Not a typo. There is a process through which your prospects go that is very much like baking bread. 

The Ingredients of Success

First, they identify themselves as an ingredient that could be turned into something greater in the kitchen of your brand. They may not at this point recognise that they have many ingredients, but just recognising one will be enough to get someone looking at your posts or emails, watching your videos, reading your blog, or listening to your podcast. 

At this stage, they're less looking for you than looking for themselves. 

Entering The Kitchen of Personal Development

Next, they take a tentative step into the kitchen. Maybe they opt in for a free training, like You Deserve A Fresh Start: 5 Steps To Go From Devastation To Motivation, which helps anyone pick themselves up after a slump or crisis, or our Bee Management Tracker System™ and Audio Training to help young men get emotional clarity and control.

At this stage, if they go through the training, they will have discovered a few other ingredients, and some will have thrown their ingredients into the bowl at the kitchen of Indiepreneur Academy, and entered into the spirit of allowing themselves to become a bit mixed into our philosophy and training. This is what your prospects do too. What do you have in place to move them from being Solo Ingredient Prospects to Ingredient Blend Prospects?

Mixing It Up

Once mixed in the bowl a couple of things start to happen. Some feel too 'mixed up' by the process and want to go back to being solo ingredients. Obviously, that can't happen, so they can get rather cross. This is a tricky moment. Some people let these prospects go, others urge them to stay in the discomfort of being mixed up because it's part of the process, and things are about to get good! They have freewill. If they leap out of the bowl and make a mess on the floor, don't scoop them up and put them back in the bowl. Ew! Sweep them away and keep mixing the prospects who want to become well-bread. 

Kneadiness

You've been a prospect before, so you know how this goes. You start looking at something and you're detached from it, or from the person teaching the concept. It's interesting, but you're good either way. You're not invested. By the time you've allowed yourself to get through the process of being mixed up, though, you start to need (knead) the next stage, because being mixed up isn't a lot of fun, and there isn't an obvious upside. This is when you become kneady. 

That doesn't feel good either. But it is. You are acknowledging what you really need from this brand or person. You're aware of your needs. If you hand over a little control to the chef who is now becoming your mentor, and let them start the process of forming you into a recognisable shape, you'll become equipped to take back control at the next stage. So be kneady, because the process of being put through kneading will make YOU needed by YOUR prospects. Stick with it! And when your prospects go through this, remember how it was for you. This part involves surrendering the ego to grow more. 

Proving Themselves and Rising Up

Once dough is kneaded, it must be left to prove. This is true for your prospects. Once you've taught them what they need to get to the next stage, honour their process. While some bread can be baked without proving (I do this every week) most cannot. So, let them prove to themselves that what you're teaching works. 

In the proving stage, prospects go through your free and low-ticket training and test it out. Let them. Keep mixing and baking with others as they go through this process. 

Some will stay at the lower levels. They're happy to be fast-baked bread. But others want to become truly Well-Bread. These people are no longer just prospects. They're clients. They're doing the work, and they're reaching out for the more advanced high-ticket offers that you have. Sometimes, you'll be required to knock them back, as happens with rising dough, to make sure they develop in the best way, but eventually they rise up and are ready to fulfil their bakery treat destiny. 

Baking In The Goodness

As a firewalker, I know the trepidation that goes with facing hot coals. Walking through hot coals to bake in a profound philosophy is truly nerve-wracking, but the feeling afterwards is phenomenal. 

This is how your high-ticket clients feel as they take your training out into the wild. Whilst I've often said that nobody is ever the 'fully-risen cupcake' as we're all works in progress, I'm going to abandon that metaphor here and say that a client can absolutely become a fully-risen and well-bread indiepreneur. While a cupcake is a frivolous thing, breaking bread with others is not. And in becoming truly well-bread, you can share yourself with others, while a cupcake only serves one.

So, if you are frustrated with your prospects, because they're all mixed up, remember that you are helping them on the journey to rising up and into their best selves. And once they do that, and use what you taught them to create philosophies of their own, you become like the prized starter dough that bakers use to create distinctive sourdough bread. Hundreds of years from now, people will still sense the character of the initial starter dough in every newly baked batch. All because YOU took the time to become well-bread.  

Rebecca 

P.S. Want to learn more about becoming well-bread? Hit the orange button and let me know where you are on your journey, and I might send you some goodies. 🥖🥐