I was meeting with a business owner awhile back and noticed that she listed six different jobs on her business card. "Why do you list all these different items?" I asked. "I want people to know what I can do," she replied. "I don't want to leave anything out."

I could see her point, in a way. On the other hand, the mental image I saw was that of a harried juggler struggling to keep six balls in the air, while trying to smile for the audience at the same time.

"What would happen if you left some of these services off your card?" I wondered out loud. "But I got trained and certified in those things. It's important to me," was the reply. "But is it important to your clients?" I asked in a quiet but firm voice. "Do they really worry whether you were trained in this or that modality or attended this or that course of study?"

"Probably not," replied my client, "but what is it you're really driving at?"

"A more efficient use of energy," I said, "and an easier way for your clients to understand how you can help them." For the next two hours or so, my client and I focused our attention on "amping up" the energy - the vitality - of her business.

What Do You Love About Your Business?

The same way a hands-on healer receives impressions of vitality or weakness as he or she scans a patient's body, we addressed each of the six items on her business card to determine if they felt "on" or "out of sorts." If my client's face lit up when we discussed an area of skill or service, we knew it was a significant part of her business. If the energy felt low for a specific modality, we placed it to the side. Our intention was to strengthen her business and pruning the dead wood, while temporarily painful, was a necessary process to work through.

In the end, we were left with three of the six items from her "shopping list" business card. We had chosen the three modalities which my client loved the most, recognizing that the energy of love is a powerful - and necessary - ingredient for a successful business.

The next step was to create a theme - or focus - for the business in which the three modalities and services could be used to serve her clients.

Which Clients Do You Love to Work With?

But which clients? Once again, we followed an energy healing model to discover the types of people my client loved to work with. She mentally scanned her roster to see which individuals she felt an affinity for and who also affirmed her usefulness to their well-being, whether through return visits, positive feedback or referrals. All we had to do now was find more of this type of person.

With the service modalities and target market now fixed, we turned our attention to uncovering the real heart of my client's business. What special thing could my client do that she was particularly expert at, especially passionate about, and for which her target market expressed a desire and need... and for which they would pay a decent fee? In essence, we were harnessing, in a team, my client's expertise and passion with her customers' expressed need and willingness to pay.

Setting a focus for a business takes mental discipline, but it also has to "feel right." So, with a picture of her ideal client fixed in our inner vision and a clear understanding of the skills and services she most liked to perform, my client and I brainstormed ideas for her business theme. As we threw ideas onto the table, we could feel the excitement building. We wanted the mind and heart to work together, so we did not critique any of the ideas during this process. We just wrote them down as they came to us.

While the creative juices were flowing at their highest swell, we noticed that more ideas started coming in on an intuitive level. When one or both of us "got the shivers," we starred those ideas, because we knew that they were going to be important. As the energy of the brainstorming session subsided, we reviewed our list of ten or twelve business ideas.

We began with the "starred" items, the ideas that seemed to be coming from a higher place within ourselves. As we talked about the one that gave us the strongest "goosebumps," pieces began falling into place. We could both see - and verbalize - how to structure her business around this one very strong theme. The planning came so easily, and we felt so positive about the outcome, that we barely felt the need to tackle the other ideas on our list. It became apparent that the first few ideas were merely "energetic stepping stones" to the diamond at the center.

The brainstorming process created an enthusiasm that bounced back and forth between us, building the energy until we could break through to our soul's guidance about the real purpose for her business. Our combined intention, our happy enthusiasm, and our working compatibility created an energy vortex which, essentially, pulled the highest and best ideas to the surface.

A Business in Alignment with Your Soul

My client now had a higher, grander vision of her business and a renewed sense of purpose for creating a marketing plan she would actually follow. She was energetically aligned to her business focus and eager to start finding clients, now that she understood the types of people she enjoyed working with.

Within the week, my client created a new business card containing her name, phone number and one sentence. A sentence that explains her business focus so clearly that people "get it" immediately. She harnessed the energy of her passion into printed words that touch people's hearts.

And that's what running a successful business is all about, really. Loving what you do so much that The Law of Attraction can't help but bring you compatible individuals who resonate with what you have to offer. The key is to focus and then raise the energy to that higher place of your soul's urging, so you can find those other souls who recognize your energy and the truth of your mission.

(c) Copyright Barbara Casey