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What would it feel like if work felt like play every single day? Or if while you’re playing, your business is working without you… This is what it's like to have a lifestyle business. A lifestyle business is one that enables you to live life on your terms. It honors you, your health, your family, your hobbies, and your interests. It works around you (rather than you trying to fit yourself into the time that's left over after your business has taken what it needs). A lot of entrepreneurs, especially women, struggle to strike a healthy balance between work and life. I know because I experienced this firsthand myself, for the first 7+ years of my business. In this article (and the video that goes along with it), I’ll share some of what I’ve learned since about what it takes to build a business that FEEDS you, rather than DRAINS you. So first let’s talk about what a lifestyle business ISN’T (in my humble opinion – remember, as always, take what works for you and disregard the rest!!) It’s not a business in which you have to work, work, work – all the time. It’s not one in which you sell your time for money, because when you sell your time for money, the only 2 ways to make more is to sell more time or raise prices (and you can’t raise prices indefinitely – there’s a limit). A lifestyle business doesn't feel life sacrifice. It allows you to have grace and ease – at least most of the time. A lifestyle business doesn’t limit your freedom (a value I personally hold near and dear). When I started my business, “lifestyle” was the last thing on my mind. I was SO focused on “making it” and being “successful” that I missed out on almost a whole decade of my life. No joke. I can barely remember my 30s -- it passed by in a fog of late nights, too-little sleep, stress, anxiety, pressure and hustle. And then I got sick, and had no choice but to STOP. Guess what? After all those years of hustling and hard work, my business couldn't withstand me not being 100 percent focused on it 24/7… so it stopped too. The moment I took my eye off the ball, my business fell apart. And that's because I was selling my time for money, and I had no recurring revenues. And that’s when I “got” the importance of having a lifestyle-friendly business. Since then, that’s what I’ve built (I have a bunch of YouTube videos on this topic that you can check out). And I believe that building one comes down to 3 key elements: #1 – A lifestyle business has a brand (and the accompanying marketing) to attract business gracefully and easily. Rather than having to hunt and go chase business, business comes to you. It's the distinction between running around chasing butterflies with a butterfly net… Or planting a butterfly garden. Your brand is that collection of intellectual property, messaging, signature system, and signature offerings that represent you in the world. Your brand and marketing include your intellectual property, messaging, stories, your value proposition, the solution you provide, and any number of other things that pull people toward you, like flowers attract butterflies. #2 – Your business model. Your business model is the mechanism by which you turn your MAGIC into MONEY. A lifestyle-friendly business model scalable, meaning you're not delivering your services one on one, or exchanging your time for money without any leverage. It’s also stable, which means recurring revenue. I can not emphasize enough how powerful it is to start off every month with a solid foundation, without wondering where your income is going to come from that month. This is what I call the BIG BACK END. #3 – Your mindset. If you’re at the center of your business, if you’re IN it, then the way you FEEL about your business will impact how it feels to your clients, employees and the world. Truth. So for a lifestyle business to feel good, it needs to be aligned with who you really are. THat means that the work you’re doing aligns with what you’re best at, and that it enables you to practice good self-care. So, those are the 3 essential components of a lifestyle business. If you want to learn more about how to build YOUR lifestyle business, one that aligns with your true gifts and strengths and has a stable, sustainable model, let’s connect!! Click this link to learn about how you can work with me and my team, personally. You can get it by clicking on the link below and I'll see you on the next video. *** For information on how to connect with and work with Michelle, or to attend one of our Business Breakthrough Retreats, visit www.SuperstarDiscoveryCall.com .

Years ago I consulted with a Miami PR company that was struggling with profitability. They were a young company, and did excellent work, but they couldn’t seem to make ends meet. And they weren’t just hurting financially, they were also exhausted -- their team often worked late into the night and even weekends. After seeing their amazing portfolio of results, I was SHOCKED to see their P&L: it was clear as day that they were seriously undercharging for their high-touch, high-value services.  I immediately started sharing strategies for raising their prices… but the partners were resistant. They wanted to be able to position themselves as “reasonably priced” and “economical.” In fact these words were part of their core value proposition. But from the outside looking in, I could see they were missing a big opportunity to rebrand and refocus on a higher end clientele, with a far more profitable value proposition.  But they weren't seeing it, and we were at an impasse. I wasn't sure what to do and how to get through to them. Then one morning, while getting dressed for a big meeting I was facilitating with the entire leadership team, I had an aha! moment.  It happened while I was standing in my closet, picking out clothes, I was staring at my wall of shoeboxes when it hit me. “SHOES!!” I thought, “they'll understand shoes.” They were all women – Miami women, to boot… (no pun intended). So, I started pulling out shoes and throwing them in a big duffel bag – all kinds of shoes, from the lowliest Havaianna flip flops to my prized red-bottomed Louboutins… When I got to the meeting, I plopped the big bag on the conference table and said, "Before we get to work on strategy today, we’re going to play a game." *** I pulled out a big fat Sharpie (of course) and drew a cross on the flip chart, an X axis and a Y axis (10th grade geometry). I plotted Value on the Y axis, and Price on the X axis, to create a “price-value matrix.”   So now we had 4 quadrants, and we started plotting each pair of shoes as I pulled them out of the bag, and this is where we ended up... In the upper right quadrant were all the shoes that were high price and high perceived value, like the Betsy Johnsons, Jimmy Choos, and Christian Loubotins. On the upper left quadrant were all the shoes that were low price and high value, including my Havaianas, Crocs, and Nikes. On the lower left were shoes that were low perceived value and low price, i.e., a pair of cheap sandals I bought at a Wal-Mart on my way to a Dave Matthews Concert because it was raining and I didn’t want to ruin my new cowboy boots. And, finally, in the lower right corner, high price and LOW value, well, I didn’t actually have anything in that category, so we all just imagined buying a pair of really expensive shoes that fell apart. By the time I was done with my matrix and we had plotted all my shoes on a graph, the ladies GOT IT.  They realized there are only 2 spots on the matrix to be successful: the upper right (high value / high price) and the upper left (high value / low price). They realized that the upper left quadrant required something they didn’t HAVE and actually didn’t even WANT: VOLUME. They realized why they were so exhausted – they had been running a volume model! They realized they wanted to be CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN, not CROCS. They realized if they wanted a boutique PROFITS, they needed boutique PRICING to go along with it. If you want to make money WITHOUT a volume operation, you need a boutique offering and a boutique price point. That’s where the profit is for small businesses like ours. And boutique models and pricing come back to one thing... the thing that makes Christian Louboutin stand out and the thing that will protect their profits for years to come: BRANDING.  Christian Louboutin is able to charge (a lot) more than other brands because of the red sole on the bottom of their shoes. That’s their unique differentiator.  If you want to create an awesome brand, a brand that attracts attention and is able to charge higher prices, and stay in the “boutique” quadrant, then having a unique differentiator is critical. It will enable you to charge more AND allow you to have staying power in the marketplace.  For as long as Christian Louboutin exists and for as long as they're the only brand that can have a red sole, they have a much greater chance of being sustainable than other shoe brands. So, the question for you is: What is your red sole? *** This happens to be one of my specialties – helping others identify that unique special thing. If you’d like me to take a crack at helping you with your pricing and positioning, visit this page, and check out a video I created all about growing your business in a way that’s aligned, energy rich and sustainable for the long haul. ANd if you like what you see, go ahead and book a call: www.SuperstarActivator.com/go . Enjoy!!

If you've heard about “The Law of Attraction” and “The Secret” and have wondered if it’s real or woo-woo BS, then this week’s article and video are for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwyWsPKKUoY I go into how I personally view and use these principles – and what others often get wrong as they try to explain and apply them. In order to talk about the real Law of Attraction, we first need to touch on a little bit of science. Science has shown us that our hearts emit an energetic field that can be measured up to about 3-7 feet from the body ( go deeper down this rabbit hole here ), and that this field contains waves that carry information (kind of like 5G waves and radio waves carry information) – and that the information these heart waves carry is our emotional state. In other words, our heart is quite literally an emotion-projecting instrument; and the signal it emits is measurable, detectable by scientific instruments, and also detectable – mostly subconsciously – by humans. So, we're radiating out an energetic vibration that is the projection of our emotions into the world, and that signal we send out vibrates and resonates with other things in the world – like other people's hearts for example. If your heart is pumping out LOVE, people feel love – and love comes back to you. If your heart is pumping out HATE, well, hate will be the resonant match. So, how the law of attraction “works” is not by just thinking the thoughts of what we want, but rather actually feeling the emotions that are aligned with what we want to attract in the world. In other words, it doesn't do to just think about the fact that we want to attract love into our lives; we actually have to BE love, to EMBODY love. When we embody love, love is naturally attracted back. Same with abundance. If we're just thinking “I want to be abundant,” “I want to be wealthier,” “I want to have more,” but while we are saying and thinking those thoughts, we’re feeling lack and scarcity, then we’re not going to be a resonant match with abundance, in fact, we’ll most often create further lack and scarcity. If instead we focus on gratitude and how abundant we already are, and embody abundance, then we project the emotional signal of abundance, which resonates with abundance out in the world and brings more of that back to us. So… go forth and BE love, BE joy, BE abundant – and you will find more love, joy and abundance in your life. *** Interested in bringing principles like these to your branding, marketing and business growth strategies? Let's connect! Check out a video I created about how you can create a business with more joy, grace and ease. And abundance too, of course :) www.SuperstarActivator.com/go . Enjoy!!

In today’s blog and video, I share 3 things you must consider to ensure your retreat business is successful –  and what I share applies to both live in-person retreats, and also virtual ones.    Leading retreats is one of the most fun and fulfilling things I've ever done, and these small events have provided the financial backbone of my business model for over 6 years now. But you may be surprised to learn that the real financial rewards don’t come from the retreats themselves… they come from what comes AFTER the retreats.  Watch the video if you want to see the more detailed version of how my clients and I use retreat-driven business models to create more stability, security and growth in our businesses.  The first thing to know are the 3 key components of a retreat business model (in my world, at least!)  The front end  The back end The BIG back end The front end is the “way in” to your world. It's how, when and where you meet or connect with your ideal audience in the first place, and the part of the relationship in which you deliver some initial big breakthroughs and “a-ha's.” It's where you speak to the specific problems they know they have – and are actively interested in solving – and where you enlighten them about the blind spots they may NOT know they have . In a nutshell: your front end is your MARKETING. Speaking is my favorite front end strategy – a compelling speech, training or workshop is a great way to “wake people up” to some new opportunity, possibility or strategy.  Another great front end strategy involves producing informational or educational videos (like mine above!) that are freely available and answer specific questions your ideal retreat participants have, so you can build trust and show your expertise.  Email marketing, social media, and other nurture strategies are an important part of a good front end. The front end, of course leads into the back end, which is your Foundational Program or your Breakthrough Experience, AKA: your retreat.  This retreat, or “immersion” is the most essential initial transformation that people need and want, delivered in a compressed time frame.  There are 4 types of great retreats: project completion retreats, learning/skills building retreats, personal development retreats, and community retreats. And of course, you can always combine some or even ALL of these to make hybrid retreats. The key to a GREAT retreat business is to make sure you have a GREAT retreat, one that delivers on it's promises, provides extra-juicy outcomes, and makes people want MORE.  Once people have this foundational piece, then the next step, should they wish to take it, is Mastery, AKA: the Big Back End. The Big Back End is a longer term relationship; it’s where you deliver the ongoing support or value, and deeper, longer-lasting transformations.  While your retreats can and should be profitable, financial stability comes from those best clients who enroll into your Mastery program . So while your retreat delivers massive value, it is – and can only ever be, because it's just a few days – a breakthrough experience. It can change the course of someone's life. But true mastery comes over time.  True mastery is where the monthly recurring revenue comes in. And here is where I recommend adding your “exotic” events, for your best clients, rather than reinventing your foundational retreat every time for brand new people. Make sense? Monthly recurring revenue gives you that stability, that base from which to then be more creative. By the way, there's a whole other piece to this that I haven't even mentioned yet, which is the “even bigger back end.” That's where people work with you for 2 or 3 or even more years!  If you’ve found this information interesting and compelling, and you’re interested in working with me personally, feel free to set up a call with me to explore if and how I might be able to support you: www.SuperstarActivator.com/go . Ciao for now!! Enjoy!!

We live in a stressful world. All day long we are bombarded with bells ringing, cell phones dinging, alarms chiming, deadlines looming, commitments demanding, news blaring, kids screaming, and more and more to do every day. As a result, our “fight-or-flight” response is constantly being activated, and this constant barrage of stimulation is hard on our physical health, on our relationships, on our emotional well-being, and more.  Today I want to share an easy way to get started implementing one extremely effective countermeasure to the craziness: Meditation. Watch the video above for a more in depth treatment of this topic.  I personally had a massive breakthrough in my life after starting to meditate just a few years ago. And I don't even meditate that much!  The spark that finally drove me to give meditation a REAL try was an analogy I read in a book called Already Free by Bruce Tift.  Here’s my rough version of what he said (PS – I highly recommend reading the book)…  Imagine your brain is like a row of dominoes set up so that when you knock one domino over, they all fall down. Tift says meditating in the morning is like pulling apart the dominoes, so that you knock one over, it just lands, and doesn't knock the next one over or the next one over.  In real life, what this looks like is instead of dropping the milk in the morning and freaking out and having that annoyance spill over into your drive to work, so then you/re driving like a maniac and someone flips you the bird, and by the time you get to where you’re going you’re thinking: “I’m having a bad day…”  If you’re meditating, you drop the milk in the morning and go “Oh, I dropped the milk.” And that's all there is to it. It's not this huge thing that leads to the next thing and the next thing.  Once you start meditating, one of the coolest things is that it doesn't take a long time to start seeing and feeling the benefits. Nor do you have to meditate for long stretches, either. While 20 minutes a day is amazing, you can even see benefits with just 5 minutes.  So how to get this practice in place? Well, start by understanding how you work best because it’s more effective to align new behaviors with how you naturally operate best.   Are you someone who likes to build things up slowly or do you generally implement big sweeping changes all at once?  I'm someone who likes big sweeping change all at once. So from the get go, I set aside this long chunk of time in the morning where I know I have plenty of time to get my meditation in and all the other things I want to do (green smoothie, yoga, journaling, etc.) Now, if you're someone who tends to build behaviors up slowly, then you might instead say all right I'm going to start with 5 minutes tomorrow and every day for a week, or a month.  Another thing to consider is getting a support system in place. Maybe asking a friend for accountability. Obviously your most reliable friend. Not your flaky friend. Maybe they want to do a buddy system and then check in each day. Something that has really supported me is technology. I found this gadget, the Muse Headset, that measures brainwaves and it gives me feedback through my headphones (birds chirping) when I’m calm. There are also lots of apps that you can get for your phone like Calm, Headspace and Insight Timer to support your new practice.  So, these are three things that you can think about before you get started meditating to help support your brand-new meditation practice. Now, let's talk about actually meditating. So, you don't need technology, you don't need a Muse Headset. You don't need anything at all, really.  All you need is your breath. Slow yourself down enough to pay attention to the breath coming in through your nose, and out through your mouth. That’s it!!  And as your mind wanders, which it will – and that’s okay – just come back to the breath and focus again on your breath. It helps to pay attention to the air as it goes in through your nostrils; feel the coolness of the air as it enters your nostrils. And then feel it as you blow out through your mouth.  Another thing you can do is count; counting can really help you stay on track. You can count 1,2,3,4 and then start over at 1. And the moment you notice that you've gotten off and you’re on 6 or 7 or even 11, just come back to 1. That is the simplest technique for meditation that you can possibly try.  There are plenty of other techniques with mantras and guided meditations. But none of that is necessary to get the benefits. Meditation is simply coming back to the breath and staying present and focused in this moment. And this moment. And this moment.  And when you notice that your mind is wandering, thinking, strategizing, planning… just bring it back to the breath. Your mind will wander. That's what our minds do. That's what they’re designed to do, nothing wrong with it. But sometimes we can be hard on ourselves when we notice it.  Part of the practice is being compassionate with yourself and letting go of needing to “do it right” or be “perfect.”  Just come back to the count, back to your breath. Meditation is just one piece of an overall self-care strategy. Go ahead and check out my video “What is self-care and why it's important?” to learn more about that. *** Interested in connecting with me personally to explore how to integrate your strategic business strategies with more self-awareness, joy and fulfillment? Visit www.SuperstarActivator.com/go and follow the thread where it leads you 🙂 Enjoy!!

Have you ever noticed how most TED and TEDx presentations have such beautiful, simple and compelling slideshows?  Presentations slides are an awesome tool for speakers. I personally love them and use visuals in almost every presentation I give.  But they can also be an opportunity to really screw up.  Slides can be boring. They can be ugly. They can be superfluous, they can be distracting. In short, slides can often impede your message rather than support it. In today’s video and article, I share 5 things you can do to have TED-worthy visuals for any presentation.  After watching hundreds of Ted and TedX talks, I noticed certain slideshow best practices among the most compelling talks, and I want to share those with you.  #1: One concept per slide. Don’t try to pack 5 different points into one slide. Stick to one – and while you’re at it, keep that one SIMPLE and ELEGANT.  * David Epstein: Are athletes really getting faster, better, stronger? #2: Use images that evoke emotion in the audience. Don’t make your whole presentation only “from the neck up” – make sure to involve the heart, and you’ll have people leaning forward. Images are my favorite way to do that. Notice how you feel right away when you see this:  #3: Use data, and illustrate that data with graphics .  For example, instead of listing your data points, turn them into a compelling picture: a pie chart, a bar graph, or something even more creative (see the example below) that illustrates your point without a whole bunch of numbers and text on the page. * Russell Foster: Why do we sleep? #4: Step AWAY from the bullet points! Most of my slides are simply an image – an image to represent a specific metaphor, analogy, story or emotion.  Notice how TED speakers rarely have text on their slides. When they do, it's often just one or two words. And instead of using cropped images, they'll use one big full frame image.  They use up all the slide real estate that they have – sometimes all with just one image. What’s worked for me: find yourself a great stock images site (like istockphoto.com , which has wonderful mix of conceptual and emotional images) and get yourself a subscription. Replace all that text with IMAGES.   Remember: one slide per concept.  Which leads me to #5: Design. Having beautiful design is so important and it's so easy. Less is MORE. Stay away from the PowerPoint templates. Just stick with plain, full sized images on a screen with one or two words.  Keep simple: simple fonts, simple colors, simple layout. In other words, don't over -design.  That means ONE basic font color (like white if your slides are black, or dark gray if your slides are white) plus (optional!) ONE accent color. And one normal font (like Helvetica) and perhaps ONE accent font (though many times these look messy).  * Ian Firth: Bridges should be beautiful | TED Talk All that said, keep in mind that some of the BEST Ted Talks ever had NO slides!  *** If you're interested in being a more influential leader – and monetizing your experience and expertise with more grace, ease and flow, let’s connect!  Book a Discovery Call with me, below, and our objective will be to identify at least one way you could add an additional 6-figure revenue stream to your existing business.  Here’s the link to book: www.SuperstarActivator.com/go *** Michelle Villalobos is the CEO of Superstar Activator. She is a speaker and mentor whose mission is to help influencers, thought leaders and other “superstars” find new business models and “Big Back End” income streams to monetize their magic. She’s the author of the upcoming book “Small Events Big Impact,” which will be THE definitive guide for designing, filling and profiting from retreats and seminars. Michelle holds an MBA, brand new CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) designation, and is a member since 2016 of the NSA Million Dollar Speakers Group.  Visit www.SuperstarActivator.com/go and follow the thread where it leads you 🙂 Enjoy!!

How would you like a formula to quickly and easily create a personal brand statement? You’re in luck!  A great personal brand statement answers 3 questions.  Who do you serve (and what pain points and problems do they have)?   What do you do for them?  Why do you do it?   Before I share my brand statement formula (that always works, by the way), I want to dive a little bit deeper into these three areas… #1 – Who do you serve? This is your ideal audience (a lot of marketers call this your target audience).   Your ideal audience are the people that you love to work with, and who love to work with you. They are those to whom you can deliver the absolute maximum value.  It’s helpful to know a bit about them, the most obvious being the audience demographic (age, gender, income, education… you know, the basics), and also the audience psychographics – what they believe, desire and value, for example.  Most importantly, what is their PAIN? What PROBLEM are they trying to solve? What do they WANT?  (Watch the video above for a deeper dive into audience pain points and problems). #2 – What do you do for them? What outcome do you deliver for this audience, and do you have a unique methodology or approach?  Let’s use an example of weight loss. In weight loss, the problem people have (and admit) is that they want to lose weight.  The emotional problem (they don’t admit) might be lack of confidence, for example, they may not want to even put on a bathing suit, go to the beach, or do things they love to do because they don't feel good in their body.  The problem they might not even realize they have is that they may have insulin resistance because they've yo-yo dieted so much they’re metabolism is wonky.  Now, imagine you have this incredible way of fixing this, which you could call your “XYZ fat burner booster methodology.” Now, that's unique to you, it’s proprietary and special.  #3 – The third layer is why you do it? What is the bigger, more meaningful outcome you provide to this audience?   I like to call this: The Cure (as opposed to “The Medicine”). A lot of times as practitioners as people who are trying to market and sell our services, we can fall so in love with our methodologies and so in love with how we do things that we forget that people don't necessarily need to know all that.  What they really want to know is “What am I gonna get at the end?”  The Formula… Putting It All Together Disclaimer: This is not exactly MY formula. I learned it from a mentor who learned it from a mentor who learned it from a mentor. And as with most things that I do, I've adapted it and shifted it a little bit to work better. The formula that I like to do is:  I help X (who), do Y (what), so that Z (why / bigger outcome)  Example: “I help menopausal women activate fat burning with my unique and proprietary ABC metabolism boosting system, so that they can feel sexy and confident in their bodies again.”  Here’s mine: “I help speakers, authors, experts, thought leaders and other Superstars monetize their magic so they can make a living while making a difference.” *** Hope this article was helpful to you!! If you’re interested in getting some feedback on your Personal Brand Statement and are interested in one of my products or programs, visit www.SuperstarActivator.com/go to find out more!  Enjoy!!

As a professional speaker for over a decade (12 years now!), I've used speaking to generate revenues in many different ways, and they all fall into 3 core categories. In today’s article and video, I’m going to share these 3 strategies, as well as some extra free resources to go deeper. The first way to make money as a speaker is the most obvious: get paid to speak! And this is what people usually think of when they say, “How do I make money as a speaker?”  In my experience, this is the most challenging of the 3 ways to make money from speaking for most people. It requires having a strong brand, a credible background, a great reputation, a clear and compelling message, a solid value proposition, consistent outreach, and dogged follow up (and, ideally, a solid administrative assistant!) It’s not impossible though! There are a lot of resources out there that can support you in getting paid and booked as a professional speaker. My favorite resource is the National Speakers Association.  At a very minimum, getting paid to speak involves being a thought leader in your field, industry or niche, and also having certain tools, like a great speaker website, video, one sheet, and a book — not necessary but it really helps! Check out my “Thought Leadership” Playlist on YouTube, here .  The second way to make money as a speaker is to speak to get paid , meaning you speak without getting paid up front, and then generate revenues on the BACK END – from selling products and programs. Now a lot of professional speakers will tell you NOT to do this. However, with the right opportunity and the right audience, this can be FAR more lucrative than getting paid to speak.  A few years ago I was in the transition period between only getting paid to speak, and speaking to get paid, a big national organization reached out to me to keynote a women’s conference –  but they didn’t have a budget.  Normally, I would have turned down this free opportunity – and probably felt resentful that they didn't’ want to pay me. But I had just created a new retreat offering, and I thought this could be a good opportunity to offer it.  If I had gotten paid to do this engagement, I would have earned MAYBE $10,000. Instead, I generated over $25,000 in sales in the 2 months following the event, and over $100,000 over the course of 2 years (thanks to my “Big Back End,” lol, more on how to create a big back end on my Business Models & Revenue Streams Playlist ). Speaking to get paid involves delivering a presentation that is inspiring enough, educational enough, and motivating enough that audiences want MORE; they want to continue working with you or they want to buy one of your programs or products. Of course, When you “speak to sell,” you need to have something to sell! My favorite back end offer is a retreat or a seminar. But you can sell books, workbooks, virtual programs, courses, events, coaching, consulting, and more.  When you speak to get paid, you must have a call-to-action at the end of your presentation. I rarely make offers for my programs directly from the stage, and instead offer a “meaningful conversation” (my mentor Mark LeBlanc’s term) during which together we can decide if one of my programs is a right fit.  I also always offer something of significant value for free, to entice people into my email list, which is a great way to nurture that brand new relationship.  The 3rd way to make money as a speaker is to create your OWN events.   This is my absolute FAVORITE way to drive revenues as a speaker because when you do your own events, there are so many different ways that you can monetize them. Here’s a video that goes into more depth on how to make money with your own events , but here are a few quick ideas: ticket sales are the most obvious, and you can also sell sponsorships and stage time to speakers who want to promote themselves to your audience, and, of course offering your own products and services is the best.  Creating your own events is also a great way to establish your credibility and work up to getting paid to speak . If you're at a stage in your business where people aren't yet offering you the chance to speak at their events, this can get you jump started.  That's how I put myself on the map. I created the Women's Success Summit and a variety of other workshops and seminars, and eventually people would refer me to other engagements after seeing me in action.  And while doing my own events is my absolute favorite way to make money speaking, I incorporate ALL 3 strategies.  And that really is my ultimate advice. Do it all! Diversify your strategies and diversify the ways you make money. While you're putting yourself out there as a paid speaker, consider taking on a few free-speaking engagements where you can sell your products and services on the back end. And then every so often, why not put together your own event so that you can also make money through sponsorships, ticket sales and selling your other products and services?  ***  If you're ready to make more money speaking and you'd love some support and help in doing it – let's connect! Visit www.SuperstarActivator.com/go to learn more about what it looks like to work with me.  About The Author:  Michelle Villalobos, is a Business Alignment Expert. She is the Founder of Superstar Activator, Host of the Awaken Your Inner Superstar Podcast and Creator of the Superstar Business Breakthrough Program, Make Them BEG Personal Branding System, and Retreats to Riches online training course, among others. Her mission is to activate “Superstars” – influencers, game-changers, thought leaders, and other leaders – to develop their influence, grow their impact, and “monetize their magic” in sustainable ways, while experiencing grace, ease and flow. To subscribe to Michelle’s podcast on iTunes: www.TheSuperstarPodcast.com .  To subscribe to her YouTube channel, visit: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF-ee7s-etULsLC8ZUhqgNw

Virtual conferences are more popular now than ever, but you can't just take your live conference and stick them onto a video screen; some experiences just don’t translate. And there are actually some things that work BETTER virtually than in person.  In this video and article, I'm going to share with you how to deliver virtual conferences in a way that produce the same – or better – results as live-in-person. We are in an era where almost everything has had to go virtual – at least for a time. Even when we're fully back to gathering in person, it's my belief that we'll continue to gather more virtually than ever before.  As you may know, I've been running conferences, workshops, summits, seminars and events for 13 years – actually longer if you count the many I did in my career before I started my business. Then 6 years ago, I shifted to focusing almost exclusively on a retreat (AKA: “small events”) model, in which I was running live retreats with 10-25 people 6-10 times a year. We would gather participants in a room, deliver an amazing breakthrough experience over 3 days, and then invite those who wanted to go further into my 1-year program.  We had this model down to a science . We knew how to deliver the retreat so that it was life-changing, and people were getting massive results from one 3-day experience. It was SO good, I was even teaching that model to others and had just completed my “Retreats to Riches” training course, when Covid happened and cancelled all live events – for several months. Like everyone, we had to pivot – fast.  I had a retreat planned for late March 2020, and by early March it was clear that we likely wouldn’t be able to gather.  So I said “let's go virtual.”  Now, not only was I NOT sure that we could pull it off logistically and technically (I waited until just 2 weeks out to decide) I was also thinking that virtual was just a poor stepchild to live events, how could they ever be as effective?   Also, I was bummed. I LOVE gathering in person.  I had a lot of concerns.  I feared we wouldn’t get the results and that people wouldn’t be as engaged  I thought our enrollments into my 1 year program would be poor I thought I would get fatigued in front of a screen all day. I worried that people wouldn’t be able to get the 1:1 support that they get from me and from my support team I assumed people wouldn’t bond as much And so, what I did was I put into place different strategies to address these concerns.  One of the things that is a challenge with virtual conferences is that you're competing with that person's entire LIFE, especially if they’re home while attending.  When you take someone out of their environment and bring them to a conference, they're away from their family. They're away from their friends, from their dog, from whatever distractions they might find.  But when you host a conference on a screen and they're at home, they've got people knocking on their door, they've got kids crying, and mailmen setting off barking dogs. And so they might easily get sucked back into their lives – even if they have the best of intentions.  So, one of the things that you can do when you're planning a virtual conference is to create guidelines and agreements at the beginning of the conference – or even right at registration.  For example, an agreement could be for people to have their camera on the whole time, or to put a sign on their office door to make sure nobody comes in.  Just as with a live-in-person conference, your virtual conference must have quality content. But no matter how good the content is, the FORMAT determines the experience. What I mean is, having a talking head on a screen for 3 days or however long your conference is, is not a sustainable model, you’ve got to mix it up.  How can you deliver your content in different formats? Instead of having just a head on a screen talking, can there be activities? Can there be breakout sessions? Can you interrupt and do things that are surprising? Can you switch it up so some people are speaking from farther away? Can you use unusual backgrounds and sets?  Another thing to think about is that people get tired physically of sitting down and looking at a screen all day. So , having breaks in between to help people get up and down and move around physically is also really helpful to keep that engagement going.  Also give some thought to the platform you're using. These days, zoom is kind of the go-to platform for hosting meetings. And if you use zoom, pay attention to all the bells and whistles and cool stuff that you can do with it. For example, in zoom (with a pro account or better), you can break people out into private sessions and private groups.  At my March virtual retreat retreat we did lunch breakouts where everyone showed the others something in their home that they were proud of or that was meaningful to them. Perhaps a garden that they had planted or a dish that they had cooked or a pet. This created a lot more closeness and bonding.  What's interesting about this activity, is that it’s one of those things you can't do at an in-person conference. Think about the ways that a virtual conference actually opens the door to new opportunities that you'd never have at a live experience.  One really fun and popular thing we did was send care packages beforehand with self care items like candles and bath bombs, as well as silly items for laugh breaks, like stick-on mustaches and funky glasses. Then periodically at a break, I'd say, “Now, look through your care package and find _____” (i.e., the mustache), and put it on and let's take a picture.” Or “let’s have a 2-song dance party.” These were some of people’s favorite moments.  We also sent pom-poms for applause since we can't hear when people are applauding on zoom because everybody's on mute. I bought brightly colored pom-poms so that whenever anybody wanted to applaud, they would shake the pom-poms. This created some movement and action.  Another really cool thing you can do (that doesn't really work as well in a live venue) is to bring in pre-recorded material.  Obviously if you're going to put all this effort into creating an amazing virtual conference, you want to protect it from any nefarious characters, like these “zoom bombers” that crash your event and do uncool things (like share their screens with not-so-nice images).  Make sure you have a secure registration platform and have passwords and other protections in place.  Finally, you might think that because it's virtual you don't need an event planner, but I beg to differ. I actually think that it's MORE important to have a virtual person to help you mute people and unmute people and send people into breakouts.  If you're the creator of your event, and the host or emcee, you DON’T want to also be the technician of it. I highly recommend getting some support to run your virtual conference. Now, I already know there’s SO much more I could address. So, if you have questions about how to run a virtual conference, send them to me, or post in the YouTube comments and I’ll post a follow up video and article soon!  ***  If you're interested in hosting conferences and events and monetizing them, then I can help! Visit superstaractivator.com/go to find out more about my programs and services and see if and how I might be able to help you grow and scale your business.  See you! ♥

Does the fear of rejection prevent you from stepping into new opportunities or taking risks? In this week’s article and video, I share 4 steps to overcoming the fear of rejection. Interestingly, the fear of rejection is both natural and universal ; it’s evolutionarily programmed into us. For tens of thousands of years before modern civilization, we lived in tribes as hunters and gatherers, and it was dangerous to be alone in that type of environment. We needed our tribe around us to survive, and the worst punishment one could face was to be banished from the tribe. Banishment = death.  As a result, every living human has a deeply ingrained fear of not belonging, of being left out, of being cast out, or of being rejected.  Aside from our evolutionary history, the fear of rejection can also be triggered and intensified in childhood. Even if we had the best childhood, most of us had at least some experiences that were “traumatic,” and that’s because to our little 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5) year old brain, even small things can feel traumatic.  Even seemingly benign situations can trigger a fear of rejection that may rear its ugly head later in life. For example, in 2nd grade, I misspelled an easy word in a spelling bee in front of the whole class, and I was mortified. That fear of making a mistake in public stuck with me for a long time.  The good news is you don't have to remember what the situation was (if there even was a situation) in order to move through it.  The last thing that I want to address before we get into the “how” of overcoming the fear of rejection, is that at its root, what we really fear is just feeling a feeling. That's it. 10,000 years ago when we were cast out from the tribe, we might have a real fear of death. But in the modern world that we live in today, the fear of rejection is really just the fear of feeling the feeling of being rejected.  Think about that. Rejection doesn’t equal death (anymore) – but sometimes we act as if it does . And what we’re really avoiding is just a feeling. A yucky feeling, but just a feeling nonetheless.  A feeling cannot starve you, a feeling cannot freeze you, and ultimately, a feeling cannot kill you; the feeling of rejection is just uncomfortable, and many of us will go through a lot of trouble to avoid it. So before we even get into how to overcome the fear, recognize that you're just fearing a feeling, and at the end of the day, a feeling can't really hurt you.  So, here are the steps to overcoming the fear of rejection.  Step one is facing the truth, specifically, facing the truth about what we think rejection means about us.  Let’s use the example of being interested in somebody romantically and we're scared of being rejected by them. Facing the truth means facing the fear of what it would mean about us if we were rejected. Would it mean that we are worthless? Would it mean that we're not pretty enough, not young enough, not skinny enough, or not successful enough? [Watch the video to go into greater detail here].  Step two is to feel the feeling. Now, this can be really scary especially since I've just shared with you what lengths will go to to avoid feeling the feelings. So, what we want to do is sit still, go inward, and actually consciously and intentionally feel the feeling of rejection. Sit and visualize the rejection. What does it feel like? Ask yourself: “What would happen if they rejected me? How would I feel?” Purposely being with that experience and feeling the feeling can go a long way towards defusing it and taking away some of its power.  Step three is refocus on what we actually DO want to feel. How we do this is by visualizing the scenario of stepping up courageously, and really anchor in the feelings of courage and boldness in the act of facing rejection (rather than from an intended outcome). This doesn’t mean we can’t visualize a desired outcome, but it’s important to anchor the positive emotions to taking the risk, not to the outcome . That’s because if we attach the good feelings to an outcome, then we’re back in the same boat we started in, namely letting our self-worth be determined by something or someone outside of us. [Watch the video for more details]. The fourth step is putting it into consistent practice. It means paying attention and having the self-awareness to even notice that there IS a fear of rejection, and then going through the above steps to face the truth, feel the feelings, and refocus.  Now maybe the feelings of fear won't completely go away, but these steps will help you to do it anyways, to “Do It Afraid.”  ***  If you liked this video and you want to learn more about working with me to help you uplevel your mindset in your business and life, then visit www.SuperstarActivator.com/go .  I can help you align what you do with who you really are, so that you can shine your light and bring your gifts to the world, joyfully. Ciao for now!!

So, you want to host a virtual conference and you want to do it profitably? Today’s article and video can help you make your virtual events profitable and fun.   Live events are awesome, I LOVE gathering and connecting with people live in person. So, yes, live events are amazing. They're also expensive and there are risks associated with them because you're often spending more money – investing in a venue, on food and drinks, and banking on nothing going wrong (like hurricanes, snowstorms and pandemics) that could interfere with game day. So, while it's great to do live events, it's also great to mitigate risk and relieve some of the financial burden by doing virtual ones!  We recently had the privilege and a pleasure of taking our 3-day in-person retreat, that we've been doing several times a year for 6 years, and turning it into a virtual retreat. Truth be told, I didn’t want to do it. I thought people would not be as engaged, and that it would be a struggle to hold their attention, I also worried attendees would cancel.  I was wrong. It went better than I could have imagined. So well, in fact, that we’ve already held two more like it since!  Now I want to share with you some of what we learned (watch the video for more detailed information).  The first thing to consider is what is your vision for this experience? What is the OUTCOME you want to create? To determine this, start with: Who are the people you want to serve in this virtual experience? Do you want to have a small and intimate conference? Or do you want to have a huge one?  Another consideration is format. Are you going to let your attendees participate in the event, or keep them more as observers? These are all questions that will impact how you structure your event. For example, if you're using zoom to run your meeting you can have a conference on zoom that is a webinar-style meeting which means that your attendees are not participating. They're not on camera, they can listen, they can type in the chat but they're not necessarily “sitting at the table” with you and/or your speakers.  The alternative, if you use zoom, is to have a “meeting,” where all of the people who attend can have their video turn on and can be seen. This works better with smaller groups.  Another thing to think about is you do a virtual conference is where, physically, are your people located? This is something I forgot to think about as I took my event virtual. I didn’t realize at first that we had 6 different timezones and that there would be someone in England starting at 2 in the afternoon in and ending at midnight. And then people on the West Coast starting at 6 in the morning and ending at 4 in the afternoon. Think about where your audience is and what time frame is most appropriate for the bulk of your participants.  Another thing you can consider is a teleconference or telesummit format. My friend and client, LeeAnn Webster creates Virtual Telesummits, where instead of having a 2-day live meeting, she creates a longer pre-recorded production that's released in daily segments over 10 or 12 days, so people can watch at their leisure. This can help to make your event appeal to more people with limited availability (i.e. they have a job they can't take a day or more off of). Learn more about telesummits here: www.TotallyTelesummits.com .  Another thing to consider is that unlike in a live event where you have limited seating, and every single person you add probably costs you $$$ in food or venue expenses, when you're virtual, you can have a much bigger audience without having to pay whole lot more money.   Now, personally, I just did a 3-day virtual retreat. And it was fairly small, which meant it was pretty easy to keep people engaged. I mean, I could see every single person who was attending on one screen. That would've felt really different if we'd had 100 or 200 or 300 people on there. So, the number of people and your visions for the event is going to impact the technology, the structure, the format, etc.  Just like in a live event, you must consider what your monetization strategies will be.  I promised you that in this video, I was going to share with you how to make your event profitable. Well, one of the biggest things that I see people do wrong is they get so caught up in making this event/experience amazing, they forget to monetize, AKA plan for what I call “the big back end.”  What is the outcome that you're going to deliver at your virtual conference that opens the door into what's next? Now, even if you have a conference with several different speakers, you can still make some sort of offering, perhaps an offering to join a community with more master speakers. Even just selling the next event or conference is something.  Just make sure you're always leading into what's NEXT.  Finally, something really important to think about is you create your virtual conference is SUPPORT, which is fundamental to enabling you to focus on what's important (like the big back end). If you are going to be the person who's emceeing and hosting and creating the event and then you're also the person who's administrating the production side, that's too much. You're “cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” as my dad would say. Make sure that you have some support people in place to help you as you manage the production side of your event. In summary, know that virtual events can be every bit as powerful and transformational – and profitable! – as in person ones, and in fact, maybe more so!  *** I hope this was helpful for you. If you like the idea of doing virtual events and conferences, and especially if you want to do virtual retreats, like the ones we do, set up some time to connect with me and explore if and how we can support you in creating (and monetizing!) something impactful and transformational. To book a call with me, visit www.SuperstarActivator.com/go

I hope you’ve been enjoying Awaken Your Inner Superstar with Michelle Villalobos on iTunes, my weekly podcast to help you create more freedom, more fortune, more fulfillment and more FUN in your business and in your life. Please SUBSCRIBE to get your weekly dose of inspiration ! In celebration of the podcast, I’m giving away 5 $100 gift cards to Amazon! To enter to win, just do the following: Go to iTunes HERE and leave a review for the show Leave a comment below to let us know you left a review That’s it! We'll be choosing 5 winners before  Wednesday, November 1, so hurry up! The winner will be announced on my blog on Friday, November 3. P.S. If you aren’t sure how to leave a review on iTunes, here’s a step-by-step guide for you to follow . It’s super easy breezy from either your desktop or your mobile device. P.P.S.  Visit here to read contest rules .