The Evolutionary Professional

How Has the Marketplace's Current Economic Conditions Affected Our Business?

There is more money now for coaches, consultants, and holistic practitioners who are effective than before the economic downturn; it is also harder to acquire it [for some/most].

How can this be?

What do I mean?

People know they need assistance in being more effective now. Those in business for themselves who were able to scrape economic cream off the top are no longer able to; money is not simply just bubbling forth. As a result, they are looking for coaches and practitioners to assist them in gaining skill, becoming more effective, systematizing their businesses, etc.

And in some cases, if they are aware enough, becoming more at ease both physically and emotionally.

What this translates to is more business for those of us who are effective both at providing service to our clients, but also at turning prospective clients into clients and clients into raving fans.

For coaches and practitioners, this is a good thing if you are effective.

If you are not, this is the End of Days for your practice.

I would prefer if you were in the former category rather than in the latter.

Simultaneously, prospective clients are making more careful choices-there is plenty of choice out there. Where they put their money Is now a more conscious choice;  a more careful choice.

Your process needs to be immaculate or they will go somewhere else.

Simultaneously, people want more for their money and there is less latitude and grace for ineffective, non-results-producing practitioners. And they may be out of work, and they may have the time to actually invest in the endeavor of reporting their results-no matter how wildly inaccurate they may perceive the process of working with you. [Frankly, I have become more careful about who I take on as a client as a result].

What that means to you is that not only do you need to be a more effective practitioner all the time, but you also need to become a more and more effective sales professional all.the.time.

To assist you in that, there is a free event in San Francisco on April 28th in the evening. See details about that here:

http://tinyurl.com/clbnek

Daniel from Portugal [http://yogaportugal.com] writes:

I am really loving [Evolutionary Sales] it has turn my world around, I am listening to them in order and I am now on ES012 so if the next 2 two question I have for you have already been answered on the show I would appreciate it if you could direct me to it.

The idea of an integrity and service-based sale is one that I even without knowing had been searching for quite some time, I am very glad I have found you.

Read this sentence to yourself in your mind or out loud:

"My life is the sum total of my own choices; the state of my business is the sum total of my choices".

As you read that and re-read that, what is your experience? Do you feel excitement? Pride? Shame? Do you sense a burden on your shoulders? What does it weigh in your mind? Do you quickly move to insist it is not your "fault". That it was out of your control? That it was this circumstance or that circumstance? That you were "wronged"? Or "unlucky"?

Or do you experience a comforting and/or challenging level of acceptance. A "yup" with a quiet nod of your head?

One thing is for certain-your relationship to that sentence is a good indicator of your level of self-esteem, or your level of healthy egoic development in the positive sense. You see, it is not the big ego that needs defending or asserting in the world; it is the small ego. It is not the big ego that is arrogant, self-righteous, or deflects responsibility and blames others; it is the small, pre-rational, pre-conventional, vengeful, ego-centric ego.

It is a challenging re-frame for most to get their minds around. But just ask yourself this: what kind of ego could achieve a non-dual sense of reality; what kind of ego could be one with all things, moment to moment? A big, huge ego. An ego so large it can be a yes to whatever is arising moment to moment and relate to it, be a part of it. That takes an expanded sense of self. Yet that ego is also diffuse. It is large, but it is flexible. It lacks rigidity. It does not need defending or asserting; it understands its power. As a result, there is nothing to prove to anyone-not even itself.

It is exceedingly rare that another writer captures my sensibilities perfectly. Sam Rosen has done just that in his article on Consciousness vs. Conversions. Hop on over and check it out.

[Listener Question]

It is unbelievable what I missed the first time through.

Yes. Most people do not believe me [or perhaps literally do not hear me] when I say to listen at least three times through all the way first because of what is missed by the human physiology/sense tools the first time--and even the second. Additionally, you are different, deeper, richer, or just plain have a new focus and so hear things differently--or perhaps for the first time, not having the ability to receive it/fit it into your linguistic or conceptual structures the last time you heard it--even after several listenings. I still re-listen to audio products I bought 10 years ago and hear them in ways that blow my mind now.

I do have one questions...how do I pace myself through the program. First time through was as you were releasing new episodes... now i have 16. I'm fighting back the urge to do them all at once.....

Thank you for this very important question. That depends on your own process and your internal processing. If you are a more kinesthetic person [talking slower, looking down a lot, feeling, touchy feely, perhaps], then you will get it more deeply, but it will take you longer to fully understand the scope. If you have good auditory digital recall, you may remember verbatim the first time--the guy who never studied in college, but always attended the lectures, then aces the final is one example of someone with good auditory digital processing. A visual person will often think they have it, because the understand it cognitively the first time--and very rapidly, but they do not have it deeply in their neurology and will lose or miss stuff thinking they already "know" it because they understood it rapidly. These people have the toughest time accepting that they understand it or cognize it, but have not necessarily "learned" it. When I say "learn" I do not mean remember or understand cognitively, I mean that they actually behave from the mindset, or that it is their patterned response--their new habit pattern or new emotional reaction or their "natural" way or predictable way of responding. On that note, a while back I wrote a piece to support this titled Insight and Integration. You can read it HERE. So...how do you pace yourself? I would make sure you listen to episodes 0 through 16 all the way through at least three times so that you can the model in your mind to such a degree that you can trouble shoot your own performance from an objective perspective. That requires you to mentally and conceptually hold the entire model in your mind. Do that all the way through. THEN go back slowly and go through it to do the exercises and play with the ideas and component parts individually. And remember--there is no inherent number of times to listen to it when you are "done". You are never done--there is just the asymptotic nature of Personal and Professional Evolution. The question is two what degree and in which contexts have I integrated it? Hope this helps!

Every successful business person is a marketer and a salesperson first. If you want to be successful, you should consider that as your primary organizing principle. If you want to thrive, rather than just survive, then your primary focus needs to be on generating business and leads—and then opening those relationships.

• Are your marketing dollars working for you? How do you know?

One of the biggest mistakes a small businessperson can make is not being able to track their marketing dollars. That ad you placed—did it get any response or not? How do you know? That yellow page placement-is it increasing your business traffic? How do you know? Are your dollars well placed with the print advertising, TV spots, radio, or other form? How can you know? Did it even pay for itself? The key words you purchased on google or yahoo search—are they effective? Are they garnering traffic?

That person you are paying 10$ an hour to stand on a street corner and pass out fliers—are they even asking any questions, or just silently trying to thrust the paper into people’s hands to get rid of the fliers--bacause, you know, you pay them for how many they pass out, not how many leads you get from it.

What are you paying per lead generated with these methods? How do you track the efficacy of your advertisement and marketing and therefore make informed choices as to whether or not your dollars are well placed?

There are several ways:

One of the challenges I see so many coaches and solopreneurs struggle with is what they should charge for their services. Most do not know what they should charge. Many charge what they think they can get. Some charge whatever the next coach or practitioner charges. That is--"the going rate". Many charge what they would be willing to pay themselves. Most charge less than they are worth--while improving the lives of others dramatically.

But why? And what are the solutions to this travesty of value?

There are three primary reasons:

• Mistakingly thinking they are actually trading time for money, and/or that their services are a commodity. A thing to purchase
• Limiting beliefs; usually about themselves or the value they bring at their very core-and what they or their services are worth, what the prospective client would be willing to pay, or about money in general
• A lack of sales skill; they do not know how to create accurate yet inspiring value perceptions in the prospective client that make the fees irrelevant or appear minimal in comparison to what they are getting through the service.

How the heck do you determine or set your rate?

What are your services and/or your offering actually worth?

Who or What do You Worship? The purpose of this writing is to lay out different “gods” or objects of worship as an outgrowth and/or expression of the mimetic stage [meme codes within values spheres] of individuals and groups using a rough sketch of the Spiral Dynamics model.

Be forewarned ::: this is serious personal evolution geek stuff.

I am also going to make the unusual move of saying the very premise of what I am about to lay out is inaccurate. That’s right. I am beginning by saying I am wrong in my assertion that there is an individual relationship between mimetic stage and what one “worships”. Why? Because we experience / interpret through and emotionally react from our stage of development—and an individual can therefore have an experience of a particular spirituality or spiritual expression that is the same religion and same “god” as another at a radically different stage and therefore experience it differently. However, I have noticed cultural clumps that gives us enough evidence to make these generalizations below for the purpose of engaging in this thought experiment. To understand some of what I will say in this writing, one must have an at least basic grasp of the Spiral Dynamics model. There are two summaries attached for your downloading HERE and HERE. Source ::: LINK. Review those before reading further.

My favorite way of representing Spiral Dynamics comes from Dr. Claire Graves himself: The memes are “degrees of activation of the nervous system”. These are not types of people but rather ways of thinking that are holarchically emergent within people. Having established all of the above as our foundation...

The status of the world today is precarious.

Mistake #4: Having Only 1 Stream of Prospects

Mistake #5: Failure to leverage contact points and the opportunity they hold

Mistake #6: Considering Your Service a Commodity

Mistake #7: (Did I say 6?) I guess there is at least one more mistake:
"Healing" that which you need to resolve in your self and in your own life by healing others

It is amazing how many coaches, solopreneurs, massage therapists, lawyers, etc. are competent at what they do--yet suffer financially. They are doing good, but they are not doing well--that is, they are struggling financially, mentally, and emotionally.

There are reasons for this. I have identified the top 6 reasons--and their solutions-that I have found in my experience in my own business as well as observing those who still have a "practice".

The first 3 are presented to you below. The next three will be in Part 2 in a couple of weeks.

Mistake #1:  Thinking "Money and Spirituality are in Conflict"

For some, "capitalism" is a bad word. Which makes sense. "Capitalism" was a phrase coined by the biggest enemy of the free market and free enterprise to ever live--Karl Marx. Yet, we keep that inaccurate and pejorative moniker. We were taught for thousands of years that to profit was bad--and then this meme was punctuated by the evils of capitalism laid out by a failed mathematician who had no foresight into the services industry--never mind respect for private property and Natural Law and was therefore essentially a thief on a grand scale. Even though with the rise of capitalism in the mid-1800s, our standard of living has more than trebled, never mind that our life expectancy has doubled in a short time as a result...it...is...bad.