I’m doing some light reading…..

Yes it’s an Infusionsoft book. It’s a big Infusionsoft book! Why Infusionsoft? Why now?  I’m going to share with you why I decided to choose Infusionsoft and why I went with the person I did to purchase it from.

The Story: In the past, I was angry with Infusionsoft. In 2009 when I started my business, I got oversold into Infusionsoft. I was new in business and bought the sales pitch that is was going to set me up for success. Instead it was overwhelming, confusing, there was very little to no support at that time and it was way too much of a platform for where I was at the time. I cancelled it a couple months in and attempted to get a refund and they basically said too bad it didn’t work. I was not happy.   I paid a big fee plus a monthly amount that was significant. After that, I avoided it like the plague until now.

Choosing Infusionsoft now has to do with capacity. I will keep talking about capacity and how important it is to your business and personal success. No capacity, no room to add new things. Period. I not only didn’t have the capacity financially, I didn’t have the capacity energetically to think about learning to use it. Many have told me that you need someone working on it full time in order to be able to use it properly. So I have used other resources that fit my needs. I noticed that those resources had limitations that would require me to get another resource to be able to have a real Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

Lost My J.O.B – on 31 Dec, I lost my job. I had been working this job behind the scenes to support me while I was building my business. I was working 30 hours a week for a defense contractor. I didn’t broadcast that anywhere. The only place you would see it even listed was on my Linked In profile but unless you really looked it wasn’t evident I was working a job. (This could be considered the “Hold Your Cards” strategy in the Think Like A Negotiator book – if you don’t have your copy you can get it on kindle or get a hard copy in the online store tab above) The company I worked for lost the contract for the work we were doing. It was time to make some decision, changes and shifts in order to survive and go full tilt in my business. I looked at my expenses and what I needed to do.

I had to cut back on many expenses both personal and professional. I had to evaluate what was going to serve me at this time. I chose to not renew a coaching program that had significantly served me but I couldn’t justify investing the time and finances based on current capacity. I chose to invest those funds and the time and expenses spent in mentoring and attending events instead in developing products and investing in infrastructure. My capacity would not support doing both so I had to make a tough decision.

The Infusionsoft Decision – I had heard from different speakers at different events about Infusionsoft. I held onto my bad attitude about it for a while. I know several people who are reps for it and many who use it. Some are my friends or in groups I’m part of. I started to look at what the investment was for the 2 solutions I was using and how they were and were not working for me. I realized they did not have all the tools needed to support my growth. I did a lot of research on other systems that are similar and read comparison articles on many different systems. This is the “Prepare In Advance” strategy of Think Like A Negotiator at work.

Then I reached out to my friend and Air Force brother Wes Schaeffer aka “The Sales Whisperer.” I’ve known Wes for a few years and always had the utmost respect for him. I knew he had a lot of information to help me and wouldn’t sell me into something I didn’t need. During the initial conversation he showed me how simple (didn’t say easy – it does require some work) it was to automate my processes and also about the training where we could get it set up during the training calls. Then he had me go map out some of the processes I wanted to automate. I did some more research, prayed on it and actually realized it was not going to be much more than I was paying already for 2 systems and if I added a 3^rd system it would be equal. I decided to go for it.

Why doesn’t it feel overwhelming to me now? Because I have the capacity to learn it, the knowledge to easily translate it from being a computer system administrator for 5 of my 23 years in the Air Force and a team to help me with the processes (just invested in a VA plus my web person who has a lot of know how).

In 2009 I jumped at a decision without verifying the facts (see previous post about the problems with that) and didn’t do my due diligence. Other people told me it was too much for me to do plus even if I didn’t agree with that, I didn’t have the capacity energy wise to even think about it.

2016 is already bringing a lot of changes for my business and me. Because you are reading this you will be the one’s benefiting from it as I bring you more great tips and strategies on how to Think Like A Negotiator.

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To Your Success!