1. Has a Big picture overview- where you’re coming from and where you are going to is the foundation of your marketing plan. Let’s say a year from now, what results do you want to have happened? Looking at the big picture, not on ly the final destination is important but aslo the 2 to 5 big accomplishments throughtout the year. The can be the Quantum Leaps you consider as a sheer dream now but which need to take place in order your end goal to be achieavable.
2. Has a detailed description of the small steps- the few quantum leaps you’ve identified as neccessary to take place so that your plan reaches the finishing line usually have lots of small sub-steps which follow one another. For example – if your Giant step is Marketing, then you follow a step-by-step process to market your product, service or idea. That process is of the form: do step 1, when you complete it, do step 2, when you complete it, do step 3 etc. If your Giant step is to sell out your products or your available time slots for your services, then you follow a different business process which is of the same step-by-step format.
3. Has smart strategies to go from one to another- Completing one step doesn’t authomatically mean that you are on the next step already. When you do your part of the work , you are but your prospecs or may not be. So, to make sureboth parties are on the same page, whole set of strategies for the different feed-backs we can get from a client or a merketing campaign needs to be in the place as a support structure that ensures that whatever comes our way, we have a way to handle it. Of course, we can’t prepare for absolutely everything, but as they say: prior preparation prevents failure.
4. Has a masterplan – Highly efficient plan takes into account in a very detailed way all that the business owner expects to do 6 months ahead in any given day. Having sets of strategies to go fromstep to step in a gracefull and genuine way is imply not enough. If you have 10 steps to get from where you are now to where you want to be tomorrow, then you need to create sets of strategies for leaps from step to step for all 10 steps so that you ensure that you plan will be completed and executed properly.
5. Prepare for the tasks at hand way in advance - ok, you are your own boss and you struggle between wanting to work as much as possible on your busines so that it succeeds and the personal, family and leisure time. If you’ve completed all 4 steps above, you ahve a winning plan in your hands. Now your inner struggles can override the chance for success that the plan you created offers. What can you do about it? Automating and doing as much work in advance as possible wll do. In this way, when you are doing in February the work you have planned to do in August, then whenAugust comes, you can confidently put on your callendar: Vacation – 2 weeks – not reachable.
Still thinking this is just a dream… Try the 5 steps and we will see.
Part of being a business owner is to overcome challenges and bring your business to the next level while focusing on keeping it alive and profitable day in and day out. But sometimes what we cant to see as challenge is actually a state of being stuck – neither moving forward nor maintaining a satisfying results status quo. Here are the signs:
1.The list of tasks keeps growing but the old tasks don’t get done. Remember – first things first. If, like most business owners who are doing it all on their own, you multitask lots of projects and tasks at the same time then ask yourself if you are advancing in any of them. If at least one of your projects is moving forward, then your business as a whole is moving forward. Even baby steps count. As long as you keep your focus on the direction and don’t bring your engines to a hal, you are making progress. On the other hand if tasks keep piling up and you find yourself saying constantly that you are busy but no tasks get auctioned on, then you just excuse yourself for not doing anything.
2.You find yourself wishing for some free time – one of the vital signs for you being stuck while operating your business is that time is never enough. Well managed business starts with managing your time effectively and realistically. A big time waster is when you don’t like to perform a particular task to delay doing it and to contemplate how little you like it a lot. Thinking is not doing – it’s time wasting.
3.Daydreaming about that great business success but not creating a road map to move from where you are right now to where you want to be – having a vision or a dream for your great success is the first step to attaining it but this step will lead you nowhere if you don’t act on it every day. Furthermore, quite often I literally hear that the plan is to do the giant steps and then get the results. What happens more often is that these giant steps consist of a number of small steps. The difference between a plan, a good plan and a great plan for the business is that a plan is to make the giant steps but overlooking the sub-processes these giant steps involve – a good plan considers the big steps and the small steps but a truly great plan has strategies to move from small steps to small step until a giant step is completed.
4.Allowing life to get in the way – there’s always something: somebody gets sick, the holiday season is coming and you need to prepare, some renovation around the house is taking place, a relocation, a change in social status – like a break up, divorce or a new relationship, you need to finish something in order to take the next steps etc. this is a huge test for all business owners because life will always keep happening. Unexpected situations or delays can and will keep coming your way. What we do with it how we respond to it is what makes a difference. If we stay focused keep going and don’t give up, then our business boat is safely anchored from the storms of life and regardless of which way the wind is blowing – our boat is not to sink.
5.Not taking care of us – how can this keep you stuck? Well, if you are new to your business, most probably you will do your best; invest all your energy, to keep it up and running. That involves less time for self case like spa, fitness, and weekend getaways. But when self care is in the luxury you don’t really need over time you start to need more time to recharge to feel less enthusiasm for all that you do and to describe yourself as overwhelmed. Even a 30 min meditation a day would do to keep you centered and away from getting stuck in your business. Tsvetanka Petrova, CPC, Start-up Set up Coach
If you’re spiraling down the no action lane and want to zap out of it and move into the action producing results mode, I’d recommend you to ask yourself how much of your day you do what you really want to do. The course that will help you in clarifying for yourself the path of least effort and some really smart tips on how you can make sure your plan to succeed in your business doesn’t fall into the cracks is5 signs that you are stuck in your businessTeleclass. It shares my own system to figure out how t get where I want to form where I am right now. All participants in the call receive THEIR business questions answered personally, regardless of whether they ask them live, on the call, before or after it. And of course, an MP3 recording of the call is available for download less than an hour after the call. http://bit.ly/3G3AiX
I often hear from my clients that they feel stuck they do a whole bunch of things to bring their business to a thriving fiasco but results don’t come in the way they planned and imagined they will. It turns out that quite often there is either lack of marketing activities (only sales) or (which is the majority of cases) there is a lot of marketing going on and somehow the sales activities are not there. Good marketing leads to a sale but a sale happens after the sales cycle is finished. Here’s what to do if you’re doing lots of marketing but the register don’t ring much for you:
1. Create a pull of interested people – This is your number one goal with your marketing efforts : facebook, twitter, networking events, speaking engagements. Here’s where your sales pitch or elevator speech kicks in, not to help the sale but to create awareness and interest in what you have to offer and how you help others make a difference in their lives.
2. Help prospects qualify themselves– The next step is, not surprisingly the step that hurts business owners the most because it looks like they loose business. But is it so? Realistically, not everyone who shows interest in the products or services you offer is actually going to continue being interested and that’s okay. Not only that, it is a great way for you to involve yourself into helping the interested people pre-qualify themselves to be your client or not. That really saves a lot of marketing effort you would otherwise spend on interested people who are not going to be interested for long.
3. Play the trust game – When you want the qualified prospects to become clients of yours, realistically what you are offering is expectations. Good packaging, solutions which your prospects want to have but don’t yet and being prepared to answer all the questions your prospects might have but didn’t think about asking them to you yet is all part of the game. Think about it, we buy something (a car, a laptop, a house, etc) because we know that it works, we’ve been educated what exactly we are buying (or there is a web page that explains all that for us) and because there is a warranty – a guarantee that even after the purchase things are going to be just fine for us as buyers. Same thing when you sell your products or services.
4. Create a win-win situation – When you sit down with the client or chat on the phone, it is a world of possibilities conversation where the real sale happens. This is where you listen to what your prospect is looking for and tweak a proposal that meets both your needs and wants and their needs and wants. This includes not only the actual work but also the expected results, and what are the steps to be taken for those results to happen. Here you needs to discuss the pricing, the details, the conditions you offer or expect, standards you abide by, what the commitments are going to be like and look like for both parties. And again, it’s best to be well prepared for that negotiation journey.
5. Close a sale– Ok, the two of you click and it seems that you can be of great help to them and they like your personality and would enjoy working with you. Now, there is still work to be done here. This is where the prospect can give up on the product or service not because you didn’t do a good job the previous steps but because you did not help the client to work out the buyers’ remorse or buyers’ excuses. Here’s where the sales lessons need to be applied – to soft pedal the sale, to close the sale, and why not even upsale. The magic wand is in your hands. Just wave it and help your pool of interested people go though the whole sales cycle.
Tsvetanka Petrova, CPC, Start-up Set up Coach
If you’re presenting your business online via info pages and offline via brochures, I’d recommend you to re-read those presentations of your business and decide how well they help the reader to go down the sales process. The course that will assist you in learning different approaches to write your sales letters, the rules – what to pay attention to when you write them, and how to break the rules, so that you keep your individuality is the Persuasive Sales Letters that SELL without being salesy teleclass . It covers the sales processes as per the book and how they actually work on the market, the success practices and the mistakes and pitfalls to be avoided. All participants in the call receive THEIR business questions answered personally, regardless of whether they ask them live, on the call, before or after it. And of course, an MP3 recording of the call is available for download less than an hour after the call. http://tinyurl.com/9uzxsa
A sales letter is each and every communication you have with your potential clients explaining what you offer and why do they need it. The thing is, even if you offer a great product or service it’s really your sales letter that is explaining exactly how you add value to their lives. And guess what, if you fail to communicate that in the sales letter (brochure, landing page of a web site, about section in a blog) the business will most likely not come to you in the numbers that you want. The opposite is also true- if the sales letter is superb but the real product or service offered is not as described, the clients do not refer or come back to do business with us. My recommendation to you is to re-read your sales letter (info page) and look for the following 5 persuasion boosters:
1.Address the real need– if you think that you potential clients really need you, tell me why. Have you communicated to them how your offer is for a solution to something they see as: “I can’t handle that on my own”. For example, if a client tells you they want to buy a house, their real need is not exactly the house. Could be security or family happiness… If they want to buy a luxury home, their need could be even status. Helpful way to think about your client’s need is to figure out after they purchase the product or service, and they use it, what kind of do they fulfill and then, speak to that need.
2.Playing with tenses – It doesn’t cease to amaze me to read a description of a problem in the present tense. This is the same as reading a column in the magazine. It’s informational, educational and inspirational the most. To make it persuasive, though, the problem description needs to be in the past tense, so that your potential client associates with the problem as “I could leave it in the past”. Then the solution you offer is to be explained in the present tense. Why? You want your potential clients to look at the problem they face not as “it is what it is and nothing can be done about it” but as a possibility, an opportunity to go past it and to bring into reality, the present, what they now have as a wishful thinking or day dreams or the results they want.
3.Call to action words– there is a list of words that have the ability to focus our potential clients’ attention on the NOW. Again, why we want them to focus on the NOW, the present moment? Because unless they do the action you propose (sign up for your services, buy your product, etc) right now, there will be no “before I was and now I am” story. Remember, even though what you offer will is a result that will materialize for your client in the future, if they let’s say sit in the couch and dream about it now and that’s all they do, guess what – they will continue to be in the no-action-at-all state which will keep you with no business and them with no results. Well, dreaming is definitely good. It feels good, it looks good, and it IS good and BECOMES good … when acted upon it.
4.What’s in it for them – Now, naturally in your sales letter you describe what you offer, what the benefits of that you offer are and how your offer can change the life of the other person. That’s the whole purpose of the sales letter, right! The difference between the good sales letters and the great sales letters is that the great ones describe with a lot of detail EXACTLY what will the potential client get… to the last detail. Like a check list of benefits. A really successful sales letter / info page has this additional info that the client might want to ask if they are intrigued by the offer. In this way you have it all in one place – the information that you potential client seeks and the information that you’ve guessed that your client might want to know more about even before they asked.
5.You are accessible – Quite often when we write an info page or sales letter we forget that what we present is just a web page or a sheet of paper. It’s us who brings the life in it. How do we do that? To begin with, the power of pictures and videos are very well known. What is usually forgotten is that in the sales letter / info page you can always, and I really mean ALWAYS, include a sentence or two to appeal for the potential client to contact you. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. The most important thing is that you leave the impression that you are there to help them, guide them, and support them to make the best choice for their situation. The message behind this is: You are going to be taken care of. And let’s not forget, potential clients want to be treated as clients. Treating them with great honor and respect IS our call to action.
If you’re creating your own brochures and web page text, I’d recommend you read again those letters and check now many of the persuasion anchors mentioned above you have. The course that will assist you in learning different approaches to write your sales letters, the rules – what to pay attention to when you write them, and how to break the rules, so that you keep your individuality is the Persuasive Sales Letters that SELL without being salesy teleclass . It covers the sales processes as per the book and how they actually work on the market, the success practices and the mistakes and pitfalls to be avoided. All participants in the call receive THEIR business questions answered personally, regardless of whether they ask them live, on the call, before or after it. And of course, an MP3 recording of the call is available for download less than an hour after the call. http://tinyurl.com/9uzxsa
What is e-client? If you are cosmopolitan like me, most likely you’ve already discovered how daily phone calls from one side of the world to the other are just a way of life. I personally dial in and get dialed from 5 continents daily, and I absolutely love it. Kind of modern time travel. And, talking with a lot of people, I’ve heard quite too often the “cultural differences excuse” but the truth is, in the global village your clients wants to be treated as such regardless of where in the world they are. While you may think that phone/ Skype communication isn’t exactly what you might call real but for your client it is 100% real. So real, thatin fact when they hear sense or see one of those 5 behaviors from you (notice – you may not be even aware that you are giving away such signals), they apck their things and run away from you.
1. Disrespect - You may think that you do not do that but each and every time you fail to honor your client’s right to choose what’s best for them a red light goes on inside their head and depending on their tolerance to somebody taking their right to choose that they want and what they don’t want, the sooner or later there will be a reaction. The tiniest example of this is – when you don’t ask them if they want your suggestion, or start leading the conversation to a direction which you feel is appropriate without checking in with your client.
2. Neglect – Another type of behavior your client senses quite quick is when they are not being paid attention. For example, if you type on the keyboard when you are spoken to and expected to be listening, your client will perceive this as neglect. The best way to save yourself from a situation of aggravated client who can’t really explain why they became like that but is absolutely sure that they don’t really enjoy your company, is to give your 100% in focusing on the client ONLY. Any minor distraction for is a VERY noticeable deficiency in service for the client. To
3. Judgment – Service providers often do two kinds of mistakes that can cause them to lose clients – they conceal judgmental remarks under “my opinion” hat and they suggest the best course of action to the client forgetting to check what the client thinks is the best course of action for them. Sharing personal opinion is definitely appreciated by clients when it comes from observation and / or experience and only AFTER they’ve agreed that they would like to hear it. Unsolicited opinion especially when presented as a qualified one, is pushing off clients ready to work with you and happy to be around your expertise like nothing else I can think of.
4. Inconsistency – This is the most common reason why clients abandon business like a sinking ship. Let’s pretend that everything is just perfect- what you offer, the price you offer it on, the way you conduct yourself, but you say one thing but you do another. In that case, pretty soon, you are as good as going out of business. All repetitive business comes from loyal clients, loyal clients come from trusting the product and the service, trusting product and service comes from getting exactly what you’ve been promised to. And when it comes to personal services.
5. Withholding – withholding both emotions and information are just as aggravating as being plain judgmental. When you put on a poker face and call this being professional, maybe for you it’s professional, but for your client, not exactly. For them you are being cold and disengaging. What that translates to is – I don’t like to talk with you. When you withhold information, it’s as if you dishonor your client with telling them – you are not good enough to get the information that I have, or I am above you and I don’t think I need to explain or share my opinion. Although it is socially acceptable to not share your thoughts, remember that if you are really into the business of helping others by utilizing your unique gifts and talents, then honesty and integrity are essential.
Tsvetanka Petrova, CPCThe Start-up Set up Coach
If you’ve experienced client rejections after they’ve signed up with you, I’d recommend you take your share of responsibility in the situation. The course that will assist you in working things out for the best with a client who you would otherwise label as difficult in a gracefull manner is the How to never loose a client again teleclass. It has all you need to notice early on when theings can get complicated and will learn practical ways to resolve those hidden conflicts before they even surface. All the information in the teleclass is backed up with an e-book that gives real life examples I’ve seen in my daily coaching practice with clients.http://tinyurl.com/qr9o9o
1. Set the expectation- The best way to start a trial session (get to know each other, first encounter meeting) is to let the other person know what is going to happen and what is expected from each one. Potential clients love to be informed what’s first, what’s next, how they will know the time is over, etc. Your responsibility in setting the expectation is also to communicate very clearly what your intentions are with regards to this meeting.
2. Make a connection- This is the time to build a trusting foundation so that your potential client feels good working with you. Funny, but even if you are the best in what you do, failing to connect heart to heart with your potential client can be disasterous. Even if they sign up with you, they won’t stick around long enough to appreciate your good heartedness and expertise. Having a private practice really means that you work with individuals. You may be working with them one on one, in groups, through an organization. Regardless of the frame through which you communicate with them, you work with people. And people LOVE to be treated with dignity, respect and appreciation.
3. Co-create desired outcome- usually prospective clients don’t know exaclt how to get what they want or they need a boost of strength or confidence, or creativity, you name it. What is surprising though, is that they may say what they want but they may not really know how that want looks like. They surely want some results but how will achieving those results look like, why they don’t have this success yet, when they will go and get it, those and many more are the types of things your prospective client knows about but most likely haven’t voiced it out in a structured way so that they can easily see the big picture and at the same time look for the details and define the steps to be taken to turn the vision into reality. That’s why they talk with you, right. So, you can go on the meeting with at least 5 different ways to co-create the desired outcome and on the meeting itself use the one that you perceive will help the client the quickest to get that.
4. Offer options- when you are on the same page of what the scope of the work is be honest with yourself and admit it if you are prepared to work on that. Then different options present your potential client with the opportunity to choose what helps them achieve their goals and fits with their budget. Just beware to not offer anything and everything. Recommend what you think will work best and explain it to them why you think it will work best for them. In the end they get to choose.
5. Master the rejection game- If you think your potential client comes on the meeting with you unprepared, think again. They are always ready to assess – is this for me and theyhave a couple of quick exit strategies if this is not, or they are not convinced it is for them. At this moment, it’s your turn to sort those situations out for the client if you know you can help them. Part of the work is – to pay attention to your own feelings and attitudes. It might be that you sabotage your own client winning.
Tsvetanka Petrova, CPCThe Start-up Set up Coach
If you’re not having the potential clients find their way to you yet, I’d recommend you start taking Quantum Leaps in lining them up your door. The program that will move you out of going nowhere to implementing the steps to getting anywhere is Destined to Succeed Club. It has all you need tofind where your potential clients are and communicate to them what you do and how much it costs in attractive way. All the information + support you need to step on all that I’ve already done for my own business and with my own clients for their. And the best is, while you are in a group with others just like you, your participation in the program is custom made and tailored to your unique needs.http://www.aheartsdesires.com/destined_to_succeed_club
Have you ever felt that you want to succeed but whatever you do there seems to be all kinds of things that are stopping you? While it is true that life happens, it’s how we respond to it that makes a difference. What usually happens is that we get accustomed to how we perceive the reality and unnoticed we react to it, again in a habitual way. Here are the 5 most common automatic reactions I see around me and how they influence your life.
1. Poverty mindset- If you consistently prime yourself with “I don’t have money”, “there is never enough”, then you set yourself up for a self-fulfilling prophecy. This doesn’t mean thatlying to yourself that you have money if you don’t will work. What it means is that as soon as you focus on “I don’t have ” and “I can’t afford”, you miss the opportunity to mobilize yourself to look for a solution instead of dwelling on the problem.
2. Powerless Attitude - You know you feel powerless when you just don’t seem to go anywhere from where you are. You will notice that you see no direction you can take and no solution by the way you look at things. Every time when you find excuses and complain you delude yourself that you do something about the situation you are in while in fact you don’t really take any action that will bring a positive change.
3. Doubt dwelling - If you don’t believe in yourself, in what you do, that things will go in a better direction (with your active help) then nobody else will and even if they will, your disbelief will soon discourage them. Going down a negative spiral is trapping you into inaction more than anything else. And the worst part about it is that it had the ability to signal others to stay away from clouds of gloom and doom.
4. Resistance to change – Life would be a Heaven on Earth if only everything was perfect and unchanging but that movie is not played in the cinema of real life. So, you either go with the change, meet with your fear, go out of your comfort zone, or you resist it and stay the same and sooner or later start regreting that you do not live the life you wish you could.
5. Avoiding the NOW - Most often, when you don’t make amends with your past (appreciate it for happening whether bringing you good or bad experience) you drive the car of your life into a forward direction looking back. Do you think you really are going far without looking at the road and the direction? Others, live in the perfect future trying to imagine it into being. And, that’s all good as long as you don’t expect to have your Olimpic medal to arrive by the mail while you do nothing to get tit in the mean time. Living in a dream for the future is like trying to catch the air around you. The past moment is already gone. The future moment is not there yet. What you have is the present moment and this is where you can determine what the future would be like for you and how you perceive the past.
Setbacks are like blind spots – different coping strategies which once upon a time we started using in order to deal with what comes our way. Maybe at that time these strategies were helping us and maybe they are still helping us in a way. There is a pay-off, something we protect ourselves from. But, does this align with who we are or want to be now. Once we become aware what we do and what is the protective reason to do it, we c an decide differently. We can decide to take the leading role in our life and not allow old habits to rule our life!
Tsvetanka Petrova, CPCThe Start-up Set up Coach =>Enjoyed this article? Read the practical tips in the weekly newsletter. Register
Just like everything you get good at, after a while you forget what it was in the beginning. Same happened with me. I absolutely forgot how great of a hobby I had a few years ago. My hobby was to stretch myself, i.e. go out of my comfort zone in every possible way. And let me tell you, it’s a lot of fun overcoming your own fears. Here are a few quick and easy ways to get in the game:
1. Call someone you don’t want to – We all have those crossed out names from our list of contacts, with age old stories and complicated interpersonal relations. When you think of calling then, you can almost experience a panic attack. If you’ve already imagined your horror movie experience, then you know what you should do. Call them! You can even meet with them.
2. Do something you can’t – One thing distinguishes those who succeed and those who don’t. Those who do don’t know the meaning of the word CAN”T. They understand it as “try again” or “watch me doing it” or “there has to be another way”. What a better way to train yourself to be successful. Do something you know you can’t. My own example is – I can’t swim. But, when I was in Bahamas, I snorkeled and I also dived (with a sub). Once in a lifetime experience!
3. Do something you hate – You can’t like everything you do. There is always something . However, when you tell yourself that you hate doing something, you draw a line and start avoiding this activity at all cost. For example, if you hate waking up early, or doing household chores, you will most probably organize your whole life around keeping your distance from what you don’t like to manifest. The question here is, do you want those activities, or circumstances to have power over you?
4. Learn something new – some of my favorite excuses are – “I don’t need this” and “I don’t have time for that”. Of course you don’t. The chance is , you never will. And whether you need it or not. Is this what is important here? Life is experience. And you can choose to experience life or to have the experiences pass you by. Challenge yourself, learn new things and in the end, all the brain activity will help you have rich memories. Discovvering new passions your can learn more about 9s great to keep your pasion for life alive.Learning and doing something new are entrenched. Every month do something new- change your favorite sleeping position, change “your” place on the table, change the route you take to work, etc.
5. Say yes to opportunities – opportunities knock on our door constantly. But what happens is, when we get too comfortable in having our life being in the way it is right now, we stop paying attention to those opportunities. When someone offers us to use the elevator, we automatically say no – because we always use the stairs. And right there – an opportunity is lost, gone forever. You can’t turn back time. So, what you can do is say yes to every opportunity that comes your way for a week. Say yes, even if you can’t say know but if you could you would. Be ready to help out others, run chores for them, and be kind and courteous. And when someone smiles at you, be ready to smile back at them
Tsvetanka Petrova, CPCThe Start-up Set up Coach =>Enjoyed this article? Read the practical tips in the weekly newsletter. Register
The quickest way to of being the best owner of your business is to be the best owner of your own life. How do you do that? By effectively claiming what’s yours. How?
1. Be clear on what you want - If you don’t know what exactly you want and you fail to communicate it to others in a way that even a first grader gets it, how will others know? Same thing with the things , situations, people you can’t want o spend your time and energy on. Supposing that the others can read your mind is a great strategy but I just haven’t seen it work that much.
2. Keep an eye on your feelings – People tend to feel same thing in similar situations. Have you noticed that in yourself? What situations anger you; make you happy, excited, at peace?What interactions trigger guilt, blame, remorse, self-pity? Checking up with what your feelings tell you is always a good way to find out for yourself whether you are playing a home game or you are just an actor in a play directed by somebody else.
3. Choose which signs to follow – Keep yourself informed about the other person’s feelings too. they will keep you on track for what is expected from you. Just keep in mind that feeling for somebody else’s needs and wants and wanting to assert your own requirements is just not possible without a compromise from both parties. If the other person cannot or is not willing to have a share in the compromise option – your choice is between following your own best interest and involving yourself in somebody else’s drama.
4. Be prepared to leave – Letting go and moving on can be a self-preserving act when your needs and wants are not met and there is no sign of willingness to work on that. but it can also be a fleeting strategy which signals you that you do not want to face the situation adn that you prefer to pretend that it does not exist. How can you be sure which way you choose? Ask yourself: Did you really honestly give your best to work on those wants and needs? If you leave it aal ,is there really a loss?
5. Be the trusting one – some wants and needs take time.If your business partner is disorganized for example, be patient. It takes time for the seed of change to grow. How will things be different if you trust that things are just the way they need to be each and every day?
Tsvetanka Petrova, Start-up Set up Coach
=>Enjoyed this article? Read the practical tips in the weekly newsletter. Register
Having a business, faced every day with the unknown and with having to constantly make choices for which you know what the consequences, although unforeseen now are going to come back to you is just not easy. So, what do you do to enjoy the moment and still be in the midst of a hectic results driven busy day? Few things come to mind:
1. Laughter Yoga– As a wellbeing workout, the laughter yoga is a combination of laughing for no reason and yogic breathing. Even if the laughter is not real but faked the positive results for the body are the same. And which is great – it does not need much time or practice to crate a sense of well being and better health. For more information, go to
2. Sound Healing with Tibetan singing bowls – like a real blonde I was really hoping to see some real singing bowls but I didn’t get this chance. However, I was pleasantly surprised how using the vibrational sound of bowls can really reduce the stress quickly, bring in sense of peace, and is used even in pain management. It does look strange but it sounds heavenly.
3. Holosync Meditation –
Subliminals are audio or visual messages that exposed to your brain so fast that you don’t hear or see the messages but your brain does register them. Since the meditation is one of the most powerful ways to release stress and bring in a peaceful state of mind, what could be a better way to have the sound, the music, the affirmations, all in one place and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy.
4. Practice of Sahaj Samadhi Meditation – Sahaj means natural, effortless and Samadhi is meditative state of mind. Sahaj Samadhi is a natural, effortless meditation that centres the mind into itself and helps you have a rested feeling in less than 30 min a day. While the mind is focused on breathing all worries from the past or for the future are dispersed into the present moment.
5. Tai chi chuan – Tai Chi is strangely enough a Chinese martial art. It’s not famous for that though. What it’s known for is slow motion dancelike practice easily spotted in the parks around the world in the morning. It is like a mediation in motion and is beneficial to the human health and well-being by clearing the blockages in the energy system of the body.
Tsvetanka Petrova, Start-up Set up Coach
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Managing your business involves a lot of thinking hats – there’s the owner’s hat, the manager’s hat, the marketing hat, the HR hat, the coworker’s hat etc. It is sometimes difficult to decide if they work in synchrony or they conflict one another. So, what can you do to have all hats at peace with one another, i.e. think, talk and act in synchrony with all the conflicting desires inside you? There are 5 things that you can be mindful about and they are:1. Loosen up that tight grip on control – When one of the thinking hats argue, have a blame blast or get angry it points out to you one thing – it wants to run the parade. What you are really experiencing here is that certain aspect of yourself needs to be in control over you and your behavior. What aspect of you is fighting for control over you and how does this aspect show you that? 2. Detach yourself from what’s already gone – The easiest way to find out if you are repeating old conversations and behaviors over again is to ask yourself have you been down this road before? And if you have, is the end of the road what you want to get to or would you rather do something else? To recognize that you are successfully detaching yourself from repeating the past is to acknowledge where you are heading towards and to realize that this is the old plan, the old strategy or behavior. 3. Detach yourself from what’s not there yet – thinking about the future, worrying about the future, getting trapped into the “what if’s”, envisioning the future as if it already is are all good strategies that the different hats use. The thing is, how do you control something that hasn’t happened yet? That’s right. You can’t. The only thing you can control is what you do in the here-and-now. 4. Go back to the source and learn from it – everything that the aspects of our life do is learned some day somewhere from somebody or from an experience. So, when a thinking hat starts to ask for the control over you, just ask yourself – where did you learn that? And, as soon as you find out – see if this is something you still want in your life and if you don’t just do something about it.5. Keep it real – the most difficult part when inviting synchronicity in your life is to give up the illusion that if we’re in control we are ok and if we are not – that’s not good. The truth of the matter is that there will be ups and downs, times of happiness and times of woe, peaks and valleys all that is ok. Recognizing the beauty in let’s say not being happy and still being ok is keeping it real. And reality is something we can choose to adapt. Illusion is something we need to keep feeding in order to make it look like real.“Can a man change his destiny? A man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.” ~ The Last Samurai
Tsvetanka Petrova, Personal and Professional Life Coach
Many people turn what they like to do into a business for the simple idea that if you do what you like to do for a living your life will be more fulfilling. In reality, though, once the business is launched more often than not the new business doesn’t bring in enough revenue for the owner to support themselves with that even after the first or second year. What gets in the way is the hobby mindset that prevents the entrepreneur mind to get trained into working the business.
And instead of operating a business some start-ups turn into hobbies which bring in some money from time to time. So, how do you know if you have a Hobby or a Business? Look at yourself and the qualities you nourish:
1.Commitment- The business owners are determined to keep on going even when the going gets tough. And, let’s be realistic, times like these are expected to come once in a while when operating a business. It’s what you do when you are faced with a situation what counts not what the situation is. The hobbyists instead get distracted by the situation, some valid excuses, other business ideas, life in general etc.
2. Optimism – The business owner will most likely look for the silver lining in the clouds; will seek the hidden opportunities in otherwise challenging situations and most importantly, they will not give up on the idea that good things will happen out of their business … and they work on that.
3. Decision-making mindset- If you want to operate a successful business, you are an executive and executives are decision-makers. They are active in allocating resources like – time, money, energy, people. They are flexible in making those decisions. They assess in every moment how this decision supports them on their quest to excellence and if they don’t – they easily underside them and choose something else.
4. Moneymaker mentality- If you know that you will not be able to support the kind of lifestyle you want, will you make the decision to take the plunge and quit the daytime job or will you wait until your business is strong enough? Will you wake up with the idea that you will do all activities that bring in money to the business first and then everything else?
5. Have a flare for sales – As much as most people who go into business love what they do, money comes with sales. The business owner sells their ideas, products, and services to everyone – the employees, the clients, the society at large and they feel good about it. They talk about it, they blog about it, they market it, they network it. They are serious about stepping up their game and going from the idea to the realization stage that brings in the revenue.
Tsvetanka Petrova, Personal and Professional Life Coach
The knowledge of archetypal influences in one’s life can be used to help you to become aware of the way they construct the world around you. It reflects you perspectives and leaves room for introducing different perspectives which in turn can lead to the ability to make better choices.
Archetypes can be used as a driving force in revealing and healing automatic responses that come from painful memories, negative self-talk and judgmental beliefs. They can be used as a tool in assisting the client in redirecting their life and in finding a way to express their untapped creative potential.
They provide a systematization for and explanation of your life’s journey so far and aid the search for direction and meaning in the interpretation of one’s life. Categorizing the patterns of behavior and explaining them in terms of tasks, lessons and gifts allows you to transcend their present life story and to look at a bigger picture regarding their existence. This picture consists of concepts like potential and opportunities to develop this potential. It allows you to embrace the expression of Self and Shadow Self fully.
Archetypes are a tool for transforming one’s world view from powerless to empowered and call for realization of creativity and effectiveness. Knowing your own current tasks and lessons allows you to consciously choose your reality, your story. The possibility to tap into entirely different life story is no longer an impossible dream but a path that can be mapped out, designed, planned and walked through.
Reinventing yourself as a consequence becomes easy and funny game and re-modeling your life is no longer a daunting task.
Tsvetanka Petrova, Personal and Professional Life Coach
The story of each individual’s life consists of many roles and scripts. Over a lifetime one person can play many roles and can have many scripts. Negative feelings arise when someone resists playing a certain role, or is not ready to adapt to the changes in the story of their life.
While those changes in the script of one’s life are inevitable as the essence of life is constant change the roles sometimes stay unchanged. In the different life stages a call for development of different archetypes is made. However, if the individual insists to play the old role in the new script of their life, the archetypes which have been called in to assist in the life’s journey turn into shadow archetypes and instead of facilitating the development of the individual they assist in inhibiting it and sabotaging it until they write an new script and enact a new role.
Helping the individual to recognize the call for change and react accordingly is there the coach’s role comes in. For the most part the roles people prefer to play determine their life script and are influenced by the archetypal narrative they are living. Hence, knowledge of the archetypal forces which operate behind the scenes gives an opportunity for the individual to step outside of the role and decide for themselves whether this is a good role for them and whether they are playing the role well.
Tsvetanka Petrova, Personal and Professional Life Coach
Archetypes are like software of the psyche. Just like in a computer, there are different programs we live by and are useful in different situations – like achieving your goals, be close to someone and so forth. More often than not people go around their lives seeing the world though the archetype lenses and acting according to how they see the world without even being aware of that.
When the archetypal narratives that individuals have in their life are not brought into awareness, those mindsets rule them and those individuals are the prisoners of their own archetypal stories. Furthermore, for some people the same story or the same kinds of relationships repeat themselves over and over in their life without them being able to understand what the real triggers of those events and relationships are. It’s as if they live out those events over and over again until they do them “right” (in archetypal terms – they learn the lesson from the past, solve the task of the particular archetype, and receive the gift of knowing how to do things differently in the future) and break the cycle.
A study of the archetypes and the role they play in people’s lives is necessary to aid he individuals to know their stories and by knowing them, to be able to live them out in satisfactory way. Life experiences and learning from mistakes eventually brings the individual to the awareness which roads they want to take again and which ones they don’t want to walk though again. With this understanding the life of those individuals starts to improve gradually.
However, the use of a combination of the theory and application of the archetypes in everyday life and the assistance of a coach can significantly fasten this journey towards living an archetypal story in a fulfilling for the individual way for the client. Also, some of the lessons can be learned without going down the road of pain and suffering.
Tsvetanka Petrova, Personal and Professional Life Coach
As part of his life-long work on the Collective Unconscious, Carl Jung models the unconscious as multilayered and hierarchical patterns which are organized in certain preferred manners and outline the life’s journey as well as the gifts and challenges of the individual. He names those patterns archetypes and he finds them in all cultures – in the myths, stories, symbols, common themes.
Caroline Myss defines them as “energy guides that could direct people toward their spiritual purpose” Each archetype, according to her, represents a “face” and a “function” of the Collective Unconscious that manifests within each of individual in its unique way.
This is just one explanation of the archetypes. The spiritual seekers, just like Caroline Myss view the archetypes as prototypes of gods and goddesses aspects of which are encoded in each individual.
In the academic world, the archetypes show up as preferences towards metaphors, songs, movies, tv shows, etc and they are showing up in the language people use and the language they prefer to hear.
Scientists explain archetypes as similar to a hologram. In its essence a hologram is similar to something else. Thus, the archetypes are different prototypes which can be found in its entirety in the face of different individuals.
For the religious individuals the archetypes are different faces of the one God.
Among all explanations of the concept the interested and involved in persona growth individuals understand the archetypes as a guide in the life journey. Each archetype comes with a task, a lesson and ultimately a gift and when their existence in the individual’s life is acknowledged and the mindfulness how to better live your life. With regards to this understanding, the archetypes are potentials and each persona has each archetype. So, it’s in their power to develop their own potential.
Interested in knowing more how you can make better choices? Visit www.aheartsdesires.com, sign up for the weekly newsletter to be the first to know what’s new, or call me at (866)328-2326. If you know somebody who will benefit from my coaching, please don’t hesitate to send them my way. I will make sure that when they sign up you will get free coaching or a commission.
Tsvetanka Petrova, Personal and Professional Life Coach
Expertise – The coach does not offer answers. They are using different tools and techniques to encourage the client to find their own solutions and answers. The mentors are usually in a certain field and have experience and expertise in it
Age of client – The mentors are usually older than the client. The coaching client on the other side can be even older than the coach but there is no rule.
Focus – Coaching is non-judgmental and non-opinionated. Mentoring is biased and the mentor has a personal interest in the end result. The client hires a mentor to work on something about himself as an individual, and hires a coach if is interested in obtaining a certain outcome, i.e. seeks certain performance
Role – The mentor establishes a two-way mutually beneficial relationship which does not have to have a clear agenda. On the contrary, the coaching relationship has the client’s agenda that is being followed all the way.
Relationship – The client chooses the mentor all the time. However, not all the time the client chooses the coach – in companies the coach can be hired.
Source of influence – “Coach” can even be a job title but mentor needs to be earned with experience and expertise.
Return – The benefit of having mentor’s assistance is learning. The benefit of coach’s assistance is achievement of a desired outcome.
“Interested in knowing more how you can make better choices? Visit www.aheartsdesires.com, sign up for the weekly newsletter to be the first to know what’s new, or call me at (866)328-2326. If you know somebody who will benefit from my coaching, please don’t hesitate to send them my way. I will make sure that when they sign up you will get free coaching or a commission.
i. Incongruent parts in the story – there is a saying that actions speak louder than words. The clients have lots of stories and usually they are very emotional and looking forward to telling them over and over again. In order for the coach to be prepared for an effective feedback, the coach is listening for:
- Discrepancies between words and actions – for example, if the client says that they want something done, but they do absolutely nothing to move ahead, or when they say they are X kind of person, but their actions send out completely different messages.
- Differences between tone of voice and expressed emotions – for example, when the tone of voice is even but the emotions expressed are deep one reason for this could be that the client does not allow for those emotions to be expressed
- Gaps between attitudes and desires – the coach is listening for potential unhelpful attitudes that the client is not aware of that could be hindering the client’s movement forward into the direction he/ she wants
ii. What lies beneath the client’s story – this is something that the coach is really interested in hearing. This is most often something that the client is not aware of and the job of the coach is to pick up on those things and to hold the space for the client to have insights and become aware
- Underlined Automatic Commitments – as long as the client is in the grip of those belief systems, emotional patterns and automatic responses the forward movement is most likely going to be constantly sabotaged
- Judgements – those can be judgments about oneself or about others and they can hold true or could be not valid at all or any longer
- Archetypes – those are the client’s perspectives, life scripts, and roles in life. The coach’s role is to help the client become aware how well those archetypes are supporting him/her
- Desires – the coach is looking forward to finding whether the desires are prioritized or not, if there are conflicting desires, how realistic and achievable are those longings / goals and if they are in alignment with the core values or not
iii. The client’s demeanour – the real language that the client is using is through their behaviour – the words they use, the silence, the aha moments, the breathing. They are vital clues to the coach so that the coach knows where the client is at and can easily have a feedback. Also, the coach uses those clues to be able to speak the language of the client
- Modality – with regards to the words that the client uses the coach can have an idea of the modality of the client and adjust his/her modality to the one of the client
- The level of spiritual intelligence – whether the client is paying more attention to the intellectual, emotional or spiritual part of themselves. If there is a part of the client that is left out the coach can pay attention to that part by asking questions in alignment with the missing part. For example, if the client is telling that he/she is frustrated but all the time uses words like: think, consider etc, an appropriate question would be: How does this frustration feel like?
Interested in knowing more how you can make better choices? Visit www.aheartsdesires.com, sign up for the weekly newsletter to be the first to know what’s new, or call me at (866)328-2326. If you know somebody who will benefit from my coaching, please don’t hesitate to send them my way. I will make sure that when they sign up you will get free coaching or a commission.
When you don’t know what you want but you know you are unhappy with something in your life the way it is right now, you have a choice. You can leave the way things are and most people do – because this is the easy way out. But, this is a temporaty choice. After some time, the inertia has consequences which once set in motion are inescapable. The other route is a frightening one and takes courage to take it. It is the choice to make a change. Once this choice is made the seemingly impossible task to re-define your world inside and out slowly gets sorted out … with lots of work.
And sooner or later you arrive at a place where you are no longer at the confused, trapping place you were before but you are also not at the blissful and fulfilling dream place you’ve envisioned. So, what do you do to keep on moving forward?
1. Learn from the forces that pull you back to your old ways – The more you walk away from something you don’t want any more in your life the more likely it will get pulled back from time to time. And this is perfect. Because now, as opposite to before,m you know where you are coming from, you can decide differently, take a different route and learn from the mistakes.
2. Learn from new situations in which you are presented with the opportunity to decide differently – These events that you strangely attract in your life are such a trill if you can have your small victories and don’t fall back to whare you don’t want to go. Once you start recognizing those opportunities and grab them – you become the creator of your new reality, new you. And this is great.
3. Learn from your past experiences and appreciate them – after some time the new paths you once wished to take become your reality and you start to quickly and automatically respond in the new way. Once you get to this stage, congratulate yourself. You deserve it! You past experiences are still there but now as just lessons or even step stones you had to go though in order to get to your destination. And that’s so perfect. Understanding and compassion help you understand your life’s meaning on a deaper level.
Interested in knowing more how you can make better choices? Visit www.aheartsdesires.com, sign up for the weekly newsletter to be the first to know what’s new, or call me at (866)328-2326. If you know somebody who will benefit from my coaching, please don’t hesitate to send them my way. I will make sure that when they sign up you will get free coaching or a commission.
1. You live in alignment with your inner self and your outer environment -You recognize that you are on the way to achieve that when you hear yourself saying – I want to be my true self. And you know that you’ve arrived at the destination when you appreciate every moment in your life as what it is and are not afraid to express yourself the way you are fully.
2. You want to know your strengths and your challenging situations and people
3. You want to be able to choose your alternatives and recognize opportunities
4. You do not follow the events of your life , you decide which events to follow
5. You want to have the power to accept, refuse and negotiate your life situations
6. You want to learn what to do to enjoy quality of life
7. You come to understand that life is not meant to do it all on your own and easily enlist people on your side
8. You receive the gifts of life with joy and share your essence with others
Interested in knowing more how you can make better choices? Visit www.aheartsdesires.com, sign up for the weekly newsletter to be the first to know what’s new, or call me at (866)328-2326. If you know somebody who will benefit from my coaching, please don’t hesitate to send them my way. I will make sure that when they sign up you will get free coaching or a commission.
How much do you like going to a dentist? On a scale of 1 to 10just rate yourself. Write down the first thing that comes to mind.Why did you rate yourself the way you did? What is the reason behind that? Interesting to know is where else in your life is this behaviour showing.
Oddly enough, the coach is like a dentist. To illustrate why, let’s look at why people go to a dentist.
1. Avoidance – Many people pretend that the dentist doesn’t exist … and end up with teeth they could have treated taken out. Just like them – there are people who desperately need the help of a coach but for whatever reason they believe in, they deal with pain by pretending that it doesn’t exist and suffering the consequences.
2. Tolerance – Others just hate the pain and for this reason go to the dentist only when the pain is unbearable and they need to do something about it. In the mean time they put up with the slow but constant pain and / or discomforth for a long, long time. These people usually do not look for solutions hoping that their problems will dissapear in thin mist. When the pain gets bigger than the fear of the consequences of dealing with the problem they seek the help of a coach to move out of the pit they are in and move on with thier life.
3. Prevention – Some, but not many, go to the dentist a couple of times a year to check if everything is ok. They suffer only the pain which is necessary to bring them back to the blissful state of no pain and happy teeth. And some people are just like them. They live their life, whenever they meet with a difficulty, they seek out help to deal with it and they move on with thier life. Are they immune to bad things and pain in life? No, but they do not follow the events in their life. Instead, they decise which events to follow.
4. Creation – Still, there are others who want the perfect teeth and they work for it. They are ready to face their greatest fears and to do whatever it takes just to get that smile of a million. This kind of people are those who mostly line up for the coach’s time and energy, just like with . They know what result they want and they easily know how to enlist help for the achievement of their goals… and as a result show a smile with lots of teeth.
Interested in knowing more how you can make better choices? Visit www.aheartsdesires.com, sign up for the weekly newsletter to be the first to know what’s new, or call me at (866)328-2326. If you know somebody who will benefit from my coaching, please don’t hesitate to send them my way. I will make sure that when they sign up you will get free coaching or a commission.
Enjoy the posts about life skills improvement, habit breaking, life mission awakening and business solutions for the independent professional who runs a service business and wants to succeed. Visit www.aheartsdesires.com to sign up for the weekly newsletter to be the first to know what's new.
Have you ever felt that you want to succeed but whatever you do there seems to be all kinds of things that are stopping you? While it is true that life happens, it’s how we respond to it that makes a difference. What usually happens is that we get accustomed to how we perceive the reality and unnoticed we react to it, again in a habitual way. Here are the 5 most common automatic reactions I see around me and how they influence your life.
1. Call someone you don’t want to
2. Do something you can’t
3. 
4. Learn something new
5. Say yes to opportunities
1. Laughter Yoga 
2. 
3. 
4. 
Many people turn what they like to do into a business for the simple idea that if you do what you like to do for a living your life will be more fulfilling. In reality, though, once the business is launched more often than not the new business doesn’t bring in enough revenue for the owner to support themselves with that even after the first or second year. What gets in the way is the hobby mindset that prevents the entrepreneur mind to get trained into working the business.
And sooner or later you arrive at a place where you are no longer at the confused, trapping place you were before but you are also not at the blissful and fulfilling dream place you’ve envisioned. So, what do you do to keep on moving forward?
How much do you like going to a dentist? On a scale of 1 to 10just rate yourself. Write down the first thing that comes to mind.Why did you rate yourself the way you did? What is the reason behind that? Interesting to know is where else in your life is this behaviour showing.
