Are you a woman going through a transitional phase in your life and find that you are unsure about what is the next step for you?  Do you lack confidence in yourself?  Have you been wanting a change in your life but don’t even know how to begin?

Then, I invite you to book a one hour phone coaching session with me at a special one-time offer price of $79.00 for the session.  I can help you find answers, achieve clarity and gain confidence.  In my 21 years of experience as a therapist and a coach, I’ve helped many women successfully navigate through these transitional phases and I can help you do the same.

One Hour Life Coaching Session for Women

USD $79.00

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Once you sign up, you will receive a confirmation email from me; then a second email suggesting times for us to schedule  your session.  I look forward to coaching you!  (And by the way, should you have any questions about this coaching session and whether it is appropriate for you, please feel free to email me at kate@vivacitynow.com.)

Wishing you much success,

Kate

Kate Sanner

CEO and Founder of Vivacity®

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Recently I was speaking with some midlife women who expressed a concern that maybe they were too old to start a new chapter in their lives.   That got me thinking about some great women – past and present – who accomplished or are accomplishing great things later in life.  Here are the stories of seven woman who inspire us to keep on with our dreams no matter how old we are.

“I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday . . . I look back on my life a good day’s work, it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I made the best out of what life offered.” – Anna Robertson Moses

Anna Robertson Moses – Grandma Moses (September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961), one of America’s best-known primitive painters, didn’t take up painting until she was 75 years old. Her work was discovered in 1938 and in 1940, when she was almost 80 years old, Moses had her first one-woman show in New York City which brought her immediate fame. Two years later, there was a second one-woman show. In November 2006, forty-five years after Moses’ death, her painting -”Sugaring Off” which was done in 1943 – sold for $1.2 million.

“Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything.” – Julia Child

Julia Child (August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was 36 years old when she was introduced to French cuisine by her husband Paul and as a result, Julia found her life’s calling.  At 39, she began to teach cooking to American women in her Paris kitchen and at age 49, Julia published her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.  On February 11, 1963, at the age of 51, Julia made her debut as “The French Chef” on PBS and began her 10 year run as one of the most successful and widely viewed television cooks.  Julia went on to star in several television programs in the 1970’s and 1980’s and in 1989, at age 77, Julia published her most comprehensive work – “The Way To Cook” – a cookbook and series of instructional videos.

“The most significant gifts are the ones most easily overlooked. Small, everyday blessings: woods, health, music, laughter, memories, books, family, friends, second chances, warm fireplaces, and all the footprints scattered throughout our days.” – Sue Monk Kidd

Best-selling author, Sue Monk Kidd (born August 12, 1948), published her first novel “The Secret Life of Bees” at age 53. Kidd’s first career was as a registered nurse and a college nursing instructor. Her writing career began when she submitted a personal essay she wrote for a writing class to Guideposts magazine. She later became a contributing editor at Guideposts. In 2002, “The Secret Life of Bees” was published, followed by her second novel “The Mermaid Chair” in 2005 and the memoir “Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story” in 2009. Kidd is at work on her third novel titled “The Invention of Wings”.

“For marathon swimmers, the English Channel is the Mount Everest of swimming. And to complete that, it gives you like a notch in your belt. And at the age of 60, I still felt strong. And I figured my mom, who is 86, is swimming three days a week, so I still have plenty of years ahead of me.” – Pat Gallant-Charette (from NPR interview with Scott Simon, 8/27/11)

Pat Gallant-Charette, age 60, became the oldest American woman to swim across the English Channel on Monday, August 22, 2011. This was her third attempt since 2008 and she swam across the English Channel in less than 16 hours.

“Women must be agents of their own lives.” – Hedda Bolgar Bekker

Hedda Bolgar Bekker, 102, (born on August 19, 1909), a working psychologist in Los Angeles, CA and one of the two recipients of the America’s Outstanding Oldest Workers Award for 2011.  Dr. Bekker has been a psychoanalyst for 50 years and currently works bout 20 hours every week.

Dr. Bekker doesn’t have retirement plans.  She says:  ”I have always earned my own living.  I’m still earning enough to get by.  My house is paid off, and I have quite a bit of Social Security.  So, I’m still paying my own way.”  She also still loves clothes, has her hair styled and gets manicures and entertains a lot.  Dr. Bekker also attends weekly meetings at the Institute she founded 37 years ago.

“Time – our youth – it never really goes, does it? It is all held in our minds.” – Helen Hooven Santmyer

Helen Hooven Santmyer (November 25, 1895 – February 21, 1986) is best known for her novel “And Ladies of the Club” which was published in 1982 when Santmyer was 87 years old. “And Ladies of the Club” stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 37 consecutive weeks.  It sold more than 162,000 copies, and a paperback edition sold more than a million copies’.”

“But I don’t regret taking the leap. Do I wish I’d divorced my job earlier? Absolutely. But apparently ‘50 is the new 30’ — and The Telegraph newspaper in England has dubbed us 50-plus women ‘quintastics’, so I’m not worried.” – Rieva Lesonsky

Rieva Lesonsky was Editorial Director at Entrepreneur magazine for over 25 years.  At the age of 55, Lesonsky, along with two other women, founded her company GrowBiz Media which “provides information, products, services and resources to help corporations and government agencies identify, understand and connect with America’s small and midsize businesses (SMBs).” (http://www.growbizmedia.com/index.html)

Written and posted by

Kate Sanner

CEO and Founder of Vivacity®

http://VivacityNow.com

Creator of and Coach and Consultant at KateSanner.com (A Division of Vivacity®)

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When I first created my company Vivacity in 2006, I had a very simple mission – to empower, honor and celebrate women. I wanted to help women discover their possibilities and jump into their best lives both professionally and personally.

Now, six years later, as the company and I have evolved, I am making some changes in my business model. Vivacity will remain my “mother” company and have two distinct tracks of carrying out its mission.

The first track will focus on empowering women solo professionals and helping them achieve success and profitability in their practices and is presented on my new site http://www.KateSanner.com/.  I have been a solo professional (psychotherapist) for over 20 years and I want to share with other women all that I have learned so they can achieve the incomes and recognition they deserve.

The second track will launch Spring 2012 and will focus on empowering women in their personal lives.  I’ll keep you updated on its progress.  Until then, I will continue blogging here and my Ezine “A Jumping-Off Point will still be published twice a month.

If you are a woman solo professional, please sign up for my E-newsletter “Success Notes” and you’ll receive as my gift my free audio entitled “Your 7 Keys to Creating A Successful and Profitable Practice” on http://KateSanner.com/. I look forward to sending you this audio and bringing you valuable information in the newsletter and on the blog.

©2012

Kate Sanner

CEO and Founder of Vivacity®

Creator of and Coach and Consultant at KateSanner.com

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R.  Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller, the brilliant systems theorist, architect, engineer, author, designer, inventor, and futurist, once said:

“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary — the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trimtab.

It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all.  So I said that the little individual can be a trimtab.

Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

Bucky Fuller knew that just as something as small as the trimtab on a rudder could turn a ship, so the individual acting as a trimtab, doing dynamic things mentally, could turn the “ship of state”.  And this can also apply to the course of the “ship of business”.

We all get to a point in our businesses where we have to course correct.  This does not mean we have to make huge or sweeping changes (in fact, this would probably be disastrous).  But by doing dynamic things mentally in our businesses, by making small changes where they count, we can make big differences in our outcomes and in our bottom line.

Here are three trimtabs we can move which will shift the course of our businesses in a positive way:

1.  The Who – Most of us do know who we want to serve, who we want to work with – we have identified our target market.  But we can make a small adjustment to this target market and reap some great benefits.

For example, you coach women who are small business owners, but the truth is that this is too broad of a market.  Because you can’t pinpoint exactly who you serve, it causes your message to be too ambiguous and your target market does not respond as well as you expected.  Women who produce tangible products have different needs and wants than those who may only deliver services..  You have been a solo professional in a helping or healing profession who does direct service work and you understand this market really well.  So you can refine your focus to women solo professionals who are in this same field and your marketing messages and products and services reflect this.  Now, that doesn’t mean you should turn away someone who wants to work with you and whose business only sells products.  You can work with whomever you want to and with whom you know you can help.

Or, you have a special affinity for working with women in transition but that is also a very broad and diverse field.  You are someone who used to work in a major corporation and decided to leave corporate life, so you understand very well the struggles that go into making this transition.  So, you can refine our focus to women who want to leave their corporate jobs and start their own businesses and focus your products and services and your marketing messages to address this market.  If a stay-at-home  mom approaches you to work with her to start a business, you can do so.

2.  The Why – We often choose our area of expertise out of our values and passion and these become the reason we found our businesses.  But your why for your business has to be made up of other components other than your values and your passion.  Your values and passion also have to couple with your areas of competency and expertise AND these have to match the needs and wants of the people we may want to serve.  Your why may not match the why of your target market.

Let’s say you are a solo professional in the health and wellness field and your target market is people over the age of 40. The why in your business is that you want people to be as healthy as they can be throughout their lives and not succumb to some of the diseases that can be avoided.  So your marketing messages and your products and services are geared towards ultimate health and well-being. However, the “why” of your target market is to lose weight and maintain this weight loss and/or not be so fatigued all the time.

The result is that your marketing messages and your products and services do not match your target market’s why, so people will not hear your message and they will not buy, no matter how good your services are and no matter how heartfelt and earnest your why.  Remember, people want to feel that you understand them, their problems and their wants and needs.

No, you do not have to change your why, but you do have to recognize that your greater why can be served by meeting the here-and-now, more immediate why of your target market.

3.  The How – You have to reach your target market – both in your marketing messages and in your products and services – in the way that they regularly consume information and products and services.

In regards to service delivery, let’s say you are a coach and consultant and you would prefer to have a completely virtual business – that is, do all your coaching and consulting by phone, even for local clients.   But your target market needs and wants face to face contact.  Not offering this as an option is not addressing how your target market wants to receive services.

Though much of the world uses virtual forms of communication, not everyone likes or prefers to use email to communicate.  Though social media use is huge, you have to determine if your target market uses Twitter or Facebook and which they use more consistently.  (By the way, over 50 year old females are the fastest growing  population on Facebook.)  If you want to reach people in corporate life, LinkedIn may be your best choice of social media.

If you haven’t already done so, do some research into the psychographics of your target market.  (Psychographics are attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles)  This will help you determine which methods would be best to reach them.  For example, I am working on a book about great women past and present and the person who has been coaching me on the book is having me do extensive research into many different aspects of marketing the book.  One of the things that I had to determine was if my target market would prefer an EBook or a print book.  That’s an important piece of information.  Though in some aspects doing an EBook could be a less expensive route to publishing, would my target market actually buy an EBook?  Knowing this up front could save time and money

Whatever methods you are using to reach your target market, be sure to track your results and see where you may have to make some small course corrections based upon this feedback.

I wish you great success!

©2012

Kate Sanner

CEO and Founder of Vivacity

http://VivacityNow.com

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As the year ends and the new one begins, it’s a perfect time to look at what’s next for your business or practice.  Having someone completely outside of your business to help you see the possibilities in your business is invaluable!  And that’s where a coach and consultant comes in.

Book Your One-On-One 45-Minute Strategy Session for Your Business or Practice with Coach/Consultant Kate Sanner at a One-Time Only Very Special Price

From December 21, 2011 through December 31, 2011, you can book your 45-minute phone consultation session with me at the one-time low price of $97.00 by clicking on the following link:

USD$97.00

Your session will be scheduled for an available time between January 2 and January 31, 2012.

Once you purchase the session, you will receive an email from me confirming your purchase.  You will then receive a second email from me offering you available times.  You will then respond to my message with your choice of meeting time, your telephone number and the URL of your website so I can familiarize myself with your business (all this information will be included in your email).

USD$97.00

I look forward to helping you with planning your business or practice’s growth in 2012!

Wishing you much success,

Kate

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Make a list of all you the things you’ve accomplished this year – personally and professionally. It doesn’t matter how small or inconsequential you think they are, write them all down. If you prefer, you can have a separate list for your personal accomplishments and a separate list for your professional accomplishments.

Once you’ve written them down, now take time to read them over and acknowledge yourself for every one of them. Every one of these things took time, effort, skill and/or perseverance, so give yourself some credit for having done them.

If there are some particularly significant accomplishments, be sure to allow time to relive them and savor the experience again. By the way, taking time to revisit a success is a great technique for reinforcing it and increasing the probability of reproducing it in the future.

As a last step, use this list to set goals for what you want to accomplish in the new year.

©2011

Kate Sanner

CEO and Founder of Vivacity

http://VivacityNow.com

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“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

Think of your last business encounter when you were on the client/customer end.  After this encounter, did you come away from that experience with a positive feeling?  Did you know that you would definitely return to this service provider or vendor again in the future?  Did you tell others about how great the product or service was?  Did you feel taken care of, valued, or appreciated?  Did you feel enlivened and energized by the experience?  Did you come away feeling that you got more than you anticipated?  If so, then this business owner did a great job of valuing you as a client or customer! And this is exactly how you want your clients and customers to feel.

Here are fifteen ways in which you can leave your customers or clients with great memories and walk-away impressions:

1. ask clients and customers what they want and need

2. be attentive to these wants and needs by delivering products and services that address them

3. put great service to clients/customers first

4. ask permission to put people on your mailing list; don’t be guilty of “accidental spamming”

5. under-promise but over-deliver, i.e., exceed expectations

6. remember special events like birthdays, holidays, anniversaries e.g. how long someone has been your client/customer

7. offer discounts, special rates, upgrades and quality one time offers; don’t just make it sound like a good deal – make it a good deal (e.g., I love when Zappos upgrades my order to next day delivery)

8. give freebies/bonuses

9. be generous with our knowledge – i.e. sharing some of your expertise in the form of tips and checklists, for example, in your newsletters, emails, etc.

10. keep your language/words positive and constructive in all your emails, marketing pieces, tweets, Facebook posts, etc.

11. speak with integrity and avoid clichés, canned phrases, sales talk, and self-promotion (e.g., I have a pet peeve against the canned phrase “Have I exceeded your expectations?”, especially said in a way that sounds forced or disingenuous); encourage your employees to speak with the same integrity (and don’t force them to spew out canned phrases either!!)

12. always take the high road despite the actions of others; for example, if someone complains about your company on social media or Yelp, definitely reply and remember to take into account his/her point of view and offer solutions; never complain back or castigate someone

13. highlight clients and customers in your newsletters (always with their permission); this is not a testimonial or success story – this is a genuine way of saying thanks

14. take people seriously, but at the same time…

15. be playful and lighthearted when appropriate

©2011

Kate Sanner

CEO and Founder of Vivacity

http://VivacityNow.com

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I heard a great quote by entrepreneur mentor and philanthropist Ali Brown at her SHINE 2011 Event: “Clarity attracts money.”  In other words, if you become clear about:

• your vision and mission in your business
• your niche
• who you serve (identify your ideal client)
• the systems you have in place to support your business
• what products and services will best address your ideal client’s wants and needs
• a plan to consistently bring these products and services to your audience
• the marketing messages you craft to bring your message to them on a consistent basis…

then you will make attract more customers and clients and therefore make more money.

I’ve known this adage for a long time and have done a lot of refining over the last few years to try and achieve clarity but I had to finally admit something to myself – I still was resisting making one particular significant change in my business that would result in more clarity. I’ve been mulling it over for the last few months but attending SHINE was the gentle but effective push to finally make this change.

Why did I resist? There are lots of reasons but the primary one was that I was too attached to my business. I am passionate about helping all women take their voices and messages out into the world and into the marketplace – I believe this is so crucial to making significant positive changes in the world. But I needed to take a BIG step back and re-evaluate the way in which I did this on a day-to-day basis.

At SHINE, I came to terms with what I had to do and put myself on a 90 day plan to do it. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, in fact the first thing that happened when I returned home from SHINE was that I became very ill with a virus. I recognized that this is what can happen when I make myself open to change, so I just nurtured myself through it and kept going with defining my plan.

Since then many steps have been taken to implement the plan so I can launch the changes right after January 1, 2012.

Of course there are different emotions tied to the changes, lots of good ones but a few negative ones.  I approach the negative feelings by using the tried-and-true method for working through them quickly – first, you recognize them, then you accept them, then you find functional ways to deal with them.  Quite quickly, the negative feeling moves on and there’s new energy created to apply to moving forward.

So as the New Year approaches, I’d like to ask all of you who are small business owners, solo professionals and private practitioners – how can you achieve more clarity in your business so that you can make more money in the new year?  Go over the criteria I listed at the beginning of this post.  Where do you need to make changes?  Do you find yourself resisting any of these?  Do you find your skills are lacking in any of these areas (e.g., what products to create, how to market)?  Once you identify the areas that need to change, develop you own 90 day plan to make the changes and implement them.  I’d love to hear what changes you decide to make and the results you achieve.

Written by:

Kate Sanner

CEO and Founder of Vivacity

http://VivacityNow.com

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Life can be hectic and demanding just in the process of day-to-day living and working – but it can be even more so while you are in a transitional phase in your life.  In order to give yourself some room to change and grow, you are going to have to “clean the slate” – that compilation of demands and constraints you have unconsciously placed on yourself.  Here are some areas to begin in and some simple strategies to get you started.

1. Your Time – Examine your commitments and decide to let go of the ones that present a drain on your time.  Clubs and organizations, as well as online social media, are wonderful social and networking outlets but they are also time absorbers.  Determine which are the one or two that most support your goals and stick with those.  If you find that you are being overwhelmed with information coming via email and mail, cancel or don’t renew subscriptions or request to be taken off the lists of those that are not crucial to your health, well-being or attaining your goals.  It is possible to have too much of a good thing.

2. Your Finances – If your commitment is to create a financial clean slate, take the advice of financial advisors and planners:  find out where you stand and then have an expert help you plan your strategy.  A quick strategy to start cleaning the financial slate is what I call “The Buying Moratorium”. I have used this strategy for years in my psychotherapy practice with parents who are overwhelmed by their children’s escalating demands whenever they are in a store.  It applies to grown ups too.  For one month, buy only what you need and don’t buy anything you want (and be honest as to what constitutes a need versus a want).  It not only saves you money, it makes you realize where your money has been going and begins to break the cycle of consuming and acquiring.

3. Your Well-Being – It is important to our emotional and spiritual well-being to learn the value of silence.  One of the simplest strategies I ever heard was to reserve 15 minutes a day to just sit in total silence.  Close doors, turn off phones and lights…close your eyes and empty your mind.  Or learn to meditate…there are many simple systems out there. The simplest form of meditation is to sit and follow your breath.  Inhale slowly through your nose, counting silently in your mind to 10, then exhale slowly through pursed lips to a count of 10.  Do this for ten minutes.

4. Your Relationships with Others – Are there negative people in your life…people who give you a litany of what you should not be doing, should be doing instead or interject doubt instead of support when you share your goals and dreams? Time to end the relationship or significantly decrease the time you spend with that person. Or are you holding on to a friendship that just doesn’t work any longer?  It was great once upon a time, but you’ve changed, she’s changed (or hasn’t) and the friendship just doesn’t fit any more and in fact, it has become an obligation or burden. It’s time to lovingly let go.

5. Your Relationship with Yourself  - As you clean the slate in preparation for growth and change, believe in yourself even when it becomes difficult to do so.  Commit – once and for all – to really letting go of old limiting beliefs.  In order for things to be different, we need to believe and to act differently.

As you clean the slate, you’ll find the time and energy to write your new story on it – one that comes from conscious, self-affirming choices.

(c)2011

Written by:

Kate Sanner

CEO and Founder of Vivacity

http://VivacityNow.com

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