biz basics

  • Spiritual Biz Basics, Two Minute Biz Tips, Uncategorized

    A Word About Authenticity For Spiritual Business Peeps

    Are you a spiritual entrepreneur who longs to serve more people? Try making more authentic connections.

    Let me start out by saying I know the word “authentic” can be a bit overused, but it refers to such an important concept: the true desire to get to know, like, and serve your audience. It’s about coming to them from a space of “this is who I am” and meeting them on a personal level. It’s about paying attention to others and establishing relationships that are more than just financial interactions and opportunities. It’s about honest interest in the overall well-being and personality of your potential client.

    I can’t emphasize the importance of having real, interested and friendly interactions with the people you connect with on the internet and in real life. Sure, you have a business and you want people to work with you, but there is a difference in interacting with a person just to sell to them and being genuinely interested in a person and growing a relationship and allowing the business relationship to evolve from there.

    I make a point to keep tabs on my people because I love seeing what they are doing and how their lives are. It gives us a place to connect – our lives and the things going on in them.

    And those people usually know what I do for work or how I can serve them because I talk about it all. the. time. Or they ask me about it.

    Just make sure that you keep up good boundaries – and practice good boundary keeping yourself. Personally, I have to watch how much I interact with people through messenger because people who should be clients might message me, asking for advice and guidance without paying for it. I have to make sure that the work I do is kept within my working hours and that my time is honored and valued as well.

    And good boundaries can go both ways, you know? We all have cringed when someone we vaguely remember from high school or just met in a business networking group on Facebook sends a private message with the intention of selling us on a product or service. From the get-go, the energy of the interaction feels off and we are almost waiting for the pitch.

    I know that some marketing gurus teach people to do this – the more people you pitch, the more you sell, right? But really, we’re sensitive and spiritual entrepreneurs who are working from an attraction perspective, not a push perspective, right? We want a more positive energy behind our service offers. We are looking to attract the right clients to our practices.

    What do you think? Is it important to you to get to know the people you want to serve? How do you feel about connecting with your ideal clients and actually getting to know them before, during, and after you work with them? Please feel free to comment below.

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  • Spiritual Biz Basics

    5 Ways to Make Your Spiritual Business Stand Out

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    Make your spiritual business stand out!

    Like many other Light Workers, I follow a wide variety of different people; from tarot readers to angel intuitives to shamans to coaches to celebrities.

    The spiritual businesses who stand out, stand out!

    Those who don’t – well, they just all blend together in a cacophony of mostly anonymous one card readings, freebie offers, and shared Hay House quotes. (Read Kim Garst’s blog at Boom Social, Facebook Says You Are Spamming…  about the future of your Facebook page if you share too many re-shared posts.)

    While all that same old, same old can be fine in a completely mediocre sense, you’d be better off doing something to make your spiritual business stand out from the crowd. When you are working on your business, you want to be the one that others can pick out – not one of those who just blends in.

    How do you make sure that people know who YOU are and recognize your work? It’s not just about putting your website at the bottom of all of your posts… Not. At. All.

    Here are some of the things that you need to do to make your spiritual business stand out.

     

    smbeunique

    Do something different, for Heaven’s sake!

    There are about a zillion and a half readers posting daily one card readings with the text from the companion books copied – word for word – into their posts.

    I see them on Instagram and on Facebook. They are all hashtagged and ready to be shared.

    But many of them don’t have any sort of branding cues (a.k.a. anything in the picture to associate with the reader’s site) – just a picture of a card and the meaning.

    Why not do something DIFFERENT for your readers? Something unique? Something that you are the only one doing?

    It might take a little bit longer to create something original, but it will be well worth the time and effort, as it will give the people something other than yet another daily card post to look forward to.

    *Fix – Sit down and think of something really cool that you’ve never seen anyone do. Do you want to do a weekly meditation instead of a reading, or offer them an overview of the angel who is assigned to that week according to astrological sign or …?? The world is your oyster.

    Get creative. Get nutty. Experiment. TRACK RESULTS. Be totally and 100% YOU!

    Listen to the Make Your Spiritual Business Stand Out podcast here:

    Check Out Spirituality Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Angel Business Basics on BlogTalkRadio

    similar

    This is one of the biggest mistakes I see Angel Card Readers and Light Workers of all sorts make: they have a mish-mash of ultra-super-cool images on their sites, and different images on their Facebook profile, and still different images on their websites, and different images on their business cards!

    This can be quite confusing to a potential client – because he or she will not be able to immediately tell if you are actually you.

    Think about it. If you are talking to someone and really make a good connection with that person, you might give him/her a card and let the person know about an upcoming event. The person – who you had a great connection with – actually sees one of your flyers in town, but doesn’t know it is YOURS because the pictures are so different from those from your card that s/he wouldn’t even know it was your event.

    Make your work recognizable. Put your card or something distinct in ALL of your materials.

    Consider this… Would you be able to recognize a Coke ad from a mile away? How about Mc Donald’s? Both are major brands, and both are extremely recognizable.

    *Fix – Have the same colors, images, and even words on your website, your cards, your social media sites, your flyers, etc. Make sure that people can tell, from one glance, that what they are looking at belongs to you.

     

    consistent

    This is your business, my dear. You need to be regularly posting for your flock. And I am not talking about sharing re-shared images or quotes from gurus and legends – but sharing real content that your followers will benefit from.

    And this is a big one for many. People get into scheduling posts to go to their social media networks, but they don’t engage the people who opted in for their emails, they don’t blog about interesting topics, they don’t put so much time and energy into their sites or their brand.

    *Fix – Email your list at least once a month with valuable information and anecdotes about your own life (your followers should get to know, like, and trust you). Talk about lessons you learned in the past month – share something you learned in a recent course or something that touched your soul or changed your perspective. Try to blog – not post a reading, but actually blog – once to twice a month. 

    Don’t be a shot in the dark kind of haphazard poster. Consistency creates trust.

     

    value

     

    One thing that turned my business upside down was learning how to give ultra super valuable content to my flock without overgiving to individuals. That is the key, but it can be kind of tough in our field. We want to help everyone – one person at a time, those who reach out to us. But we really can’t spend a whole bunch of time giving freebies (I certainly don’t recommend doing a bunch of freebies, unless you want to attract freebie hunters).

    So how can you give value without giving it all away? Teaching and sharing.

    You can teach your audience about what you do when you do a reading. You can teach them about the foundations of energy work. You can talk to them about books that you’ve read that you found extremely helpful. You can show them different ways to read cards (with an example), share information about angels, etc.

    This is another area you can get creative in. Give the people a taste of just what wonder and magick lies in that brain of yours.

    *Fix – Think VALUE, not BARGAIN or FREE. Teach, share, explain. Let them get to know what value your services have in their lives.

     

    Your flock – those who follow you – is essential to your business. Without them, you have NO business. That is the bottom line of it.

    And the spiritual businesses that stand out are those who know and cater to their followers. They think about what problems they can help others with, and they even ASK how they can refine their services to better suit their needs.

    Successful spiritual entrepreneurs put their clients first. They talk not about themselves so much, but about solutions for their client’s problems.

    *Fix – ASK your followers what problems and issues they face, and then create content that talks about solutions for those problems.

     

    Making your spiritual business stand out takes a little bit more effort and thought than blending in – but it is totally worth it! Make sure that you follow these tips to help your light shine a little brighter than the others.

    Would you like to schedule a complimentary consultation so that we can explore different ways of making YOUR business stand out from the crowd? Let’s chat! Send me an email, and we’ll coordinate the details!

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  • Spiritual Biz Basics

    Use the New “Book Now” Button on Facebook

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    Oh my GodsnGoddesses – the new call to action button (Book Now button) on Facebook is pretty darn cool, don’t you think?

    It adds a layer of ease to allowing our clients to contact us – or to lead them to your site or to your videos or to just about anyplace on the web that you would like!

    When you combine it with a link to a calendar where your clients can see your schedule and book and pay for a session… SHEER GENIUS!!!

    I recently discovered Acuity Scheduling and am enamored with this scheduling website. It is simple to use, has a lot of different functions (from allowing you to enter a set and varied schedule and change colors to fit in with your theme) – it even shows if a client has paid or not.

    FAB-U-LOUS!

    So, if you want to maximize the value of that “Book Now” button on Facebook AND skip the back and forth of arranging appointments, do yourself the favor of signing up for Acuity Scheduling and setting your schedule as the link for your clients to see when they push that Book Now button.

    Acuity Scheduling costs $10 per month for a small business user. In time saved and adding to a professional image, it is worth a fortune!

    You can check out/sign up for Acuity Scheduling here (click here).

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  • Spiritual Biz Basics

    Standing Out is the KEY to Success!

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    When you are working to build your online presence, making your daily readings and online content stand out is KEY to success!

    If you are anything like me, you have a few hundred friends who are into angel card reading, tarot, astrology, and just passing general awesome information around on social media. My feeds are like streams of wonderful advice and guidance.

    There are some readers, coaches, and influencers whose work I can spot from a mile away, like Leonie Dawson with her original artwork and fonts, Hiro Boga’s abstract yet peaceful blue and purple background, and Danielle LaPortes stark, handwritten #truthbomb posts – but they are few and far between. The vast majority – especially the newbie crowd – post totally anonymous readings, quotes, and content. There is no way to link the content back to the person who did it.

    PS – there is nothing wrong with being a newbie – we all start out that way!

    So, what YOU want to do as an up-and-coming superstar Light Worker is to inject your posts with your own special personality – and give visual cues to what that personality is so people see something and automatically know it is from you!

    How can you do that?

    Here are a few tips and tricks that will make the content you share on social media stand out from the crowd!

    1) Put your name and website into the picture. You can either use an online design program like Canva.com or PicMonkey to add your website and links to the bottom of the picture of your reading and also to create fabulous graphics to use in your blog posts and on your social media sites that tie back to your website.

    *If you are working with a photo based social media platform like Instagram and you don’t want to do the extra steps of working with your picture in a different program, then you can simply put your business card into the picture!

    2) Choose a color scheme and stick with it! Personally, I use a lot of warm tones – oranges, reds, golds, and yellows. The vast majority of the backgrounds I use and posts I create are in those colors. (As you may know, I use the watercolor background like the one at the top of this page for a majority of my quotes.) When I do venture into green territory, I generally use the exact same green color every time, and I use the same shapes and text types as I normally do. Of course, I put my website on the pictures as well.

    3) Choose a couple of text types, and stick with them as well.

     

    I use very similar colors and fonts on my site and in my social media content.
    I use very similar colors and fonts on my site and in my social media content.

     

    4) Use similar props every time. Love feathers or crystals or hearts or candles? Use them as props for your readings. Use the same props over and over again. Arrange them in a similar fashion – or have something funky and distinctly you in the pictures.

    5) Create signature content. One way to set yourself apart from the crowd is to regularly highlight something that you do well. For example, I love Lisa Frideborg’s Deck Interviews that she puts out when she gets a new deck (here is her interview with Doreen Virtue’s Angel Tarot Deck). When I was running Clear Vision Readings and Reiki, I would post Intuitive Musings posts that were designed to help people learn to read tarot, and also to highlight the similarities and differences between decks.

    6) Don’t copy other people’s looks. OHMYGODSNGODDESSES! This is so important! If you copy the look, feel, background, font, etc. of someone you admire, then you are basically making your readings and content blend with theirs. If the person you admire is a celebrity, then your content will likely get lost in the shuffle of a thousand adoring fans who are trying to emulate the same look and feel.

    And, the MOST important thing:

    7) Fully embrace who you are and what you like! Be yourself – fully and boldly! When you are creating your content and visual branding (how your stuff looks) – it is vital that you are yourself! Bring aspects of the quirky, unique, and ultra-interesting person you are into your work. Give your own interpretations of cards. Use your own voice and talk at your own intellectual level (don’t dumb it down – you can explain if need be). Trust that there are people out there who will be touched by what you have to say and who you are!

    Don’t be afraid to be bold and just be who you are. Standing out from the crowd is a vital part of creating recognition of your work – and that recognition will help you stand out and succeed. That is what you should be doing, really. Don’t allow yourself to get lost in the shuffle. If you set yourself apart from the rest, then people will start to know who you are by sight!

    Would you like to get personal advice about how to make yourself and your Light Worker business stand out? I offer One-to-One Business Mentoring. Set up your Free Introductory Session today! Simply (click here) and schedule your free half hour session.

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  • Spiritual Biz Basics

    Using Social Media Authentically and Organically

    Here is the webinar’s audio.

    Today, I didn’t talk about exponentially increasing your follower numbers as quick as a flash. I talked about authenticity, nurturing relationships, being yourself, sharing value – and growing your flock organically.

    Personally, I believe there is value in doing things kind of the old fashioned way. You have to show up consistently, bring your heart and soul into your business, and post attractive and engaging content. If you don’t, then it is just a hollow numbers game.

    And those of us who are sensitive to energy – well, the hollow numbers game is NOT what we want as the foundations of our businesses.

    I hope you enjoy.

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