Archive for March, 2009

As promised, here are reasons 4-6 to seek out live learning opportunities:

4. To prove that you can leave your business and not have it fall apart! If you can’t leave your business for 2, 3, or 4 days without being on your cell phone at every break and the internet until midnight, you need a new business model! Successful coaches have systems and staff in place that do client care, administration, bookkeeping, marketing, web site update, blog posting and more.

So if you feel like you can’t leave…just that knowledge is a good reason to seek out a seminar or workshop on creating more freedom in your business! Not being able to leave for continuing education probably also means you can’t leave for vacation or to exhibit or speak at a trade show…so you’re in the trap of owning a job, not a business…and something must change.

5. To update and improve your knowledge and skills – and increase your income. Of course, one of the big reasons to pay big bucks for learning is to bring your expertise up to date. There are few fields today that don’t change quickly…and coaching and career development (not to mention marketing and business building, also areas you need to know) are some of the quickest changing there are!

Likely you know that the more specialized your knowledge is, the higher fees you can charge – for products AND for services. So as you add to your knowledge base, and create your own success stories with what you learn, you will be able to raise your fees, create more high-end products, and increase your income indefinitely!

Yes, it costs to travel to a venue, stay in a hotel, pay the workshop fee, etc. But if you think like a business person, you’ll be analyzing ROI (return on investment) – how much will the ideas and principles you learn yield to you in long-term, lifetime income? It’s not always easy to quantify, but I can share that I am teaching and modeling principles now that I have ONLY learned through ongoing continuing education…not through my advanced degrees or just through reading books.

6. To visit new places – on Uncle Sam – and sample the new lifestyle you are creating. Finally, as a savvy career coach you should be taking full advantage of every legal tax benefit of being self-employed that you can…so why not choose the events that teach what you want to learn AND are held in places you’d love to visit! In most cases, both your workshop fee and your travel will be tax deductible…so you can learn in the Caribbean or Arizona in the winter, the Northwest in the summer, and even see what it would be like to live there…or own a second home there. Inevitably this is what my husband and I do when we visit a new place, whether on business or for pleasure.

In short, my goal with this article is to challenge your thinking…and to expand your paradigm about learning. “What was old is new” is a phenomenon now…print newsletters are coming back (watch for mine later this year!), live learning and Mastermind groups are back…and all of these simply augment the virtual learning and marketing methods to connect you with the people that you wish to serve.

Don’t miss out on the chance to tie YOUR brand to your purpose…and finally LEVERAGE your brand into products, high-end programs and more!  Join me this Wed. April 1 for our information call, “Success Secrets of THRIVING Purposeful Entrepreneurs.”  Reserve your space here: www.purposefulentrepreneur.com/pbpreview.html

By Marcia Bench, MCCC

I have always loved to learn…haven’t you? Whether I was perfecting my piano skills as a child, discovering personal growth programs as a young adult, or learning – and constantly updating – my expertise as a trainer, thought leader and career coach now, there’s no substitute for the “high” I get from learning something new!

But something has changed in the past few years: my goals have gotten higher – and so has my investment in learning!

I took a deep breath and committed to a 2-week educational cruise to Hawaii and back in January 2007, a high-level book marketing workshop in March, and a $2000 self-study kit from a leading marketing expert – all within the first quarter of 2007! And I’ve continued to invest in myself…close to 6 figures each year – and it pays off every month as my results improve!

Why? Because I need to stay ahead of my clients and students – but also, because I want to be the best coach, leader, writer, marketer and speaker that I can…and there’s nothing like live learning to help.

Here are 3 of my top 6 reasons I recommend that you seek out live events to enhance YOUR learning and develop yourself professionally too (watch the blog on Monday for the next 3 reasons):

1. To stimulate new ideas. Sure, the speakers say things that are insightful — “aha’s” in how they do things. But raw creativity somehow emerges — and breakthroughs happen — when you leave your day-to-day environment. I can’t explain it…but something happens once I leave the office and get in the limo or other airport transportation…fly to the event, and set my mind free to create and absorb. The speaker will be speaking, but another track will be going in my mind that is free-flowing – and it’s those ideas that I often bring back and put into action. I believe they wouldn’t have happened unless I was in the live learning environment!

2. To immerse yourself in the content. For the past 8-plus years, I have taught virtually 90 percent of the time. And it was a huge relief after being a “road warrior” and speaking only live prior to that. (Don’t worry, I’ll continue to do teleseminars too!) But in the live learning environment, you are completely enveloped, surrounded, and immersed in the subject matter you came to learn…it’s a multi-dimensional experience and – if you have a process to capture your insights and follow through on them – can be an absolutely pivotal event.

3. To make critical in-person, high-level contacts for your business. If there is someone whose work, business or life you admire, get face-to-face with them! By having the full experience of the person – on and off the stage – you will get even more value from what you have read, heard, or seen of them prior to the live learning. Those who present or sponsor live events are “gurus” in their area…and getting to learn from them in person – and hopefully also getting your photo taken with them to use in your marketing! – is an invaluable opportunity.

I’m still so glad that I went to see Thomas Leonard speak at one of the early Coachville conferences – even though I was going through chemotherapy and very weak at the time – because he died an untimely death later that year. I would have missed out on the opportunity altogether if I hadn’t made the effort to go to Las Vegas to see him!

Not only do you get to meet the speakers, but you also get to meet prospective strategic partners, customers, and vendors/resources for your business by attending these events. You can search on Google or make a referral-based phone call, but there’s nothing that parallels the energy of a live connection with someone that could turn into a mutually beneficial business partner for you. You might even make some on-the-spot sales of your products, programs or services!

Stay tuned Monday for the last 3 reasons…but meanwhile, why not check out the information call – including special guests! – for MY next live event!  The call is entitled  Success Secrets of THRIVING Purposeful Entrepreneurs, — and it will be held Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 8 pm Eastern. 

See my new VIDEO and reserve your space here: http://www.purposefulentrepreneur.com/pbpreview.html

Tina Turner asked “What’s love got to do with it?” Let’s take that theme to your business: you keep hearing about life purpose, maybe you even know yours…but what does it really have to do with your business? In this article, we will discuss the top 5 reasons your life purpose MUST be at the center of your business…or you risk going OUT of business as the new economy emerges!

1. It leads to your life’s work. Whether you realize it consciously or not, your life purpose is the central message and issue you are here on the planet to express and grow through. I like the way Sanaya Roman describes the relationship between this and your “life’s work” in her book Spiritual Growth: “We will call the process of evolving yourself your ‘life purpose,’ and the service you came to offer humanity your ‘life’s work.’ They are intertwined, because as you serve others you will naturally evolve yourself…everything you do to evolve yourself and carry out your life’s work is an act of aligning with…your Higher Self.” So without knowing your life purpose, you are unlikely to discover the work you are truly meant to do – including the business through which you are designed to offer it.

2. It aligns your energy with that of your ideal customers. Like the title of my friends Kristin and David Morelli’s radio show, “Everything is Energy.” That includes your attitude toward your work, every interaction, every product and program. When your business is on purpose, everything you do emanates from it – and the people you attract have complementary life purposes and life’s work to do also. So you get to play the game of life – and business – together! A purposeful business becomes magnetic to the perfect people that it is meant to serve…and leads to wonderfully rewarding, fulfilling interactions with customers and clients as a result.

3. It is essential for maximum fulfillment at work. Whether you work as an employee or as an entrepreneur, work without purpose is literally like a day without sunshine. This is one of the primary reasons for the TGIF syndrome – “just get me through till Friday and I can do what I want to,” people exclaim. Work without purpose is empty, just a long series of same-old, same-old, endless to-do lists, and no end in sight. By contrast, work which is an expression of your life purpose becomes a series of conversations, interactions, opportunities to serve, and events that carry forward what you most want your life to be about: purpose-based work. The sense of fulfillment seems unbelievable at first…but it is in fact the way we were designed to express through our work.

4. Your products and services – as well as business decisions – naturally flow from it. Unless the hub of your business is your purpose, you will struggle and strain about what products and services to offer next…and if you are like most business owners from the former era of entrepreneurship, your decisions will be based solely on which sell the best, which will generate the most reven_ue, or what is easiest to create. Again, there is an emptiness in this approach! Instead, if you use your life purpose statement as the filter to determine which projects or clients to accept, which product or other program to create next, and the like, it becomes effortless. And as stated in principle 2 above, your customers will also love them and your bottom line benefits without your having to unduly focus on it.

5. It provides a “greater good” and a “larger meaning” to the business’ everyday activities. When all is said and done, what does your business really contribute to the world? When you die, will the planet be better in some way because of the work you did through your business? If your business is an outgrowth of your life purpose, the answers to these questions will reflect it. Purposeful businesses measurably improve the planet – or a segment of it – through the work they do with each customer, every day.

Want to clarify your purpose and make it the center of YOUR business? Register for the *Purposeful Branding, Marketing and Info Product Creation Program* starting May 1, 2009 and Marcia will work with you throughout the next year to do just that and more! See all the details at www.purposefulentrepreneur.com/purposefulbranding.html (next preview is April 1 – reserve your space here: www.purposefulentrepreneur.com/pbpreview.html)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marcia Bench is a Master Purposeful Entrepreneur Coach, and the President and CEO of Purposeful Entrepreneur.com, Founder/Director of Career Coach Institute and other coach training companies, with more than 23 years of experience in coaching and consulting. She has authored 23 books including the NEW The Tao of Entrepreneurship, and over 500 presentations to her credit.

Most of the coaches I know are still banging their head against the wall trying to figure out why the OLD online and offline marketing isn’t working any more…but like everything in our business and economic systems, the old is crumbling and giving way to a whole new way of doing business.

I call this the “New Era of Entrepreneurship,” characterized by the Divine Feminine, connections instead of competition, and a focus on one’s purpose and not just the bottom line.

If you would like to learn more about this dynamic new way of marketing, I invite you to join me on a free call TONIGHT, March 18, 2009, at 8 pm Eastern.  I’m going to help you make sense of the changes you are seeing…and make critical adjustments to your info or service business that will help you THRIVE, not just get by, during this challenging time!

Find out more and reserve your space here: www.purposefulentrepreneur.com/pbpreview.html

Hope to talk to you tonight!

Marcia Bench, CEO, Purposeful Entreprenuer.com