I create opportunities for an invitation to a relationship.

Prepare for a long, valuable email if you wish to read on.

• help grow their business

• inspire their audiences

• help design and profit from their new business category

…they invite me to help them create the solution they desire, and I get to make the choice.

It’s kinda like the picture in this post (enable images if you can’t see it).

Are you drawn in to see what’s beyond the arch?

The Water?
The Mountains?
The People?
The Food?
The Blue Skies?
The Sun?

This is what I do. I initiate curiosity in the benefits of a relationship.

When I attend conferences, or engage in FB groups, or follow, like and comment on IG stories I don’t do so with a goal to “close X number of deals” or “collect X number of business cards to follow up with an invitation to a connection call”, or “get X number of return follows.”

Three recent clients, and a book deal came from invitations for a call from fellow conference attendees four months after the event, fellow FB group members who became FB friends six months previously, and fellow Discord engagement a year after I joined the Discord server.

I have a call scheduled in two weeks with a person who remembers a conversation with me 18 months ago, and I could not remember where we met until I reviewed his website from the URL in his email address. He is just now responding to my invitation to a relationship, and I can’t wait to chat!

I just received an invitation to an international keynote opportunity from an event coordinator who saw my chapter in a book I co-authored that was published in June. Now, I get to negotiate, and make the choice to accept or politely decline.
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When I finally realized that this was my most aligned, creative, courageous way to do business, I became very curious as to how far I could take it.

How many relationships could I invite and initiate that could create success for us both?

In order to answer that question, I need to share with you my relationship invitation process.

1. Use these tools to find people and businesses that align with my purpose and goals:
   1. PodBot
   2. LI Connection Bot
   3. FB Group Bot
   4. IG Leads Bot
   5. Attend Conferences (just a few of my recent favorites):
      1. The Commitment Summit (TCS)
      2. Social Media Marketing World (SMMW)
      3. Capitalism Conference (CapCon)
      4. The Uprising
2. Nurture the resulting connections by:
   1. Publishing my own social content
   2. Creating email content
   3. Engaging with their social content
   4. Subscribing to and engaging with their email content
   5. Using Relatable* to create interactive videos to nurture relationships at scale
3. Accep the resulting INBOUND invitation to a connection call using Calendly and Zoom.

Now, let me show you how this has worked in just the last 30 days.

KEYNOTE DEAL:

CLIENT 1:

CLIENT 2:

CLIENT 3:

How can you liberate something by constraining it?

…

…

…

Oh, I see it now, and realize this is what I’ve been saying since 2017.

Hear me out, k?

I follow Peter Diamandis, and recently read a blog post of his that made me stop and apply the concept of this message to myself and my business when he quoted Dan and Chip Heath, the bestselling authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die:

“Go box shopping. Keep trying on one after another until you find the one that catalyzes your thinking. A good box is like a lane marker on the highway. It’s a constraint that liberates.”​

You see, I hear the same complaint over and over from entrepreneurs who have built a bit of success in their business by offering custom, personalized services to anyone they can impact, and will pay them.

These industrious entrepreneurs reach a pivot point that starts the pendulum swinging in a longer arc. They have just enough customers that they can uncomfortably handle, and that keep them from continuing to prospect for new customers. They are in the “feast or famine” pendulum swing, and this is the #1 pain caused by that initial unrestrained success.

Usually this pivot point is right around the 6 figure mark for agency owners, coaches and consultants.

So, in order to reach the next pivot point in their business and revenue, they need to do something different, otherwise the pendulum starts to swing to the side of no customers, and all prospecting.

As Dr. Diamandis says, “It’s human nature – but it’s not being innovative.”

Everyone who desires to go beyond that initial 6 figure mark MUST innovate in order to liberate the actions and behaviors that will allow them to reach the 7 figure mark.

What are the constraints that will create revenue and time liberation?

The first constraint you need to apply to your business is your focus on one niche.

This is usually a quick separator of the successful business owners and the dabbling hobbyists.

In this busy, noisy online world, you cannot reach your ideal customer if you aren’t speaking their language.

And, you don’t know what language to speak unless you know your audience very well.

Niche Constraint

Okay, next you need to constrain yourself further by choosing which services or solutions you want to create and offer for this niche.

There aren’t many solopreneur full-service marketing agencies making north of 6 figures.

Why?

Because one person usually can’t be an expert in all the services in a “full-service” shop for long.

• Website Design
• SEO
• Copy
• Social Media Posting
• Email Marketing
• Public Relations
• Events
• Media Buying
• Google My Business
• Chatbots
• etc.

If you offer all these services, and more, you need to be an expert at each, or hire someone who is.

When I started Messenger Funnels, I niched my services too narrow – I exclusively offered chatbots. I lost several large clients when I said, “I don’t do FB ads.”

When I branched out, and added FB ads, which are a perfect driver for chatbot success, I saw a huge upswing in my revenue and impact.

Now, I didn’t create and manage the ads, myself.  I contracted with someone I trusted to fulfill the FB ads services, while I fulfilled the chatbot services.

Service Constraint

These are just the first two lane markers that you can use to put your business in a specific box in order to liberate your creativity, expertise and revenue.

If you’ve already put these constraints on your business, and you’re not seeing progress:

1. You have a mindset hurdle ahead of you.
2. You don’t have a painful enough problem that you solve for your niche.
3. Your niche can’t afford your solution.

I hope this helps you narrow your focus and broaden your success!

Cheers!

Your M.I.S.C.H.I.E.F. “Constraint for Liberation” Advocate

• MKJ’s M.I.S.C.H.I.E.F. Success Path
• Take the Assessment for Bot Academy Mastery opening soon

You could say that the #1 trait required for success, is also typically the #1 trait that causes failure.

Let me explain.

I just realized last week that I’ve been practicing the behaviors that contribute to my success at least since I was a teenager.

Seeing every “NO” as a challenge, I have been a persistent, rebellious person pretty much my entire life. Finally embracing this fact enabled me to walk away from my abusive parents (still the most painful thing I’ve ever done), graduate with a B.S. Degree from U.C.Berkeley (the first in my entire family before and since to ever do so), and start the very first online novelty maternity store (in 2003 with no Shopify, Facebook, WordPress, Stripe or technical coding/development knowledge).

And, I don’t really believe that persistence alone is the key to developing my success with MommyLoves, Messenger Funnels, Bot Academy, or Speaking. I think the key is the single skill that persistence has helped me craft… Openness to new possibilities.

If I was just persistent toward one goal constantly, without taking heed of any changes or growth, I would not be successful, I would still be using Homestead software to build my websites. I would have failed to adapt and grow.

When persistence is coupled with openness, you become a futurist.

And, each time I am persistent and open, I get closer and closer to the person I need to become to live the life and create the success I crave.

That first act of defiance, leaving home at the age of 18 with nothing but a grocery bag full of clothes, either:

1. Taught me how to see possibilities in the future, while looking back on lessons learned, or
2. Amplified my existing ability to do so… I don’t know which.

Now, let me be clear… there is nothing special about me except that I’m really good at being me, and no one else, so you, and anyone else can create your own opportunities as well.

Some of my persistence didn’t create any pay off at all, but all have paid handsomely in lessons learned.

What about you? Are you working toward persistence and openness?

I know too many freelancers and agency owners who dive into something exciting and new, and along the way when it gets hard, or there are obstacles that are difficult, or they just get distracted by the next new thing, that new, exciting project sits in the dustbin of unfulfilled potential.

• Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the exact vaulting-pole that helps you jump over that obstacle?
• Wouldn’t that make the next easier to jump?
• Then, if you just string together all the jumps, before you know it, you will be at the end, and ready to launch, and you will have developed the confidence, knowledge, persistence and openness to make it to the success finish line with that project.

Then, you will be better positioned for the next one, because I guarantee you… there will be a next one when you taste the sweetness of this kind of success!

How will that feel? No, really?!

I’ve talked about this before, and I’ll give you an update on my latest futurist ventures. If you want to follow along, and/or join me, I welcome the community persistence, and the company!

CEO M.I.S.C.H.I.E.F. Maker

This is my new podcast, and the culmination of my almost 20 years of lessons in entrepreneurship. If you’d like to take a listen, visit your favorite podcast app, and search the name, or CLICK HERE to visit the podcasting page on this site!

Podcasting is not for the faint of heart. Setting one of these things up takes tons of baby steps. Would you like me to do a video series showing how I’ve published 4 podcasts since 2013?

Just comment PODCAST to let me know that this would be valuable for you. I’ll create it and upload it to YouTube, so it will be free.

ZeroWork

I finally have my first TaskBot tested, published, and serving subscribers, and it’s called the PodBot.

The PodBot helps podcasters find qualified guests, and performs outreach for invitation to be a guest on the show… all on autopilot. One subscriber says, “This is GENIUS!” and claims that he saves 80% of the time he used to spend on this task, while increasing his podcast guest calendar appointments by 5x!

You can check it out here: PODBOT

If you, or a podcaster you know wants to check it out, there is a free 14 day trial, so no obligation to start a paid subscription. I would love more feedback if you dare…

There is also an affiliate program, so if you’re interested in that let me know.

I am also thinking of creating a video series showing all the steps I took to get this PodBot built, tested, published and started toward my goal of $50k/month revenue from this mini-SaaS. Would that be interesting to you?

Just comment ZEROWORK to let me know you’re interested in this free video training series I’ll also put on YouTube.

Or… comment PODCAST AND ZEROWORK if you’re interested in both.

Here’s to persistence and openness… I hope they become your lifelong companions!

• MKJ’s M.I.S.C.H.I.E.F. Success Path