You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 115.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove Podcast, your calm space for practical help to get your dream business up and running while being authentically you and taking care of your mental health. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. I'm so glad you're here!

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Hey, there my strong friends. Hey, I've got a great announcement to share with you guys. I have an off the shelf course becoming available in the next week or two. It's called the connection factor. This is how to create more consults in your business.

Now, when I started as a coach years ago, I had to get my own clients. Even when I was a corporate employee, I had to get my own clients and I had to figure out exactly how I would do that. So, you know, I loved my mindset model and you know, I love experiments. So I thought, why not repurpose those as a way of connecting with people? There's a very special way of doing it, where you're connecting with people authentically, they feel heard, seen, and important, and then you're guiding them through, by sharing your experiences where all of a sudden they want to work with you. And then they start asking you for a consult.

I want you to learn this technique because it has been incredibly effective for me. When I was in corporate, I became the most in demand coach. Then it has really helped me as an entrepreneur to always make sure that I have a full caseload of clients. So just wanted to let you know, this is coming out in the next week or two. So look for it. I'll let you know, as soon as it is available.

BIGGEST REASON YOU'RE KEEPING YOUR BUSINESS A SECRET

This week, I wanna talk with you about a concept of the Value Mirror. One of the things that I see holding people back from going and telling people about their business or talking with potential clients about their business is that they think of their business as if it's themselves. It's like they're standing in front of a mirror thinking about their business.

But what they're doing is looking in the mirror and seeing their reflection of themselves pointing back at them. And they think that this is how a customer is also going to see them. So when the business owner is standing in front of this mirror, and they're thinking about value, ( hence...value mirror), they're looking at themselves and they're thinking all of their insecurities and picking themselves apart as to why they're not valuable. Now it's not your fault. This is our inner critic. This has just been wired in our brain for so long, to look at ourselves and think of everything that's wrong. And therefore we devalue ourselves.

It makes it really hard when we're going out there. And we're talking about our business because we're thinking that these potential clients are looking at us as people. And they're looking at all of the things that our inner critic looks at. Okay, so first off, clients are not our inner critic. Our inner critic has been studying us for years and picking apart every little thing.

People out in public, they don't see all that. They don't spend that much time studying us to know all of those little things. But even more important, they're not considering your product and service "You". They're considering... What is this service that they could use in their life? Or what is the product or that deliverable at the end in their life?

VALUE MIRROR VS. VALUE LOOKING GLASS

This is where the value mirror comes in. Imagine you're standing there in front of the mirror. Instead of having it be a reflection back on you, like looking at you and having your inner critic say all of these things. Imagine it as like Alice looking through a looking glass. You're looking through that mirror. It's not reflecting back you.

You are looking through and you can see a whole scene on the other side. In this scene, It's not you. It's the potential client. And you're imagining what their life looks like right now without having the service that you provide or without having that product that you make, or that deliverable that you help them to create.

What does their life look like right now?

How is their life deficient in something? They're missing something. Their life isn't as good as it could be if they had this service or this product. So now you're thinking about how your business can make their life better. What kind of value would that be in their life? What would it mean for them if they had that service or that product?

Let's say that it eased some suffering in some way. So you look at their life beforehand and see, where were they suffering? What was it costing them? Was it a relationship? Was it quality of life? Was it opportunities, maybe promotions at work. Maybe it was keeping up with their financial investments that they wanted to do.

And then imagine, what is their life gonna look like after they've worked with you? What is that difference?

MEASURING VALUE

Like if you could measure that difference...You know, I always like to come up with measurements. Come up with some kind of a scale.

That could be the quality of their relationships (scale 0-10).

If it was a job promotion, what is the difference in pay or the quality of their work life as a result of having that promotion or even working at a different company?

If it was a financial thing like that, one's pretty easy to count.

That is the value of your service. That's the tangible thing that you're trying to convey to them of what's possible for them.

So that's like if it was a suffering thing, if you make their life easier in some way, imagine what their life is before having that easy button. How hard is their life? Look at the things in their life, having it be hard, having their life be hard. How does that impact how much they're able to get done in the day or their energy level throughout the day? Maybe it's really hard in the morning and then it lessens up at night, or maybe it's the other way. It starts off easy in the morning. And then by the end of the night, life is so hard that they sink so heavy down into that couch that they can't enjoy the rest of their night. What are all of those visual cues that you could see in their life? That because something in their life was hard, that it has had this ramification on the rest of their life.

Now imagine your service that has made their life easier, or the product that you're offering, or the help that you're giving so that they can do something so that their life can be easier. Imagine once it's all done after they have worked with you, how easy is their life now? And then looking at that ripple effect outward, what's the ramification on the rest of their life? What are they able to do now? Because everything is so easy. Are they able to achieve things faster? Are they able to get a lot more done? Are they able to create more in their life? And as a result, those creations now have a value also. These are the values that you are providing to them through your product and service.

This is the looking through the looking glass. Now you can really see the value that your service or your product is offering to them. And why wouldn't you want them to have that in their life?

So you're gonna get caught up at first because you're having that reflection in the value mirror. But if you're going with a value looking glass, you look through it. We're thinking about the potential clients and the change on their life. As a result of having that extra service in their life, making it easier, happier, better quality of life, more opportunities.

THE VALUE OF COST AVOIDANCE

Maybe even it's an avoidance of something that would've cost them a lot in their life. Like, imagine that. That's a pretty good value. They have something in their life that is valuable, that they're about to lose. And it's because they are hiring you and your business to provide that service or the product so that they don't lose that. So now you're making sure that they maintain that value because it was inevitable that they were going to lose it if they didn't have your help.

Okay. So it's that separation. It's really gonna help you, the separation of your business identity. It's not about you and all of the qualities of you and any insecurities that you have. It's about your service or your product for your client. So when you're seeing people out in the world and you can tell that they're struggling with something and all of a sudden those insecurities pop up, just think, oh, okay, right now, I'm picturing in my mind a value mirror that is reflecting me back. And my inner critic is like, blah, blah, blah. Saying all sorts of stuff.

Change it to, no, no, no, that's not what this is all about. It's about a value looking glass. Looking through, seeing a client that's struggling and how my exact service or product is gonna make their life better. It makes it so much easier to approach them because you know, it's for them, it has nothing to do with you.

So your inner critic can just go take a backseat, cuz it has nothing to do with the reflection in the mirror. It has everything to do with them (the potential client). Okay. So value mirror, get rid of that. Instead, let it be that value looking glass. Look through. See the value that your product or service has for your potential clients.

Okay. So quick and easy concept for today. And I think that that's enough. Because I think that this one concept is so important for you to get that. If you don't, then none of the rest of it mattered, cuz you're gonna get caught up and you're gonna have to do so much inner work to replace every single thought about yourself. That you're not gonna have time to actually go out and help your clients. Now we want you to do the inner work of course, because that's gonna make your quality of life so much better.

But really when it comes down to it, it's so much faster if you can disassociate and think about your products and your services. That your business is your product or your service. It's not you. So get out there, offer that product, your service to people that really need it. You're gonna make a huge difference in their life. All right, my friend, if you need some help with this, then you know, you can always reach out to me. You can go to my website at www.myfreedomgrove.com. Go to the work with me tab. There's a couple of different ways that you can work with me on there. You can click whatever applies to you. And I hope that you have a great week and I'll talk with you soon. Bye-bye

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Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. When you are ready to make your dream business a reality and take care of your mental health, I invite you to join the Unshakable Business Co-Lab. This is the mastermind membership you've been waiting for. There's no limits on your imagination, nor your timeline. We're with you every step of the way. To learn more, please visit www.myfreedomgrove.com/join. I'll see you there!