Last Thursday I led another one of our once every two months Virtual Retreats, and during one of the Q&A calls, and that was the question one of the retreatants posed me.

Recently a colleague posed a similar question, complaining that he couldn’t get into his work. He was bored, couldn’t focus on it. He was thinking he needed a butt-kicking, that he was in capital-R Resistance to it for some internal reason.

We, his friends who had been watching his schedule the past six weeks, knew better. This wasn’t resistance.

Are You Resisting, or Just Plain Tired?

Steven Pressfield wrote the provocative The War of Art, a book detailing the resistance any creative person faces in trying to birth something worthwhile. He maintains that you must push through what he calls Resistance, you can’t let it keep you back.

Because he’s been primarily a war history novelist, he can be excused the combative metaphor he uses. And I don’t think he’s wrong.

In Sufism there is the term “jihad” which anyone who has been anywhere near mainstream media these past ten years has become familiar with. However, the term doesn’t mean “war” or “terrorism.” It translates simply as “struggle.”

It names the struggle that all spiritual paths name: the struggle to keep the ego from exerting control over the more noble, more heart-centered, more Divine aspects of the human. The struggle to become our best selves.

This is a worthwhile struggle, and it requires discipline, strength, persistence, compassion, love, and sincerity.

However, sometimes you’re just plain tired. Sometimes it’s not jihad or Resistance. Sometimes you just need a nap. If you push through depletion, you can make yourself sick. If you nap into the jihad, you won’t produce your great work.

How can you tell? There are basically two different assessments I use to discern this critical distinction.

The First Assessment: Who cares?

The first is more of an external distinction. It assumes that you have something you love doing, a project you’re passionate about, a business that you care deeply for, something that you have shown commitment to in the past.

And suddenly you find yourself not caring about it at all. You hate your clients. You’re bored by the project. You can’t focus on it at all. You’re not agitated. You’re not struggling. You just don’t care.

You need a nap. You need a day off. You need to go read a good novel, get a massage, eat some yummy nourishing food. You need rest.

If you still care about it, but you find yourself doing other things that require energy, like cleaning the bathroom, then I’m going to guess it’s Resistance. Time for discipline!

The Second Assessment: The Fog

This is for spiritual practice in particular. When doing Remembrance, or meditating, or in prayer you find yourself on the express train to Nod, and wake up later having drooled on your beads and cushion.

If you find yourself waking up refreshed, if the sleepiness as it approaches you feels very comfortable and inviting, you’re tired.

I’ve noticed that when I do my practices, the Divine tends to give me what I need. Sometimes I need sleep. In leading the Virtual Retreat this past week, during one personal Remembrance, I wasn’t leading the group, it was just me, I totally nodded out. And woke up cheerful, happy, connected. My heart felt full.

The other sensation that can come in during practices is a heaviness, almost a feeling of being smothered or drugged. Your limbs feel like lead, your head feels foggy. If you do fall asleep you wake up groggy and out of it.

This is Resistance. This is the jihad. If you notice that fogginess coming in, then for our practices I recommend students switch from being seated to standing up. To stop doing Remembrance silently, and to start chanting loudly, forcibly.

Not with the energy of pushing anything away, but with the intention to cling strongly to the Divine, to not let any cloud come between you and your heart’s Source. Usually a few minutes of this will clear the fog, and you can settle back into a quieter practice.

Too Much Attention Is Given to Resistance

In our overworked, under-rested, under-played culture, Resistance is given too much attention, in my humble opinion. It exists. It needs to be faced when it’s there. The jihad is a worthy one.

My heart tells me that a great deal of the Resistance is actually our hearts telling us, “You’ve done enough for now. Slow down. Rest. Breathe.”

Creative projects are a labor of love, and love can’t be properly served if you can hardly keep your eyes open. Don’t be so quick to judge yourself as being resistant, beloved.

Instead, take moment in your heart to discern whether it might be depletion. If it is, the rest you give yourself will mean you’ll find a lot more love and inspiration available for the creative work that is waiting to be born. You’ll also find the strength and steadfastness to walk through Resistance when it shows up.

How about you? How do you discern resistance versus depletion?

And when you’re trying to do it with heart, ethically, without manipulation or hype, it becomes even harder.

The end result is that most heart-centered business owners create sales pages that don’t do their job. I’m going to talk about the two top elements you can bring more heart and presence to in your sales pages to radically increase their effectiveness.

Number One: Where Do They Arrive?

Everyone is trying to get somewhere. One person is trying to arrive at full health after years of being chronically ill. Another person is wanting to arrive in a beautiful home by excavating it from their clutter and poor color choices. A third person is wanting to arrive in the land of easy taxes, after twelve months of stuffing their receipts into a shoebox, and not recording the checks they’ve written.

Whether you’re a naturopathic doctor, a feng shui organizing expert, or a small business bookkeeper, your clients are desperately trying to arrive.

Do you describe to them where your services get them? And does it match where they are trying to go?

Instead of simply saying, “The road to healing,” you could say, “What would it be like to easily sleep a full night’s sleep, to one by one be able to stop taking your medications, and to feel a sense of strength and vitality in your body again? Could you go dancing with your partner? Could you ride your bike again? Could you hike down to the beach instead of having to sit on the bench, far from the waves?”

It’s true you shouldn’t make promises you can’t deliver, and many times healing or transformational services are conditional on what’s possible for an individual person.

But within the limits of what’s ethical, do you list out the results you are wanting for your clients? Do you describe the experience of what that would be like?

Number Two: What’s Included

Perhaps trained by the sterile packaging “AA batteries not included” on store shelves, many people just create a simple bullet list of what’s included in their offer.

Like this:

“This course includes:

• Six 90-minute classes
• Two private mentoring sessions
• A workbook
• Audio recordings of each class
• yadada yadada”

Remember, when someone is reading a page chances are they haven’t yet worked with you. Or, if they have, they forget exactly what it was like. And if they do remember, they could use being reminded exactly how good it was.

Each of those bullet points deserves a paragraph or two describing it, how it works, and ideally an image. And each of those six classes deserves it’s own section.

“When you join the course, here’s what will help you make it work:

“First, there are the six classes, each one focused on a particular topic.

“In Class One we start with digging into “what is.” Until you know “what is,” as in what’s true right now with your situation, you can’t change it. The difficulty most people face is that “what is” often brings up shame, embarrassment, overwhelm and avoidance. Fun, eh? Oy…

“So, with a tremendous amount of compassion, an easy, helpful structure, and the accountability of a group that’s all facing more or less the same situation, you get really clear on “what is.”

“Even more than that, you get a plan to change it, which will create the foundation for the following five classes, including your first two do-able action steps.

“Past participants report a feeling of excitement, lightness, and relief after the first class. Their fears about the whole process melt, and the dig into the rest of the course eagerly. Which leads you to Class Two…”

Do you see the difference? Writing out a description of the experience of each bit means that people really know what they are getting. This does two things:

1) It creates tremendous safety, so all their fears and anxieties about your offer are soothed. In this example, instead of, “Oh, I feel so ashamed! How could I ever bring this issue to a class group?” your reader learns that you get how much shame comes up, and that you have gone to special lengths to make it easy for them to work through it.

2) They taste it. Instead of just looking at the ice cream through the glass, you’ve given them a taster of what it will be like to actually eat the ice cream. This helps them know if they really want more, instead of needing to order ten gallons of something they’ve never had.

Even for something like “audio recordings” you can write a short paragraph, assuring them the recordings are available within hours after the class ends, so if they miss a class or simply want to listen to it again, they’ll have it nearly immediately. And if you do anything special with the audio, for instance if you have higher quality recordings than normal, or if you divide the audio into tracks that load into iTunes easily, so can describe it there.

Drop the idea that you are overwhelming anyone. Your potential clients are desperate to peek inside, to see what’s really going on. Give them the information they need.

Won’t That Make The Sales Page Too Long?

People debate long versus short sales pages. But that’s the wrong question. Instead, think, “complete versus incomplete.” Did you say what needed to be said? Or did you leave something incomplete, so the reader has to guess?

If they have to guess, their anxieties are going to assume the worst, and they won’t buy. So comfort them with complete sales pages.

Giving yourself the space and words to really show the depth and beauty of what you are offering is going to make it much safer for more of your best clients to purchase from you. Far from insulting them, taking the time to show the details is respectful and loving.

If done well, explaining where they will arrive, and detailing out what is included that will get them to that arrival point will make a huge difference in your effectiveness. Open your heart and get writing!

Often, as our clients take on the idea of creating content to help promote their business, they get started on articles, and never finish. Maybe they get one paragraph in, or ten. Maybe they complete a rough draft and it’s just not good enough, so they think, and it sits there.

Sometimes the work actually gets finished, and then sits there, unpublished.

So here it is, first a rant, then a spiritual teaching, and finally some practical tips on getting it all done.

The Rant

Your people need to hear from you. We took our kids to a naturopath the other day, worried about some developmental issues, as parents do sometimes. She looked at us and said, “Your kids are fine.”

It reminded me of the time I sat in the office of a Chinese Medicine doctor, who told Holly she could heal from her years of struggle with Lymes Disease. It was the first time I heard someone say it, and I believed it. It turned out to be true.

These are dramatic examples, but I share them because it’s all too easy to believe your voice isn’t needed, that you can’t compete with the flood of voices out there.

I don’t want you to compete. I want you to show up. Your people are waiting for you. There are some people, maybe it’s a large audience, maybe it’s a smaller one, but regardless of how many they are waiting to hear from you. The special combination of experience, personality and the unique essence in your heart that will help them heal in whatever struggle they are facing.

Show up. Forget about all the other voices out there. Your people won’t respond to those other voices. They are waiting to hear yours. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

The Spiritual Teaching

It’s vulnerable to launch new content out into the world. To speak up on stage, or in a group of people. It’s vulnerable to share your opinion. There’s a reason for that.

When you share something real, an idea or story that touches your heart, when you are speaking from a place of power, that power is rushing through you into the words and content and out into the world.

It leaves you feeling tender. The experience of expressing power is tenderizing internally. You express power through maintaining that tenderness inside you. It keeps you sensitive to what the Oneness is sending through you to share.

If you steel yourself to “be powerful” then you lose that tenderness, that sensitivity. You lose access to the power. Your content becomes a little less alive.

Preserve that tenderness.

The Practical Bits

Get support. Don’t do it alone. By this, I mean cultivate a good, honest friend or colleague who can give you feedback. Someone who is willing to say, “No way, don’t send it out there until you tweak X.” Or “It’s good, and you’re going to keep getting better. But it’s good enough. Send it out.”

Or even someone who can just give you empathy about the tenderness. Sometimes empathy alone will let you publish it to the world.

Don’t hold your voice back any longer. Your people are waiting for you, and your tenderness is a sign of your strength.

How about you? What’s your writing process like?

p.s. Needing some help getting your articles written?

Expressing yourself from the heart in a useful way can be quite a challenge. Struggles with perfectionism, wrestles with the blank page, and the voice of doubt and self-criticism can make it all seem impossibly hard.

It’s challenging, no doubt. But it’s not *that* challenging. A little structure, knowing a bit about storytelling, and understanding how to focus and it all becomes much easier.

Want to write more quickly? Want to write more easily? Want to not lose your heart in the process?

Check it out: Heart-Centered Article Writing Home Study program. Includes full workbook, explicit exercises with examples from our clients, and audio class.

Back in 2001 I first launched heartofbusiness.com when it was all hard-coded html, and now with the fancy bells and whistles content-management systems like WordPress, it can seem impossible to keep up with the technology changes.

Take a gentle breath, right now. Relax. It’s important to remember the timeless nature of the human heart and how we connect, because regardless of whether you’re making a tri-fold brochure a la 1986, or decking out a drupal-powered online learning membership site (and please don’t worry what that even means) there are basic things that make a website effective.

It’s your web designer’s job to make the technology work and make it look pretty. It’s your job to get clear on what your communicating. So let’s talk about that.

When a Potential Client Lands on Your Website

Whether they are ready to buy or not, I can guarantee you that a potential reader or client is facing three different issues.

First, there is a real need to belong, and feel safe.

Secondly, there is probably a lack of being truly seen and appreciated in their life.

Third, they are feeling stuck in the area or subject that you address in your business.

I can say this with confidence because these are basic human needs.We all need to feel like we belong. This is why the term “tribes” and the longing for community and connection are so strong.

We all need to be seen and appreciated. The Sufis teach the Divine had a deep yearning to be known, and so the Divine created the physical world, the creation, in order to be known. We’re all born with that Divine yearning in us to know the Divine, and to be known in an authentic, core way.

And, if the reader in question is truly a potential client, then by definition they need help with whatever it is that you help people with.

So How Do You Meet Those Needs?

Three expressions meet those three needs.

Your first priority is to meet their need to belong, and to feel safe in belonging. This is actually both fantastic, and a bit vulnerable, because you have to show up as you.

And not just you, the authentic real you. You have to show your values and what you stand for. When you take a stand for what you believe, when you express your core values, the ideal world you want to presence through your work, your best people can identify with you.

They’ll know if they share your values. They’ll know if what they hold precious and dear is also what you hold precious and dear. And that creates belonging, community and safety.

Take a look at this website, and notice the values and vision it expresses. Watershed Community Wellness Vision.

Your Second Priority: See and Appreciate Your Reader

Because it’s a website, and you can’t stare deeply into their eyes with all the compassion and love you can muster, you’re going to have to do it with words.

You have to use empathetic statements about the struggle they are in. When someone is struggling is when they often feel the most stuck, the most helpless, and doubt themselves and who they are the most. Trying to cheer them up can often backfire, “Come on! Things aren’t that bad!” because if they don’t believe you’ve truly seen and understood their situation, they won’t believe your cheery words. “Ahhh… what do you know? I’m *really* messed up.”

Empathetic statements help them trust that you get the situation they are in. And because you know your clients and what they tend to struggle with, you can name what’s going on for them, and the emotional struggle that goes with it. And you can do it without judgment, because you know so many people struggle like that, and doesn’t mean anything is wrong with them.

Such a relief to be seen as struggling but not broken, to be accepted in your stuck places and loved and cared for anyway.

Empathetic statements look this. Check out this page, and see how your feel: Watershed Community Wellness Empathy.

Finally, Your People Need Hope

You need to show them you have something that can help. This is done in a few different ways.

• Explaining the philosophy behind what you do, so they can buy into your methodology and approach.

• Showing proof of the effectiveness of what you do. If you’ve been trained in a particular modality, your industry may have statistics on how effective it’s been. If you’ve been seeing clients, you can track how many of your clients reach their goals or are happy with what they got, and use that as a statistic.

• Tellings stories and anecdotes in the form of testimonials and case studies. If you’re new, you might have few of these. It’s worthwhile working with a few initial folks for free to gain testimonials and case studies, as well as your own confidence.

Take a look at this services page, and scroll down to read the testimonials. Marissa Bracke Services.

She didn’t use all three of the points I listed above, and yet for the right people, it’s still a powerful page, I find.

It Takes Heart

To show yourself as you are, and to take a stand and show your values means being vulnerable and strong at the same time. To stop thinking about yourself and show caring and empathy for another person takes heart.

And bringing proof takes a profound humility. As you see the proof of your effectiveness, it can be easy to get shy or feel vulnerable, “Am I really that good?” Yet in humility, offering proof of the path you provide to clients is a tremendous service to them, for it nourishes hope in their heart, and brings safety and peace of mind in hiring you.

Your website can be heart-centered and effective in bringing in business. You can be wildly, beautifully, powerfully you, and also humble, in service, and facing the people you want to help.

Get to it! Your people are waiting!

First p.s. No-cost Call This Afternoon!

Just didn’t want you to miss it this afternoon, or, if you did miss it, to not miss the recording.

Trying to get to momentum? Do you go this way? Or that way? Or that other way?

I’m going to identify three starting points and the priorities for each one. And, I’m also going to be talking about accessing Heart Power, which is essential for all three starting points.

It is a part of our lead-in to Opening the Moneyflow six month program that starts in July. We’d love to have you join us for the full six months, but if not, please still jump on the call if it speaks to you.

Click to register: Three Starting Points for Heart-Centered Visionary Businesses

Second p.s. Easier Said Than Done?

Sometimes you need more than an article to get into the heart of what you’re writing. And, as you may have guessed, you need more than an effective website to put your business into momentum.

If your heart is yearning, and your business just plain needs it, please join us July through December for Opening the Moneyflow six month program. In-depth teachings on 12 critical areas of business, and more. Spiritual depth, feedback, and community.

You have your choice of three levels. Until the groups fill up.

Five ambitious folks to work directly with me, six big-hearted ready to fly people each with Jason and Yollana. So only 17 spots in truly intimate groups. And probably about half of those spots are gone.

Then only another 35 spots in the extremely affordable DIY version of the program, which still comes with a fair amount of support. And those spots are going, too.

No hype, no fluff. Just solid, heart-centered, spiritually-oriented, and practical-nitty gritty business support for the mature, discerning, small business owner: Opening the Moneyflow 2011, July-December.

Some years ago my wife Holly and I were struggling to get healthy with our communication. Which is a polite way to say that we sometimes argued, and sometimes I just caved in, and other times… anyway, it was messy.

In learning about communication, there was a phrase we came across which has stuck with me, “True enough to be said.” As in, “That’s true enough to be said, and…”

It means that something has truth to it, that you can say it and mean it. And yet there is a more complex reality out there.

I’ve been studying business and spirituality for years now, separately and together, and systems and models can go a long way to helping you both with your spirituality and your business. When someone says, “This is how business works,” it’s true enough to be said.

Yet, it’s also a little more complicated.

Everything around us is an expression of Divine presence, although it’s not always obvious. This means that there is an infinite creative process revealed in your relationship with anything and everything. Including business and money.

It’s such a cop-out, though, to say that everything is infinite, because models do work. But it’s such a cop-out, also, to say that you can just follow a model and have it work, because no matter how powerful the model, you will end up off the road at some point.

You need both a model and enough inner connection to handle off-roading when you need to.

Which leads me to…

The No-Cost Call: Three Starting Points Plus Heart Power

Next Wednesday, June 8, I’ll be leading a no-cost teleclass to go more in-depth into this infinite, complex, and yet simple and well-described terrain.

Heart-centered, visionary business owners tend to find themselves in one of three general starting areas. Even if the business has been running for awhile, if you haven’t hit momentum these three starting points apply.

Quite frankly, your business will need a lot from you over the course of 1-3 years in order to hit true momentum. But you can’t do it all at once. And if you try to you’ll burn out, and the business will collapse.

You can safely ignore some things, and totally focus on others, but those things are different depending on where you are standing. When you know the starting point, you can more easily figure out what you need and what to focus on.

And, a good portion of the call will also get into Heart Power, how to access your heart and connection from a profound place of surrender and beauty. I call it Heart Power because surrender doesn’t mean being a doormat. It means… anyway, I’ll get into what it means on the call.

Join me: The Three Starting Points Plus Heart Power

Yes, we intend to record the call. Everyone who is registered will get the recording.

And yes, it is a part of our making you aware of our Opening the Moneyflow six month program starting in July (spots are filling up.)

There you go. Enjoy. I hope to see you on the call next Wednesday.

And if you have any questions, please ask. We’re here.

peace,

Mark Silver

Hmmm…. What did happen? I did the call. I uploaded the audio… and that’s all I did. I didn’t let Susan know the audio had been uploaded, I didn’t provide the URL links, and so she never updated the page, and we never sent out the email letting folks know the audio was available.

Oops. Bummer. We just goofed on paying clients.

The Spiritual Nature of Mistakes

My Sufi sheikh, Sidi al Jamal, has written that God told humanity, “Oh My people, if you did not make mistakes, I would make another entirely different race who did make mistakes.” The reason, it turns out, is there is no other way to taste the aspect of the Divine that is the quality of Forgiveness.

My Sufi sheikh further writes that God further told the humanity “Through the gate of the mistake, most of My beloveds reach Me.”

It’s a profound understanding that mistakes don’t keep us from connecting to the Divine. It’s so easy to believe that mistakes somehow define us as innately broken, when that is just not true.

Each mistake we make is an opportunity to recognize the inherent goodness and beauty within us.

For more on the spiritual nature of mistakes, and how to work with them, you can go get the Cleaning Up Mistakes in Business workbook when you complete the Remembrance Challenge. (If you’ve completed the Remembrance Challenge and don’t have the workbook, just email us and we’ll get it to you.)

I actually want to dig into the nitty gritty of the practical side of how to deal with mistakes.

Is There a Checklist For That?

Any time you make a mistake, if you don’t get caught in the blame game, either blaming yourself or someone else, instead you can find two priceless opportunities. The first one is the opportunity to access enlightenment, as I was talking about above. Not a bad deal.

The second opportunity is to erase that mistake entirely from your business, and increase your reputation for impeccability moving into the future.

As you let go of the need to blame, and you no longer see it either as evidence of a personal failing, or as the result of overwhelm, you have the opportunity to see mistakes as a failure to have, or a failure to use, a system.

And by system, I mean simply a checklist.

With the missed audio URLs above, it gave both Susan and I an opportunity to create a checklist. A completely normal, and yet embarrasing for me mistake (there’s that word again), is that I hadn’t yet created a checklist for myself of what to do after I finish a call.

I hadn’t created the checklist because it’s very simple and I can keep it in my head. I save the audio. I place the audio markers for the tracks. I separate the tracks and click “save according to markers.” I add ID3 tags and upload the files. Then I email Susan the URLs.

If I had an assistant in my office I would have them do it, but frankly it takes me less than five minutes to do it all, and it would take longer than that to email a huge big audio file for Susan to handle.

Without the checklist, and the discipline to look at it, I didn’t see that I had skipped the last step- send an email to Susan with the URLs. Without a checklist, Susan didn’t know to look at the calendar, realize she should’ve received an email from me, and prodded me for it.

When both people have a checklist, that’s called “checks and balances.” If one person goofs, chances are the other person will catch it.

Creating a Checklist

It’s so easy, it’s so simple, it almost seems like a waste of your time. But it’s not. First, you need a place to store your checklists.

We use Evernote, creating a shared notebook, and we use a tag to identify all checklists- “checklist.” Simple enough.

I then go through each step needed to do something and write it down. Some helpful hints:

• In software, tell where to click. For instance, Click “Split according to Markers” under Sound menu in Amadeus Pro, and save as mp3 files.
• Explain it as if speaking to someone who has never done it before and who is unfamiliar with the terms. Make it super-clear.
• Catch every little step, even really obvious ones.

If you do these three things, you’ll have a checklist any operations manager would be proud of. If you do this often, you’ll have lots of checklists.

Which means that you’ll be on the verge of being able to hand off some of these tasks to other people, like assistants.

Hey, maybe you will be able to impact all of those people you want to reach without getting overwhelmed.

You just have to keep showing up with heart, giving the service you are meant to give. And keep creating the business, one checklist at a time.

p.s. Making Your Business Work Despite the Mistakes

As I wrote, mistakes are inevitable. Yet it can be really hard to move through the judgment and shame that comes up when mistakes do happen.

The Opening the Moneyflow six month program can help you move through the mistakes you inevitably make… and limit the number of mistakes you make in the first place.

Solid learning, spiritual healing, nitty-gritty business advice and coaching. Small groups, and additional profound support.

You have your choice of three levels. Until the groups fill up.

Five ambitious folks to work directly with me, six big-hearted ready to fly people each with Jason and Yollana. So only 17 spots in truly intimate groups.

Then only another 35 spots in the extremely affordable DIY version of the program, which still comes with a fair amount of support.

Some of those spots are already taken, by applications we’ve received already, and by folks from the first six months who are continuing.

It starts in July, and the program includes our full library of heart-centered content (some of our clients have been struck dumb upon seeing the full breadth and depth of it), as well as an in-depth assessment, a personalized business development plan, monthly spiritual teachings, and more, depending on the level of support you want.

No hype, no fluff. Just solid, heart-centered, spiritually-oriented, and practical-nitty gritty business support for the mature, discerning, small business owner: Opening the Moneyflow 2011, July-December.

It’s a big goal, and important one, too. We’re going for it full out, because it’s time, it feels right, and I have the extremely talented support in place to make it happen.

If we hit our deadline, which I’m feeling optimistic about, it won’t be an easy win.

The Heart of Money Was an Easy Win

Yesterday I just taught the fourth class of the Heart of Money, and everything about this class has been an easy win. It sold out before the early bird deadline, the participants have been sincere and enthusiastic. The questions asked in the assignments have been thoughtful and real.

Plus, I’ve taught it many times before. I know the material cold, and so it’s easy to riff and add in other pieces, to bring it alive.

What made The Heart of Money an easy win? And if it was so easy, why wasn’t I more ambitious and go for something bigger?

Why I Chose the Easy Win

The end of last year was rough. Kate left, Judy, one of our practitioners, also left. Because our team was smaller, I picked up many of the pieces, so our team was smaller. And the boys had just turned two in November, and have been a double handful.

Coming into spring things have felt alive again. More of an ease and flow in my experience of working the business. So when it came time to do the Heart of Money I had a choice: take a known quantity and make it REALLY BIG. Or go for the easy win.

When I sat in my heart, the easy win felt right. I could help people. We could make a good profit, and help fund our website redesign project. And I wouldn’t have to put a huge effort into the Heart of Money promotional campaign.

I wrote last week “When Does It Ever Get Easier” and this is an example of when it does. I have the luxury of choosing easy over ambitious, because we already have one ambitious project going, and I needed the rest.

They Didn’t Know It Was Easy Until After It Was Over

One of our clients had an easy win, too. They hit the perfect number of sales, the number their heart showed them, well into gravy and profitability. But they didn’t know it was an easy win until afterwards. ?They chose ambitious, and felt a lot of stress during the launch. We spent a fair amount of time in Remembrance, coming back into the heart, relaxing into the easiness of what they were doing.

It was a great lesson for them. So, how do construct an easy win for yourself?

What the Easy Win Doesn’t Do For You

A more mature business has much readier access to the easy win formula, but if you’re willing to get clear, anyone can have an easy win.

Here’s what an easy win won’t bring you:

• The most ambitious amount of money you can think of.
• The high, and related depletion, of living on adrenaline for weeks.

Here’s what an easy win WILL bring you:

• Some money. Often enough, or slightly more than enough.
• The feeling of accomplishment that comes when you hit your goals.
• Many nights of good sleep in a row.
• Often it will set you up to have an easier time with your next ambitious goal.

The Easy Win Recipe

There are three ingredients to the Easy Win Recipe.

1. Create an easy offer on a topic that you know, really know, your audience wants.

I said “wants” not “needs.” Hopefully it’s both. People want ice cream, they don’t as often want brussel sprouts.

However, as a heart-centered person, you can include some brussel sprouts or other leafy greens when you give them ice cream.

A few years ago the local naturopathic college was giving free talks on different health-related topics. Attendance had been meh, kinda so-so. Then they announced a topic, “Women and Hot Flashes- dealing with menopause.”

The room was packed. They hit a topic that was both ice cream and brussel sprouts- badly wanted, and badly needed.

How about for you? What topics does your audience badly need?

2. Choosing an easy price.

In our Right Price exercise, using your heart to identify a price rarely gives you a single number. More often a range of prices, starting at the lowest price that feels acceptable and going up to an ambitious price.

If you choose a price at the lower end, you make it easier for you and for the people buying. An ambitious price can sometimes inspire you, and it can sometimes shut you down just a little bit.

3. Limiting the quantity.

When you have an open-ended offer there isn’t as much urgency for people who really want a spot to grab it. They think, ah, I can get it later. Urgency can be manipulated, but it can also be used with integrity, in a healthy way.

To be healthy, the quantity limit has to mean something, beyond “If I only offer six of these, people will go crazy!” Find a legitimate reason to limit the number. And yes, it counts to say, “I’m a bit tired when I think of dealing with more than that.”

In the past we’ve had up to 100 people in our Heart of Money course. This year, although our email list was larger, I chose 50 for a number of reasons.

For one, it just felt right in my heart. For two, without Kate, we didn’t have as large a support team, and I wanted everyone to have a great experience and to be responded to promptly. And three, I didn’t want to have a long-drawn out promotional campaign trying to fill every single spot.

Could we have filled 80 or 100 spots? I think we could have. But 50 was enough. It felt right. It was an easy win.

For our clients, it was 125 people in a course instead of 500. For me, it was 50 instead of 100 or more. For you, maybe it’s only making three client slots available.

What is “easy” depends on your circumstances.

And guess what? The next time you offer it, you get to truthfully say, “Last time it sold out, so don’t wait.” Which is powerful.

If you’re tired of always, always reaching for the stars, maybe you need an easy win. Create an offer people really want, an easy price, and a limited quantity, and you can have that easy win.

And no, as I said above, one easy win won’t make your business. But several easy wins will. And a reputation for sold-out offerings doesn’t hurt. And having some rest and ease in your promotional campaigns is something you and your audiences can appreciate.

p.s. Two no-cost calls.

Reminder: We’re holding two no-cost teleclasses tomorrow afternoon. One is on Your Right Price hosted by Heart of Business practitioner Jason Stein, and one is on Out of Your Ruts and Into the Flow hosted by Heart of Business practitioner Yollana Shore.

I’ll be on both of them, introducing these two bright stars to you. Go ahead and register!

Your Right Price with Jason Stein

Out of Your Ruts and Into the Flow with Yollana Shore

Both of these are meant to introduce you also to our Opening the Moneyflow six month program. Applications have been coming in.

There are only 52 spots open. Five ambitious folks to work directly with me, six big-hearted ready to fly people each with Jason and Yollana. So only 17 spots in truly intimate groups.

Then only another 35 spots in the extremely affordable DIY version of the program, which still comes with a fair amount of support.

Some of those spots are already taken, by applications we’ve received already, and by folks from the first six months who are continuing.

It starts in July, and the program includes our full library of heart-centered content (some of our clients have been struck dumb upon seeing the full breadth and depth of it), as well as an in-depth assessment, a personalized business development plan, monthly spiritual teachings, and more, depending on the level of support you want.

No hype, no fluff. Just solid, heart-centered, spiritually-oriented, and practical-nitty gritty business support for the mature, discerning, small business owner: Opening the Moneyflow 2011, July-December.

Does it ever get easier?

It does. It does get easier. After ten years with this business, plus earlier endeavors, I can promise you that it does get easier. Much easier.

You may not believe me. Or that sure, *other* people can do it, but not you. Let me share with you why sometimes it doesn’t get easier. And then I’ll map out for you what does make it easier, and how long you can expect it to take.

Why It Doesn’t Get Easier

If you train to be a nutritionist, you go to school. They sit you down on day one and teach you the first thing you need to know. One or two or three years later (how long is nutritionist training?), they’ve taken you, asparagus to zucchini, all the way through and you know what you need to know.

When you start a business as a nutritionist, you’ve had maybe a few hours of class. You’ve read a book or two. You’ve spoken to a few people. Maybe you’ve taken a workshop.

You haven’t learned asparagus to zucchini. You’ve picked up cantaloupe, fennel, string bean, and watermelon. It’s a hodgepodge collection, it’s not in sequence, and the different pieces don’t seem to fit too well together.

Plus, looking around, the examples may not be inspiring or instructive. Friends may be struggling with their own businesses. The ones who seem to be doing well financially may be using tactics or strategies that seem really expensive, insane, or unethical. Or simply don’t fit your personality.

The hodgepodge approach can leave you in struggle for years, even though you are working on your business.

What Will Make It Easier

You know how you learned what you do? That asparagus to zucchini approach? You need something similar in building your business.

You don’t need to learn to the depth and extent that you learned your skill. There are things you do NOT have to master. But you do need familiarity with a cornucopia of different business topics and skills.

It would be overwhelming, if you had to learn it all at once, the same way becoming a nutritionist (or whatever you do) would be overwhelming if you had to learn everything by the end of the first week, instead of giving yourself a year or more.

Yes, a year or more. Be honest, how much in-depth, consistent business learning and development have you done? If it’s a lot, how far along are you? If it’s not so much, then ahhh…. breathe… you don’t have to learn it that quickly.

What to study? I created a 37 question assessment covering twelve different sections of business development. I use it to assess clients and participants in our Opening the Moneyflow course, so they can have an individualized course of study, and don’t have to dive into things they already know.

The Twelve Topics

Scan through these and see what you notice. And please be gentle and keep your heart open. There is an opportunity to become overwhelmed here. I recommend you not to take that opportunity, and instead, in gentleness and acceptance, see that your business can fly if you give it some loving attention in these areas over the next year or two.

1. Your Core Message, Branding, and Business Identity
2. First Journey Marketing- Reaching out to new people
3. Second Journey Marketing- Ongoing Contact with Potential Clients
4. Third Journey Marketing- Receiving Referrals from Raving Fans
5. Creating a Heart-Centered and Effective Website
6. Sales and Enrollment
7. Crafting Products and Services that Sell
8. Systems and Administration- let other things do stuff for you.
9. Letting Technology and the Internet Make Everything Easier
10. Delegation, Leadership and Teamwork- Stop Doing Everything Yourself
11. Money and Accounting
12. Spirituality- Having a business that is sacred.

Overwhelming, Isn’t It?

That’s a lot to master by next Friday. But, it’s totally do-able if you give yourself until next year. And it’s not like you’re in school waiting to graduate before you can do something. As you work through these different sections, you’ll be making actual progress on your business, making more money, connecting with more clients.

The trouble is, if you don’t face these topics, and just run in circles hoping for the best, your business won’t get easier. It won’t attain momentum.

Here’s my recommendation: just pick three of those topics and focus on them for the next two months. What kind of progress can you make?

And please share, any topics pop out at you in particular?

p.s. Tired of lugging your business around? Getting ready for 2012…

The first round of our six-month personalized support program, Opening the Moneyflow, is drawing to a close the end of June. Which means there will be openings for you to get a full six months of personalized support from us July through December, giving you the foundations to really launch into 2012.

It includes our full library of heart-centered content (some of our clients have been struck dumb upon seeing the full breadth and depth of it), as well as an in-depth assessment, a personalized business development plan, monthly spiritual teachings, and more, depending on the level of support you want.

No hype, no fluff. Just solid, heart-centered, spiritually-oriented, and practical-nitty gritty business support for the mature, discerning, small business owner: Opening the Moneyflow 2011, July-December.

What’s interesting about this is that Tim and I actually agree on many things, but what happened here was what happens in sitcoms the world over: not being clear who you’re talking about.

You know, Janet starts talking about “him” and Shirley is also talking about, “him.” Only Janet’s “him” is her husband, and Shirley’s “him” is Janet’s brother, who happens to be Shirley’s boyfriend, and suddenly we have a very bad situational comedy on our hands, with gossip, accusations, and a torrid mess of absolutely nothing.

That’s where Tim and I got our wires crossed, and, as it turns out, I’m not dating his wife. Nor is he dating mine. Nor are either of us dating Danielle LaPorte.

Although I rarely write a rant like I did because my mamma taught me to be polite, I do have some very strong opinions about how business works, and how it oughta work. And I can have those opinions because I’m clear who I’m talking to.

Because some of my opinions don’t hold true for everyone. For instance, I have a very strong opinion that someone brand new in business shouldn’t have a really clear business plan, because they are just figuring out what their business. They can’t have a clear plan, because nothing is clear yet!

This opinion only holds because I’m talking about very small businesses, folks who are self-employed, or teams of less than a handful who don’t have large investment costs prior to getting to market, for instance service professionals.

If you have a team of eight people, and five hundred thousand dollars in initial funding, you *better* have a clear business plan about how you are going to get your product or service to market, and start cash flow, or you won’t make it.

But that’s not who I’m writing for, and someone who is self-employed will be, in most cases, unbearably burdened by a detailed business plan.

Ideally, your business wants something as clear as a Who-Who-What, described in The Heart-Centered Answer to What Do You Do, which is, perhaps, one of the more challenging pieces of clarity to wrestle to the ground.

But, oh my Lordy, how good the clarity feels.

I know, I know. Getting clear on your “target market” is something that has been heroically resisted, avoided, fought against, and struggled with since the dawn of time.

But think about it this way: who are you talking to? I mean, in the most basic way? Can you see who you are talking to? Can you understand them? Is your heart open to what’s going on for them?

That’s all that this is about.

The confusion Tim and I bumped into is that I was speaking to people who really need to earn a living, and I don’t want them to go out of business and give up on the dream due to blindly copying of someone else’s business model. Tim thought I was urging people who already had a lot of money to make even more.

My message to folks who are already doing well financially is going to be different than what I’m going to say to those who are still struggling.

I have two questions for you:

1. Are you super clear about who you are speaking to, as a business owner?

2a. If you are, what have you noticed comes from that clarity?

2b. If you aren’t, go read The Heart-Centered Answer to What Do You Do. And report back here.

And all of you, stop spreading rumors about me and Tim. All of it is false… well, most of it.

p.s. Need some heart-centered help getting your business going?

Our two practitioners, Yollana Shore and Jason Stein, have each had a few openings recently. If you’re wanting hands-on, individual, one-to-one support for your business development, then may I recommend the Organic Business Development Program with either of them?

Heart-centered, spiritual, practical, nitty-gritty. Click here to read and then schedule a no-cost conversation with either Jason or Yollana: The Organic Business Development Program: Heart-centered.

First off, I want to honor anyone who does this. The email I sent back thanked her deeply for finding the courage to ask for help, to reach out beyond what was comfortable, and let me know that she needed help.

It’s an admirable quality, and the ability and willingness to ask for help will take you far. I might go so far as to say it’s the number one success indicator in my book.

However, at the same time I thanked her, I also had to say no. What I want to teach you today is how to get a “yes.”

Why I Said No

There were several reasons I turned down her request. One reason was that her event was a health and wellness event–completely unrelated to what we’re doing here at Heart of Business. Okay, you could stretch and say it’s not completely unrelated, but really, if you’re subscribed to the ezine, it’s because you’re interested in heart-centered business, and to send other offers to you is not honoring your request.

I also turned her down because I just didn’t know her. If I recommend someone, it means that I’m staking my reputation on the quality and integrity of what they do. I’m sure she is an honest, sincere person who is good at what she does. But without knowing her, I can’t in integrity recommend her to you my dear reader.

A third reason I said no was probably one of the biggest reasons. It’s also the reason I said no to a really good friend and someone I would (and have) recommended to you. And the reason is this: timing. We were in the middle of the Heart of Money registration period, and it would be confusing and out of integrity to throw another offer into the mix, especially one totally unrelated to money.

I’m sure that person thought of all of those reasons, which was probably part of the discomfort. And she was really polite in asking. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the facts.

How to Get A Yes

The term used for these kinds of promotions, where someone will promote your offer to their community, is “strategic alliance.” To create a solid strategic alliance you need to honor all three of those criteria above.

Namely, your offer needs to make sense in the context of their topic and audience, the person needs to know you well enough to trust their reputation with you. And it needs to fit into their schedule.

The first criteria is not something you can change, either your offer fits or it doesn’t. But the other two, timing and trust, can be met fairly simply. It takes a little work on your part, but you can do it.

Research and Time

First I would recommend thoroughly researching anyone you want to reach out to. Read their website closely. Maybe buy one of their products. At any rate be very familiar with who they are and what they do.

You may notice they never promote anyone else, which makes them an unlikely candidate. Or you may notice that when they do promote someone, they often do it in a similar way: a free call, or a guest blog post, or just a simple recommendation.

You also can become aware of their schedule. Do they have any big events coming up?Also, do they have a preferred way to be contacted. Some people have a page explaining who they promote and why. Some people don’t.

Finally, get to know that person before you ask. Build up a relationship over time. Show up on their blog in the comments. Send them an email telling them how much you liked their articles. Buy one of their products if it’s appropriate for you. Also, if it’s appropriate, help get the word out about what they are doing in your own circles.

Do they hang out on Facebook or Twitter? Engage with them there.

Be strategic. Take your time.

And Start Small

The more influential someone is, the larger an audience they have, the more that’s at stake. A single bad recommendation can really hurt all that someone has built over years.

This means that if you don’t have a track record of the quality you provide, you’re new or it’s otherwise a first time, don’t reach for the moon.

Rather, I should say don’t only reach for the moon. Spend a lot of your time connecting with more accessible folks, people with smaller audiences who are still influential but are much more approachable and willing to try something new.

Then, sure, shoot for the moon. Reach out to that best-selling author. Just be aware that it may be harder to get their attention and their commitment to promote you until you have a track record.

Meanwhile, you can be creating that track record, and influential relationships with dozens of people who are more accessible.

Uh… Strategic Friend Building? Isn’t That Gross?

It sure can be. If you do it in a cold, calculating way, with no sincerity or honesty about it.

However, if you are a sincere, open-hearted person it’s actually more open-hearted to do it this way.

Realize that if you have a significant offer to make, an event, a course, a product, then you are going to need help getting the word out. Don’t wait until the last minute to ask for help, because I can guarantee that very little help will come your way.

If you can start six to twelve months in advance cultivating honest, sincere, open-hearted friendships with people, and then give them advance warning that in two or three months you could use some help getting the word out about your event, I’m going to guess you’ll see more people willing to help.

And, if you know them, guess what? It’s not so uncomfortable to ask.

p.s. Need some heart-centered help getting your business going?

Our two practitioners, Yollana Shore and Jason Stein, have each had a few openings recently. If you’re wanting hands-on, individual, one-to-one support for your business development, then may I recommend the Organic Business Development Program with either of them?

Heart-centered, spiritual, practical, nitty-gritty. Click here to read and then schedule a no-cost conversation with either Jason or Yollana: The Organic Business Development Program: Heart-centered.