Leela Cosgrove

It’s now a week since the Renegade Rockstar Roadshow – and I still haven’t taken any time off … so I’m not going to get into a long debrief of THE MOST AWESOME EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF EVENTS!!! Instead, I’m gonna give you a little taste of what you missed at the VIP Backstage Buffet on Saturday Night – HUGE thanks go to the Rock Goddess Corinne Maunder for bringing her killer camera and getting some incredible footage …

Full debrief to follow … after I’ve sat on a beach for a few days …

One of the most frequently asked questions I’ve received over the last week since posting the video of my TEDx Byron Bay presentation on the Identity Principle is,

“I thought you taught business stuff not personal development stuff??”

True!

But IDENTITY is just as important in business as it is in everyday life – and in fact, the same Identity Principle model can be applied to figuring out who your business is.

You see, I’m sick of people seeing their business as something other than a natural extension of who they are – because whether you realise it or not, it ALWAYS is. People who screw other people over in business, you can rest assured, are the same people who would sell their Grandmother for the right price. When people say,

“Don’t take it personally, it’s just business.”

While they are KIND OF right (you can’t let stuff get at you) – I still want to throw a rock at them. Of course I take stuff personally. I’m a person. And so is my business, in its own way.

So – how to use the Identity Principle to Uncover your Business Identity.

I, by the way, HEART the use of Identity over Brand – I just feel like Identity has so much more strength … just like I use Propaganda instead of marketing – because marketing is designed to sell stuff and propaganda is designed to win the hearts and minds of nations – so brand is designed to force coherent recognition of colours and logos within a demographic, while Identity is about searching for your core and bringing out a truly aligned and authentic life based on who YOU are.

• KNOW Who Your Business Is:

Vision: What’s your vision? Do you want to take over the world? Change an industry? Or just make enough money to cover the credit card bills on a monthly basis?

Values: What Values does your business hold dear? For instance, a major value for my business is being real – that is, talking the way I talk, writing the way I write, being who I am and NEVER letting ANYONE tell me there’s more money to be made by changing. In your business this ALSO means VALUE in terms of the VALUE you provide … I love the combination of the two meanings of this word because I think it perfectly sums up my life philosophy. Value and Value.

Planning: The only people I know who have written business plans are the ones who need funding from investors and the bank. If, however, you ask them you’ll find they engage in different kinds of planning. Mastermind groups, for instance, are incredibly effective. Me – I HEART Mind Mapping – my office walls are literally COVERED in butchers paper which is, in turn, COVERED in my plans and thoughts … find a way that works for you.

• OWN who your Business is:

Acceptance: I really hate it when I hear people say “I’m going to be the next / female Tony Robbins!”. It’s like – Dude. How about just being you? Mentors and role models are great – but accepting who you are and fully owning that will take you a lot further than trying to be someone else.

Forgiveness: Who does your business need to forgive? Do you still make business decisions based on having been hurt by a previous client or employee? I once knew a guy who could never trust his employees or contractors because 20 years ago someone had hurt him really badly. This held him back because he just  couldn’t trust his employees – and who wants to work for someone who doesn’t trust them?

Responsibility: Your success or failure in business is 100% on your own shoulders. Got stuff that’s holding you back? Yep – we all do. Getting around it – finding a way to put the hours in when the kids are asleep or after work – struggling free of the 80 hours of work IN the business to find a way to put in 20 or 30 hours ON the business. Yes. It’s hard. Yes – sometimes it’s almost impossible. What made you think it was supposed to be easy?

• LIVE who your Business is

Outward Reflection: Yes, okay – logos and stuff ARE important. But I’d love to see more people actually do interesting visual stuff that reflects the internal values of their business. Your logo, branding and website are only allowed to be boring if YOU are boring. Otherwise, come up with something interesting. Further, this relates to how YOU present in relations to your business – I get told off all the time for swearing on Facebook – by people who simply don’t understand this. I never do anything that doesn’t reflect my internal values. It’s the same reason that any time I’m offered a speaking gig on the condition that I cover my tattoo, I turn it down. I won’t be someone I’m not or hide who I am for any amount of money in the world.

Persuasion: Sales. The mere word strikes fear into the hearts of people all over the world. But let me echo what I said in my TED presentation – persuasion is a natural outcome from having complete clarity around your vision and values. When you understand the value and values you represent and you figure out for whose benefit you are providing them, sales is easy – because it becomes your MISSION on EARTH to persuade the people who need your help that you can help them.

If you saw someone you loved drowning in the ocean and you had a boat, when would you withdraw your offer of helping them out? When would you give up and sail away?

Interaction: Your ability to interact with the people around you is the number 1 indication of how far you’ll have the ability to rise in your life. I was very blessed to have an incredible role model in this area in my husband – right at the same time as I started my business, he started teaching me (through example) how to effectively interact with the people. His secret? Genuine Interest. He never fakes it. He simply finds something interesting in whatever another person is saying to him and hones in on it. Asks questions. Steers the conversation. In life this is a really valuable skill to have. In business, this is the skill that will make or break you.

• Give who your Business is:

Passion: The number of people who run businesses they hate makes me want to cry. Life is too short – and perhaps the dumbest part of it is that the effort it takes to succeed in a business you hate vs one you love is EXACTLY the same. So why not build a business around your passion?

If your passion is “Giving to Others” – you need to check yourself. So many people want to jump to this without having spent enough time working through the other 3 quadrants. If you want to Give of Yourself – you need to know who that self is – otherwise, what, exactly, are you giving?

This is the reason I’m not particularly fussed on “life coaching” – it seems to me the majority of life coaches I meet are lost. They’re searching for who they are and are trying to use working with other people either as a way to figure themselves out or worse, to avoid figuring themselves out.

Models: The Identity Principle is an example of a model. People have always told me that I’m an aberration – that the way I am is not normal. So I’ve spent a lot of time asking myself why I am the way I am – and the biggest answer that came to me was simply that I KNOW who The Leela is. Hence the pronoun. I always know where I stand with myself – I’ve never gone “looking for myself” because  I haven’t needed to. So the next thing I did was spent some time reading about Identity and then using that as a basis to figure out what the main parts were that I KNEW about myself that made me so sure of stuff. Then, I used all of that knowledge and created the picture I share with you above so that I can easily communicate with people and show them what I know.

In business this is just as powerful – and can include not only knowledge models but also the systems in your business – modeling how you sell, market, deliver, etc can make you a crap load of money while helping other people.

Others: And only now – at the very end – do we come to giving to others. Because giving BACK is important for the soul – and while I’m a big fan of both the Ego and of Selfishness, I recognise that Legacy lies in our ability to Give to Others.

However – trying to jump straight to this part of the picture is PURE selfishness.

When confronted with doing something they know they need to do, which is very far out of their comfort zone, I’ve heard women say,

“Oh I can’t do that, because I’ve got kids and they’re my first priority.”

And I’ll shrug and say Okay, but what I’m really thinking is,

“What would your children say if they knew you were using them as an excuse for not doing the things you KNOW you need to do?”

Harsh?

Absolutely.

But then, the truth often is.

Earlier this month I was invited to speak at TEDX Byron Bay – as a huge fan of TED and having practically grown up in Byron Bay this was such a huge honour. In order to deliver content that I thought was worthy of that kind of event, I decided to unveil my Identity Principle. This is something I’ve been working on for the last 12 years. I hadn’t actually planned to release it for a bit longer- but when the offer for TED came through, it was like – this is a sign. It is time.

Enjoy my 15 minutes of TED Fame!  I’ve posted the Identity Principle diagram below the video.

I’ve had a lot of questions from people post the event about how they can get their hands on more information – and I’ve started working on a TOP SECRET project that we’ll be rolling out after the Renegade Rockstar Roadshow – if you want to know more before the details are released, pop me a message!

Probably the most common frustration people approach me with is,

“It’s so HARD to find good commission only sales people!”

There’s a couple of really good reasons for this.

Glaringly obvious reason #1 is simply this – if you’ve heard all that stuff about outsourcing what you’re not good at and you’re outsourcing sales because you don’t like it … seriously, how do you see that going?

Even The Leela – whose partner is a professional 10 year veteran of the Commission Only Sales Game and works for her full time – took a year off her business and went and worked in comm only sales in her industry.

Why?

Because you CAN’T MANAGE what you don’t understand. Commission only sales is a HARD job. You’re on the phone all day – and you have NO GUARANTEE that you’ll make enough money to feed yourself or your family. It’s emotionally draining. So, why would anyone do it? Because there’s a CRAPLOAD of money to be made.

So – how much money did you make last year? What’s your profit margin? What’s the percentage you’re planning on paying?

Because if you made $100,000 worth of sales last year and you’re paying 10% – that’s $10,000. In a YEAR. Are you SERIOUSLY going to ask someone to work full time for that money? Because let me tell you, as a sales person married to a sales person – the first question we would ask you if we were looking at working for you would be,

“How much money can I expect to make?”

If that number is less than $150,000 (which means $1.5 Million in Sales) – then why would I work for you when I could be working for a large company who would supply me with not only the assurance of making that kind of cash … but also with a car, a phone, a computer and bonuses?

Even better than that – they’ll provide me with a script, with leads, with a marketing machine behind me – and most importantly, with a manager who has sold the product themselves … so when I go to them and say,

“I keep coming up against this objection … ” they can tell me how to answer that.

Can you provide me with all this? Then forget about trying to get fully trained, awesome commission only sales people to work for you. It’s not going to happen.

Which brings us to the second bit … which is: The reason you’re struggling to find good sales people is because you want The Best, straight out of the box. You want extraordinary people (who are, by definition, in any industry a limited number of people) to get you extraordinary results.

EVERY company who employs sales people will tell you – the way you get great sales people is to build them. You need a plug and play system that you can put ORDINARY people into and get extraordinary results from them. But that system HAS to include someone who has already done it to manage the whole thing, so you’ve got two choices: Pay a Wage and get someone in who’ll help you OR (and this is definitely what I think!) Learn to sell yourself. Learn how to develop scripts and systems.

Because I know a lot of you love to think that being in business is about your profession – that it’s about going and having important business person coffee and going to networking meetings.

But Business = Sales.

There’s no way around that.

If you’re not making sales, you’re not IN business.

People who call themselves entrepreneurs and then say they hate sales make me laugh – entrepreneurs are merely sales people who earn 100% commission. If you think you can get out of this business thing without having to sell … then I suggest just getting out of this business thing …

However – if you’re willing to learn, what you need to know is that Sales is a SKILL – not a gift. I’m a natural introvert – I am, to this day, still kind of shy. And yet in my year in phone sales I made over $1Million for the people I worked for. Not because I’m special or gifted – but because I dug my heels in and learned what I needed to know.

The effect that’s had on my business? Well it’s DEFINITELY a contributing factor to our 400% business growth last year. And I’d go a step further and say – if I hadn’t of learned to sell, I wouldn’t have a business anymore. I simply would not have made enough money and would have had to give up …

If you want to learn more about Sales Systems, I recommend contacting The Saleswarlord (of course!)

http://www.saleswarlord.com/ or you can REALLY impress him and call 03 9689 9980.

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One of the most awesome things about the internet is the ability to connect with the COOLEST people!

I’ve been hanging around the back end of seminars for more than 5 years and in that time I’ve seen a lot of speakers come and go – yesterday’s flavour of the month becomes today’s invisible person. And don’t even get me started on how few women are normally up there – it becomes easy to think, after a while, that this is a game for men – because they seem to be the most successful and the ones who are around long term.

Jennie Armato is, of course, a notable exception to that rule – I remember seeing Jennie speak for the first time probably around 4 years ago. What I’ll NEVER forget was that when she switched from the awesome content she was giving to starting to talk about her offer, I didn’t even realise – I was still taking notes 5 minutes into her pitch when I suddenly DID realise and was like … ohhhh – she’s good! (If you’re not following her on Facebook, you need to be! http://www.facebook.com/godmother )

I feel very blessed to count Jennie among my mentors – and triply blessed that she has agreed to give up some time during our Renegade Rockstar Roadshow to come along and give me some feedback to ensure I do the best job possible for you guys

Anyway, one of the coolest things about Facebook for me has been the opportunity to get to know people like Jennie better. We were having a conversation the other day about how when you talk to entrepreneurs privately, you find that a lot of them are not achieving all that they want to in their business including and most importantly they are finding it difficult to build a healthy profit. We had some very similar ideas on why that might be, so Jennie asked if she could record an interview with me … and the below is the result of our conversation.

Let me know what you think!

(You can sign up to the 11 week e-course on the left <== and for the free DVD on the right ==> )

For more information on the Roadshow:

http://www.RenegadeRockstarRoadshow.com

While I wouldn’t class myself as a Social Media expert, I have had a certain level of success with social networking. Funnily enough, I don’t put this down to marketing or sales nous (which, with both, I am endowed!) – but to my introduction to the internet at the age of 16.

I’m a Gen X/Y cusper – I’m old enough to remember a time before the internet, but young enough to have surfed, chatted, Im’ed and even Napstered! (I can’t retrospectively get in trouble for that, can I?!?!)

When social networking first came on the business scene, I wasn’t particularly interested – I had a look at MySpace, but it took far too long to set your profile up and I just didn’t have time. I joined LinkedIn, but didn’t use it for a year. Then, as the landscape began to change and discussions were abounding about whether social networking would be a useful business tool, I decided to have a second look at the whole thing.

What I found was that, just like offline networking, you needed certain information to ensure that you went to the right sites, talked to the right people, used the right tools and generally made everything work for you. I started experimenting and before long, realised there was a whole lot of money to be made from social networking – but most people were going entirely the wrong way about it.

So, here are 5 steps that I used to make more than $20,000 on LinkedIn in the last 12 months. Use them wisely!

Step 1 – Become a LION
You may have seem them around LinkedIn – people with “LION” in their profile. LION stands for LinkedIn Open Networker. This means that you’ll accept invitations from anyone, not just people who know you.

To register to be part of the LION network, you need to head to the DallasBlue website and sign up:

http://mylinknetwork.com/

Go to “Add Yourself”.

And fill out the form.

I recommend adding yourself as a “Libertine” networker – that is, accepting invitations from everyone. However, be warned – if you set yourself up as a Libertine networker and you choose the “I don’t know” (AKA IDK) option you will be punished by the community.

When you use the IDK button when someone invites you to connect, the person who invited you is reported to LinkedIn and their account is frozen. This is very much frowned upon by the LION community and is really an unnecessary option. If you don’t wish to accept a request from someone, simply archive their invitation and then delete it – no harm, no foul.

Some people like to set up separate email addresses (often using Gmail) specifically for their LinkedIn accounts, as you WILL receive some spam once you begin the Libertine networking process. I have found that the level of spam is fairly minimal and doesn’t affect my day to day use of my email, but that’s your call!

Step 2 – Invite other LIONs
Go to:

http://mylinknetwork.com/lions.php

Follow the instructions here to copy and paste the list of other Libertine networkers into your LinkedIn account and invite them to connect with you.

You will now see your network grow by hundreds within the next week.

Step 3 – Complete your Profile
Now that you’re a LION, it’s a good idea to let people know! Place LION in the heading of your profile. Now, as you probably know, you need access to someone’s email in order to be able to invite them. So, go to the bottom of your profile and edit the ‘contact settings’. You want to put in words to this effect:

* LION – LinkedIn Open Networker

I am willing to connect and network with others in the LinkedIn community.

Please reach me at: leela@leelacosgrove.com

I am interested in exploring real, viable business/project opportunities that match my skill set and interests.

Now people who are surfing your profile are able to invite you to connect if they choose to.

It’s also important to ensure that your whole profile is filled out. Too often I see LIONs who haven’t bothered to fill out their employment details or interests.

There are SO many other cool add-ons! A few of my favourites include:

• Recommendations – Whether you’re an employee or a business person, LinkedIn is a great place to gather all of your testimonials. You can use the Recommendations tool to request that people endorse you.
• Add your Wordpress Blog – You can import your Wordpress blog and it will automatically update every time you put a new post up.
• Amazon Reading List – Let everyone know what you’ve read / what you’re reading / what you want to read.
• Slideshare – is a program that let’s you upload powerpoint presentations and share them with other users.

Step 4 – INTERACT!
The key to social networking of any kind is that it’s just like networking OFF line – if you went to a real life networking event, put up a poster about yourself and then didn’t talk to anyone, want kind of result do you think you would get? And yet this is PRECISELY what so many business people do and then complain that social networking is a waste of time.

LinkedIn has a couple of ways in which you can interact with other members.

• Status Updates – just like on Twitter or Facebook, you can let your network know what you’re up to. Do NOT use this to just post advertisements. Instead, ask questions and encourage people to respond to what you’re saying. You can now also hook this up with Twitter, so your Tweets post automatically and vice versa.
• Questions and Answers – this is probably the most effective way to interact and build your network. LinkedIn allows the entire membership to ask questions and you’re able to answer these questions regardless of whether people are in your network or not. The person who asks the question is then able to choose the ‘best answer’ for which you are awarded a ‘best answer’ badge for your profile.
  This does a couple of things – it makes you more visible to a larger range of people on the site. It also establishes you as an expert in your field. This is a really great way to gain a following and to develop relationships within LinkedIn.
• Groups – These are particularly good if you want to connect with other people in a specific niche, whether that’s geographical, industry or other. You’re also able to create your own groups if you find there’s an area that’s lacking.

Step 5 – Be a GIVER
One of the biggest mistakes I see on LinkedIn is LIONs who think that accepting their link request is permission to put you on their newsletter list. I unsubscribe from every newsletter I’m signed up to in this fashion (even the ones I might have signed up to willingly if I’d been asked).

The other mistake I see is the flood of emails I receive from people I’ve never met and who have never done anything for me asking for “a favour”. Why would I do you a favour?

I’ve done two successful campaigns to my network on LinkedIn (the first netted me $1,500 the second, in excess of $20,000). In both cases, I went to my network in Melbourne and Sydney and offered them a free download. There was no expectation of getting anything in return, I simply wanted to do the opposite of what everyone else was doing. This allowed me to develop several relationships which ultimately led to a decent cash return.

The secret to online networking is the same as the secret to offline networking – it’s about creating relationships. It’s about looking for partners, rather than trying to sell everyone who connects to you. It’s about asking what you can do for everyone else, before asking what they can do for you.

Connect with me on LinkedIn – I accept ALL requests …

http://au.linkedin.com/in/leelacosgrove

One of the biggest issues that seems to come up when I’m working with people is the issue of whether they’re “enough” or not.

And you know, after much deliberation on the subject I’ve decided that there is a secret to the whole “Not Enough” thing – and that secret is that …

If you think you’re not enough…
You’re Right.

You see, there are only two reasons for whining about whether you’re enough or not.

Reason 1:

Is that you know, deep down, that you’re under-utlising your potential. You know you haven’t done the study, the work, whatever to be the person you could be.

Reason 2:

Is that you’re one of those people who needs constant positive reassurance from the people around you that everything is okay (you probably spend a lot of time telling people how fat, ugly and stupid you are … and your friends are probably sick to death of having to tell you you’re not).

But here’s the good bit – both of these are “easily” fixable.

If you haven’t done the work – stop freaking complaining and put your energy into being better. Ignorance is excusable when you don’t know any better … as of reading this – you do. Go and take the courses, do the work – focus less on the “Why haven’t I done this?” and more on the just doing it.

If you’re a positive reinforcement junkie, you need to become your own cheerleader. Depending on other people for your self-esteem is a deep, dark, dangerous hole that can never be filled. Stop relying on others. Tell yourself constantly how awesome you are. Use positive affirmations if you must.
More importantly – tell other people how awesome you are ALL THE TIME.

“Wow … why are you doing that?”

“Because I’m awesome … “

Nothing gets through to your brain that your serious quicker than making a public declaration of a stand point on anything.

Lastly – get over it.

You’re enough if you believe you’re enough. Period.

I’m exceedingly pleased with myself due to the incredible AWESOMENESS that is this video. You’ll see what I mean …

You’ve probably heard about the ascendancy model or marketing funnel – but what does a REAL one look like? Check out the one I prepared earlier …