Before I get into the article below, I want to remind you that you can now read the full details and register for our next course. “Momentum” is just about that—what do you need to have in place for your business to carry you, instead of starting from scratch every month.

This is particularly important when you’re a part of trying to make the world a better place. These are urgent times we’re in, we don’t have time to waste. If you need to get your business out there, to make yourself sustainable and to have a larger effect, the first step is to gain enough momentum to keep your feet under you. If it’s right for you, this course will provide the balance you need between big picture and nitty gritty, with all the heart you’ve come to expect from us.

Starts in September. Limited seats. Early-bird price is available now.

Click to read about it and sign up: Momentum: Three Journeys to an Ongoing Flow of Clients and Money.

Article: The Two Hiring Help Freakouts That Stop Momentum

Ugh! I’m ready to pull my hair out, except it’s too short to grab. And I’m not the only one, because Kate is just about ready to grab my hair and pull it out, too. That’s why I keep it short.

Normally Kate and I don’t get into knock-down drag-outs, but this was early in her time of coming to work for Heart of Business. I had asked her to handle something, I can’t remember what exactly, and it doesn’t matter. Probably something to do with our autoresponder that sends emails out, or our shopping cart, or the website.

Anyway, she was asking me this question, and it was the fifth time (or maybe only the second) she came asking, and Ugh! I’ve got other things to do. Can’t she just handle it?

Not a very enlightened or heart-centered response. I calmed my voice, but there was still an edge of impatience.

“Mark, I hate this. I’m not stupid, I just need help with this. Stop treating me like I’m incompetent.”

If you’ve spent any time working with Kate, you know she’s not incompetent. The provost of the naturopathic college she’d formerly worked for said she was the best person he ever had working with him and that we were lucky to have her. And we are, because Kate rocks the house.

The dust-up we were having was because of one little thing no one ever tells you when you start to pay other people to help you in your business, whether employees, contractors, or a service provider.

Before I tell you that secret, let me explain something about us business owners.

You Like To Get Things Done

If you’re running your own business, I’m going to guess you just like to get things done.

It may not always be what you think you should get done. And I’m not saying you or I don’t procrastinate, lose focus, or do whatever other human thing we do. But the truth is, it feels good to get something done—for a client, for the website, for whatever.

I’m also going to guess that you have FAR TOO MUCH to get done, and that weighs on you. At times that might feel panic-inducing. If you don’t get it all done, and done like, already, you might just blow a valve.

I’m just guessing, but if you’re like many of the thousands of people we’ve worked with, this is your situation. Did I guess right?

The Two Hiring-Help Freak Outs

It seems that everyone extols the virtue of hiring help and outsourcing what you’re not good at. Except here’s what actually happens.

First Freak Out

You’ve gone and hired someone and asked them to do something for you. And then they come back with questions. And more questions. And more questions.

Holy Albuquerque! Can’t they just get it done? No, they can’t. Not in a way that will make you happy.

When you first hire, you will be less efficient than if you just did it yourself, assuming it’s something that you have some skill at. Web design doesn’t count, because of the hundreds of hours of training and experience to make a good website.

For normal tasks transferring the information, your style, and the overall “feel” of the project will take far more time than if you just did it yourself. It’s just the way it is, folks.

A very experienced admin person can make that time more efficient by knowing what questions to ask. But still.

You are going to feel as if you’re wasting time. You just are. But that’s kinda sorta okay because you’re getting them up to speed, right? Then along comes Number Two.

Freak Out Number Two

Even after someone is up to speed, which could be a month or more, it will still take time to transfer information and perspective to them. They’ll still come back with questions.

Bottom line: just because someone else is handling a project for you it doesn’t mean that you get to go to lala land. You will still be spending at least some time on that project, which is where the second freak out comes from.

When you’re a do-it-yourselfer, the time feels different. Spending ten hours working on an issue with your email feels totally productive and engaged for you because, by God, you’re getting it done.

Spending thirty minutes fully explaining the problem to your support person, and then spending an additional hour or two helping them test it and work through additional questions feels like wasting time because you’re not actually doing the work.

Never mind that you gained about eight hours, a full day, of productive time. It’s a funny thing, but that’s often how it feels until you get the larger perspective.

What To Do With the Freak Outs

It’s been quite awhile since that conversation Kate and I had where we wanted to pull my hair out, and in that time, there have been a few insights that have helped me tremendously.

• Own Your Project

When handing off a project there can be a tendency to “dump and run.” Meaning that mentally you’ve swept the project under the rug, and are hoping that magically it will get taken care of.

Instead, own the project. Someone may be handling the majority of the work for you, but it’s still yours. Give the project space in your heart, don’t abandon it.

• Open Your Heart to Your Helpers

Similarly, find the space in your heart for your helpers. Everyone has a deep need to contribute, and if someone is willing to help out, even if they are being paid, they still care about it being done well.

Honor their heart, their caring, and their contribution by having whoever is helping you in your heart. This may help you remember, when they come to you with questions, that they aren’t bothering you, they are trying to help you in a way that works for you.

• Helpers Need Attention

When you put someone on a project, immediately schedule time not just to transfer the details of the project to them, but also make sure you have some space in your schedule to answer questions.

You might need to schedule a 15-45 minute initial meeting, and then reserve one to two hours in the next week or two for this project and your helper.

If they don’t need the time, hallelujah, go to your favorite cafe and people watch. But if they do, you won’t be blindsided and need to steal that time from other commitments.

• Project Transfer Checklist

When you transfer a project to someone, here are a few details to always remember to tell them:

• How urgent is this? What’s the deadline?
• What information do you have that they need?
• What’s your picture of how it looks when it’s done?
• What systems, information, or accounts do they need access to in order to get the work done. Give them a list of URLs, usernames and passwords.

If there are any costs involved, things they need to purchase, how do you want to handle the money? Reimbursements? Company credit card?

In the end, I very much recommend that you get help when you need it. Even very small solo businesses often have more things to do than you can easily get done yourself. Even if you’re handling it kinda sorta okay right now, you may recognize that it’s not going to be sustainable for the long term.

Come share your thoughts in the Tent.

A few of the advantages include wisdom, experience, self-knowledge, confidence. You might even have a savings account to lean into. Or your children, if you have any, might be old enough to either not need constant attention or to actually help out.

Unfortunately, there are some distinct disadvantages as well.

Many of the disadvantages come from the fact that growing a new business takes time. Some things can happen quickly, but the fact remains that I continue to see it taking the average person two to three years to achieve true momentum and stability. Before that there are all kinds of challenges exacerbated by age.

Challenge One: Decades of Competence

I was speaking with Laura Roeder while interviewing her for The Business Oasis the other day, and she said something that really clicked for me: “In running a business, you are constantly doing things you’ve never done before.”

You know what happens when you do things for the first time? You make mistakes. You’re uncertain. You feel like a fool.

By the time you’ve reached the second half of life, you tend to become accustomed to feeling competent if not masterful with many of the things you do in your life.

If you decide to start a business, you can scratch feeling competent.

Just the other day we were doing strategic planning at a level I’ve never done before. Kate Williams was leading us, and let me tell you, there were many times I felt stooopid. She would say something, and I just didn’t get it. She was making distinctions that took a long time to click for me.

Yet strategic planning has become such a necessity. If I wasn’t willing to feel like an idiot, Heart of Business would miss out on an incredibly necessary part of maturation.

One of the reasons I love spiritual practice so much is that it helps me remain humble and appreciate beginner’s mind in the face of feeling like a fool.

In what ways are you willing to let go of the comfort in competence you’ve built up over decades? Is it okay to feel like an idiot?

Challenge Two: Needing Comfort

When I was in my 20s, I lived in a flat in the Mission district of San Francisco. I paid three hundred bucks a month. My furniture and most of my clothes were second hand or dumpster-dived, except my paramedic uniform which was issued by my employer.

I lived on burritos. I had an okay car and a bicycle.

Now I’m in my forties. We have a house. We eat well (although burritos continue to play a significant nutritional role). We pay for childcare help. There are creature comforts that have somehow inched their way from luxury status to necessity.

Also, my body just needs more support. I don’t recover from all nighters like I did two decades ago. I spend money on an acupuncturist to help me feel vital. It works, but two decades ago the vitality was just *there.*

Because of the time it takes to get a business truly running, it can leave a household with an uncomfortably tight belt.

At these times, spiritual practice becomes deeply nourishing. It helps me distinguish the “shadow comfort” of material items, as my friend Jennifer Louden calls them, from the true nourishment my heart is needing.

For you, what has inched from luxury to the necessity?

Challenge Three: Realistic Expectations

What was that quote? “Do everything now while you’re young and still know everything.” There’s a simple confidence and tackle-the-world oomph that people have when they’re young.

As we age, we experience the full breadth of life. People die. Opportunities don’t come through. Failure happens.

Age may bring groundedness and wisdom, but it also brings more caution. Instead of the automatic, “Hey, let’s go tackle that mountain,” there’s more of a “yes, but…” that tempers our dreams.

Going full out can make us look foolish sometimes (see Challenge One above). Mistakes happen. Things don’t work. Yet, going full out brings the gift of being in motion, of belief.

This is another reason I love spiritual practice. Deep heart guidance is a more than adequate replacement for blind foolish confidence. The challenge, of course, is to not let your “realistic expectations” undermine either your guidance or your confidence.

What guidance, or straight-up blind, foolish confidence, is calling to you? What realistic expectations can you set aside in service of moving your business forward?

These three challenges, decades of competence, needing comfort, and realistic expectations can sink those of us starting businesses who have a few years under our belts. Thankfully there are remedies in the heart for these.

Which of these challenges do you face? Or are there others I haven’t named? And how do you work your way around them?

Come share your thoughts in the Tent.

In all, we spent about $10K, between the three computers, the software (Adobe Suite, ouch!),  So, just yesterday, we received this Thank You card:

Now it’s not that I’m complaining about a Thank You card. I appreciated the thought, and I also liked the store. They gave us a good deal, cutting prices where they had control, and even throwing in things like stylish laptop bags.

Unfortunately, the Thank You card kinda took away the glow of the experience. Notice that little bit highlighted in yellow? What do you think about that?

A Discount is Not A Thank You

Here’s my opinion: giving a discount on your next purchase is not a thank you gift. If I have to spend more money, it’s a marketing strategy, not a sincere gift that leaves me feeling all gushy-warm about who you are and what you’re doing.

We refinanced our home a few years back, and when we were done, the broker delivered to us a basket, with some very yuppie crackers and olive spread, and I don’t know what else. Oh, and a $20 Starbucks gift card.

That is a thank you gift, that leaves me feeling great about the broker, reinforces how well we felt taken care of, and a willingness to refer other people to her.

Now, I’m not expecting the computer store to spend their entire profit buying a Thank You gift for me. But, I can think of a thousand thank you gifts they could’ve sent that would’ve left me feeling warm and gushy inside.

Can you? What are some of the best thank you gifts you’ve received?

If you missed last week’s article, you can read it here for a description of why I’m writing these articles.

So, here’s the second article in the series:

How to never have anyone object ever again.

“How come you charge so much?” Kinda feels like a kick to the stomach, huh? This is a classic “objection” during a sales conversation with a prospective customer, and it’s no fun at all.

Customer objections can be painful and intimidating to deal with. And it doesn’t have to be about price. It could be about anything: “Do you really know what you are doing?” “Does this thing really work?” “How do I know you’ll follow through?”

Wish you never had to hear them again? You don’t.

Sacred spiritual traditions, like the High Holy Days and the month-long fasting of Ramadan, are meant to not only leave you empty, but to drain you of all of your certainty. In the center of deep spiritual practice, you are left with many sincere questions in your heart.

Who am I? What is the silent, longing call that I hear in the middle of the night? Where do I really owe my allegiance? What is my heart crying out for? Profound questions that, when approached sincerely, can transform your life. When the time comes for these questions, you have to let go of your beliefs. If you don’t, they become your prison.

The asking of these questions, dropping all of your defenses about what is right or wrong, what you want or don’t want, is the doorway to freedom. You are no longer trying to force an outcome, but merely seeking the truth. How you ask the questions in your heart is critical.

Are you a journalist, sniffing for scandal, sure you will find the dirt? Or are you a true seeker, allowing yourself to love the questions, because you love the truth more than anything?

A customer only raises objections when they feel at risk.

At risk of losing money. At risk of losing time. At risk of looking foolish. At risk of any number of things.

Instead of answers, bring sincere, delighted questions to your prospect, devoid of any attachment to what the answers might be. Be curious and in love to learn more about what they are facing, their hopes and fears and desires in their situation. If you do this, they will feel seen. They will feel safe.

And they will never object. If they are the very best kind of prospects, they will have questions of their own. That’s what you want, someone who cares enough to question you, so the two of you can form a true collaboration, whether you are selling a simple product that brings more enjoyment to their life, or if you are providing complicated, custom services that transform huge organizations.

Questions: the second step in a successful sales conversation.

Keys to Questions

• When you start out a conversation with a prospect, start by asking lots of questions. You want to find out all about their situation. If you help people in pain to feel better, then ask all the questions you can: has this happened before? How did it happen? Have you had it a long time? What’s the pain like? How do you normally deal with the pain.

And, go beyond treating them like a problem. Find the place in your heart that cares about them, and ask larger questions: Tell me about how this pain is affecting your life, your work, your relationships.

• When do you stop asking questions? When you can fully see the future they want, and you can see how what you do can get them there, or how what you do is not right for them at all.

• At this point of clarity, you need to ask the most important question: the pivot question. Some people think that the pivot question shifts the focus from the prospect to you and your business. Not true. The pivot question shifts the focus from the present situation your prospect is facing, to the future where this problem is resolved.

“I can sure see how troubling this pain has been for you- it sounds miserable! (pivot ->) What brought you to talk to me about this? How did you see what I do fitting in with what you want to do about your pain?”

The pivot is an important step, because it elicits an invitation from your prospect that gives you permission to talk about how your business works, and how you can help them. Without that invitation and permission, you are trespassing. With the invitation, you are collaborating.

• They will naturally have questions, too, because they will want to see the same future you are seeing. In general, they will want to be clear on exactly what it looks like to work with you, how much it costs, what exactly their commitment is, and how long it takes.

The first step was Connection. This step was Questions. You are getting closer to the third step…

What’s next? Find out next week.

At the same time, it also marked the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims the world over, serving the same purpose.

And, just to have fun, the Divine threw a solar eclipse into the bargain.

As a “Jufi”- born Jewish, practicing Sufism, I’ve celebrated both Ramadan and Rosh Hashonah-Yom Kippur many times. I’m going to take a risk and write a series of articles over the next three weeks about the sales conversations you have with your prospects.

Isn’t that a bit profane?

Umm…. no. Not in my eyes. You see, the peace process and the sales process are essentially the same thing. And rather than profaning this holy time, I want to elevate your business practices into the sacred. I want you to realize what a holy task you have in front of you when you are talking to a prospect.

So, here’s the first article:

How nothing connects you to your prospect.

Someone has emailed you that they are interested in your work. Or, you have a list of potential contacts from your leads group. Or maybe you’re thinking about someone you want to cold-call, because they could really use what you are offering.

You are headed towards a conversation, which will end, you hope, with the other person saying “Yes, I’m buying!”

These conversations can be very painful, because they end, more often than not, with an “Ummm…. I’ll think about it.” I think the pain of this conversation ranks right up there with bone marrow transplants. Well, maybe not that bad. But, Lord it ain’t good.

The pain of these conversations goes beyond awkwardness.

It’s so bad, because you really do want to help and be of service. I know I do. When I’m left feeling as if I’m bothering someone, I just want to quit. I didn’t get into business to bother people- and if that’s what I’m doing, I’ll go back to being a paramedic.

Both Ramadan and Yom Kippur have an amazing process. It’s called “fasting.” Fasting is the process of abstaining. Abstaining from food, yes, but more than that. It’s also an abstention from judgement, from “impure thoughts,” from anything that fosters disconnection from your heart and from Spirit.

The reason sales conversations are so awkward, is because there is an inherent inequality.

Your prospect has a problem, and you have a solution. This puts you in a “superior” position.

And, the other side of the coin is that your prospect has money to pay you, and you don’t have that money. This puts her (or him) in a “superior” position.

If you choose to be superior, they will choose to be superior, too. And, you end up butting heads. “I’ve got the answer!” “I’ve got the money!” And both of you trying to be superior, means everyone loses.

Take your cue from these Days of Awe- empty yourself.

Have as close to “nothing” inside as possible. Abstain from superiority. Abstain from inferiority. The “nothing” of being empty, means that you have space to receive who your prospect truly is. You become the glass that can be filled, and your prospect can feel truly received.

Connection: the first step in a successful sales conversation.

Keys to Connection

• Emptying yourself is an internal process, and it’s best to do it before the conversation. One way to do it is to take a sheet of paper and list all of the thoughts, beliefs, and “voices” you hear about the conversation or the other person. “Why would a big company want to hire a pipsqueak consultant like me?” “She doesn’t like me.” “I charge too much.” List all of these down, and take time noticing how they make you feel.

Make space for the emotions. And then bring in the Remembrance or other heart-centering practice, and turn all of these beliefs over to the Divine.

• Take some time to connect your heart to the Divine. Let yourself feel your neediness for the sale, your neediness for approval, your neediness for love, and bring it all to your heart.

These are legitimate needs. The problem is, your prospect won’t be able to fulfill them. Instead, let your heart fulfill them directly through your spiritual connection.

• Bow in service. And I mean literally bow. Something incredible happens when you literally incline your head and your body forward. If you really are here to help, then take a moment before you meet with them or call them, and let yourself bow to this person you want to serve. Dedicate yourself to only helping them, only caring about what’s best for them.

You will need to be humble here, because the best thing for them might be to let the sale go. And, the best thing for them might be for them to buy your most expensive, most premium product or service, because that’s what they really need.

It takes humility to do either.

Next week: What, and how, to ask questions that move the prospect forward.

What I wrote to her was: “Be yourself. Forget about ‘conservative areas.’ If you hide who you are and they show up, then what are you going to do? Continue hiding? Or show up and then they disappear anyway?

“Also, don’t make assumption about ‘conservative areas.’ All kinds of wierdos (like you and me) live everywhere, and one of the strengths of the internet is that people can access like-minded people without risking social censure from others in their community, who are probably doing the same thing they are, on their broadband connections at 11pm.”

Why do people buy from you? They buy because they trust you. How is trust built?

There are three components to building trust in a business relationship:

1. Expertise. Do you know what you are talking about? Can your product or service really help me?

2. Dependability. Are you really there? If I lean into you, can I trust that you will catch me? That your product won’t break down on me, that your service will really get me the results I’m looking for. If something goes wrong, will you show up and help fix it?

3. Humanity. Do I know who you are? Can I relate to you? Are you enjoyable to be around, and are you real and authentic with me?

Adam Cohen’s book The Perfect Store: Inside eBay is a fascinating read. It was amazing to learn that the company was profitable from it’s first month and was one of the fastest companies in history to reach $1 billion in value. And it started with Pierre Omidyar’s vision to “level the marketplace,” so anyone could participate, not just big companies.

But what made the company successful was the community that grew up around it. Rabid AuctionWeb users (as it was known in the early days) who spent hours on message boards, forging relationship with each other, helping each other.

And the glue that kept the community vibrant, and drew more and more people into it, were that there were a few characters who exhibited all three of the trust characteristics: Expertise- they knew their stuff and were happy to share it, Dependability- they spent hours on the boards helping people, and people noticed when they went missing, and Humanity- they had distinct personalities.

One of them, Uncle Griff, became known as a “cross-dressing bachelor dairy farmer who liked to answer questions.”

I see the same thing in action on a marketing discussion forum I take part in, where one of the members is outrageous in his stories, prolific in his postings, and both deep in his knowledge of business and generous in sharing it. And he is openly credited as being the person who built the activity on the forum when it was stagnant a few years ago.

When I look around in the marketplace, and I think of businesses I genuinely like, and are big-time successful, they have all three of those characteristics.

I’m guessing that in your business you are already displaying your expertise and your dependability. But, did you translate that into a quiet “professional” demeanor?

Add who you truly are into the mix. Be outrageously you.

If you are a financial professional who likes playing a dragon, breathe fire! If you are a nutty New Zealander cartoonist who loves psychological marketing, write in a fake French accent. If you are the chief technology officer of a fast-growing firm, email customers referring to yourself in the third person as “Skippy,” a technology genuis who lives in a cave and has a pet vole named Marta.

All three of these examples are real, and each of them has achieved outrageous levels of success in the business world, by being themselves. Me, I’m a Sufi spiritual healer who loves small business. I don’t impersonate a dragon, but I do quote ancient mystics, and spend a lot of time talking about wierd things like your business having a heart of its own.

Here’s a question for you to take action on: What part of yourself are you hiding from your business, because you think it will scare people off? And, how can you begin to introduce it into your presence in the marketplace?

Read practical keys to being an effective unprofessional professional.

Keys to being an effective unprofessional professional.

• Stop trying to sell to the entire world.

The last time I checked, the world had more than 6 billion people on it. Your business doesn’t need to appeal to even a small percentage of that in order to be very, very successful. How many customers do you really need to be super-successful? A few thousand?

Case in point: A retail store I know does more than $5 million in sales annually off of a list of about 4000 people. Adding even a thousand or two people to that list will have a huge effect on sales.

• Be authentic.

Use your everyday likes and dislikes as a way to bring yourself to your business. Like a certain kind of music? Use it for analogies in your marketing- you’ll create a kinship with others who also like that music.

Hint: One of the best places to start doing this is on your web site. Most websites are caught in the horribly dull “corporate drone” language. Yet, your website is a prime opportunity to make a real, authentic connection with someone.

• There is a difference between “like-able” and “understandable.”

You don’t want to hide yourself in order to be “like-able.” But you do want to be understandable in your uniqueness.

Take a good look at references you make to be sure what you communicate is understandable outside of your in-group. Especially on the web, in today’s increasingly global marketplace, you can connect with people from anyway. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve received emails from: Germany, Australia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Canada, as well as all over the U.S.

You don’t have to explain every little bit, but just make sure any important points you are making are clearly understandable. Feeling left out is not whatyou want your prospects to feel. But for them, hearing something unique from your culture, in an understandable way, can be very attractive.

How did he feel? Frustrated, scared, angry. And, he and his wife have a new baby on top of it. Okay, multiply the fear out a few times.

Now, there are a lot of ways we can go with a situation like this. We can look at the core of the fear and where it’s coming from, bring some healing to it, so that you can have clarity and peace as you move forward.

We can look at what he’s actually doing in his business- does his marketing need fine-tuning? does he need to get more clarity about what he’s doing in his business? Does he need help in getting simple things done that are the “straw that broke the camel’s back?”

Does he just need support to break the isolation he’s feeling- alone and lost?

Well, sure, all of those can, do, and will help as he walks forward. But some of the way he was talking about his business rang a bell for me, and I wondered about his relationship with his business.

His relationship with his business? Yes, “Jimmy L.”, like many, many others, didn’t have a healthy relationship with his business. He couldn’t “get my business to work.”

We talk about “my business,” “our business,” “the business,” all the time, and yet, most of us never quite make the step to conceiving the business as a separate entity. And, even those of us who have taken that step, very few of us have looked at how we are in relationship with this separate entity.

You can get a clue about your relationship with your business by paying attention to your language.

Do you talk about your business as a beloved friend, or as an unwilling servant?

With anyone, including your business, you can’t get much done if the basic relationship isn’t one of trust, love, goodwill, and cooperation, taking into account each person’s abilities, developmental stages, and presence.

When we looked at this, “Jimmy L.” saw that he was treating his business like an unloved servant, and whipping it for not performing, when in fact it needed love, attention, and caring. He immediately felt lighter with respect to his business, and he felt energy and desire to move forward come back into his body and his sense of his business.

Maybe your business needs some TLC?

———————–

The Exercise

1. Start with the remembrance. For those unfamiliar with this, it is to repeat the Name of the Divine, whatever you use to call to the Highest Light, and saying it into your heart. Not with the idea of fixing anything, or healing anything, or seeing anything. It’s just remembering that there is something more than just you in the mix. If anyone has questions about the remembrance, please ask me. It’s fairly simple, but there are easy places that people sometimes get stuck.

2. Now, ask your heart to feel the heart, or the beingness, of your business (you can substitute “job” or “project” or “organization” for “business”) as a separate entity, and bring that beingness in front of your heart. In other words, stand heart to heart, face to face with your business. Just trust your perceptions.

3. Notice how your heart reacts to your business. What kind of relationship does your heart currently have with the heart of your business? Allow yourself to discover this, and drop any notions of what you may already think this relationship is.

4. Allow yourself to ask the Divine to show you what the healthiest relationship with the heart of your business would look like, would feel like, and, most importantly, what is possible when you have this healthiest relationship?

5. Now ask what is one step that your heart tells you to take towards having this healthiest possible relationship. It could be anything- drop what you think you need to do to make the business work, and just ask what is the next step in having a healthier business? You will know it’s right because it “feels” right, and it’s something that your heart naturally wants to move towards.

6. Once you have this step, calendar it. Whatever your heart received as the next step, calendar it, and do it. Some clients have gotten to spend time every day appreciating their business. Some clients have gotten that it’s finally time to get the accounting cleaned up- that their business is “cranky” from loose accounting. It could be anything- trust what you get, and do it.

Now enjoy your business!