Many coaches and other information-based business owners are not making the kind of income they would like to make.  But you don’t have to be one of them!   The following principles are a proven way to double (or more!) your income in the coming year – if you not only read them, but implement several of them in your business.  Some of the rewards will be increased revenues, increased number of clients, and even a greater enjoyment of the work you do.

I will assume, since you are working in the coaching field or another information business (or want to be), that you are doing work you love and want to share that with others in one way or another.  Whether you are a coach, consultant, author, speaker or other infopreneur, your business provides a service to others.  And unlike many fields, your service to clients fails to ring true unless you, too, are passionate about what you do.  Not making enough money can zap any passion you had when you started your business, fast!

So here are 3 of my proven ways to increase (by at least 100%) your income – while  actually working less time than you do now! 

 1. Choose to challenge any aspect of your life or business that is not what you want.  Even those of us who enjoy our work may have areas that we would like to change.  The best way to find these areas for yourself is to reflect on what you repeatedly feel frustrated or upset by (or ask your spouse what you complain about the most!).  While we can’t usually change our lives overnight, we can change one thing at a time.  How?  By choosing to do so!  If you don’t feel successful, what would have to happen to change that?  Consider this quote from Spiritual Economics:

“Success is the most natural thing in the world.  The person who does not succeed has placed himself in opposition to the laws of the Universe.”

When we feel that urge to make change, to improve, to get better (which is what New Years’ resolutions are all about, right?), author Eric Butterworth tells us that “your desire to get ahead, your urge to succeed, is your intuitive awareness of something within you that wants to succeed through you.”  And the factor that distinguishes someone who feels successful from someone similarly situated who does not is on the inside of the person.  It’s like the person who says “My job is not imaginative; there is no future in it.”  In fact, “there is no job with a future in it – the future is in the one who does the job!”

Question to Ponder: What one thing in your life or business, if you changed either the activity itself or your attitude about it, would make a significant difference in your coming year?

2. Give yourself the benefit of “recycling.”  No, I’m not talking about what you do with your newspapers and plastic containers!  In studies of more than 60,000 people over the past 15 years, psychologist Dr. James Prochaska and his associates have found that only 77 percent of New Year’s resolutions survive the first week. A month later, it’s 55 percent.  This may not surprise you…but the term we use for this experience of not fulfilling our resolutions can make a big difference in whether we “get back on the horse” after a fall and try to ride again. 

Prochaska has analyzed how people successfully make change, initially studying people trying to quit smoking to see what led to some people’s successful efforts. His resulting model of change doesn’t blame unsuccessful attempts at change on lack of willpower or motivation. Instead, it outlines six stages and contends that by identifying and understanding where we are in the process, we can gain control over the cycle of change and move through it more quickly, efficiently and with less pain.

His six stages are:  pre-contemplation (denial), contemplation (thinking about change), preparation (ready to change within 30 days), action (here we go!), maintenance (holding onto the new behavior despite challenges) and termination (when the old behavior or situation no longer beckons to us).  What’s interesting to note is that, although many of us expect to go from A to Z in a straightforward path, that is a rare feat!  He says that although it is possible to progress linearly from one stage to the next, only 5 percent of people have no setbacks.  Most successful self-changers go through the stages three or four times before they complete the cycle – and he calls these repeated cycles “recycling” rather than “relapsing,” maintaining the sense that a process is still in motion.

Question to Ponder:  How can you be kind to yourself as you begin to change what isn’t working, allowing more than one try at the new behavior before you throw up your hands in despair?

3. Leverage your “synchronous” time.  What is the most common response people give when you ask them how they are these days?  “Wow, I’m really busy!”  Right?  The fact is, each of us has 1440 minutes each day – and we also have many choices as to how we spend it!  People who seem to be on top of things don’t have more time than we do; they have simply learned how to honor their synchronous (or clock) time, and leverage it to create asynchronous systems that continue to work when they’re not!

 Here’s an example:  for years now, I have been teaching coaching, how to launch and build a coaching or consulting practice, and similar topics.  Most recently, many of my classes have been done via teleclass.  Those required that I be physically present, on the phone, in real time.  But in the past few months, I have consolidated this course content into a textbook and workbook format, recorded lectures and coaching demonstrations on CD’s, and radically altered my business model founded on this asynchronous, self-paced model.  What has that done for me as the developer of the materials?  Freed me to develop new products, do the marketing, and otherwise manage the business – while all the time students are signing up and learning the content “asynchronously,” i.e., without my real-time presence being required.  And students gain the benefits of greater flexibility and significantly lower costs for the training.  It’s a win-win proposition!

Questions to Ponder:  Think about the services you offer to clients, and the projects that you’ve spent inordinate amounts of time on (e.g., a narrative executive bio, a web portfolio, etc.).  How many other ways can you think of to use that same content or format with other clients?  In other media?  Spending just 30 minutes each day developing a system that will run asynchronously will free dozens of hours of your time over the course of a year.

 Here’s wishing you a prosperous and successful 2010!

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