Business lessons from a female high school football coach, by Melanie Yost

I recently read an article about a woman who was picked to be the varsity coach for Calvin Coolidge High School, an inner city school in Washington DC. Natalie Randolph is one of the few women to ever coach a boys' varsity football team. She is an amazing role model for not letting what other people's opinions or what they think of you get in the way of what you want to accomplish.
Her main focus with her athletes is to teach them to be great young men in society. Football is the avenue through which she teaches them to overcome fear, believe in themselves and never give up. After reading about her, I decided to share her words of wisdom with you. I have long said that embracing your inner entrepreneur and making the decision to create a money-making healing business is the best self development course on the planet. All of your fears and every possible reason you should quit are right in your face. Her advice for success is as applicable to you as it is to her athletes.

HAVE NO FEAR. "People concentrate too much on what others will say about them. If you know you can do something, just do it." Worrying what others will think or say about you is a major stopping point for healing entrepreneurs. It's one of the main reasons you don't raise your rates, charge what you are worth, invite people to purchase your products or services, host tele-classes or workshops or attend networking meetings and talk to people.

Don't believe me? Then take a moment and think about these next few scenarios and see what happens in your body, what emotions you feel and what thoughts run through your head. Imagine . . . telling your clients that you are raising your rates by 50% starting next week . . . or making the decision to ask 10 people in the next 2 days to purchase your products or services . . . or challenging people's reality when they tell you they can't afford your services . . . or calling everyone you know, telling them what you do and asking them for referrals . . . or hosting a week long tele-summit and inviting well-known speakers to participate. Are you worried about what people will think about you? These scenarios are all a part of getting clients, making money and running a business.

SHOW UP EVERYDAY. "No matter how hard the previous day was, never give up." In business and in life there will be bad days. People don't show up for a class or workshop you give. A new client you were counting on backs out of working with you. You get a "nasty" email from an upset client or subscriber. You can't fill a program or find anyone who is willing to afford your services. You feel like a fish out of water at the networking event you attended and no one seems interested in you or what you do. You finally get the courage up to ask someone to work with you and they say "no". You raise your rates and your clients complain.

If you are in business, all of these things and more are going to happen to you. Are you going to quit? Give up? Close your doors and get a job? OR are you going to look at what is going on within you to attract these situations, make the necessary adjustments in your thinking and your skill sets, remind yourself of why you are doing what you are doing, take a deep breath and show up everyday to do it again until you find a way to make it work?

IT'S OKAY TO BE AFRAID. "But it's not okay to run away from what you're afraid of." Be honest. Do you know you need to market your services, narrow down your target market, get to more networking meetings, or ask 2 people a day to engage in a sales conversation with you and, yet, you find yourself avoiding the tasks? Instead of doing what you know you need to do to bring in more clients and more money, you sink into the fear, run away from the tasks and find things within your comfort zone to do that look productive but won't get you what you really want.

Come on, you know what I'm talking about. Spending 6 months perfecting your website instead of calling people you know, telling them what you are doing and asking them for referrals . . . or attending another training or certification program instead of developing the marketing and sales skills you need to run a business . . . or talking with people but never getting to the part of the conversation where you ask them to become a client . . . or spending hours on Twitter or Facebook commenting on everyone's status, but not leaving your house to attend in-person networking meetings in your community. Any of these "running away" behaviors sound familiar? It's okay, you can admit it because I've been there, too. But here's the deal, the more you feel the fear and do it anyway, the more comfortable you will be in doing the scary things; and then they won't be scary anymore.

So, this is the pep talk from an amazing female football coach. She expects great things from her players. She expects them to play full out. As one of your coaches, I expect great things from you. You have gifts to share, people to serve and lives to transform. You can't do that if you are playing so that you don't get hurt instead of playing full out so that EVERYONE wins.
If you know what you need to do to market your services but let fear stop you from doing it; or if you don't know the first thing about marketing and are ready to get started, I can help. Contact me for a complimentary 15 minute strategy session melanie@melanieyost.com

Action Steps:

1. How many clients do you have?

2. How many clients do you need in order to make the amount of money you need to make?

3. How many new clients do you need to bring in to fill the gap?

4. Make a list of things you know you need to do to get more clients and/or make more money. (I have spelled many of them out for you in the article).

5. Make the decision to show up everyday, face your fear, push through your discomfort and do what you need to do to receive the money you need to make.

Take action on your assignment - it will help! If you do nothing, nothing will ever change. Let me know how you did! Email me at melanie@melanieyost.com.
Written by Melanie Yost, LCSW
Business Mentor for Helping Professionals

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