If you think making millions in revenues takes 24/7 of time you need to read this and learn another way:

Letting go, Stopping the Isolation, Creating Systems, Making your Millions: I’m still absorbing lessons from a great talk by Christine Comaford last week.

Don’t know her? She’s author of Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career, and Revel in Your Individuality,  a five-time CEO, a multimillionaire, and a Buddhist monk.

She reminds us entrepreneurs that we all have a million dollar idea which only needs direction to be pulled into reality. . . and that there’s no magic bullet: we have to do the work by investing your time, money, and heart.

Because I work primarily with entrepreneurs, I wanted to pass along some of Christine’s wit and wisdom in hopes it helps remind us, even if they’re things we know but are not keeping top of mind:

1. Don’t isolate. Entrepreneurs tend to do that, bury their head in their business instead of working ON their business. I’m a master of this: getting so absorbed in the details of what needs to be done that I forget to look down the line – or more expansively. I’m going to try putting that on my calendar to see if that works “March 1: think expansively”. Christine says an antidote to isolation is community: get out there, support your peeps, join in, get feedback, you get the idea.Be mighty and courageous and good – get out there! (I do so you’ll probably see me)

2. Create systems to transform information and implementation: build a database, set up quickbooks, hire people to be your MVP’s (most valuable persons, as Christine says) to do what you should NOT be spending your time doing. For example, I have MVP’s who are writers, editors, designers, programmers, SEO specialists, accountants, admins, and more because I am good at the strategic planning, not the minutaie of details that my MVP’s rock at!). Delegation to MVP’s is what enables you to think like a CEO. And it’s so freeing, especially for us creative types.

3. Manage Communications. OK, that’s my tip, not Christine’s. But she concurs that it’s critical to manage your Social Media, set up autoresponders (they save me so much time!) and outsource what you can. For example, I have my programmer set up my enews so it’s graphically templated and properly programmed for delivery, plus he adds it to my archives online. Perhaps, you just need to set up autoresponders for inquires that come to you about your services, classes, products (in marketing it’s all called ‘product’). Maybe you need to put some of your classes on video and sell those on your website? Anything that saves time, gives you that time to earn more revenues.

If you need help with high level marketing or business planning (to brainstorm with someone who thinks like a CEO) or with marketing tasks, that’s what we do. Visit our site for pricing and details or call us to help you choose our service that fits your exact need! Remember, Knowledge is Bliss. Thanks for the wisdom boost, Christine!

If you want more wisdom from Christine, take a look at her upcoming workshops: http://www.rulesforrenegades.com/home.html.

And if you missed our former lesson from Christine, take a look here: http://www.allisonbliss.com/wordpress/2010/02/04/beceome-mighty-like-christine-comaford/.
If you need marketing services, we’re standing by to help you! After all, knowledge is bliss!

Thanks to Patrick Schwerdtfeger’s #Entrepreneur & Small Business Academy Meetup Group last night I had a revelation about my own business from the amazing Christine Comaford.I’m limiting my thinking, my creative options, my potential – and worse, I know better. But sometimes you need a slap in the face, right?

If you don’t know Christine Comaford, she’s one of the original investors of Google, has built, lost and rebuilt many fortunes, retired at 40 to do philanthropical work (and not that phony movie star stuff, but helping altzheimer and hospice patients – soulful and hard work), started a biz helping over 153 entrepreneurs become millionaires (http://www.christine.com/thanks.html) all this after dropping out of high school.

And I learned more from her in an hour than all the business training I ‘ve had in 20 years!

Over the next few weeks I’ll share some of her wisdom, but today, start by thinking how you may be limiting your potential. Here are a few ways I limit myself:

It took me years to justify to myself hiring my genius Assistant Jaimie Harris to offload the work that eats my time and at which I stink like database updates, recording online sales, quickbook updates, etc. Jaimie is far superior and faster than I at those important business activities. . It’s so obvious that we need to do what earns our business money instead of those things we suck at doing. So, why does it take us so long to hire these “MVP”s (most valuable people), as Ms. Comaford calls them?

I’m reasonably good at finding experts to help my clients in areas where I’ve no expertise (i.e.; copywriting, design, web programming, quickbooks, printing, etc.). But I haven’t found a perfect mentor to help my own business blossom. Like most entrepreneurs, I feel I should be able to do that myself. I teach business, for heavens sake, so I should know WHAT to do! But I’m not doing it. So, hence the need for a mentor. Ah, but who to ask? How to approach them? Christine suggests you write a list and just ask for their advise.  I’m so very stuck! Am I really the only one with this issue, or is there someone who wants to be my ‘find-a-mentor buddy’ on this?

Here’s the funny thing:

I used to mentor hundreds of people while part of a career advisory network for a large center in San Francisco. I was one of their most requested advisors, in fact (probably because I worked in the over-glorified film industry at the time). I LOVED mentoring, and even have become friends with a few mentees.

Ms. Comaford says that mentors love to be asked for their advise. (true, we do) But they’re also nervous about whether their advice will really help you or not. (true, I always wondered if those I advised had the results I expected. So few ever bothered to call me back to let me know – and as a mentor that’s your only reward, really).

So what holds us back?

Below are a few ‘issues’ of mine (and almost all entrepreneurs I know), but I’d like your insight, too. You might have that revelatory answer we’re all seeking! And if you’re stuck like the rest of us, perhaps this might start you thinking, too:

1. we believe as entrepreneurs we should be able to get all the answers ourselves.

2. we fear a mentor will think we’re idiots, or say no, or be too important to waste their time on us.

3. we’re not sure who to ask to help us (my issue): who has the knowledge and experience I don’t (like Christine Comaford) that I’d trust to advise me?

4. we know we’ll be held accountable and fear we’ve no time to get their recommendations implemented.

5. how come we can’t do for ourselves these things we so easily do for our clients. What is that ‘issue’ and when the heck will I ever learn to overcome that? Geez!

What am I missing here? How have you overcome it for your business? Oh, please do share with me and my readers your comments.