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A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

I had a call this morning with one of my mentoring clients, an amazing business woman who has experienced her fair share of obstacles in the pursuit of her vision.

Despite significant set-backs, she has impressed me month on month with her commitment to her business, remaining for the most part, focused on the destination and consistently taking action to make her vision reality.

Today we were celebrating a significant achievement, one which brings together many aspects of her vision for her life and her business and one that will literally propel her and her business to the next level.

 

“A light at the end of the tunnel”

Looking back over the last few extremely turbulent months and the milestones that have led to this success, she remarked that in her moments of doubt and uncertainty, the business vision that we created together had provided a light at the end of the tunnel.

That got me thinking…

The metaphor light at the end of the tunnel usually refers to the first sign of ‘hope’ of escape from a hopeless situation.  It depicts a person trapped inside an actual tunnel, walking one foot in front of the next in darkness, remaining uncertain with every step until suddenly a glimmer of light becomes apparent in the distance.

This glimmer signals the end to the doubt and uncertainty and is the first sign of a positive outcome.

However, whilst the glimmer of light may be perceived as a sign of a positive outcome, it does not guarantee one.  It simply provides hope.

What occurred to me this morning is that our vision plays more than the role of inspiring and motivating us to take action and on the occasions that it fails to do that, it comes to our rescue disguised as hope, enabling us to deal with and to push through perceived obstacles and barriers with renewed intent and purpose.

And so, whatever form it may take, our business vision still does it’s job!

Another reason to create yours!

 

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What Does Collaboration Have To Do With Creativity?

What Does Collaboration Have To Do With Creativity?

When we think of creativity, we tend to think of the arts don’t we?

But creativity is about more than being artistic. In fact, creativity really has very little to do with art.

Creativity is the act of turning new ideas into reality. It is characterised by the ability to perceive what’s in front of us in new and imaginative ways, to transcend traditional ideas or rules and patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated things and to establish meaningful new interpretations.

Most importantly though, creativity is about output.

Without an output, what you have is imagination!

 

In this modern business world where customers are increasingly demanding and competitors increasingly innovative, businesses need to be more creative. In order to remain competitive and lucrative, they need to stay on top of new product development, their intellectual property and their operational integrity. And in knowledge-based industries, where people are required (and paid!) to use their brain, the best ideas tend to come from the people at the customer face.

Have you ever worked on an issue or problem only to find the more you work on it, and the harder you think about it, the more you keep going over the same thought patterns and getting the same result? There is a biological reason for this.

As you repeat your thought process, you strengthen the neurological pathways in your brain, making it physiologically easier to follow the same route next time. This is really useful when the brain is learning things to create unconscious competence (like learning to drive) but it’s not very useful when you are seeking to be innovative!

Finding new ways of looking at or doing things, or designing new products or procedures requires the creation of new neurological pathways.

The Solution Is Collaboration!

When you work with someone else on the problem, their knowledge (or lack of!) and experience, and the differing perspective that they have on the issue as a result, leads to assumptions being challenged, inconsistencies being worked through and seeds of ideas being taken to the next level. This often works in an escalating fashion as each contribution from each party creates new creative pathways in the other and this is simply not possible to do on your own.

So, next time you have an issue in your business, or you are reviewing your product or service, coming up with a new route to market, or want to create an entire new offering, team up with someone else (and ideally more than one person) and use the power of collaboration to get creative!

 

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Ten Things You Need to KNOW To Attract The Right Clients

Ten Things You Need to KNOW To Attract The Right Clients

“How can I attract the right clients?”

It’s a question I am asked often, especially by my own ideal client – someone who has been in business for a while and wants to be (and can afford to be) more selective about who they work with.

Client Attraction

The word attraction describes the condition of being drawn to something and so client attraction is about creating the conditions so that your clients are drawn to YOU – naturally.

Now, whilst I don’t claim to be a marketing expert, the truth is that I have managed to successfully attract the exact clients that I want to work with and so, I thought I’d share the ten things I believe you need to know in order to attract the exact clients YOU want!

1.  YOUR CRAFT

It is one thing knowing how to market yourself, but if you don’t have the skills and competence to deliver, then you are unlikely to consistently attract the right clients.

Ask yourself: 
How can I continue to develop my competence to be at the top of my game?  What books could I read?  What courses or seminars could I attend?  And, who could I hire as my coach or mentor to challenge me to perform at my best?

2.  YOUR IDEAL CLIENT

You may have skills that mean that you can help lots of different types of clients, but if you try and attract everyone, you will attract no-one.

Ask yourself: 
What kind of client do I REALLY want to work with?  Who do I work with now that fits this profile?  What type of person are they?  And, what type of person, business and/or industry are they?

3.  THE PAIN THEY ARE IN

An undisturbed prospect doesn’t buy.  This is why, like it or not, you have to be clear about the pain your ideal client is experiencing (and how you take that pain away!) so that you can talk to ‘it’.

Ask yourself:  
What problems do they have?  Why do they have these problems?  And what stops them from resolving them themselves?

4.  THE SPECIFIC RESULTS YOU DELIVER

Your clients don’t really care what you ‘do’.  What they care about is what you do for them. 

Ask yourself: 
What do I ultimately deliver to my clients in terms of results?  And, what do they have once they’ve worked with me that they didn’t have before?

5.  THE DIFFERENT WAYS YOU DELIVER THOSE RESULTS

Results are important to your client, but different clients will have different preferences for how you deliver those results.  This means packaging your offering in way that enables them to ask “which one?” rather than “yes” or “no”.

Ask yourself: 
What different preferences do they have?  What different packages can I offer?  How can I deliver my value in different ways?  And, what fee structures would appeal to them?

6.  WHO YOUR COMPETITORS ARE

Your competitors are not just the people who do what you do.  Your competitors are also the people that claim to resolve the same pain that you do.

Ask yourself: 
Who targets the same clients as me?  Who claims to solve the same pain as me?  And, who do I lose business to on a regular basis?

7.  WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE

As you know, your competitors are out there marketing to your clients.  You need a unique claim – something that set’s you apart from them, so that your ideal client understands why they should work with you rather than your competitors.

Ask yourself:
Of all the people who do what I do, what do I deliver that others don’t?  What results can I promise that others can’t?  And, why should a prospective client work with me as opposed to someone else?

8.  WHY YOU ARE CREDIBLE

Credibility is important not only because it attracts clients, but also because it reminds you why others should work with you.  Listing your credibility factors enables you to stand by your claim with confidence which instils confidence in your ideal client.

Ask yourself:
What is it about my background that gives me credibility?  What knowledge do I have?  What qualifications have I gained?  What expertise do I have?  And, what experience do I bring?

9.  HOW TO COMMUNICATE THE VALUE YOU BRING

Knowing all of this stuff is great, but you need to be able to communicate it effectively.  The best way to ensure that your message is clear is to describe the benefit of working with you in a way that a 10 year old child could both understand and repeat.

Ask yourself: 
How can I convey my value in a way that compels the other person to ask me “How do you do that?”  How can I say that in 60 seconds?  And, how can I say that in ten words?

10.  WHERE TO FIND THEM!

Once you know who your ideal clients is, the pain they have and how you resolve that, and once you know how to communicate that to them in a way that they can understand and repeat, you need to find them!

Ask yourself: 
Where do they go?  What do they read?  What social media channels are they using?  And, who else do they do business with?

These are the things you need to KNOW to attract the right clients.  Of course, there are things that you need to DO too and that’s for a future blog.  However, you’ll be surprised at the difference having this conscious knowledge makes to your client attraction.

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Let go of the outcome…

Let go of the outcome…


‘Desire without attachment to outcome’.

It sounds like a paradox doesn’t it?

I mean what is the point of wanting something if you don’t care whether or not you get it?

However, there’s a big difference between caring about an outcome and being attached to it.

(more…)

What are you saying to yourself?!

What are you saying to yourself?!

I recently tweeted:  “If you have a business goal, but you’re not achieving it, the chances are you have a belief that is in conflict with it.” 

It led to a number of people asking how to find out what the belief is and then importantly, how to change it!

The best indicator of the beliefs we hold is the thoughts that we have – in other words, our ‘Self-talk’.

Self-talk is the dialogue we have inside our own head.  Many people are barely aware of their self-talk and others are acutely aware of it.

 

Now, you may be thinking:  “I don’t have voices in my head!”  Yes, you do.  That was one right there.

I often ask audiences to raise their hand if they know what I mean when I say ‘self talk’ and whilst half the room will raise their hand, many will sit looking at me and others will shake their head.  I will almost be able to ‘see’ the internal dialogue going on: “I have no idea what she’s talking about”, “I don’t talk to myself”, “I’m not admitting that, that’d make me look crazy”.  At this point I’ll say “for those of you without your hands up, thinking ‘I don’t have self-talk’… it’s that thought right there!”

EVERYONE has self-talk

Self-talk is not only normal, it is an essential part of the process of evaluating and processing information.

Each and every day, our mind is bombarded with suggestion: the things we do, see, hear, taste and touch, the people we interact with and the things they do and say, the stuff we read etc.  Our mind has to disseminate that information and make sense of it and our thoughts are part of that process.

So, the only difference between those who say they don’t have self-talk and those who say they do, is that those who say they don’t are unaware of theirs.  And whilst the extent to which you are aware of your self-talk has no bearing on the impact it has, awareness is important, because once you start to become aware of what you are saying to yourself, you begin to have a better understanding of the belief systems you hold and once you know what they are, you can then choose which ones to keep and which ones to lose.

Tune into your self-talk

The key to becoming aware of your belief systems is to intentionally tune into your internal voice and be aware of what it is saying to you and the feelings it generates.  Admittedly, this is easier for some than others, but most people find that when they apply themselves consciously to listening for their internal dialogue, they start to become aware of it almost immediately.

The times when you are most likely to be aware of your self-talk are times when you are on auto-pilot.  You know, those times when you are just ‘doing’ without thinking.  Like showering, or driving, or sitting on the loo!  When I first started to become aware of my self-talk, I would notice it when I was waiting for the kettle to boil, or listening to ‘on hold’ music on the phone, or waiting for a bus.  This is because the conscious mind is not ‘doing’ anything and so your mind is in what’s known as an ‘altered state’.  It’s in this state that your self-talk is most evident.

A helpful Coach or a Bully

Your self-talk can be like a helpful coach who believes in you: supporting and encouraging you, inspiring affirmative feelings in you and resulting in positive action.

Or, it can be like a bully:  undermining and criticising you, resulting in demotivation and self-destructive behaviour.

Some people are not surprised by what they discover when they tune into their self-talk, whilst others are very surprised.

Whatever the case, having this awareness is crucial as it provides an essential explanation for the things we currently have in our life.

What you think about you bring about

There’s a saying: What you think about, you bring about.

What this means is that your thoughts literally become things.  This is because thoughts generate feelings and both are responsible for behaviour.  As I said in my tweet, if you have goals, but you’re not achieving them, the chances are you have beliefs that are in conflict with them, and this will inevitably be showing up as negative self-talk.

Negative self-talk is essentially thoughts that lead you to feel negative.  That’s because negative thoughts create stress.

For example, if you tell yourself that something you need to deal with will be ‘difficult’, then your body responds to that thought with the appropriate feelings, as the body starts to prepare itself for difficulty.  Whilst the good news is that this means that your body is working properly (it is providing you with the resources you need to deal with the pereceived situation), it is responding to a perceived threat that is not real.

If you were to view the same situation as a ‘positive challenge’ or ‘an opportunity for learning’ for instance, then your body would respond to that thought with feelings that are appropriate to dealing with that.  Whilst still preparing you, it is preparing you with the resources that will enable you to deal with a challenge or an opportunity, as opposed to facing difficulty.

The impact is HUGE

The difference may seem subtle, but the impact is significant.  Negative thoughts that are left to run their course manifest in negative outcomes because when we perceive that something is going to be a certain way, we prepare physiologically for that outcome and we are likely to manifest it.  Self-talk is self-fulfilling – always.

So, what are YOU saying to yourself?  And how is that showing up in your life?
 

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