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Entrepreneurs

Is Your Timing Keeping You From Being Successful In Your Business? Part 1

After being in business for as long as I have, there’s one thing that never fails to amaze me — the capacity entrepreneurs have to sabotage their own success. (Not to mention how creative those ways can be.) While there’s about a million ways this manifests itself, here’s one way I see popping up over and over again.

Is Your Timing Keeping You From Being Successful In Your Business? (Part 1)

After being in business for as long as I have, there’s one thing that never fails to amaze me — the capacity entrepreneurs have to sabotage their own success. (Not to mention how creative those ways can be.) While there’s about a million ways this manifests itself, here’s one way I see popping up over and over again.

And that’s timing.

What do I mean by timing? I mean either entrepreneurs are moving too slow, and thus miss opportunities to make money, or they move too fast and are reckless and miss out on opportunities that way.

What’s interesting about timing is it’s not as clear cut as “one person moves too slow and one person moves too fast.” What I actually see is entrepreneurs move BOTH too fast AND too slow. They just do it at the wrong times.

And where do I see this happen the most? When they’re planning to launch a new product or program.

Here’s what typically happens — people will move WAY too slowly creating the product or program and will move WAY too fast to launch it. With the end result being they miss out on opportunities on both sides — it takes them forever to actually get thing done (so they’ve missed out on money selling the product or program) and then they rush through the launch like they have a bunch of hungry vampires chasing them and they don’t make nearly the sales they could have.

What REALLY should be happening is they should move quickly creating the product then slow down while launching it.

That way, they get the best of both worlds — they get the product or program to market faster and can start profiting from it sooner, and they take their time to work through ALL the launch steps so they wring as many sales as possible during the launch.

Now, there are variations of this. I have met people who are slow during the product creation AND launch, just like I’ve met people who whip through both as well. (And then there’s another group of people who either never get their product done or they finish products and never actually get around to launching them.) All of these are sabotaging techniques, which is part of the reason why this is far more complex problem then would initially appear on the surface.

So if you suspect you might struggle with one or several of the above, what can you do? How can you stop it? And how much time do you REALLY need to launch? Well, I’m going to answer all those questions over the next 2 articles. Next week we’ll look at why it takes some entrepreneurs so darn long to finish their product and how they can speed up the process, and the week after we’ll cover racing through the launch process.

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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.

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Entrepreneurship

How to Ruin Your Business Reputation

Awhile ago, I got an email from one of the “gurus” I follow and it shocked me. The gist of it was this person wanted to trade services for a household item.

To say it floored me would be an understatement.

What was worse was a few days later this person started sending emails promoting their coaching program. How could anyone who had gotten the “trade” email even consider signing up for their coaching program?

Now this was a pretty obvious blunder, but there are other, smaller blunders, you might be making that are hurting your business reputation and your ability to attract clients. But first, I want to make something clear.

The problem isn’t that you’re struggling right now. That happens. It’s the nature of business and every seasoned business person knows it.

Businesses will lose money or be flat from time to time. There’s no shame in it, you just need to keep doing something about it (i.e. marketing, analyzing your offerings or your target market to see if you need to make a change, etc.)

The mistake happens when you make this too transparent. I’m not saying you should lie and say business is great when it’s not. (In fact, please DON’T lie. That’s another way to hurt your business reputation big time.) But (and this is ESPECIALLY true if you have a service business) don’t make it obvious you’re struggling. No one wants to hire a consultant who isn’t busy. In the back of people’s minds is the worry if the consultant isn’t busy they must not be good. So you MUST not come across as too eager or that you have too much time on your hands.

No matter how desperate for customers you are, you must get that under control. People will sense desperation and either run from you or try and take advantage of you. Neither is all that good for you (either your business or your psyche).
So what can you do? Here are 3 tips to help you stay strong no matter what’s going on in your business.

1. Keep marketing. Now is the time to step up your marketing. You have the time, why not write extra articles so you have them “stockpiled” when you do get busy again. Now might also be a good time to do a promotion but do NOT say it’s because business is slow.

Find some other creative way to do the same thing (for instance, maybe you have a “back to school” special, now that the kids are back in school you have some extra time to take on an additional client or two.) Or your promotion can be around a product or a group program. (Having a promotion around your product or group program doesn’t carry nearly the social stigma of pedaling your service.)

2. Don’t answer your phone. Yes, you heard me. Let voice mail pick it up or keep your virtual assistant on to return phone calls. Busy people don’t sit by the phone willing it to ring. You need to get your mind off your phone (or your inbox) and on to drumming up customers.

3. Don’t drop your fees. Your fees aren’t the problem. Something else is the problem. Either you aren’t marketing enough or your target market isn’t the right target market for you anymore or you need to tweak your offerings or something else is going on. But the moment you start dropping your fees or doubting yourself is the moment you’ll start down a vicious downward cycle.
(Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t put together a lower priced package and promote it. That’s fine and it may be a smart business decision. But to lower your hourly rate — not a smart move.)

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Entrepreneurship

Why Upsells and Downsells Could be the Ticket to Your Business’ Online Success

upsell.jpgFirst, some context. What exactly is an upsell and a downsell and why is it so important to your business?

An upsell is when your prospect has already said “yes” to buying something from you, and then they decide at the same time to buy something else. The classic example of this is the MacDonald’s “Would you like fries with that?’ The customer has already bought a hamburger and now the employee has nudged them into buying something else.

A downsell is when your prospect has said “no” to your initial offer so you present a second offer. Typically the downsell is less expensive than the original offer. So, for instance, the customer decides the MacDonald’s hamburger is too expensive and decides to buy just an ice cream cone.

Now clearly this can and does happen in face-to-face situations. But did you realize this can also happen online?

So for instance, someone buys a product on your web site. Your web site can immediately present them with a second offer, the upsell.

And if the prospect clicks away, because they’re not interested in buying your product, your web site can also present them with a second offer, a lower cost offer than the one they were looking at.

So you’re probably thinking, this sounds a little complicated and I haven’t a clue how to start. Why would I want to do this?

Two reasons —

1. You’ll make more money. When you start using the upsell, you’ll increase your overall purchase amount. For instance, say your product is $100 and you offer a $50 upsell. Let’s say 20% of your buyers take you up on it. Now you’ve made an additional $50 on 20% of your purchases. (This can add up after awhile.)
Now, for the downsell, you’ve saved a sale you’ve probably lost anyway. Let’s say your product is $500, when someone clicks away, you pluck a piece out of the original product, say an ebook, and offer that for $97. Now you’re giving your customers a lower cost alternative, a chance to try your product out before spending a lot more money.

2. If you offer an upsell, you’ll increase customer satisfaction and decrease returns. Yes you read that right. Upsells can actually make your customers feel more satisfied doing business with you and less likely to want to return the product. Why? Because you’re helping them “skip” over buyers’ remorse. We all have buyers’ remorse after we buy something, which is when we regret our purchase. The intensity and the length varies depending on the buying situation. But if you immediately jump into and offer a second purchase, your customers are busy figuring out if they want to make that second purchase versus feeling bad over making the first one.

And if they DO buy, then they’re that much more invested in you and your business and they WANT what you sold them to be what they’re looking for.

And the best part of this whole strategy? It’s automatic. You set it once and it keeps on doing it, over and over again. What could be better?

One final note to chew on as you make up your mind if it’s worth it or not – do you know what the most read page on a web site is? It’s your thank you pages. The page your prospects go to after they sign up for something or buy something. Don’t waste this valuable real estate – put an upsell on that page and watch your bank account grow.

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Entrepreneurs

Business – How Vampires Can Help Your Business

vampire-picture-hot.jpg

I recently finished watching Season 1 of True Blood. While I can see why it’s not for everyone, I myself enjoy a good vampire romp, especially when it’s populated by such a nice selection of hot-looking actors (who have no issues showing off their equally hot bodies).

Anyway, it got me thinking about all the vampire stories out there. Vampire legends have been around for centuries and in nearly every society. Vampire movies, shows, books, etc. continually pop up on a frequent basis.
So why all the fuss? What is it about vampires that just won’t die (pun intended)?

Well, I’ve come up with 2 theories:

1. There REALLY are real-life, blood sucking, undead vampires roaming about.

2. There REALLY are vampires roaming about, but they’re HUMAN vampires, sucking the energy, money, health, time and more out of other people. And these vampire stories are actually a combination of cautionary tales (evil vampires we need to kill) and a way to transform and tame our “inner vampire” to something loving and human (the vampire love stories).

For my part, I’ll put my money on number 2. Which leads me to how this can help your business.

Vampires are everywhere. I don’t think it was a coincidence I finish watching True Blood and discover one of my friends and clients was scammed. Con artists and scammers are just another sort of human vampire — typically they’re charming and attractive in some way to their victims (for instance, they’re offering something attractive) then suck them dry of money, energy, time or more.

The thing about vampires is they’re hard to spot. (Vampires look human and in many cases they’re beautiful.) This is why a lot of times you’ll let a vampire in, not knowing it’s a vampire until after you’ve been bit.

Here are some signs of common vampires that can be sucking the life right out of your business:

1. Are there tasks you do in your business that drain you? Typically these are tasks you don’t like doing and you’re probably not much good at them either. Yep, you’re looking at a vampire. The good news is these vampires are selective in who they bite. (Or maybe these would fall into those vampire love stories — one person’s dream vampire love is another person’s worst nightmare.)

Solution — do a bit of vampire matchmaking and outsource, find the people who love those tasks and let them take over.

2. Are there people who drain you? Maybe they’re a vendor or a client you really have trouble working with. They suck up a lot of your time and energy (and maybe even money) and you’re always exhausted after your encounters.

Well, this could be 1 of 2 things — either you have a real human vampire on your hands who makes a habit of sucking the life force out of everyone they meet, or this is like a task vampire. They don’t do it to everyone, in fact they probably don’t even want to be a vampire, but some people bring out the worst in them.

Solution — it’s the same, these people are toxic to you for whatever reason and it really doesn’t matter if they’re toxic to everyone or just to you, you still need to remove them from your life.

From time to time it’s always a good idea to scan your business and your life for any vampires, and if you find any, to send them on their way. Remember, vampires are seductive, so unless you’re looking for them you just might miss them.