Everyday Bliss

Click to Read Part I here

Part II in a series dealing with the Modern Service Business on the Internet, pricing products, stuff you really DON’T know about our back ends (get your mind out of the gutter, it’s not what you think) and Scouting Badge Competency Filters

Crucial Knowledge About The Model & Product Range In Modern Service Industries

(stick with it – after the Crucially Cool & Deadly Accurate education bit, comes the cute & fuzzy punch line)

While the coach Amanda hired (see Part I of this article) may have mis-stated the tiered level of their services and products – and badly – there’s fundamentally nothing wrong with this approach as a business model.

This tiered pricing structure is a common model used in the coaching, therapy and internet marketing industries. As do thousands of authors, speakers and coaches, I use this model myself – offering a basic-but-still-valuable product for considerably less than the full-bore-workshop/teaching/coaching experience-with-lots-of-extras.

This helps people who can’t afford to hire us privately STILL benefit from the teachings we have to offer. I’ll continue to offer this model because it’s one way I stay in integrity with my personal goals by not excluding anyone, but also not giving away or cheapening the value of my own hard work.

Something to GET…and Get Over:

People DO NOT VALUE what is given for free. Check out any lottery winner ten years down the line and you’ll see what I mean. They’re right back to the state they were before they won (and squandered) all the money. If you want to truly value and USE a training or product, my sincere advice is to pay as dearly as you can for it.

When it hurts just a little bit to get something you want or need, you will value it ten times as much, use it over and over time and again, and grow exponentially from its benefits.

And in defense of the many who are in integrity about their teachings — most of us pack our lower priced trainings full of value and don’t misrepresent them. Those teachers are out there for you — when you’re ready, you’ll find the right one.

Education On How A Profitable Online Business Works

If you don’t run an online business, you wouldn’t necessarily know all the components that go into a pricing or product partitioning decision. If you have your own business, a lot of what I’m going to say now will be old hat. But remember that your clients and customers all too often don’t have such education. And because they don’t understand the back end of how a coaching or therapy business works, their perceptions can be a little skewed.

Here’s a little education on some of the basics if you’ve never seen the back-end of an online business. Pay attention, particularly if you feel prices asked are “unfair”. Here’s how the information marketing thing unpacks:

1) A full-price product or class or coaching group costs more because it’s more involved and much more work on my end and my team’s. We deserve to get paid well for our effort, this is the way online teachers, coaches and etc. make their money.

2) Only the person who creates the product knows the real value of it, and can set a fair price. If you don’t like the price someone set, move on and find someone teaching at your financial level or….uplevel your finances. There are coaches for that you can find by Googling “Financial” or “Abundance” coaching.

3) I can’t speak to anyone else’s business but my own so here’s my perspective as a business owner with a lot of calls on her time. My time is finite, so I choose to work in large groups where an hour of my time teaches anywhere from forty to hundreds of people. That way the message I have to get out to the world gets to the maximum amount of people, they pay far less than to hire me one-on-one privately, and I get paid well for the hours of research, composing, editing of the material, rehearsal if with others if present, and so on that take place before the class even begins.

4) Figure  for each one hour class you attend (even the freebies) perhaps 10 hours of thought and preparation went into that one hour. So you’re not just paying for an hour – you’re getting anywhere from eight to twelve actual hours of education condensed down into one for you….which is getting off cheap!

A coaching industry standard fee for a one-hour class in 2010 starts at $47. But if you figure 10 hours prep including the one hour of class, you’re paying a bit over FOUR DOLLARS AN HOUR. That’s totally CHEAP.

Therefore, don’t ask for anyone’s work for free.

4.5) I put plenty of free articles, teaching and coaching out there as do most coaches and teachers. If the person you want to learn from doesn’t, it would be good consumer feedback to let them know, and let them know you would be happy to test-drive any free products or trainings they put out for the payment of a great review. This will hopefully encourage your prospective teacher to consider putting out something in your price range. It won’t be the whole enchilada, more like a few good nibbles off the side. But it’ll still be delicious, filling and teach you something valuable.

And if you do get this….be happy. Send a glowing review (teachers really need these!). Work the program. Often it is helpful people like this that a vendor will decide to comp into their trainings. Couldn’t hurt to try, now could it?

5) Just as every teacher and coach out there, I can’t (and wouldn’t even if I could) give you the farm in a one hour class or free ebook, and have too much respect for myself and my hardworking team to give away our work for free other than the free telesminar and other events I already participate in.

Whatever price I put on my work is a fair representation of what went into it, is already made as affordable and as inexpensive as I can realistically make it. There are points of engagment at all possible levels.

6) The prevailing model that makes a coaching business profitable is teaching to hundreds at lower prices like $47 and $97, to a smaller group at the mid to high hundreds and to an even smaller, more intensely engaged-with group for several thousand, depending on the breadth and length of engagement.  It’s a good and fair model that allows win-win all around the board and allows a coach and their team to be fairly recompensed for their time and effort.

7) Which brings me to the point that there are TONS of expenses involved in creating a premium product that the buyer never sees or knows about, but that on our end, we need to recoup before we ever see a penny’s profit. That includes:

• paying monthly fees for shopping carts
• autoresponders so we can communicate with you
• merchant bank fees so we can sell our products easily
• packaging and fulfillment fees if a physical product
• help desk staff, assistants & editors
• website team who pulls it all together
• online research, marketing team and other unsung hero/ines of the journey

As an example in my case: multiple thousands in fees for a DVD project, for experts to shoot, cut, edit and so on. Plus untold hours writing, rehearsing and etc. on my part. The information is premium content that represents some of the best lessons I had to teach at the time. That DVD set like similar products others offer does not sell cheap. This is why. Paying rent or mortgage and buying food for our families is another reason why.

NOW HAVING SAID THAT….

And going back to Amanda’s example – Coaches/teachers/healers/etc. who misrepresent what you get in an entry-level product, constantly try to upsell you in a ham-handed manner are not cool.

Though….more than anything this indicates such a teacher’s immaturity, lack of learning or lack of enough time in the trenches. Your teacher acted irresponsibly, but remember that people also do this because they are:

(A) Scared

(B) Don’t know any better.

While you had a weird experience, it’s tremendously empowering to GIVE THANKS for the valuable lessons (you’ve learned more than you know), and to bless and release people like this. They *need* your blessings. And when you bless folks like this, it comes back to you, multiplied.

Plus, you’re aware of the integrity gap and how icky that feels.

Yay!

You now have a valuable tool to use in future situations like this. If you are or have ever been a Scout (GirlScout, BoyScout, Campfire Girl etc) – sew that badge to your vest, you now have a new and immeasurably valuable competency filter.

So really – you win in several different ways.

THE CURE: Having A Kitten In
Your Tummy Is Good For You

In any case, what about releasing judgment of the Unscrupulous Teacher… and also, of yourself? Judgment is never useful in such cases – we just use it to beat ourselves or others up with. What about thinking of making a “considered decision” and use that filter you gained to help you filter out the klutzes, the out-of-integrity & the just plain money-grubbing nasties? Done=Done

Now you know how good holding a baby, petting a puppy or kitten or getting a hug makes you feel…right? Feels good in the tummy, happy and warm, doesn’t it?

Look at the kitten…awwww…ain’t he cute? I had to take a break when I found this pic just to coo at it for several seconds. Happy and warm in the tummy. Mmmm…

Go for teachers who make you feel that way.

Who cheer for you, give you content with real meat on it, with rich juices dripping off in each encounter you have with them, who uphold your best interest in all ways, especially if you don’t even know what that is yet.

Teachers who tell you hard truths when necessary but always with love and more respect than you probably give yourself.

And who do this whether they are sharing a small piece of their particular pie with you, or the whole enchilada.

That’s a teacher, coach or therapist I’d want to hire and tell ALL of my friends about. That’s a precious resource to share with the world.

This is the reasonI try to bring great teachers I know and respect more exposure to a wider audience whenever I can. The more you SHARE resources like this, the greater will be your own benefit, and the benefit to all you expose these new teachers to.

On this flip side of all that this is – (and will you release that and all that these thoughts bring up NOW please….? Thank You)  there is the question:

Who do you feel about like a warm happy kitten in your tummy?

Who just “does it” for you? Who

- upholds you

- respects you

- loves you

- champions you

- GROWS you

just by being in your life?

If you’ve got that my friend, you’re blessed.

I’ve been so blessed many times in this life.

Am so thankful for many blessings.

The more thanks you give the more you have to give.

I intend the same for you.

Bright Blessings of Summer….

…Being a tutorial on How To Know You’re Being Scammed, How To Avoid Being Scammed & How To Make Lemonade In a Poor Learning Environment

PART I:

Amanda sounded-off on the previous post saying:

“I have heard several free teleseminars, and signed up for the $97 package….her offering was misrepresented (she apologized for that, but claimed no responsibility)…and essentially tells those of us who signed up that because we received such a large discount, we’re not getting the same benefits that her private clients get, AND if you really want the results that she promises, you need to sign up for the next level, at considerably higher cost.

I have learned many valuable tools but…I guess I’m feeling the “once bitten, twice shy” thing. I think the work is very valuable, …it just seems that some folks are working out of integrity, and then I’m left with the self-judgment of having made yet another “interesting” choice…”

First of all, THANK YOU Amanda for bringing up a number of issues here, that I think are  worth a more extended response, some talk about what fair and unfair is, and some general education that coaches, speakers, teachers and others who conduct information-based businesses really wish the general public knew.

I hope the following is helpful not just to Amanda, but everyone who has ever felt gypped, cheated, taken advantage of or used by someone selling a service. And on our side of the fence, every coach, therapist or other kind of teacher who has put their heart and soul into a product only to be told they stink, their product or training stinks and it’s not worth either the buyer’s time or what was paid for it.

The below is meant with respect, to educate.

And sometimes that takes hard truths.

Plus, there’s a lot that goes into running a coaching,
therapy or speaking business that you don’t know about, that bears on the decisions and behavior you’re seeing.

Put your dander in park.

Enjoy the ride.

The Map Is Not The Territory…

This NLP presupposition is particularly apropos when talking about He Said/She Said and other Point Of View type of situations.

The consumer has their point of view “I’ve been screwed” but the vendor has their own point of view too, which ranges from “I truly care about my customers and clients, I’ve done my best to explain the product and will deal fairly with them in whatever they need. ” to the less prosiac: “Screw the customer.”

Crappy trainings, constant annoying/unskillful upsell and dismissive teachers infatuated with their own mystique and the observations Amanda made about her experience  are the “elephant in the middle of the room” in the world of coaches and other service professionals. There are both unscrupulous people involved in selling their wares, as well as people who think they know what they’re talking about …. and simply don’t. And who just don’t get it. And who pass that not getting it on to an unsuspecting public.

Unfortunately, Amanda seems to have gotten one of these. I’m sorry Amanda, that you had that kind of experience. But having had that experience, you’ve actually come out more a winner than you know.

More about that below. But first to address everyone:

On the flip side of the disgruntled buyer situation, there’s the customer having unrealistic expectations of the class or product, or not knowing what they’re signing up for because they didn’t do the homework, or didn’t read the sales page entirely, check the guarantee or ask hard questions of the trainers before buying.

Each side of this equation has valid points, but there is a commonality: Education and communication. These are the key factors in why a training is perceived as “bad” after the fact or a customer feels scammed. This resolves into three categories:

1.  Either the teacher didn’t tell the prospective students what to expect

2. The teacher is lying (call it “creative accounting” if you will – amounts to the same thing)

3. The student expected much more than was ever on the table, and didn’t check those expectations out before they bought-in.

Let’s examine all sides of this equation. I’ll also give you some real Coaching Tips and a Cure for this problem you can implement immediately…

I’ll come out front and say I’ve been in situations, trainers/coaches/healers/etc. like this before myself. Several times early in my coaching training I took marketing trainings that ranged from decent to sucky. The suckier ones of these were inevitably given by someone who barely knew what they were talking about themself, or a self-styled “guru” who was too full of themself to care about their students once the money was in the bank.

While I’ve for the most part stopped taking such trainings, I do like to have a refresher every now and then. So earlier this year I participated in a training that had me rolling my eyes at the lack of integrity.

Like the training Amanda referenced, (though costing in the several-thousands) this program was very content-light and aimed at beginners when advertised (and sold to me) as advanced, the “guru” was rarely there when advertised as the main teacher, and she left the teaching to incompetent subordinates who simply read from the pdfs. Ugh. The training was definitely set up to be a clearing house for the even-more-expensive program the person was offering and heavily promoted throughout. And…the guru and her teachers seemed surprised that more of us didn’t want to buy into the next training. That always has astounded me, that you would give a shitty training, not look at your feedback forms to KNOW that it was shitty, then be surprised people aren’t begging for more.

I asked the hard questions before buying as well, and can’t call it anything but what it was. Her organization blatantly lied to me and to others I spoke with about the nature and scope of the training. NOT Attractive!

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Gurus, this is for you:

WHY on earth would you lie to a prospective customer who is clearly not in your demographic, or on the flip side, who doesn’t have the funds to pay your fees – even the least expensive ones?

Are you THAT BROKE with all your cars, expensive art, the  house in the country and the other one in the City and your elite Diamond and Platinum clients (that you constantly tout)  that you need to deceive people?

Because that’s how this kind of behavior comes off. And it ain’t cool. Not even close.

It’s downright chilly.

And as  karma is a very real force, I’m issuing a challenge to you to STEP UP, tell the Truth, even if it means losing customers. You’ll make a good friend and earn good-karma points by sending them to the people you know who DO offer what they need.

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…So sometimes Amanda, and others reading this -  even if you do all your homework you can still get a sucky experience. It was up to me to turn my experience around, mine the few valuable resources it contained and go on. I’d suggest you do this with any training you come up against that’s like this.

Oh and also don’t wait for things to get better as I did. I wanted to ask for my money back after the first week, when I found the “guru” wasn’t to be present in our actual class meetings. But I thought “wait and see”. I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. So I let it go too long and the “ask for a refund by this date” blew past me. If you get that icky feeling in the pit of your stomach – pull out and ask for a refund immediately. Learn from my mistake please.

So yes, I get it.

Speaking as a business owner….taking responsibility for everything in my business, A-Z is the ONLY thing I can do and remain in integrity. I can pass some jobs off to other people who do them better than me (and do!) but the buck stops with me, the business owner. You too, I bet.

I’ve fluffed it with my students before and done my best to make it up to them. Sometimes due to family issues or pressures of writing a book or producing an intensely-engaging product, I’ve let commitments to my students slide. And mostly, they’ve understood, gone “Uh, hello – we’re here and we need help” and that’s all it took for me to get back to them. If you’re at this place in a training, schedule a one-on-one with the teacher and let them know they’re letting you down.

BUT CAVEAT EMPTOR: BUYER BEWARE.  BE SURE FIRST – that you have a reasonable expectation of a seller’s behavior and what you should be getting (what was promised) out of the product or program. If you were promised a private session with the guru and it hasn’t come to pass, call them on it. If you EXPECT an hour (or more) of coaching and only half an hour was promised – don’t go there. Be reasonable.

“When In Frustration” Coaching Tip:

On the flipside…when you’re dealing with little to no content, upsell-upsell-upsell and blah answers to your serious questions…it’s not very attractive, is it? Pisses you off. But, despite all that, those of us who have gone through this kind of experience have a really good filter set to tell those without integrity from those  we’d like better.

Take that filtering you gained, as a GOOD OUTCOME of this experience, along with the valuable tools you did learn.

Remember where in your body you FELT IT when you realized you’d been had. Then if you go for another opportunity like this, check in with that part of the body not once but several times before you make your final decision. This kind of thing happens no matter what the price of the intro product is. It’s the quality of the teacher involved, not the price point. Vote with your feet in such cases.

Amanda shares:“She tells us because we received such a large discount, we’re not getting the same benefits that her private clients get…”

Well that’s just dandy, isn’t it? It almost sounds like a “neener, neener, you can’t have any” when I’ll bet what she meant to do was entice you into buying up to the private client level. So your coach really doesn’t know how to communicate correctly. Not only did she misrepresent the benefits, but had crappy delivery. You’re miffed and I understand that.  You bought the product and by gosh, you wanted those results promised on the sales page! Fair enough.

I don’t know how the product was offered, if you were offered a choice of three tiers on the page and chose the least expensive, or just how it went down. But Communication is the issue here. Often a tiered stack is how such offers will be presented. Here’s how most of us do this, either in a sales page or through a sales conversation with someone:

“Inexpensive Package A gets these benefits ( typically followed by a bullet point list). Medium-range Package B gets all the benefits of Package A PLUS the following bullet-point list of extras. Expensive Package C gets all the benefits in A and B and ALSO these following bullet pointed benefits.”

That way, there are no mistakes, and your buyer knows exactly what they’re getting.

The Responsible Position, or, what your coach didn’t do:
As a business owner, if I realized I screwed up and people were disgruntled, I’d give them their money back and say so long if that’s what they wanted. I’ve done this when weirdness has happened and it’s always the best policy. No harm, no foul. Particularly if misrepresentation is on the table, you’ve every right to ask for your money back.

Also as the business owner, I’d want if possible, to repair relations with the disgruntled person, and if not, to have their angry energy out of my environment as soon as possible.

If you’re a coach, teacher or other service provider in such as situation – give back the money. Trust me, you NEVER need money like this. It’s poison that will contaminate the energy of your business.

Give it up.

However….let’s look at the other side of this equation – Outcome Expectancy.

On this side of the fence, the consumer can equally be responsible for what happens in a buying transaction. Lets  float an analogy of vendors at the county fair. After hearing a vendor extol the virtues of his apple PIE, a customer passes the pie counter, picks up and pays for a single APPLE….but  in his own mind for whatever reason, EXPECTS to get the entire PIE.

The vendor, happy with making an apple sale, adds value by caramel coating the apple, and  kicks in a coupon for a dollar off a whole pie. The vendor sees this as an “I’m being nice” upgrade.

The customer, due to their Outcome Expectancy of wanting the whole $20 pie for the 50¢ apple price, sees this as a scam and tells all their friends “The Apple Pie guy took my money and didn’t give me what I paid for!”

The sign in front of the apples says “Apples, 50¢”.  The vendor took 50¢ from the customer. That’s pretty transparent. So why does the anger happen on the customer’s part? He made assumptions way beyond the scope of the product’s stated worth or intrinsic value.

Ok, so this is a silly analogy, but you get the point and can extrapolate out to things you might have bought and been dissatisfied with.

Let’s just say this is the case with a product like a $97 taster sample of what that coach had to offer. It was fully explained on the sales page, the upscale training was also explained in a series of bullet points as outlined above.

Any training inexpensive as $97 is BOTH a complete training in – whatever facet of the major topic it is designed to address – PLUS a “taster” of the coach’s services should you wish to engage them at a deeper level. But it’s NO WAY meant to be a full training in the entire scope of the topic, A-Z.  That’s what the higher level trainings are for. You jump in, get your feet wet and if you like what you’ve learned, you level-up and get more info. This is the “college approach” where you take English 101 before English 201, 301, 401 & 501. Same idea. Such trainings are incremental and build on each other.

This common laddering of skills learning should not be seen as “scamming” by the public unless the trainer really poorly communicates this concept.

Let’s say the coach is on the up & up with this, and has fairly represented themself from the beginning.

But the buyer wants more and ASSUMES that ALL their needs will be fulfilled by the cheaper option. Well you know that old saying about assuming so I won’t repeat it here. Suffice to say before you buy, do a REALITY CHECK.

Coaching Questions To Ask Yourself:

1) Why am I buying this product?
2) What do I hope to get out of it?
3) Does what I want to get and my eventual goal match up to the description of the training or product?

if not…then consider another purchase.  If you STILL feel you should be getting a huge pretty package of more stuff than advertised for that price then…

Some tough love:

When you pay $97 for a cut-price hotel room do you complain to the manager because you weren’t given the honeymoon suite?  No, of course not. If you’d got the honeymoon suite for $97 you’d wonder what the heck was wrong with the room.

(I’d probably be checking the closet for Mother at this point)

The honeymoon suite, just like any premium level product, contains much more care lavished on it at greater expense – personal attention from an assigned wait-person, much bigger space and more amenities, an in-room spa, nicer bed, assorted extra food and toiletry items and so on. You’d expect to pay more for a premium product like that and be suspicious if the honeymoon suite were offered to you for peanuts. (as well you should be)

Ditto a premium priced coaching program where the coach spends more time on her clients, gives them extra insider secrets, or a private phone line to contact her with, or advanced training or free live events etc. that those who pay for lesser products don’t get.

You get what you pay for, and shouldn’t expect the Premium Product for a relatively cheap investment. And yes, the $47 or $97 class is a relatively cheap investment.

I’m not talking to anyone in particular here, but IF this speaks to your sentiments….why would you be miffed at not getting what a coach’s premium clients get for the substantially cheaper fee you paid for a reduced-service product?

Would you expect your doctor or dentist to give you such a steep discount? No. Don’t expect it of any business coach, therapist or other service provider. It disrespects the provider and yourself too.

Does that cheese you off?  Get Over It.  This is How authors, coaches, speakers, healers, therapists and everyone else, online or off, make a living.

If you’re a subscriber of mine & think we should be giving the product of our hard work, hearts and souls away for cheap or free – please unsubscribe from my list right this minute. You’ll be doing us both a favor.

And..this is why like many coaches, I do joint ventures with organizations like Maestro Conference and people like Linda Pannell, Lisa Garr, Debra Thompson,  Adela Rubio, Ellen Britt, Michelle Skaletski Boyd and Tom Buford to name a few. Folks who offer free teachings to anyone who can pick up a phone or listen on computer.

So that there is an option for folks who are cash-strapped.

So that there is a range of offers for all ends of the spectrum. And I pack that option as full of value for the short time we’re together as I pack my longer paid programs.

I Do Not however, serve the gratitude-free.

Neither should you.

TWO Coaching Tips:
Before purchase, ASK EVERY QUESTION YOU NEED TO about a product, the guarantee for that product, what exact parts the product contains and so on.

If you expected marketing training out of a basic EFT course and didn’t check it out, that would be one example of an incorrect assumption & expectation plus failure to verify parameters of the deal. DO. NOT. ASSUME.

So if you didn’t ask, your bad. If the vendor didn’t take every opportunity to clarify the parameters to you – their bad.

I personally have been on both sides of this, so yes I can speak to both the customer and the vendor bit. We’re all learning, making mistakes (there is no failure, only feedback – remember?) and growing. 

2nd Tip - WANT for others what you want for yourself. In the note above I asked you to unsubscribe if you wanted me to give you things that are immensely valuable for cheap or free. That means you don’t want me to make a living which besides being disrespectful also prevents YOU from making a living.

Check your feelings and your life – if you have this feeling of deep entitlement like the world (or me, or anyone else) “owes” you, how are your finances? Probably not great.

Truly abundant people want to share the wealth. It’s a lesson to take if you want to improve your life – want for others what you want for yourself.

Tune in again tomorrow for PART II: Crucial Knowledge, Scouting Badges & Why Having a Kitten in your Tummy Is Good For You

“Doggone our families! Why can’t they just ‘get’ us sometimes?”. Lia, who’s been mentoring with me for several years was quite cross over her sister’s unwillingness to use EFT to deal with her marital breakup. Lia had cured her sugar addiction in coaching with me using EFT and wanted badly to help her sister, Martha.

Martha felt EFT was “too weird” however, and wouldn’t discuss it further, telling Lia “that stuff’s okay for you but it’s just too way out there for me”. Lia was frustrated, sick with worry for her sister (which we tapped on) and didn’t know what to do next.

I can SO relate.

When I first started to share energy coaching with my non-energy-savvy family, they raised their eyebrows, laughed, politely patted my hand and said “it’s great you found a hobby, dear”.

Most of us have had friends or relatives roll their eyes at one another and been the odd duck out in more traditional circles when we try to share energy transformation modalities.

But there’s a great way you can get people into the joys of living a clearer, happier life through energy work. And that is….

Drop the jargon.

Don’t say one acronym – not ETHOS, not EFT, not BSFF or any of the hundred others you might know.

In fact, don’t talk about the tool at all.

Just casually talk to your friends or family members about how they feel. And as you’re speaking with them about what isn’t right in their life, as they are in the depths of the “Dang it, if only I’d have had the guts to….” or “It just KILLS me that I didn’t…” or “I can’t stop thinking about it, and it’s driving me nuts!”

Ask: “How would you rather feel?”

This usually stops people in their tracks.

“Huh?” they’ll say “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what would you really want to feel like, if you could drop this feeling of (hurt, anger, betrayal, jealousy, guilt, shame etc.)?”

Then listen and be really open to what they are telling you without the NEED on your part to fix them, or what’s going on.

Your dropping the need you have to make it all better for other people is HUGE!

When I realized this, and simply listened without attachment to the other person’s outcome (and we’re talking about people I’d gladly give my life for, dear friends and family members), all of a sudden, THEY became more open to what I had to say about HOW to make their situation better.

Then, when they’ve told you how they’d rather feel, acknowledge what they’ve said and ask them:

“Would you like to get a little bit of the way to that place right now?”

If they say yes, then if you practice EFT for instance, get them to tap their HAND points as they tell you their story. Importantly, get them to rate their SUDS or intensity of feeling BEFORE you begin tapping.

And chances are, you’ll get them a good piece of the way down the road, not just a little bit, but it’s a good clean-energy practice to under-promise and over-deliver. That way, folks you’re working with get that extra bit that makes them feel like they got a bonus for free. And that’s something we all love. 

It’s important to start off with something they won’t immediately dismiss as weird looking or “too much to remember”. Using just the hand points addresses a large amount of the person’s intensity level without the overwhelm the whole EFT “recipe” can bring new tappers.

You tap, and tell them just to follow what you’re doing as they tell their story. By and by they’ll be on autopilot, tapping their finger points and karate chop point and telling their story.

As they tell their story, tail enders will come up, guide them to tap on these using just the hand points as well.

When they’ve been talking and tapping for about five minutes, ask them to rate their SUDS or intensity level again.

Most will find a few points shaved off, if not more. I’ve had family look at me with surprise on their faces and say bluntly “I thought all that stuff was just [*steer manure*], but I’ll be doggoned, this [*manure*] really works!”

Now, they enthusiastically tap with other family members who think they’re just as cuckoo as I am.

But they feel better about themselves and their lives. And I don’t care if they think I’m cuckoo, as long as we all feel the best we possibly can.

Because, and this is another important lesson, especially for newbies, the better we feel, the more better feeling experiences we attract.

And that’s a story for another day.

I hope this has been helpful. Let me know how you’re teaching your family to use the energy methods you know and love – you can put a post in the forums or in a blog on the ETHOS Community at:

http://ethosmethod.ning.com

Or feel free to leave a comment on this post below – use the handy-dandy tools in the orange bar at the bottom of the page to keep up the conversation!

Happy Valentine’s Day to you & a lovely rest of the week!

Warm Blessings,
Maryam

My publishter, New Harbinger, sends out a very interesting monthly newsletter. The following is from their onboard promo for David Skibbins’ book Becoming a Life Coach: A Complete Workbook for Therapists and it is very sage advice  – especially for Energy Coaches in training…or at any level of their practice.

As we are studying ethics shortly in the Certified Energy Coach Program, this advice becomes particularly poignant. And those coming into coaching out of any kind of therapy background, do read this book posthaste for it highlights among other subjects, very important shifts in worldframe that therapists must make to be successful as coaches and what our rigorous training prepares us beautifully to coach around.

A "bravo" and two thumbs up to my colleague David Skibbins, PhD, CPCC for a wonderful book and job well done. Highly recommended for Energy Coaches and anyone transiting from any form of therapy or healing work into coaching.

    Maryam Webster
    writing as Director, The Energy Coach Institute

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From Chapter 1:
CONTRASTING THERAPY & COACHING: DIFFERENT LEVELS OF AUTHORITY

{worthy text which can be read here excised}

Experts Can’t Be Trusted

Many mentally healthy clients distrust therapists. And not unreasonably—all our training in psychology has warped our point of view. We are experts in the assessment and treatment of psychopathology. And so we tend to see it everywhere: everyone is neurotic, corporations are dysfunctional, the government is addicted to power and control. Most people are mentally healthy. Until you wrap your mind around that fact you’ll be re-creating your clinical practice wherever you go. You’ll be unconsciously disempowering your clients by finding problems they need to solve. They’ll sense that you don’t completely trust them, that you regard them as patients. You may get compliance or you may get rebellion—both of which are expressions of dissatisfaction

The Wrong Tool for the Job

It’s inappropriate to apply a therapeutic perspective to most real-life situations, especially work settings. Therapeutic perspectives are well-honed tools that are invaluable in assisting dysfunctional clients to become functional, but they are simply inadequate for addressing the dynamics of already functional environments. Of course, this hasn’t stopped psychodynamic and psychologically based systems theorists from analyzing the workplace. Indeed, these ideas have been elegantly applied to the workplace for years—with no apparent impact on work environments whatsoever. Pointing out the narcissistic qualities of leadership, analyzing top-down communication fl ow patterns, and discoursing on parentifi ed employer-employee relationships have all fallen on deaf ears. Having twenty-three names for snow doesn’t help you much in a jungle—and all that accurate clinical terminology doesn’t translate very well to corporate America. That’s because people at work have work to do and don’t have time for psychological mumbo jumbo. It’s simply the wrong tool for the job.

Functioning companies are intelligent, responsive, complex living systems. To superimpose a paradigm that evolved out of personal, psychological clinical work onto the richness of the minute-to-minute challenges and choices that face a growing corporate entity is absurd. The concepts of an outside expert—especially a clinically trained one—are going to have very little impact on that environment.

The Special Bonus of Therapy: We Know How to Control Ourselves

Therapists are particularly well suited to an egalitarian approach because of our training in self-management. The intensive interpersonal training we’ve gone through also serves to make us outstanding empowerment coaches. We’ve already learned how to moderate our responses in the service of the client’s needs. Other coaches-in-training also have to struggle with selfidentification as a helper and the habit of giving advice, but few of them have gone through the deep, insight-oriented inner work required of a psychotherapist. Thanks to our training as therapists, when we realize the negative impact controlling behavior can have on a client, we can modify our responses to better coach our clients. Once therapists stop trying to sneak therapy into coaching, therapists become outstanding empowerment coaches—primarily because of our self-awareness and our self-management abilities.

GIVING UP AUTHORITY

However, just reading a few paragraphs about authority may not be enough to persuade you to give up years of feeling in charge. So let’s see exactly what’s at stake here:

• What do I enjoy the most about feeling competent and in control as a therapist?
• Where else in my life do I think I need to be the one in charge?
• What might I get from letting go of my authority role when I coach?

Now that you understand how different coaching is from therapy—and why it should be—here’s an exercise to help you fully step into this new perspective:

You can read the rest of this article here.

I was recently asked by a client how to remain professional in a contentious situation. Here is something I wrote a long time ago that still applies:

A good model for women leaders to study is the aristocratic Dr. Maya Angelou. Her calm, poised, well-spoken personality is known and beloved by many as a national treasure.

Dr. Angelou is honorable but not prudish.

She is classy, but knows how (and when) to sling her slang.

She would never indulge in a public catfight, bitter put-down, political manipulation or game of one-upmanship. She once said her self-worth would not permit such actions – neither should yours.

Dr. Angelou leads very simply by her words and the sterling example of her inherent and unshakable self-dignity.

Cultivate that within you that is respectful, self-aware, classy, dignified and grounded in bedrock, and you will have all the professional demeanor you will ever need.

Do you AQ? If not, you might want to. AQ stands for Abundance Quotient and is a system developed by my friend Kim George to e-x-p-a-n-d the potential and possibilites of your life. I loved her newsletter intro of today so much I am reproducing it below as a sterling example of a wonderful Everyday Bliss mindset. Savor this delicious slice of summer savvy and get yourself on over to Kim’s site and sign up for her newsletter and classes today.
 

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Kim

Connect to the wonderful Kim and the AQ institute here: http://coachingintogreatness.com

It’s rare anymore, but I sometimes get potential clients who wonder why I refer them to other coaches when they say “But it’s YOU I really want to work with!”. Sometimes I feel I’m simply not the best coach for them and that what they really need is to be found with another coach I can refer them to. Sometimes people want coaching, but they really aren’t ready for the kind of intensity such a relationship can generate, or are a wee bit too comfortable in their rut to really work at change. Sometimes a different level of expertise or specialty is called for. And then, there are those who are simply “coachability impaired”.

To correct what may be a widespread assumption, coaches are not obliged to help all and sundry. Though many varieties of coaching exist for the wide variety of clients that exist, coaching by its very nature is a profession that demands one’s highest and best performance. To assure that, coaches are choosy and only work with clients that fit our particular skillsets and energetic bandwidth – just like other service providers. You don’t see a lawyer for a heart transplant. Likewise, a C-level executive seeking snappy, fast-paced high performance coaching wouldn’t employ a creativity, academic or ADD coach. For different needs there are different talents and specialties in the coaching world. That extends also to the personality of client being coached, in what we refer to as “coachability”.

To protect our energies and precious time from being wasted, we all have our red velvet ropes and sets of immutable parameters past which folks who aren’t at a certain level, are not permitted. To attempt to coach people who are resistant to change, aren’t ready for a coaching partnership or are not willing to expand their horizons would be an exercise in frustration and futility for both coach and client. Most experienced coaches can size potential clients like this up in a few heartbeats. It only takes a few to drain you dry before you develop such instincts. And in a nod to Bea, it’s not arrogance or snobbery, but self-preservation and conservation of resources at the heart of the golden restraining posts holding up that red velvet rope.

Thanks and a tippo of the “you said it” hat goes to Seth Godin for his Distinctionary entry below, on “What Coachable Means in Real Life”. You go, my brother.

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Coachable

A friend is wrestling with his ability to be coached. For the coachable, “Turn right at the light” is seen as a helpful suggestion for someone lost in a strange town… the advice goes in, is considered and then acted upon. For someone wrestling with coaching, though, it’s like surgery. It’s painful, it has side effects and it might lead to a bad reaction.

Coaching happens all the time. Most often, it’s not from a boss or a professional coach. In fact, the best insights and advice usually come from informal or unexpected sources.

In fluid marketing and organization environments, where the world changes rapidly, coachability is a key factor in evolving and succeeding. Not because all advice is good advice. In fact, most advice is lousy advice. No, the reason coachability is so crucial is that without it, you don’t have the emotional maturity to consider whether the advice is good or not. You reject the process out of hand, and end up stuck.

Symptoms of uncoachability:

* Challenging the credentials of the coach
* Announcing that you’re being unfairly singled out
* Pointing out, angrily, that the last few times, the coach was wrong
* Identifying others who have succeeded without ever being coached
* Resisting a path merely because it was one identified by a coach

Years ago, at the great Bolshoi Ballet, auditions for the troupe were conducted among 8 year old girls. That’s because it took ten years to become great. How did the auditions work? The teachers weren’t looking for the best dancers. They were looking for the dancers who took coaching the best. The rest would come with time.

See the original at Seth Godin’s Blog, and Bea’s post on “Topgrading”.