Evolutionary Blog

Distinctions to accelerate your personal and professional evolution

The Top 6 Mistakes Coaches Make and Their Solutions (Part 2)

The Top 6 Mistakes Coaches and Practitioners Make (Part 2)

In Part 1 we discussed the need to integrate money and spirutality, and how to better serve your clients's needs in a sustainable way.

What’s next? More nuts and bolts to build on the philosophical grounding and mindsets we established in Part 1.

4: Having only one stream of prospects

Most coaches and practitioners rely solely on word of mouth and word of mouth is good. In the 21st century marketplace there are hyper-empowered and talkative people. This is good for you. However, it is not enough. Make a decision now to take control–to be the locus of responsibility–for the success of your business. While word of mouth is critical, it is only one of at least three prospect streams the successful coach or practitioner must establish for themselves. What are those three?

•Formalized referral systems [two of them]

•Speaking engagements and free evening talks

•Word of mouth

Referral Systems

•An affiliate program with a percentage or fee for referrals; offer to pay a commission – a generous one.

•Write a referral clause into your client contract stating that if the client is happy with your services that they then agree to refer two people to you for a complimentary exploratory session. While you never want to be heavy handed about this, it does set their intention and focus their awareness on a more formal approach to referrals. And wouldn’t you rather pay them than pay for advertising (online or otherwise)?

Evening Talks | Introductory Talks | Speaking Engagements

These are the bread and butter of filling your practice and keeping it full. When you give talk make it explicit in your marketing and in your introductory remarks that you are there for two reasons:

1.     To provide value to their lives–first and foremost and;

2.     To market your services and/or products, course

Say this at the beginning – in the first three minutes – and let them know you will be revisiting what is available to them at the end. And then at the end of your talk, pass around a signup sheet for them and next – and this is critical – if they expressed interest, initiate contact with within 24 hours with an initial email beginning the sales flow process of your sales system.

Word Of Mouth

Consider this a great backup and occasional unexpected icing on the cake when those unintentional or random referrals occur. And occur they will. Sometimes they come from something you posted online or from a referral you were unaware of or a former client you have not contacted in a while.

If you do this, and you consider them in this order of importance, you will always be in control of your flow of clients and prospects–and they will flow in. Your sustainable prosperity will follow.

5. Failure To Leverage Contact Points And The Opportunity They Hold

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Money and Spirituality | The Mythos of Conflict

One of the things that I am committed to changing in the world is the painful separation of Spirit and wealth acquisition.

So many people think they have to sacrifice their spiritual life to make money or they think they have to sacrifice wealth to be truly spiritual.The truth is quite the opposite. Not only can we integrate them, but we must.

I think we can all agree, that if these were integrated--if people were acquiring wealth AND living a robust spiritual life in the same time -- then so much of the unethical stuff we have seen in the financial markets in the last few years would not have happened. 

For our world to solve so many problems it has, not only can we integrate spiritual sensibilities and wealth acquisition--we must. Integrate your purpose and prosperity. End the suffering of this painful separation by integrating your purpose and your prosperity.

That is the what and the why of Evolutionary Sales. The course teaches you the how. February 28th, March 1st and 2nd in San Francisco. 

Watch the 14 minute video about the course »here«:
http://evolutionarysales.com

 
Come to the free evening introduction for the course in San Francsico next Tuesday. Details on Facebook »here«.
 
In Service,
 
Jason

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Evolutionary Professional | Spiritual Capitalism | The Teleseminar Series

Update for the next (and final) call in this series:
Monday, March 12th, 2012 @ 7:30pm Pacific

Talks and Technology ::: How "Free" Leads to Money And Fulfillment

It is no secret you need to give away content in today's marketplace. 

Not just because people need to be able to get a deeper sense of you and your approach to life, work, and the services you provide, but also as a result of the amount and degree of choice in the marketplace. They need to understand and "get" at a deeper level the difference between you and the other service providers out there.

It is your opportunity to distinguish yourself from others, demonstrate competence, and also provide value to those who may or may not be able to afford you.

AND, what stands in the way between you and their eyeballs, ears, and allowing them to "feel" you is your ability to present in person, or over the web, and your mastery of the tools of technology that are abundant and freely available to us in today's net-centric world.

Technology. Most practitioners I have met hate it. Most practitioners must develop some competency with it--unless and until you can just pay someone to handle it for you. BUT even then, you will want to know enough to keep your consultants honest. Take it from me.

Allow me to contribute to you by demystifying much of the "magical" and for most--overwhelming--world of technology.

In this free teleseminar we will cover:

  • The 4 learning types and how to integrate them into any presentation platform to keep your audience engaged
  • Blogging ::: including
    • Blogging platforms and the benefits and drawbacks of each of the available open source platforms
    • Do's and don'ts of blogging
  • Evening talks and how to:
    • Write them
    • Market them
    • Key components you must incorporate them so you can utilize them as "client acquisition events"
  • Teleseminars
    • What they are effective for and what they are not effective for
  • Which social-networking sites are a waste of your time, which ones matter, and why
  • How to use social marketing to maximize your results

When?  Monday, March 12th, 2012 @ 7:30pm Pacific

Why? As always so that you can live a more integrated--a more spiritually aligned--life; integrating your spiritual purpose and your contributions to the world with your wealth acquisition strategies.

As always, I will be taking questions live (and encouraging you to ask them), so if you have questions about any of this tech stuff or presenting, be sure to be on the call.

Register for this free call here:
http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/4UY909U6UEBJD521

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Update for the last call: Monday, March 5th, 2012 @ 7:30pm Pacific

Here is the audio from this call:




Tonight, we will be convering Evolutionary Sales for coaches and practitioners.

Register for these free calls here:
http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/4UY909U6UEBJD521

More details:

What if you could count on a prospective client signing an extended package with you when you see them in person? When I say, "count on" on mean--with 90% certainty?

As a holistic practitioner, you are sensitive to dynamics that do not feel right and you truly want to be of service to your prospective clients. You correctly want to make sure they never feel pressured.

And they never should--they do not need to be.

At the same time, if you have been in business for yourself for any length of time, you have come to realize that if you do not assist them in overcoming their concerns and their fears or limitations in thinking, you will never be able to assist them in realizing the life they have always wanted, dreamed of, and perhaps have come to you to assist them in finally achieving. In a sense, this is your first test as their coach, guide, or service provider in the helping industries.

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SOPA/PIPA Round Up | H.R. 3782 This Legislation Must Be Stopped

Imagine ... take downs and seizures of web sites by the D.O.J. without judicial review just for linking to something deemed a copyright infringement by ... a corporation that complains to the Justice Department.

What could go wrong?


 

I am sure you have heard of this by now:  SOPA/PIPA and its assault on liberty in a misguided attempt to end piracy. Not only does it trample on the First Amendment, but it also will not work in achieving its desired and stated outcome.

Regardless, I wanted to give you a round-up from those who write about this every day as well as some humor from the web to go along with it.

First from Wired, here is an explanation of the "blackout":
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/websites-dark-in-revolt/

Also, Wired's in depth explanation of why they censored their own web site Wednesday, January 18th, 2012:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/why-weve-censored-wired-com/

And watch the video on that page above.

In that article are also links to the why and the how of this legislation being so darned bad if you are unclear.

To lighten the mood, but to still be serious about this, and Anti-SOPA song set to "American Pie":

Now, serious:

From Wired.com ::: SOPA, Internet Regulation, and the Economics of Piracy:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/sopa-piracy-costs/

Most importantly …

Don't declare victory yet. It is not enough to put black bars on stuff you post. Write your Congressperson:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/internet-revolt-follow/

Here is where you can write your Representative(s):
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

And hit the Senate up too:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&;Sort=ASC

And finally, one of the videos that started this all has been rebooted to deliver some very salient points

Yes, you guessed it, Hitler responds to SOPA:

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Spiritual Capitalism ::: Prosperity Through Purpose

"When people are free to act, they will always act in a way that they believe will maximize their utility, i.e., will raise them to the highest possible position on their value scale. Their utility ex ante will be maximized, provided we take care to interpret “utility” in an ordinal rather than a cardinal manner. Any action, any exchange that takes place on the free market or more broadly in the free society, occurs because of the expected benefit to each party concerned.” –Murray N. Rothbard, Power and Market

"We must not be afraid to be free."--Justice Black

 

Human beings have an inexhaustible spirit. Through wars, pestilence, oppression, disasters, genocide and personal tragedy, human beings continue to express creativity and ingenuity to the very degree that they are allowed the liberties to do so. It is an unquenchable and inexhaustible Spirit. It is the best—the Divine—within each of us that makes it so. And while at times, we have varying degrees of access to the divine within us, and sometimes the light is dim and flickers, the fact remains that there is a god or goddess in all of us waiting to come out and play.

What if we could integrate our work and our play? Our spirit and our finances? Our economics and our purpose? Our job and our internal worship? The mundane and the divine? My assertion is that not only is this possible...it is necessary...for the conscious evolution of the planet and for our survival and thrival as a species ::: not to mention our personal happiness.

As many of us our satisfied--that is we have all the nice stuff. Cars, houses, fine clothing, computers, iPods, great relationships, money...but we remain unfulfilled. How many of us are seeking something. Trying to fulfill ourselves with something outside? How many of us have done this ourselves? Seeking, looking, grasping...some of us desperately. And yet, what we seek is right within us all along waiting to be discovered. Waiting to be unleashed. Waiting for the full integration into our daily lives...

Spiritual and Capitalism are two words that we seldom, if ever, hear in the same sentence unless derisively or pejoratively in this Country. The conventional and majority “wisdom” states that they are diametrically opposed. That one cannot live a truly spiritual life and be a capitalist and that a capitalist is never really up to any good. Is this conventional wisdom truly wise? Is it even remotely accurate?

First, we must define “capitalism” and “spiritual” if we are to get anywhere in this discussion. It is worth noting that “capitalism” is a term that was coined my Marx—the greatest self-anointed enemy of capitalism—someone whose economics theories have virtually all been empirically disproved—to live. We could simnply say he was a failed mathematician. Just wrong on the numbers.

The irony there is obvious on both counts. Prior to Marx, there was no definition or characterization of “capitalism” really, for it was not a system at all—it was very simply the application of liberty in the economic domain. “Free Market” meant just that—that the market was free and unrestricted. What was the market? Humans engaged in voluntary associations for mutual benefit. Nothing more. That association may have been a mine worker freely associating with the owner of a mine for some agreed upon amount of money per unit of work [hours or perhaps ponds of extracted materials, etc.] or a provider of transport for someone who wishes to travel somewhere or to send goods to a market in another geographical area or someone wanting to “buy money”—that is, take a loan out with the contract obligation to repay it plus a fee [interest], but in no case could there be violent coercion. It is also noting additionally, that “coercion” does not mean “influence” as in political vogue today, as it abrogates free will and muddies the waters. By "coercion", we mean violence or the threat of violence against person or property. It is truly a triumph of rhetoric over reason that the thinking—debunked for over a century now—that in the free market one person always gains at the expense of another still prevails among many laypeople.

What has been known almost since the beginning of economics becoming a science is that both parties always benefit—or at least expect to do so—otherwise they would never engage in the association to begin with. For humans always expect—through all their choices and actions—regardless of if they are proven right or not, to benefit or improve their lot by their choices. Of course, “liberty” does not mean you are "free" to aggress against another’s person or property as an extension of their person though their labor. Therefore, the only “restrictions” were and should be that force and fraud [fraud is implicit force or implicit theft] were actionable torts. Liberty does not mean you are free to do anything you like. Liberty and freedom are different distinctions. What liberty does mean is that you are free from violent aggression from another. You are therefore not “free” to aggress against another, as to do so would violate his or her liberty.

So “capitalism” as it is so ill-named, is liberty practically applied—the ability to freely associate for mutual benefit. Nothing more and nothing less. Anything else is a moral judgment or characterization or perhaps an aesthetic condemnation and therefore not appropriate for a definition as such. There are, of course, questions of morality and aesthetics, which often confuse this definition or muddle the thinking around it, but for our purposes, we will address those later, if at all. However, that does not mean that they are not important and valid questions. I would love to have that dialogue, it is just beyond the scope of this piece. Let's is suffice to say that just because you can to something does not mean you should do it. Unfortunately, in this highly politicized and philosophically muddled society, the distinctions among ethics, morality, and aesthetics have become blurred.

What then, is spiritual, for surely, “capitalism is the least spiritual system of economics” is it not--according to the conventional wisdom?

Spirituality or “being spiritual” means so many things to so many people. It may mean following this spiritual text or that spiritual text. It may mean being “Christ-like” or “possessing the Buddha mind” or it may simply mean being pious or acting for the good of others. For still others, it is following the directives of this spiritual leader or that spiritual leader. For still others it is “opening to the Divine” or “becoming one with all things” through meditation and “spiritual practice”. For still others, it is accessing their own consciousness or their creative spirit. How then can we come to a universal definition of “spiritual”? For this, we must understand the spirit of human beings.

Spir·it n: 1. a vital force that characterizes a living being as being alive2. somebody’s will, sense of self, or enthusiasm for living 3. an enthusiasm and energy for living 4. somebody’s personality or temperament 5. somebody or something that is a divine, inspiring, or animating influence Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

For our purpose, we will define “spiritual” as: accessing and liberating to the largest degree possible that which is our vital life force and the best we have within us—our creativity, our inspiration, etc.

That is, by demonstrating behavioral alignment or pure expression of our highest values. This could be through art, community, leadership, study, contribution, entrepreneurship, our job roles, or our chores. It could be liberating our minds through meditation. It could be making love to our partner, for anything with which we bring our Spirit to, and engage fully unleashing our highest inner self, can be, and will be, a spiritual experience and we can bring this to most activities, most notably, our ideas and the implementation or actualization of those ideas or visions. That being the case, let’s examine capitalism, and not-capitalism very briefly. Anything other than unfettered capitalism—full economic liberty—is marked by increasing intervention by the State. That is—the government.

What then, is the nature of government? Government in any form [from democracy to socialism to communism to monarchism or dictatorship] has two inalienable qualities: 1. a monopoly on the initiation of force over a declared geographical area, often under the pretense of “protecting” its citizens—whether they need it or want it or not; 2. it exists and operates by levying taxes—that is the coercive and compulsory appropriation of money, which if any other organization or group or individual were engaged in would be called “theft” and prosecuted. The more the government intervenes in the affairs of its citizens [including “assisting” its citizens], the more the use of force is employed and to pay for the increase in government “services”, taxation, or debt, must increase—more force. If it is taxation, it is direct and immediate force. If it is debt, it is delayed force as future generation will have no choice in the matter—they are, in a real way, enslaved to the government as a result.

Therefore, the government is always committing the very same acts that it is entrusted to prevent: violence and theft. The emperor indeed has no clothes, yet all of society is raving about how wonderful his robes are, and how we should make more of them in various colors. We have already seen that the most spiritual a person can be is liberation of their spirit, often through creativity, and that they have the inalienable right over their own person and body [and by extension their property] is accepted as natural law and our intuitive moral sense. It is obvious that the use of force against someone—one of the few things all humans can agree on as criminal unless it is purely defensive while protecting your person or property—is dampening to their Spirit, not liberating.

Therefore, the more the government intervenes, the less “spiritual” and the more liberalized [free] the economy, the more spiritual, as human beings are free to fully express themselves in every domain of their life, including the economic. Therefore, Capitalism is the most spiritual system. What of the "evils" of capitalism? Some people think we have a free market in America, and/or in the Western Industrialized core of nations. We do not. We do not have capitalism. We have something between “mercantilism” and “corporate statism”. Most people who argue about the evils of capitalism know not what they speak of, nor even what system we operate within. In fact, America is not a democracy at all—it is a constitutional republic—an important difference.

But let’s leave politics aside for this discussion.

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