I’m sharing with you the Top 5 Mistakes most self-employed people and businesses make, when trying to make money.

What were those Top 5 Mistakes?

1. We are unclear about what we offer

2. We are unclear about who we are offering it to

3. We keep ourselves a secret!

4. We imagine we are doing things when we are actually just thinking about it

5. We don’t believe we are worth it (and often undercharge!)

Today I’ll cover Mistake #4.

1. We imagine we are doing things when we are actually just thinking about it

This mistake is even worse than the “Entrepreneur’s Trap of Busyness” as described in Joseph Jaworski’s excellent book “Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership”.

Jaworski outlined the challenge business owners and leaders have, of always having to be busy doing stuff, with the result that they never spend time just thinking about their business strategically, or spend time working “on” their business but always have to be working “in” their business.

Mistake #4 goes one step further and my realisation of it came about from personal experience. Let me tell you the story!

One day, early in my coaching career, I panicked about not having enough clients. I scheduled a call to my first ever coach, Rachel Turner of Kaizen Coaching, to discuss emergency measures I could take.

However, before the call, I heard Rachel’s voice in my head (sign of a good coach, note!) asking me, “well, Nicola, just what HAVE you done to attract clients?”

And I thought to myself, well, we discussed this, this and that, and I COULD have done this, this and that. But at the end of the day, what HAVE I actually done?

Not much at all, was the truthful answer.

It is almost as though we don’t take action because we have already convinced ourselves that it won’t work. And this moment of insight was all it required for me to think “well, I don’t want to tell her these things don’t work, because I haven’t actually tried any of them”. Is it an inbuilt cynicism, a bit like the cynicism that stopped me ever reading personal development or wealth creation books in the past?

So the coaching call was a bit redundant in the end, because it was all about me reporting in to Rachel on the actions taken since the day before (some of which were already working!) rather than me moaning on to my coach about all the things I hadn’t done, which weren’t working.

Interesting huh?

Whenever I speak to my clients and they are complaining that they haven’t got enough clients, I always ask them what they are actually doing, on a regular basis, to attract clients.

Not what they think they are doing, or what they think they could do, or what they have heard works, or does not work. But what they are actually doing day by day, week by week. (I also ask what has worked in the past, what they used to do that they are not doing now).

Not much is usually the answer, and certainly not enough of the things that work!

It’s all about comfort zones I’ve decided. We want to take the actions that we are comfortable with rather than the actions that produce results.

So what actions do the successful companies in your field take, that you are not taking?

What are the critical success factors in your industry? Which are you missing?

YOUR 3 ACTION STEPS:

1. Do a search here on the blog for other articles on “business success”

2. Download another free report here

http://www.themoneygymmvs.com/mvs

3. Join Money Gym Silver or come along to one of our “Money Gym Presents…..” workshops in Central London.

THEN WE CAN HELP YOU TO:

1. Establish what the critical success factors are, for your business

2. Work out how to get the ones you are missing or don’t think you can afford

3. Work out what works in your business and what doesn’t, and support you to do more of what works.

Sound good?

Great!

See you there!

Nicola