you’re doing you’re not going to get anywhere in your business.

Why is that? It’s because confidence affects your actions and your actions create your habits and your habits, which are the things that you do day in and day out, create your results in business. Confidence is responsible for how many clients you have, how much you make, etc. All of that is based on your actions. That’s why confidence affects every single aspect of your business. (Click here to tweet this.)

Confidence affects how you close the sale and how often you market. It affects your willingness to do whatever it takes, how you follow up with prospects, how you reach out to potential strategic alliances, how you network, how you speak, all of which determine your number of clients and how much you make in your business. All of this confidence, affects the money that you make in your business.

It’s easy for your confidence to take a hit. I know you know this because you’re maybe experiencing it right now. Each time you don’t close the sale, there’s a little piece of your confidence that gets taken away. When you make a mistake in your business (we all do) who is the harshest critic? You know right? It’s you. I know because I’ve been here too.

Every time you lose a client or you don’t make a deadline or you don’t fill that program it makes you question whether you’re really cut out to do this – being an entrepreneur. It all stems from your level of confidence. If confidence is such an important part of the success of your business, it’s really important that you guard it. Guard your confidence.

Allow me to share two simple things with you that I did, especially in the beginning when things were tough, that allowed me to keep my confidence at a natural level. It kept me persistent. This is not about inflating your confidence to an abnormal level. It’s about bringing your confidence back to a natural level.

1. Read your testimonials on a daily basis. I know it sounds kind of silly, but one of the best ways to get back to a natural level of confidence is to feed your mind with positive validation that you are good at what you do. That inner gremlin, that drunk monkey inside, it’s so quick to tear you down and to make you feel bad and to make you question whether you can actually succeed in your business. Any time something bad happens, that inner gremlin is right there to tear you down.

To counteract that you must counteract it with equal force. All you need to do is read your testimonials or think about all of the positive things that you’ve done for clients or people in your life especially around you business, all the people that you’ve helped along the way. A lot of people look at their life or their business like 98% is going badly and only 2% is going well, but that’s not usually the case.

Usually only 2% is going badly and 98% is going well because you’re making progress and you’re putting one foot in front of the other. Remember, building your business is not a race. It’s pace, not race. The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. There is some time in between and that time sometimes makes us question, “Am I good at this?” Instead of focusing on that, focus on what is going well. Focus on what your clients have gotten from you and you’ll have the confidence to keep going.

2. Keep a ‘kind words’ folder. You can do this on the desktop of your computer where you move over some emails from clients who are getting great results or you paste some of the screenshots of a note from a gushing client who left you a note on your facebook wall. You can even create a physical basket and put it on your desk, where you put cards that you’ve received, little notes of encouragement, words from client who said that you’ve changed their lives.

That’s what I do. My team calls it the Good News Basket. I call it my Kind Words Basket. It contains otes from my clients about how I’ve changed their lives, stories along the way, notes that my team prints up for me from emails that have been sent. It’s a big pile of love.

The reason I keep this is because just like anybody else in business, there are going to be days where the going gets tough. And it always will because at each new level there’s a new devil, but you can just feed the positive part of your soul so that you regain you confidence and you keep going.

Remember, you started your business to make a difference in people’s lives for the highest good of all. By feeding your soul with positive validation, it allows you to ignore that drunk monkey and to stay in faith, that you are here to change the quality of peoples’ lives through your business and when you do you’re going to persevere. It’s those people who stay the course and persevere that ultimately win in business. You can do this.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Stay in positive affirmation. Read your testimonials and keep those little notes and read them when the going gets tough. You’ll see a big difference in your self-confidence in no time. Good luck!

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Usually at ClientAttraction.com we talk to you about attracting and signing on new clients. That’s what everyone wants right–new, ideal, high-paying clients, continually filling your pipeline. For the bulk of my career that’s what I focused on too. After awhile I realized that I was spending a huge amount of time and effort attracting brand new clients, but my current clients were leaving after their initial term was over.

I didn’t understand what was going on because they were getting great results. We were transforming their businesses. They were going from making not much to making six figures and beyond. I didn’t see why at the time the majority of them weren’t signing up for another year. (Click here to tweet this.)

Here’s what I knew. I knew deep in my heart that I could help them further multiply what they had already created with me. I knew that I could take them to the next level, but somehow they didn’t see that and they ended up moving on to another mentor. If I’m being transparent with you this actually kind of affected my ego and my self-esteem. It was like, “Ouch. You’re moving on to someone else. Why?”

Have you ever thought about what it takes to retain clients past their initial term? In the last several years I have actually shifted the way that I do business. Miraculously we have witnessed clients staying with us for much, much longer—signing up again year after year even at our highest programs levels.

You may be thinking, “Why are they signing up again? Didn’t they get everything they needed the first time around?” Well, yes they did get everything they needed, but now they feel great about signing on for year two, year three and so on. Today, I’d like to take you behind the scenes in our business and share with you just a few of the many, many things that you can shift within your own business so that your clients happily stay with you longer and continue to get great results with you, while recommending you to others.

Today, I will share with you three simple things that we do in our business that perhaps you would like to apply to your own business.

1. Give more than clients expect to get. You may not know this about me yet, but in my work with clients I love to give huge value. I believe in under promising and over delivering when it comes to value.

That means that our clients are surprised to see how much more they get than what they paid us. For example, people traditionally come to us for marketing and for client attraction and we deliver that like nobody else does because we’re experts at it, but what they don’t realize is that we also give them all the mindset work and all the spiritual marketing principles that really work to get clients. We give them list-building, internet marketing strategies, systems, all of that for free, which helps them create even more results. They’re very surprised to get all of this extra stuff.

2.  Continually innovate. For many years I had only a couple of programs. Once a client consumed those programs and got results there was nothing new for them to learn and this is why they would move on. In looking back now, I don’t blame them. There was nothing new to consume. Well, the solution was to create new stuff.

Derek and I are always learning, always improving our own businesses and getting best practices from other sources. Now as we continually sharpen the saw, we have our own mentors. We take all of these new things that we’ve learned and when they’ve worked for us, when we’ve digested them and we see that they create results, we distill everything that has worked for us and then we pass it on to our clients so they can use it. This makes it easy for our clients to get best practices without having to invest lots of time and lots of energy and lots of money elsewhere to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

They tell us that this is one of the big reasons why they come back again and again and again. It’s because we’re constantly innovating.

3. Make your clients feel significant. I’ve realized something about the human race. It’s that every single person on Earth loves to feel like they are significant. They want to matter in the eyes of others. We all want to feel loved and when you can make your clients feel special they like being around you and they don’t want to unplug from that.

Many people I know keep their clients at arm’s length. We do the opposite. We love them. We surround them with people who love them and champion them and they feel, for the first time in their life perhaps, that they have a tribe of people who unconditionally accept them. We surprise them with little gifts that they didn’t expect or anticipate. They experience little touches here and there. It’s the way that Derek and I and the team are anyway, but we’ve decided to extend that into our business. For many of our clients they don’t get that anywhere else.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Ask yourself these three questions because this is about you.

What can you do to over deliver and give your clients more than they originally expected?
How could you continually innovate in your programs and offerings?
How will you start making your clients feel more significant?

When you do these three things you’re going to see a huge shift in your level of client retention and the years that people stay with you happily and in your referrals. Best of all, it feels amazing.

Does this happen to you? You talk to a prospect during your Get Acquainted Call and she says “Yes” to working with you. Yeah, that’s very exciting! But then, you send paperwork and wait for her first payment. Times passes and your cash flow suffers. So, how do you move new clients from saying, “Yes” to becoming a paying client?

1. Use Suggestology in Your Conversation. When you start to go over your programs with a prospect, use language that sounds like you already know she is going to sign up. Here’s a script you can adapt for your business, “Here are the different programs, and you’re going to let me know which one you like. Then if you decide you want to sign up today, fantastic. All I need is your name. email information, address, and which credit card you want to use. Do you want to pay to in full or pay in installments? I’ll run it through, and send your welcome packet, then we can get you started today.”

2. Don’t Send Anything Until You Receive a First Payment. A lot of entrepreneurs are excited by a prospect who wants to work with them, so they lean forward and share information prior to getting a payment. I learned early on in my practice that what works best is to hold off sending the welcome packet. Instead, don’t share anything until you get a full commitment, which is a payment.

3. Use a System for Taking Credit Card Payments Over the Phone. When you have a prospect on the phone, that is the best time to get their initial installment. Take control of payment processing to ensure more prospects become clients. I recommend PracticePaySolutions.com because I used them in my practice. Over the years, I’ve had hundreds of clients do their due diligence, talk to their banks, and many if not most of them ended up with Practice Pay Solutions. It’s just easier.

Don’t send invoices or use Paypal invoices because you lose control of processing and leave it up to the client to choose when to pay. If there is any wishy-washiness, they may waver on making that first installment.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
If you have clients in limbo who agreed to work with you, but have not yet made a first installment, try this to prod them along. Every five – ten days send them a message that says, “I’m looking forward to sending you the assessment” (or welcome packet). Or, “I’m looking forward to getting you started,” or, “Here’s a little thing that I found online”. Gently, lovingly nudge the person that it’s time to get started.

 

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.

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As you may remember, last week we talked about what it takes to attract ideal clients and customers who happily buy when you’re not in front of them.  We do this by having the skills to write authentic marketing copy that sells. I walked you through my first four strategies to creating authentic copy that sells.  We talked about setting an intention and really energetically setting yourself up for giving rather than taking.  We talked about identifying exactly who you’re writing to, defining your objective and your outcome, and then writing straight from the heart – from your heart to your reader’s heart. This is heart connection.

This week I’d like to take you through the three practical pieces of your sales copy that you must include if you want to sign on more clients and customers. (Click here to tweet this.)

1. Objections.  You’re going to want to anticipate the most common objections that are going to come up from your prospect and address them in the copy itself.  Objections can be any excuse that your reader may have for not taking action.  You want to put it all out there and address them one-by-one.  It’s about entering the conversation that’s already going on in their heads. It could be about money, about time, about business, will it work for me, etc.

2. Testimonials.  You want to include testimonials and case studies from clients who have gone through your programs or used your products.  Why? Because people love success stories.  It makes the results more real and it helps your reader to think, “Oh, if he can do it, so can I.  If she can do it, then it can be done.”

3. Call to action.  You want to give them a clear call to action.  In the end people just want to be guided as to what to do.  You want to make it easy for them to take the next best step.  This includes letting them know when the deadline is or how many are available.  Just tell them what to do, “Pick up the phone and call now.”  That’s what infomercials talk about.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

When you have these three elements in place you’re going to sign on more clients.  The next time you sit down to write copy, create a checklist from parts 1 and 2 of this video.

Finally, when you’re done writing, ask yourself, “Would I buy this?  Would I feel good after reading this?  Would I feel loved and significant?  Would I like this person who actually wrote me?  Or do I feel like I just got pitched heavily and that I’m just a number?”  It’s really important to get clear on what message you’re sending across because if you wouldn’t buy it, then probably no one else will.

Have you ever thought about what it takes to attract ideal clients and customers who happily buy when you’re not in front of them?  Today, I’d like to share some best practices with you that I use and that my clients now use to write marketing copy that sells.

Copy is infinitely important in your business. Why? Because it clones and replaces you in the sales process. It’s a way for you to multiply your reach without extra effort. And it touches EVERY single part of your business—your ezine, your website, your sales pages, your mailing campaigns, your social media, your video—EVERYTHING. (Click here to tweet this.)

You want to be able to write AMAZING and COMPELLING copy. It is a tool you can use that allows you to sell with authenticity, integrity and love. Now you might be saying right now—did I hear her correctly? Did she say love? Yes, LOVE.

Here’s the deal. In your heart, you want to take what you do in your business and get it out there in a really BIG way. Awesome, authentic copy is one way you can take your message to the masses. Marketing copy is the vehicle. When done well—with love—copy is a divine tool that allows you to be of service to others.

One of the biggest compliments a prospect can give me is to say, “Fabienne, when I read your email I felt like you were talking directly to me. You articulated exactly what I am feeling, exactly what I wanted and you showed me exactly how you were going to give it to me. And you were so real and so authentic. I couldn’t wait to buy what you were offering.”

The best news is that it’s not that difficult to be able to write copy that gets your prospects to respond in this way. In today’s strategy video, I’d like to walk you through my first 4 strategies for writing authentic copy that sells. You’ll see that once you’re able to sink into your heart a little bit, the process is actually quite magical.

1. Set the Intention. Everything is energy—including marketing copy. So, I want you to get in a place of LOVING that person who you are writing to before you put pen to paper or even think about tapping away on your keyboard. Get into a good space first—in whatever way that works for you. For me, that means taking some time to reflect and light my favorite scented candle in a calm and peaceful setting so that I can tune in to my inner guidance and hear what it has to say.

You want to make sure you are aligned with the intention of serving, not taking. Come from a place of abundance rather than scarcity. Desperation (“I’ve just gotta make the sale”) repels abundance so focus instead on faith and service.

2. Know who you’re writing to. Choose your muse. You want to write to one particular person—think of your ideal client who really ‘gets’ you and buys everything you offer, or a longtime client you would want to clone. That’s the person who you need to write to. Make your reader feel that you’re only talking to him or her—and only him or her. And be sure to use your authentic voice.

3. Clearly define your objective. What is it that you want your reader to do after reading your copy? Are you trying to make a sale, have him or her fill out the boxes on your website, call you? You need to know the exact action you want your reader to take.

4. Write from the heart. This may not come naturally to you—at first. But in reality, this is the most natural thing that we can do in our business because all you have to do is BE YOURSELF. You want to connect with your reader—heart to heart.

Make that person feel valued and important. Use empathy wherever possible. Be compassionate. Be reassuring. Acknowledge their pain. Treat them as if you would treat a friend. Be conversational and talk to them about their deepest aspirations (rather than about the offer.)

Take a stand for your reader and their success. Talk to them about where they are now, where they want to be, what’s possible for them and how you can help them get there. Be vulnerable if it’s appropriate, show your passion and for goodness sake, don’t be boring!

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Your Assignment for this week is to give these first 4 strategies a try. It may take some practice—especially if you’re not used to writing in your authentic voice, but once you really learn to sink into your heart and just let your thoughts and feelings flow, you’ll see that being authentic actually takes less of an effort than pretending to be someone you’re not.

Stay tuned for next week’s video, where I’ll go through the very last step in my authentic sales copy strategy, which includes the practical parts of sales copy that you must include if you want your reader to take action.

 

 

When I started building my business, I used the “warm letter” to let people know what I was doing. It worked as a great referral source to get new clients. Over time I thought, why not send a follow up to the warm letter? That’s how the idea came to me to create a whole campaign of letters. This sequence of letters can continue to drive referrals with every new mailing. It’s literally a referral driving machine.

Why does it work so well? Because you are educating your contacts and inviting them to refer to you. Try this series of letters to see how your network reacts. You’ll generate prospects and referrals at a surprising rate.

1. Warm letter. Your first letter let’s people in your network of contacts know what you are doing now. Tell them about your business and who your ideal clients are. Ask them to keep you in mind when they meet these people.

2. Interview With. Follow up with the “Interview With (Your name)” which explains what clients can expect and answers potential objections.

3. Case Study. Provide a case study that illustrates the problem one of your clients had, the solutions you helped them discover and the success they experienced as a result of working with you. This is a very powerful marketing tool since it gives readers a specific example of the service you provide.

4. Testimonial. Share a success story written by one of your clients. This testimonial gives you loads of credibility and again helps the reader connect with exactly what you do. This kind of letter can jog a person’s mind to think of who could benefit from a service like yours.

Additional Tips

• Personalize letters so that every reader feels like you are talking to him or her.
• Commit to a full series of letters over several months to maximize your exposure and results. People need to see and hear things multiple times before they refer people or buy.
• Send letters to all your contacts because you never know where a good referral will come from. Don’t be shy.
• Be consistent – send a letter every single month for the time frame you have chosen.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
To make the “warm letter” campaign easier, plan out what you want to send for several months at a time. This way you don’t have to think about what to do every month. It will all be decided ahead of time so all you’ll need to do each month is execute. You can use the testimonials you already have to send as is or create a case study as well. By spending some time up front, you will save time later and ensure your letter goes out every month to generate those important referrals.

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.