The Spontaneous Sale
Last month was fun times with a spontaneous flash sale of coaching. Spontaneity is one of my personality traits according to my Lumina profile (I must be careful it does not spill over into impulsivity too often! I keep an eye on that).
I am welcoming entirely new coaching clients, returning clients (this is thrilling as I miss my former clients) and some smart clients who tagged this super offer onto their current package.
Back to that spontaneity.
All through September, while I was away, I had planned to put out this coaching sale. I had spoken to my intern, Jon, and agreed on the price, the terms and the marketing. September 18th, my birthday, would be the launch, and I would announce it on my return from the UK. But I would also completely turn off for the last ten days of my holiday (besides running the beloved Lighthouse) and focus entirely on restorative rest and quality time with friends.
My best friend had flown in from New York to be with me and combine it with a visit to her sister, and I wanted to be fully present to myself, my friends and my family. Two of my uni pals came across for dinner together in a small and pretty town near my host's. The Aunties and Uncles took my friend's adult son out for dinner and some Aunty and Uncle activities.
I stayed five nights with my other BFF and appreciated every single second with them, following a wonderfully peaceful and fulfilling stay with my parents.
So I didn't really want to get into designing and posting a string of promotions.
Plan ahead, Sarah!
Set up your social media calendar!
Be a professional churner of things!
Seriously, it takes serious discipline for a small biz owner to completely, and I do mean completely, ignore business. A scandal. HOW LAZY! UNPROFESSIONAL! UNBUSY!
Anyway, I arrived back on 17th September at 7am, ran the Lighthouse Circle from a WiFi mini-office booth in Haneda Airport (hilarity ensued as I locked my laptop, phone and all my ID in the booth) and of course awoke ready for action on the 18th!
I did not. I awoke with a cold at 4am and stayed up, managed to do a few loads of washing, and went out for ice cream in lieu of an actual birthday dinner (I could not manage an entire dinner).
Then daily life took hold, my enthusiasm for the promotion waned (as is my nature) and I put it on the back burner. Until the LAST DAY OF SEPTEMBER, when I suddenly decided: it's game on. And I did the spontano promotion, a surprise, or probably a semi-surprise, for my admin manager Laura. I say semi-surprise as she has worked with me for 11 years, so she understands how my motivations and executions operate. This is how my version of competence functions.
Back to that spontaneity. One element of unmasking for me (and for many of my incredibly talented yet unconventional clients) is to unmask competence and delivery within my neuro-capabilities.
Not to assess my natural rhythmic way of doing things as mad, bad and wrong, but as another way to do things, beyond the current set of norms that were dreamed up maybe 50 years ago.
(It's all made up). And to meet the world where it is. It's such a relief to unmask like this and allow competence and professional behaviour to emerge in a different guise. Radical, almost.
And it was FUN watching people jump in and sign up. We tend to love the clients who work with us and build really high-quality relationships with them, so watching them roll back in is a good time. (Sometimes people just need a deadline, a push or a fun offer to jump back in, or to jump for the first time. Many folk had 'been meaning to sign up' for a while.)
So I'm dreaming up the next offer for the new year! On retreat I will reflect on my full and well-lived life and all its richness, and project out versions for the future, starting with next year. Maybe. I don't know; maybe the timeline will bend to me.
FULL LIVES WELL-LIVED. This very much describes my brave, bold, talented and influential clients. They are grappling with the many tones of life. You should see them (you do see them).
Sound like you?
Or a loved one?
Or a colleague?
Not my clients - my DNA
One of those sets of pearls now lives distributed over the floor of an airplane. It was 1 pound at a charity shop so cost per wear was a about 5p for the 20 days I owned it. Bargain.