In a competitive marketplace, customer service is a huge consideration for business owners and patrons. The creation of high-value products and services is often at the top of the priority list for entrepreneurs.
Many people believe that giving is a way to make people happy and essential to a thriving business.
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Giving endlessly in your business is actually a recipe for a crash and burn – not only for you, but for your finances and clients as well. It erodes the long-term sustainability of your business, your body, your relationships, and everything that you are up to in the world.
There are other possibilities
Here are some things to consider – and change – so that you are still a valuable resource for your clients, but not depleting yourself and your business in the process:
Empower your clients
Our desire to help people goes awry when it turns into a level of giving that disempowers them. When people actually choose and reach for something they give it more value in their mind. For most of us, the more value we assign to something, the more we are willing to actually receive from it and we end up valuing it even more.
This approach to your clients leaves them knowing that they can always ask for more, choose more, and succeed in reaching for it. If you are available to them without giving endless handouts – they know where to find what they are looking for when they are looking for it. From this approach, you become a resource rather than the source.
Action step: When you think you have to give more – stop!
Pause. Ask yourself, “Is this going to empower my client (and me too)? Or is this going to disempower them?”. Empowerment goes both ways. If your client is empowered, you will be too.
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What’s your vibe?
While few people recognize this, it’s the energy, or the vibe, behind everything that we do that actually determines what occurs in our business. If you have the vibe that you need people to choose you in order for your business to be successful, they will pick that up.
For example, have you ever encountered a salesperson that was desperate for a sale? Did you want to buy what they were selling? Probably not. That energy pushes people away. It does not actually work! And yet, people approach sales in this way all the time.
Action step: Be the choosing one in a business relationship!
In business, most people put themselves in the position of being the chosen one. What that means is that you have decided that people need to choose you in order for your business to survive and thrive. The business then becomes a game of trying to get people to choose you, which isn’t fun – or productive – for anybody.
Take a different perspective and a different vibe. What if you don’t ever need anybody in particular to choose you or your business, and you know that – and embody that in the energy you bring to the world?
How do you do that? First of all, become aware of when you are functioning from the energy of need or lack. Take a breath, get present with yourself, and remind yourself that you are actually pushing people away with that point of view. Then ask yourself, “If I was being the choosing one, rather than the chosen one, what would I actually do?”
This will give you more awareness over time of the vibe you are putting out into the world – and give you more choice as to what’s going to create the most for you.
When you value you and what it is that you have to give, others do too. When you empower your clients, everybody is greater because of it, including you. Perhaps it’s time to do something very different, put your health and wealth front and center in your own life, and be the choosing one? The world will actually be a greater place if you do!
About the author
Heather Nichols, MSW, is a Joy of Business facilitator, movement & meditation consultant, tantra practitioner and somatic psychotherapist. She combines her expertise in mind-body therapy with 20 years’ experience in the world of business and entrepreneurship to facilitate people toward a fuller, more joyful, experience of business, life and family. An Access Consciousness® facilitator, healer, and mom, Heather has been running a weekly radio show for more than 6 years. She also facilitates workshops and private consultations online and around the world. She refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer from life and brings to her work a fierce commitment to create joy, ease, and wealth on the planet – in every aspect.
