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More Clients
- the Online Marketing Newsletter
for Independent Professionals
from Action Plan Marketing
and Robert Middleton

In This Week's Issue: Are your limiting thoughts and beliefs about marketing holding you back from the success that you seek?

 

Limiting Thoughts?

I spent the last four days of 2004 in a workshop learning how to let go of my limiting thoughts, beliefs and attitudes.

The workshop, called "The Mental Cleanse" with Byron Katie is appropriately named. I've flushed out a whole host of thoughts that have been holding me back one way or another.

Do you have limiting thoughts that are holding you back?

The insidious thing about limiting thoughts is that we don't really think them. They think us. That is, we identify with them so completely that they become the gospel truth to us - even as they undermine our best intentions in life and in work.

Working with thousands of Independent Professionals over the past twenty years, I've noticed many repeating themes of these kind of limiting thoughts.

Are any of them familiar to you?

"I'm not the marketing type."

Can you really know that? What is "the marketing type" anyway? Think of all the negative stereotypes you have about marketing types. Who says you have to fit a stereotype?

In my experience, the marketing type is someone, just like you or me, who learned some marketing ideas and tried them out and got some results and kept working at it. Does that sound so awful?

"It's hard for me to talk about my business."

Often a thought like this will have an underlying belief such as "people aren't interested in my services." What's your proof? How do you really know at this early stage? We tend to get a rejection or two and conclude that people will never understand us.

Isn't it really a matter of trial and error? You try a message and gauge the interest and then try something new until it resonates with the marketplace. Pretty soon it gets easy.

"I'm just not a good writer."

By what criteria? Who are you comparing yourself to? Marketing writing isn't fine literature. It's simply a narrative about how your services can help your clients: "Here's the problem as I see it. Here's the desired solution you're looking for. And here's what I can do for you to get that solution."

If your writing style feels awkward, don't worry; it will improve with practice. And if you need help along the way, you can always hire an editor.

"Public speaking scares me to death"

You'll die if you speak in public? Is that really true? Haven't seen it once, yet. What's really the worst that could happen? Your presentation might bore some people. Could you handle that? With a little practice don't you think you'd improve? Of course.

Many of the world's greatest speakers still experience some nervousness before a talk. But it doesn't stop them. And the more they speak the better they get.

"All this technology intimidates me"

Really? Does it hold a gun to your head? Doesn't it just sit there passively until you do something with it? The systems out there to help you market online, for instance, are getting easier and easier to use. In a couple hours you can set up an eZine with a tool like AWeber. Why let this thought hold you back?

Like all limiting thoughts, try to see the other side of the equation and notice if the upside benefit isn't a lot more powerful. If technology could transform your marketing (it can), wouldn't you be a little less intimidated?

"I just don't have the time to market myself."

This is a big one for a lot of people. What always puzzles me is that the people who have the fewest clients seem to have no time to market. Successful people always find the time to fit it in by making it a priority. It's not time, it's the thought.

Start noticing all the time-wasters you let creep into your day. If you could eliminate just a few of them, you'd have more than enough time for marketing activities.

"But it's so easy for you"

Are you sure? How do you know that? And what do I have to do with your marketing efforts? Why are you comparing? Wouldn't it make more sense to ask, "What do you do to make it easy for yourself?" You might discover several strategies that could make it easy for you as well.

Every limiting thought becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's true because you say it's true. And if you don't question your thoughts, they will continue to control your destiny.

The technique called "The Work" that I learned from Byron Katie and have used with surprising (and almost immediate) results works as follows:

First, write down a limiting thought like the ones I've listed above. Then ask the following four questions, writing down your answers. Do it slowly, really pondering before you give an answer:

1. Is this thought true? (Or is it just a thought you've attached to?)

2. (If yes, or not sure) Can I absolutely know that it's true?

3. How do I react when I think that thought?

Make a long list of your actions, behavior feelings and other thoughts that arise in the wake of the original thought.

4. Who would I be without that thought?

If you were facing a marketing challenge, such as writing an article, and you simply could not have the thought, "I'm not a good marketing writer" how would things be different?

Finally, turn the thought around.

That is, state the limiting thought in reverse: "I am a good marketing writer." And then ask yourself if that new statement is just as true or truer than the original. You may be surprised by your answer.

This year, your marketing results will be determined not by your circumstances but by your thinking. If you think limiting thoughts you have no right to expect anything beyond those limiting thoughts.

If you start to question your limiting thoughts and beliefs, I guarantee that new and exciting possibilities will open up to you. You might even start to think of yourself as a marketing type!

More on "Limiting Thoughts?" in Marketing Flashes below.

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Transform Your Limiting Thoughts and Beliefs

I've included as much as I've had space for in this eZine about letting go of limiting thoughts. Hopefully it's been useful to you. But if you feel you need more specific coaching about working with limiting thoughts and beliefs that are holding back your marketing, I invite you to check out this audio program.

It includes two recorded teleclasses I did on this topic plus worksheets and an online form to help you work through your own limiting beliefs.

What could it mean to you to let go of just one major limiting belief about your business this year? A thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand in income? - not to mention the peace of mind and confidence that comes when you are no longer attached to a limiting belief. Check it out here:

www.actionplan.com/limiting.html

 

Changes Are Coming to the InfoGuru Marketing Manual

Thinking of getting the InfoGuru Marketing Manual but you've been putting it off? Here's something you might consider:

In one or two weeks I'll be making some changes to the Manual. One, the price will go up. Two, I'll be creating a more in-depth home study version. which will include a complete audio program on 12 CDs with a study guide to help you implement the action plans in the program.

Now the manual costs $59. It will be $79. With the home study the complete program will be $178. Order the InfoGuru Marketing Manual now and you'll be eligible to receive the home study portion for only $99.

If you already have the manual, you'll also be eligible to receive the home study portion for $99. Keep watching More Clients for details.

For complete details on the current version of the manual and to order online (saving $20), just click below.

www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html

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Marketing Flashes on "Limiting Thoughts?"

One of the keys to letting go of limiting thoughts is recognizing them in the first place. Here are some things to notice:

* Limiting thoughts become like the water we swim in: "Limiting thoughts? What limiting thoughts? The stronger the identification or attachment to particular thoughts or beliefs, the more likely that they become limiting. We do not become attached to expansive, unlimited thoughts. (And if we do, such as turning them into rules, they ultimately become limiting.)

* Limiting thoughts are stressful in nature. That is, it doesn't feel great thinking them. You tend to feel constricted and diminished when you think them. The funny thing is, you hope they will make you feel better and they never do.

* Limiting thoughts are angry and fearful in nature. They are often accusing, blaming and criticizing. "He did" and "She did" are limiting thoughts. They are putting the fault on something outside of yourself.

* Limiting thoughts are often attached to the following words: can't, hard, difficult, impossible. They can also be attached to words like want, need, should, shouldn't, always and never. Limiting words equal limiting thoughts.

* Limiting thoughts are often about your own identity of what you can and cannot be, do or have. "I think of myself as...." is almost always a limiting thought even if it sounds positive! Who you are is unlimited. There's no identity to that. Just freedom.

Until next week, all the best,

Robert Middleton

ACTION PLAN MARKETING
Helping Independent Professionals Attract More Clients

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www.actionplan.com

210 Riverside Drive
Boulder Creek, CA 95006
831-338-7790

Contact by email

© 2004 Robert Middleton, All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the More Clients eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read:

"By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit Robert's web site at http://www.actionplan.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional service businesses."

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