“The most exciting acting tends to happen in the roles you never thought you could play.” -John Lithgow

Getting clear on my ideal client was something that mystified me at the start of my business.

It seemed liked everywhere I turned, someone was asking me all about my client avatar. I spent (ahem, wasted) so much freaking time drilling into this fictitious person who was going to come and save my business like a knight-in-shining-armor.

Turns out, in real business life it doesn’t exactly work that way.

While knowing who you serve and what problem you solve for your people is incredibly important, sometimes the whole ideal client thing is a cop-out and an excuse to stay stuck and play small.

Sure, we want to be intimate with our people's needs, desires, fears, and problems. We want to be able to communicate our message to the right people. We also want to be clear on who we can’t help. But instead of getting clear on the type of person we can serve and help, I see a lot of us deciding why someone isn’t ideal. 

We're doing what my old acting teacher used to call ‘casting ourselves out of the role’.

With acting, as you probably know, in order to book a part, you have to audition for the role. Your agent submits you for different parts, and then, if you seem like a potential fit, a casting director will invite you in for an audition.

An invitation to audition usually includes a character breakdown that describes what they’re looking for. 

I can’t tell you how many times, I’d get one of these character breakdowns, look at it, and rattle of a list of reasons why I wasn’t right for that particular part. 

Sometimes I was the wrong age range, sometimes a different ethnicity, or sometimes the role had attributes I just KNEW I didn’t have.

Luckily I had an acting teacher who called BS on these stories and would remind me that it’s not up to me to cast the part. Casting had seen my photo and resume, they were calling me in for a reason, and I had no idea what they really wanted.

He would remind me to stop casting myself out of the part. 

This piece of advice helped me work through so many stories over the years. The majority of the roles I booked? I was dead ‘wrong’ for the part on paper.

These were roles that took me to Italy, South Africa, and all over the US. They ended up being really fun parts where I got to play outside what I had thought was my ‘range’ and ‘type’.

The same thing can happen when it comes to you and your business.

There’s a tendency to cast ourselves out of work. I see this all.the.time. with my clients, and hey, I’ve had to catch myself on this as well.

We decide ahead of time what people can afford and rule out people as ‘not ideal’ based on these assumptions. Um, I’m sorry, when did we become all-knowing mind readers?

We know before launching a program why no one on our list wants it. We’re sure we need to build an entirely new audience of the ‘right’ people first.

And the biggest one I see over and over again? We think we need new ideal clients.

Friends, stop casting yourself out of work. 

What I see here isn’t a problem with our ideal clients. It’s fear and stories we tell ourselves about not being good enough. It’s a way we try to protect ourselves from being rejected. It’s wanting to avoid making offers and selling. It’s thinking the grass is greener.

It’s a want for control.

It’s thinking that there is one perfect human who won’t have any objections and will buy out everything we offer.

It’s hiding in plain sight.

It’s also kind of rude to our potential clients, who are probably pretty ideal. We essentially tell them that they’re not good enough and that we know better than they do about what they want. Not very empowering, is it?

What if, instead of using the whole ‘ideal client’ thing as a way to hide and prejudge potential clients, we use it the way it was intended?

The same way a character breakdown isn’t set in stone and is meant to help casting directors identify and locate potential fits for a part, our ideal client avatar is meant to help us find and connect with the people we can potentially help.

Client avatars were never meant to become fictitious characters. They were meant to help us become better marketers, so we can show up and share our message with the people who want to hear it. 

Ideal clients are meant to give us a framework, so we’re clear on the needs, wants, desires, fears, concerns, and problems our people face.  

For context, I’ll share that some of the most ideal clients I work with don’t fit into the same client avatar mold. I’ve also found some clients become more ideal the longer we work together.

As we get ready to close out this year and start to look to our business goals for the new year, let’s keep our integrity and boundaries, but let’s also loosen the grip on our fear that has us casting ourselves out of work.

Wishing you your version of success!

“Not following up with your prospects is the same as filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain.” - Michelle More

A few months ago I went to a business event run by someone I really admire in the industry.

It was here in New York City and the ticket price was relatively inexpensive.

I knew this woman’s work and that it would be a worthwhile event. I also believe in continuing to invest in my personal and business growth. I regularly invest large amounts back into myself and business. So getting a ticket was completely aligned with my values, wants, and within my budget. I didn’t really have any buying objections.

This is important to know because here’s how purchasing my ticket went down:

You’d think given this backstory, when the event was announced with a limited number of seats, that I pounced on it, bought my ticket, and was done with it. Right?

Except, that’s not at all what happened.

Here’s what really happened: The event was announced. I took a look and wasn’t sure I was free on the dates, bookmarked the email, and forgot about it.

Then, I got promotional emails for the event and said to myself, “Kim, don’t forget to grab a ticket before they sell out.” But business and life took over my brain, and I didn’t get to it.

A few weeks later, I got pummeled with more sales emails, but it was during a busy time in my business, so they all went unopened and unread. Still no ticket purchased.

A month went by and there was a free webinar to promote the event that I didn’t attend, followed by a series of even more sales emails that included a bonus. I kinda, sorta caught it, but I started to wonder if I really wanted to go to an event solo and didn’t pull the trigger.

Finally, I got a follow-up sales email letting me know the deadline to buy tickets was coming up. Did I want in?

I managed to hit the buy button, grab my credit card, and make the effort needed to fill in all of the fields and purchase my ticket.

ALL of that had to happen for me to take action and buy something I already knew I wanted, could afford, and saw value in from someone I know, like, and trust.

This journey to buying a relatively inexpensive item is important to see because it took a massive amount of followups and exposure to the offer, something I already wanted, for me to mobilize and buy.

Imagine what would need to happen for me to buy an item I wasn’t sure I wanted, with an investment point outside my reach, from someone I didn’t really know, like, and trust. As business owners, this is the place we all need to begin to imagine more.

There are a lot of factors at play in this story, but the important piece of the sales process to notice here are the number of followups it took to take me from interested to buying. 

I’d bet over the months this event was being promoted that I received at least twenty various forms of a follow-up or ‘touch points’ mentioning the offer. That means it took 20 follow-ups for me to buy something I had very few objections or questions about.

Take a look at your own buying behaviors. For as many things that you’ve purchased impulsively or based on a gut decision, I’d wager a bet that there are equally as many things you’ve had to take your time, think about, and constantly get reminders before you felt ready to buy.

And, yet, when the tables are turned and we’re in the role or seller instead of buyer, most of us make an offer once or twice and then take the lack of response as a sign of rejection. We aren’t willing to give our people the very same thing we need when we’re in their shoes to make a confident buying decision. 

This is something I’m always reminding my clients: there is so much power in the follow-up.

The sales process doesn’t start and end with the offer we make. The majority of sales are made in the follow-up. Given that most of us aren’t following up enough, that also means most sales are lost in the lack of follow-up.

Here’s what happens, we get into a story about follow-ups being annoying, salesy, pushy, gross, or too much. These stories are all mindset and most of the time have more to do with us, our fears, and beliefs than they do with the actual situation we’re making stories up about.

I’ll flip those stories on their head a bit, and say, it’s your job as a business owner to make offers and continue to follow up. Your JOB.

And it’s actually pretty annoying as a buyer, if you want to buy something, to realize you missed out on the deadline to get what you wanted because you weren’t sent a reminder email. It’s equally frustrating to have to sift through a week’s worth of emails to find that one email with that random offer you think you might want to buy.

I’m going to share a few stats with you because sometimes numbers help us see our mindset stories in a different light. These stats come from a talk Marcus Murphy gave at the Digital Marketing Conference earlier this year (not the event I’m talking about above!). 

Only 2% of sales are made on the first contact, 10% on the fourth contact, and 80% of sales come between the 5th and 12th contact.

80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact, and yet, I’d guess most people are stopping on the second or third if they’re even making it that far. Murphy backed this guess up and shared that 48% of people never follow up and 25% of people make one follow-up and stop.

The good news? This means there’s lots of room for those of us who are willing to get uncomfortable and keep showing up and following up.

Want to make more money doing what you love? Double down on those follow-ups and find new and interesting ways to connect with your people and put your offer in front of them. If you need an extra mindset shift, look at it as being a good friend and building relationships.

Wishing you your version of success,

Kim

P.S. Want to learn how else you can make connections that turn into sales? Join me for a free 3-day training, Connections to Clients! Click here to learn more and grab your free seat.

“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.” -Bruce Lee

Back when I was still acting, I was in a great acting class that helped me hone my craft and taught me the business side of things.

Because let me tell you, as an actress, I was the CEO of a small business. One thing we’d focus on in class is the art of booking jobs.

In order to have the privilege of getting paid to perform, you had to learn how to get hired.I found the actual acting job itself was usually the easy part; it was the process of getting the job that felt challenging.

There was, of course, all the mindset stuff that came out to play (I mean so much of it, y’all). There was getting the actual opportunity, an audition. Then there was learning how to master your audition. 

Just like booking a new client or selling a product, there was an art to selling yourself in an audition that had various moving parts. So, in this acting class, we worked on those different aspects of booking a job.

One thing this acting teacher always harped on was the importance of how we handled our mistakes.

Because we all make mistakes. No matter how well rehearsed you might be, mistakes are inevitable and a glorious part of being human. It’s how we handle our mistakes that makes all the difference, and in this case, if you were the person who booked the job or not.

In fact, we were taught that casting directors (the people who ran auditions) were often paying attention to see how you handled a mistake. They knew, mistakes will happen on set. And they wanted to know, would you be rocked by the mistakes or rock the mistakes.

It was this distinction and perfective shift that was so important and helped me book more acting roles. For as many roles that I booked because of a great performance, I booked parts and lucrative commercials where I royally f-ed up in the audition room. It was the way I rolled with the punches, acknowledged my flawed humanness, and got back in the zone that allowed me to book roles over more ‘perfect’ auditions. 

There are a few jobs in particular where I believe it’s only because I made mistakes that I actually booked the part! Truth. Those mistakes gave me the opportunity to demonstrate how I handled them and how I’d behave on set under a little stress. They also made me more real in the room and gave me a chance to connect in a different way.

Why am I sharing this with you? It’s not to relive my acting days. This very much correlates to our businesses and selling. 

Whether we’re selling products or services, selling in person or online, automating or using some good old fashioned elbow grease, the back end of our business is human. And to be human is to make mistakes. 

While mistakes are inevitable, I see so many of us are operating under the false belief that we can somehow eradicate this human quality. So we don’t expect mistakes. And when mistakes arise, because remember we’re human, it throws us into a quick-spin spiral. 

We either aren’t prepared with how to handle it, try to avoid and brush it under the rug, or allow a little mistake to become a big thing that grows three arms and a leg. 

But just like casting directors are looking to see how you handle mistakes because they want to know if you’re someone they want to fly across the world and work with for weeks on time, your clients and customers are curious about the same. They might not consciously be thinking, “Hey, I wonder how they’ll handle a mistake?” But when they notice something off, they’re wondering what you’re going to do, and your response (or lack thereof) is everything.

If you freak out and make a mountain out of a mole hill, your customers are going to notice and lose some faith.

If you try to act perfect or push the blame elsewhere, you’re going to seem inauthentic, robotic, and distance yourself.

If you just ignore it, your people are going to wonder how much you care. 

Here’s what I’ve found to be true in acting and in business, acknowledging our mistakes and humbly owning and embracing our humanness can go an incredibly long way. In some instances, your response to mistakes can even seal the deal. Owning up to our mistakes allows us to get real and connect in a way we can’t when we’re polished and performing, and people want real.

I’ll tell you, I make mistakes all the time. I’ve also booked clients as a direct result of some of those mistakes. Truly, in this way, mistakes can be a gift and an opportunity.

I’ve also found it’s our recovery time that means so much. Our recovery time is that time between freak out because we’ve ‘fucked up’ to the time we address it and move on. Recovery time matters. Successful business owners don’t screw up any less, they just have a faster recovery time.

I hope this week, you’re able to cut yourself some slack, give yourself a little grace, and embrace the glorious human that you are. I also hope you’re able to open your eyes to mistakes, shift your perspective, and see them as a gift and a new way to show up, connect, and even book more ‘parts’.

Wishing you your version of success!

P.S. Today’s my birthday, and I like to keep it pretty low-key. But, I’ve decided to give myself the gift of working with one of you because coaching puts me in my happy place. I’m giving away One, 60-minute Coaching Session in my Facebook Group and on Instagram today! Want to play and enter? Look for the post to enter your name. That’s all you have to do! 

Can’t wait to support one of you in making more money doing what you love!

P.P.S. If there are any mistakes in this blog post, it’s just so fitting. Don’t you think?

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." -Melody Beattie

It was Thanksgiving yesterday here in the US.

For those of you who celebrate, I hope you had a beautiful day filled with love, laughter, family, friends, and gratitude. For those of you don’t celebrate the day, I still wish you the same!

I want to take a moment to thank YOU for being a part of my world. This work is my life’s passion. It’s what lights me up and gives me purpose. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to do the work I do, work with my wonderful clients, and connect with you each week. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I also want to talk a bit more about gratitude!

I know gratitude was so yesterday, but it’s an important and relevant topic any day. It’s become so mainstream, though, that I think many of us think it’s cliche or just pop psychology.

Not only is that NOT true, but gratitude is also multifaceted, and I want to dig into a side of gratitude that I haven’t had a chance to before.

I’ve talked about the power of gratitude and the benefits it has on our brain and overall happiness. I’ve talked about how gratitude can improve our businesses and relationships. I’ve talked about those times we’re not feeling so grateful and being mindful of not using gratitude as emotional duct tape.

Today, I want to talk about being grateful for the things we don’t have, yet.

Stay with me on this one.

Gratitude is this seemingly simple act that has the power to rewire our brain. It’s the most proven way to boost happiness. And as someone who has very openly shared her experience and struggles with depression, I can attest to the power of gratitude here as well.

Most of the time, when we’re practicing gratitude, we’re being thankful for the things we already have in our lives. We’re taking a moment to savor life and find the positive. All of this is incredibly powerful brain juice.

I think we can elevate our gratitude practice by starting to be grateful for the things in our lives we don’t have, yet. I think this form of gratitude can also help us create those very things we don’t have.

See, most of the time, we’re operating in life by reliving memories of the past. Meaning, we’re constantly assessing the world around us through the lens of our previous experiences.

We all do this, it’s how we’re wired.

Rarely do we come to an experience as a blank slate and take it in for what it is.

This is important to know because if we’re trying to create something new in our life, say a new level of success in our business, hit a new revenue goal, obtain a new kind of publicity or exposure, etc., we often have to think bigger than our current thoughts FIRST in order to be able to create this new level.

But most of us are hoping to create the result first and have this result give us the desired feeling or belief we want. Except it doesn’t work this way. Results follow thoughts. And as I’m always harping on, 95-99 percent of all of our conscious action gets its start in our subconscious mind.

Here’s where gratitude comes in. Gratitude is incredibly powerful. It can make us feel warm and fuzzy, it can combat depression, it can help us rewire our brain to ward against negativity bias. Its benefits go on and on.

So what if we took the time to consciously think and be grateful for the things we want but don’t have.

In doing this, we’d be creating new memories and experiences in our mind (the brain can’t tell the difference between real and perceived events). If we layer in the emotion of gratitude, we cement these experiences in our brain. All of this can begin to rewire our brain and create a new level of mind that is primed to then create what we want in real life.

I know this sounds a little out there, but practicing gratitude for what we don’t have yet may be one way we can begin to think bigger than our current thoughts, so that we can then create the new level in our lives we crave.

This is how I love to combine the power of gratitude and visualization.

This is also one way to stay out of lack mentality. If we can learn to be grateful for what we don’t have, yet, we stay out of the headspace of feeling like we don’t have enough. At the end of the day, this is what gratitude is all about.

Whether you’re grateful for the things you don’t have yet or the things you already have, we all have SO much to be grateful for. Gratitude is the answer for feeling down, comparisonitis, feeling less than, feeling frustrated, and just about anything. My wish for you as we close out the year is to feel more gratitude.

With gratitude and love, wishing you your version of success!

“The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.” -Elbert Hubbard

I’ve had a really great time as a guest on a few podcasts recently.

The question that always seems to come up during these conversations is, “What’s the one piece of advice you’d give someone starting out.”

It’s something I got asked when I was acting as well, and I’m sure it’s something I also asked at the start of my business. Because we all want to know that ‘one thing’, and we all seem to think we’re missing it, that everyone else knows what it is, and that once we know it, everything will be gravy moving forward.

Today, I want to tell you all about that ‘one thing’.

I’ve been looking at the recent growth in my business, the amazing clients I’m honored to work with, and the life I’m lucky enough to live. And I want to give you a really simple, magic-in-a-bottle answer. I want to tell you the one strategy that changed everything.

I’d love to be able to point you to that one vulnerable post I made or the interview I had in front of just the right people that catapulted my career.

I want to give you the productivity hack and the one mindset block I shifted that solved all of life’s problems for me.

I so badly want to tell you it’s just been personal development and mindset work because that’s so much of it.

Another part of me wants to say it’s all about the connection and relationship-building because that’s also the truth.

I want to give you that ONE answer so you can follow a formula. But I can’t.

I was looking at where a few new clients came from, and here’s what I can tell you: none of them came from the same place. There’s no one magical strategy that solved all my business woes. There’s no single mindset or mantra I repeat every day that opened the floodgates of clients and money for me.

Every client and sale in my business is the result of a multitude of actions, mindset work, and strategy. Yes, my strategy is pretty simple and works. (Seriously, y’all, I’m not reinventing the wheel or doing anything super-duper top secret and crazy over here.) Yes, I focus on my mindset daily and do the f-ing work. And, yes, I take action every day in my business.

But there is no ‘one thing’. It’s always a culmination of many, consistent, small steps that create the results I want.

Here’s why this is important to know: Collectively, we waste SO much time searching for the silver bullet. We lose hours, days, weeks trying to figure out what that ‘one thing’ is or what the ‘one thing’ everyone else knows that we don’t.

We download another free worksheet, test the waters in a strategy someone told us about, or give a new message or niche a spin just long enough to let the water get hot. Then, when it’s not boiling fast enough, we figure it’s not the ‘thing’, and turn the heat down…often right before we’re about to boil.

It’s that gap, that time when the water is hot and starting to simmer, where I see entrepreneurs sabotage themselves.

Here’s the ONE THING I will say works: going all in on one thing and showing up every day for it. But, see that? Even my attempt at ‘one thing’ gave us two steps because it’s never just ‘one thing’.

Business doesn’t have to be complicated. This doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but it doesn’t have to be as hard as we sometimes make it. I promise you there isn’t a secret garden out there with the ‘one thing’ everyone else knows except for you.

Just like you can’t crash diet your way to losing weight, just like gaining weight doesn’t come from ONE meal, success doesn’t come from ‘one thing’. It comes from the many things we show up and do every day. 

Stop searching for the secret. Stop thinking everyone else has it all figured out. Stop making yourself wrong, and keep showing up and taking the next right action in front of you. 

Don’t discount the actions you’re taking now and not seeing immediate results from. Don’t discount that call you had that wasn’t an immediate ‘win’, or that post you wrote full of heart that seemed like it didn’t do a thing.

Small actions add up over time and compound to give us massive results…such massive results, in fact, that if you keep showing up and taking those small actions, you’ll be sitting there, just like me, trying to figure out what you did right only to realize it wasn’t any one thing.

You’ve got this. Keep showing up. Trust yourself. Stop hiding in plain sight. Own your message. Believe in your worth. Make offers unapologetically. Know you are enough. And, please, stop wasting time looking for that ‘one thing’.

Wishing you your version of success,

P.S. Want to check out some of those podcasts? 

Raise Your Frequency Podcast with Lisa Capri : The Challenges of Working From Home - Mistakes, Myths, and Misconceptions

The Resilient Inspired Entrepreneur Podcast with Liz Lockwood : Grit & Growth

P.P.S. Want some help building a business you’re wildly in love with that also gets you paid? I’d LOVE to support you. Hit ‘reply’ to this email or click here to book a free call to talk about what it would look like to work together.

“If you make a sale, you can make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune.” -Jim Rohn

One of the things I pride myself on is being client-focused and serving my clients really well.

As you might already know, I come from a service background (10 years waiting tables and working in bars while I did the acting thing!). I love service, it’s one of my values, and I also happen to think it’s an important part of business that we don’t talk about enough!

We talk about marketing and sales, but not about how we’re showing up and serving those very people we’re making offers to. 

One place I see service drop off is during what I call the ‘after party.’ But we all know the real party happens at the after-party, right? And it’s the same with our businesses.

It’s AFTER we sell a product or service that the party gets going and we have a massive opportunity to show up and serve our clients and customers well. 

Directly after a sale is also when that buyer’s remorse or fear can really sink in. Showing up to take good care of our people at this time is critical if we want to avoid returns, cancellations, and no shows.

Most of us are just so dang happy we’ve got a new client, we skip this phase and go right to our own personal celebration party. But this is where we get to show up, show we care, and over deliver! By the way, over delivering doesn’t have to mean overworking, it’s just going above and beyond and taking the time to be thoughtful and go that extra step.

If we bring this back to waiting tables, it’s bringing someone a chocolate with their bill, going back to check on them an extra time to make sure their food requirements were met, or going out of your way to find something they need that will make their experience better. If you've ever been on the receiving end of this, you know, these small gestures can change everything. 

I want to invite you to shift your mindset out of ‘closing a sale’ and into serving and KEEPING clients and customers.

So how do you throw a good after party?

It doesn’t have to take a ton of time or cost you a lot of money. This is about adding small, personal touches that serve our clients and make them feel welcome AFTER they’ve purchased from us.

Here are a few of my favorite ways…

7 Ways to Serve Your Clients After The Sale

1.Send a personal note saying ‘thanks’. This can be snail mail or email. 

I love when I buy something online that comes with a little thank you note tucked into the packaging. This small, thoughtful gesture goes a long way!

2. Give a bonus they weren’t expecting. 

Who doesn’t love buying something only to find out you get an unexpected gift along with it?

I love sending my clients bonus trainings or giving them extra sessions from time-to-time as a way to say, thank you, and let me take care of you.

3. Send a welcome packet or welcome email sequence.

There’s nothing worse than buying something and then not really knowing what to expect, when you’re going to get it, or if your payment even went through!

Most of us in the online space stop at our thank you pages. But taking the extra step to welcome in new customers or clients with a message of some sort is such a great way to serve our clients. This makes them feel welcome right away and keeps the excitement alive. This also gives people something tangible while they wait for their package to arrive or your program to begin. 

4. Send a gift.

This is another one of my favorites. I love sending my VIP clients a thoughtful, hand-picked gift in the mail that they aren’t expecting. This is such a lovely way to show our clients that they’re welcomed and appreciated and not just another sale.

5. Give a shout out.

This one doesn’t cost any money and can go a long way. Giving new clients or customers a public shout out online can be a great way to acknowledge and make our people feel special.

This isn’t something I do often because of the confidential nature of my work, but I’ve seen it done really well. Shouting out members online after they join your programs can make them feel welcomed and wanted, and it gets the added benefit of making other people want the same special attention!

6. Ask for feedback.

This is such an important one if we want to continue to uplevel our services and products. This is also where we get those beautiful testimonials from!

7. Have another offer.

This is the ultimate after party in our business. After someone has bought a product from us or invested in our services, they already know, like, and trust us and are more likely to buy from us again. The question is, do we have anything ready for them that they want?

This isn’t something we want to hustle to create at the start of our business, but beginning to think about that next-level offer we can invite existing clients into is a great way to continue to serve.

If we relate this back to waiting tables, this is having dessert to offer after an amazing meal.

So, let’s all remember that the real party is what happens at the after party and that serving our clients and customers doesn’t stop at the sale! That’s only an opportunity to open the door wider and show up and serve. This doesn’t have to cost money, it doesn’t have to be over the top, this isn't about overworking or burning out, but small touches go a long, long way.

Wishing you your version of success!

P.S. Ready to kick your service up a notch and make more money doing what you love? I thought so! I’d love to support and serve YOU! Click here to learn more about working together and schedule a free coaching consultation!

“The marker of success is dealing with NEW problems.” - Lacey Sites

Can I tell you, I’ve got problems. 

I’ve got problems, and I gotta say, I’m loving them. I’m even going to go as far as to say I’m grateful for them.

But I have problems.

There seems to be a myth floating around that other people don’t have problems, or that once you reach a certain level of success all problems disappear. 

Which is a shame and causing some people to chase entrepreneurialism like they would any other escape or buffer…with the thought that when they get ‘there’, once they achieve whatever version of business success they want, that life will be blissful and problem-free.

But here’s the deal, we’ve ALL got problems, in our personal lives and in our businesses.

So let’s bust this myth wide open. Before we dig in, I’ll share that I’m not immune to this story. Rationally, I know business doesn’t magically become problem-free as we uplevel, but as a recovering perfectionist, I’ve got a habit of thinking that I can make things 99.9% problem-free if I do things ‘right.’

This is such a bunch of hogwash. This type of thinking can cause us to backslide because we think there’s something wrong with us.

I KNOW it’s so much more fun to swallow the candy-coated story of blissful, problem-free success. I also imagine you might be thinking, that doesn’t sound very positive (the myth of being positive all the time is a topic for another blog).

Upleveling doesn’t mean we suddenly have everything figured out and never have another issue to deal with, but it does usually hand you better quality problems. And this IS a positive thing!

It’s the old, repetitive, problems that keep us stuck in limiting thoughts and sabotaging behaviors. NEW problems, on the other hand, are a sign of progress and growth.

This is the distinction we want to get clear on. 

When we’re unaware of our problems or not solving them (or solving the wrong problems), problems get a bad rap. Repeatedly coming up against the same roadblock over and over again until it becomes a pattern is when we find ourselves stuck. 

As my coach said the other day (yes, coaches have coaches, too!) , “The marker of success is dealing with NEW problems.”

I told her I was going to quote her on that because it’s so damn good. If we want success, we want to reach for and deal with new problems. 

This is incredibly important to notice and be aware of because with every new level of business growth there tends to be a new set of challenges.

If we’re not accepting that problems come up and are just a part of life and running a business, a new problem can have us doubt ourselves and feeling like frauds. That imposter syndrome we worked so damn hard to eradicate can pop up its little beady face and say, ‘See, I told you, you don’t actually know what you’re doing, otherwise this would never have happened.”

Thinking it’s rainbows and moonbeams all the time when we reach ‘success’ can also set us up for a fast spiral into disappointment and anxiety. It can send some of us high achiever types into a frenzy of MUST DO MORE. 

Our goal shouldn’t be to get rid of problems completely. Instead, I’d invite you to deal with old patterns and repetitive problems and reach for better problems. New problems are better problems. They are the marker of growth and forward movement.  

This doesn’t mean we need to expect problems or invite them in, but our perspective when noticing new problems will affect how we approach and solve them.

For example, let’s say you run a business that sells t-shirts. For the longest time getting anyone with a heartbeat to buy your shirts felt impossible. Then, you hire a coach, you get clear on your messaging, you work through some blocks, and you open up the floodgates of sales. You’re selling shirts left and right, and this is awesome. You’re officially upleveling.

Then, someone asks for an exchange, an order gets lost in the mail, and someone else says your shirt sizing is off.

These are business problems. They’re real. They have to be handled and solved. But, they’re new, amazing problems to have! Previously your problems had been, I can’t get anyone to notice or buy my shirts. Now your problems are all about dealing with the sales of those same shirts. These challenges signify the growth of your business. 

It’s easy, though, to think in this situation, “Well, shit. I guess my shirts do suck. What was I thinking, thinking I could be a business owner? This is too much to handle. This sucks.”

We might feel frustrated and decide these problems aren’t “worth it” and sabotage our success by not dealing with them instead of seeing these as high-quality problems.

Embracing new problems as markers of growth and new opportunities to uplevel allows them to become a positive and normal part of business. Of course, when we see new problems through this lens we solve them much faster. 

Trying to whitewash our lives and business of problems, discomfort, or anything negative is not only impossible and unattainable, but it also sets us up to fail, stay stuck, or feel disappointed.

Instead, let’s make a commitment to ourselves to stop avoiding and buffering our current problems and get the support we need to solve these, so we can open ourselves up to a new level of success and better problems.

I hope this week’s blog will remind you that our businesses aren’t an escape. There isn’t a get out of jail free card waiting for any of us when we get ‘there’. The only way we can avoid new problems is by staying stuck.

I also hope this will not only normalize what happens for all of us as we uplevel, but will also allow you see fulfillment and gratitude in the opportunity that comes with better problems.

Wishing you new problems and your version of success!

P.S. Ready to get out of your own way and bust through some of your old patterns, so you can UPLEVEL your business and get support solving new problems? I’d love to help you. Click here to learn more about working together and schedule a free consultation.

“The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.” - George Elliot

Y’all might not like this one, but I’m bringing the truth and tough love this week.

You want to know what keeps a lot of us stuck in business and from making more money doing what we love? I’m actually not going to say mindset for once, though that’s usually 80 percent of it! For a lot of us it’s our own damn creativity. 

Hear me out on this one to the end because I’m not here to diss creativity. (I LOVE all things creative.)

A lot of the clients I work with are creative geniuses and are the most passion-driven, empathetic, heart-centered people you’ll ever meet. They’re brilliant at what they do.

These are all really, really good things when it comes to business. But this can get us into trouble when it comes to talking about what we do and marketing ourselves.

When even our mom doesn't understand what we do, we have a problem.

We can love us some adjectives and flowery words. We’re also usually pretty attached to what we do and can’t always stand back far enough from our work to see how it benefits others. So when asked what we do, instead of a simple results-driven response, we get into a longwinded story filled with words that might mean something to us but leaves the person on the other side confused. 

Or we get really clever and give ourselves a fun and different title for the work we do because we picked up the tip online that we need to be different and find a way to stand out.

I get it. I really do.

Here’s the deal: If you’re confused by what you say, you can bet the other person is confused. Confusion does not lead to sales. 

Want to stand out and be different? Be super clear and concise when you talk about what you do or what you sell. 

I know as creatives this can feel like a slow death and we don’t want to sell out (but we want to sell!). We believe our creativity is what makes us. Sometimes we think it’s what defines us. 

You still get to be creative. But if you want to be in business, you gotta find a way to describe all of your glorious creativity so other people can understand it.

I’ve heard it said before that we want to be boring in the way we describe our work and then we get to fill in HOW we do this work with our unique zone of genius.

I don’t know about boring because I don’t think any of the work you do is boring, but let’s go with clear and specific.

Think of this like building a house. You don’t really want to get super creative in how you lay the foundation and build the walls, right? But once those are in place, you can paint and fill the house with creative touches knowing they’re safely supported. THIS is your business house, and it needs a solid foundation and some walls in place. After that, you can have at it!

This week, I’m going to ask you to get boring. Super boring and clear, and strip away all the fluffy, flowery words you use to describe what you do.

THEN, inside of that basic language you get carte blanche to go wild and fill it in with your unique essence and way of doing things. This, my friends, is the magic combination.

You might be thinking, “Fine, Kim. I’ll get basic, but what the heck am I supposed to say?”

I’ve got you covered.

Here are three tips to help you strip the fluff so you can get more business:

1. Give yourself a ‘boring’ title.

Please, for the love of all things good, make this something other people understand. 

I understand wanting to go all out here. There was a point at the start of my coaching career that I wanted to use the word ‘architect’ somewhere in my title. I didn’t like the sound of ‘life coach’, and ‘life architect’ or 'dream architect’ seemed so much cooler! Thankfully, someone steered me away from this. 

This is not the place we want to confuse people! I know it’s shocking to hear, but people will not stick around to figure out what we mean by ‘dream architect’. 

A good rule of thumb? Put yourself in your potential clients’ shoes. What might they Google if they needed your help? There’s a good chance you’ve gone off the creative deep end if your title isn’t something your people would search online.

Clear wins over creativity here everyday (this is coming from the creativity architect of your dreams).

2.  Create a Clear Results-Focused Message.

Our message is already something that confuses so many of us. It also happens to be a really important part of our marketing. Again, if we’re confused and unclear here, we can’t expect other people to figure it out for us. That’s our job!

I’ve helped A LOT of people hone in on their messaging, so I know the resistance that comes up around this one.

Many of us are really attached to the message we’ve created. It can be really tough to see the forest for the trees and cut any of them down. For most of us, this is our life’s passion, and we don’t want to leave anything out or run the risk of sounding generic.

I hear you loud and clear.

Here’s my suggestion when it comes to your messaging: get as specific as possible and think in terms of your people and the results and benefits they desire. 

Results-focused messaging that’s clear and specific will win over creative messaging every day.

Again, I have SO much love for creativity, but this isn’t the place for it!

3. Use BASIC website navigation headers.

I’m lucky enough to work with a ton of amazing clients and look at a lot of entrepreneurs’ websites. Y’all are so talented and blow my mind.

But the creative bug has gotten to a lot of our websites, and it might be costing us sales.

Google stats vary but say we have between 7-15 seconds to capture someone’s attention before they flee our websites. 

I don’t know about you, but when I land on a website that doesn’t make sense to me, or I can’t find what I want, I bounce.

A really easy way to help ourselves out here and make it clear for the people using our website is to use language in our navigation and headers that is simple and clear. 

For example, if you have a blog page, instead of labeling it ‘musings’ or ‘thoughts and words’ or ‘creative downloads’, call it ‘blog’. Once you have someone stick around long enough to read your musings, you can fill that in with all your creative downloads. 

Overall, if you’re not sure if you’re being clear, check the grade level of the language you’re using. It’s SO tempting to get clever and want to use big words, but aim for kindergarten to first-grade level language when you’re talking about your business. Then fill in the rest with all of your creative brilliance!

A little editing and simplification can go a long way in helping us connect and communicate effectively with our audience!

I hope this week’s blog and ‘tough love’ will help you simplify and get out there and share you message with more people! 

Wishing you your version of success!

P.S. Want some help simplifying your message, so you can connect with your dream clients in a way that they’ll understand you? For a limited time, you can join me for a FREE 30-minute Master Your Heart-Centered Message Strategy Session {value $139}! Click here to learn more and book your free call!

“The goal as a good company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.” - Sam Walton

I come from a service background. As an ex-actress, I have a PhD in waiting tables and tending bar.

Good service is something I notice. It affects my buying. It affects my brand loyalty. It probably shouldn't, but it can even affect my mood. 

Good service will keep me coming back to a sub-par restaurant. Excellent service gets me to rave and tell all my friends about a spot (hello word-of-mouth-advertising). Above-and-beyond service inspires me to write corporate offices and send reviews that have resulted in promotions (true story).

So let’s talk about service because service matters.

We’re in such a hurry to live our entrepreneurial lifestyle that we forget we’re in business for a reason. Forget good business, it just IS business to show up and serve the people who pay you.

In the online space, we learn about client avatars and running webinars. We talk about social media marketing and followers. There’s live streaming and our messaging. Our brand and brand story. Marketing and sales. The list goes on, but who’s talking about service?

Who’s talking about the way we show up and serve our audience and clients?

We’re farming out the human element one messenger bot at a time, and we’re trading connection for convenience.

Think this is just some ex-waitress rant? Think again. The way we serve our clients and customers affects our bottom line!

I could wax poetic about the importance of service, the integrity behind this, and how it ties into our business purpose. I could tell you that being of service will build connections.

But sometimes numbers speak louder than words, so let’s look at some stats:

• Studies show it costs 6 to 7 times more to get a new customer than to keep an old one.

• Loyal customers tend to be worth ten times their first purchase. (White House Office of Consumer Affairs)

• A study showed that 3 out of 5 of us are willing to give up a brand we love in exchange for some good service. 

• Another study showed that 9 out of 10 of us are willing to pay more for something we think has awesome customer service.

• Studies also tell us we’ll walk out of stores when we think the services sucks.

{Stats pulled from this awesome article: https://www.helpscout.net/customer-loyalty/}

Sometimes we shy away from providing excellent service because we think it comes at the expense of our well being or means a ton of extra work. 

And, yet, good service can truly be working smarter, not harder. After all, it’s easier (and cheaper) to keep a happy customer than it is to get a new one. Besides, anyone who’s ever done something nice for someone else knows we always get the fringe benefit of feeling good ourselves. It’s why it’s said there’s no true altruism. Good service is similar.

I’m a firm believer that business success comes from being client-serving and self-serving. We need the marriage of both, and serving one serves the other. Meaning, when we serve our clients well, it fulfills us, our purpose, our mission, and our overall business and bottom line.

Cultivating excellent service within our businesses and making our clients and customers feel heard and understood has never been more important. As consumers, we’re starved for quality service and stuffed with options. 

Want to stand out online? Want to find a way to differentiate? Want to find your ‘blue ocean’? Your ‘unique selling proposition’? It might just lie in delivering outstanding service. 

If you want to find an edge and thrive as an entrepreneur, I dare you to swim upstream and focus on service first.

Instead of looking for ways to disconnect and step away, find ways to lean in.

Instead of looking for ways to scale, look for ways to show up and serve the people already in front of you even better. 

Instead of bouncing after closing a sale like a bad one-night-stand, find a way to show up and surprise and delight your customer. 

Here’s the deal with good service, it doesn’t take much. It’s amazing what simply listening to your people’s needs can do. One bonus or unexpected extra can do wonders. A simple check-in or question to make sure your client feels taken care of.

Sometimes a simple gesture is all it takes. Did you know they’ve found that waitresses who leave smiley faces on their checks get better tips?  Small, positive gestures add up into real dollars.

Paying attention to details can make us feel special. I know when I open a product that’s carefully wrapped or receive a thank you email for my purchase, it makes what I bought seem extra luxurious.

Service is a human element, and it makes people us feel good about spending their money. In fact, sometimes it makes us want to spend money again and again.

The combination of a stellar product or program with excellent service will have you rise to the top. People will notice because it’s rare.

Be rare. Care enough about your business, brand, and most importantly your customers to deliver excellence. 

Wishing you your version of success!

P.S. Ready to design and build a business that serves you AND your clients? I’d love to support you! Let’s get you out there connecting with and serving your dream clients, so you can make more money doing what you love! Click here to learn more and book a free coaching consultation!

BUSINESS INSIDE OUT

NORMALIZING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPERIENCE ONE REAL CONVERSATION AT A TIME. GET COMFORTABLE, GRAB YOUR FAVORITE BEVERAGE, AND JOIN ME FOR A BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK AT THE MINDSET, GRIT, AND STRATEGY THAT CREATES BUSINESS SUCCESS FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

We hear about the importance of having a niche and niching down all the time.

“The riches are in the niches,” right?

But how does one go about finding one of those niches?

And if you do (find one), then other questions start pouring out and we wonder if we’re going to lose out on a ton of business as a result.

If any of this is ringing true for you, I think you’re going to love my conversation with Sarah Kornblet!

Sarah’s an attorney for coaches and online business owners and the founder of Destination Legal, where she helps passion-based business owners get their legal foundations in place. She’s also an incredible, freedom-loving adventurer with some serious business knowledge.

Sarah’s locked into a tight niche and has a thriving online business, but it wasn’t always that way.

She started her career at a traditional law firm and realized it wasn’t for her. She didn’t want to be on the track she was on and always just wanted to travel. “Drudging out each day, going to my windowless office” made her think that there had to be something else. And there was.

Sarah’s journey to ’overnight success’ and 10k months included moving back in with her parents and then to Thailand, a furniture business, a Mastermind group, some grit, grace, and the willingness to listen to what she wanted as well as what her clients wanted.

“The bottom line is to just start and recognize that that’s not where you’re going to end up.”

If anyone knows what it’s like to transition businesses and niche down, it’s this lady.

Join Sarah and me for a conversation all about niching down and the journey behind ‘overnight success’. We’re getting real and talking side-hustles that pay the bills, the importance of who you surround yourself with, and the art of transitioning.

Grab a coffee, your notebook, and let's dive in!

CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW:

(You can also download the interview and listen to it anytime.)

Subscribe and listen on iTunes.

I’d love for you to join us for the entire conversation, but here are the 'Cliff Notes' if you want to jump around:
{1:13} Sarah shares her story of going from working in a traditional law firm to running her own freedom-based, online business. Like so many of us, her journey wasn’t a straight line!

{7:40} What success looks like for Sarah now.

{11:09} A look behind-the-scenes at Sarah’s journey. It’s so good!

{17:19} We talk about the importance of taking action and surrounding yourself with people who are doing what you want to do.

{18:47} Sarah and I talk about the power of niching down.

{24:08} On continuing to refine your niche. 

{26:18} We talk about transitioning gracefully when you switch niches or entire businesses.

{28:16} Sarah busts a few online business myths. 

{31:20} Where you can find Sarah and Destination Legal online (links are also below)

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Once you’ve had a chance to listen, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. I’d love to know: what’s your niche? Has this always been your niche or have you narrowed in as you’ve grown as a business owner?

Let’s all give ourselves permission to START the journey with the knowledge that so much becomes clear when we take action. I hope this conversation will release the pressure valve and remind you that things will look different down the road. And that’s ok. I also hope it will inspire you to get curious about how you might be able to niche down a little bit more!

Sarah, thank you again for taking the time to share your experience and insights!

Wishing you your version of success!

CONNECT WITH SARAH AT DESTINATION LEGAL AND SHOW HER SOME LOVE:

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