Don't Sacrifice Your Boundaries For A Business Deal

In business, sometimes people will say we have to do things that we don't want to do, that we have a boundary around, for them to work with us.

People will ask us to jump through hoops that we aren't willing to. You may even have someone ask you to do something unethical or immoral.

Someone might ask you to sacrifice your family time for the business and to give everything to them to prove your loyalty.

These are all situations where personal boundaries are being questioned and encroached upon.

Unfortunately, when we allow someone to take down a boundary for them to trust us, like us, or to prove ourselves to them, we show that we can be easily manipulated and that the other person can control the business relationship through manipulation and guilt.

This tone and foundation for any business relationship is a recipe for disaster.

If you grew up in a family or system, say a church or company where boundaries weren't respected, maybe you were taught to lay down your boundaries to receive love or approval from other people. 

This is the type of situation I grew up in and have worked in in the past. It has been the most challenging, most valuable journey I've walked to stop being a people pleaser and to stand firm in my boundaries.

To this day, I have people every week asking me to lay down my business boundaries to do business with them.

My answer is always "No," without guilt or shame.

When you learn not to seek other people's approval or worry about their disappointment because of your boundaries, you step into your power. 

You show people how to respect you by sticking to your boundaries.

Healthy boundaries are never about controlling other people; they are about what we allow to be around us. If someone isn't willing to respect our boundaries, they don't need to be in our space.

You might say, "Yeah, but I really need to close that sale," or "I need to get that client!" Unfortunately, this thinking has led millions of people to do things they wouldn't usually do to get approval from others.

This is the adult version of peer pressure - when we give in to someone else's desires that violate our standards for them to like us!

We must not allow people to infringe on these personal boundaries. The stronger you get at holding to them and saying "No," without any explanation whatsoever, the more you show people that you value yourself - and in turn, they will value you.

Or they will leave you.

With boundaries, rejection is a good thing because you want people to leave you that can't respect you.

If you don't value yourself, other people won't either.

This is about self-worth and self-image.

When you see yourself for the value that you possess, you won't be able to be pushed around by other people in what they think you "should do" for them.

And here comes the hard truth on this one: many of us don't want to hold to our boundaries because we've previously benefited from laying them down.

Even harder truth: We often benefit from other people laying their boundaries down for us, and we believe that if we hold a certain standard in our lives, we will have to respect other people's boundaries as well.

Yes, you will. Respecting other people's boundaries will be the best thing you ever did in your entire life.

Often, the benefits we gain from encroaching on other people's boundaries and not having them ourselves lead us to lay them down continually.

We allow other people to step all over us to be liked by others or do what we believe is the right thing to do.

Some of us might have been raised that the only right thing to do in life is not to have boundaries. This is a horrible lie that keeps many people stuck in cycles of self-abuse and shame.

Healthy boundaries will change your life. One of the best books I know on this topic is by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, called "Boundaries." You can buy it here with my affiliate link on Amazon: https://amzn.to/387RnMR

Don't sacrifice your boundaries to close a deal or push something through. If you do, you're setting a standard that says you can always be pushed around. This creates an unrealistic expectation for the business relationship.

When you start to get more confident with your boundaries, everything opens up for you in your life and business! It's worth it to do the work to get more effective with your boundaries.

Making Assumptions Is Dangerous For Your Business

Making assumptions is a natural human tendency. We look at how things are going and filter them through our experiences.

As a business owner, making assumptions, on the one hand, is vital to predict market direction and be ahead of the curve - but these are calculated assumptions.

On the other hand, making assumptions will make you spend years headed in the wrong direction. It's extremely dangerous for your business success to make unproven assumptions.

We have to become relentless with proving any assumptions we have.

You might assume someone wants to buy a product from you, or there's a need in the marketplace, but you won't know for sure until you test it out.

Some people become addicted to making assumptions - because there's a rush in assuming things before they happen.

You have to take action and DISPROVE your assumptions. Notice, I didn't say prove them. You want to disprove your assumptions. Trying to prove them, you'll always find someone to validate you.

But you focus on getting more NOs than yes's; you'll figure out precisely what the marketplace wants.

You might also make assumptions in your leadership style that are dead wrong. By assuming that someone can do a take or be willing, you invite unnecessary drama into your life instead of just speaking directly.

Clearly expressing expectations in all interactions and not making assumptions will increase your ability to make money.

You might be used to making assumptions as a survival mechanism. It may even terrify you to prove or disprove them, and you prefer things to "happen naturally." As a business owner, the only natural thing you can do is take action to prove or disprove anything.

You have to figure out what the truth is in your assumptions. You have to do due diligence as fast as possible.

People take months figuring out what they assume when this is the first step of the journey. Taking months to figure out your assumptions will make you go broke.

You want to prove your assumptions as fast as possible - and learn as much as you can about your audience, about the marketplace, about your staff members, by asking questions.

And this is the risk: when you start proving or disproving your assumptions, you will discover an incredible truth - a painful one in the beginning, that you will embrace:

You are often WRONG about what you assume. I don't care how many times you've been right before or made correct assumptions; this statement is 100% true when you become honest with yourself. You are often wrong about what you assume.

When we can embrace this as part of the process, we can prove what we assume, we can learn where we are wrong, we ENJOY discovering beliefs that we held to that were untrue - and changing them, you can grow a business to be successful.

We have to stop avoiding being proven wrong and start embracing proving ourselves wrong to discover what the truth is to grow our businesses. When you embrace this - everything will begin to fall into place for you.

We can often assume that the people around us aren't willing to help us. We might assume that we are a burden on someone or that they are incapable of helping us in a certain way. These assumptions will lead you to overlook the kind of help that is already around you.

You have everything you need in your life to reach your goals RIGHT NOW if you become aware of it.

The first step is to stop assuming things and to start taking action.

Here's How Having An Email List Benefits Every Business Owner

Why do you need an email list?

With so much uncertainty across all the platforms these days, having an email list you can control is the one thing you can have faith in in your business.

When you create an email list of qualified prospects, you can sell to this list month after month.

Trying to rely on ever-evolving social media platforms as your only place to sell is a crapshoot and a considerable risk.

Having an email list is something that you can do to make sure that you have more control over your business's future, to protect yourself.

What can a good email list do for you?

An email list is an asset that can make you profit for years to come.

I remember growing my list to over 150,000 people when I did affiliate marketing. I was able to promote products and command thousands of dollars in sales off this list in promotions!

We have clients that we've helped add 100s of thousands to their email lists, and now consistently generate $60,000 per month just from their email list, people buying everything they release!

Add to that… It generally costs about $1-3 to grow your email list per person with an excellently targeted offer. You can expect that 30% of these emails will be bad emails.

This is why having an email list is a powerful asset.

You will be able to create offers that the email list wants to buy or promote offers from other people to your list and use it as a constant stream of income.

It's one of the few tangible assets an online business has! If you were to get an audit of your company value, your social media followers and digital products created are hardly an asset. I've seen these types of audits. They don't have much real value to a company. But an email list is considered a real asset, similar to real estate or wealth!

You have to make your offer qualified.

The more qualified your list is, the better the results you'll get out of it. Random email addresses don't convert to sales as well.

I've seen people trying to get the lowest cost per lead with un-qualified offers, and sadly, these don't convert to sales.

You want your leads in your email list to be people who are most likely to buy from you. Your offer to build your email list should be able to solve a problem your target customers (people who will buy from you) need to be solved. It's usually an overview to cast vision and possibility of what result they will get, plus real value that they can apply immediately to get a result at no cost. This makes the best opt-in offers. Discounts also make good opt-ins.

You have to incentivize it in some way, and an ethical bribe of sorts. But more importantly than that, it has to relate to what you sell or the lifestyle of your target customer. Otherwise, you will have email addresses from people who will never buy from you, and that doesn't help anyone.

What to do after you get an email list built.

Once you get people on your email list, you have to do the most challenging part: email them!

Sending emails to your list is sometimes the most challenging part because it means you risk judgment, criticism, and even people unsubscribing or leaving your list.

The truth is, you want people to leave your list. This is a hard truth. It may have cost you money to get these people. Having them leave your list is the best thing that can happen!

You want your emails to go to people who want to hear from you.

If you email people who have no desire to engage with you, they won't buy. Being afraid of them unsubscribing or leaving, you will make you go broke. Send emails often, a few times a week, to be engaged with your audience, and don't worry about people unsubscribing!

At the end of the day, your target buyer will connect with what you have for sale and will usually stay on your list for years! The rest will leave or ignore your emails, and that's perfectly ok! They may buy some time in the future.

If you would like some help building your email list and closing more sales with your list, schedule a free 15-minute call with me here: jeremiahkrakowski.com/freecall

What Marketer's Should Do Because Of The Facebook's FTC Lawsuit Over Instagram and WhatsApp?

If you've seen the news this week, the FTC has filed for Facebook to be broken up and assets like Instagram and WhatsApp sold off.

If you haven’t seen some of the official news articles, here’s one: www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22158483/facebook-antitrust-lawsuit-anti-competition-behavior-attorneys-general

They feel it’s a monopoly with too much power over the internet. I completely understand this position. They are a massive company with a lot of power.

Now, full disclosure, I love their platform as a marketer - their advertising tools are second to none, and I hope that more competition DOES join the marketplace with better tools to reach customers than just Facebook! I’m optimistic about this.

This may have you wondering what's next for social media. 

You may even wonder if Facebook and Instagram are worth being on anymore. The answer may surprise you.

No matter what happens, business will go on.

Facebook will not stop running ads; neither will Instagram; the algorithm won't suddenly stop working. 

This allows for better innovation and competition in the marketplace. 

Now for the cold hard truth: you have to build assets for yourself in business. An Email List is one of the number one assets you need to be building TODAY!

When we put all our eggs in one basket or one platform, we get ruined when things change.

A successful business uses multi-channel marketing. Visual, written, audio, social media, products, services, events, email marketing, private chat channels, websites, podcast, YouTube, etc

Being on just one platform and riding a gimmick to make some profit is extremely short term.

It’s time to think the bigger picture like a real business owner. 

Your future is not defined by one platform - even if it’s how you have built your business.

Creating long term assets like a community that trusted you and is deeply, intimately connected with you is so important.

This happens through gathering people in places like an email list and even doing events over zoom. Connecting via whatever platform people are on is the key to constantly find new buyers.

As a business owner, if you limit yourself to one platform, you'll go broke. When that platform stops working, you'll have to get a job again.

Instead, think long term. Create relationships, not money. Your goal is always connecting with people who will be your buyers.

Connect with people, and develop your ability to sell. This can't be taken away from you no matter what happens to any platform.

Final words: Don't fear the unknown and allow it to cripple you.

Step up to the plate and create your life, regardless of anything going on outside of you.  

If you need help setting your business up for success with online marketing, schedule a free 15 minute call with me here and let’s talk about your business: jeremiahkrakowski.com/freecall

Dealing With Rude, Mean People On the Internet

If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you know that there are rude, mean people online.

We can try to get away from it, but it's nearly impossible to avoid them.

You could be doing everything correctly in your business, and you will get the meanest, rudest people accusing you of things that you never did.

Unfortunately, this threat is something that keeps a lot of people from building their businesses. They focus so hard on "hater management" that they are being controlled by the opinions of people who don't even know them.

I see fantastic business owners all the time with incredible products and services who don't put themselves out there because of haters online.

I used to be afraid of this myself. I also used to get into many "arguments" with haters online because I let them get in my head.

So I get it. I've ever had people schedule calls with me to be rude and mean! It's incredible the lengths people go to be nasty.

We can't allow the fear of these people to keep us from shining brightly in our businesses.

Ultimately - we have to become more confident in who we are, and really, I feel sorry for people who are rude like that online. It shows a level of insecurity in someone else to have to tear another person down who's going after their dreams.

Don't let the critical tone of haters get in your head, and don't let it keep you from launching your business.

The best way to break free from the fear and worry of these haters is to put yourself out there!

Will you be judged? Will people be mean? Yeah! It happens! But the more you do it, the more confident you will get to show up every day in your business and market it online.

I believe that if you're reading this right now, you may have let the fear of people being rude to keep you from building your business. Maybe even for years.

I want to say I understand. I know it can be challenging. I know there are challenges when it comes to putting yourself out there.

But when you show up, you don't let fear keep you held back, and you put yourself out there to market and sell your business online. The results will pay you dividends.

You can't control what other people will do, but you can set a boundary of what you will tolerate in your space.

Block the rude, mean people. Don't engage with them. You don't owe them anything. You owe yourself the self-acceptance and self-respect to show up powerfully and put your business out there so that you can reach your goals!

Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Always!

If you would like me to mentor you on building your business online and getting more customers and sales, schedule a free 15-minute call with me at jeremiahkrakowski.com/freecall

Don't Let Other People Stop You From Going After Your Dreams

The people you listen to and allow to speak into your life matters.

If all you hear from is negative people, friends, and family telling you to give up on your dream, it's no wonder you that might be spinning in circles, not sure which way is up or down.

Over the last few years, I've learned one truth:

Other people will give their blood, sweat, and tears to convince you to give up on your dreams. They will fight to the death to tell you that you should give up.

Why is this? Because our dreams challenge the unfulfilled parts of them. They also don't want you to hurt yourself and be let down.

While this is sweet and somewhat caring, it's not what helps people.

The flipside is: encouraging delusions of grandeur never helped anyone. 

Some ideas are just bad, and that's ok!

But I don't think anyone should be discouraged by - or try to deter someone else from their dreams.

I don't care how much experience someone doesn't have. EVERYONE can learn new skills to achieve their dreams.

That said: there are a few things you need to do to make sure your dreams come to life.

1.) Take action behind them.

2.) Get relentless at learning what you don't know.

3.) Do NOT field negative opinions from people who haven't done what you set out to do (no matter who they knew or what experience they have in a similar space).

4.) Build a tribe of people around you who can grab onto your dream

Ultimately, yes: some ideas are bad. That's ok! I like it when I realize an idea is bad. There are also 1000 unrealized ideas because people don't put them into action and don't learn new skills or grow.

And that's where #4 comes from.

If you've ever heard the term: Teamwork makes the dream work, it's incredibly accurate when it comes to making dreams come to fruition.

Getting a team around you of people who can grab onto the vision with you changes everything!

That team could be one close friend. A team for your vision is you and one other person! Ultimately you want to have a minimum of 3 people to have a good team but starting; two is all you need!

Not sure how to find that person? Well, you have to be a friendly person.

Loneliness is one of the most significant factors I think that people get caught upon. That's a topic for another post, but readers digest is: when we have a healthy self-image and show ourselves friendly to other people, it attracts people in our lives who make friends and can join your team.

We have to create a boundary where we do not listen to people who tell us to give up on our dreams.

Ultimately, you have to work on your self-belief and believe in yourself. Many times, starting, people will try to invalidate you - and get you to give up. It's your choice to let them or not.

We also can be our own worst enemy and critic. If you are not encouraging yourself and being your best cheerleader every single day, figure out why that is! In business, you have to be your number one encouragement. You need to keep telling yourself what a great job you're doing and believing in yourself. This will attract others to buy into what you are selling as well.

A mentor or coach is a great person to help encourage you in your dream because they are both invested in encouraging AND will shoot straight with you about if it's a good idea or not and what to adjust.

If you need someone to help mentor you in online marketing and sales, I've been assisting companies in growing from 0, startup, beginning, no sales to make 6, 7, and 8 figures! You can schedule a free call with me here: jeremiahkrakowski.com/freecall