“Quote: Invest three percent of your income in yourself (self–development) in order to guarantee your future.”– Brian Tracy
Sometimes, the signs that it’s time to invest in taking your business to go to the next BIG level show up without notice. Take this past summer, for example. The second call of my Preview Teleseminar Series for my workshop was scheduled and I was set to interview two inspiring and motivating solopreneurs on how they use the Client Attraction systems daily to make well into the 6–figures. We had close to a thousand entrepreneurs registered for the call and I was excited to host it.
Then, the unthinkable happened. As instructed, hundreds of people starting showing up 10 minutes early to make sure they would make it onto the line before it was maxed out. As I was greeting them, I kept asking if my two featured guests were on the line. My heart kept sinking further and further into my stomach as I realized neither of them could actually get on the line as moderators.
Call it a systems glitch, call it a disaster, there was nothing I could do. Emails were going back and forth, with my special guests telling me they were indeed on the line but no one could hear either of them. Meanwhile, nearly a thousand people were waiting patiently for us to figure out what was going on.
At that moment, I would have paid ANYTHING to be able to get an operator on the line to fix it for me. Anything.
I was crumbling inside, unsure of what to do. Have the call WITHOUT my two featured guests or reschedule it entirely? I chose to go on (perseverance) and asked everyone to hang up and dial in again, and was then able to get ONE of my guests on the moderator line. I interviewed her and it went great. Then, as she hung up to let the other guest onto the moderator line, I got cut off of my OWN call! I tried several times to get back onto the line and was blocked out for several minutes. (I found out later that Mercury was in retrograde.)
The whole thing unfolded like that scene from the movie Swingers when he leaves those messages, one after the other, sinking deeper and deeper into trouble. Have you seen it? Finally, I got on as a “regular” participant and had to keep the line un–muted for the rest of the call.
As I mentioned, I would have done (and paid) ANYTHING to be able to press a button and get an operator to help me. Throughout this episode, my intuition kept nudging at me saying, “Fabienne, you should have invested in your business and gotten the help you needed BEFORE this happened.” But after years of frugally using basic services, I’d gotten too lazy and perhaps too complacent to spring for that PAID bridge line the million–dollar marketers are using.
The good news is, the call ended up being a huge hit. People wrote me to tell me how inspiring it was, how motivated they got as a result and ironically, no one mentioned the technical difficulties. Several people signed up for the workshop as a direct result of that call, and I was thrilled that no one even brought up the snafus. But I learned three MAJOR lessons that day:
- Persevere. No situation is ever as bad as YOU think it is. You may be crumbling inside, but in other people’s perceptions, it’s just another day at the office. Keep going. It will always work itself out.
- Let others take care of details for you so that you can focus on your “genius work”, the stuff that actually makes you mo.ney. You see, Sinatra didn’t move his own piano each time he sang at a gig. He had a team in place to handle those details so that he could focus on two things: Singing and Getting More Gigs. And that’s what you should be focusing on too: Working With Clients and Getting More Clients. Everything else can be delegated.
- Sometimes, it’s time to put the frugal part of you behind and REALLY invest in your business. No more holding back. When it’s time to grow, it’s also time to take out your wallet and INVEST in making more. That’s what all the millionaire marketers do. My experience has been that, when I do invest in my business, it always comes back to me at least 4 to 10 times over. And although “money” is usually the excuse I’ve used in the past for not doing something (and I’m not the only one, you have too!), I’ve found that if I really look at a situation, I almost always have the resources to invest or can find a way to get them.
Just for the purpose of today’s article, I’m adjusting Brian Tracy’s quote from above: “Invest three percent of your income in yourself [and your business] in order to guarantee your future.
Your Assignment: How will YOU invest in your business this week? Notice what you have NOT taken advantage of because you’re using the excuse of “not having enough money.” Using that excuse is an insidious form of self-sabotage. It’s a mindset that keeps you playing small and limits your growth. Time to stop being frugal and take action. The money will naturally show up to help you pay for it (it always does.)
Fabienne Fredrickson, The Client Attraction Mentor, is founder of the Client Attraction System TM , the proven step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to attract more clients, in record time…guaranteed. To get your free Audio CD by mail and receive her weekly marketing & success mindset articles on attracting more high-paying clients and dramatically increasing your income, visit www.ClientAttraction.com.
