I’m not gonna sugar coat this,
IT BLOWS when the clients are nowhere to be found!

You’re worried, you’re stressed and and sadly, the easiest thing to do – getting frustrated and angry and sad – doesn’t really seem to do the trick when it comes to moving things forward.

Nope, it’s time to do some troubleshooting to figure out what the hay might be going on.

Here’s 16 things to try when business is slow and all you wanna do is help some folks and pay the bills:

1. Give up! Ok, so you don’t have to GIVE UP, give up. Just give up the struggle.

Let yourself off the hook. Get out from under all that pressure you’ve been putting on yourself to SUCCEED at the numbers game. Close the laptop, take off the headset and go do something that has NOTHING to do with work. Woo alert! When you give up, you’re getting out of your way and giving the Universe/God/Goddess (or whatever you believe in!) a chance to work some magic in your favor. Even if you don’t believe in this, just give it a chance, you might be surprised at the results!

2. Are you having FUN?! No one says to themself, ‘gee, I’d sure love to find a coach who’s miserable and hating life!’ People want to hire people who are happy and having a good time. Work fun into your daily routine.

3. Are you feeling desperate? Get yourself to a place of feeling FULL and SATISFIED. Do whatever it takes. Even if you only have three days until a bill is due, a new client could come into your life in a matter of seconds or minutes. You just never know.

4. Change your measurement of success. If your success is based on the numbers game (number of clients you’ve got or dollars in your bank account), you’re likely feeling pretty crappy about yourself when those numbers are low. The uber competitive, capitalistic, age of the individual has left us tying our worth to numbers. It doesn’t have to be that way. You get to make up your own definition of success and tell yourself whatever story you want about what it means.

5. Are you being consistent with your marketing? Consistency is so so important. People encounter so much every day, they aren’t likely to remember you unless you’re reminding them frequently that you exist and what you can do for them.

Creating content also reminds YOU what you’re all about and what you can do for people. And keeps you creative, fired up and evolving.

6. Does your business exist in your head? Sometimes, it might *feel* like you’re doing a lot of work for your biz because it’s always on your mind, BUT, if that’s the only place it is, nobody knows about it! If you’re always contemplating your ideas, or running them by people for feedback, but never taking action to make them real, it only exists in your head.

Get those ideas OUT of your head!

7. Are you embarrassed to send people to your website or sales page? Do you hate the name of your program so much you never want to say it? Do you have a hard time talking about what you do? This WILL create a huge block in the flow of your biz! If you hate what you have out there or clam up whenever someone asks what you do, and secretly don’t want anyone to see it or ask about it, then they won’t. It’s that simple.

Love all the pieces of your biz and yell about it from rooftops! People get excited when you’re excited!  <– click to tweet it!

If you can’t do this, you need to take a look at whether you’re *actually* into what you’re doing.

8. Do people understand the value of what you’re offering? Do they get what you can do for them and what’s in it for them? If people don’t get how what you can do for them will make their lives more awesome, they aren’t going to invest in it.

9. Are you barking up the wrong tree? People buy what they WANT, but not necessarily what they NEED. And, they have to be ready for it. If someone says no or not now, move along and find people who are ready for what you can do for them. Get off the crusade of trying to convince people they need it. They very well might but you can’t force them into it.

10. Are you being the person your clients need to be in order to by your thing? Our clients mirror us. So, if people aren’t buying, for instance, take a look at your headspace and actions to see if you’re exhibiting this same behavior.

Are you holding back in some way and not wanting to confront a personal demon? Are you sitting on decisions or telling yourself you can’t afford something? Are you worrying that hiring someone won’t help you with what you need?

All of these thought patterns will attract other people with the same ones. Take the risk or leap you want your potential clients to make.

11. Are you hiding? Are you saying what you want and how you want to say it? Do you have pictures of yourself on your site? People buy when they feel connected. They want to see your face and hear your personal story.

If you said ‘yes, Mara, I am’ to this one. Ask yourself again – AM I REALLY BEING MY WEIRD SELF?!! Take a risk, I promise people will NATURALLY be drawn to you when you’re being your self, no matter how WHACKY that is!

12. Is the language you’re using approachable and understandable? Write how you speak and use words and phrases your clients ACTUALLY use to describe their woes. People will be all – YES! THAT’S SO ME!! Stay away from generic jargon that everyone uses but can mean different things to different people. Step into your power… become your authentic self… you get the idea 🙂 Get original and honest with your copy!

13. Is there a tricky mindset at play? Will having more money or more clients be in direct conflict with a hidden belief you’re hardboring? Here’s two I’ve uncovered in the past year:

• Having more money would mean I would have to make decisions about certain things in my life. Decisions I didn’t want to have to make. So, keeping myself broke was keeping me from having to make those decisions! Convenient, right?!
• Having more clients would mean being responsible for people and potentially letting them down.

Ask yourself: Who would I have to be to make money? What would having money mean?

14. Work on your money story! There’s so much packed into this one. We all have a past with money that dates back way farther than we can remember. Do some work to help you dig that up and get to know what’s going on there.

If you’re broke and always telling yourself you can’t afford things, you will continue down that path unless you change something. Try making a tiny shift in how you look at money. ie – Pay your bills with gratitude and appreciation by making a list of all the things this service enabled you to do. Or, look at not buying something as a choice rather than because you can’t afford it. It’s likely that you could sacrifice your rent to pay for something you wanted but you would rather have a home than a $500 pair of boots. That’s a choice! Feel empowered by your priorities instead of controlled by them.

15. Get rid of something! I’m sure you’ve heard the saying ‘nature abhors a vacuum’ – well, that shit is damn true! Try it out and watch what happens. It doesn’t really matter what it is… actual stuff, using a gift certificate you’ve been saving, cleaning out the fridge. Just do something and get it off your to do list. This creates flow where things are blocked.

Just be aware of what’s coming your way. Sometimes we’ll get sent something we don’t want as a test to see how committed we are to our true goals. Stay strong and hold out for the thing you really want!

16. Do you really want to be doing this? Are you really actually excited about it?! Get prepared for this one because the answer might be NO. And that’s OK.

What would you rather be doing instead? Is it a different offer or whole other business altogether? Be honest with yourself. Even if you don’t know how to make the switch right now, you will figure it out. You totally deserve to be doing something you love and getting to be YOUR WEIRD SELF. Believe it.

Tell me, which one(s) resonated the most with you? Do you have any specific things you like to do when you’re feeling all blocked up in the client area?

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