Amy walker business coach

4 Myths About Living Life On Your Own Terms.

In the entrepreneur world we talk a lot about creating the life we desire.  We talk about financial freedom and time freedom.  We have a rosy picture of living life on your own terms.  And we talk about it as though it is something we will achieve.  It’s a moment of arrival.  The moment when we can look around and say, “This is the life I always dreamed of.”

Many dream the dream, few achieve the dream.  I’ve coached many people as they transition into the life they want.  Some were already highly successful in terms of paycheck, but were not living the life they wanted.  Some were dirt poor and created financial success.  Some started poor and ended poor.  Some started with more money and ended with less.  How can that be possible?  It’s pretty simple, money is not the ultimate indicator of success.

As a coach I see a few BIG misconceptions that keep people from the life they want.  When you subscribe to these philosophies, you are likely to find yourself feeling like you are on a rat race, constantly chasing a life that is always out of reach.

Fiction: Having enough money will allow me to live the life I want.

Fact: Money is a magnifier. If you are already living life on your own terms, money will enhance that.  If you are not, it will also enhance that.  For example, if family time is a high priority for you, but you are working too much, more money to you will look like more responsibility and still not enough family time.  You can find yourself feeling like you can’t take time off because your business or job requires so much of you.  And you can’t walk away from the paycheck because the family needs you to provide for them.  You’ve created the golden handcuffs. The trouble is, you made your money living out of your values so you created a system that requires you to stay out of your values.

Fiction: I have to earn living life on my own terms.

Fact: We choose to live life on our own terms.  At some point every person who is truly living a life according to their own rules wakes up and chooses to live life that way.  It always involves risk.  It always involves change.  It always involves breaking the status quo.  Most of the truly wealthy people I know made that change long before their fortunes showed up.  In fact, they created their fortunes through an intense determination to create the life they wanted.  It’s not about how many years you work in corporate America before you branch out on your own.  Last week I spoke to a college Senior who is finishing up her last semester of college and is NOT looking for a job because she is launching her business.  And you know what, she is already making more money than MANY experienced entrepreneurs.  She didn’t earn that, she chose it, and created it.

Fiction: Living life on my own terms is easier than following someone else’s plan.

Fact: (Lets just laugh for a moment at how silly that myth is hahahahahahahaha!  Okay now back to the reality.)  If it was easier, everyone would be doing it.  It’s hard to say, these are my priorities, these are my boundaries, and no, I will not chase dollars to get by.  All successful people are willing to fail.  We don’t like to fail, we don’t do it often.  But we are all willing.  We said goodbye to our safety nets a long time ago. (check out my popular blog post on getting rid of safety nets.) For more details or Amy walker coaching services.

amy walker

I am an amazing starter!  Back in the day when I only had one kid, I loved the fabric store.  I mean honestly, there are very few things more fun than finding a cool pattern or the perfect fabric for new curtains, or some home décor project.  I LOVED envisioning the project and making the initial decisions.  I enjoyed the first 25% of the work.  I endured the middle 50% of the work, and I despised the last 25%!  I was a great starter.  Finishing was another story and as a result I had a chest full of started projects.  At one point I started a quilt made from our old denim.  I moved that unfinished quilt to 3 different houses before it mysteriously disappeared!  It’s annoying in my crafting, it’s downright detrimental in my business!

I see this behavior all of the time in certain clients.  This may or may not ring true for you.  But even if you are an awesome finisher, at some point, you will get a starter on your team.  I’ll even take it a step further to say that if you are a finisher, you should look for a starter to be on your team!  Starters are visionaries, innovators, creative thinkers, and problem solvers.  They are genius in these areas. However, their vision for what they are creating is so strong, that they feel the sense of accomplishment well before the task is finished and they mentally and emotionally move on.  Then the drive they felt to start the project disappears, and the discipline to finish the project can be a challenge.  Sometimes it is a big challenge!

You may be a starter if… (Read this in your best Jeff Foxworthy voice)

• You have 10 different products and programs to sell, but your business sales are struggling.
• You’ve been working on your book for more than a year.
• You are on revision number 52 of your website, but it still hasn’t launched.
• You never seem to get around to your marketing implementation because you are still working on the master plan, which by the way will change lives and probably the world because it is so amazing.
• You LOVE meeting new people and talking with perspective clients, but have to staple your head to the phone in order to accomplish any follow up.

Does this sound familiar?  If you are a starter, here are 5 simple tips to increase your ability to finish.  And if you are a finisher, going crazy trying to lead a starter, you may want to forward this message on!

1. Stop beating yourself up for starting things and not finishing.  Honor the creative genius you are and take inventory of all of the amazing things you have created.
2. Make friends with discipline.  He’s not a bad guy that makes you do things you don’t want to do.  He is your really muscular best friend that is on your team to do your bidding and make all your dreams come true.  Try some declarations to support this new belief.
3. Get some finishers on your team.  Some people love nothing more than finishing projects.  And they struggle to create the vision so celebrate your perfect pairing.
4. Plan awesome rewards.  Knowing you have something to celebrate at the end of the completion of the project can pull even the most distracted starter through.  We are good visualizers, so we can spend our creative energy visualizing the reward, which keeps the passion for the project alive.
5. Keep an idea folder.  I have a page in my personal tracker just for creative ideas.  I choose when to implement them.  But until it’s time and my team and I have the capacity to accomplish that idea, it gets to hang out in the big ideas page!  

Starters, it’s time to grow some grit.  Stop letting yourself off the hook and just hang in there to see it through.  Nothing is more frustrating to a starter than looking around their life and realizing that what they envision is nowhere to be seen because they haven’t acted on their creative ideas. That does not have to be your story.  Your vision is too amazing not to happen.  

For more details you can visit here : executive business coach.

amy walker international business coach

5 tips for the best Holiday Sales EVER!

Can you believe it is November already?  Before we know it we’ll be eating turkey, decorating trees, going to party’s and ringing in the new year.  And between now and December 31st, more money will be spent than any other months of the year.  The question is, will people be spending it with you?

When you are an entrepreneur, there can be challenges with the end of the year sales.  People are busy.  Unless you sell a product that they see as a great fit for Christmas gifts, they often times want to put you off until January.

“I’m just so busy right now with the Holidays.  Can you follow up with me in January?”

“I would love to get this, but all of my money is going to Christmas gifts right now.”

“We’ve already spent our 2015 budget, get back with us the beginning of next year and we can talk about your services.”

Do any of those sound familiar?

You can have an amazing Holiday Selling Season.  You simply need to have a SOLID strategy!

1. Modify the amount of time you are asking for from potential clients. Maybe your ideal is to have your clients attend an hour long presentation.  During the Holidays why not see if you can get that down to 15-20 minutes.  You can still ask for the longer amount of time, but if they don’t have it to give you, ask for just a few minutes of their time!
2. Position your products as relevant. November and December are months that my spending is primarily focused on gifts for my boys, parents, husband, and siblings. I your product doesn’t fit for those people, I’m not thinking about purchasing them.  However that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t.  Maybe you sell business services.  Make yourself relevant by helping people take advantage of year-end tax write offs.  Think outside the box and make sure you and your product are relevant!
3. Make sure your holiday is scheduled out! Think about all of the parties, concerts, school events and cookie exchanges that will happen before the end of the year.  Add to it shopping, wrapping, mailing, baking and decorating.  That is a LOT of distraction.  When you lack focus, naturally your business produces less results.  Create space in your calendar for focused work and for Holiday fun.
4. Be willing to ask more people. Even with adjusting your time commitments, positioning and having a great schedule.  You will have people just not want it work with you until the new year.  That does not mean you can’t reach your year-end goals, it just means you might need to ask a few more people to get there.  That means your marketing is going to be essential for the next few months.  You might need more leads than normal.
5. Create a rock solid plan! This is not a time of year that you can coast through without a plan in place!   Join me on Thursday November 19th for my Annual Hot for the Holidays: Business Strategy Session.  Give me one hour of your time, and I’ll give you a Holiday Plan to run with!Register now and share with your friends, team members, and colleagues. Read More...>>>>

Amy Walker Corporate Sales Trainer

Last week the hubs and I went on an early 15thanniversary trip to The Dominican Republic.  It was Ah-MAZING!  I went with a few goals in mind. I wanted to connect with my honey, rest and relax, but I also wanted to experience a breakthrough.  I wanted to come home in a better state of mind than I left, more ready to reach my goals and experience success.

The day before we came home, we went on an excursion to Adventure Park in Punta Cana.  I highly recommend it, the people were great!  I love adventure so we chose to forego the Segway tour and chose the extreme zipline and ropes course. They were challenging!  It’s a good thing I’ve had toddlers to carry around for the last few years because that was the only thing contributing to my upper body strength.  It was hard, but I was working from determination and strategy.  I had a guide who would go ahead and show me what to do.  He was there if I needed him.  When I struggled he would give me encouraging words in Spanish.  I may not have understood them, but I appreciated them!  I was sweaty, and tired, but pleased with my accomplishments. Then we got to the end of the course and he said in a thick accent “Walk the plank.”  I looked around trying to figure out the next set of ropes we were going to climb and he said, “No, no.  Walk the Plank.”  And he pointed to a board, 50 feet in the air that I was supposed to jump off of.  And this time, he didn’t offer to go first.  I froze!

I’ve been cliff jumping, and bridge jumping, but at least you know you are heading into water.  This time there was nothing except me, my harness, the ground, and a really skinny guy at the bottom saying, “I catch you.”  I could feel the panic creeping in.  The guy at the bottom started tugging on my rope, and I braced myself and pulled back.  The guide I had been with gave me some nudges on my back and I pushed back.  I even tried the count to three method and just screamed on three and still my legs did not move.  This fear caught me totally off guard.  It came out of nowhere!  I’d been high up off the ground the whole day.  I had been doing “scary” things all day.  But for some reason, this plank had my number.   I’d wanted a breakthrough on this trip, and it came in the form of a plank!  You see this plank paralleled exactly what I have been doing in my business and exactly my next step in life!  I LOVE coaches and mentors.  I LOVE having people to follow.  I am so capable of doing hard things, and things that scare other people.  I pride myself on being willing to take every step and just keep moving.   But in that moment, on the plank, the reason my brain was freaking out so much was because I was going to have to go first into the unknown.  There was no one to follow and study how they did it.  It was just me and I had to lead the way.  I remember thinking, “Why can’t Stephen just go first?  I just need to see what I am up against.”  I knew at some point my rigging would slow down my plunge.  But I didn’t know how far I would drop before that happened.  I didn’t know how fast I would be traveling. Or how to brace myself for impact.  And I was terrified. I found the courage, made the jump and immediately thought, “That wasn’t bad!”  I should do that again!  

Here’s what I learned from being frozen in fear.  I need to increase my willingness to step into the unknown.  I love having a plan and aligning with successful people to follow.  But in the past, I have slowed down my growth because I was waiting for someone else to go first.  So I’m increasing my commitment to leading into uncharted territories.  I have just announced to the world my next step in business, and it feels a lot like standing on that plank.  Your planks are all at different levels, but you can probably relate to my challenge.  It’s easy for the guy on the ground to say, “You’ll be fine!”  That guy already knows what the jump looks like.  I do this all of the time with women trying to reach the 6 figure mark.  I know you can do it, because I’ve done it. I like being the guy on the ground! But it is an entirely different experience being the one about to take the plunge into the unknown.

I still had guides and support.  I still had my gear, I still had my plan.  I had just come to the point where I had to make the leap of faith.  I wish I could tell you a step by step process when you are at that point.  But I imagine it’s a little different for everyone.  For me, I reminded myself that the longer I stayed frozen the more the fear would take hold.  And then I flipped the switch from fear to faith that it would all come together.  And that my friends, is exactly what I am doing in business and in my life right now!  Who knew walking the plank could be such a good thing? For more information : Web site: http://amywalkerconsulting.com/ .

Amy Walker Consulting

I am an amazing starter!  Back in the day when I only had one kid, I loved the fabric store.  I mean honestly, there are very few things more fun than finding a cool pattern or the perfect fabric for new curtains, or some home décor project.  I LOVED envisioning the project and making the initial decisions.  I enjoyed the first 25% of the work.  I endured the middle 50% of the work, and I despised the last 25%!  I was a great starter.  Finishing was another story and as a result I had a chest full of started projects.  At one point I started a quilt made from our old denim.  I moved that unfinished quilt to 3 different houses before it mysteriously disappeared!  It’s annoying in my crafting, it’s downright detrimental in my business!

I see this behavior all of the time in certain clients.  This may or may not ring true for you.  But even if you are an awesome finisher, at some point, you will get a starter on your team.  I’ll even take it a step further to say that if you are a finisher, you should look for a starter to be on your team!  Starters are visionaries, innovators, creative thinkers, and problem solvers.  They are genius in these areas. However, their vision for what they are creating is so strong, that they feel the sense of accomplishment well before the task is finished and they mentally and emotionally move on.  Then the drive they felt to start the project disappears, and the discipline to finish the project can be a challenge.  Sometimes it is a big challenge!

You may be a starter if… (Read this in your best Jeff Foxworthy voice)

• You have 10 different products and programs to sell, but your business sales are struggling.
• You’ve been working on your book for more than a year.
• You are on revision number 52 of your website, but it still hasn’t launched.
• You never seem to get around to your marketing implementation because you are still working on the master plan, which by the way will change lives and probably the world because it is so amazing.
• You LOVE meeting new people and talking with perspective clients, but have to staple your head to the phone in order to accomplish any follow up.

Does this sound familiar?  If you are a starter, here are 5 simple tips to increase your ability to finish.  And if you are a finisher, going crazy trying to lead a starter, you may want to forward this message on!

1. Stop beating yourself up for starting things and not finishing.  Honor the creative genius you are and take inventory of all of the amazing things you have created.
2. Make friends with discipline.  He’s not a bad guy that makes you do things you don’t want to do.  He is your really muscular best friend that is on your team to do your bidding and make all your dreams come true.  Try some declarations to support this new belief.
3. Get some finishers on your team.  Some people love nothing more than finishing projects.  And they struggle to create the vision so celebrate your perfect pairing.
4. Plan awesome rewards.  Knowing you have something to celebrate at the end of the completion of the project can pull even the most distracted starter through.  We are good visualizers, so we can spend our creative energy visualizing the reward, which keeps the passion for the project alive.
5. Keep an idea folder.  I have a page in my personal tracker just for creative ideas.  I choose when to implement them.  But until it’s time and my team and I have the capacity to accomplish that idea, it gets to hang out in the big ideas page!  

Starters, it’s time to grow some grit.  Stop letting yourself off the hook and just hang in there to see it through.  Nothing is more frustrating to a starter than looking around their life and realizing that what they envision is nowhere to be seen because they haven’t acted on their creative ideas. That does not have to be your story.  Your vision is too amazing not to happen....  Read More About Amy Walker

Amy Walker Radio Host

Everyone wants to close more sales!  It’s one of the most frequent questions my coaching team and I field.  How do I improve my sales?  The answer however is not so simple, there are many factors that go into closing sales.  Did you position your offer correctly?  Did you overcome objections strongly?  Did the intensity of the problem match the intensity of the solution?  Were you offering to the right people in the first place?  And last but definitely not least, were your products and services priced appropriately?

Pricing can be tricky and this is one of the areas that I see my clients second guessing frequently.  Are they priced too high?  Are they priced too low?  What product should they offer in each setting?  It’s actually a very big topic to cover and there are no hard fast rules.  I kind of feel like an English teacher saying “This is the rule, until of course you have an exception.”  Consider these helpful principles to assist you in pricing your products!

• Never compete to be the least expensive. That is a battle you will not win.  All it takes is for some newbie to come in and undersell you and all of your clients take a mass exodus to XYZ brand who is now $2 less than you.  When you are competing for being the least expensive in your industry, you are attracting the least loyal type of customers.  And there will always be a Walmart somewhere you can come in with lower prices than you.

• If you are going to be the most expensive, you have to clearly show why your value is higher than others. I am not the most expensive business coach, but I am definitely not the least expensive. When we are selling programs, we make sure that we have detailed outlines of all that is included.  We have found ways to add in additional value into programs in the form of client days, Q and A calls, and FB groups for extra support.  We also have awesome client testimonials.  All of those things help support us in maintaining and collecting on our current price points.

• People tend to be willing to pay the most for services that will increase their income. Next will be services that will benefit their families.  And if you are selling to women, they tend to put their needs last.  So you will need to show them that investing in themselves will benefit their families!

• If your closing ratio is consistently higher than 50%, your programs are probably priced too low. If your closing ratio is lower than 10%, I’d first look at your sales skills and then look to see if you are over priced.

• Here’s some pricing information for coaching programs. Membership sites tend to range between $10-$50 a month. A fully automated program (Everything is online) can be in the following ranges: 4 weeks $99-499. 6 weeks, $250-$1500, and 8 weeks, $499-$2000.  Adding in any type of live coaching to support the online programs will allow you to charge more.  Live Group coaching can range from $1500-$20,000 for a year. And One on one coaching is anywhere between $2500-100,000 a year.  I know those numbers are so varying that it still doesn’t give you a lot to go off of.  My advice to start by having programs and services to fill those different spots in your product funnel.  That way you have multiple places where people can buy in to what you offer.

• Products: Books pricing depends on the length of the book. But most paperbacks will sell well between $14.99-25.00.  Audio Books are usually $5-15 more than the paperback and Kindles are usually $5-15 less than the paperback. Single CD’s will sell well between $15-29.00.  CD sets can sell for $99-300 fairly easily

• What should you sell and where? The higher the price point, the more interaction I recommend.  I’m not saying you can’t sell a $30,000 package online, I’m just saying it’s not nearly as likely as in a face to face meeting.  These are my general guidelines. If I am on a webinar or conference call with a new audience, I usually offer something around $250, and never more than $1000.  If I am on a webinar or conference call with a responsive and seasoned audience, I will be more likely to offer in the $1000 range.  At a live speaking event, with a brand new audience I’ll keep the numbers very similar to the new webinar audience.  If it is a warm audience, I’ll likely offer something around $2000.  And if it is a hot audience, like a room full of current or past clients, I will talk about my high end programs.

Again, this is not an exact science.  You will need to try things out with your audience and see at what price you can get the people to move.  Happy pricing and happy selling. See more about " Amy Walker"

Amy Walker Business Coach

I started my first business when my first son was about 5 months old.  I earned my first free car in my network marketing business when my second was 3 weeks old.  I advanced to the position of sales director the same year I had my 3rd baby. When I had my 4th, I was speaking on stages in front of hundreds of people.  I waddled on stage. And I launched Amy Walker Consulting 6 weeks before my 5th son was born.  My children have all been raised watching me build my business. When the older three were little, I ran that business part time.  With my last two, I’ve worked pretty full time. My kids truly don’t know any other lifestyle than business.

I frequently see women place a glass ceiling on their income potential because of their families.  I get it, none of us wants our families to suffer.  If it came down to choosing my family or my business, family would win every time.  

Can I rock your brain here for just a moment?  What if the idea that my family suffers at the expense of my business was a complete lie?  What if the reality was that your family suffers when you do not do your business?  Because in my experience I have seen the second question to be true more often than the first.  

Let’s have an honest conversation about sacrifice.  Your family WILL sacrifice for you to build your business.  I call these sacrifices costs and your family will pay the price.  Here are some common sacrifices in my world. My kids cannot come in and talk to me whenever they feel like it.  They need to wait until I am done working.  I do not attend every field trip or volunteer weekly in their classes. Instead I attend one field trip per year for each kid, and attend 90% of their school functions that they are presenting or performing at. I don’t sew costumes or bake for functions.  I buy stuff and often times send an assistant to buy them for me. I don’t babysit my kids on their responsibilities.  They are expected to manage their own.  If they are struggling with turning in homework or getting projects done, we talk about it, and we come up with a plan to improve that includes specific types of support from me, and more accountability from them. They do not have as much done for them as most of their friends their age.

It is also important to point out what costs they do not pay. They do not lack for love, listening, understanding, support, or family fun time.

Now let’s look at the benefits or the gain.  My children are learning success principles in their childhood that most adults are figuring out in their 30’s and 40’s.  My children understand the value of money.  They see the work it takes to create it.  They see that how you invest it makes a difference on how much you have in the future.  They have no mental limitations on what they can or cannot do as adults. Success to them is simply a matter of deciding what they love enough to monetize. They are growing up in a structured environment where time is our greatest resource and is used wisely.  For example, one Saturday a month we do a family work day.  One Saturday a month we do a family fun day.  One Saturday a month there is a scouting activity, and one Saturday a month we have a chill day. Saturdays are precious for us and we do not waste them.  We make all decisions based on what is best for our family, not on what we can afford.

I am not claiming to be a perfect mom.  I think perfect parents are about as fictional as unicorns and centaurs. I am saying that I recognize that my business is a blessing to my family.  I believe in stay at home moms who have the business of raising their families.  And I believe in moms running successful businesses.  I do not believe in moms running struggling or small producing businesses.  I find that those women pay my costs, and more.  They also have the cost of financial stress, mental exhaustion from thinking about their business all the time, and guilt from knowing they could do more than they are doing. And they don’t have the gain to balance out the cost.

The key to shifting into a dynamic that provides more gain that cost for your family is to get clear on what prices you are not willing to pay.  Protect the things that are essential to you.  Be willing to adjust everything non-essential in order to create the results you need and want. And allow your family to see the benefits of your business!  >>>--SEE More...!--<<<