Janis Pettit

Small business coach Janis Pettit is an experienced entrepreneur who will show you the proven systems and marketing to get you more clients, more sales and the lifestyle you want. For the self-employed and small business entrepreneurs who want to skip the struggle!

I know how easy it is for days to pass by and you've hardly spent a minute away from your computer. It's easy to get caught up and even mesmerized by the onslaught of emails, information, requests, research, social media and even product creation and to forget that offline marketing is crucial.

Clients often ask me how they should be pricing their knowledge or expertise-based products, programs and services. Most are undercharging and losing a lot of income as a result. My new clients often tell me that they wanted clients so much that they charged the least amount possible for fear that their client wouldn't pay more. This approach has left them with not enough income and clients who don't really value their services.

Most small and solo business owners know they need a website to be taken seriously as a business. They spend time either planning it or even spend endless, frustrating hours trying to design one themselves. Or they pay too much for a site that doesn't bring in any new business. And they really don't know how to change the results they're getting, so they just either ignore the dismal performance of their website or keep making tweaks that still aren't increasing sales.

Lots of amazing women business owners tell me that in spite of lots of effort, they regularly struggle with how to get more clients. They are experienced experts, with creative ideas and a burning desire to make a go of their business. But they feel out of sync when it comes to marketing.

Want to know one of the biggest challenges women face when trying to grow their idea, knowledge, or service based businesses?

Quite often I see people agonizing over the smallest decisions in their business, like whether to post a tweet or article, what to change on a webpage, whether to offer a new product, or a hundred other small decisions, and the result is a kind of stalemate. Nothing moves forward. As a recovering perfectionist I understand why this happens and how counterproductive it can be.

So often I see business owners who overflow with truly stunning ideas and who possess impressive skills and experience still struggling to make money. Usually this happens for three reasons—

If you're flooded with business ideas, but still aren't sure how to turn them into a generous income, you're not alone. Ideas are easy to come by, but the road you need to travel to create a solid business from them isn't all that clear to most people.

Owning a small business is one of the best self growth paths I know—after parenting! Some people call this acquiring the entrepreneurial mindset. It pushes us toward examining the personal roadblocks, habits or ways of thinking or doing that are keeping us stuck where we are. If we chose to ignore the signs that something isn't working then we stay unaware and stuck.