There are lots of ways to grow your business, work with clients, and offer your products.
So many opportunities are coming at you that it can be challenging to know what to accept and what to decline. It’s even more challenging when money is offered to you and you desperately need it, but maybe it’s not the best fit.
Knowing your criteria for saying yes or no is critical for profits… and your well-being.
A big part of my criteria for choosing something is the amount of time it involves, as well as the specific hours, deadline, and day an event is happening.
If a prospective client can only coach with me on a weekend, after 4pm Pacific, or on a Friday, it’s a… big… fat… no. Family time is critical for me, and that’s why traveling is also kept to a minimum for work.
Some years ago I’d planned to fly to Southern California for a day of mastermind with colleagues in the coaching world. I was really looking forward to it, even though it was a tight squeeze with travel plans I had with my family as soon I returned home. Then, the timing of the event changed, and it was going to push my family getaway back a day.
My mate was supportive of whatever I decided to do. If it’s good for my business, he says go for it. My mom said I couldn’t miss the mastermind because it sounded like a really important opportunity for learning new business strategies and building relationships for joint venture partners to support my future projects.
But I wasn’t feeling gung-ho about saying yes, given that the timing was pushing into the trip to the coast and riding on a steam train through the redwood forest. After a couple of days of sitting on the fence, I said no. I felt relief. I knew I’d made the right choice.
The event was a HELL YES, but the timing was a HELL NO. It was a hard decision, but I knew that if I were looking at the situation through my “abundance” eyes, I would trust that this wouldn’t be my only opportunity for networking with high-level experts in my field. I also had strategies coming out of my ears with the marketing genius on my team, so I wouldn’t be missing out on the only strategies in the world that would improve my profitably.
I knew that feeling bad about putting my business before family in this instance didn’t feel right. And guilt is a very bad emotion to feel when you’re working on your business. It repels profits. And flow.
There are also decisions that are tough because they require you to invest money to grow your business. It’s especially rough when the amount of money is way beyond your comfort level. Your instant reaction is, “There is no way I can afford that.” And then you dismiss the very thing that, moments before, you thought was your ideal solution.
A decision to invest money in a new website, team member, coach/mentor or advertising is a big one. But saying yes confidently and powerfully can catapult your profits up into a whole new tax bracket. If you make the choice with confidence, you will find a way to come up with the money, and the mind shift required to make that decision can be a game changer.
Every time I’ve invested in my company, I’ve never regretted it. It’s always caused me to increase my profits or uplevel my inner game.
Had I not made myself step outside of my financial comfort zone, I wouldn’t have:
- A website that does my marketing for me
- An all-star team
- Created CDs, journals, home study systems, and an iPhone App
- Participated in high-level masterminds
- Seamless systems for automation
- Technology that makes my life easy
- A 25-30 hour workweek with extreme flexibility
And I certainly wouldn’t have the car, home, boat, and vacations as a result.
When you’re unclear about which choice would serve you best and you’ve run through all the positives and negatives, bring in the big guns. Tap into your Inner Business Expert. You have one. You have to get quiet and ask the question to the part of you that has access to infinite wisdom…
“What choice would serve my highest good based on my desires?”
Trust the answer and you’ll always make the perfect choice for profitability and flow.
What’s your inner guidance nudging you to do?