But he also introduced us to a concept called Gift Theory (originated by Ken Page), which is: Our greatest gifts are coupled with our deepest traumas, which is why it’s tough to express the gifts (you have to fight your way past the trauma somehow).

Here’s a short exercise you can use to see if, or how Gift Theory plays out in your life. Is the trauma associated with your gifts keeping you from using them most effectively?

What can you do about this?

Set your timer for 15 minutes and do a bit of soul-searching. Ask yourself:

1. Where are your greatest gifts?
2. Are you using them?
3. Do you need help to start using them more effectively?
4. What kind of help do you need?
5. Where, and when, will you get it?

Here’s what he said:

“To answer this question adequately, I have to tell about Gift Theory, first.   (Ed note: This theory was created by Ken Page, a friend of Frank’s. Read more about him here.)

Gift Theory says that the place where we’re most gifted is the place where we’re also the most wounded. To access our greatest gifts, we have to address our deepest traumas. It’s no surprise that people don’t live their vision-it takes you straight to the trauma that overlays your gifts, and forces you to overcome them to reach the gifts.

We’re ready to blame ourselves for procrastination, getting stuck, getting lost, and avoiding the work. In reality, we’re avoiding the trauma that lies on top of our greatest gifts.

 The only way to walk through this trauma is with help. To think you can do this alone is misguided, and is the voice of the fear trying to fools us into thinking we can do it alone (so we won’t).

What the Small Business Warrior group has given me is a community to support me and the other participants in walking through the trauma to reach our gifts.

There’s no one thing that’s different since I’ve been on the Journey. A number of things have changed.

Number one, though is clarity.  I’m so much clearer about the purpose of my business; my vision, strategy and the actions I need to take to realize my vision. This is an enormous benefit.  

 Number two, there are witnesses to my process. I have colleagues facing some of the same challenges, which I see them solving creatively, and this helps me address my own challenges.   

Number three, people in the group intervene on my procrastination, and support me to take action. For someone who procrastinates (ed. Note: see Gift Theory above), this is a huge benefit.  

Before the group, my approach to marketing, while creative, was more scatter- shot. I’ve learned to channel my creativity into a consistent and persistent approach.  

It’s early days yet, but the bottom line on this work for me will be more money. The process is internal and external. The internal process illuminates what’s going on with me, and the external process leads to success and dollars.”

 If you want your next conference to be strategic, creative–and remarkable–so that you your company can forge strong bonds with its constituents, contact Frank Abdale at TELE: 917-546-6640.

This week, in one of my Small Business Warrior groups, we worked on an issue that I myself wrestled with for 20+ years: Deciding on the right customer database–and then actually implementing and using it to generate business.   

Things are a lot better than they used to be, when you had to spend $1,500 for a single license of the software, plus another $150 per user, and buy a $5,000 server and network to run it on (plus use a tape drive to back it up, which never worked very well because people forgot to change the tapes).

 My former company installed these systems for awhile and the failure rate was high. Not because we didn’t install the systems right, but because the initial installation was so disruptive to the business. The software forced people to keep track of their work in a centralized place, in the way the software dictated, instead of carrying it around in a notebook (these days you may be carrying it around in your phone).   

Better Now Than Later 

There are ten times as many choices for databases today; they’re much cheaper, and almost all of them let you try for free before you buy.

They’re still tough to implement. Even more now than “in the olden days”, the biggest cost of implementation is TIME.  

But if you don’t deal with this when you’re small, as your business grows, the issues get worse. I’m working with a business (of 35 people), and their customer and prospect data is spread across ten laptops plus the CEO’s (un-backed-up) phone. The job of consolidating this data is a hundred times more complicated than it would have been had they implemented a solution, even if it was imperfect–back when the company started.

The homework for the Small Business Warrior group this week is to write down what their requirements are for a database, then go out and find one and START USING IT! So that’s what the group is doing.  If you’re eager (or resistant, but willing) to do the same, here’s how to get started:

Do this now. It just gets more expensive if you wait.

Tell us how you did, below.

Events like this present prime opportunities to compare yourself to others. I went to a high school where people married early and had lots of children. (One of my friends has five kids and 13 grandkids.) I set about unfavorably comparing my unmarried childless self to my friends with long-term marriages and legions of offspring. I spent some unproductive time indulging in the highly unproductive sport of “what if.”

I needed to snap out of it, so I called a close friend and told her what I was doing.

She asked me two questions:

1. Have you followed your heart?
2. Did you do what you thought was right?

The answer to both these questions is yes. I did what I thought was right to the best of my ability my whole life. Which is what brought me here, with my work, my business, and my life just as they are. I like them.

I sat down and made a list of the things I still wanted in my business that I don’t yet have, and had a little brainstorm about how I might get what’s missing.

Which brings me to a question for you and for your business.

Are you following your heart in your business? What might that look like? What changes would you make if you gave yourself permission to do what you think is right, or what you want? I’d love to hear below.

She is making her dream, to help retired athletes find their right work and right life, tangible.

Is there a vision or dream you want to make tangible?

It doesn’t have to be about your business–it could be in any area of your life.

Take one step toward it right now. Try this:  

 1. If your vision costs money, take $1.00 out of your wallet, stick it into an envelope, and label it. (You can also do this using an online bank. I currently have 22 separate savings accounts for things I want, some with as little as $30.00 in each). Keep putting in $1.00 a week and see what happens.

2. If it’s something you want to do that doesn’t cost money (or at least not a lot of money), what’s a single, teeny action you can take right now toward it? Take that action. Follow it up with another one tomorrow.

Change is tough, but you can sneak up on the fight or flight part of your brain (and not agitate it into blocking your efforts) by making very small changes. The technical name for this is Kaizen; read about it here.

Did you try this? What happened? Comment below.

A Coach for Retiring Athletes?  

Nancy Shelton dives into Life After Athletics with a crystal clear vision of the business side of her coaching business    

Q: What’s changed since you started the Small Business Warrior Journey?

I’ve been on the Journey for almost seven months now. My biggest weakness was that I didn’t have a clear picture of the business side of my business.  

I know exactly how to coach clients, but since completing my business plan, I have a good feel for the numbers: what I need to charge, how many clients I need, and what the administrative side of the business looks like. Previously, I hadn’t considered that side of my business because frankly, it scared me. Now I know exactly what I need to do.

The other people in the group have also made valuable connections to potential clients for me, which kicked me in the pants to finish my marketing materials and get them out into the world. I just got another email from someone in the group yesterday that said, “How can I help you now?”

From idea to reality    

 My business has gone from being a concept in my head, to reality. Retiring athletes need help from someone who’s been there. It was hell for me because I tried to go through the transition alone. 

My clients are going through a huge life transition. There’s almost nothing more disruptive than being on an athletic team (especially if you started when you were six), and having that team, your teammates, coaches and competing disappear overnight because of graduation, injury or retirement.

Athletes in this position often have no idea what to do when this happens. They haven’t had any time to figure out what they want to do “when they grow up.” Some jump into a job and turn into workaholics, treating the job the way they treated their sport. Others flounder, or feel an emptiness they can’t put their finger on.

In reality, this transition can be incredibly exciting. I want to support these athletes in creating a passionate life, and earn a good living doing this.    

The business plan, marketing plan and getting clear on my numbers is making my vision a reality. 

If you know an athlete who’s struggling with his or her life, now that the sport is gone, Nancy Shelton can help. Contact her here

After arguing amongst ourselves about which of us could truly claim a seat in the row of shame (for not doing the homework perfectly—answer: none of us); we came up with five brilliant ideas to remember when you start doing your marketing regularly.

1. Get it on the calendar. Even if you’re only doing 15 minutes of marketing a week, get it on your calendar. Preferably not to be completed at 10pm.
2. Understand that you may actually enjoy the marketing itself. It’s the resistance you feel before you start that’s painful. (If you don’t like doing your marketing, my book can help).
3. You can change your priorities and plans in the face of changing circumstances. This means you might have to cut down or change some activities to respond to client calls or other demands.
4. However, make sure you’re doing some marketing every week, even if you’re swamped (see #1 above about the 15 minutes). Also, make sure what you’re doing is really marketing. Don’t fake yourself out thinking that lunch with your buddies is marketing, unless it really is.
5. Action is the antidote. To everything. But especially to Resistance.

If you want to join in, the form to use to do it with is here.

The idea behind this challenge is to make some commitments to marketing that you need to do (like trying new things, keeping previous commitments about what you said you’d do but haven’t yet because you are too scared, etc.), and then seeing what happens.

Here’s what I’m noticing (since I’m not standing on the sidelines cheering the group on. I’m actually participating. Cheering is way easier).

1. I say I’m going to do what I think I SHOULD do, not what I actually think is the right thing.

2. When I commit to doing something I feel I should do, often, I don’t actually do it.

3. This sets up a weird cycle of self-criticism that makes me feel bad.

4. Which could all be avoided if I said the truth about what I actually think is the right marketing…and just did that.

However, I wouldn’t know any of this had I not agreed to the challenge, and actually asked myself what was going on behind my hit, and my missed, deadlines.

The main idea behind this exercise is to change our behavior–to get some support to take a risk, take the risk, and see what happens.

Behavior change is very challenging. The 4-part cycle I listed above is an old pattern. Perhaps now that I’ve exposed it to the world, I could let it go?

What do you do when you know you need to change your behavior? When you need to learn something new, outside your comfort zone? I’d love to hear. Comment below.

Read this blog post from Tim Berry about why, even if you aren’t going after funding and you aren’t a start-up, that every business needs one.

Here’s my favorite quote from the post: “And I say, emphatically in fact, that it’s a damn shame you’re not using planning, and planning process, to manage better. The myth of the business plan gets in the way of the benefits of real business planning.”

Thanks, Tim.

To figure out what yours might be, first take this test. This will help you understand whether you get energy from being with people (extrovert), or being alone (introvert).

Here are some examples:

1. An executive coach (introvert) forms deep, meaningful referral relationships with a small number of people in corporate HR departments, who, because they know him and his work well, consistently refer him to their managers who need coaching. This marketing uses the introvert’s strength in establishing deeper relationships with fewer numbers of people.
2. The owner of a computer-aided design company (extrovert) hosts lunch and learn for his introverted engineering clients. He provides needed training for his clients, while giving them a safe, no-stress environment to meet other people in the field. He’s using his ability as an extrovert to host a group of people and help them feel comfortable with folks they don’t yet know (as well as offering needed training to them).
3. The psychologist (extrovert) teaches continuing education classes to the agencies that refer clients to her clinic. She provides continuing education credits, demonstrates her expertise in the field, and teaches large numbers of people.

In each example, the business owner is marketing in a way that’s congruent with their personality, helps their customers, and that they actually enjoy. This is my theory (that I’m testing on myself). I’m doing marketing I enjoy (writing, and soon, webinars), and except at 9PM when I’m posting a blog instead of quietly reading before bed, I like this marketing. I look forward to doing it. Which means I do it more regularly. Which means it has a lot better chance of actually working.

What about you? What’s your marketing aura? How can you use your natural personality to help your customers like these business people are doing?