Rachel Elnaugh: Entrepeneur, Writer & Author, Business Speaker, Consultant & Mentor

As you can imagine I get lots of requests for help from entrepreneurs, many of whom are in dire financial straights and need urgent assistance to get their business back on track.

But the one thing these cash strapped ‘wantrepreneurs’ all seem to have in common is that  THEY DON’T WANT TO PAY FOR HELP.

Logical, you may say!  If they are cash strapped how can they afford it?

But let’s look a little closer at the relationship between not having any cash and always wanting to get things for free…

I’ve been mentoring for five years now (as well as speaking for Business Link events and at various government funded events) and it never ceases to amaze me how little people value advice or assistance which is dished out for free.  ‘Fully booked’ events frequently result in half full audiences and free advice is rarely followed.

I am sure you know that I am passionate about helping entrepreneurs at whatever level – so have developed a range of services where I help businesses, from a £10k consultancy at one end of the spectrum to a £1 trial mentoring at the other.

But I can tell you that the conversion rate from emails asking for my help for free to a payment of £1 to obtain the said help is negligible.

In other words, people want my assistance – but they don’t respect me enough to pay £1 for it!

But something deeper is happening here – and a recent experience at one of my workshops brought it home to me.

A friend of mine is a Transformational Coach and at a time in my life recently when I needed some help I booked a session with her and took along a bundle of crisp £50 notes in payment.

The same coach booked on one of my recent workshops, and brought along an envelope containing an almost identical amount of £50 notes.

So the transaction was actually money neutral – we’d both in reality given the service for free.

YET WE HAD RESPECTED ONE ANOTHER’S VALUE ENOUGH TO EXPRESS THE TRANSACTION IN MONEY

And by doing so had actually (energetically) said ‘I AM PAYING YOU THIS BECAUSE I AM WORTH IT’.

So, next time you try to leverage a freebie, with the same old excuse that you ‘can’t afford it’, consider that putting money energy behind your committment is one of the keys to unlocking your own flow of wealth.

If you don’t respect others’ value enough to pay, why should anyone respect yours?

Even if it is only £1.

Rachel

Yes, I admit it.  I am hooked on Twitter.

It wasn’t always this way.  It started out as a marketing tool – and in the beginning I wasn’t really sure what to tweet. 

And then there was the stage when I realised that giving details of my exact whereabouts presented a real security issue for my family at home!

At one point I went down a real blind alley the time a Twitter expert suggested the way to ‘get numbers’ was to pick someone in my space and follow all their people in the hope of getting a follow back.  So I chose several hundred of fellow Dragon Peter Jones’ followers as a test – which gave me a kickstart of followers but also ended up giving me a huge amount of Tweet traffic, most of it boring & useless.

But now I’ve weeded those out (I unfollow anyone who sends three tweets in a row which leave me cold) – and I’ve got to an interesting and eclectic bunch of following/followers, Twitter feels like a big extended family – and I love it!

Here’s my little guide to the different  Twitter Types I’ve spotted:

- ‘The Celebrities’ – Those top names you think are going to be really interesting but rarely are.  @oprah @billgates @barackobama  They don’t often tweet, when they do it’s to promote something or its a message written by one of their assistants.  But you’ve kinda got to have them on your ‘following’, just in case.

- ‘The Gurus’ – These use twitter to give us their wisdom. @TonyRobbins @LouiseHay @MalcolmLevene  Great inspiration, but can get tiresome after a while, especially when they start to preach.

- ‘The Companies’ – Using Twitter to promote this that or the other.  @SmartaHQ @TopTenTips @women_unlimited .  Good to know what’s going on in your sector, but also cause a lot of Twitter clutter.

- ‘The Fun Guys’ – Who use Twitter as their regular conversation tool.  @MulliganJimmy @Obsrvationalist @tradingnothing  When you start following a connected group like this you get to be privy to all their one to one conversations!  Great fly-on-the-wall fun…

- ‘Your Friends and Fans’ – the people who know you and love you and who you connect with on a personal level @srimati @AnneHerbert @nobackrub By far your most valuable group, these people are there with the support, the advice, the ReTweets, the friendly words.  It’s a great way to make new friends and extend your network.

Here’s some top Twitter Tips given to me by Twitter Guru @MarkShaw:

• Be authentic!
• Drop Tweets about what you’re up to throughout the day, so people get a little window on your life – even things you think are boring
• Pictures of your lifestyle are good if used selectively
• Use Twitter to ask questions and for feedback help & ideas.  It’s a great way to get input – as well as ReTweets. People love to help.
• Be selective in what you ReTweet
• Try not to over-promote anything

But the thing I most love about Twitter is that it is so low time maintenance! 

Provided you have an iPhone app or can do it from your mobile you can fill any little boring few minutes of the day – in a taxi, waiting for a meeting, in the TV ad break.  And when you get to a good follower/following family it’s really fun to check in and see what people are up to.

So I admit it, I’m a Twitteraholic! 

The upside is I now have almost 2,000 people in my ‘tribe’… And growing.

Have a lovely day.