Resources in this Episode

Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous. This is episode number 106. Today we are having back the wonderful, Diane Forster.

Diane Forster [0:10]
Hi, this is Diane Forster, you are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:18]
I am delighted to have Diane Forster back on the show today. If you have not listened to episode number 105, you want to make sure you do that because the message she shared was amazing. You can hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Find the podcast tab and in the podcast tab, you’ll find all the episodes, including the show notes, the transcripts, the three key points, all the resources, and all the social media links. It’s just one click away so you can connect with Diane, and you can follow her on social media and in everything she is doing. Also, her amazing show, I Have Today, which I had the pleasure to be on is available to tune into. But right now we are going to dive into your amazing gift and why it comes so effortlessly for you and how you can really, really start valuing what you have to offer even more. Let me give you a little bit of background. Diane is an award-winning inventor, a best selling author, a TEDx speaker, a TV host, a podcaster, an international living expert and reinvention specialist. Let’s tune right back in with the wonderful Diane Forster. Well, thank you so so much for being back on Heart Sells! Podcast, Diane. Welcome.

Diane Forster [1:50]
Thank you so much for having me back, Christine. I love being here with you.

Christine Schlonski [1:55]
I just loved our first interview. Your big, big mission of impacting 1 billion people was your amazing message I have today. We already discovered a lot of things. What I love to do in this episode is going more into depth, on the entrepreneurial mindset. Because when you start your own business, you have lots of challenges and how to set it up, learning all the different things that you need to run a business. But one huge piece is the mindset.

Diane Forster [2:33]
Yes,

Christine Schlonski [2:35]
I see so many beautiful women with amazing gifts and talents that totally undercharge, that given, given the gift and are about to burn out or half burn out at some point in their life and recover. What kind of advice could you give the audience to make sure that they protect their energy, that they create a business and life they truly, truly love?

Diane Forster [3:05]
Oh, my gosh, I have so much to say about this. I love that you put in, “Protect your energy” because it is so important because we are all energy and when we’re not protecting it, we’re leaking it, which is giving away our power. For the women out there, and this applies to men too. But it mostly applies to women. Here’s what I’ve discovered about myself, and what I’ve discovered about so many other people, your gifts come to you easily and naturally. If it comes to you easily and naturally, don’t assume that everybody thinks like you do, because they don’t, they don’t. Your gifts and skills mean so much to somebody else. One of the things you can do to really tap into, “What is it? What’s my value? What is it that I have to offer?”, is, “What happens with someone when they experience me?” In other words, how do I make people feel? How do people respond to me? That will help you get clarity around some of your skills and your gifts and things that you should be implementing into your business and personal life, but mostly your business. Another thing you can do is really, take a piece of paper out and write down what you love to do and what you’re really good at doing. What you’ll start to do is come up with a list of a lot of things and from that list, you’ll be able to start value stacking. What it is you do and you offer to somebody else. For instance, for me, I’ll just use me as an example, with a background in advertising and telling vision sales and being an inventor, I’m really good at sales and marketing and branding, at messaging, at thinking outside the box and being an innovator. I’m also really good at client service, and also packaging things together because I had to do so much of that in my prior career. How does that, those skills tie into what I’m doing now. It turns out, a lot of them do. Because of that, not only am I able to package and build-out and pull that out of my clients. But it also gives me clarity about. What is I have today look like? How to tie that brand altogether? How to stay focused on staying on brand with it, because we’re so creative, that we often go often a million different directions and what you have to do is remember to keep it all together, pull it all in, simplify it? It also allowed me, “Well, I have this brand now. So what’s another way I could earn revenue or another leg or silo of the business? Well, that’s a podcast and that’s a TV show.” So you start to realize, “Oh, my gosh, I can just take all of these skills that I have, offer them out this way and do it in this many, in a variety of different ways.” So tapping to you first, and start with the things that come easy to you because it’s supposed to be easy, and it is supposed to be fun, right?

Christine Schlonski [6:46]
Totally agree.

Diane Forster [6:47]
Yeah, and another one, if I can add this one because this one’s really important. Don’t struggle trying to figure something out. If you’re not good at it, hire somebody else to do that for you and stay in your lane, stay in your zone of genius. It’s so important to do that. I have a bookkeeper, I’m not doing the books, I can’t do the books, I need somebody else to do that and I’ve got an assistant who manages my calendar and a lot of other things so that I could stay in the place I need to stay which is host of the shows, speaking, coaching the clients privately and to end product development, right?

Christine Schlonski [7:31]
Yeah, so important. You said you were or you are always confident in sales. Let me ask you, what was the very first thing you ever sold in your life?

Diane Forster [7:44]
What was the very first thing I ever sold? Well, I started out working at McDonald’s. Let me just say that, that sounds like, “Really, Diane? That’s sales.” Yes, it is. And because you’re in, every conversation is a buy-sell conversation, it is. Being able to help someone and then say, “Well, would you like something else too? Perhaps you like a shake with that”, or something like that is very much a sales conversation and then being focused on someone coming up and walking up to the counter with an empty coffee cup and seeing them and saying, “Would you like another cup of coffee?” So being in service that way. That was not a sales job. But that was definitely sales. Yeah, yes.

Christine Schlonski [8:39]
Totally agreed. So let me ask you this way, what was the very first thing you ever sold where you have received money for, that you could keep 100% by sides of Texas?

Diane Forster [8:51]
Oh, okay. Well, I want to say it was my invention, the SPIFTER. This is truly my first real, I created this from nothing and now I’m selling it. That is the first thing I sold. And I sold it initially at a, like a trade show, like a fair, a school fair. It was like a holiday and a holiday show, whatever you call it. I don’t know why I’m struggling with the word but you know, they have those holiday. Those trade shows. I set up a booth, I got the booth and I set it up. I had a lot of pictures of the product, I had the product out, I had a lot of spices and foods all around so people could try it and sample it. I got to really talk about the features and the benefits of it. What you do in a sales conversation is you get into the other person’s head, having them imagine what it’s like, using this product and experiencing this product. That’s what I said, “Imagine what it’s like with you doing this, you’re going to save time, you’re going to save money, no germs on your food. Everything looks beautiful and clean. It’s fast. It’s easy, and it’s fun. Imagine your children using it.” They could actually see themselves using the product and it’s sold like crazy. I think I made $3,000 at that fair, which was incredible for a $20 item. So they were selling like crazy.

Christine Schlonski [10:26]
Yes. So how did you feel when you receive that money? Was there any challenge in accepting that money or were you just totally fine and excited about the result?

Diane Forster [10:40]
I was really, that time I was really fine and excited about those results. I will tell you as a coach, the first time I accepted money for that. I went into this, remember what I said like I have moonshots, big goals, big dreams, big visions. I want to soar instead of crawl. When I put together my first coaching package, it was robust, and it was $4,500. I didn’t start small, I went big. The first initial time that happened, I thought, “Oh my god, am I ready for this? Is this too much money?” I’m so glad you asked this question because this is what we do as women, we don’t feel worthy of it. The truth was, I was definitely worth that. You never going to feel perfectly ready, there’s always, you’ve got to put the bucket out a little bit further than your comfort zone so that you can reach it. Because what happened in that coaching experiences, she got so much value out of it, her business is thriving right now. It allowed me to continue the learning and evolution process for myself as a coach and a professional. The key with coaching, if you’re out there and you want to be a coach, or anywhere where you’re really serving in that capacity is you don’t really have to know more than the other person. You just have to think a little bit differently and have maybe an inch more knowledge and awareness and experience than that person and offer that value and that’s where that comes from.

Christine Schlonski [12:26]
Yeah, totally agree. I love the idea that you started out big, right from the get-go. And I know that many, many people, especially women, again, do struggle to put a bigger number on their services.

Diane Forster [12:41]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [12:42]
I think what I want to point out, wherever you are in your journey, it’s fine.

Diane Forster [12:47]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [12:48]
Just re-evaluate. What are your clients getting out of it? If your clients are already closing a big gap after your first or second coaching session, you know you have a lot of value to offer and you know that probably with the next client, you can adjust your package.

Diane Forster [13:12]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [13:12]
If you’re getting amazing results all the time and clients actually through your help make more money than you are asking them with each and every single client, then you really need to rethink the strategy.

Diane Forster [13:27]
Right, absolutely, absolutely. Value doesn’t always come in dollars. It could be that they’re struggling in a relationship or with health or, or their mindset. And so there’s value in all of that. It’s not just a financial way to measure it, you really have to measure everything. How are they? Are they happier in their lives? I know that two-thirds of Americans and I assume this around the world 67% of people aren’t happy. If we’re just even creating happier people, more fulfilled people, there’s so much value in that.

Christine Schlonski [14:11]
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. Because sometimes, just with sales and money is a good measurement, but you’re so right. I mean, not everybody talks about sales, like a relationship coach. Like, what kind of price tag can you put on healing a relationship?

Diane Forster [14:33]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [14:33]
That’s amazing and making sure people are —

Diane Forster [14:38]
Sorry about that.

Christine Schlonski [14:39]
Yeah, people are better in their communication with each other. There is no price tag or maybe you are a healer. What’s it worth to live another 30, 40, 50 years because you were able to heal something?

Diane Forster [14:54]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [14:54]
Really have like, what’s the outcome? And like happiness, happy people make people happy and hurt people hurt people. Where do you want to go? How can you serve best?

Diane Forster [15:06]
Yes, so true, so true.

Christine Schlonski [15:10]
Tell me how do you deal with this rejection and what advice could you give people around this topic?

Diane Forster [15:19]
You know rejection is a part of life and just because someone is saying no to you at that moment, doesn’t really mean that they’re saying no to you, they’re really saying no to themselves. It is what it is. Do not try and take it personally. I am a big believer in the law of attraction and like attracts like. I don’t ever push the sales conversation. I’ll do an assessment and an evaluation and ask a lot of questions. If I think I have something that serves you, then I will continue the conversation and say, “Would you like to hear about who I am and the way I work and my program, it might be a good fit for you? I feel like it would be.” If it’s a no, many times it’s a no because they say time and money, which I always say, “Well, time and money are just an illusion. If your mindset is that broken and you’re not living the way you want to live. If you broke your arm, you would not just put a bandaid on it, you would go see to it and you would do whatever you needed to do to go see to that.” Well, your mindset is no different. In fact, everything starts with the mind anyway and then manifests into the disease and other things. I always try and point that out like, “Is it really an issue of time or money because we all have the same 24 hours in the day and we all live in an abundant universe, you can manifest anything”, but it’s never in a pushy way. Then if it’s really a no, they’ve got whatever going on, I just move on to the next thing and say, “Well, you know what, if it works out down the road, that’s great, and I wish you all the best”, and then you move on because, I want to align with the clients who actually see my value, and happily write that check or give me their credit card because they see the value in it too. Again, it should not be a struggle, it should be a very easy transaction, and relationship and agreement about, “I’m committed to you, and I’m showing up for you, you need to be committed to you and this process and show up for you as well.”

Christine Schlonski [17:32]
Yeah, I think it’s so important that you said that it’s like they invest in themselves, because often people say, “Well, we’re going to hire a coach, that means I have to pay the coach”, but they totally overlook that they are saying yes to themselves. As you know, this, my mindset has changed around that completely. Like years ago, I would not have thought to invest whatever I’m investing today because I understood, I’m investing in myself and this makes like the whole difference. The coach is just the facilitator of the process. It’s a person who is where I wanted to be. And therefore, I am saying yes, to save time, money, troubles, and you’re so right, it should be with ease. I don’t know what kind of policy you have. So I suggest, even for people who start out and who kind of feel they kind of need the money, they need to make the business running, that probably never really goes away, because you always want to get to your next level. But seeing it from a different perspective and energy that I say especially for one on one coaching, I only take on board, soul mate clients and that is when the first conversation, the conversation about if we could work together and how we could work together is going really beautifully and I feel totally excited about the conversation. Then also, I want to make sure that when I see them showing up on my calendar, I have a smile on my face.

Diane Forster [19:11]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [19:12]
Right?

Diane Forster [19:12]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [19:13]
So what have you experienced with the kind of setting those rules or boundaries for yourself and for your business?

Diane Forster [19:26]
Well, what I’ve done is, I don’t take on clients who feel like they’re struggling with money and feel like they’re going to have trouble paying me because they’re not at that level yet. Maybe somebody different is for them. I have certainly let clients out of it, I will say, “Let’s do the first 30 or 60 days and we re-evaluate it there.” I have like I said, I’ve redone programs because I realize this is maybe too much for them. Some people aren’t at that level, and I want to be able to really help people and have them catapult that progress. Making those adjustments there. It’s never like a Be-all And End-all done. I’m extremely reasonable. If it’s a struggle for you, then that’s going to be a struggle for me. Then it’s not the right setting. But just like you said, every one of my clients, I can’t wait to talk to. When I have my coaching days, at the end of that day, it is the most rewarding feeling, it feels so good because they’re so excited. I see their progress. They’re so happy and it feeds my soul. So that’s what I get out of it and that’s what I encourage people who are in this space, do align with those types of clients.

Christine Schlonski [21:01]
Yeah, I can so, so relate, wonderful. Let us know where people can get a taste of your work and how you tick and who you are.

Diane Forster [21:15]
Absolutely. Well, they can find me at https://dianeforster.com/ and on my side, I offer four free gifts, including a free 30-minute strategy session with me because that’s my process, Christine. That’s our conversation, fill out the questionnaire, let’s have a conversation and let’s see if there’s an alignment here. Then some other amazing tools to help you with your mindset and what’s showing up in your life based on how you are communicating. That’s what those other tools are. That’s how you can find me and I’m all over social media. Lots of free resources out there.

Christine Schlonski [21:59]
Yeah, wonderful. I will definitely have all the links on the show note page. Thank you so, so much for your interviews. I’m so grateful that you took out the time and shared so much wisdom with us. Thank you very much.

Diane Forster [22:16]
It was my pleasure. Thank you.

Christine Schlonski [22:17]
What a great episode with Diane Forster. I really think it’s so true. Aligning yourself as what surrounds, you aligning yourself with your client is so, so valuable. So hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Find the podcast tab and there you have access to Diane’s episodes, the show notes, the key points, the transcripts, and also all her links so that you can connect with just one single click. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you took away a ton from these episodes, and you really enjoyed them as much as I did. I am wishing you a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world. I’m saying bye for now.