Let Us Introduce Ourselves!

You may be wondering who we are and why we have so much experience with building successful businesses and online marketing.  Let us introduce ourselves!

My name is Alicia Bausley

I’m the author of The Empowered Business Sales Conversion Formula.  (It’s a free download – you can get it here.)  Lisa Hanfileti is my business partner and dear friend who made the decision to team up with me to combine our talents to help other entrepreneurs succeed in business.  (Lisa’s going to add her 25 cents below!)

We are two individuals who met through online marketing.  We have very different backgrounds, education and uniquely different skill sets.

Our goals are to empower you in the online marketing of your business.   We want to help you find your purpose in life and live each day to the fullest, without anxiety, frustration or financial limitations.

We offer you hope and support.  Your opportunity for success is right in front of you.  All you need to do is just make the decision to take it.

I’m a wife, a passionate lover of animals, a loyal friend, and a business entrepreneur with expertise in sales conversions.

For more than 15 years, I have been a business owner and I would never, ever return to the world of working for anyone else ever again.

I love my freedom, the ability to make all the decisions in my company, and to teach, train, and help other business entrepreneurs just like you, find financial freedom and success.

For several years I’ve been on a journey that continues to build and enhance my marketing and sales skills.  One of the most important lessons I can provide you right now, is the knowledge that you should constantly educate yourself to improve upon and build your empire (and trust me, you CAN build an empire).

There will always be someone out in the world who is better than us, knows more, and who can further teach and train us invaluable lessons in our life.

Here is the joy of working in your own business.

You no longer HAVE to do something you despise or don’t enjoy doing.  Isn’t life too short for this?  Becoming empowered, means that you get to follow your dreams, your passion and purpose, and make choices that work for YOU.

Can you imagine getting up in the morning and looking forward to your job?  Let me explain how I traveled to get to my personal freedom today.

Due to contracting ‘whooping cough’ I never made it to kindergarten.  I skipped right into the first grade and from there moved to ten different schools before my sophomore year in high school.  My grandpa was a general contractor and our family followed him all over the United States to work and build homes.

It was difficult moving so often, adjusting to new people and learning to be myself in a time and space where peer pressure can be so intense.  I was shy, lacking confidence, and I didn’t know what my life’s purpose would be.  I had no desire to pursue a formal education after high school.

I was naïve and slow to realize the extent of my power and contribution I could make to the world.

Finding my passion and purpose.

Unbeknownst to me, I was on a voyage of self-revelation and intense testing. Have you been there?

For years I struggled in my search for the perfect thing that would satisfy my passion.

I considered real estate, opening a boutique, and consulting in interior decorating.  I was restless in my search for something to do that had meaning and purpose and would also affect others in a positive sense.

I struggled in finding what my passion and purpose was in life.  I thought I had little chance for opportunity or advancement in my life, with my limited skills and no formal education.

What I didn’t realize was that I was living and learning and experiencing what others were experiencing too.

I didn’t know that what I felt lacking in my own life would actually help others one day.

I had no idea that my pains and challenges and ultimately overcoming them would allow me to guide others to their own successes.

Upon meeting my husband, Ben, and being inspired and wrapped by limitless love and support, I realized my own potential for success.  With encouragement and belief in me, he urged me to move forward to reach the stars (just like I’m encouraging you right now).

I searched out a sales position with a major household product line and began acquiring some very specific skills that would lead me to build a business that allowed me independence, to build a substantial (and continually growing) retirement, created my debt-free environment, and finally have peace of mind.

My financial successes with these skills started offline (without the Internet)!  Now, I’m incorporating those basic sales skills into the online world, and finding how easy it is to do (and teach others too).

Those sales skills have taught me how to attract people who are interested in my passion and how to convert them into a customer base. And by getting further education and training, I’ve discovered that there are ways to position these selling skills to reach out to the entire world.

Finding my plan and prosperity.

My sales experience eventually lead me to work with my husband for a consulting company that operated satellite offices throughout the west coast of the United States.  On a sunny Thursday morning we discovered the ill fate of the company we were representing.

They were closing the doors to their business and laying off their entire staff.  We were both without a job on the very same day!

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt the despair of losing your job and having fear eat at your insides, wondering how you would survive and find a job quickly enough to continue to support you.

It’s a terrible feeling and one that I swore I would never endure again.

Letting someone else control our financial future was a mistake.   At the time we couldn’t see it (even if you told us the ‘gift’ was there), but losing our jobs would turn out to be a wonderful blessing in disguise and present a world of opportunities right at our feet.

This fear of not being able to find a job quickly enough propelled us to open our own business.  With both of us jobless, we felt it was our only option for immediate cash flow.  How right we were!

The very same day we were both ‘let go’ we sat down and worked out a plan to start marketing and selling our consulting services to an established industry.  The struggle was intense, as we were cash-poor, still in some financial debt at the time, and had a hefty mortgage payment and two car payments.

With focused attention using our commonsense, a new passion and purpose for life and a plan of consistent action using basic selling skills, we were prosperous within three months of starting our business.

With our plan of action we implemented basic selling skills using a consultative selling approach that allowed our business to grow and ultimately thrive in the economy.  We worked consistently using these basic selling skills to get to know our prospects, find out their problems and offer them business solutions that allowed us to make an extremely attractive income.

Our business has sustained us very well throughout the last 15 years.  Our success has trickled down to our consultants’ success too, allowing us to assist many others in their own businesses and wealth acquirement too.

However, this business was just the beginning of opening up my desire to help others build their own dreams of success and financial independence.

This was the catalyst that urged me to move forward.  This was the fire that was igniting my new passion and my purpose in life. I was already forming a plan that would lead to new prosperity.

I wanted to reach out to other people just like myself, and help them win the same level (or more) of success that my husband and I had achieved.

I wanted to teach others how they could have security in multiple streams of income and never have to rely on an employer again.  I began learning online marketing through trial, error and belief in consistent and steady actions of using my basic selling skills.

Meeting of the minds.

As I mentioned I had recently discovered the power of online marketing via the Internet and was caught up in the excitement and raw power of accessing more than 6 billion people in the world with my message and my products and services.

The exciting part of my experience was that I was closing on multiple sales with just a few leads at a time. It wasn’t the size of the list that allowed me to be profitable.

It was how I presented my solution to them and prompted them to take action.  By providing value first and then educating them on the steps to take, I was able to create a win-win for us both.  And my conversion rates were extremely high (up to 80% of those I contacted purchased from me).

My online marketing led me to find my business partner Lisa Hanfileti.  We found that our visions for success were similar, with an emphasis on quality of life and time for our family, friends and all those we love and care about.

Yes, we wanted to build a budding business that made huge profits, but we didn’t want to sacrifice all other aspects of enjoying life either.

And we both wanted to maintain our successful primary businesses while we jumped into our secondary careers learning online marketing and building a business that would help others build theirs!

Lisa and I ventured out on a part-time basis and started building our new business, taking the power of the Internet to allow us to affordably market our business and then turn those leads we attracted into a sound base of repeat sales and extremely loyal customers.

We started creating our cash flow and steadily building a profitable business using basic selling skills that were converting prospects into loyal customers.  You can too!

We began our joint collaboration in supporting each other in a business.  Our expertise, (mine in sales conversions and Lisa’s in lead generation) are a winning combination for any business owner.  But telling you is not enough.  We have to teach you our sales and marketing methods, so you can experience the successes too.  We’ll give you the answers in just a few minutes.

But first, allow me to introduce my business partner and dear friend, Lisa…

I am Lisa Hanfileti

You may already know me as Alicia’s Empowered Business Entrepreneurs’ business partner. But something you may not know about me is that I’m also a full-time acupuncturist.

Since I opened my practice in 2000 with my husband, Peter, I have made some huge business mistakes that motivated me to research the most effective and affordable ways to market and grow my small business.  More recently, I have written a book called, “Complementary and Alternative Marketing” and developed a program to teach other health care providers how to successfully position and market their practices.

I was not always interested in business and marketing.  Far from it!  The truth is I was forced to develop my skills in these areas — or else say goodbye to my dream of being an acupuncturist.

My journey from an ‘unconsciously incompetent’ business owner to a ‘consciously competent’ entrepreneur has been a strange and occasionally painful one.  I’ll share some of the embarrassing details in a moment.  But first, let me ask you a question.  Do any of the following statements or challenges describe your current thoughts about yourself or your business?

• You are an introvert and don’t know what to say to promote your business without feeling like a stereotypical salesperson – so you just freeze and don’t say anything.
• You kick yourself for missing out on opportunities to present your services or products because you are too shy and fear you’ll say something wrong.
• You feel it is wrong to ‘sell’ something to someone who is broke – and you often end up just giving your time or products away (at a financial cost to you).
• You fear failure and worry what others would think of you if they knew you were struggling in your business.
• You are frustrated with yourself because you believe you should be able to succeed because other people (who have fewer skills and resources) seem to be doing just fine.
• You need the right teacher who can really deliver the step-by-step instructions you need and make sense out of everything.
• You’ve tried business networking meetings and have had very little results for the amount of time and energy you have invested.
• You’ve talked to many people who always say they are interested in your business but they never call, purchase, or follow through with any action.
• You feel overwhelmed by the amount of information you need to learn and the number of things you need to do.
• You constantly question whether what you are doing is what you should be doing – and wonder if you’re missing something.
• You are disappointed that you tried something that was supposed to be ‘foolproof’ and it didn’t work for you.
• You do not have enough time in the day to do everything that needs to get done. Even when you work harder and longer it feels like you have less to show for it.
• You are tired, worn out and close to giving up.
• You feel alone and want the support of a group that you can leverage off of so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
• You don’t have enough money to invest in your marketing.
• You are discouraged with the whole process and wonder if you’ll ever understand enough Internet technology to make your business viable.
• You want a personal coach to walk you through the steps of building your business but you feel like you can’t afford to pay for one.
• You struggle to see the big picture and wonder why you should spend so much time on seemingly endless details.
• You are stuck and at a point where you need to hire someone to help you, but don’t know where to go to find an affordable and qualified assistant.

At one time or another over the past 10 years, I could personally relate to every single one of those statements.  So don’t feel bad if you also feel the pain, fear, frustration, and disappointment of trying unsuccessfully to build your business.

This is the only statement you need to remember about yourself right now:

You have a dream of getting out of debt and helping people.  You know a time will come when everything will just ‘click’ and you will finally be able to sleep soundly at night knowing you have a successful career and business that will support you and your family for the rest of your life.

Knowing that it is possible to build a successful business, even if you do not know YET what to do to make it possible, is all you need right now.

When I first started my acupuncture practice, I did not know anything about business. Like most educational programs that provide training to perform specific skills, my acupuncture program did not prepare me to run a business.  Honestly, I was happy to be spared with BORING business classes, because all I wanted to do was heal the world!

I admit it.  I was naïve.

I didn’t even realize that I needed to develop my business skills and invest in training.  This taught me an important lesson.  Like me, most people don’t know what they don’t know. And to make it a bit worse, they think what they DO know, is all they need to know.  As you can see, that was my problem.

Way back then when I was opening my business I thought having a good heart was all I needed and the Universe would just naturally reward me.  Seriously, I had that Field of Dreams philosophy of business. You know, the one that goes, “if you build it, they will come”.

So I poured my heart and soul into opening my clinic and fully expected to have a line of people out my door in a very short time.  I was thinking it might take a few weeks, or a few months at most.

I had no idea how many business skills were important for me to build and grow a successful practice.   I didn’t even know that 70% of all small businesses make it to the 2- year mark and only 50% make it to the 5-year mark.

As I have talked with hundreds if not thousands of service based business owners over the years, I have learned that we all start out pretty much in the same boat: thinking we know enough to succeed.  And what we don’t know we will make up for with our passion and good heart.

The sad thing is many enthusiastic practitioners (realtors, lawyers, therapists, accountants, and many service based business owners) get sunk before they realize they’re taking on water.

I experienced this firsthand.  About 5 years into my practice I hit some unexpected financial bumps (including a surprise $17,000 tax bill) that almost ended my acupuncture business.

It scared me to stare failure in the face.

It also opened my eyes and made me very determined!  I set out on a mission to find a way to secure my acupuncture career AND my financial future.  I decided then and there that I was going to learn everything I could about business, marketing, responsibly managing my finances, and building multiple streams of income.

I had heard that the Internet was the most powerful and affordable way to advertise and when I investigated the Internet as a means to promote my business, I was intrigued, but cautious.

Internet stuff felt out of my league.  I could email, research, and shop online. That was about the extent of my Internet “skills”.  I tackled the task of building a website for my acupuncture practice and was fortunate to have a step-by-step program that also included steps on HOW to position my business and generate revenue through my website.

Less than 7 months after I started my website, I had earned back my initial investment in the website software I was using.  And I had the potential to earn LOTS more.  I was ecstatic.  This stuff really worked!

I knew I had found an important piece of the puzzle. But I also knew I had a lot more to learn.

I joined a marketing team to get top notch training on how to use the Internet.  It was there that I met (via online classes) Alicia Bausley, a successful self-employed business owner, an expert in sales.

Unlike Alicia, I felt ‘sales training’ was unnecessary and even inappropriate for a health care practitioner.  I thought acupuncturists were not sales people and therefore did not need to know selling strategies or techniques.  Moreover, I considered salespeople to be after one thing and one thing only… your money.  Since I cared more about helping people than making money, I avoided sales training and focused entirely on marketing.

Remember when I said “most people don’t know what they don’t know”?  Well, here’s another example of me not knowing that I needed to develop my sales skills in order to succeed at marketing!  The truth is, learning marketing without understanding and mastering sales is wasted effort.

Alicia and I have been able to combine our skills, interests and experiences to co-author books, develop marketing and sales training courses, and empower other small business owners to embrace their entrepreneurial spirit.

The answer to building a sustainable and profitable business is to implement affordable, effective, and automated ways to position and market your business so that YOU can close on sales. That’s what’s behind The Empowered Business Sales Conversion Formula.

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Learn More About Us & Our Commitment To Helping Others:

Marketing An Online Business With Heart

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Q&A: Should I focus on building my website or keep up my training?

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