Clare Josa | Author And Keynote Speaker

UK's Foremost Imposter Syndrome Expert, International Keynote Speaker & 8x Author

business podcast

Podcast: My Favorite Sanskrit Word – It’s The Fastest, Most Effective And Easiest Way To Grow Your Business

Dare To Dream Bigger Podcast

How did you get on last week with the 1% rule? Have you joined us for the free 5 Steps To Tame Your Inner Critic video training yet?

 

This week I’m spilling the beans on how my favourite Sanskrit word allows me to create business growth and breakthroughs, where I used to suffer from chaos, exhaustion and overwhelm.

And you could do it, too. All will become clear, once you have listened to today’s podcast:

And when you’ve listened to this episode, I’d love to hear from you – via the comments:

  • How might my favourite Sanskrit word help you to grow your business?
  • How might you apply it to other areas of your life?
  • And what are you going to start with – in the next hour?

Here are today’s show notes:

I’ll be back next week when we’ll be covering time management for entrepreneurs – and how most of us are getting this totally back-to-front.

I hope you have an amazing week!

With love, Namaste,

Clare x

Mentor To Passionate World-Changers, Author Of The Dare To Dream Bigger Entrepreneur’s Handbook

P.S. Are you an Academy member yet? Click here to join now.

Podcast: Forget The 80/20 Rule – Why Your Business Breakthroughs Need The 1% Rule Instead

Dare To Dream Bigger Podcast

How did you get on last week with the inner critic stuff? Have you joined us for the  5 Steps To Tame Your Inner Critic video training yet?

And this week: want to know why it’s time to forget (or at least put on one side) the 80:20 rule if you want to create business breakthroughs? And it’s time to move on over to the 1% rule instead?

This is NOT about perfectionism and getting everything 99% right. It’s about how overnight success is a myth and what your body, mind, Soul and even customers wish you were doing instead. This could be a game-changer for you:

 

Clare Josa's podcast - Dare To Dream Bigger - Is available on iTunes

And when you’ve listened to this episode, I’d love to hear from you – via the comments:

  • How might the 1% rule help you grow your business?
  • Which metric might you start with?
  • And what action could you take in the next hour, to set in motion something that could grow that metric by 1%?

 

Here are today’s show notes:

 

Enjoyed today’s episode? Help spread the word!

 

I’ll be back next week when I’ll be letting you know how my favourite Ancient Sanskrit word and how it is the fastest and most effective (and often easiest) way to grow your business.

I hope you have an amazing week!

With love, Namaste,

Clare x

Mentor To Passionate World-Changers, Author Of The Dare To Dream Bigger Entrepreneur’s Handbook

P.S. Are you an Academy member yet? www.DareToDreamBigger.biz/Academy

 

Podcast: How Can You Spot If Your Inner Critic Is Secretly Sabotaging Your Business?

Dare To Dream Bigger Podcast

This week we’re celebrating our inner critics – even if that sounds crazy! It’s that voice on your shoulder, that negative self-talk that gets in the way when we secretly want to step up to the next level.

And so in this week’s podcast we’re diving in, in more detail, to find out how your inner critic could be damaging your business and practical quick fixes you can get started on today:

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Click to subscribe on iTunes

And when you’ve listened to this episode, I’d love to hear from you – via the comments:

  • What action are you going to take in the next hour, to start taming your inner critic?
  • Which of these 5 issues resonates most for you?
  • And how has your inner critic been affecting your business results – and the experience of your customers?

Today’s Show Notes:

I’ll be back next week, when we’ll be talking about how you need to forget the 80/20 rule and focus on the 1% rule, instead, if you want to grow your business.

Make sure you’ve subscribed via iTunes, if you want to make sure you get a quick reminder once the episode is live. And you can get my free newsletter by registering below.

See you there!

With love, Namaste,

Clare x

Mentor To Passionate World-Changers, Author Of The Dare To Dream Bigger Entrepreneur’s Handbook

P.S. Are you an Academy member yet? Rates go up in just a few days. Here’s where to grab your lowest-price-ever membership – for life: www.ClareJosa.com/Academy

Make sure you catch each episode – plus member-only bonuses:

Prefer the transcript? Here you are!

 

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Dare To Dream Bigger business podcast with me, your host, Clare Josa, mentor to passionate world-changers.

 

This week we’re celebrating our inner critics. Yay! You know that voice on your shoulder, that negative thinking when we get into that self-talk that makes us feel miserable. Well, this week loads of us are getting together to do my inner critic kick-start program, which is completely free. You can find it at DareToDreamBigger.biz/innercritic. It’s a five-part video training and to celebrate because we’re going to be setting ourselves free from our inner critics and their hold on our businesses. Today’s podcast is about your inner critic too, so you can benefit from it whether or not you want to join me for this free video training.

 

I’m curious. Is your inner critic secretly stalling your business? How can you spot it? What is an inner critic anyway?

 

We all know that feeling. You’re totally fired up. You’re about to start doing something really important. You know it’s a bit of a comfort zone stretch. It might be a new opportunity in your business. It might be a new product line. It might be a different customer base.

 

There’s a little voice in your head that starts talking. It’s telling you all the reasons why you won’t be any good at it and how you’re never good at anything anyway, and you’re not ready. Maybe the timing is not right, and we should just leave this for now. It doesn’t really matter. We can just put it off for a bit.

 

You know you believe it because it’s told you it often enough over the years. You feel that tightness in your stomach. Your body tenses, and you might even feel fear and panic rising. But the thing is it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to live at the whim of this inner critic, of this voice, this negative self-talk. You can tame it.

 

You see; it’s just a habit. Like any other habit, it can be changed. It’s surprisingly easy when you know how. That’s what we cover with the inner critic kick-start.

 

Today, I want to take you on a whistle stop journey of how to spot your inner critic, what to do about it, and how potentially to turn it into your biggest cheerleader. If that might be useful for you in your business, keep listening.

 

Now, one of the biggest ways our inner critic surfaces in our business is self-sabotage. I’ve already described the whole kind of not stepping up on our comfort zone. It’s also turning down opportunities. Maybe somebody makes you an incredible offer or asks you to do something, and you just leave it that little bit too late to reply to the email or to return the call. Or, you convince yourself that you’re too busy to do something that you secretly know could take your business to the next level. We’ve all done it. It’s so normal. But, the thing is, if you want to dare to dream bigger and make a difference in the world, you’re going to have to learn to make peace with your inner critic.

 

The common side effects of having an inner critic, which most of us do, I did meet somebody once who didn’t have one, a wonderful 17-year-old girl. She was really confused when I was talking about it. But, in 14 years of serving the audience I serve, she’s the first one I’ve met.

 

The most common side effects include:

  • Lack of self-esteem. We beat ourselves up when we try to do something important. Your inner critic is fantastic about reminding you about your mistakes.

 

  • Stress is another symptom. Your inner critic is responsible for the vast majority of stress in your life due to the stories it tells. There’s actually a bonus article on this with the show notes today.

 

Is your monkey mind telling you the truth about stress? You’ll either love this article, or you will want to lob rotten tomatoes at your laptop or computer screen at me. To find the show notes: DTDBpodcast.biz/006. Find out the role that your inner critic is playing in your stress stories.

 

  • The other one we’ve talked about is self-sabotage. When you’re just about to achieve something you’ve been dreaming of, your inner critic leaps in and pulls the rug from under you. Or, maybe it creeps in quietly around the corner.
  • Insomnia is another one. If you’re lying awake at 3:00 a.m., then chances are it’s your inner critic choosing the bedtime stories. Maybe you’re feeling exhausted.

 

Your inner critic is running the show. That keeps you running your sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight, meaning you’ve got too much cortisol and adrenalin in your system. That absolutely exhausts your adrenals, and it’s really going to hit your energy levels and maybe even your physical, emotional, and mental health.

 

  • Okayness is another symptom. Your inner critic is the biggest single reason why most of us put up with a life that’s okay rather than great.

 

  • Your inner critic is so good at reminding you about all the things that you did or didn’t do and ways you let people down. Those are its words, not mine. Some of my clients and students go so far as to call their inner critic their own worst enemy. It’s strong stuff.

 

Now, if any of this feels familiar, and you’re feeling a bit fed up with that inner critic and that negative self-talk, then today I want to cover five techniques you can use to tame that inner critic and move on with life. Here are five surefire techniques you can use today to start taming your inner critic.

 

Now, I’ve been where you’re at with my inner critic, and sometimes–I have to confess–it pops back and it reminds me it’s still there when I least suspect it. But, fortunately, having been an NLP trainer since 2003, being a meditation teacher, as well as being a reformed engineer, I’ve developed plenty of practical strategies to handle it fast. I’ve shared them with so many thousands of people now that I know they work. Here are five of my favorite, do them today, techniques to help you tame your inner critic and set yourself free.

 

The first one is a mindset shift. There’s a fact I need to tell you here. You are not the same as your inner critic. It is just a thought in your head. Okay. Your inner critic is not a real person. It is just a thought habit.

 

Let’s start by getting the record straight. Although most of us identify pretty strongly with our inner critics, we are not the same thing as our inner critic. It is just a train of thought. It is just a soundtrack that we’re used to playing. No matter how real it might feel, it isn’t actually real. It’s just a thought.

 

Sure, thoughts have energies, but your inner critic is something that’s in your head. Now, when you realize that, it gives you the power to make changes. You can choose which thoughts to feed by pressing pause. One of the best ways to do this is mindfulness. You might love my Mindfulness for Entrepreneurs program. When you’re falling into the trap of believing that you and your inner critic are one in the same being, then it will always hold the power. If you make it real, it will feel real.

 

What’s the fix on this? When you feel an inner critic thought coming up, press pause. You can do that. Remind yourself this is not who I am. This is a thought I am thinking. And let it go. Feel the relief bubble up.

 

Number two is don’t make the mistake of fighting it. I am not suggesting you indulge your inner critic’s every whim, but I am strongly suggesting you don’t outright reject it, fight it, or try to get rid of it. Why? Surely we want to get rid of our inner critic. As Carl Jung points out, what you resist persists. Now, that goes for your inner critic too. If you fight your inner critic or try to get rid of it, you’re resisting it. That means you’re giving it all of your attention, 100% of your headspace rent free, and you’re spending loads of time thinking about it.

 

Now, I’m a mother of three young boys, so I know that, like a tantruming child, if I feed my inner critic, it will learn to do more of what it got to get the attention it wanted. Just like if you feed the tantrum, if you feed the inner critic, it’s going to learn to do more of the same. This is why I talk about taming it rather than getting rid of it. It’s about accepting that it’s there. There’s a part of you that wants, at some level, for you to see the risks, for you to make sure that you’re not taking really crazy actions. At some level, it wants to protect you, no matter how mad that might feel when it’s in full blown character assassination.

 

If you reject a part of yourself, it will only ever lead to pain and conflict. Instead, we’re taming it. We’re retraining the part of you that runs your inner critic to be more supportive and empowering instead.

 

The fix on this one when your inner critic gets ranting, stop what you’re doing and notice that it’s there because then it doesn’t need to shout so loudly. It feels heard. Say a silent thank you, even if you don’t feel like it, but it’s the opposite of rejecting. Then consciously choose a happy thought.

 

Some of the best ways to do that are actually through meditation and mindfulness. As I say, I’ve got a meditation of mindfulness for entrepreneurs program, but also through gratitude. If you find that you get stuck complaining, you can get off the complaining train. You can retrain your brain to think thoughts that make you feel better. And, you might love my Growing Your Business with Gratitude program. I’ve also got a gratitude journal that makes a big difference with people called A Year Full of Gratitude.

 

Any program that gets you thinking about what you feel grateful for will make it much easier to pick, consciously to choose a happy thought when your inner critic is running wild. The time to practice this is when your inner critic is not speaking. Something as simple as having a gratitude journal and writing down three things each day you feel grateful for can help you to retrain your inner critic.

 

Number three today is stop feeding its pesky stories. Your inner critic loves drama, and it makes the nation’s favorite soap operas look dull, quite frankly, in comparison with the stories that are going on in our heads. We all love drama. We love to gossip. It’s why we love to share stories, and the more dramatic the better. Embellishing is completely okay in the inner critic’s world.

 

Now, unfortunately, when it comes to negative self-talk and your inner critic stories, the more you feed them, the worse you will feel, and the further you will move from the amazing life you’ve been dreaming of. Remember, there’s a bonus article for you on the show notes for this episode at DTDBpodcast.biz/006. Is your monkey mind telling you the truth about stress? It’s really worth going and reading this if you find that you get stuck feeding those stories.

 

The quick fix on this is to stop feeding the stories. When you feel an inner critic conversation coming on, press pause, and consciously choose whether you want to dive into that drama or whether you want to focus on something else instead. Actually, I’ve got a secret for you. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve gone into the drama track before you realize. You can always press pause and come on out again.

 

If you’re feeling stuck, then right now grab the nearest small object to you, pick it up in your hand, and really see it. Notice how the light reflects. How the shapes and contours give it form. Feel the weight of it in your hand. Notice the textures. Then, this is the icing on the cake, take a moment to connect with that object from your heart and to thank it for whatever it does for you. If you aim to do this for about a minute in total, it will physically shift the biochemistry in your body, releasing endorphins, rebalancing the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system, and helping you to feel happier.

 

There you go. You took physical action to pause the story, and you’ve moved yourself to a space of okayness and gratitude. That’s not bad for just picking something up for 60 seconds, is it?

 

Number four today: Are you suffering from “should I”? Just deleting the word “should” from your vocabulary is one of the best ways to tame your inner critic. Now, it’s a biggie for a lot of us.

 

How often do we use the word “should” in a typical day? I should do such and such. I ought to go to that meeting. Even though I don’t really want to, I should offer to help Fred with his project.

 

Now, it’s like there’s a naff theme tune in our day-to-day lives. But, if you pause for a moment and notice how “should” makes you feel, I’m guessing it triggers some kind of a sinking feeling in your stomach. Usually there’s a slouching of the shoulders and your back, a frown on your face, and a furrowed brow. The inner critic is addicted to “should” because it’s a great way to get our attention.

 

Here’s a quick fix. If you feel “should” coming up, pause and ask yourself, “Who says? Is that really true?” Let the answer bubble up. This isn’t about apportioning blame. It’s about pressing pause on the “should.” Notice what comes up for you and use it to gain insights into those old, autopilot behaviors that might be keeping you stuck because awareness is the first key to change through choice. Once you’re aware, you can choose whether or not you want to respond to “should,” or whether you want to make a conscious choice about your thoughts, your words, and your actions instead.

 

Then number five: I’ve got another secret for you. You don’t actually have to listen to your inner critic. Most of us listen slavishly to that negative self-talk. We replay it over and over in our heads, especially when we’re stressed. You don’t actually have to listen to it. Just because you’re having a thought, you don’t have to tune your radio to that frequency for the whole day. You can choose to turn down the volume and just let your inner critic get on with whatever it’s complaining about, in the background.

 

Here’s a quick fix. Imagine that you’re in a sitcom. Maybe one partner is ear bashing the other for some kind of mistake they’ve made. The partner who is being ear bashed just carries on reading the newspaper or iPad and nodding politely. When the person has fully vented their spleen, they demand to know what their partner thought of what they said.

 

“That’s nice, dear,” is the only response they get. The person on the receiving end doesn’t get rattled. They don’t argue back. They totally ride the wave of the other person’s drama, and it annoys the hell out of them by refusing to dance the destructive dance, but it works.

 

Now, what would happen if you were to play that game with your inner critic once in a while? Giving it a good old, “That’s nice, dear. I hear you.” Then ask it a question about something that moves things forwards in a different direction such as, “Okay. So I’m wondering. What do you want me to do instead?” And watch what happens.

 

Those are your five techniques today. It’s time for action. I’d love to know which of these techniques are you going to use today and, when you’ve tried them out, let me know what shifts you notice. You can find the comments box over at DTDBpodcast.biz/006. If your inner critic, negative self-talk, and self-sabotage are an issue for you in your business or in your wider life, please come and join us.

 

The Five Simple Steps to Taming Your Inner Critic is a video training. It takes less than ten minutes a day for five days. You can find it at DareToDreamBigger.biz/innercritic. I’d really, really love to share it with you. It’s fantastic stuff. Although it’s only a 5 part course, we’re still diving in deeply, and it can make a real difference for you.

 

I hope you found today useful. I’d love to hear from you, via the show note page comments. How does your inner critic get in the way and stall your business, which of the techniques today you’re going to play with, are you joining us for the inner critic kick-start program, and what action are you going to take in the next hour to start taming your inner critic? I would love to hear from you.

 

I’ll be back next week with the next episode when we’re going to be talking about why you need to forget the 80/20 rule in your business and why your business really needs you to focus on the 1% rule. We are not talking perfectionism here, so make sure you subscribe via iTunes. If you found this useful, please share it far and wide via social media. I hope you have a fantastic week. I will see you next time.

DTDB 004 – Why You Need To Learn To Love Unsubscribes, If You Want To Grow Your Business

Dare To Dream Bigger Podcast

Want to magnetise your dream customers, with less effort and zero fear? Then you need to learn to love unsubscribes!

Do you ever find yourself dreading seeing that ‘unsubscribed’ notification, after you send an email to your mailing list?

It used to knock me for six. But not any more.

Discover why I now LOVE it when people unsubscribe from my newsletter, how I turned things around, and how you can use these techniques to grow your business and even magnetise your dream customers.

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Click to subscribe on iTunes

And when you’ve listened to this episode, I’d love to hear from you – via the comments:

  • What action are you going to take?
  • What could you do to get to the stage where you love unsubscribes so much that you no longer feel afraid in any way to promote and send out your newsletter?
  • And how could you use your newsletter to inspire your dream customers – and grow your business?

And here are the upcoming events I mentioned:

And join us over at our Facebook group: Dare To Dream Bigger

Liked this episode? Help spread the word!


With love, Namaste,

Clare x

Mentor To Passionate World-Changers, Author Of The Dare To Dream Bigger Entrepreneur’s Handbook

P.S. Are you an Academy member yet? Rates go up in just a few days. Here’s where to grab your lowest-price-ever membership – for life: www.ClareJosa.com/Academy

Make sure you catch each episode – plus member-only bonuses:

Prefer the transcript? Here you go!

Hello. It’s Clare Josa here with this week’s Dare To Dream Bigger business podcast, Episode 004. Today, we’re talking about why I love it when people unsubscribe from my newsletter and why you need to get to that point too if you want to grow your business.

 

I’ve been running my business since 2002, back in the days where we barely had mailing lists, and you could almost handle them on your email system. It certainly wasn’t as easy as it is now. Having an email list is one of the most important things you can do to grow your business.

 

I work with a really big firm that doesn’t have anywhere on their homepage for people to sign up for their newsletters, and they wonder why it’s so hard to grow their business. They’re refusing to send newsletters to people. They do eventually collect email addresses if people phone in and ask to be put on the newsletter. But, when they then email people, it’s only ever to say, “Hey, we’re running this event. Come and give us some money.” They’re refusing to build that relationship.

 

It doesn’t matter how often I sit them down and explain to them how they’re not living their purpose by doing this, they’re missing out on people who really want to connect with them. They will not do a newsletter. Thankfully, they’re in the minority.

 

Now, the thing is that you can have a great following on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram, but that platform owns your subscriber list. If they change their terms and conditions at any stage, which they’ve been known to do, you could find yourself, overnight, unable to reach the people who want to hear from you. This happened with Facebook over the last few years. It used to be really easy to reach people via your Facebook page. Now, unless you’re going to pay hard cash, it’s nearly impossible. Getting people to opt into your newsletter has been shown, in research studies, to still be the most effective way to connect.

 

Now, one of the things with newsletters — I remember when I first launched mine many, many years ago, and it’s had many incarnations since. It’s kind of scary. You’re putting yourself out there publicly saying, “Hey, do you like me enough? Could you please let me stay in touch?” It’s all about building a relationship with your dream customer, accepting that maybe they’re not ready to buy from you yet, or maybe they’ve bought something, but they’re not ready to trade up. You need to spend time and effort building a relationship and helping them to get to know, like, and trust you so that when they’re ready to make that leap, whatever it is the transformation that you offer, yours will be the name that comes to mind.

 

The thing is, when you look in your email system and you’ve sent out newsletter, we all do this. It’s like [gasp], “How many people are going to read it? Are they going to click the links? Are they going to love it?”

 

The first thing to bear in mind is, with many, many email systems, as in the consumer end of email systems, it’s impossible for the email provider system to tell whether they actually opened the email and whether they clicked the link. When you’re looking at your figures, don’t be demoralized. They’re often only half of the actual truth. Probably twice as many people as you think are opening your emails, and twice as many people are clicking the links.

 

The other thing is, don’t be disheartened if, when you send out your email, it takes a day or two for people to actually get in there and go and read what you’ve been sending because everybody is busy. Often they’ll see your email and think, “Oh, I really want to read that, but I’ve got to do this first,” or, “I’m on the run,” or, “It’s in a format I can’t read on my phone,” or, “I’ll wait until I’m on my desktop.” It does take people time.

 

It’s a really rare relationship for your email to arrive and for someone to think, “I’m going to stop everything and read that.” Now, if you get to that stage, that’s fantastic. But then there’s the other side of the coin is the people who get your email, and they hit the “Unsubscribe” button.

 

I still remember the early days when this used to happen to me, and the first few times it happened–I have a confession to make here–I nearly cried. I felt so rejected. I felt so hurt. It hit all of my self-worth buttons. “This person hates me enough that they’ve unsubscribed! I must be rubbish!”

 

Now, I’m exaggerating a little, but not much. I know I’m not alone in this where I hang out and help people in various Facebook groups and LinkedIn forums. I see it over and over again. It’s so common that seeing an unsubscribe hurts.

 

Now, what hurts even more is someone hits the “Spam Complaint” button, unless you are spamming, in which case please stop now. You give us all a terrible reputation. On some email provider systems, it’s easier to hit the spam or complaint button than it is to look for the unsubscribe link. Very rarely does a spam complaint actually mean someone felt spammed, but it is an important chance for you to look in the mirror and see if maybe you were selling more than you were creating that relationship.

 

Over the years, I’ve got to the stage where I actually love it when somebody unsubscribes from my newsletter. I know that sounds crazy, but there are two reasons for it. One, on a positive note, if I’m going to Pollyanna it, I might like to think, “Well, hey. They’ve exhausted the journey that they can take with me and they’ve changed, they’ve developed, they’ve shifted, and they’ve moved on to someone else, and that’s great.” Or, it could mean they’re having a Marmite reaction, in which case I’m doing my job perfectly.

 

Marmite, for those of you who aren’t in the U.K., it’s a savory spread you can put on toast, a yeast extract spread. It sounds disgusting, doesn’t it? I think it’s delicious. I know people who hate it. We call it a Marmite reaction. People either love you or hate you. It’s kind of rare to meet somebody who is just okay about Marmite. You either like it or you don’t.

 

If everybody loves you, then in reality probably nobody loves you. In business, there are so many people out there with glossy façades, these glitzy veneers, beautiful marketing, and a graphic designer to die for, and they’re all cookie cutters. What people really love is somebody who is being authentic. The longer I work in the industry I’m in, the more I see people being cookie cutters. They pay for an expensive course to find out how to be the leader in their industry, and they all look the same.

 

What people really want is somebody they resonate with, and you cannot resonate with somebody who is pretending. So, how I got from the, “Oh, my God! They hate me! I’m just going to give up now,” when somebody unsubscribed, to the, “Oh, that’s cool. Decision made,” is by being me.

 

You’ll often hear me saying that success in business is less about what you do and who you allow yourself to be. When you’re doing, doing, doing, you are chasing customers. You’re begging them to love you. People sense that neediness a mile off. Instead, by being authentically and awesomely you and playing to your strengths and letting that essence of you run through every element of your business, you’re doing what my old mentor used to say, “Do what you do best, and do it well.”

 

The view I take now on unsubscribers is, “That’s great. We clearly weren’t a good fit.” I was authentic enough in that newsletter to help them to see that. There are no hard feelings. Everybody who unsubscribes takes me a step closer to meaning that everybody on my mailing list is a really good fit in both directions. They’re more likely to love working with me, and I’m more likely to love working with them.

 

We had this recently in the Dare To Dream Bigger business summit where we were, all of us presenters, sending out the information to our subscribers, to our dream customers, and some of the presenters had a really low conversion rate. Others had a massively high conversion rate of people who signed up for tickets.

 

We had a private presenters’ group, and I asked them what’s the difference. I said to the person who was getting the incredible yes rate, I said, “What are you doing different?” This person’s response was, “I was absolutely ruthless on making sure that my email list is only full of people who really want to work with me. I would rather have a list with a tenth of the people on it, but know that they actually want to hear from me each week, than have a list that’s got ten times as many people who frankly can’t be bothered.”

 

Now, I was on a mastermind last week at the Institute of Directors in London. One of the things we discussed there was that everybody that you are connected with in your business, whether they’re a customer or a potential customer, takes a tiny bit of energy. If your mailing list is ten times longer than it needs to be, and it’s full of people who aren’t really interested, well, you’re going to have to work hard to convince them to work with you. That takes a lot more effort than if your email list is much smaller, but it’s full of people who absolutely love hearing from you.

 

Can you feel the difference? How would it be for you if every time somebody unsubscribed from your newsletter, you took that as an, “Okay, this is a step closer to meaning that only people who really want to work with me and hear from me are on my list”? How might that change your attitude towards your email list? How much easier might it make for you to send out messages that really resonate with who you really are that excite and inspire your dream customers? It’s a simple mindset shift.

 

Now, there’s another problem I come up across a lot with my clients and my students. I was working with somebody very recently who had this problem too. They weren’t sending out regular content to their newsletter. Now, I hear the excuse all the time of, “Oh, I don’t want to bombard them,” or, “They don’t want to hear from me regular. I’d rather be spontaneous.”

 

Well, how would you feel if I only did this podcast once in a blue moon? Yeah, there’s something about the regularity of it. You know it’s coming out on a Monday. If you’re enjoying it, you’ve probably subscribed. Show notes, by the way, are DTDBpodcast.biz/004, today.

 

You’ve probably subscribed, and you probably have kind of a mental space in your diary to make sure that you listen. That is how you want your customers to feel. If you only contact them once in a blue moon, then it’s not going to work as well. You’re not feeding that relationship. There’s no to and fro. There’s no conversation. I see this all the time.

 

You can tell which of the big name gurus are with which mentors because suddenly you won’t hear from any of them for months. Then, suddenly a group of them will email you all starting the same day, seven days. Then on day eight is the big pitch.

 

They’re offering loads of free content and loads of added value for those seven days. Then it’s like, “Right, okay. I’ve helped you. Now you buy from me.” It’s funny because I’ve got tuned now that if I hear from them, I know that there’s a pitch coming because they never contact me unless there’s a pitch, unless there’s a launch.

 

It’s like clockwork. It’s so predictable, and it’s so sad because what it says to me, as a person, is they don’t really value me. They value my money. I can feel the agenda.

 

Now, that regular, little, and often, it depends on your market. It might be once a week. It might be once a fortnight. It might be once a month. But, getting into the mental diary of your customers and sending them stuff that adds value, stuff that actually excites them, stuff that makes them think, “Whenever I open the email from you, it changes me. It gives me something. I love it.” That’s how to get them to open.

 

This issue I see coming up so often. You can sum it up in one sentence. Business owners resist contacting their customers because they’re scared the customer will feel like they’re being bothered. “I don’t want to bother them. I don’t want to be in the way. I don’t want to interrupt their lives.”

 

Well, there is that, so make sure that you don’t feel like you’re bothering them, and you don’t come across as interrupting them, but can you see this is actually not about the customers. This is about the business owner. Who told you in your earlier life that you were bothering them? What is that old pattern that’s coming up here for release?

 

If we think about it logically without the emotion and the old limiting beliefs, fears, and worries, if somebody signs up for your newsletter, they are telling you they want to hear from you. It’s like a friend giving you stamped addressed envelope and saying, “Write to me.” If you then don’t because you’re scared of bothering them, they’re going to feel like you’ve broken part of the deal.

 

I have situations sometimes where people register for my newsletter and they type their email address in incorrectly, so they never hear from me. Five or six weeks later, they’ll write and complain and say, “Why didn’t you email me?” They want to hear from you. They’re hungry.

 

Now, the other thing is if you write to them with that fear in the back of your mind of, “I don’t want to bother them,” you’re going to come across as apologetic. You’re unlikely to be authentic. You’re very unlikely to inspire them. They will feel that fear.

 

The fact is, everybody who signs up for your newsletter wants to hear from you. You’ve got an agreement. You’ve said, “Give me your email address and, ideally, your first name, and I will contact you. I will send you things that will make a difference in your life. I will inspire you. I will be a ray of sunshine in your inbox.” If you don’t build that relationship, both sides are missing out.

 

Just be authentic. Maybe brainstorm right now of five ways that you could inspire your customers with your next few newsletters. Plan ahead. Create them ahead. Enjoy it. Get excited about the relationship that you’re building. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling services, courses, or widgets. There are things that you can talk about in a newsletter that will make a positive difference in your customer’s life. Go and do it now.

 

I’d like to finish with an idea from a dear friend of mine, Star Khechara. She talks about instead of chasing customers with your newsletters, be the flame and allow the moths to come to you. It’s the energy of a newsletter.

 

So often we’re out there pushing, pushing, pushing. “Please. I’m desperate to fill such and such a program. Would you please sign up?”

“No.”

 

Be the flame. Be authentically, awesomely who you are, and your customers will come to you. They will then choose to open your newsletters. If you add more value than you’re asking for in return, then you will become a part of their routine.

 

I really hope that’s helped you for today. I’d love to hear from you over at the show notes via the comments. What action are you going to take? What could you do to get to the stage where you love unsubscribes so much that you no longer feel afraid in any way to promote and send your newsletter? And, how could you use your newsletter to grow your business?

 

There are also some quick dates for the diary for you today. Hot off the press, I’m going to be back at the Institute of Directors on the 29th of February. We’re going to be running a one-day workshop, an intensive workshop. If you are ready to take the next leap in your business, we’re going to use the Leap Year Day this year.

 

Everyone is too busy working in their business to work on it, so let’s use the extra day this year, the 29th of February, a one-day intensive that’s going to be a business transformation workshop. If you’ve got a dream that you want to take to the next level, a new product, maybe changing your audience, whatever it is, in that day we’re going to work together as a group, and you’re going to get the shifts you want. You can find out about that and book your place–very limited places–DareToDreamBigger.biz/intensive.

 

On the 22nd of Feb, we’re doing a five-day, online, live, free course on taming your inner critic. That’s at DareToDreamBigger.biz/innercritic.

 

And, I’ve got a time master class for you on the 2nd of March. If you want to know how to magically make more time–and who doesn’t, frankly–then come and find that too. You’ll find the registration for that at the show notes for today’s session. That’s at DTDBpodcast.biz/004.

 

Now, I can’t wait to hear what you’re going to do with this stuff today, and how about joining us over at Dare To Dream Bigger on Facebook and maybe letting us know what shifts you’re going to make. What shifts are you going to make? How are you going to use your newsletter in a different way as a result of today’s podcast? And, what difference is it you could make in the life of your customers through your newsletter that means you’ll get them opening every single issue?

 

I hope you have a fantastic week. I’ll be back next time with Episode 005.

DTDB 003 – How To Handle Customers You Secretly Want To Strangle

Dare To Dream Bigger Podcast

Welcome to this week’s Dare To Dream Bigger business podcast episode – all about how to handle customers who are driving you crazy.

Do you ever get customers who drive you mad? Where you’d LOVE to say what you’re really thinking and feeling about them, but you kinda know that’s a fast-track to closing your business? Then catch today’s podcast episode, where I’m sharing with you 5 practical steps and attitudes you can take, to turn a compulsive-complainer into a superfan.

So in today’s podcast, we dive in and explore:

  • Why on earth do those crazy customers complain?
  • Why does it hit us so hard?
  • What’s the ‘step zero’ that each of us should be taking, before we open our inbox?
  • 5 practical things you can do, to turn things around
  • How weaving these together can even turn a compulsive-complainer into a superfan

Try the ideas on for size today:

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Click to subscribe on iTunes

And when you’ve listened to today’s episode, I’d love to know – via the comments:

  • How do you handle grumpy customers?
  • What might change, having listened to today’s podcast?
  • Which of the 5 steps resonated most for you today?

Can’t wait to hear from you!

Liked this? Help spread the word:


And here’s the course I mentioned, if feeling calmer, less stressed and more grounded is something that would help you: www.daretodreambigger.biz/meditationchallenge

With love, Namaste,

Clare x

Clare Josa, Mentor To Passionate World-Changers

Make sure you catch each episode – plus member-only bonuses:

Prefer the transcript? Here you go!

Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Dare To Dream Bigger business podcast with your host Clare Josa, mentor to passionate world-changers. The show notes for this episode are at DTDBpodcast.biz/003.

 

Today, we are talking about how to handle the customers you secretly want to strangle. We’ve all had them. They’re the kind of people who, whenever you open your inbox on your customer service email and you see there’s on in there from them, your heart sinks. At best, it drags you down a bit and it puts a damper on your day. At worst, it can send you completely off track. It can detach you from your inspiration, and it can even make you question why you’re running your business in the first place.

 

Now, I’ve been running my business since 2002, and I’m pleased to say I don’t get that many angry customers, but I do get some that make me pull my hair out, and I do get some where, in the olden days, they used to really knock me out of kilter. They used to really derail me from my passion. And I used to find that, for a day or two, or even longer after I’ve had to deal with them, it was really, really hard to get back in my flow. And, there were a couple that made me really doubt why I was doing what I was doing.

 

You see, the thing is for somebody to actually contact you to complain, they have to be pretty peed off, yeah? The vast majority of people don’t actually take action. They’d rather just sit around at home and grumble and complain to their friends and loved ones. Or, worse still these days, go public about it on social media trying to humiliate and annoy you. But, most people won’t even do that. Most people just fester in their head. So, by the time somebody reaches your inbox or your social media feed with a grump, they’ve probably been winding themselves up for a while.

 

What you’re on the receiving end of is all of those mind stories they’ve been telling themselves for days or even weeks. You suddenly get it like a bolt out of the blue with all of that angst, all of that anger, all of that projected stress and dissatisfaction, and you’ve got to deal with it.

 

What I want to cover in today’s podcast is some practical ways that you can handle this, some ways you can keep your energy clean so you don’t have to take on their anger monkeys, and five different things that you can do, beliefs you can try on, to help you handle that kind of customer more effectively and also make sure you’ve got crystal clear, but compassionate boundaries.

 

I’ve been an NLP trainer since 2003, and one of the things that leading transformational workshops has taught me is, when people are close to a transformation, the ego mind, the bit that tells us the stories, the inner critic goes wild. It feels terrified. It’s looking for something to lash out at and, nine times out of ten, they lash out at things like the accommodation at the venue or the quality of the lunch because they can’t lash out at themselves.

 

When I run online summits, programs, and courses, you’ll find that people, because they don’t have a venue to lash out at, it’ll be something about the format of the pages or the sequence on the log-on. They find things to criticize because they’re feeling an internal fear that they’re about to change and they need to project that to somebody else because it’s easier than looking in the mirror. Most of the time it’s unconscious.

 

I kind of made myself a promise a decade ago that I will never run a retreat center. There’s just no way I could run the courses and also handle people complaining about the towels, but this is what happens.

 

When they reach your inbox and they’re venting their spleen, it’s usually not because you’ve actually done something wrong. Sure, if there might be something in your process that could be improved, or you might have over-promised on your sales page, in which case you need to take action. But, nine times out of ten, it’s not about you. It’s about them. In this world of online anonymity, it’s easier to send an angry email to a stranger than to look in a mirror and say, “I’m feeling angry. I’m going to deal with that.”

 

Point one I want to cover with you today is at that point zero, before you even open your customer service inbox, you need to get yourself into a good space because the likelihood is it’s actually going to be full of people with very calm inquiries and even positive feedback that can lift your day. But, just in case there’s a howler in there, you can imagine yourself doing one of my favorite self-preservation things.

 

Imagine you’re inside a glittery disco ball, and it’s one of those little ones covered in mirrors. The mirrors on the outside of that energetic disco ball–try this on for size. I know it sounds weird–the mirrors reflect back to the sender anything that is not born from love or intended for your growth. It reflects that energy straight back.

 

Similarly, it’s got mirrors on the inside. So, if you feel tempted to go back with a rant to that customer, it reflects it back to you so that you don’t. Get in your mirror ball first before you open the emails. That is point zero.

 

Then step number one is a rule in the training world that I learned many, many years ago. If there is a conceivable way to misunderstand the instructions on something, no matter how simple and clear you’ve made it, somebody will manage. Now, if somebody comes to you having a whinge that they can’t work out how to log in, they can’t work out how to find something, the link isn’t quite working the way they want it to, how about reframing this as a positive? The fact is, they care enough about accessing your product that they’re prepared to write to you to get help. You might want to strangle them and say, “It’s so simple.” Well, it is for you, but clearly for them it hasn’t been.

 

If you can move yourself to a place of compassion and maybe you might need to make some changes to your process, you might need to change the wording in an email, you might need to look at what you phrased on a sales page, there could be something useful in there. But, if they genuinely can’t do what you’re asking them to do, that’s not going to go away just because it annoys you. Ask them to get specific about what they’re stuck on, help them, and then see if there’s a way you can improve your processes to mean that people don’t need to contact you about that next time.

 

Number two is to manage your state and don’t do the drama. So many people these days are up for a fight. They’re stressed. They’re fed up. They’re harassed. And, as I said already, it’s so much easier to attack a stranger via social media or via the email outbox than it is to look in the mirror and deal with your own pain.

 

When you reply to this kind of email, it’s your job to be the grownup. They’re behaving like a tantruming toddler. Your job is to be calm, to understand that at some level they’re experiencing pain and anger, but it’s not really about you. You need to reply from that space of how can I reply so I show compassion, but with clear boundaries, which will come onto in a minute, because the worst thing you can do for your customer service is go back with an abrupt reply or with an angry reply or a stupid person reply.

 

We’ve all seen it where people copy and paste and screenshot emails they get from big companies, which are emails that should never really have been sent. When you are your brand, every communication you send out there, you are brand ambassador. Even if you have a customer who is being completely unreasonable, you need to take out the emotion from your reply.

 

That brings me on to point number three, which is what is real in this. You’ve got their rant in front of you, and it’s hit all your buttons, whether you’re imagining being back in front of the headmaster’s office at school or being told off by your parents or all those years of self-talk of I’m not good enough. It hits every button you’ve got, and these people don’t realize how painful it is to be so aggressively communicated with. They’re not thinking about that. They’re coming from their pain.

 

Before you reply, ask yourself what is real in this and what is projection. What are the actual facts? Specifically, what is the problem and what is the solution that I can offer to help this person? Bearing in mind some people don’t want to be helped. Sometimes you go back saying, “Actually, all you need to do is this,” and you just get back a string of excuses. They just needed to vent their spleen.

 

But, the best way for you to take the emotion and the drama out of the situation is to take a step back. You might even want to imagine you’re standing under a waterfall to wash you clear of all the sludge of emotion that is in that email. Then reply to the facts of the situation calmly and compassionately without patronizing them and without returning the aggression.

 

Point number four, I love this. This really helps me when I really, really want to strangle somebody. Please, if you’re one of my customers, it’s really, really, really rare for me to want to strangle anyone, but occasionally when somebody really needs a bit more love and it arrives in my inbox, the first reaction for most of us is, “I can’t believe they just sent that to me.” Yeah? I love you. Really, I love you.

 

This saying has helped me in so many of my mentoring clients over the decade. It’s a Native American Indian saying. “All criticism is born of someone else’s pain.” Now, if you get that howler in your inbox, it’s not about you. There might be a problem you need to fix, but the anger and the emotions they’re projecting to you are from inside them. It’s pain that they are feeling.

 

Happy people don’t criticize like that. Happy people send emails that say, “Hey, I can’t work out how to log in. Could you help me, please? And I’m really loving this course.” Happy people don’t come back telling you that you’re stupid, that you’re an idiot. They don’t send out rage.

 

If you’re on the receiving end of an email from a customer, or you’ve seen something going on social media from a customer, and they’re venting their spleen, it’s because their spleen is in pain. All criticism is born of someone else’s pain. It’s not really about you. It’s about them. That helps you get to a place of compassion and then replying to the facts of the matter rather than the emotions and the drama can diffuse the situation really quickly.

 

That then brings me on to point five, which is you have to have crystal clear boundaries. If the services and products you’re offering are being correctly described on your registration pages, and you’re being fair and truthful, and honest and authentic, then the chances of somebody having a genuine complaint against you are extremely, extremely low. It’s much more likely that they’re on that cusp of change or transformation, and they need someone to lash out at. If trying to help somebody compassionately, dealing with the facts, not the drama and the emotions, if that’s not working, it is okay to say no. It is okay to have crystal clear boundaries. In fact, it’s essential.

 

Now, I’ve got three young boys, and the toddler phase is still very fresh in my memory for all three of them, even though my eldest is now 11. One of the things they taught me is you have to have boundaries. You have to have a walkaway point.

 

Think about it. Actually have plans. What kind of customer service do I want to deliver, and what would be going too far, because people will try? If they need this reaction from you, they will try and push you beyond your boundaries. You need to be clear about is this a reasonable request.

 

Frankly, the fallback option is simply refund the customer and take them off your list. Yeah? Sometimes people’s products and services come with guarantees. Sometimes they don’t. I am a member of a Facebook business group for entrepreneurial women, and there was a discussion going on in there a couple of weeks ago about a very high-end program that somebody had bought. I won’t mention any topics, but this person felt hugely disappointed that it had been oversold and under-delivered, and it was a very, very expensive program, and it was, frankly, not up to standard.

 

They’d gone back to the person who’d sold it to them. Sure, there wasn’t a guarantee, but they said, “Look. You promised this. You’re not delivering it.” They were quite clear and calm. In fact, this time it was actually the business owner who needed strangling because the business owner said, “Tough. I don’t have a guarantee. Go away.” The customer actually had to get their lawyer involved, and the business owner came back with the same response.

 

Now, the correct and decent and courageous and compassionate response would have been either to try and fix the problem or to say, “Okay. It wasn’t for you. I don’t normally do a refund policy, but, in this situation, I’ll make an exception.”

 

What’s happened, because this business owner came back with aggression, the whole of that group with thousands of entrepreneurs now knows that that program is not worth the money that’s being charged and that that person is an aggressive behavior, potentially fraud. The damage done to their business is enormous. So, it’s really important to have boundaries. If you can’t fix something, refund. If you’ve got a customer who can’t behave reasonably, take them off your list. Most systems have a way of blocking people so they can’t sign up again. The fact is you don’t have to be the receiving end for their stress or frustration or anger.

 

There’s one final thing I’d like to say on those steps is very often when I’ve had somebody come to me who maybe I was tempted to react strongly towards because they’d pressed my buttons, when I’ve managed to be able to follow these five steps, they so often turn into super fans because you break the habit for them. You break that pattern. You help them feel important. You help them feel like they’re valued, and you helped them.

 

We’re all in this because we want to make a difference, and each life you can make a difference in is so worthwhile. You never know where that might lead. So, sometimes, if somebody comes on social media and they’re having a whinge because they can’t work out how to do something on the tech side of one of my courses, instead of wishing I could delete the tweets, my team and I use it as an opportunity, where we can, to show the excellent standard of our customer service, that we’re professional, that we’re calm, that we’re compassionate, and that we’re supportive. But, we also use it to demonstrate our boundaries. Sometimes my most annoying customers have turned into my super fans simply because of the way we handled their complaints. There can be a positive side.

 

Also, these howlers in your inbox, they can show you the bits that are broken in your processes. They can show you the things that need simplifying to allow you to have even more happy customers in the future, so there can be hidden gifts inside.

 

The biggest thing I would say to you is the happier and more grounded you are in yourself, the less these howlers and complaints and stress points will bother you. If you’re high as a kite, absolutely exhausted, if your adrenals are running high, you’re going to be using the fight or flight part of your nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system. You’re going to be working from the amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain that doesn’t think about long-term consequences.

 

It’s in survival mode, and it is going to treat that customer as though it were a saber tooth tiger. We can all imagine where that might end up. Nobody likes to get a reply to an angry email being treated like they’re a saber tooth tiger on the attack. If you can get yourself grounded, and you can spend most of your time in flow, and you can really make it a priority to manage your internal state to focus on things like gratitude, maybe even to take up meditation, you’ll find that that email doesn’t bother you anymore.

 

I had one this morning, which is what prompted me to write this podcast, from somebody who decided it was too difficult to click the unsubscribe button on a free summit that I’m running and that they wanted to abuse, instead. A few years ago, that would have knocked me for six. I’m recording the next live master class this morning. It would have hit my state for the whole day. It would potentially have derailed that master class. Because I’ve spent so much time on my inner state, and I was able to apply the five steps I’ve talked to you in the podcast today, yeah, I still find it really sad that this person needs to behave aggressively, but I can really feel it’s not about me, and actually it’s not about the program that we’re all running at the moment. It’s about pain coming from inside, and that’s okay.

 

It’s really not nice to have received that level of aggression this morning, but I know it’s also not real. It’s nothing that we’ve actually done. You never know what’s happened to somebody. They could have had a row with their partner. They could have crashed their car that morning. They could have just lost their job. Their favorite pet could have just died, or they could just be a generally grumpy and angry person.

 

It’s not up to us to second-guess. It’s up to us to remember that they’re just human and they don’t have the knowledge we do, so they might misunderstand our instructions. It’s up to us not to dive into the drama. It’s up to us to respond to the facts, not the emotions, to remember that all criticism is born of someone else’s pain, and to have crystal clear, compassionate boundaries.

 

I hope that’s really helped you today on some practical ways to handle the customers you secretly want to strangle. If you want to learn to meditate, I do actually run a hugely popular online course, a 28-day program called The 28 Day Meditation Challenge. You can find that at the show notes here, DTDBpodcast.biz/003 and at www.DareToDreamBigger.biz/meditationchallenge.

 

I’d love to hear from you via the comments. What do you do when you get contact from a customer that you’d really secretly like to strangle? Which of the steps today could you implement? Can you see how maybe sometimes you are making things worse by reacting the way that you do? And, what could you do to train your team and anybody else who connects with your customers on your behalf to handle this kind of thing in a way that could turn these people from complainers into super fans? I’d love to hear from you via the comments.

 

I’ll be back next week with Episode 004. Clare Josa signing off from the Dare To Dream Bigger business podcast. I hope you have a fantastic week.

DTDB 002 – Are You Inspiring Your Customers? Or Are You Secretly Nagging Them?

Dare To Dream Bigger Podcast

Welcome to this week’s Dare To Dream Bigger business podcast episode.

I’ve been busy this week running the Dare To Dream Bigger business summit and one of the things I noticed in our discussions is how rare it is for a business to truly connect with its customers. And that got me thinking… How often do you open your inbox and find it full of emails that demand your attention? How often is it bulging at the seams with messages from businesses you barely remember, but who want you to buy from them? And when did you last receive an email from a business that made you feel genuinely important and valued?

And I realised that it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of accidentally nagging your customers, when you email them, rather than inspiring your customers.

So in today’s podcast, we dive in and explore:

  • How the problem happens – and most of us don’t notice it creeping up on us
  • Why it’s an epidemic these days
  • How it will be hurting your business growth and sales

And then I take you through a step-by-step process that helps you to identify exactly how you could turn things around, so that you add value, easily build a lasting relationship with your customers and turn from an oft-ignored email to one they actually look forward to receiving.

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Click to subscribe on iTunes

Liked this? Help spread the word:

And when you’ve listened to today’s episode, I’d love to know:

  • What have you learned today? Any insights? Surprises? Questions?
  • How might the ideas in today’s podcast help you, your business and your dream customers?
  • What action could you take in the next hour to implement these changes?

Can’t wait to hear from you – over on Facebook or via the comments below!

And next week I’ll be sharing with you insider secrets for handling customers you secretly want to strangle. Not to be missed! Catch each episode by subscribing via the iTunes button, above, or getting the quick-reminder newsletter (form above).

With love, Namaste,

Clare x

Clare Josa, Mentor To Passionate World-Changers

Make sure you catch each episode – plus member-only bonuses:

Prefer the transcript? Here you go!

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Dare To Dream Bigger business podcast with me, Clare Josa, mentor to passionate world-changers. Today, we’re going to be looking at whether you’re inspiring your customers with your email messaging and marketing or whether you’re secretly nagging them.

 

Now, not many of us would want to admit that we’re nagging our customers, and yet it’s so easy to fall into that trap. I’m going to take you through how to spot whether that’s happening to you, what the risks are, what’s going to happen if you don’t turn it around, and then some practical strategies for turning from a nagging in their inbox to somebody who inspires them.

 

What I’ve noticed over the years, and I’ve been running my own business since 2002, is that we connect with our customers via social media or via their emails, and so much of what we do, if we’re really honest, feels like it’s going into a black hole. I remember back in 2008, sitting in a room with some really, really high-powered business owners who were launching a brand new program. They were so excited. I sat there as they pressed “Send.”

 

They waited for the emails to come through, and it had gone to a list of 20,000 people. They’d spent months working on this dream and nothing happened. We sat there in the room in silence waiting – waiting, waiting. Eventually, the program was a success, but it took more than that initial email. But, what happened for them was totally demoralizing. They felt that maybe they’d failed; they’d gone in the wrong direction. What they’d expected was to send out that email and, within seconds, to get thousands of people signing up for what they were offering.

 

What went wrong? Nothing. They simply forgot some basic truths that not everybody is sitting on their email all the time. Those who are have hopefully got some time management skills that mean, if your email comes through, if it’s not on their priority list in that moment, they might not read it. Even if they do read it, there’s a strong chance that even if it resonates with them, they won’t take action right away. They’ll put it on their to-do list for later. It might slip off their to-do list. It really takes a lot to inspire a customer to the extent that they’re excited, waiting for every email you send, and ready to take action immediately bumping you up their to-do list.

 

Here’s the problem. We connect with our customers. We sent them our newsletters. We send them our special offers, and we sit there, and we wait for them to take action. The problem is you can’t force anyone to take action. Over time, it can end up — you know, we’re in a crowded airspace. Some people’s inboxes are getting hundreds of emails a day, and that’s if you even make it into the inbox and you don’t get hotmailed into the spam folder or gmailed into the promo folder, and it never ceases to amaze me how many of my customers don’t know they’ve got a junk folder and don’t know that gmail has a promo folder, and they complain that they’re not hearing from me, but that’s where it’s going.

 

It’s a crowded airspace. The inboxes are full. Their to-do lists are overflowing. Most people are feeling overwhelmed and stressed. How do you get their attention? This is where the problem comes.

 

It can feel like we’re sending our messages into a black hole. We send out our weekly newsletter. We send out our special offers. We don’t get quite the response we were expecting.

 

Now, there’ll be a large portion that don’t even get the message. There’ll be another portion that get the message, put it on their to-do list to read later, and never get around to it. Then there’ll be those that do read it and think, “Wow. That was great. I’ll deal with that tonight,” and life gets in the way. It’s actually a really small number who are engaged enough with us that they get excited about opening up those emails and taking action.

 

Now, when you feel like you’re sending your messages into a black hole–and you’re giving, giving, giving, hopefully, rather than taking, taking, taking–you can end up asking yourself, “Why isn’t anyone buying?” I see this so often with the people I mentor, and I’ve been there myself. As you send out something that’s absolutely gold dust, and you wonder why you’re not getting the response that you expected, it can build up to be resentment.

 

The next time you send out a newsletter you think, “Well, none of you did this,” yeah? We’ve all had that experience. It can create frustration, and it can even lead to people who have got fantastic business ideas totally giving up. Now, that fear and that resentment build the frustration, and we can even end up feeling desperate. Well, you know, what do I have to say differently in this email to make you guys click? Yeah?

 

I had a situation recently. I run a weekly newsletter, video newsletter called FiveMinute.biz, which people absolutely love. But, sometimes when I send it out, it feels like it’s going into a black hole. Every now and then I sit there and think, “Should I keep going with this newsletter?” Just when I make the decision, “You know what? Maybe I’ll just let it go,” within hours, as though people can smell that, I start getting people saying, “Hey, I really love the videos.” It’s just that maybe 1 in 100 or 1 in 500 people actually take the time to comment or feedback.

 

The fact is, you never know the impact you’re making on people that they’re simply not telling you. When you ask people to comment and to share, only a tiny proportion will. They’re all so overwhelmed. There’s so much noise in that airspace. And, a large number of people are scared about their privacy these days, and they don’t want to go around sharing how much your stuff helped them because, frankly, that’s like taking out an ad on the front page of the newspaper saying, “Hey, I had a problem, and I needed help fixing it.”

 

If you get to the desperation point, the frustration, the resentment and the giving up, customers smell this. Your tone will change in your messages. Instead of being heart based, positive, and coming from love, it’s going to be coming from irritation, perhaps even anger and fear.

 

Now, this is when we shift into nagging zone. It’s so easy to do. If what you’re doing when you’re creating your messages is feeling annoyed and resentful, that is the vibe that will go through every word you write and speak. It will go through your offers. People can smell it a mile off. Just like dogs can smell fear, customers can smell nagging, and they can tell when we’ve got an agenda.

 

For most of us, there’s enough crud in our inbox that, to get us to open a message, we need to have a really strong relationship with that company, and we need to feel inspired. We want things that uplift us. Okay, there are only so much cute cat video things you can do in a day, and I’m not talking about superficial stuff. What I’m talking about here is a deep connection with your customer, seeing the world through their eyes and noticing what you can do to play a role in their life, to make their life better. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling services or widgets; you’re creating a transformation and an experience for those customers.

 

If you end up in the resentment, frustration, despair, and nagging route, then what will happen is your open rates will go down. You’ll be damaging the relationship with your customers without even realizing. They’re going to feel nagged. None of us like to be told what to do. None of us like to be made to feel bad just because we’re doing our best and it doesn’t suit somebody else’s agenda. You’re going to get unsubscribes, and you’re going to find that social media engagement is already pretty low unless you’re doing paid postings. You’re going to find that that engagement goes down further too. In these days, where it can get harder and harder to reach people organically via social media, your mailing list is your business for so many business owners.

 

What can you do instead? I’ve got an NLP (neurolinguistic programming) exercise I’d love to share with you called Perceptual Positions. Now, this is about standing in somebody else’s shoes and seeing the world through their eyes without judgment. I used to head of market research at Dyson, do getting into the customer’s shoes was something that we were trying to do on a regular basis, and it’s a technique I’ve brought with me over the past decade or more of running my own business.

 

What you do for this, it really helps to actually physically move. If you stay sitting in your chair or whatever you’re doing listening to this podcast today, then you’re going to find it quite hard to do, so I invite you to stand up and then go and stand somewhere else in the room. Imagine. We’re going to do some real mindreading stuff, but just imagine. Play with this that you can stand in the shoes of one of your dream customers.

 

Imagine you’re holding your body the way they would be holding their body. Imagine you’re breathing the way they would be breathing. Adjust your posture, and notice the kind of thoughts that they’re thinking when it comes to the solution that you offer.

 

You might want to press pause and allow some stuff to bubble up here without judgment, without filtering. What are the kinds of thoughts they’re thinking? What are the kinds of problems that they’ve got?

 

Now, what would you need to be doing and sharing and giving to become a non-negotiable part of that person’s experience of life? How could you help them in ways that have nothing to do with selling? How could you inspire them? What interests them that’s kind of a lead in to the service or widget or product that you offer? What kind of things would they love you to be talking about?

 

There are so many big brands out there that just do nothing other than pitch. “Hey, here’s our latest special offer. Hey, here’s what’s selling best on our website.” They never send you an article about how to fix this thing or how to deal with that problem, or look at this; we’ve been having fun in this way. Have you? It’s not about building a relationship. It’s about selling.

 

Yet, given how expensive it can be to find new customers, keeping your existing customers, keeping them loyal and passionate, and turning them into super fans, is essential. That requires you to allow them to connect with you, and a relationship is a two-way thing. It’s about listening to them and then talking to them in a way that inspires and uplifts them.

 

And it’s about being you, living and breathing your brand. Whether your brand is just you or whether you’re leading a larger company, what your brand stands for needs to flow through every message you put out there. It’s time to stop hiding behind that brand, allowing yourself to be a human, and allowing yourself to be personable.

 

One of my top tips is, please, please, please get rid of these sending from no reply email addresses. Yeah, we all know it’s a pain when you get 2,000 “out of office” messages in August, but people want to connect with you, and there’s nothing that says more clearly that this company doesn’t give two hoots about you as a person than replying to them to an email only to get it to bounce saying we don’t read this inbox. It’s one of the rudest things you can do. It really is. Being human is so important.

 

About ten years ago, I used to run a website on seasonal food. It’s something I did during maternity leave with my first son. I managed to get it so it ranked number one on Google for all sorts of stuff, all sorts of recipes and ingredient information, and it used to outperform the BBC food website and Delia.

 

I used to send out a weekly newsletter with recipes for people who got veg boxes and bought local, seasonal food. It was very human. The newsletter had the recipes in, but it also had stories in. I don’t know about you, but I love reading recipe books where there’s an introduction, there’s a story behind the recipe rather than just cold, factual recipes. It was a hugely successful newsletter.

 

Then there came a point where the business grew too big. I didn’t want to make it full time, so I actually gave it to a company that specialized in eco and green products. They took the humanity out of the newsletters, and it became just about the recipes, and they stopped sending it from somebody who had a name, and it was just that business’s name.

 

Within about six months, the brand was dead because it had lost the human connection. Now, obviously, if you’re doing the newsletters for a big company, you need to find a way around this, but people want to connect with the energy of the humanity of your brand, not just be sales pitched, not just be nagged. Standing in those customers’ shoes, what would get them excited to open their inbox and find you in there? What would make them think, “Well, no. Okay. To-do list out the window – I’m reading this right now”?

 

What kind of value could you be adding as a gift? I’m not talking compulsive over-giving. I’m talking about making a positive difference in their lives. How could you become somebody who feels like a trusted friend or expert?

 

How could you build a relationship that’s two ways? And, how could you become a nonnegotiable part of their life? When you have that privilege, you don’t need to sell. You’re in there. You’re inspiring. When they want to buy, they’ll remember who you are and you stay top of mind.

 

The benefits of doing this are that you massively increase your open rates. You build that relationship with your customers. If you’re doing it via email, then it has a knock-on effect for social media. You’ll get more interactions. You’ll get better value out of any paid campaigns you’re running. You’re going to increase your sales rates from your email campaigns. And, you get to make a difference in people’s lives.

 

It’s not a high effort. It just requires you to see things from their point of view rather than yours. Sure, you want to make the sale and grow your business. They want you to be part of their life. They want you to add value. You need to do something different to everybody else in your marketplace to create that long-term, two-way relationship.

 

I’m curious. What have you learned today? Is there anything that you spot that maybe if you’re being totally honest, it means you might be seen as nagging, or are you pretty much sorted and you know that you’re well on your way to inspiring all of your customers with your marketing, your communications, and emails? What have you learned? What could you do differently, and what action could you take in the next hour to start turning things around?

 

I would love to hear from you. The show notes for this episode are at the Dare To Dream Bigger podcast site, DTDBpodcast.biz/002. I’d really love to hear from you. If you found this useful, please share it far and wide with your friends.

 

I hope today’s installment has inspired you with some ways that you can connect with what your customers wish you were doing and the way they wish you were communicating and the way they wish you were relating with them. I really know whatever kind of business you’re involved in and whatever its size, there will be things that you can do to take that inspiration to the next level and to move away from nagging.

 

The simplest thing you can do, if you take just one thing away from today’s podcast, whenever you do a customer communication, really connect with them as human beings. They’re not just numbers on a mailing list. They’re people with hopes and dreams, wishes, and fears. Connect with them and then, before you send the communication, ask yourself, “What is my intention with this communication? Is it to inspire or might I be perceived as nagging?” Be totally honest and notice if anything needs to change.

 

Let me know how you get on with this. I can’t wait to hear what results you get. I’ll be back soon with the next episode of the Dare To Dream Bigger podcast.

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