One of the best ways to get inspired is to learn from others’ successes.
That’s why in my Elevate online training program, we spotlight one of our members during our member Access Calls.
Elevate Coaches James Roche and Sue Painter, and I select and interview one Elevate member who is making great strides with the program.
Some successes are large, some small, but it’s all about taking steps forward and making progress.
Today, you’ll meet Elevate Advanced member Robbin Simons, founder of www.RobbinSimons.com. She was our spotlight during our August 2013 call.
Enjoy our quick interview with Robbin below, and be sure to take notes. There are several golden nuggets you can apply to YOUR business right away!
James: Hi Robbin, why don’t you first give us briefly a scope of what you do and then we want to dive into some of the best practices that you’re learning, because I know you’re picking up quite a bit.
Robbin: It’s been a wild ride. Basically, I help women entrepreneurs build their lists and increase their leads just by using a simple eBook that they publish on Amazon and use it as a promotional tool. Then I show them how to convert those leads into sales.
James: That’s very powerful, Robbin. It’s a real clear offer, and it’s a real clear message, so I just want everyone to hear that as well. You really had a classic journey in the sense that you were pretty heavy in corporate. You still are, but now this is changing because I think a lot of our Elevate members are in a corporate position, and they’re looking for the light at the end of the tunnel here, so share what your journey has been and what helped you finally make the leap or coming up having this leap.
Robbin: Well, it took me the first year in Elevate to really get some full clarity around my business. Even though I’ve been helping entrepreneurs write and publish their own eBooks on Amazon for a while, I was kind of doing this without making any money because I was stuck in “pilot mode”. It’s what us career people do. Everything needs to be perfect.
I would continuously “pilot mode” everything. I was trying to figure out the pricing. I was spending a ton of hours building info products and trying to get everything absolutely perfect before officially launching my business or my services.
I think what was even worse is that I lacked the confidence to really see the value that I was providing to the authors that I was working with. This is when I decided that I was going to give myself and my business just one more year to make a go of it.
I wasn’t sure if I could afford it, but I decided to take that kind of leap of faith, and I made the investment in my business by joining Elevate Premier. I’ve got to say I can’t believe that I even considered making the investment. It should have been a no-brainer. It’s really what made the difference for me. Putting that money into it, I guess it was more understanding that I was investing in myself too. I was giving myself permission to be good.
James: Yeah.
Robbin: I remember our first Premier meeting. You told me, “You really need to work one-on-one with clients in a VIP, high-ticket format.” It was a huge mindset shift, but I think this was the turning point for me because it gave me an understanding of the value of the results that my services and my programs were providing to my clients.
James: Yeah, and I remember that first meeting, too. I think there was a lot of dialing-in of the message to make it an offer that sells itself. The fact that you’re helping entrepreneurs get a book together, publish it on Amazon so it generates leads is precise, and it’s an offer that sells itself.
I just want everyone to hear that too. There’s no abstraction there at all. It’s very much a desired result that a specific market out there wants.
I think when you dialed that in with structuring the price points and structuring the sales funnel, you started making sales. You were working over full-time in your corporate position, and yet, I remember you were saying that you’ve got clients kind of coming out of your ears here on the little spare time you have from the corporate position.
Robbin: Yeah, it was crazy, and I didn’t believe that things were going to happen so quickly for me. One of the things I also struggled with was trying to get that, “There are so many other people in the market doing what I do.” I had to get past that, so I stopped focusing on competing with people and instead, I just focused on the results—like you said, dialing it in and that was the best advice ever.
Then also, I got to be able to enjoy what I was doing. But a big problem happened for me. I had too many clients. If you have too many one-on-one clients, what do you do? Then we dialed it back again, and you showed me how I could really make that easy transition to group mentoring without losing the integrity of my process, because that’s what I was scared of.
Like you said, this is that little shift. Now I work primarily in a group-mentoring format. I still take on a couple of VIP clients every now and then, but it’s freed up a lot of my time. I have less stress, and the really cool thing is, I make more money. It’s so much better.
James: Cool.
Robbin: The thing is too, I love our Premier group. You guys all helped me understand that I had to stop setting unrealistic goals for myself because I was. I had to stop trying to replace my salary dollar for dollar and stop measuring my success or my failure by how many tasks I was crossing off my notorious to-do list each week.
James: Smart. That’s very important.
Robbin: Yeah, very important. Since I started working with you guys in the Premier group in January, I’ve gone basically from never having any revenue at all to being on track to earning close to six figures this year.
James: That’s fantastic!
Robbin: I’ve had multiple five-figure months, and I’ve gotten so clear on my niche, my programs, and my sales conversations that I’m now converting my leads to 60%, which helps me because I’m so clear now. And my clients are benefitting from my experience, and I teach them how to do it.
James: Yep, beautiful. Bravo! This is great. Any activities in the next couple weeks here?
Robbin: Yes. Today, my new eBook launched on Amazon. It’s called EBook Publishing Power for Entrepreneurs: Secrets the Gurus Don’t Teach You. I have a website set up for it. It’s www.secretsthegurusdontteachyou.com.
James: Very cool, Robbin. Thank you so much for sharing all this.
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© 2013 Ali International, LLC
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