Succeed In Business By Putting Yourself First With Ilise Benun [Episode 45]

With all the competition out there it's all too tempting to be seen as the person who is available 24/7 on demand and who over delivers every time, just to bag those all important clients and prospects.

But by doing that you could actually be harming your business, your clients, and most importantly your work-life balance.

Here to tell us why it's so important to set realistic boundaries and expectations from the get-go, and how it could actually boost your business, is the brilliant Ilise Benun…

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• It’s actually a mindset that needs to be cultivated.
• One aspect of that mindset is the fact that you’re not the employee. Your client is not the boss, you are the boss and it’s your business.
• Clients are the people that you serve, but they’re not your boss. So, you really have to understand that and take the leadership position of running your business and running the projects that you’re working on with them.
• The other aspect of this mindset is to do with marketing. If you don’t market your services, then you’re essentially relegating yourself to taking whatever comes along.
• So, if you market your business then you always have prospects in the pipeline and better prospects coming along so that you’re essentially free to let go of clients who are taking advantage, or at least put them in their place.

• You do have to decide what you want your life and your work life to look like first.
• Do you want to work round the clock? Do you want to have a few days off? Do you want to be constantly thinking about your clients?
• The important part is attracting the type of clients who will comply with the way that you run your business, so you need to make sure that in the marketing or qualifying process you have to set the expectations for the future.
• A lot of people tend to make themselves super available or they over deliver at the beginning and then that becomes the expectation that the client gets used to.
• Instead, you should set out the boundaries from the start. For example, I offer a free 30-minute consultation and I do that because that way people know that when the 30 minutes is up the clock starts ticking. It’s time for them to make a decision.
• If you don’t set those boundaries it becomes very fuzzy and sends a really bad precedent.

• A lot of times the big important one is communication.
• How often can the client communicate with you? In what ways can they communicate with you? Do you want frequent or bulk communications?
• It’s really important to set up a workflow that works for you and is efficient so that you can do your best job.

• There are many different levels of focus, and often when I’m talking about it, I’m talking about focusing on a particular market or niche.
• But when I talk about that people get confused because they think they have to choose one type of work or one type of customer and never do anything for anyone else ever again.
• Of course, it’s not as black and white as that. However, if you begin to focus your efforts first on a particular market it will allow you to really understand your customers and how they think and what their pain points are.
• That means that all of your messaging, all of your content marketing, and all of your advice can speak directly to your client’s needs, so that when they see you, they know that you’re exactly what they need.
• This type of focus will help to make connections and then converting people to clients is much easier!

A book that you would recommend…
The Most Human Human by Brian Christian and 21 Lessons For The 21^st Century by Yuval Noah Harari.

What is your top success habit?
I refuse to multitask.

Who do you look up to?
One of my role models is Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor.

What are your favourite apps right now?
For time tracking I love FunctionFox and for meditation I use the Waking Up Course.

Here’s the big one…who do you like more, Rob or Kennedy?
Oh, I think I like Kennedy more.

Finally, where can folks go to find out more about you?
My hub is marketing-mentor.com and the best thing to do there is to sign up for my quick tips!