I LOVE My Jeep....And What It Symbolizes

I'm a car girl. I like big, powerful vehicles. I like driving them. I loved selling them back in the day. It was fun to see the looks on some customers' faces (guys, you know who you are) when the sales girl could talk "car". 

And I'm not just any car girl. I'm a JEEP girl! That's a category all by itself. We have the "wave". And tire covers that say "Don't follow me. You won't make it." Bumper stickers that say "You can go fast, but I can go ANYWHERE." T-shirts that say "Jeep hair. Don't care." We have clubs and rendezvous and jamborees and rallies. We get new bumpers for Christmas and light bars for birthdays and are THRILLED!

I currently drive a 2020 Jeep Gladiator Mojave. The first desert-rated midsize truck. And I love it. Yes, it gets about 17 MPG in town where I actually do most of my driving. It's my daily driver. And it's probably not the most comfortable vehicle on long road trips. But it says all there is to say about me. Which is why I drive it. That's why most people choose the cars they drive, if they have the option.

The truth is a car is THE ultimate status symbol for many people. There is this popular notion that bigger, more expensive cars indicate that you are more financially successful than the average person. And that is actually probably true. It does take a fair amount of success to be able to drive a $60K - $70K vehicle.

Now before you misunderstand, let me explain. I don't drive my Jeep so I can show off my pricey vehicle. The truth is there are a lot of cars in this area that cost way more than mine! This is Walmart country. The Walton's can buy a fleet of my Jeeps if they want. This is Tyson country. J.B Hunt. Dillards. George's. This little corner of Arkansas is home to some very well-off folks!

No, when I say I drive my Jeep because of what it symbolizes, I'm talking about what it means to me. I grew up poor. I didn't even own a car of my own until I was 24 years old! And then it was a Mercury Lynx station wagon so I would have something reliable to haul the kids around in. It was a practical decision. Decent gas mileage. Room for kids and pets and groceries. And most of all...affordable. 

The Lynx was followed by a string of equally reliable, practical, AFFORDABLE vehicles. None of them were exciting. All of them served their purpose. But the car girl who also loved being outdoors always wished...just a little...for her dream car. You guessed it. A fully-loaded Jeep Rubicon.

If you have followed me for a while then you know that dream came true finally, a few years ago. I did own a 4-door Rubicon for a couple of years. But when I heard the Jeep truck was finally going to be a reality, I knew this was the vehicle I had been waiting for. And so on Black Friday 2020, I got the ultimate Black Friday deal. A brand new Jeep Gladiator. It's not the Rubicon. Because it's not the status symbol that's important to me. Driving the 4-door Rubicon helped me see I didn't actually need all that came with it. My life at the moment does not include a great deal of rock-climbing, extreme trail-driving travel. The desert-rated Mojave is much more suited to my actual needs.

No, it's not the status of driving a $60K vehicle. It's the fact that I worked hard enough and learned enough and persisted long enough to be able to buy the vehicle I wanted. It's a daily reminder to ME of what is possible if you just keep pushing. If you don't give up. 

I love my Jeep. I love going off-roading with my family. (Check out video from most recent trip to Palo Duro Canyon). I LOVE when someone tells my husband they like his vehicle and he tells them it's not his, it's mine. I love being able to throw it into 4-wheel drive on the rare occasions we get that much snow in Arkansas. I love knowing it will carry me and my family just about anywhere we need to go. I love knowing that whatever life on the dirt road brings, we can get through it. 

Most of all, I love knowing that my own hard work and determination got me where I am today...riding around in "Mo" (named after my granddaughter Morgan), with the top off and the music playing, feeling the sun on my face. Jeep hair! Don't care! Oh, and don't try to follow me. You might not make it!

How To Design An Amazing Package for Your Clients

As an entrepreneur that doesn't want to be chained to my computer 40 hours a week, I'm always looking for ways to increase my income. I’d heard of packages and decided to create one. But first, I reached out to my business mentor for advice. She shared the three essential elements for creating a service package that sells…

A Good Package Is Easy to Describe

When you’re creating your first package, you may be tempted to throw every service you do into it. You figure this will give your clients great value but it can have the opposite effect and only create overwhelm.

You don’t want to promise to redesign a client’s website, move their mailing list, and update all of their copy at once. That’s too many moving parts. It’s hard to know when you’re making progress.

But a helpful package is easy to describe—to yourself and to others. It typically has one goal. This goal might be to help a client launch their video course or publish their book through Amazon Kindle.

If you have multiple goals for a package, it’s a sign that package needs to be broken down into more than one offer.

Try to focus on what you’d really like to help your clients do. What is that one service you can provide that would transform their business or their life? What would that service look like? How would it impact them? What would your clients rave about?

A Good Package Is Easy to Say Yes To

Make your package so irresistible that potential clients want to say, “YES!” as soon as they hear about it. This is about more than the task you’re being hired for. It’s about identifying the pain point that prompted a client to hire you.

A client may say they hired you to redesign their website. But what they really wanted was to get more customers from their website.

Another client may hire you to publish their Kindle book. But what they really desire is a bigger platform so they can be interviewed by TV journalists.

So, when it comes to your copywriting package, don’t just promise stellar work. Paint a picture of what it will feel like for the client when the work is done.

Share with your potential clients how you redesigned a website and the way traffic doubled the following month. Clients who want more website traffic will be eager to work with you.

Once you focus on what your potential client truly wants, it becomes easier to design your package. You’re not just selling your services; you’re selling the results that clients want.

A Good Package Is Exciting to YOU

It’s important to create packages your clients want. But it’s also essential that you make sure your packages will excite you, too.

If you hate doing logo design, then don’t create a package around it. You’ll not only resent the work, you’ll find yourself frustrated with your clients. Clients will sense that frustration and go elsewhere to have their needs met.

As you’re making your packages, ask yourself: What would excite me to work on every day? What types of project make me want to jump out of bed in the mornings?

Then look for a way to add more of what you love to your packages. If you’re skilled at web design, could you include a branding board for the finished website?

Little touches like these not only make your work more fascinating for you; they also impress your clients. When you feel good about the work you’re doing, your motivation skyrockets. You look forward to starting new projects and clients appreciate how easy you are to work with.

Consider the Value You Bring to the Table

If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around the idea of packages, you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs who have worked traditional jobs struggle with this concept.

That’s because when you’re working for someone else, you’re forced to watch the clock. You must be present for a certain number of hours. This may mean being a cashier for 8 hours. Even if the store is completely empty, you’re still there.

Stop Filling Your Hours

If you’re not careful this mindset can transfer over to your business. You show up to your laptop or tablet each day, with the knowledge you’re going to be there for eight hours.

The problem is that creating a client’s website only takes you two hours. So you just fill the other six hours with busy work like checking the news, posting to social media, and hanging out on forums.

Then at the end of the day, you scramble to get the website published and send out an invoice. You may feel like you’ve worked all day but you really didn’t. You stretched a simple project into the time available.

Focus on Your Value

Instead of focusing on time, start looking at the value that you’re providing. It doesn’t matter if you made that value happen in two hours or twenty. If the project only needed four hours of your attention, then complete it in that time-frame and turn it in. Don’t wait by the clock just because you feel like you have to.

As an entrepreneur, you’re in control of your time. If you believe it’s valuable, your clients will pick up on that and have more confidence in you!

Your Skills + Experience = Value

Service providers can sometimes think in terms of what they can do, like writing a sales page or setting up the tools to seamlessly automate a client’s marketing.

But it’s not just about your skills. It’s also about the experience you carry with you and your ability to get the job done correctly. There are dozens of ways to do most tasks.

Your client can get overwhelmed wondering which path is the right one. With your experience, you can guide them to the action that will help them achieve their goals.

Imagine a client comes to you looking for web design services. There are plenty of ways to start a website but they’re stuck. They don’t know which option is going to serve their needs.

You listen to their request and ask probing questions. You get an idea for their vision and understand what features are essential to their website. Then you create a WordPress site for them.

You didn’t only make a website for them. You showed them which option is the best one based on their needs and that knowledge is worth a premium. You saved the client countless hours of frustration, streamlined their decision, and gave them valuable insights. That’s worth far more than just your hourly rate!

At first, it might feel intimidating to create a package with a large price tag. But keep in mind that your experience and expertise are priceless.

What Services Could You Create a Package Around?

I'm sure you all remember my friend the graphic designer. She loved what she did. She totally enjoyed creating images for her clients to use in their marketing and advertising campaigns. But she was beginning to max out the amount of time she could spend on her business,. There are only so many hours in a day. So she began looking into packages.

Maybe you’ve heard of packages—some service professionals create a package that allows them to sell their skills for more money. This lets them to continue to grow their income without spending all their time at the computer. If you like the sound of creating a package in your business, read on for tips to get started…

Think about the Service Requests You Get

If you’re a website designer, do you get requests to put together snazzy sales pages complete with beautiful graphics? If you’re a virtual assistant, are your clients always begging you to set up their mailing list in AWeber or ConvertKit?

Grab pen and paper quickly. Write down the top 5 tasks your clients ask you to handle. Would you like to turn one or more of these tasks into a package? What might that look like to you?

Focus on Your Favorites

As you begin looking for tasks that you could turn into packages, make notes of your favorite ones. You’ll want to build an offer around the services that you most enjoy so that you’re excited and eager to sell your new package.

Don’t try to design a package around tasks you hate doing. You’ll dread the work and have difficulty closing sales. Clients will be able to sense your unhappiness and be less likely to work with you.

Rate Your Services

Once you have a list of projects you love doing, try rating each one on a scale of 1-10. One is the type of task you hope to never do again. Ten is the task that makes you sit back and think, “How AMAZING is it that I get to wake up and do this every day?!”

If you haven’t been working long as a service provider or if you’re frustrated with your work, you may not have any projects that rank a 10 for you yet. You may discover that most of your projects rank just a 5.

This can be a wake-up call that you want to change up your offers or find clients that are a better fit for your business.

Get Feedback

You can also share your task evaluations with a fellow service provider or a business mentor. Let them take a peek and give their advice. Maybe another service provider will show you that your service is great fit but you’re not attracting the right clients.

Perhaps your business coach can point out projects that might be better suited to your strengths. Lean in and listen to the people that are rooting for you to succeed. Let them help you discover new paths that you may have overlooked.

Take your time and think through your package. You want to design it so that you’re only taking on projects that light you up and fill you with joy.

Ready to expand your business without expanding your hours? Join the Multiple Streams Of Income Challenge. Click here to join the group and get ready to see what you can add to your business without giving up more time.

My Thoughts On Becoming Confident In Your Business

Self-confidence is critical to success and happiness. And yet we all struggle with it in some way. You probably saw my 2013 post on the subject. If not, you should read it. Healthy Self Esteem = Healthy Business.

But I realized that it's been eight years since I wrote that piece. And in the era of the pandemic and all the ensuing turmoil, anger, and yes...even outright hate...our self-confidence may have plummeted. If you were one of the many who became unemployed or lost your business; if you're struggling to pay bills or provide for your family; your belief in yourself may be at an all-time low. Understandable.

So I wanted to share some thoughts on becoming confident again. Confident in your own abilities.  Confident in your dreams and plans. Confident in your future.

To be truly confident, you have to let go of what other people think of you. And you have to let go of how others treat you. 

Self-confidence is a state of mind. But it's a state of mind that you can manage. That doesn't mean you always have to explain yourself. You don't have always "stick up for yourself." When you are truly confident in your self, it just shows. You are who you are. It doesn't matter if your business failed this time. It doesn't matter if you are struggling to keep it going. It doesn't matter if you aren't where you thought you would be by now. And it definitely doesn't matter what anyone thinks or says about it. What does matter is that you are true to yourself and just keep moving forward as best you can. Stop wasting time on people who don't deserve it. You are YOU. And only the BEST people get to be around YOU!

Now is the time to figure out your next best move. Do you need to go back to work to get some income while you rebuild? So be it. There's nothing wrong with that.

Do you need to scale back a bit while you regain your footing? Okay. That's better than quitting.

Do you need to pivot to a different business model that's more feasible now? Not a problem. Adaptable businesses SURVIVE! 

So whenever you are feeling a little down...

Whenever someone you know is giving you grief over a failed or struggling business...

Whenever you...or they...think it's time to give up on the life you want for yourself and your family...

Stand tall, put your shoulders back, pick your head up, and say "So what? I am going to keep living my life and building my dream."

(By the way...that's a classic power pose. Roll your shoulders back to straighten your spine. Widen your stance a bit. Lift your head and your eyes. This slight shift instantly gives you an air of confidence. Not only will you look more confident to those around you. You will FEEL more confident. Isn't it great how body language works?!)

Hope you found this useful. Don't forget to get on my mailing list! I promise I will keep you pumped up, up-to-date on all the latest tips, tricks, and trends, and be your biggest cheerleader...after yourself, of course!

If You Are Still Trading Time For Money, You Are Limiting Your Growth

Trading hours for dollars limits your growth. It's not entirely your fault if you are. That's how most of us were raised. We had a job that required us to work a certain number of hours for which we were paid a set amount per hour worked. So it's natural that even when we started our own business, we were trading time for money.  

When I started my social media marketing business, I started by offering my services as a content creator. I wrote articles, short reports, and ebooks for my clients. I also created graphics and social media posts. As I grew my client list, I started bumping against a common problem for freelancers - a lack of time.

Offering services gave me space to grow as I started an online business that was truly my own...not network marketing or affiliate marketing. I learned about what my audience wants and how to deliver it. I had the chance to experiment with different projects and discover what my style is.

But as amazing as doing service work is, I still faced a serious limitation - my time. I could charge for the hours I work, but there are only so many hours in the day.

It’s true that you can learn to work faster. But if you're trading time for money, you’ll eventually hit that hard limit on what’s possible, just like I did. That means your potential and income will cap out - unless you change the way you offer your services.

Packages Are the Key to Getting Paid Better for Your Time

Packages work like this: you create an offer like designing 25 graphics, which may initially take you about 10 hours to do. Rather than charging an hour rate for 10 hours of your time, you put a price on the package and a client pays that – having no attachment to the amount of time you’ll put into it.

As your skill increases and you get to know your client’s needs better, you work faster and faster and still get paid like you worked for 10 hours. That’s the power of packages. But that’s not even the best part. Clients love packages too. They like having a clear price and task list to say “yes” to.

Packages Aren’t Really about Time or Money

As an entrepreneur, you don’t just have your skills to offer. You also have your experience and knowledge. When a client purchases your package, they’re paying for all that you bring to the table, not just your time.

Your knowledge is valuable. Your experience is priceless.

When you understand this, your eyes are opened to the incredible impact of your work. It makes it easier to charge more for your packaged services and gives you newfound confidence when speaking with potential clients.

Packages are Perfect for Everyone

The great thing about offering a package is that it can work in just about any industry and for any type of service professional. It doesn’t matter if you’re a copywriter, graphic designer, coach, or another kind of freelancer.

When I began offering packages, I was surprised at how quickly some of my clients said “yes”. I’d been worried that my clients would think my skills were less valuable if they were packaged but I found the opposite was true. I have never been more in demand!

Watch for Your Champions

The Dream Giver is one of my favorite books. It tells the story of Ordinary, who dares to leave the Land of Familiar and pursue his Big Dream. As he overcomes obstacles and challenges on his journey, he meets Champion. Champion is a character that also once chased a dream and now encourages others to do the same.

This story illustrates an important truth—every dream seeker needs to be surrounded by champions. Champions are dreamers who didn’t give up. They kept going even in the face of pressure and ridicule from others. Here’s how to build your own network of champions…

Look for Your Dream Team

Sometimes, we don’t see what’s right in front of us. Maybe you’ve had a dream to get healthy and lose weight for years now. Every month, a co-worker invites you to visit his gym as a guest. You’ve always said no because you were too busy listening to the voices who discouraged you.

Many times, life moves champions into our path right before we realize a dream. You have to look up and look around for these people. They’re usually the ones that are positive and upbeat. They’re challenging themselves and pursuing BIG goals. They’re not threatened when you go after what you want because they know that growing together is powerful.

Double Up

For every naysayer in your life, you need two champions to drown out the doubtful thoughts they plant in your mind. Sometimes, the champions will be people like you that have similar goals. Sometimes, they have drastically different goals but they still believe in and support you.

For those of us who are Christians, Jesus is the ultimate Champion. He is our Advocate and friend. He fights for us on days when we’re too weak to fight. He believes in us even when we feel lost and alone.

Make an Effort to Connect

As you’re looking for champions, make sure you’re willing to reciprocate. Just as you want people around you that you believe in you, you need to believe in others. Listen to their dreams, remind them that they can succeed, and motivate them on the hard days.

Care for your champions. This might be as simple as texting a friend to check-in, writing a “thinking of you” note to a champion who’s been feeling discouraged, sending a care package, or meeting up in real life (or virtually) to chat.

Humans were designed for connection. As The Dream Giver illustrates, we’re not meant to travel this journey alone. Take the time to surround yourself with champions and love on them whenever you get the chance!