Launch a Business with the Law Of Attraction!
By Rev. Gillian V Harris, M.S.P.
Posted January 23, 2018
I got an email from an associate recently, asking how I went about launching my largest company, Valet Of The Dolls, an all-female valet parking service based in Malibu California. I wrote her back and found myself writing another article! Lol! Sharing…
“… As I go to launch my new business ‘Life Design With Gillian’ I think the same question. And part of LD with G is my coaching practice. I’ve figured out I need to make that a main thing. First I’d say a great name. But GREAT doesn’t mean the absolute, wittiest, most original play on words ever! Just something that people will definitely remember. Make it easy. Also look for synchronicity! Me and my driving passion/ pro-fem ‘70s influence with an all-female valet company named in a play on the title of a popular book I snuck to peek at as a latch-key kid – was perfectly synchronistic! TOO synchronistic! So I advise folks to look for synchronicity because there are no accidents or coincidences!!
The #1 thing I did to launch VOTD was something that I’m now being advised to do as I study a course at World Coach Institute on how to turn my Coaching practice into a substantial business. They say one of the first steps is “contact 100” friends, relatives and associates. I felt so validated in reading that! But, when I started Valet Of The Dolls, I did more than that! I was like this, are you TRULY going for it or… no?! RIGHT!!! You wanna SOAR with your new venture! So… Why only limit yourself to 100 people when chances are there’s only a teeny weeny percentage of people in that 100 who MIGHT want/need your service!? Without any hesitation or reconsideration I decided to take that 100 and multiply it by everything I had!! I created an email with a very shock & aw subject: "103.9 KACE Radio Starlet Gillian PARKING CARS FOR A LIVING"! I sent it to EVERYONE in my computer contacts! Every network I was associated with. Prior to this I’d never been big on asking favors and self-promotion. I knew to succeed I need to go for it and go large. I reached out to all 3,000 or so contacts I had at the time! I’m not sure how many I have NOW – thousands more I’m certain! Lol!
That one email gave us our first 12 clients/parties! Very first party being at Movie Director Roland Emmerich’s house. From the first party I began exercising another trick which lead to an instant chain reaction of more assignments …
2. The best/ most effective advertisement is to the people actually getting the service. So, a card in every car offering a discount for future use! Not just once. They were told to hold on to the card and present it EVERY TIME they wanted to use our service and they’d get a discount!!
3. Targeting my audience for a direct mail campaign: I did this in a very organic & strategic way. Having been a valet for the previous two years I had the advantage of knowing which neighborhoods used valet parking. I deployed 1 dozen valets in pairs, to those neighborhoods to gather addresses. From there I did a one-time direct mail campaign offering a wicked discount and got more customers! Some of those customers were people who’d used a variety of other valet companies and were anxious to try something new! I admit that since I’d worked as a valet actually parking cars for more than 200 parties prior to starting Valet Of The Dolls I knew there were actual valet users on the blocks where I deployed my teams. But I was NOT trying to steel those individual houses. No. I wanted the ENTIRE FRIGGIN BLOCK! And then I did another powerful thing…
4.
The Law of Attraction: The 12 valets I deployed to gather addresses had worked with me for two years at the previous company and they were eagerly trying to help me create VOTD. Because of their experience I knew they’d understand if I said, “take down the addresses where you want to work”! I promised our campaign was going to be strong and we’d get those houses. My team believed in me. This …exercise is about the workings of the ‘Law of Attraction’. It starts with Belief. I also know that there are STUDIES out there proving the power of thought in numbers. Research on the effect of prayer! Group prayer and its affect in study after study! What?! Yeah! It’s about what Quantum Psychics has figured out; the fact that THOUGHT….actually CREATES …. STUFF!!! So there’s the whole field of Conscious Creation that I decided to exploit! My formula which I seem to work into every book I’ve written so far is this: Belief + Focus + Energy = Manifestation. And then remember the power of numbers as indicated in multiples of studies! So… I knew the power of conscious creation and I exploited it by unleashing ALL of my Dolls to believe and think what I wanted to become the companies truth! I got then to believe the future already was and that it was easy!! Exploitation, yes but for the greater good!!! : )
5. I’m an ordained minister and I acknowledge to you that I would consciously tell precision-prepared-LIES to my staff. Now, this may sound absolutely TERRIBLE but it really was for their own good. What they didn’t know didn’t hurt them! If it wasn’t busy I told all 150 of them it WAS busy on such n such date and with their belief in action and them taking whatever actions they needed to be ready to work that day – their belief and my belief in their belief (!) was the leading force of creation. Leads starting flowing into the Doll House and… I’m a great sales person so I’d close about 80% of whatever came in! And on somedays I was 100% all day long!
6. I also seemingly hypnotized the Dolls (my staff) with marketing propaganda! I say hypnotized just because the propaganda FELT good! And it had a ring to it. It was the kind of information that lifted the esteem of the entire company. They were proud to say these words! They were proud of what the words meant! I knew that they would use and gracefully disseminate this information from their hearts and as they did it would lift them and anyone within earshot. That lift would be radiated energetically to the customers we’re serving around them. Brilliance, if I may say so myself! : )
But here’s the thing. That was THEN. THIS is NOW! And in a lot of ways, NOW is a lot different than THEN! There’s a lot of THEN that we need to hold onto but we MUST merge it into the NOW! SO much has happened in the last 15 years since my company started! Having a web site was important then and added a lot of credibility to the product or business. As I move to commence my new enterprise I realize it’s more than just a web site you need. You need to be a full on Internet Marketer in order to make it nowaday! I mean, if you want to go large, anyway! That stuff you see about learning how to market on-line is no joke! There are a lot of not so cool ones out there. Hats off to their effort but there are only a few giving well rounded accurate useful information that can help anyone draw, funnel and convert clickers into customers. How to use simple platforms like Facebook and OMG – YouTube – so powerful for conversions. It’s Sickalicious!
7. Unfortunately/fortunately, we gotta do that now. We have to wrap our brains around these new behind the scenes technologies, programs, widgets n whatnots. The power of gathering email addresses and choreographing an amazing campaign using programs that give you awesome Auto-Responder capability is unparalleled. Well, hell I don’t know that! Maybe it IS paralleled. Maybe back in the days of Atlantis, they were already doing this stuff!! Hm…! Learning what an ‘auto-responder’ even IS and learning about and executing the ability to guide everyone who clicks to a thread leading to your ‘landing page’ is a whole new world, a whole new WOW!!
So to launch a venture I believe we need to activate a combination of what we used to do along with the new technologies ability to touch so many in an organized fashion without us lifting a finger! And to do the best we can to use the new stuff in such a way as to not become robotic but instead maintain the sweet, organic effect of the unique, personal touch in all communications that we had in the old days! –The old days like… 15 years ago! Lol!
8. Another trick is – do 1 hour per day toward your goal. One of my clients committed to spending 1 hour per day gathering addresses to target people for her launch campaign. Every time she got to 100 she’d send each one a personalized letter via her Auto-Responder and guide them to her products. When I started Valet Of The Dolls I committed to creating something the company would need every night. I thought the entire operation through from the hiring to selling applications, invoices, templates, letterhead, employee manuals etcetera and etcetera. It was several months before I ran out of things to do to prepare for the opening. From there I moved to promotion! Gathering phone numbers and email addresses to entities who’d need valet; caterers, party planners, groups and organizations. I spent my time well outside the hours of a part time job. And by the time we got to our grand opening date, I was beyond ready!
9. Get a .Com and keep it simple. You need a web site to start. And now-a-day you can easily build them yourself! There are tons of decent drag n drop programs for non-techy people (like me) to use to create brilliant web presentations!! Your web site is your opportunity to show your product, credentials, style, intentions, passion, know-how. -Your opportunity to express. Take it!
In the beginning keep it simple. Do the best you can to show your work – even before you’ve begun! Yup! This is called fakin’ it until you make it! BUT don’t let your photos be a misrepresentation of what you can truly deliver! Just show em! In 2002 I created a web site for Valet Of The Dolls using orchestrated photos! I found an awesome house belonging to a neighbor in Malibu Canyon. I got her to sign a release and we STAGED a parking operation and took some great shots. These were our first web site presentation. Those pictures, over time were replaced fairly quickly with the real thing!
Faking it before you make it (so long as you have the skills, licenses, insurance and permits required) is something I advocate! I started my radio news casting career in the 1980s the same way but we can save THAT story or another time! Lol!
Launching a business is easy if you’ve got the determination to cover all the bases. And these bases are powerful. The internet is powerful! But here’s the thing. While there are these great digital tools out there, they pale by comparison to the POWER of the Universal Law of Attraction; Conscious Creation coming from the vibration of your belief – your focus – your impassioned effort!!