I would never ask you to do anything that I’m not willing to do myself…

…even if it’s scary, even if it feels like a big risk.

And since I’m all about playing a bigger game in business and in life, activating your potential by fulfilling your calling and leading boldly with your heart, I’m pleased to tell you that you’ll be seeing some BIG changes here soon.

Our amazing Team has been working for close to a year on shifting our brand to reflect what we actually do with our students/clients/members of (what will soon no longer be called) Client Attraction and The Client Attraction Business School.

Yes, Client Attraction is on its way out, which is bittersweet for me.

We are ushering in something really bold. (It might give you whiplash at first, but know that if it takes a while to get used to, it has been in the planning for a long time and will begin making a lot of sense to you very quickly.)

So, in celebration of all that Client Attraction has meant to so many thousands of people over the years, and as a farewell of sorts…

…we are sharing the BEST of the BEST in the next couple of weeks, some of my most popular videos from the last few years. This week’s video is from 2012.

It’s all about how to stop doing everything in your business yourself…and how to start making it all happen…without you. Watch it now:

This is a good one! It’s been viewed thousands and thousands of times and it shares the exact steps to go through so that you can scale and grow your business.

Systems are your ticket to freedom.

I believe that this video has been so popular because you’re likely ready to get yourself out of the day-to-day of your business to work ON your business.

The key takeaway I’d like you to have from this week’s video is this:

If there’s something you still have to do yourself in your business, it’s simply something you haven’t systematized enough yet.

(Case in point: This blog is coming to you while I am in Rome during my two-week Italian adventure with my family. The only way this could happen is because of the systems we have in place. Now it’s your turn.)

It’s your time,
Fabienne

P.S. Next week’s “best of” is all about one of my favorite topics ever…so make sure to keep your eyes open for it. (Sigh.) This trip down memory lane is a bit emotional for me, because of people like you. Client Attraction was my first “child” as she came before my 3 children. I’m sad to see her growing up. At the same time, I simply can’t wait for you to see what’s next!

 

In case you think I don’t ever feel resistance or fear in my own business, I’ve got news for you.

I DO sometimes have fear around making radical changes, especially when it would allow my business to experience big leaps. (I’m human.)

But, I’ve figured out a process to help me get past the resistance, and I think you’re going to find it really useful too.

In this week’s video, I have some vulnerable sharing for you, and more importantly, I’m sharing how I’ve moved through resistance and into massive action that would make most people’s heads spin:

I know how difficult it is to let go of any aspect of your business, let alone the parts that you believe can only be done by you.

These are the things we want to hold on to for dear life… (I call it white knuckling.)

Hey listen, we’re all human. We all experience fear to some level.

Yes, I can see the path for the global expansion of my own business, AND I also have to watch out for the resistance that could keep me exactly where I am now. But, despite some fear, I have learned to hone my own entrepreneurial confidence (and pardon my language)…

…screw it and do it anyway.

Here is the process to Entrepreneurial Confidence:

– Mindset
– Strategy
– Accountability

This is where the giant leaps that transform your business happen.

So, what parts of your business do you currently believe can only be done by YOU?

Would you be willing to loosen your grip on this part of your business, in the name of your growth and the evolution of your business?

I know that this is super vulnerable, and yet, please share these with me in the comments, OK?

And then I invite you to get bold with me and release the white knuckling.  

We can jump together.
Fabienne

P.S. Successful entrepreneurs are those who do the things that others are unwilling to do. And 99% of the time, the thing that they do FEELS scary, but they do it anyway. Just sayin’. 😉

When you’re working to make your business scalable and leveraging what you already have going on, there are four things you need to consider before you formulate a group program.

1. Get very clear about what you want
Think about what you are trying to accomplish. Get really clear about your vision and the big picture you are aiming for. This is a great time to brainstorm and be creative to see what comes out of your ideas. It’s also a great clarity exercise. You need to be clear before starting any execution.

2. Investigate systems and experts who can help
The idea of leveraging your business is to work with a lot more people. This is not something you can do well on your own. You need a team in place to help you execute and keep track of all the elements and client service. There may be alliances that can help fill in the gaps or people who specialize in a part of your plans who you can rely on. This is about “due diligence” preparation so everything lines up smoothly when you are ready to roll out the program.

3. Set criteria for success
By establishing criteria for success, you can determine if the program met your expectations once completed. Think about how much time you want to invest and the money you want to generate. Naturally, you want to feel passionate about the program, have it turn a profit and you want to feel good about your relationship with the team. You don’t want to find out after everything is done that it took too much time or didn’t deliver the anticipated income. Find out how you can address this early on and plan ahead to ensure success.

4. Prepare a timetable
When undertaking a big project, decide on your delivery date. That makes it easy to work backwards on the calendar to plot each step along the way that needs to be completed. Then, you’ll know exactly when you need to start if you plan to be ready by a certain date. Share this timetable with everyone on the team and discuss any concerns. To achieve your goal and complete the project on time, everyone involved needs to agree to the timing.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

While working with a team, one thing that can be very helpful is to have regular status meetings where each member reports on progress made and discusses problems or roadblocks that are encountered. You’ll stay informed about each piece and where you might need to jump in or get extra assistance. Teams that communicate well tend to work better together and achieve their goals in a more satisfying and timely manner.

This is just one of the many best practices we dive deep into with the students of The Client Attraction Business School, the premier training school for growth-minded entrepreneurs looking to quickly attract more clients and make more money. If you’re interested in finding out more, visit www.ClientAttractionBusinessSchool.com for more details. To speak to an enrollment coach, click here.

As a business owner, you have to make a lot of tough decisions. One of them is when to let someone go or hire someone new for your team. If you plan this well, you can create a system for employee transitions, having the person who is leaving actually train your new hire.

Let me share an example. One of my students followed this series of steps for bringing on a new social media manager.

1. Put training in the contract. In the employment contract, a new team member is made aware that part of the responsibility will be to train a replacement should you part ways. This sends a clear message that people will explain duties and responsibilities of the position before departing the company.

2. Create a checklist. Have your current team member develop a checklist for all training that will be covered. This will work like a table of contents and can go at the beginning of all documentation for the position. For social media, you would include how often to post on each platform, details if you use a scheduler, credentials and passwords, etc.

3. Write an operations manual. Have the employee write the operations manual for the position, explaining all duties and responsibilities. This must be specific, going over all the actual tasks they complete as part of that job. Now you’ll have a handbook so someone new can look up how to do a particular task. Documenting the duties is extremely helpful for creating a smooth transition between employees and having a reference guide once the transition has been completed.

4. Set up a calendar for upcoming projects. Have your new team member work with your outgoing employee to create a calendar of the projects that are coming up. This ensures everything is planned and organized so your new employee knows what needs to be accomplished without any gaps. For example, with social media, you can plan Facebook posts that cover promotional messaging, content sharing and posting of photos for a few months into the future.

5. Schedule web sessions. If your team is not on site, using software like GoToMeeting allows employees to share screens for training purposes. This is excellent hands-on training so the new hire can see exactly how things are done. Many people learn best by actually going through the steps.

Here are a number of safeguards to keep in mind:
• On occasion, when there is a problem with an employee, make sure there isn’t going to be a lot of animosity while training the new hire. If you pick up on this, you may need to rethink your training process.
• Watch over how the training is going. Ask your new hire if there are any unanswered questions.
• Make sure your operations manual document is locked, so that once it’s finished, no one can change it or sabotage the process.
• Be sure to review the manual to ensure everything is in there and nothing gets left out or overlooked.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Do you have training or operations manuals for all the positions in your company? If not, make that one of the goals for your next 90-day plan. This is a big project for your employees, so be sure you give them enough time to complete it and do a thorough job.

This is just one of the many best practices we dive deep into with the students of The Client Attraction Business School, the premier training school for growth-minded entrepreneurs looking to quickly attract more clients and make more money. If you’re interested in finding out more, visit www.ClientAttractionBusinessSchool.com for more details. To speak to an enrollment coach, click here.

When I talk to students who need to start leveraging or expanding their businesses, I often refer to where they are as being “in the soup.” It feels like you are swimming in a mess of things that need attention, and keeping your head above water (or the “soup”) is hard. This is a challenging time for most small business owners.

In addition to working with clients, you have all the back office work, and many owners say they are working practically 24/7. No one wants that! I’ve had students talk about losing friendships, not getting the exercise they need and not taking any time off. Or, they feel stressed out with no end in sight. This is when you know something has to change.

The shift begins as you get clear about your new direction. Maybe you want a system that automates a particular process or need to hire staff to create a team. Your business might require more structure for running certain programs. Sometimes business owners need to duplicate what they do so they can step aside to let the team handle day-to-day tasks and work on the bigger picture.

A team will help you stop working so hard “in your business” so you can start to work “on your business.” That’s where the business expansion really starts to show up. When you’re ready to leverage your business and create systems, your business requires two very important elements:

1. Planning
2. Patience

Plan your moves step by step
One way to ensure you start on the path to leveraging your business is to creat a 90-day action plan. After you decide on your goals, map out the steps to get the changes underway. That’s the beauty of planning. Once you define your direction, you can clearly see what needs to be done next.

Seeing what needs to get done is one thing… making it happen is another, and it can still feel overwhelming. Breaking your plan down into manageable pieces helps you feel these smaller steps are very doable. Take time to map out the steps so you can attack them one at a time. Your 90-day plan organizes the work, provides a time frame and gives you a date for completion.

Patience is more than a virtue
Executing your plan will take time. Creating systems and adding structure – these types of business changes don’t happen overnight. This is why patience is essential for you to carry out your vision for expansion. You cannot hurry the transition if you want it done well.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
My students in the Leverage Track of The Client Attraction Business School often have a buddy for support and accountability. When you share your 90-day plan with your buddy, you are making it real and putting it out there into the world. Find a friend who will help you stay on track (and you will do the same for him or her) so you both complete your 90-day plans.

This is just one of the many best practices we dive deep into with the students of The Client Attraction Business School, the premier training school for growth-minded entrepreneurs looking to quickly attract more clients and make more money. If you’re interested in finding out more, visit www.ClientAttractionBusinessSchool.com for more details. To speak to an enrollment coach, click here.

Are you looking to attract clients and leverage your business? Students often ask me how I made the shift from working with private clients one-on-one to working with group programs. This transition is what the Leverage Track of The Client Attraction Business School is all about. So, I want to share with you the steps I took so you can plan ahead for how you too can make this shift.

1. Fill Your private practice. From networking in groups like Business Networking International (BNI), to sending out your warm letter to everyone you know, to speaking gigs, you need to market your business. The first step in this chain is to fill your business’ pipeline so you have a steady stream of clients and income.

2. Create your proprietary system. Next, I created my proprietary system. The system contained my 10 steps to attract clients and fill your pipeline. For your own proprietary system, this content should be all yours, which is what gives you total ownership of it and makes it proprietary.

3. Hold a one-day boot camp. I’m going to be really transparent with you. I had a hard time getting around to completing the writing of my proprietary system. (It actually took about three years.) So one day, I decided to promote a live, one-day boot camp event. That gave me a final date that I was forced to meet! The boot camp ended up being a big hit with 22 students present  – and it was great for my business too.

4. Hold the boot camp as a teleclass. Once the system had been completed for the live one-day boot camp, I could offer the material by teleclass as well. The boot camp was 10 weeks long, one step per week, and I offered it several times a year. I taught people all over the country and actually outside the US as well.

5. Promote your system as a home study course. With everything prepared for the boot camp, I now had a package I could promote in other ways too. I began selling my system as a home study course with a downloadable PFD, which included everything I provided in the 10-week boot camp for just $127.

So as you can see, I worked with private clients, moved on to present my program live to the boot camp attendees, taught groups by teleclass and then sold the PDF for people who wanted to learn on their own or needed a lower price point. Everything was based on the same material, but provided in different formats to meet the needs of even more people.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Have you created your proprietary system yet? As you can see, it’s the foundation for building your business and attracting clients. Your system will share your message and method with so many more people. Don’t wait as long as I did to complete this project – get going today!

This is just one of the many best practices we dive deep into with the students of The Client Attraction Business School, the premier training school for growth-minded entrepreneurs looking to quickly attract more clients and make more money. If you’re interested in finding out more, visit www.ClientAttractionBusinessSchool.com for more details. To speak to an enrollment coach, click here.

As your business grows, you need to create programs that serve multiple clients at the same time. Doing this helps you serve a lot more people then you can with one-on-one services.

In addition, you want people to work with you over time, often six months to one year, because that is how your clients get the best results. This is called “The Continuity Model” (it’s similar to the popular “Book of the Month Club,” where you get something new every month). I used this model with my Inner Circle group, which ran for years.

The Continuity Model

The Continuity Model works on a subscription basis. Clients sign up to receive something from you every month until they decide to stop. Most companies that offer this sort of program usually have an incredible first time offer that is high-value and irresistible. If the offer is free, you still want them to pay for shipping so you have their credit card on file and can begin the subscription payments after the initial period is over.

For example, I started a program that offered a CD every month. The initial offering was for two free months, if they paid for the CD shipping. Then, a new CD would go out to every month from then on.

I sent an email to them near the end of two months, letting participants know if they liked the CDs, their account would be transferred to full membership with automatic monthly billing for each new CD. However, if at any time they no longer wanted to receive the CD, they could cancel and we’d take them off the list.

Continuity programs worked very well for us, and sometimes clients would stay for two or three years. The majority of people stayed for about three to four months. At one point we wanted to build greater longevity, so we offered an incentive for participants to stay an entire year. People need to feel like there’s a good reason to sign up for the long haul.

Continuity Incentives

Think strategically about how to motivate clients to step up to the yearly payment. After one or two months, send out an email with a really juicy bonus to lock in for one year. Here are a few incentive ideas:

• Provide a price incentive that makes the full year cheaper than the 12 months added up individually.
• Explain how you’ll be raising your rates, so they can lock in now at the lower price when they agree to one year.
• Offer a special Q&A call for all those who make the one year commitment.
• Conduct a special one-day workshop for members who subscribe for the full year.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
A continuity program, like group coaching, works great when you don’t have enough time in your business anymore for one-on-one services. However, if you’re in the start up phase, the fastest path to cash is still one-on-one services. To generate enough participants and cover your setup costs, you’ll need a good sized list and joint venture partners.

This is just one of the many best practices we dive deep into with the students of The Client Attraction Business School, the premier training school for growth-minded entrepreneurs looking to quickly attract more clients and make more money. If you’re interested in finding out more, visit www.ClientAttractionBusinessSchool.com for more details. To speak to an enrollment coach, click here.

[youtube width=”600″ height=”367″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA_idflHwy0[/youtube]

My video tip for you today is all about the importance of creating your signature system – and how to get started today. Your signature system is really key to multiplying your business over and over. It becomes the basis for your bootcamp, three-day workshop, even the book you’ve always wanted to write. I’ve done this with my own Client Attraction signature system and I teach my Platinum and private level clients to do the same in order to leverage their business. So, where do you even start? Come on, overcome your analysis paralysis with me – watch this short video for this important strategy for growing your business.

Your signature system is actually rather easy to put together. You want to start by getting everything you know about your system down on paper. Document your unique process from start to finish – and don’t worry so much if you’re leaving something out. Your signature system brings your clients in so you can always give them more later.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

1. Write down all the key components. Use bullet points. Include everything you know for sure about your system. Brainstorm.
2. Group all your bullet points into categories. Then give each category a label.
3. Put your categories in logical, chronological order. You want them to follow a step-by-step order that makes sense to the user.
4. Lastly, give your system a results-focused title. And Voila! You’ve got your Signature System.

An effective signature system is the basis for multiplying your business in so many ways. It’s an essential tool for multiplying your business to that next BIG level. Have some fun with it – the key is to just get it done.

© 2011 Client Attraction LLC. All Rights Reserved.

If you enjoyed this video, please post your comment or question below and share it with your friends and colleagues who would find it beneficial.

[youtube width=”600″ height=”367″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwJfD7abZMc[/youtube]

Today’s video is about how to stop doing everything yourself in your business. No matter what level of business you’re in, you need the right resources and systems to grow your business to the next level.

Ever been to a restaurant and notice the number of resources they have on hand to serve you? It’s all about the “front of house” and “back of house.” Front of house means the Maitre D’ and the servers, all the beautiful tablecloths and flowers, and more, all the things that belong to the experiential part of your visit. Back of house refers to all that goes on back there in the kitchen that you never really get to see, the” administrative stuff,” if you will.

Most likely, you’re trying to do both “front of house” and “back at house” in your business, at the same time, all on your own. There are so many behind-the-scenes aspects of running your business, that at some point of your business success, you can’t actually do them ALL, however much you want to hold on to the controls. When you do so, you leave a lot of money on the table.

For you to grow your reach (and grow your income), you need more time to focus on what actually brings in more clients and income. How do you get more time in your solo business? LEVERAGE. Leverage is getting the necessary resources (people, systems, automation and delegation) to free up your time so you can focus on the money-generating activities (client work, marketing, business development, etc.).

Your assignment today is about leveraging certain aspects of your business by using systems and support. Create more time in your day so you can attract more ideal high-paying clients and make more money.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

1. Make a list of ALL the tasks you’re doing during the day.
2. Add a dollar amount to each item you think you can pay someone else to do that for you like errands, filing, scheduling, shipping, editing, phone calls, etc. (it’s actually more inexpensive than you think).
3. Group similar tasks together by dollar-amount and then by category (website, administrative, personal, etc.).
4. Identify the resources (assistu.com, craigslist.com, elance.com, odesk.com, guru.com) where you can hire someone who would be happy to take these tasks off your plate.
5. Start to delegate the lowest dollar amount tasks first and focus your available time on further business development and marketing to your ideal clients (and making room for more clients).

If you enjoyed this video, please post your comment or question below and share it with your friends and colleagues who would find it beneficial.

Fabienne Fredrickson, The Client Attraction Mentor, is founder of the Client Attraction System®, the proven step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to attract more clients, in record time…guaranteed. To get your F.R.E.E. Audio CD by mail and receive her weekly marketing & success mindset articles on attracting more high-paying clients and dramatically increasing your in.come, visit www.attractclients.com.