Tag: business marketing strategy

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Cinnamon Rolls, Breast Cancer and Your Business – How Doing Good Can Grow Your Business

It can make good marketing sense to partner with a nonprofit or a cause.

Consider what my marathon friends did when they were raising money to participate in the 3-Day Walk (you walk 60 miles in 3 days to promote breast cancer awareness and raise money for research). They approached a local restaurant called Backburner, which was famous for their cinnamon rolls. For a week, every time someone bought a cinnamon roll, they donated $1 to my friends for their walk.

I personally hadn’t heard of the restaurant, but when I found this out, my husband and I went and had breakfast there (complete with a cinnamon roll of course!)

So this turned into a win-win for everyone. My friends won because they were able to get donations for their walk. Susan G Komen wins because they get more money to donate to research. The restaurant wins because they get additional promotion and good will helping out a good cause. And I won because I got to eat a yummy breakfast and discover a new restaurant. (We’re ignoring the calories I consumed here.)

More than ever before, consumers are socially minded. In many cases they want to know the businesses they patronize are also socially minded. Connecting your business to a good cause is more than just making you “feel good” it can also make good business sense.
So what are some ways to start? (Other than writing a check.) Well, here are a few ideas you can use:

1. I’m participating in a teleclass summit to help raise money for St. Jude’s Children Hospital. Why not put together your own telesummit and have proceeds go to a good cause?

2. Or if a summit is too much work, just do one teleclass, charge a low fee and let people know proceeds are helping support a cause.

3. Have a sale and let people know a percentage of proceeds are going to support a nonprofit.

4. Offer to give a product of yours for free if people donate. Or put together a special teleclass only for people who donate. (I would put a time frame around this if you do this, for instance they have 48 hours or a few days to donate.)

5. Put links to your favorite nonprofits in your newsletter or on your website. (But don’t make it so prominent you encourage people to click away from your site and not support YOU.)

6. Give away your time. If you’re a service professional and you find your client pipeline has slowed down or dried up, donating your time to a nonprofit can be a good way to jump start your business. The exposure can help you find new clients plus you can make it known you support their cause. (And don’t forget to get a testimonial.) Now, be careful with this strategy, I’ve used it myself but make sure you don’t go too crazy donating your time or you could end up getting really stressed out when you client work picks up again.

But whatever you do, make sure this is coming from the heart. People can sense if you’re not being sincere, so make sure you truly do believe in the cause if you’re going to publically help support it.

Categories
Business Ideas

3 Reasons Why You Aren’t Making Money From Multiple Streams of Income

Imagine — money flowing into your business from all sorts of places. That’s what it’s like to have multiple streams of income. Your business isn’t dependent on one stream of income but instead you can make money from a variety of places.

Is that what your business actually looks like? Or are your streams limited to one or two?

Especially for you service providers out there, I know it can feel a little daunting to think about creating other streams of income. But the reality is, if you don’t do it you’re really going to be limiting your growth.

So, with that said, if your multiple streams of income look more like trickles or maybe a ditch filled with water, you’re in the right place.

Below are 3 reasons why you aren’t making any money from multiple streams of income and what you can do to fix it.

1. Start selling something other than your services. Okay, this sounds really obvious but we got to start somewhere. And this might be the reason why your business doesn’t look the way you’d like it to.

So which category do you fit in? Are you working on the same info product or book for the last 6 years and are (almost!) done with it? Or do you create products the way you change your clothes but you never actually put a marketing system around them so you actually sell a few?

Regardless, you need to stop what you’re doing right now and take stock of what you have. If you’re still struggling to finish your first product, remember good is good enough, and you’re losing money every day you’re not selling that product. Ditto for the too many products and no way to sell them. Put a plan together to get them on your site so you can start getting some income in the door.

2. You have info products but they aren’t selling terribly well. There could be a number of things wrong, but here are some of the top problems:
* You don’t have a sales letter (or the sales letter you have isn’t very good)
* You don’t have anyone visiting your sales letter on your web site
* You don’t have the RIGHT people visiting your sales letter on your web site (i.e. those who would actually be interested in buying your product)
* You’re selling something your target market isn’t much interested in buying

You may need to hire an expert to help you pinpoint which one (or ones) is the problem.

3. You’re not thinking outside the box. There are more ways to get multiple streams of income then selling an info product. There are group programs, licensing, certifications, classes, events and more. Or maybe you need to vary your service offerings or offer a high-ticket program.

There are a lot of different ways you can package what you sell, and depending on your prospect, they might want something different than your usual offerings.

My guess is you have a bunch of loyal fans following you, but if you’re not packaging what you offer in a way that’s attractive to them, they won’t bite. They need to feel like what you’re offering is a fit for them.

So try mixing it up. Offer some out of the box things and see what happens. Who knows, you might discover a whole new product line out of it.

Categories
Entrepreneurs

3 Quick and Easy Ways to Add Multiple Streams of Income to Your Business

It’s never a good thing when you rely on one stream of income. That stream dries up and you’re, ahem, up that creek without a paddle.

That’s why having multiple streams of income is so valuable. One stream dries up, you’ve got a few other ones to depend on.

(On another note, have you noticed how money is often referred to in water terms? Cash FLOW, multiple STREAMS of income or just income STREAMS. Just something to think about.)

But talking about getting multiple income streams and actually implementing them in your business are two entirely different things. That’s why today I’m going to share 3 quick and easy ways you can start adding more streams right now.

1. Information products. Creating a product based on your expertise is a fabulous way to start diversifying your income. This is especially good if you’re a service provider — now you’re providing other ways for your customers to work with you rather than them paying you to work with them one on one.

But information products doesn’t mean you have to sit down and write a book. You can do a teleclass or a series of teleclasses. Or maybe you do a video. Just make it easy for you to create. (The idea here is NOT to spend months or, worse, years crafting your product — the faster you get it done the faster you’ll make money on it.)

Still feeling stuck? Try this. What’s the biggest problem your customers come to you to solve for them? Can you do a teleclass or write a special report walking them through how to solve it themselves? Granted working with you would probably get the faster, better results, but remember not everyone has the money nor even the inclination (there are a lot of do-it-yourselfers out there, and you don’t want to exclude them.)

2. Licensing or certification programs. Do you have a special process you take your clients through? Why not package it up and sell it to other consultants like you? Lots of people are looking for proven methods and systems they can add to their business income streams. So in essence helping other people add income streams to their business while you’re also adding income streams to your business.

Now this one may not be all that quick to do, but I wanted to include it so you weren’t just thinking “info products” as your only option. Open yourself up to other options to making more income.

3. Offer advertising or sell other people’s products. With this one, you’re capitalizing on an asset you’ve built — your list. You have people who follow you, right? They’re on your list, they’re following you on social networking sites, they listen to your podcasts and/or teleclasses. Well, with this one you make money either by promoting someone else’s products and getting a commission, or you charge for advertising.

For advertising, think bigger then just selling spaces in your newsletter or web site or blog. What about offering sponsorships?

Sponsorships aren’t just for corporate — they can also be your colleagues who want to reach your target market.

Of all the options, this one is definitely the fastest to pull together and takes the least amount of time for you to manage. However, if you don’t think it through, it does have the potential of diluting the impact you have with your list. If you’re interested in this option, do your homework. Find one or two people who have successfully offered this and ask them about it.