Coaching Conversations - Ep 7: Serving First, Selling Second & Keeping your Mind in Check.

In this episode, Nick and Chris discuss practical tips to deal with business stress when trying to grow and scale your service-based business.  So how do you connect with someone on a “cold list”, a list that someone else has grown that you purchase of jump onto?  What should you say in your email that will get you out of the spam folder and onto their white list?  Nick provides specific words and guidance from real-world examples… (I pity the poor guy from the spam folder). 

Next, we get a focussed look at how to deal with overwhelm in your business.  How do you avoid the main road blockages and clear the road ahead for growth?  What can you do to your mind and body to help you cope?  Nick has some great suggestions…

And finally, the guys discuss the importance of your business model and systems when it comes to expanding.  If you don’t get this right, you are in trouble.

Welcome to the soon to be registered (lol) Monday Happiness Movement… enjoy the chat.

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Time codes:

0:25  Welcome to the show.  Welcome to the Monday Happiness Movement. Happiness is an internal choice!

0:57  What’s the best way to re-engage with a cold list?  A list that you’ve purchased, you don’t know them or have any history.  They don’t know who you are. Important to just “introduce yourself”.  No sell, no spam… just touch base and let them know you exist!  If you want to know what not to do… just open up your SPAM folder and see what’s in there.

1:45  Example of a bad way to approach a cold list… straight from Nick’s spam folder. 

3:12  How would Nick approach a cold call via email?  Step by step guidance from Nick – get you pen ready!

5:00  Summary… introduce yourself, keep it personal and don’t be selly!  Leverage or add value.

6:57  Serve first… sell second.  And it may take a while before that sell happens.  Be patient.  Try and continue to give value or advice.  Hopefully, this will lead to conversations, interactions, person to person (over the phone). 

8:13  How do you manage to overwhelm when running a business? 

8:42  Business is a marathon sport.  So vital to have things in check.

9:06  As a human… we pick up thousands of pieces of information at once via our senses. Our spinal system refines that info into lanes of traffic… if the body is not in sync, this can be like a busy freeway with blocked traffic… not fun.  Business, time and life all combine to clog up things.  How can we tone things to cope?

10:40  Guided visualisation/mediation.  Helps lubricate the system

11:06  Keep the body in check.  Health and fitness is important.  Look after yourself.  Food and exercise.  Stretch and movement.

11:49  Develop systems and manageable strategies.  If the pipeline it clogged, leads to stress.  Time management.  Complete things… compartmentalise and free up lanes.  That way you can free up space in your day (mind) and defuse the stresses.

13:24  In review:  Visualisation and calm the mind.  Keep the body in check.  Deal with situations head-on and action steps to complete.

14:33  How can I expand my service-based business?

14:56  It’s all in the modelling.  When we first start, we’ll do anything to make money for the fledgling business.  Things grow and we need help to scale.  The model needs to adjust to accommodate your current reality.  Everything around you can change, but most don’t change the model.  It is vital to change the model to cope with these changes – without burning out.

17:27  Number one – train your mind to start to scale.  Get coaching, read and grow.  Make sure your marketing is dialled in.  Do you have a sales process that “converts”?  Too many tyre kickers can take time… qualify them.  Have systems in place to deal with.  Do you have your finances under control?  You can turn a lot over – but where’s the money?  Is there a hole (or many) in your bucket?

20:09   Time to wrap.  Any questions to [email protected]

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Business is never standing still.  If it is, it’s probably going backwards fast.  You need to ensure you have things in place to keep the momentum going forward.   Don’t spam cold lists in the hope of making progress.  It’s the easiest way to end up blocked and having doors closed to our approaches. 

There are smart ways to do this… with mantra should be SERVE FIRST – SELL SECOND.  Modelling is vital.  We can’t keep the same one we began with if we hope to scale things into bigger and better waters.  How can we do this?

Read, get coaching, work on your mind and body.  Overwhelm is a very real consequence of growing, so take practical steps to address things.  Get on the front foot.  Meditate and exercise.  Keep the body in check.  Ensure your systems are thought out and working.  Let them manage the little daily things for you… so you can manage them on a grander scale.  Have yourself, your time, and your finances dialled in… and you are good to grow!