She had never looked the topic of “sensitive people in business” before but as an introvert, she had a lot of experience to share. (The majority of sensitive people are introverts, though not all introverts are sensitive).

Being online running her own business was a perfect solution for her as it allowed her the independence she craved, time flexibility and shielded her from having to deal with people face-to-face.

When I asked her about the bane of most introverted business owners’  life, marketing, she explained that social media had changed everything for her because she’s most comfortable with the written word and was able to connect with people freely through her blog posts and tweets. It works so well with her that many people that know her through social media may not realize that she’s quite an introvert.

That strategy works so well for her it even removed her discomfort about going to live events. You know how it is when you go to an event and feel nervous about meeting new people, whether you’ll feel out of place of included, etc. Well Denise solved the problem by tweeting ahead of time: “Who’s going to be at XYZ event?” and gets comfortable with some fellow attendees in advance. No concerns about not knowing anyone; brilliant!

The full interview is 30 minutes long and you can find it at: http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=9895629

And since I treat people the way I like to be treated, I have been e-mailing to my list only occasionally.

Well, I know better; building a relationship requires showing up at the very least!

I had just decided to change my pattern when the universe sent me two confirming messages.

Both were from people on my list asking me to keep them more up-to-date.

One of them even said that she felt left out because she wasn’t being advised of my blog posts. Isn’t that a lesson for us bloggers?

I have a feed subscription form on this blog that says: “Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog through your e-mail”. But that doesn’t mean that people see it, or that they fully grasp its meaning if they have never subscribed to a blog before.

So now I’ll be sending an e-mail to my list outlining that week’s blog posts. So easy, so simple, so evident…if you think like your clients do rather than as the online business owner.

Not everyone will like it. Some already feel swamped with too many e-mails, but they have the option of deleting without reading or unsubscribing.

But others feel I’m doing them a service by flagging what’s been going on instead of them having to go to my blog to find out.

I still feel that I can never be too respectful of others’ boundaries when it comes to honesty, integrity, valuable service and listening to their needs.

But rarely communicating with them in order to avoid adding to their e-mail noise is like refusing to participate in a conversation because others are talking.

What happens is that the planning never gets finished, either because it’s too vague (and therefore more akin to day-dreaming) or lacking in a cohesive vision.

Or the entrepreneur gets stopped by her fears, and that’s a topic that deserves separate posts.

Even before you put together a business plan, you need to ask yourself a number of basic questions, such as:

• What is your purpose in starting the business. Besides money, what do you want it to do for you
• How do you want your business daily life to be like
• What has your history taught you about yourself: where are your weaknesses and strengths
• Can you explain your business concept clearly, namely:

1. What problems will you solve
2. For whom
3. And how

Now these questions are self evident but fact is, very few entrepreneurs take the time to thoroughly answer them. They think that they know the answers in their head, but they don’t, at least not with sufficient clarity.

As a consequence, they might start a business that:

• Never gets really profitable
• Feels like a burden and a trap
• Has a much longer startup phase than necessary

Now I realize that people are overwhelmed and find it hard to gather up the time and energy to do the necessary self-exploration. Somehow, it’s easier to do when someone else is taking us through it.

So I’m putting together a brief teleseminar series in June that would give you the framework and the assistance needed to prepare the ground for your business.

To find out when it starts, check in with this blog in a week or so. Even better, put your e-mail address in the box in the top right corner and I’ll let you know the scoop.

You might see how having a business that reflects your values, personality and deep wishes increases your quality of life, but may not see how it can actually help you be more successful. Here are some of the ways being spirit-minded in business helps the bottom line:

• You are more congruent, and therefore more attractive to prospective clients and joint venture partners
• You have fewer inner struggles and don’t need to subconsciously sabotage your success, since you are doing what you REALLY want to do
• Not having to fight inner demons, you have a lot more energy to devote to the business, and energy has been shown to be one of the top success factors
• Your enthusiasm is infectious and gets you the right kind of attention
• Feeling supported at a deep level, you are more courageous and able to take risks as needed
• Tapping into higher wisdom, you are much clearer about what actions to take
• People want to support you because they sense you are trustworthy
• By working first on the level of intention, you are able to line up the right circumstances and resources more easily than you ever could before
• You are committed more deeply to your business than if it was only a tool for money
• You like yourself which visibly improves your confidence levels
• You enjoy your day much more than you ever have

Need I go on? The trick of course is getting beyond the level of WANTING to have a spirit-based business to actually conducting your business that way.

I firmly believe it’s just about impossible to do that by yourself. That is why I’ve decided to offer two levels of mentoring:

• The free Q & A teleseminars every Tuesday night at 7:30 PM ET (sign up in the box at the top right corner)
• A more involved hands-on (yet still very affordable) program, the details of which will be announced very soon.

Let’s build the kind of businesses that will make our souls sing, and give us the freedom and security we crave!

I was reflecting on it after reading Noah St John’s fantastic book, “The Secret Code of Success”. It’s full of ideas that are really consistent with my philosophy.

Here’s a direct quote from his book:”…you can’t fully perceive your own value, any more than you can see your own eyes.”

Psychologists know that babies learn about themselves through being mirrored by their caregivers. Noah’s point is that almost no caregiver mirrors back in a consistently loving way and as a result, our authentic self is distorted into a negative reflection.

What does that mean to us as entrepreneurs?

We need to ensure that we have supportive mentors (or coaches)  in our lives that can see our capacity and potential and holds us accountable to it. Noah calls these “Safe Havens”, and I think that’s a fabulous name.

What Safe Havens do you have in your professional life?

The most natural response to this question is to say:” Of course not! Why would I have spent all this money taking internet marketing courses if I didn’t want to do this?”

Before you dismiss the question as being irrelevant in your case, it would be worth your while to take a bit of time to think about it.

Starting an internet business might be a chance to break away from your job. Or if you have an offline business or practice, the internet might represent a chance to expand your reach, increase your profit and maybe even free yourself from your tight schedule.  Hum…so your freedom is at stake; wouldn’t that make you possibly a tad anxious?

One of the neat things about the internet is that it’s an environment that isn’t subject to the old rules. So if you weren’t in sync with the corporate world, you get the play in a new sandbox. Hum…a new start and second chance; what if you fail there too, what would that say about you? You couldn’t blame the misguided (greedy, stupid, etc.) bosses for it.

Speaking of new rules, it’s a little humbling to come online and not understand at first how it all fits together. It might be quite unsettling to you especially if you had a sense of mastery about your former work.

Maybe you do understand enough about internet marketing to know how important it is to define your niche, but you really don’t know what it is. That’s bound to make you uneasy.

As you can see, there are many reasons why you might have some degree of fear about your online startup. At least if you are sane. That’s how we humans are built. More about that in the next post.

That happens to quite a few people actually, even if they’ve been taught what to do. If you ask them why they are still not moving forward, you’ll usually get the following reasons. See if any of them fit:

• I feel overwhelmed/don’t know where to start
• I don’t have time
• I don’t know what services or products to offer
• I can’t decide on my market
• I’ve spent too much money already (usually on courses) and can’t keep investing more
• I tried and it didn’t work for me

There are reasons behind those reasons of course. After all, if you (and anyone of us) don’t do something it’s basically either because:

1. You don’t know how to do it.
2. You don’t want to do it, at least not yet and maybe never
3. You are afraid of doing it

Let’s look at each one of those.

You don’t know how to do it

If you’ve taken courses and programs and still don’t know what to do, then maybe they were the wrong programs for you. Some internet training focuses on just a piece of the puzzle and if you got seduced by the promise of a “magic formula” without understanding the big picture, then you might not be much further ahead.

Also, just reading or hearing about it is not the same thing as being able to do it. You don’t know what you don’t know until you try to apply what you’ve been taught. That’s why mentoring programs are a great idea for many people; you can ask your questions and work through any problems you have in implementing the theories.

Despite your best intentions, you might have fallen behind in a program you took and didn’t get to the implementation stage. That’s why a number of good programs give their alumni the right to repeat the course.

So you take an honest look at what you need: do you need to take another kind of course, or do you need to try to apply the material from the courses you’ve already bought? Do you need to join a mentoring program or is it just a question of getting out of  the habit of passively learning, which never works well and especially not in learning about how to start an online business.

You don’t want to do it

Now at first glance, you might reject this possibility. After all, why on earth would you spend money on training, software or services if you don’t want to start a business?

For one thing, maybe you just liked the idea of making money online, but you don’t like the reality of what you have to do every day.

Or maybe part of you wants to be in business and part of you doesn’t.

Do you know what you want to accomplish with your online business beyond just making money? Does it fit with your personality, or your life purpose?

You need to figure this out because unless you do, your online business is likely to end up a cash and time drain.

You are afraid of doing it

Ok, this is a charged statement and it needs a fair bit of exploration, so I’ll continue with this in my next post.

• Why do you exist; who are you serving and what are you doing for them?
• What is unique about your offerings?
• How do you plan to deliver them? You won’t know all of it yet, but you should at least have a general plan in mind.

It’s crucial that you don’t think of your business in isolation from your life and what your spirit wants. So ask yourself:

• How does your online activity fit within your life purpose?
• If you don’t know your life purpose, then you can still decide if you want your online activities to feel meaningful to you, or if you’re happy with your internet work being just tasks leading to money.
• Where do you want your business to lead you; in other words, what do you want your days to be like down the road? (Making lots of money doing very little every day is not a useful answer by the way.)
• What kind of marketing are you willing/not willing to do? Since being an entrepreneur means spending most of your time marketing, it’s important to choose a target market and niche that you can serve without agony.

These kinds of questions need to be explored to have a chance of designing a business that brings you money and joy rather than costs you time and stress.

Finding the answers is not a quick process and most people don’t even start it. It feels quite daunting doesn’t it?

Avoiding taking the time for it may seem easier, but it really reduces your chances of real success.

1. They want to make money to pay the bills and/or escape their jobs
2. They want to tell a wider audience about the services they provide

Continuing to indulge my mood for grossly over simplifying:

Many people in the first group tend to:

• Buy lots of courses or software on various internet marketing techniques
• Be vulnerable to sales copy that talks about how the author of the course used to live in his parents’ basement until he started using a particular approach that beats the system
• Look for magic formulas
• See the internet as a game to win, ideally by finding shortcuts
• Not have a plan of how they’ll move their business forward

Many people in the second group tend to:

• Feel deeply about their services
• Want to make a difference in the world (many of them)
• Wish they didn’t have to spend so much time marketing
• Not spend enough time marketing
• Hate to make calculated moves
• Take courses without applying what they learn
• Not have a plan of how they’ll move their business forward

Both groups need to ask themselves the kind of questions that look beyond the short term and allow them to form a plan.

I’ll give some examples tomorrow.

Now at first glance, I don’t look like I’m an internet mentor. My mission is to:

• Help entrepreneurs start and run successful businesses that reflect who they really are
• Provide the tools to allow people to make money while doing meaningful, satisfying work
• Contribute in creating a kinder, gentler, more respectful and inspired business environment

I straddle the business and the spiritual worlds, which means I guide:

• Metaphysically-oriented service providers to anchor their ideals in solid business practices
• Business professionals and entrepreneurs to find meaning and relief from stress by tapping into deeper sources of inspiration

So am I not getting myself side-tracked by giving teleseminars on how to start an online business? Not at all.

For one thing, the internet community offers us the opportunity to do business differently than in the traditional business model; perhaps in a kinder, gentler, more respectful and inspired way?

For another, I saw a need. Too many people are not applying business common sense on the internet, and that leads to wild goose chases, wasted money, wasted time, and a higher chance of failure.

A profitable and meaningful business is not a collection of internet marketing techniques applied outside the context of the big picture of what you want and who you are.

And that’s where I come in. I’m not replacing internet business mentors. I’m just making sure the new entrepreneurs come to them fully prepared knowing what they want to achieve.