Stop Sitting On Your Goldmine! How To Turn Your Ideas Into Highly Profitable Income Streams

Score keeping. There are three reasons why, when done right, it’s good for your relationship.
1. It’s a human naturelemon so you might as well make lemonade. Mother Teresa and Gandhi aside, we all keep score. It’s human nature to notice if your sweetheart has AGAINforgotten to call, hurt your feelings, broken a promise,won the argument, or has bestowed bragging rights with a fabulous gift or a thoughtfulness home run. You know if your sweetheart’s score is over the moon, into the black, good enough to squeak by, dipping into the red, or subterranean. That’s because we assess everything from whether to get a pet to quitting our job by calculating the pluses and minuses.
In a relationship, you’re constantly giving and deducting points. Your sweetie brings you coffee in bed, plus 5. It follows a night of wild sex, 30-point bonus. You have a crazy day of meetings and your partner delivers lunch to your office, 20 points. Lunch includes cheesecake, 10-point bonus. Your partner borrows your car and returns it with an empty tank, minus 20. Your honey leaves a wet towel on the bed, minus 5. It’s your side of the bed, 15-point penalty. It’s the third time this week, 50-point penalty.
True, we don’t give or deduct actual points, but we give greater emotional weight to those things that most affect us. If that weren’t true, a surprise Porsche in the driveway would have the same Omigosh! factor as a new toaster oven and infidelity would land you in the same hot water as forgetting to pay the cable bill. It’s a fact: We keep score. Don’t fight it. Use it to set your relationship up for success.
2. Keeping score keeps you on your best behavior. We love to win and hate to lose. We want to please and not disappoint. So, if you’ve got a choice between picking up or losing points, you’re more likely to bite your tongue than make some snarky remark, pick up your stinky gym socks, keep your promise to bring home ice cream, be on time, refrain from swearing in front of your mother-in-law, surprise your sweetie with a gift, make thoughtful gestures, be kind, and so on. Consciously doing those things that result in getting points and avoiding doing those things that result in lost points is bound to make your relationship better.
3. Keeping score reminds you to focus on the positive. It’s fun to give to someone you love, even if all you’re giving is points. You already give points when your sweetie goes the extra mile or does something wonderful. If you also give points for the small, everyday things that are easily taken for granted or overlookedthe dinner she prepared, the lawn he mowed, the gym socks that made it to the hamper, the dishes that got washed, the cheerful smile, the promise that was keptyou’ll find yourselves more focused on the positive. The more positive you are, the less bothered you’ll be when your sweetie screws up and that’s just good for your relationship.
Okay, look, you’re going to keep score anyway so do it in a way that’s good for your relationship. Having said that, let me emphasize that tit-for-tat two-wrongs-make-a-right justification of your bad behavior is the wrong way. Tit-for-tat is childish and destructive. It’s the kind of score keeping that all relationship gurus (including me) warn against. Instead, make it your goal to (1) earn as many points as possible, (2) avoid losing them, and (3) support your sweetheart in doing the same. If you do, then keeping score will be good for your relationship.
Shela Dean is a Relationship Coach, Speaker and Amazon Bestselling Author of Frequent Foreplay Miles, Your Ticket to Total Intimacy, available through Amazon or Shela’s website. Stop Sitting On Your Goldmine! How To Turn Your Ideas Into Highly Profitable Income Streams20144Stop Sitting On Your Goldmine! How To Turn Your Ideas Into Highly Profitable Income StreamsOK, you’re not exactlysitting on it since it’s in your mind, but you get the picture. The goldmine you are sort of sitting on is the knowledge you already have about what you do and probably use every day. As an entrepreneur, you have expertise that you are probably taking for granted. This expertise is a deep well of potential that, when formatted and packaged correctly, will turn into that goldmine of profitability that I’m talking about.

What do I mean? Well, the absolute best way to benefit from your knowledge is to share it with the world in a very specific way. The best way to share your genius with the world is to create a signature program that will be a highly profitable income stream for your business. How? When you package your message as a signature program you are able to leverage your core vital content throughout your business. This is important because it’s how you gain visibility, become known as an expert, attract more ideal clients, make more money and enjoy the freedom that comes with success (not to mention the joy of serving your audience at the highest level). And that, my friend, results in big profit for you.

Today, I’m sharing with you three of the key phases to creating your profitable signature program. They are

Phase 1: Identify The Distinct Steps In Your Signature Process

Think about the work that you do. When you are doing your work, whether alone or with clients/customers, what are the steps you take? If you were to explain to me what you do, what steps and information make up the beginning, middle and end of that explanation?

What background do you include?

What are the steps you take an individual or group through when you are doing what you do best?

Brainstorm all of the distinct steps in your process.

What do you do that is different (even slightly) from how everyone else in your field may provide this information?

What information do you include that is completely unique to you?

Now, make a list of these steps in the order you go through them. Don’t worry about the number of steps you end up with. There are no rules around that. You may have three steps or fifteen steps. Focus more on having a clear, logical and organized process. These are the key steps of your Signature Process.

Phase 2: Add Key Proprietary Supporting Content

Now that you’ve outlined the exact steps of your Signature Process, your next move is to create the practical supporting content pieces. This is thehow to part of your Signature Process. It reflects your unique perspective and is presented in your own proprietary manner, unlike what anyone else is doing. YOU are the key ingredient in your Signature Process. Your personality is what makes your material sing for your ideal clients. The steps and the supporting material are the vehicles for transferring your brilliance to others and encompass the most practical aspect as well as the action steps of your Signature Process. For example, when I take clients through this process when I’m working with them to create their signature program, this step includes a process for brainstorming supporting content for each of their steps, accessing or creating assessments, charts, worksheets and field work for their audiences to use. We also design collateral materials and documents that support my client’s audience in benefiting from their program. And, of course, when I teach this process to people, I have all of those things to share as well.

Phase 3: The Best Format For Your Content

Once you have your process and content together, it’s time to format your content into all of the deliverables you want to share with your ideal audiences in the ways they want to access it. For example, some of the formats I use to teach people how to create Profitable Signature Programs are one-to-one coaching, speaking, group coaching and tele-courses.

How do you want to share your Signature Process with your ideal audience? Some possibilities are

a public presentation

book or e-book

home study program

e-course or tele-course

1:1 or group coaching

all of the above

Format your content to fit whatever delivery methods you have chosen (i.e. write the speech/book, record the audio, etc.).

Now you are ready to package all your powerful work from these three steps together and create the finished program. Don’t be afraid to use your content in more than one way to further leverage your reach and ability to serve your ideal clients/audience.

Now, go out there and create that signature program the world is waiting for!

*****
2010 Ruth Hegarty

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Ruth Hegarty helps women entrepreneurs create confident and effortless success. As a certified Law of Attraction Coach, Ruth teaches women to unleash their powerful creator so they can work less and earn more. To learn more about Ruth and receive a free copy of her Effortless Success Toolkit for women entrepreneurs, go to http://CoachRuth.com.