Denise Duffield-Thomas's Blog, page 35

One Simple Daily Action That’ll Change Your Relationship With Money Forever!

Hey gorgeous,

I’ve got some BIG, soul-searching kinda questions for you today.

Do you feel like you never have enough money?

Do you have no idea how much you make (or spend)?

At the end of the month do you wonder why you’ve not hit your financial goals, again?

Answering these can feel pretty bleak, but fear not, I’ve actually got some great news for you!

There’s a very simple (not scary) daily habit that has completely changed my relationship with money. Not just mine, but loads of entrepreneurs in my Money Bootcamp community. Almost every day, a post pops up in our Facebook group that says, “Denise, I didn’t believe you, but I did it and HOLY CRAP, you’re right!”

I usually answer, “YES, I’m a VIRGO. We’re ALWAYS RIGHT”. 

So (drumroll) what’s the one daily habit?

Are you ready?

The life changing habit is….

Tracking your money – and I literally mean EVERY PENNY that comes into your life.

Wait – where are you going? Don’t switch off…. don’t walk away!

I can hear you saying…

Oh crap, THAT? I tried it and it didn’t work for me.

Tracking is BORINGGGGGGGGG! 

I hate accounting! 

I have people who do that for me Denise!

Wait – HOLD UP.

This isn’t about doing more accounting. You should totally outsource that stuff so you can focus on making money. You don’t want to be organizing it. That’s for someone else to sort out.

Daily Tracking is an altogether different process. It’s about MINDFULLY tracking what comes into your life. Accounting is based on facts, while money tracking, in the manifesting sense, is focused on gratitude, awareness and increased abundance.

Even if you’ve tried it before – try it again. Try it every day for a month and then let me know. I’ll get my smug face ready!

How does tracking your money change your abundance mindset?

Humans are great at making up BS stories. We tend to make up stories about our ability, and most of all, our deservedness, to earn more money.

You might be telling yourself money stories like:

I’m broke. There’s literally NO money coming in. 

Nobody is buying my stuff. I guess I’m not cut out for being in business.

The Universe doesn’t like me. I’m not lucky like Denise… 

Tracking your money every day keeps you mindful of what’s actually going on in your life, helps you appreciate the abundance around you, and sometimes gets your butt into gear to make more money.

Best of all – it stops you feeling bad about money, and making up stories about your ability to earn money.

How to Track Your Money to Boost Your Money Mindset

When you track your income (using the tried and tested formula that I practice every single day), you will notice increased awareness around your finances and more positive behavior. Plus, the way I do it enhances one of the most powerful emotions for manifesting – GRATITUDE.

And when you feel good about your money, you generally start attracting MORE of it. Have you noticed that it often works in reverse too? When you feel shitty about your money, you sometimes manifest “unexpected” bills, fines and debts.

In my experience, you start tracking and then suddenly you’re finding money EVERYWHERE.

How? Why? Is it magic?

No – it’s like anything; when you train your brain to look for it, there it is. Like when you fall in love with a particular car and then you see them everywhere. It’s selection bias – a well-researched phenomenon. Make it work in your favor by training your brain to look for opportunities to find and make money!

How do I track money?

There are some subtleties in my approach that you might not have used before. In my Money Bootcamp and in my books, I talk about tracking two different things (don’t worry, I have some resources for you at the end of this post to make it super easy).

1) Track cash – ALL OF IT

In your normal accounting processes, you would track your business and personal income separately. However, when it comes to tracking money for manifesting purposes, you combine them.

Why?

Many entrepreneurs have actually already hit their financial goals without even realizing it. Yes, it might have come from different sources than you wanted it to, but money is still money. You’re getting pissed at the Universe for not helping you and the Universe is going, “Dude – you’ve done it”. The Universe doesn’t care about the source.

You might be miscalculating your true abundance by compartmentalizing your money.

Have you ever thought any of the following?

 

It only counts if it’s earned from something I like doing


My job income doesn’t count because I really want to be an entrepreneur


Mine is only a hobby business; my partner earns the “real” money


I didn’t hit my goal so what’s the point?


Yeah, I had a good month, but it was a total fluke!


That project/client/payment was too easy. I didn’t really “earn” it 


If a client gives me cash, it’s not real business income


My business income doesn’t count because it’s only a small amount – barely worth counting


Paypal money isn’t “real” money


But my parents gave me that money – it doesn’t really belong to me!

 

If you’re just counting money from only one source, it’s not a true picture of your full abundance.

I want you to track all income - cash and money. Every coin you find in the street. Every source of job income. Every monetary gift. Interest. Free money. Easy money. Cash money. Paypal money.

Money is money.

You don’t have to be super 100% accurate, this is NOT an accounting exercise. Remember, you won’t be using this for tax purposes. This is for manifesting purposes and I promise, this practice will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

How often should you track your money?

Do it DAILY. Because it’s easy to get out of the habit and forget.

I actually do mine multiple times a day on my money tracking app or Google doc (I’ll share mine with you at the bottom of this article). It keeps me focused on money making and each time I record my income, I feel excited and grateful.

BTW – I practice the “cash accounting” method where I only track it when I actually receive it in one of my bank accounts (and yes, Paypal is a bank account) or I actually have it in my possession. That way I don’t end up tracking it twice.

What if NO MONEY is coming in?

Well – don’t think that this exercise doesn’t apply to you. First of all – it might be coming in and you’re just not counting it. Or second, you’re feeling broke, instead of focusing on abundance and gratitude.

And we know from the Law of Attraction that you get MORE of what you already have. If you feel broke, it’s hard to get out of that mindset. All of your “reality” tells you the same thing. You might stay in denial, stop opening your bills or feel powerless about your financial situation.

So you act in ways that don’t serve you. You don’t have the forward motion to create positive action.

That doesn’t mean becoming a Pollyanna, but you DO have to do something about your mindset. Because how else are you going to have the energy, motivation and self-belief to manifest more money?

When you go days without tracking ANY money, then you can use it as a wake up call to get into action. Look for easy actions to take: send out invoices, create a sale, send an email to a prospective client, sell something or apply for some part time work, for example.

And remember, tracking your money and working on your mindset is free, so what have you got to lose

This brings me to the second form of tracking, and this is a super fun one.

2) Track anything of “value”

Every time you get something free, track it on your value column. If you can value it, add it.

For example – your friend buys you a coffee. Add the cost of that into your value column. You got an unexpected discount on something you were already buying – add into your value column. You get something for free. Add it to your value column.

Why is tracking “value” so important?

I’ve noticed that a lot of our Bootcamp members are insanely good at manifesting. In fact, lots of entrepreneurs are. They are brilliant at attracting what they need when they need it, usually by the very skin of their teeth, or at the very last minute.

Unfortunately for a lot of entrepreneurs, they don’t manifest actual MONEY.

It’s like a massive block, where the Universe takes care of them, but without the need for money to go through their hands at all.

Now – I used to be exactly like this! I once won half a million dollars worth of free stuff in one year, but I earned hardly any actual money. Read all about my insanely lucky year here. 

When you track your value as well as cash, it serves two purposes:

Gratitude

When you’re feeling broke about not having actual cash, you can feel gratitude for the fact that you still are able to create abundance. It makes you feel lucky and taken care of.

Reality check

If you’re regularly attracting more value than money, then it’s a huge reality check to shift the focus on your manifesting. Are you spending more time on trying to win competitions or get free stuff, rather than focusing on making actual money in your business?

The reality check was a HUGE one for me. Once I realized that I was a total super star at manifesting, but I didn’t have any actual cash in my bank account, I had to take a good, long, hard look at my actions.

 Are you ready for ACTUAL money?

I used to be the Queen of Free. I’d write restaurants complaint letters so they’d give me free meals. I applied for competitions all the time (and regularly won them!) but I procrastinated on taking actual income-producing action in my business.

I even did a ritual where I said to the Universe, “Dude, I’m a big girl now. Thanks for taking care of me, but I’m ready to make some actual CASH now”.

That was a game-changer for me.

So yeah – I’m not saying don’t take free shit anymore -who doesn’t like free food? I’m just saying that intention and focus is incredibly important.

Plus, I noticed that when I was getting free stuff, I just took what was given, regardless of my own personal preference. After all, it was free and nobody wants to be ungrateful.

“Get what you’re given” was definitely drummed into me at a young age. You?

You know what’s better than free stuff? Having the money to buy the EXACT thing you want.

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

I want to answer all the questions I get asked on the topic of Daily Money Tracking.

Does interest / dividends count?

If you have received the money then yes, money is money

Does money I find on the street count?

Yes, money is money

Does my partner’s income count?

If your intention is to make more money of your own, then no. If you’re doing this experiment as a couple and you don’t care who is manifesting the money, then count everything you bring in together.

Do loans count as cash?

Only if it’s a gift, not if you have to pay it back.

Do I track expenses as well?

You should totally keep up to date with your expenses, preferably with an online system like Xero or (best of all) get your Bookkeeper to do it. Remember, this isn’t to replace your accounting or bookkeeping process. The purpose of this exercise is for you to increase your awareness of money that comes into your life.

Does bartering count as “value received”?

If it’s a straight swap, then no. But if you received more value than you gave out, add the difference into your value column. By the way, not bartering anymore will CHANGE your life. Trust me on this.

How do I track? Spreadsheet, notebook, app?

There are three different ways that I’ve done my money tracking. Your method is completely up to you and your personal preferences.

Seriously, none of them have to be fancy.

Paper tracking

You can literally just use a piece of paper with 31 lines on it, one for each day of the month.

You can use a pen or pencil to put in your totals at the end of the day. This is super easy, although it’s a little harder if you attract a lot of different types of money each day. This was my very first method of tracking, and I found it easy and motivating.

Spreadsheet tracking

I like using an online Google Doc that I can access from all my devices. I probably update it several times a day, and just keep adding the figures into the cell, so it adds up the total automatically. I also love being able to see at a glance where I’m at with my daily, monthly and yearly goals.

Resource: Download my money tracking spreadsheet here.  

iPhone app tracking

There are already some awesome expenses apps, like You Need a Budget but they don’t really fit the purpose of tracking for manifesting purposes.

Luckily, I’ve created one for you, where you can track income AND value each day, rate how you feel about money and take notes. It also lets you set monthly goals and track how you’re meeting them.

Resource: Download the Lucky B Money Tracker App from the App Store

Use your gut

You really can’t screw this up. Just be consistent. If this was an accounting exercise, there would be an exact process. But it’s not. The intention is more important than doing it perfectly.

If you procrastinate because you’re worried about screwing it up, you’re missing an amazing opportunity to change the way you think, feel and take action on your money.

I can’t wait to see what changes for you!

It’s your time and you’re so ready for the next step,

Denise xx

PS: Come and flex your manifesting muscle alongside a brilliant community in my Money Bootcamp. Seriously, you’ll learn so many cool tools to help you create financial freedom for yourself and your family. Come and join us!

Even Millionaires Have Money Blocks – Here’s How to Deal With Them

Hey gorgeous,

Because I teach money blocks, people assume I have a perfect relationship with money. Nope, not at all.

In my experience, talking to entrepreneurs, at all levels, about their success, money blocks are an inevitable part of being in business. Not even millionaires and multi-millionaires are immune to the occasional freak out about money, and if they are growing rapidly, they will hit their own self-imposed limits regularly.

That’s good and bad news, right?

The good news is that you’re entirely NORMAL. 

And the bad news is that you’ll never fully be clear of money blocks completely!

Dealing with Money Blocks

The even BETTER news is that it doesn’t really matter that much. You can learn to recognise them, dance with them and move on – all while increasing your income to new levels. How do you know if you have money blocks? Check out my blog post here to find out.

Here’s an example of how my old personal money block crops up for me. BTW: I love sharing my failings with you, it’s SO important to hear the real deal of business – warts and all. (If you want someone perfect to learn from, I’m not your gal!)

My recurring money block is…

“Making money can’t be easy. It has to be hard work”.

Way back when, this money block came up for me when I started charging my first clients. I had given away a bunch of sessions in return for testimonials, but I knew that I had to start making actual MONEY if I wanted to make my business survive, and my husband was starting to make noises about me getting “a backup job…. just in case this doesn’t work out”.

So, I pulled up my big girl panties and charged a package of six sessions for $45 each. Nothing groundbreaking but it felt comfortable for me.

Immediately, I had this feeling of,

“Can I really just help people with their problems and they’ll pay me? That seems too easy.”

It felt icky. Uncomfortable. Unseemly.

Clearing My Money Blocks

I come from a family where people WORK for a living. You know – they clean things, build things, make stuff, organise people or you know …. other “real jobs”.

This didn’t seem like a real job. It felt too easy and the fact is I get a lot of pleasure out of helping people. After my first session with a client, I had this amazing feeling of “THIS is what I’m meant to be doing!”. 

But anyway – I did some money clearing work on it – and soon was loving my client load (and the money I earned). YAHOO! I increased my prices quite rapidly over the next year without too much drama and honestly, I thought my income would just keep going up forever.

Money Blocks at Every Level in My Business

Then it came up again. I hit a new plateau and NOTHING would shift it.

Are you serious Universe – I thought we cleared this sh-t!

This time it was when I created my first ever group program. Instead of working with people 1:1, I decided to teach everything I knew in a six-week online course.

Instead of teaching individual sessions, I cut my workload drastically, but still made great money by grouping clients together. The members LOVED it and it was cheaper for them than working with me 1:1.

It felt like cheating. I felt terrible about it.

It was the same old shizzle. My old block that money couldn’t be easy, it had to be HAAAARD. But again, using the tools, which I talk about in Get Rich, Lucky Bitch and you can learn in Money Bootcamp, I worked on those feelings and my income started rising again.

Until the next time.

My Personal Money Sabotage

The first time I ran my Money Bootcamp, it was a big old stress. I pulled all-nighters getting the sales page together, I was still creating handouts minutes before I sent them out and I got VERY little sleep during the sales period. I’m sure you’ve been there!

But because it was so much work, I felt like I really “earned” the money. After all, I lost sleep over it! I sweated over it almost like a “real job”!

 

So – when I turned the course into a home study version, suddenly, it wasn’t that much work. Everything was already created so it felt like cheating again to make money out of something that didn’t require a lot of blood, sweat and tears. I knew the material was great and the results were still phenomenal… but it felt too easy for me.

Every time someone bought the Bootcamp, I felt like screaming, “Wait!! Let me come over to your house, and I’ll help you open it and do the exercises. Let me “earn” your sale”.

It was my old friend – my own personal money sabotage.

Let me tell you, it’s not that big a deal to start clearing this stuff – especially when you have the support of a mastermind, but it always feels rough to begin with.

The same old feelings…

– This is too easy
– How can I make money when it’s not hard?

You might get these feelings when you make your first ebook sale or when you’re working on your sales page (with the dream of passive income dancing in your head). It’s probably why you procrastinate and sabotage your success EVEN THOUGH you’re getting what you’ve always wanted.

Humans are so weird!

You Have to Keep Working on Money Blocks

PERFECTION IS NOT THE GOAL. You’re not working towards a complete absence of money blocks. You have to learn to move through them regardless and KEEP moving forward.

Your personal blend of sabotage will pop his head up regularly. New Level, Old Devil, as I like to say.

Mine comes around every six months or so; every time I hit a new income plateau. Even though I teach money blocks, I still don’t have a perfect relationship with money. Even though I have a multiple seven-figure business, I’m still not immune to money crap. I’m sure that I’ll freak out when I get close to a billion dollar business because that ole’ Devil will tell me it’s too easy.

The difference now, of course, is that I can get out of it much quicker. I don’t have to wallow in misery and spiral out of control.

If you’re just starting out – you might think I’m crazy. You might be thinking that once you get to seven figures, your life will be perfect. YOU will be perfect. Nope. You’ll still be YOU – just with a bit more money! 

Interesting huh?

So, have a think about YOUR recurring money blocks and what they might mean. In my experience of working with thousands of entrepreneurs over the years, there are seven common ones – find yours here!

FOUR WAYS TO BUST THROUGH YOUR MONEY BLOCKS

Here are four ways to shift your money mindset and work on your money blocks

Write down your biggest money blocks and then go through the list, taking time with each one and asking yourself, ‘Is this really true?’ Most likely you’ll discover a lot of self-sabotage hiding out in that list!
Book out regular time each week to look at your money blocks and assessing whether they are really true or not. Focusing on this regularly will help you get to the next level more quickly and easily.
Hunt down any sabotaging behaviors. Notice where you’re hiding away or feeling guilty. Look for a tendency to procrastinate launching or otherwise sabotage your success. 
Add a mindset expert into your team, including working with someone like me to release your money blocks. It's totally okay to pay for that kind of help. In fact, I think it's super important. 

And to help you crush this Old Devil and get to the Next Level in your Business, here’s a free audio class, so you can get started today, clearing your money blocks. You’ll get a step-by-step guide to recognizing – and then dealing with – the seven most common entrepreneurial money blocks.

Get your copy today from denisedt.com/blocks

When blocks come up, don’t let yourself get into a “I’m not meant to be rich” death spiral. Just laugh and say “there you are again you old Devil!”

You can totally handle it!

Denise xx

PS Want to uplevel with epic community support and plenty of tools and techniques to make it easy? Join my Money Bootcamp course today – you’ll learn how to spot a money block at a hundred paces, and exactly what to do to work through it.

How to Run a Million Dollar Challenge: Real Stats and Lessons

Hey gorgeous,

I’m so excited to share today. You’re gonna get all the juicy behind-the-scenes info on how to run a super successful (I’m talking one million dollar successful!) challenge. 

Last week we wrapped up a 5-Day Money Manifesting Challenge, which culminated in a launch for my money mindset course, Money Bootcamp. We want to share with you the real stats from the promotion as well as lift the lid on some of our best tactics and biggest lessons. 

The last time we ran a 5-day challenge was five years ago. This latest one was kind of an impromptu promotion - it certainly wasn’t on our agenda at the last quarterly planning meeting and it wasn’t on our calendar for the year. But sometimes we love to do things a bit maverick and be spontaneous!

We had a dream and a big goal; we needed to cover the renovations at the Rose Farm, so we did a launch to pay for it. Launches have been brilliant for my business. We bought our dream plot of land by the beach and built our family home and also bought the Rose Farm in the first place, all through the exciting launches we’ve run!  When you have a big goal and a clear plan, there’s almost no better way to spike momentum and income in your business than with a launch. 

So first of all we want to give you the nine essentials to launching a successful challenge and then give you a peek behind the curtain at our figures from our most recent launch. It’s pretty inspiring! Keep reading for a breakdown of our real stats. 

9 LESSONS FROM A MILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE 

Invest in a team
Make Things Easier - Use Templates
Share Great Content
Set up a Group for the Challenge
Bring in a Messenger Bot!
Nail the Follow Up
Give Away Cash Prizes
Don’t Underestimate the Launch Echo
Work on Your Mindset and Anchor the Goal

 Nine Essential Lessons for a Million Dollar Launch

Let’s dive into the big lessons we took away from this Challenge. These are our top tips if you’re thinking about running something similar in your business.

1. Invest in a team

Halfway through this year we realized that Mark, as head of marketing and sales, was a bottleneck in the company. It was limiting our growth in both areas. Every time I came up with a new idea or suggestion, he’d say no because he was drowning under his current workload. We decided to hire some new team members to bring back the creativity, joy and FREEDOM!

So our new team freed up Mark’s workload, which was great. He’s been able to get a better overview of the business, and bring back some balance into our family life (more trips to the beach!). We also had the space and capacity to try something new.

This launch was only made possible because we hired additional support and outsourced some tasks months before.  

Our additional copywriting, ads management, marketing and community engagement support not only meant we could better run a large promotion like this, but it meant the planning and preparation went smoother and the Challenge itself was far less stressful. You don’t need to have a big business to hire in support and free up more time for you to focus on creative and highly profitable high impact activities. 

ACTION: What could you outsource or hire a part time team member to do? This will help right now in the short term for your sanity and energy levels but also in the future when you want to work on your next launch. 

(You can start small… some of our new hires only work 5 hours a week.) 

Remember, gorgeous, you don’t have to do all of the work yourself!

 2. Make Things Easier - Use Templates 

You also don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are a lot of moving parts and options with launches and it can be easy to overcomplicate them. We’ve definitely done that in the past with too many deadlines, price options, bonuses and emails. So getting the process and framework right from the start was crucial. We learnt how to launch from Jeff Walker and his Product Launch Formula and use the principles Jeff teaches in every launch we run. 

(You can learn these principles in Jeff’s Live Launch Masterclass which he’s running in the next few days. Register here for free access here)

In addition to launch training, for this Challenge we found templates and courses to help us nail the 5-Day Challenge format. We bought a great course called “The 5-Day Challenge Toolkit” from my friend, Zach Spruckler. It’s got everything in it: recommended schedules, email swipe files, ad ideas and everything we needed to set up the basics of the Challenge. We also found 5-Day challenge journal templates on Canva which we adapted for our Challenge workbooks and daily activities. We even used the AI copywriting app, Jarvis, to help wordsmith some of our emails and ads. There’s no shame in this - if you can get a better result, quicker and easier, why wouldn’t you? 

These templates have been tested and are for sales off the shelf, ready for you to use - you can totally make things easier for yourself by being open to hacks like this. 

 3. Create Great Content 

Once we had the framework in place, we knew we had to provide awesome content to ensure everyone GOT THE RESULTS during the challenge! 

Each of the workbooks and daily tasks were super practical and goal orientated. It was all about helping people to manifest more money. Many of them chose to come and invest it in Money Bootcamp. Yay! 

We were in lockdown in the prep stages for this launch so we had to shoot the videos at home. Without our normal pro team and set up. It  was super frustrating but then everyone loved the new videos. The workbooks came out great.  And the engagement in the Facebook group went through the roof! I was literally watching it climb by the thousands every day!

  4. Set up a Group for the Challenge

You gotta get visible, baby! The key to a successful launch is the number of people who see your content and offer. We had between 1,500 and 1,900 people live on each of the daily Facebook lives and 1,300 people on the 90 minute Masterclass at the end of the Challenge. Some of the lives got over 10,000 comments. This was much higher engagement than when we’ve launched before without a Facebook Group.

We increased the hours our community team members were working so they could jump in whenever needed and provide the support. They spent more time responding to comments and answering questions to really encourage that feeling of community. 

We set up the group so that only admins could post, so all of the participants' comments were focused on 2-3 posts per day. Our audience comments were limited to the daily video, a daily wins post and the daily live broadcast. 

 5. Bring in a Messenger Bot! 

This launch we decided to set up an automated Messenger Bot. It was like having another super-efficient member of our team that sent participants reminders about the daily videos and lives. 

We have dabbled with Messenger Bots and ManyChat before and had problems with some of Facebook’s changing messenger rules so I was nervous about setting up the bot linked to our main business FB page and ads account.

We decided to create a new “Team DDT” Facebook page and built the message sequence and reminders linked to that. We were very deliberate and careful to follow Facebook rules about what messages we could send to who and when. 

Over 7,000 people registered to get daily reminders. We found that the bot worked very well for the first two days of the Challenge - it really helped more people remember to join the live calls and stay engaged. But then we started to encounter problems - the Team DDT page and a replacement page we created were temporarily banned and we couldn’t send messages. 

Frustratingly, this sometimes happens with Facebook - a computer reviews the messages that are sent and flags anything that could violate a rule. Luckily both pages were given the ok after appeal. They were reviewed by a person and were turned back on. But this meant we were not able to send some messages and reminders during the outage. 

The lesson we learned with the bot was that it’s very cool technology that can work really well and is inexpensive to set up, but is something that Facebook monitors closely. You will need to be really on it with all the rules. We recommend setting up an additional page so your main FB page is not restricted during a launch. 

 6. Nail the Follow-up 

As they say, the fortune is in the follow-up. A 5-day Challenge can generate a big spike in interest and leads, but it takes work to convert this into sales and a good conversion rate. 

We followed up our Challenge and Masterclass with a 5 day email campaign and outreach via messenger. I ran Q&A and bonus Facebook lives in the Group and my team spent a lot of time in the comments and our inboxes answering questions about Money Bootcamp and how it can help. 

A new tactic I decided to implement this year was certainly high-touch and took some effort but with each sale being worth almost $3,000, I wanted to play full-out. 

I recorded over 500 personalised video messages like this one, which were sent to potential customers via email or messenger. People loved getting the personalised messages and it was really effective in starting sales conversations and getting responses. 

We targeted the most common names in our list of 16,000 leads - starting at names like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Michelle (all which had over 100 participants) and then working down to more obscure names. 

In the end, any name with more than 10 people got a video and we sent thousands of people a personal invite to work with me and join our course. 

The work doesn’t end when you make the offer. Your sales results are not at the whim of some mythical launch god during the open cart period - you can take inspired action and meet the Universe halfway to make your launch goals happen. 

ACTION: How can you take your follow-up to the next level in your next launch? What simple thing can you do to connect with and surprise your audience to start more sales conversations? 

7. Give Away Cash Prizes 

Another strategy that worked well to keep people engaged and excited was giving away cash prizes - go figure! 

On each live call we gave away cash prizes by picking a lucky winner from the live participants. The prizes increased from $200 to $1,000 over the five days plus we gave away a few prizes for sharing the Challenge on social media. All in the total prize pool was less than $3,000.

I love how it helped teach some key lessons about manifesting and how deserving people are of abundance. Plus it kept up attendance and excitement on the daily calls. The amount doesn’t really matter, you can give away less or more, but it worked well in this Challenge.

An additional unexpected bonus was that 4 of the 5 winners selected during the Challenge went on to join Money Bootcamp with their prize money! 

 ACTION: How can you reward and incentivize participants to take the next step? 

8. Don’t Underestimate The Launch Echo

Jeff Walker talks about the long term benefits of a launch being called a “launch echo” - the upside that you will feel and the momentum built by launching. We have seen this many times in our business over the years, but a quick look at our sales figures for the month of October 2021 shows how this launch will contribute to future growth and help us go big for our next launch in January 2022. 

Check out our October Key Metrics:

Total List Size +7.7%
Social Media Followers +4%
Unique Website Visitors +28%
Pinterest Reach +58%
YouTube Views +8%
Podcast Downloads +5.9%

Launches are the best way to build momentum in your business - they help you build your revenue AND audience quickly by focusing on giving away great value free content. Do not underestimate what a launch or challenge could do for your business whether you’re established or just getting started. 

9. Work on Your Mindset and Anchor the Goal 

Any article from me about how to achieve anything in business wouldn't be complete without mentioning your mindset, right?! 

I know that doing a launch or Challenge is going to bring up your fears and blocks. We’ve all got them - those limiting beliefs about whether you can do this, are you good enough? Will people like this? Argh, they all start rearing their head when you’re getting this visible!

It’s so important to look at these blocks before your launch. Clear the way before you so you can be successful in your execution. Work on clearing and upleveling your thinking about what’s possible for you and your business months (or weeks) beforehand. My book Get Rich, Lucky Bitch is a good place to start if you’re new to this work. 

And remember, during the launch things can (and will) go wrong - tech, engagement, emails, links, or slow sales. A strong mindset will help you stay resilient so you can keep going. I’ve seen so many people get frustrated, scared or thrown off course during a launch and just throw the towel in. Running a successful launch takes persistence and belief. 

Read my article here about my launch preparation tips that nobody is talking about - things that will help reduce your stress levels and the chance of getting thrown off course. 

As I said at the beginning, mindset is so important in a launch, so I recommend you tie the launch to a big goal or dream - and not just a monetary target. What are you playing for? What will this launch help you and your family achieve and how will you celebrate? 

You’ve got this, gorgeous! Get a big goal, get determined and take action. 

The Real-Life Stats from a Million Dollar Challenge 

Now it’s time to take a look at the real life, actual stats from our most recent campaign. We’ll show you exactly how we structured the content and the outcome of each stage of the process. Use it as a cheatsheet for your own million dollar challenge!

In case you weren’t playing along, here’s an overview of how we structured the campaign:

The Structure of our Million Dollar Challenge

1-10 October - Promoting the 5-Day Challenge
Lead generation and having people join the pop-up Facebook group. Marketing channels used: social media, email and ads (FB, IG, LinkedIn and, Pinterest) 

8 October - Open Facebook Group
We decided to keep the group closed until 3 days before the official start of the Challenge to maximise engagement. When we did open the group there was a huge spike of people joining, introducing themselves and engaging with the warm-up content that ensured the Challenge was at the top of participants' social media feeds. 

11-16 October - 5-Day Challenge
I produced daily training videos, workbooks and Facebook Lives in the Challenge group, all focused on the five steps of my money manifesting process. 

16-18 October - Promoting Masterclass
Lead generation and reminders for participants to join a live money manifesting masterclass to bring together all of the learning from the Challenge. This is where I pitched the opportunity to continue working with me via joining Money Bootcamp. 

18 October - Masterclass 
Extended live training and sales webinar with an offer to join Money Bootcamp. Also included a prize draw and special bonuses for fast action takers. 

18-24 October - Open Cart
Promotion of the Money Bootcamp special offer with sales emails, ads, social posts and sales by email and messenger. 

This campaign was the main focus of our marketing and entire team for October as well as most of September, when we were planning content and promotions. 

The Results of our Million Dollar Challenge Launch

 The headline results from this Challenge exceeded our expectations and hit the majority of our targets. Here’s a breakdown:

* Australian Dollars 

Leads

We had three main sources of leads for this Challenge; our existing warm audience and list, paid ads and participants sharing the Challenge/inviting friends. While ten thousand of the leads were from our existing list, one of the huge positives from running this challenge is that we got 6,500 new leads. Some of these people joined Money Bootcamp right away, but the majority will go on to read our newsletter, read one of my books and hopefully join Bootcamp in the future.  

Conversion Rate

We average between 2% and 3.5% conversion of overall leads when we run a large promotion like this for Money Bootcamp. So for every 100 people who opt-in to take part in the launch and receive our sales emails, 2-3 people join. This might sound low, but it’s important to know that these numbers are actually pretty good. Standard is 1-2% conversion.

The other important stat we look at is the number of people who saw the sales page during the launch and the conversion rate of this group. We had about 6,000 unique visitors to the sales page so a conversion rate of over 6% which is high. This really is the beauty of doing a launch and having special bonuses and a deadline, because our normal sales page conversion rate outside of a launch is much closer to the industry standard of 1-2%. For future launches we will work harder to get a higher percentage of the overall 16,000 leads to see the sales page which would drive up numbers further down the funnel. 

Cash & Costs

We had more people pay in full this launch than previous promotions so we received a higher percentage of the total revenue upfront (nice!). The launch cost us about $100,000 excluding the charitable donations we do after each launch / from each sale. This was about $70k in ad spend and $30k in team and production costs. Refund requests are inevitable and we’re relaxed and never triggered by them. We have a 14-day refund period and would expect around 15-20 refunds from this launch (around 5%). 

Thinking of running a 5-Day Challenge or Launch?

Challenge launches are really effective due to the high engagement, focused timeline and “shareability” of the content/group. 

The sales and lead generation from these 3 week will have a long term impact on our business (and our rose farm!). 

If you’re thinking of adding a launch or a Challenge to your business we recommend checking out Zach Sprickler’s Toolkit and to go deeper with launch training.

Plus make sure you register for Jeff Walker’s Launch Masterclass which is coming up from 5-8 November - click here to reserve your spot now. 

This article might sound like a lot, especially if you’re just starting out, but we hope that us lifting the lid has helped you. 

Here’s to making your next launch better!

Denise & Mark xx

 

Affiliate Disclaimer: I’m proud to be an affiliate partner of Jeff Walker. If you invest in Product Launch Formula in the future, I may receive a commission but at no extra cost to you.

 

 

 

Three Things You Need to Know to Make Money Online

Hey gorgeous,

Today I’m going to share my top 3 tips for making money online in a way that works for you and how to avoid the big stumbling blocks that trip up a lot of entrepreneurs like you. 

Years ago I was working in a job and I desperately wanted to work for myself, I was always searching for ideas on x

    how to make money online,
    how to make money in business,
    how to make money quickly

To be honest, I fell into some kind of dodgy things.

I found a lot of things that didn’t really work with me. They didn’t really resonate with me and in fact, didn’t make any money at all.

And I had a sort of desperate energy. The problem with that desperation kind of feeling - I must make money online – is that it can mean you pass up some great opportunities and miss what might really make you successful in business.

Three Things You Need to Know to Make Money Online

In my experience, here are the three things that you need to know in order to bring home the bacon. 

 1)    Do Something That Resonates with You

2)     Make Sure Your Idea Has Marketable Value

3)     Get Clear on Your Niche

 Let’s dig into each one in a bit more depth.

 1)   Do Something That Resonates with You

In order to start making money from my online businesses, I had to choose to do something that really resonated with who I was as a person. No more dating advice or raw food courses!

Years ago, when I was just trying to make money for money’s sake I would come up with all of these business ideas. I’d come up with so many different things and think to myself, I can do that. I might give it a try.

But those things really weren’t in line with who I was. And therefore, it was difficult to inspire or motivate people from that place energetically. 

So, to start, consider what would really make an amazing business for you? What are you brilliant at? What abilities do you receive the most compliments for? What are you doing when you’re working in your zone of genius?

Don’t start with the money side of it.

Start with what you want to do, what you’re really good at, and what you’re passionate about, and you’re going to have a much better chance of making money from that than anything else.

2)   Make Sure Your Idea Has Marketable Value

I know this sounds really like, “Oh, duh?” But there are some things that you can do to make money more easily than others so I really want you to think of what products and services are you going to offer.

It can be really easy to start a blog and think, “Oh, well I’ll just build an audience. I’ll blog a lot and I’ll have a lot of people reading my blog and I’ll make money somehow.”

Trust me, that's a really hard business model.

Choosing a business model where you have to work really, really hard to grow your audience is giving yourself challenges you don’t need.

You want a product or a service that you can offer pretty much straight away.

3)    Get Clear on Your Niche

Take time to write down all the things that you’re really good at and write down all the things that you think people would pay you for. Your first product or service is going to be one of those things that match up on both lists. You can be really good at one thing but nobody will pay you for it.

The next tip is to find your niche. Something that comes really naturally to you, but might not to others.

An example: One of my mentors, Fabianne Fredrickson, started out as a health coach, but to earn a little extra money, she’d run cooking classes on the side. She literally taught people how to roast a chicken. She was like, “Everyone knows how to make roasted chicken.” But her clients responded in droves, “”We want your methods explained to us.”

Find your niche, gorgeous – your special place in the market.

Say for example, you got a large family and you’ve really mastered the art of feeding four kids for under $100 a week and you do it in a really efficient way. That might come easy to you but for your audience that is a revelation. They’re like, “Tell me how you do that. Tell me what to do first and then tell me what to do next. And hey, do you have a spreadsheet for that? Can you make my life really, really easy?”

Maybe you found a really great way to discipline your dog or organize your home or whatever it is.

Find those things that you’re really, really good at and find a way that you could package your expertise and show people how to do it.

The more specific you can get the better. You literally want to do it like you’re showing an alien how to do that thing that you do.

For some inspiration, read about my first year in business here - you get to go behind the curtains and see exactly how much I made!

It’s your time and you’re ready for the next step,

Denise x

P.S. When you’re ready to work on your money mindset and want my support here are four ways I can help you…

Follow me and let me know what blocks are coming up that I can help you shift – Click Here
Subscribe and listen to the Chill & Prosper podcast all about business, marketing and mindset - Click Here
Grab a copy of my book, "Get Rich, Lucky Bitch" (paperback, Kindle or audio) to work on mindset tweaks you can make in your business – Click Here
Work with me in my money mindset coaching program and mastermind community.  Message me  with the word "Money" and let’s chat about how Bootcamp can help you reprogram your money mindset and revolutionize your business.

Launch Preparation Tips Nobody Talks About

A marketing launch is an exciting and nerve-wracking time for any business. Exciting because you're doing it - you're planting a seed that can become a huge success. 

But holy moly - there are so many things to think about; creating the actual product in the first place, getting all the tech set up, and all the million and one things to tick off. It's an exhausting and exhilarating time.

And guess what? I'm gonna give you even MORE things to think about. But these are strategies that can make your launch a lot less stressful, I promise. 

Obviously, as a money mindset mentor, I have lots of thoughts about all the money blocks you'll experience as you launch, "am I good enough?", "will I get heaps of refunds?" and the classic "will anyone even pay for this?". Launch resistance is real, and the closer you get to launching, the more you'll feel your money blocks.

But, as a practical Virgo, mother of 3 young kids (and two dogs), and a 40+ woman who needs a ton of self-care these days, I want to share with you some of my hard-won lessons about what it takes to launch without losing your sanity.

First up - my online launch credentials. My first ever ebook launch was in 2004 (Internet Dating Tips for Men), and my first course launch was in 2009 (Raw Brides Transformation Plan). Since those "practice businesses," I've had dozens of online course, book, and affiliate launches and have made over USD $15m (AUD $20m) in online launch revenue. 

I've launched my flagship course Money Bootcamp in every way possible; live video content launches, evergreen, webinar, 5-day challenge, quiz-style, half-assed, and full out. It's been quite a journey with over 7400 students through that course and 8000+ on my manifesting course.

This year, I've discovered a crucial lesson; just how much self-care, practical child support, and home help I need to really thrive during launch campaigns. I've never seen this covered in typical launch courses, but it can cause the most considerable stress, especially for women.

Here we go:

Childcare (and Backup Childcare)

This tip is CRUCIAL for parents, but really anyone who has caring responsibilities. 

Even though I love outsourcing, the truth is that you can probably do most things in the launch yourself, but NOT if you're wrangling kids simultaneously. It's so stressful. SO stressful. Especially if you have young kids that don't sleep well or kids who need extra care.

During the last few years, when schools and daycares have been closed at a moment's notice, how can you ensure you're not dealing with the juggle on your close cart day?

How can you and your partner share childcare during the launch, for example, after school activities and school pick up. 
Organize before or after-school care 
Ask a family member to  take them out for an adventure all weekend

Honestly - this is worthy of allocating launch funds to get extra help and back up childcare. I'm talking about a private nanny, babysitters, or vacation care. It's SO WORTH IT. 

Our nanny was sick, and my mum came and helped during our last launch (the schools and daycares were closed). So, we had to work late into the night to catch up. We took turns getting up early with the kids. Teamwork! 

Co-parents / single parents

If you have a shared parenting arrangement, try to schedule your launch for your off-week. 
If you have a good relationship with your ex-partner, can they take the kids extra days? 
Can your kids have a sleepover at their grandma's or cousin's house? TAKE ALL THE HELP.
Swap childcare with an entrepreneurial friend.  

If your house is noisy with homeschooling activities, find somewhere quiet like a co-working space. But let's face it, even a busy cafe is probably more relaxing than trying to organize your launch with Peppa Pig in the background. 

Get your kids involved in the launch! My 7-year old stuffs envelopes for our Money Bootcamp welcome cards for 20c a card! My friend's 15-year-old does her social media.  

I know it's hard when you don't have a big budget, but your launch can bring so much abundance for you and your family, so it's such a worthwhile investment to give yourself some time. 

Let's be honest - if asking family members stresses you out (or they're unreliable), budget to pay for someone who will turn up and do the job. I can't stress enough how much of a difference this makes. It's so hard to juggle it all, and it's worth it.

Tip: get honest about what childcare you need and get backups

Pet care

Ditto, it's not fun to do your launch webinar with your furry loved ones barking in the background or doing a massive poop on your rug during a Livestream.

Our dogs Albie and Daisy go to doggy daycare twice a week, but we totally forgot to coordinate it with our close-cart day. So we added extra days with a local dog-walker, so we didn't have to stress.

Because have you noticed that your pets get extra needy when they know you're distracted? And during launch time, it would be nice to go out and get fresh air, but sometimes the thought of a walk is just another thing on your plate! 

Stock up on treats, too - if nothing else, you might get an extra hour of quiet with a frozen peanut butter chew toy.

Tip: book ahead for extra daycare days and sort out your backup too.

Beauty and self-care

You don't have to be a model to launch but to be honest, I sometimes need that little bit of extra self-confidence to feel good on camera. 

I'm not going to lie and say I'm a natural beauty; I get a teeny bit of Botox and lip filler, dye my hair blonde every 5 weeks, and have a mustache that needs regular waxing. I also get my very fair eyebrows micro-bladed, and I have very sparse non-existent eyelashes.

Plan it out accordingly if you want to get anything done, so it doesn't clash with launch times. Most cosmetic treatments take time to settle. For example, fresh microblading can look really harsh, some filler can look too puffy for a week or two, and facial treatments can cause redness. Spray tans need a day to settle too.

Throughout the lockdown, my hair salon was closed, and I recorded my launch videos with long dark roots. Of course, you gotta do what you gotta do, but I'm already looking at my calendar for next time to make sure I get my hair dyed in plenty of time. I've had plenty of launches where I had to panic trim my mo because I forgot to organize waxing.

I always get a fresh blow-dry during launch week, so I feel extra confident getting on camera. Maybe a fresh manicure will feel good! I always film barefoot, so I get a cute blue pedicure too.

If you're doing pre-launch video content, consider getting a make-up artist, especially if you're going to repurpose the videos later. It's so worth it!

Don't leave it all to the last minute and get stressed out. 

Tip: Book in your beauty treatments ahead of time and not too close to launch!

 

Fill Your Prescriptions

I was officially diagnosed this year with ADHD. Leading up to a launch, I sometimes forget to refill my prescription, or it just goes on the back burner until it's too late. During the pandemic, I also took an anti-depressant to cope with anxiety and help me sleep.

My husband Mark has skin medication that prevents breakouts. My kids take supplements to help with sleep and calm. My dogs need regular flea and tick treatments. 

You don't want to run out of everyone's essential meds during a stressful time!

What meds do you need to thrive? To sleep well and protect your mental health? To deal with your hormones or allergies? 

Ditto with planning out things like vaccines and flu shots. Plan a buffer just in case you need downtime afterward.

Also, do you need to order your contacts or glasses ahead of time? During my last book deadline, my eyes were SO SORE. I needed to increase the font size on all my devices and wear my reading glasses for computer work. 

I also stock up on vitamins, eyedrops, throat lozenges, painkillers, and essential oil calming spray while I'm picking up my meds. 

Tip: plan ahead, so you have all the meds you need during that stressful time

Surgery and medical stuff

Okay, it sounds obvious, but maybe I'm just a slow learner. I've scheduled wisdom teeth removal just before a photo shoot (hello puffy face), planned webinars when I was 9 months pregnant (I went into labor a few hours before), got fitted for braces before a launch (that gave me a noticeable lisp). I committed to a JV webinar for the afternoon after I got out of hospital for an operation (I was still wearing my medical bracelet), and I was probably still a little high on painkillers. 

My best one was getting veneers the week before a big photo shoot and eating turmeric that stained my temporary teeth fluro yellow. My dentist had to overnight a 3D printed tooth (don't you love technology?)!

Do you really want to launch the same week as your mammogram, pap smear, or colonoscopy?

Health comes first, and life happens, so check any scheduled surgery dates before putting the launch on your calendar. 

Tip: Double-check your calendar before you set launch dates.

Know your cycle

If you get regular periods, then know your best time to launch. For example, do you want to be on camera during "shark week"? Do you get massive cramps that make you want to lie in bed all day? 

My friend Stasha Washburn is the founder of The Period Coaching School. She's a great resource to figure out how to make your cycle work for you.

And stock up on all your extra supplies. It's not fun to run out of tampons or painkillers during launch week.

Tip: where in your cycle do you want to launch?

Food!

Cooking is the last thing I'd want to do during a launch. But what are you going to eat when you're busy and stressed; peanut butter out of the jar? 

Budget so you can order in meals every night during launch week
Make some pre-prepared meals you can quickly heat up
Can someone make food for you and the family
Consider ordering special juices or salads

I sometimes skip breakfast during launch times because my webinars are all in the morning, but I'm hangry and hyper by mid-morning. I have some snacks in my office and take lots of water with me because it's easy to sit at your computer and forget.

Stock up on coffee, your favorite tea, your preferred milk option, and all the snacks, so you don't survive on Tiny Teddies and Pizza Pockets (unless you thrive on that - go ahead!)

Tip: How can you make food super convenient for yourself and your family?

Home help

Let your house get super dirty during launch week or outsource as much as possible. Can you get in some help to tidy and clean, so you don't have to? Can you get someone to iron or steam your clothes for filming?

Also, if you have regular maintenance work, schedule them away from launch week. There is nothing worse than a leaf blower when you're trying to film videos or the doorbell ringing every few minutes to let in a handyman. 

By the way - a sign on the door to not ring the doorbell might be handy too!

I often hire an Airbnb to film videos, so I'm away from home and can concentrate on batching them without getting distracted by all the home stuff. 

Tip: outsource any home stuff that stresses you out the most

Boundaries

I say no to as many things as possible around launch time, including visits from family, drop-ins with friends, or requests to help.

I had to say no a lot this year with writing deadlines, and it's funny how much people respect "I have a book due" rather than a launch because it feels REAL. I said no to interviews, writing blurbs for people, and "can I pick your brain" requests because I didn't have the bandwidth.

Launching takes up a lot of mental, physical, and emotional energy, so it's okay to just say NO to extra requests for your time. 

Look at your calendar now; can anything be moved, rescheduled, or canceled? Make sure people can't book in if you have an online scheduling system. 

Tip: block out your calendar now

Post-launch self-care

We often forget about this, but the actual delivery begins as soon as the launch is over! Also, there's often "launch clean up" like customer service or admin. 

Don't underestimate how much energy it takes. So many people get a "launch hangover" and feel really deflated and demotivated after a launch - even a successful one.

I always book a massage, a non-movable date with a friend (to something easy like a movie), and a vitamin infusion to cope with the post-launch exhaustion.

I also clear my calendar because I need lots of alone time playing games on my phone or watching bad TV. 

I used to feel bad about missing time with my family and would schedule some big outings after my close-cart day, but now I need a few days to decompress. 

And before you plan your next one, give yourself some space to reflect on what worked and what you need next time. We have learned the hard way that we need to have three months between launches so we don't overstretch ourselves.

Oh, and don't forget to celebrate! Even if you don't feel like it. 

Tip: book in post-launch care NOW.

Lastly - learn from our mistakes!

There are so many, often unspoken, things to consider when planning your next launch beyond the technical parts. Stay tuned; I'm working on a post about all the woo-woo manifesting rituals and money mindset tools I use during my launches too!

You don't have to reinvent the wheel or overcomplicate it. Instead, follow a process, get training from an expert and take it step-by-step! Otherwise, it's too easy to miss things and end up thinking you've had a "bad launch" or get so stressed you never do it again!

Launching can be fun! My launch mentor Jeff Walker created the Product Launch Formula for precisely this reason, and it's the process I follow in every one of my launches. 

Next week Jeff is running his free Live Launch Masterclass, and I highly recommend you invest some time in watching it and learning Jeff's system, so you don't need to wing it or make up your next launch on the fly (super stressful). 

You can get on my notification list to get access to the training as soon as Jeff opens registration here - http://www.denisedt.com/plf 

Look after yourself, follow a system and make it happen - you've got this!

How to Move Through the Five Stages of Business (and Beat Your Money Blocks!)

Hey gorgeous,

Today I want to talk about the five different stages of business and the mindset issues you might face in each.

This will help you get clear on what tweaks you need to make in order to work your way up, towards financial freedom. You’ll feel more supported and in control of your business.

As you may know, there are five stages of small business ownership, ranging from Starting Out or ‘Existence’ (you’ve birthed or are about to birth a company! Go you!) all the way up to Maturity. This is where you’ve built a successful company and have a dedicated team doing the work, so that you can focus on the vision.

I’m gonna walk you through each stage and the money mindset blocks that you might encounter during each phase. 

Listen, I know this stuff really well because I’ve been through all these stages in my business and believe me, I’ve had to work through these blocks!

So, let's get started!

Stage 1: Starting Out (Existence)

At this stage you are really just getting started. You are focused on finding customers. As the owner you probably do everything and are unlikely to have staff working for you. In fact, at this stage, you ARE the business! Here are some of the mindset issues you may encounter.

You might struggle with having the courage to own what you do and actually call yourself a coach or an author, for example. 

ACTION: put your job title (or desired title) on your email signature. You’ll see it every day and start to believe it yourself.


You may still have a 9-5 job, so it may be tough to juggle everything.
Perhaps you’re stressing about getting your first client – or charging people.
I know that making the transition from free to paid can be tricky, but just pick a number and try it out. Grab my Ultimate Guide to Pricing here  for lots of advice on nailing your pricing strategy.
Procrasti-branding – you know when you spend days thinking about colours and fonts! Perhaps you’re procrastinating around launching a website to get started or getting proper business cards printed!

ACTION: just focus on getting your first client.


You might still be on your practice business – and that’s okay. It’s all good practice – and it all counts. I’ve had hundreds of practice businesses! They all led me in the right direction.

ACTION: Relax and know that your previous work experience or your practice (or even failed) businesses all count as experience


You may be caught on the roller-coaster of terror (this is SO SCARY) and elation (OMG, I LOVE STARTING MY BUSINESS). I know this feeling so well. I’ve been there!

Stage 2: (Survival)

You’ve built a business that works; it’s still simple and might just be you working on it. Your main goal at this stage is survival. Many businesses stick at this stage – think of your local mom and pop store. That’s absolutely fine if that’s what you want. Here are some of the mindset issues you might encounter here.

You might have to deal with a fear of being visible at this stage – maybe you’re worried that if you blog you’ll get haters, or if you do videos, people will criticize you. The fear stops you doing more things in your business 

ACTION: Take heart from the fact that if you do get haters, you won’t get them for a while, probably until you move to the next stage in my experience.

You might struggle with being consistent in your marketing because you’re still figuring out your target market, or you might keep making shifts to refine it further. 

ACTION: Just keep going – and pay attention to what resonates. If you do nothing, you won’t be able to figure out what your audience really wants
You may find that you’re having problems setting boundaries with clients, because you’re so excited to even HAVE them! You may be overdelivering like crazy and telling them things like “call me anytime” or letting them message you at all hours of the night. This is PRICELESS learning by the way!
It’s possible that you are procrastinating around creating passive income products. There might be fear coming up for you, even though you know you should (because you’re starting to see the limitations of only doing 1:1 work).
You’re still doing most everything yourself – so you’re thinking you could start to delegate some stuff out.
You start to invest in yourself more with maybe a coach or masterminds.

Stage 3: Success

This is a fun stage of business! You most likely have people helping you out, cash is more plentiful and you have a successful business. Well done! There are still a few mindset issues to be aware of during this phase though. Let’s dig into them. 

You’re thinking about more systems and processes – feeling like a grown up!
You want to hire out more – and you start to think about what it means to be a CEO – and it doesn’t stand for “Chief Everything Officer”.

ACTION: Start outsourcing things that stress you out – maybe your customer service inbox, graphic design or technical website stuff.


As you gain momentum it might be time to raise your prices to make sure you have the right clients.

ACTION: Raise prices regularly – get comfortable with this!


Boundaries with clients make you realise you need to tighten up some of your legal processes. 

ACTION: Now is the time to make sure you have contracts sorted, and Terms & Conditions. You’ll learn this by trial and error – maybe through nightmare clients. Again, these are priceless lessons.


You start to tighten up costs – maybe you got a little too excited about earning money that you got crazy with spending on personal development.
It’s time to start paying yourself a salary.

ACTION: Put on your big girl panties and talk to your accountant about your biz structure – is it time to upgrade? Save for tax?


Start to say NO to things that aren’t in your zone of genius, or things that don’t work for your business anymore.

Stage 4: Take Off

This is a pivotal point in your business. You have to rise to the challenge here if you want to keep growing. The key issues you face at this stage are how to grow rapidly and how to finance that growth. Plus delegation, delegation, delegation, baby!

You may suffer from loneliness at this stage; it might be hard to find the right groups or masterminds for you. 

ACTION: You need to keep upgrading and making sure you’re surrounding yourself with people who have similar energy, ambition or mindset as you.


Copycats might be a problem here – people are noticing what you’re doing, so you’ll get people flat out or “accidentally” copying you, including old or current clients. 

ACTION: Either don’t take it personally, or get legal. Tighten up legals even more, including business insurances, contracts and trademarks.


Fame! You might get fan girls who LOVE and adore you. This can feel great, or overwhelming, depending on your personality. It can even feel a little isolating when people put you on a pedestal.
Burn out – some people get super burnt out at this stage and wonder how they’ll keep going at this pace forever.

ACTION: Get help and support with your work-life balance. You need to check out my seven ways to double your income without burnout tips!

Stage 5: Maturity

Oh happy days! You’ve reached the zenith of business ownership! Here, you have both the staff and the resources to make a real difference in the world. You have great systems and can plan for the future. There are still a few mindset issues that might crop up during this phase though. 

You need to be willing to embrace your role as a leader and be willing to take on that role in your communities
Be willing to hold the space for people – set rules in your business in how you want to interact with people
Your motivation might change from money to other things in your business – for example, you might build more philanthropy into your business.
It’s possible at this stage to get bored and “break” your business by thinking you’ve done everything.

ACTION: The solution is to deepen instead. To look at how you can give back. Improve systems. Have more fun with your business.


You start to get more brutal with your time and evaluate opportunities with a keener eye – for example, instead of going to conferences as an attendee, you speak on stage or become a sponsor, so you can leverage your time.
You learn how to manage your money better – with financial advisors or accountants. 

ACTION: Take time to learn how to be a “rich person”. Hang out with wealthy folk and read autobiographies of the rich and famous.


Some people look to retirement – what’s next? Maybe you don’t hustle as much.


You may find it hard to switch off here, if you’ve been consistent for many years – the years of layering in boundaries, products, services, passive income products, etc.

ACTION: Keep delegating and trusting!

Have fun applying this model to your business and checking out what money mindset issues you need to address. Remember, with mindset work, you’re never done. There’s always more to unearth! Happy digging, gorgeous!

It’s your time and you’re ready for the next step,

Denise xx

PS: Take your business to the next stage of growth with my money mindset coaching program and mastermind community, Money Bootcamp. The more you surround yourself with inspiring, successful and supportive people, the easier and more fun entrepreneurship will be!

 

Mindset Issues at the Different Stages of Business

Here are the different stages of business and mindset issues you might face.

Stage 1

Courage to own what you do and call yourself a “XYZ”, for example, a coach or an author. Action – put your job title (or desired title) on your email signature. You’ll see it every day and start to believe it yourself.
Maybe you’re still in a job, so it’s tough to juggle everything.
Stressing about getting your first client – or charging people.
Making the transition from free to paid can be tricky, but just pick a number and try it out.
Procrasti-branding – getting stuck thinking you need a website to get started or proper business cards – just focus on getting your first client.
You might still be on your practice business – and that’s okay. It’s all good practice – and it all counts.
Be confident that your previous work experience or your practice (or even failed) businesses all count as experience
The roller-coaster of terror (this is SO SCARY) and elation (OMG, I LOVE STARTING MY BUSINESS)
Say YES to everything – it’s all expensive. Throw everything at the wall and see if it sticks.

Stage 2

Fear of being visible – worried that if you blog you’ll get haters, or if you do videos, people will criticize you. The fear stops you doing more things in your business (the reality is that it probably won’t happen for a while anyway)
You might struggle being consistent in your marketing because you’re still figuring out your target market, or you might make some shifts to refine it further. Just keep going – and pay attention to what resonates. If you do nothing, you won’t be able to figure out what your audience really wants
Boundaries might start to be a problem with clients, because you’re so excited to even HAVE them, so you’re overdelivering like crazy and telling them things like “call me anytime” or letting them message you at all hours of the night. This is PRICELESS learning by the way
Procrastination and fear of creating passive income products, even though you know you should (because you’re starting to see the limitations of only doing 1:1 work.
You’re still learning everything yourself – so you’re thinking you could start to delegate some stuff out.
You start to invest in yourself more with maybe a coach or masterminds
Start to say MAYBE to everything – think about if it fits into your business before you say yes to opportunities

Stage 3

You’re thinking about more systems and processes – feeling like a grown up!
You want to hire out more – and you start to think about what it means to be a CEO – and it doesn’t stand for “Chief Everything Officer”
You’re getting momentum – time to raise your prices to make sure you have the right clients.
Boundaries with clients make you realise you need to tighten up some of your legal processes. Now is the time to make sure you have contracts sorted, and Terms & Conditions. You’ll learn this by trial and error – maybe through nightmare clients. Again, these are priceless lessons.
Start outsourcing things that stress you out – maybe your customer service inbox, graphic design or technical website stuff.
You start to tighten up costs – maybe you got a little too excited about earning money that you got crazy with spending on personal development.
It’s time to start paying yourself a salary.
Put on your big girl panties and talk to your accountant about your biz structure – is it time to upgrade? Save for tax?
Start to say NO to things that aren’t in your zone of genius, or things that don’t work for your business anymore.

Stage 4

Loneliness  – at this stage, it might be hard to find the right groups or masterminds for you. You need to be upgrading and making sure you’re surrounding yourself with people who have similar energy, ambition or mindset with you.
Copycats might be a problem here – people are noticing what you’re doing, so you’ll get people flat out or “accidentally” copying you, including old or current clients. Either don’t take it personally, or get legal.
Tighten up legals even more, including business insurances, contracts and trademarks.
Fame! You might get fan girls who LOVE and adore you. This can feel great, or overwhelming, depending on your personality. It can even feel a little isolating when people put you on a pedestal.
Burn out – some people get super burnt out at this stage and wonder how they’ll keep going at this pace forever

Stage 5

Embracing your role as a leader and being willing to take on that role in your communities
Be willing to hold the space for people – set rules in your business in how you want to interact with people
Your motivation might change from money to other things in your business – for example, you might build more philanthropy into your business.
Some people get bored and “break” their business by thinking they’ve done everything, instead of deepening.
You start to get more brutal with your time and evaluate opportunities with a more business like eye – for example, instead of going to conferences as an attendee, you speak on stage or become a sponsor, so you can leverage your time.
You learn how to manage your money better – with financial advisors or accountants. Learning to be a “rich person”
Some people look to retirement – what’s next? Maybe you don’t hustle as much.
The momentum is hard to switch off here if you’ve been consistent for many years – the years of layering in boundaries, products, services, passive income products, etc.

Your Simple Guide To Manifesting Your Big Dream In Just Five Easy Steps

Hey gorgeous, 

Today I want to talk to you about manifesting a long held dream.

You probably know I am the custodian of a rose farm, right?! Through the acquisition of that land I have learned a ton of lessons about manifesting.

I want to share them with you today. 

Buckle up – let’s get down to the business of abundance!

Practice Money Manifesting 

Firstly, one of my manifesting practices is to browse real estate websites. I love it! I used to make myself go to open houses and view property I couldn’t afford. It’s another manifestation tool – acting as if. Mark and I used to spend our weekends just looking around properties in the country just for fun.

Then this property came up on one of my searches. Straight away, I felt drawn to it. But I was nine months pregnant. So I talked myself out of the open house viewing. Then when the baby was about six weeks old, it came up again, this time with a price reduction. So we went to see it and as soon as I stood on the land, I knew we were going to buy it! 

Doing the Money Mindset Work

Buying the farm was a biiiiiiiiig leap of faith though. And it brought up a lot of stuff for me.

I didn’t even own furniture until I was 35. I’ve moved so many times, I often never bothered to put pictures up. It felt like too much commitment. Owning stuff - let alone LAND scared me. 

I had to really do the money mindset work to make space for the farm. This is what I had to do (and how to do it!) - work on my mindset and flex my manifesting muscle! 

My coach, Hiro Boga, told me, “Denise, you remind me of a lover I had in my twenties. He would come around and never take off his coat”. I asked her what I should do, and she said I needed to put down some roots.

So I bought a house. But it was the wrong one. Then the next one was too. And then I build a dream house by the beach which is amazing. But something was missing. Real roots.

When I saw the farm I knew I had to make it work. Even though we had other real estate projects underway and didn’t have the funds for more property at the time.

 

 

There’s Always More Money!

I got to work manifesting. There’s always more money, right?! I told more people about Money Bootcamp. Every day I showed up and invited people to join the course.

Each night I watched the real estate sales video of the farm. I even switched my toilet paper to the one with roses on it. I hummed songs about roses each day. “Everything’s coming up roses, this time for ME.”

Time was tight! If you’re in a similar situation and need to create money quick, use my Money Manifesting Formula to bring more abundance in just 24 hours! 

Get Motivated by Your Dream

The thing is, I’m not that bothered about making more money UNTIL I have a dream attached to it. It doesn’t have to be a lot of money, when I get to manifesting, but it definitely has to feel exciting. That way I get energised to do the work!

So here are my Manifesting Tips for Building Your Dream
1)    SHIFT YOUR STUFF

What comes up for you when you think about living your dream life? For me, a load of fear. To clear the energy I had to work on this first. I had to address my fear of commitment. I did forgiveness work on everyone and everything involved. I did forgiveness work on myself. I shifted a load of shit to make way for the rose farm! 

2)    DREAM BIG

Like the property searches that I regularly do – put in the time to conjure up big audacious dreams for yourself. You know the ones that make you feel a big sick and tingly with excitement?! Set up a Pinterest board (or 20) to literally map out your ideal house, life, job.

3)    ACT AS IF

When Mark and I would go round these big country houses on open day we didn’t have the funds to buy them but we acted as if we did! That’s what enabled us to be the owners of a beautiful rose farm. We acted as if, until we actually were!

4)    KEEP YOUR VIBRATION HIGH

The rose patterned toilet paper? That and all the other little anchors in my day helped me stay in a positive, happy, determined mindset. 

5)    VISUALISE YOUR DREAM OFTEN

With the farm it helped that there was literally a video I could watch daily – the real estate video helped me position myself in my dream regularly. I would watch it all the time to help motivate me to get the money. You can create a mental video of you walking through your dream house, job, relationship every day.

I’d love to know what big dreams you’re dreaming right now?

What are you itching to create, attract and build? It doesn’t have to be a farm, maybe it’s just an extra few hundred dollars a week or a more chilled lifestyle for your family.

When you release and forgive and finally deal with your money stuff, the more empowered you’ll feel to charge and actually receive what you’re worth. 

It’s your time, and you’re ready for the next step, 

Denise xx

P.S. I can help you build your dreams, gorgeous! 

This week I’m hosting a Money Manifesting Challenge. We’re up to step four of my proven and practical process and I’d love you to join us - find out more at denisedt.com/challenge. 

Plus you can work with me in my money mindset coaching program and mastermind community, Money Bootcamp. The more you surround yourself with inspiring, successful and supportive people, the more you’ll feel safe to dream. Let’s clear all the old stories, beliefs and sabotages that are stopping you putting down roots or creating your First Class Life. Come and join us! 

I now hold private business retreats at my beautiful farm, you can find out more here - denisedt.com/retreats.

The Universe Will Provide: Here’s How to Shift Your Money Mindset and Reach For Your Dreams

Hey gorgeous,

One of the most common complaints I hear about money is "but I don't have enough!". People think it's a great excuse for why they don't let themselves dream big goals for their lives. 

As you know, I'm passionate about using tools like dream boards to manifest wonderful things without being attached to how the universe will provide for you. Check out my guide to manifesting money fast here! 

I want you to bust through this scarcity mindset today! Really. Decide to dream big anyway, even if you have NO idea of how you're going to get it.

Trust me. You may have heard about my magical Law of Attraction experiment? Read all about my luckiest year ever here and find out how to use the LoA to get whatever you want! I mean I was manifesting free things like crazy - seminars, a life coaching course and best of all - six months all expenses paid travel all around the world. That experiment was worth about half a million dollars.

What was my secret? I ignored the voice that said "but you can't afford it" and instead just put my order in to the Universe. I had no idea how it was going to happen but I trusted that I would be taken care of. The Universe found a way to get around my money blocks because I was so aligned with my goals and focused on staying positive.

Signs You Need to Work on Your Money Mindset

You’re having thoughts like:

I want to go to Paris... but I can't afford it
I want to go to that amazing seminar... but I can't afford it
I want to quit my job... but I can't afford it.

Remember, thoughts are energy. What you think about all the time will become your reality. What you think, you become.

How to Break Through This Money Block

Your job is just to define what you want and 'place the order' - through goal setting, making a dream board of your biggest desires and keeping your thoughts positive and focused.

You never know how your dream will be delivered, and once it arrives, you maybe won't even care how it got to you. 

Here are just nine ways that the Universe can provide for you:

1. An inheritance 

A client received a $15,000 inheritance from a distant relative when she was desperate to go to a motivational seminar. She got the news on the last day to register, so keep trusting until the end.

2. Bank error in your favour

This was a while back but so amazing, I wanted to share it with you today! I got $5000 just a few days before my university tuition was due. The bank eventually realised but I paid it back in instalments. I kept affirming "all will be ok, I will find the money". Well, the money found me!

3. Energy swap

Back in the early days of my business, I told the universe that I wanted to get over my money blocks. Well, the very next week a woman who specialised in just that contacted me to offer a session in return for a coaching session. Be open to swapping or bartering your skills to achieve your dreams.

 4. Karma repays you

Do nice things for others, you never know when it will be repaid. And remember, your payback could come from a completely different source from the person you helped.

 5. Competition winner

I'm the perfect example of that! Always apply for competitions, especially the ones with outlandish prizes - someone has to win it. If a competition comes up that is exactly in line with your goals, then go for it, it could be a nudge from the universe.

 6. Unexpected financial windfall

This could come in countless ways. A price increase (and by the way, when was the last time you raised them?), unexpected bonus, tax refund, overpayment, etc. Take this extra money and put it towards your dream - you'll be one step closer.

 7. Expect good service

If I get bad service, I always write a polite complaint letter with my suggestions for improvement. Try it. In return, you may get free meals, money off your bill or even gifts like flowers or wine. It will come at the perfect time, even when you've already forgotten about it!

 8. Winning cash

Yes, you might win the lottery, so it's worth buying a ticket every now and then. I also love playing bingo with my mum. During the game, I affirm to myself "I love winning"! I win at least twice every time I go.

 9. Completely randomly!

Calls out of the blue with new business, profitable ideas in the middle of the night and finding money in your pocket. Thank the universe for your abundance and every time you get something free that you would have paid for anyway, put the money you saved away into a dream fund.

The message is - you don't always need to have the money. Just trust you will be looked after but make sure you're asking for what you want.

Are you avoiding dreaming because you don't have the money?

Dream big and create your ideal life. Because nobody else is going to do it for you.

Take action today and join my brand new 5x5 Money Manifesting Challenge – it’s all my secrets and knowledge about manifesting abundance in one super simple and exciting package. Come and join the party!

It’s your time and you’re ready for the next step,

Denise xx

P.S. There’s thousands of lucky people already registered to flex and grow their manifesting muscle. Come and join in and you’ll be supported by a huge community all working through their money blocks and growing their abundance mindset. It’s gonna be so much fun! Click here to sign up.

Work on Your Money Mindset to Increase Your Manifesting Muscle

Hey gorgeous,

I’m an intensely practical person. You know I’m a Virgo, right? I’m all about practicality and practical action.

However, I think there is a huge place in the world for having some woo-woo spiritual practices, even around your money.

I don’t think that spirituality and having money are mutually exclusive.

You can be rich and ethical, you can be rich and eco-friendly, you can be rich and barefoot, you can be rich and wear the most expensive stilettos that money can buy.

It is totally up to you and it doesn’t say anything about you as a person.

Recently after a really great launch, Mark and I were shopping and he said, “Why don’t you buy a handbag to celebrate?”

And I thought, “Do I really want a handbag?”

It doesn’t float my boat.

And totally fine for you if you like handbags, but I really wanted to add to my crystal collection. So that’s what I bought instead.

Yes! Manifesting using crystals and crystal grids!

I think anything that helps you with your intentions around abundance, or helps you feel good about yourself day to day is always going to help when it comes to manifesting money.

For example, I love mantras.

I use mantras as a pattern interrupter.

I use mantras especially if my mindset has veered into negativity or when I’m starting to have repetitive thought patterns like, “I can’t afford that.” or “That’s too much money.” or “I can’t do it.”

I think mantras are such an important practice.

A mantra I love is, “I serve, I deserve.” and that reminds me when I’m tempted to over-deliver or I feel like I’m not enough or I’m not doing enough for other people.

It’s a pattern interrupter for me to stop and remind myself, “I serve others therefore I deserve in return.”

I created a Money Manifesting Formula, which you can use to create more abundance in just 24 hours – get it here. 

Now there are a few other things that I do as well.

I love having money reminders around me.

I have my Goddess Fortuna statue. I keep her in my office and sometimes, I’ll ask her, “What should I do next?” And I allow my intuition to provide the answer.

I have a bowl full of money to remind myself that I’m abundant.

I’ve got some really nice little anchors within my day that act again as a pattern interrupter to keep my mindset focused on positivity and abundance.

Try these awesome visualisations to manifest money here - they’re simple, quick and effective!

To recap – how to manifest more money:

Use mantras to increase positivity and work on your money mindset. You could start with “I’m abundant; money flows freely for me!”
Set up an abundance altar or shelf and place things (statues, crystals, flowers etc.) there that connect you with your dream life. Bonus points for a Fortuna or Lakshi statue who you can check in with!
Surround yourself with objects that feel wealthy to you. A bowl of money, some notes in your wallet that stay there and you don't spend. Every time you look at them you feel abundant.

There’s no one tool that works for everyone. But I’m a big believer in the power of intention. So whatever works for you is fantastic. Make sure you keep on doing that and you do it with intention.

The last thing I want to say is all these practices are wonderful but you also have to make sure you’re doing practical action in the real world as well.

The universe absolutely wants to meet you halfway and everything you can do to up-level your mindset is wonderful.

If you match your woo-woo money practices with amazing action, you will see incredible things start to happen. The universe will absolutely blow open doors and opportunity for you if you step up and play your part as well.

It’s your time and you’re ready for the next step,

Denise xx

P.S. I want to help you reach for your dreams this month! Join our brand NEW 5x5 Money Manifesting Challenge https://www.denisedt.com/challenge, which starts on Monday 11 October. You’ll be joining thousands of others and together we’ll be working on big energetic shifts! Come along and let’s create freedom and abundance. I’m so excited to watch you grow!