Special Occasions

OK, let's market and sell your business. Where do you start? With what you have!

In my 20's and 30's, I spent a lot of time as a stand up. Following the path that everyone takes, there comes a time when you have to stop stealing material from other comics and write your own. Frightening at first, but you soon get attuned to what is required for this. Look at what is around you, and twist it to show a different point of view. Add certain standard tricks and gimmicks to allow your audience to draw mental pictures of what you are presenting to them, and deliver it in such a way as to get a reaction - hopefully a funny, and appreciative one.

While this may sound more like a Sales approach than a marketing one, look again at the first part of the statement: Look at what is around you.

You have opened this business to fill a need with a solution in a marketplace.
What is the need - promote it.
Who are you talking to - promote in a way that they will understand.
What is your solution - Promote it.

Now, look one level deeper:
Where are you based? - Promote it.
What kind of demographic are you marketing to - write in a way that they will understand.
How do they get their information - Advertise and promote there.

OK - let's move on:
What time of year are you about to enter? - Create a 'hook' to interest people, and warn them that they need your product or service then.
What is happening to their lives? Are we all going through the same thing? Promote it - let the know that you are exactly the same as they are, and you can help them, or at least inform them.
Who are your business neighbors? What are they doing, and can you do it better.
What is your competition doing, and how can you do it better..faster..cheaper...with more benefit.

How will you say it?
Over the last while since you began thinking of this particular business and it's model, you have been inundating yourself and others with information. Now is the time to pass that on to your customers in a way that they will understand. Look back over your business reports and plans, your e-mails, your brochures - anything that gives information. This is your raw material.

I will address Customer service in a future post, but here is something to use as a platform that I have found useful: A customer is one that buys your product ONLY from you. It is a repeating business transaction that they are happy to do. A real customer is a customer for life. This is what you are trying to achieve, so start from the beginning.

Before long, you will now how to approach those 40+ year old stay at home moms with not much income. You will do it clearly, and in a way that is attractive to them. You will do it in a way that reminds them it is Spring, we are in a global recession, your store is close to where they live, and you are a local specialist - much better than the chain guys that they are shopping at at the moment. You will show them the proof of what you are selling, and how your industry sits at present. You will also offer them a discount for the first 1, 5, or 10 they buy in order to get them coming back to you repeatedly.

See how easy that was? It's a series of special occasions, that only you and they know of. It is the start not only to a lifelong relationship, it is the start of your business empire.

The ONLY 3 things you care about are....

Now that you have realized that you probably are a member of the 10% of the population that can be a small or medium-sized business owner, it is time to act. Yes – it’s that simple. The work you have completed to now will have given you a great deal of information about yourself and - if you are still reading blogs and other items like this - you still have the desire to learn more. In itself, that means that you have an entrepreneurial streak – something that a great many managers and other business types do not. So let’s go. No-one is keeping anything from you. There is a whole world of businesses whose sole function it is, is to help other businesses. Believe me, you are going to meet a whole bunch of them I the next few months and beyond. In fact, you would be forgiven in thinking that the other 90% NOT running their own business are visiting you to service yours!
You best friend is going to be your Bank Manager, no matter what anyone else says. He is the one that you are going to go to (if you haven’t already) to borrow money, or give yourself a second mortgage in order to support the start of this venture, and he is the one that will control re-payment, further expansion via loans, and a thousand other things that you haven’t thought of yet. Trust this person, and perhaps avail yourself of a lot of the financial products he has to assist your business – See? Even your bank is a supplier, and will want more of your custom!
You are going to have to come up with a business plan first in order to impress this guy. He hears more than a few pitches every day about budding businesses, and he has heard most of the pitches already. This doesn’t mean that you should treat a meeting with the bank like a job interview, but looking the part goes further than you may think. Every business has to satisfy 3 different components. These are Need, Marketplace, and Solution. If you have your eye on a business right now, you have probably answered these three questions already, but perhaps in a different form.
You may have seen something and thought: “What a great idea – why didn’t I think of this?”, or “Why didn’t someone think of this before?” This means that you have noticed a good or service that people want, and have identified a need. Next up is where? Who is going to buy it, or use it, and where are they? While it is tempting to see a market for fun and sporty Australian Boomerang covers, if you are the US Midwest, servicing the people that are going to buy them may stretch your budget somewhat.
Who is going to use it or buy it, and how can you get them to your store as fast and often as possible.
Next, do these two add up to a solution? I refer back to Starbucks as one of my favorite business stories.
That company obviously believed that there was a need for an Italian-style coffee establishment, and they also saw the potential for having one every sixty feet in some cities. While your bank manager will want some ideas on how you are going to get from where you are to where you want to be, the most important thing is to make him or her see that this has potential. That you have the solution that answers the need, and fits into a certain marketplace.
Of course, not mentioned here is Passion. Every single entrepreneur has it: A love for what they are doing, because it fills a need. There are less depressed individuals running their own enterprises than there are in salaried positions, because these people have a say everyday in how their business is run, and have a direct feel of the consequences of all decisions made – this is probably why you are looking for one. In the end, therefore, your money lender will need to see that passion in order to understand the need, marketplace, solution equation. This cannot be faked, so don’t even try it. If you don’t love it, don’t do it. If you have found the answer to your business prayers, and you can fill this equation, move on. You are soon going to impress someone enough to fund you, and then you are at the start line, so now is the time. Due diligence over a business plan and all of the plans you are going to make about expenses and probable revenue are just over the horizon, so the closer you get opening, the more like a Kid at Christmas you are going to feel.
Well, right now, it’s December 20th, so let the excitement begin – it’s good practice for telling everyone else about this great adventure you are on.

How to find the World's best business.

For those of you following this blog, you have now faced some 'home truths'.

Do you have what it takes to become successful, and do you have the right product to fill a need?
Are you able to look long-term for your businesses' success, and can you afford to keep going through bad times in order to see the light at the end of the recession tunnel?
Can you promote, advertise, be responsible for, and sell your product in order to create the customers' need to buy?

If you are still with us, it's time for a field trip. Nothing too exotic, I'm afraid, just down to the local mall, but it will give you a break from the computer. Hopefully, there's a Starbucks, or something similar, there, so that you can look and listen; people watch and learn.

Most times we hit this place with one thought in mind: How can I get what I have come for, and then get out as fast as possible. Try relaxing into the mindset of looking and learning, listening and seeing. Once you take the regular pressures you have out of the equation, you can start seeing under the superficial look of the place, and see how this organic system works under the surface. How all of the different components work together. What you are doing is a first step in marketing, because you have the idea of what people are shopping for, and now you are going to discover how merchants fill that requirement.

Who is selling cheap, and why? Where are all of the crowds heading? If people are just window shopping, what are their destinations and why? What are the most popular stores and what to they have that others don't? If they are promoting a particular good or service over others, why are they doing it, and how? How much would it cost for you to do the same? Who is new to the mall, and what are they doing to announce their arrival? Before you got here today, what local advertising was being done to promote what stores, and how much did it cost?

Even if you are planing an online business, this is a good exercise, because online shoppers act exactly the same as offline ones. They roam the Internet in herds, and enter stores (websites) for particular reasons. Your costs may be lower than renting a mall store, but as we discussed before there are plenty of unseen costs to do with advertising and marketing your business that need to be planned before penny is spent.

In both worlds, you have competition. How long have they been around, and how far ahead are they of you? What has it cost them to get this far, and work out a sales and marketing cycle to take you through this first cycle. This could be either a time schedule based on where you think you will be in 2, 4 or 6 months, or even to get through a particular time of year like Easter or Christmas. It's also time to take notes on how you will measure your progress, and what back up details you will require to show legal or investment partners that require proof of who you are, where you have been, and where you are going.

Once this is done, it's time to finish the Late, and get back to the computer to find out more about your business model, and how others have done it. Online there are many websites, forums, and blogs like this offering free advice. Most of them have a product or service to sell you, and you can spend some of your seed money getting advice form others, but bear this in mind:

Only about 10 - 15% of the populace will ever do this. Everyone else wants to, and thinks that they can, but they fall by the wayside for many reasons. You will soon see the information services full of people that think that all of their questions can be answered free of charge by someone else. This is a lazy approach, and you won't learn anything from would be entrepreneurs waiting for answers. You will have done more in your field trip than most people ever do, so learn yourself, find the right information, and carry on. As part of your back up documentation, there should be a time line of what you need to tart: Time and money, of course, but a set of benchmarks to reach is crucial, especially in your early days.

Finally, remember the faces of the people that run these businesses. Are they THAT much different from you? Do they possess something that you don't? Of course not. they do it because they believe. Do you?

Good! Let's get started.

How to make money for free!

You are going to see this kind of headline a lot - in fact, you probably already have. Someone, somewhere offering to 'tell you all of their secrets' for free! Someone giving you "all you need to start a new business for free!". When i began researching my own online business, I actually believed that there was enough around for free that I could fool EVERYONE, get as many of these secrets as I could, and fund my entire venture without spending a penny of my money!!
I wasn't the only one, either. There is no such thing as Free.

Why would someone else offer to do that? Why are they taking money-making ideas that they use, and giving them away to you?
Remember that you found these offers online, and there are millions of users on there at all times. Out of those Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands are looking at these kind of ads. So it may feel as if this entrepreneur is offering this 'once in a lifetime opportunity' directly to you, but he isn't - he's doing it for everyone. His advertising is so good, though, that it hits you where you live: it is personal, it is aimed at you specifically, and it offers you a benefit that you cannot do without at this time. THAT"S the perfect ad, and we will talk about this in another post when we talk about marketing your business.

This isn't to say that these free offers are totally useless - they may be marketing vehicles for someone ele's busines, but they still have value. I was signed up for four of these free offers (on marketing an online business), and received masses of e-mails instructing me on various methods to expand my business. When the stream of e-mails finally quit, I unsubscribed from the sender's e-mails and eventually stopped receiving them. I also had enough raw material to re-write them into an e-book that was almost 100 pages long. I then re-sold these ideas as part of a marketing hook for my own business. Of course, it was basically the same facts that are being re-worded and offered by everyone else, but at least I knew that what I was offering was a real system that would work.

The point of this, though, is that any freebie you are given has a cost to it - either in time, or a sign up vehicle for more outgoings to get more value for your business, and this is what you have to prepare yourself for: Everything costs something in some form or another. Plan ahead to make these sacrifices. Have you ever wondered why your Boss is so unhappy all of the time? it's because he is responsible for more expenses and for more company production than you are. When you go to him and ask him for money, you are the fifth person that day to do so - everyone has their own reasons for doing it, and everyone's reason is the most important. He sees that there is just money going OUT of the company, with no guarantee of earning it back. This is what your business will look like for the first year, so plan ahead in marketing, sales, and any other expense you are going to come across. If you go to a bank or a freind for a loan, they are going to ask why you need it, and you will have to come up with an answer - so face that question with your self first. if you are going to commit $10,000 for your business in the first year, what are you going to spend it on, and what results are you going to get back.

In the mythical plastics factory that will become the analogy for your business, it;s not good continually manufacturing widgets out of lumps of plastic, if you aren't going to have the funds to advertise and market the widget once it's made. If you are going to market a product or service, it has to be made before you sell it. The same is true of an online business. Before you know that you are going to receive money, can you still afford the money to continually advertise it?

It IS all about the money. Over 90% of businesses fail, because they do not have a viable financial plan to get them through the times when they aren't bringing anything in. For start ups, whether online or bricks-and-mortar, those times are in your first year. Make a plan, get some budgeting done, and get ready to spend - because nothing is for free.

Information is power

You ARE going to have to sell and market - everyone does. McDonald's and Starbucks did, Rolls-Royce did. You ARE going to have to do it. Think about that for a second, because only about 10% of us can do it. If you can sell, why aren't you doing it already? If you cannot do it, then your business will go nowhere.
Of course, this doesn't mean face-to-face. it can mean e-mail, or other distance selling and marketing. It can mean using an online persona to market 'on your behalf', but behind everything you do will reflect on you, so prepare yourself now that it will have to be done. It doesn't have to be painful, though. If you are starting out look at Sales as a game with other targets to meet other than selling. This will make the process not only easier, but even enjoyable for all of you shy entreprenuers out there.

You have to know first of all that even if you don't think that you can b 'sold to', you can and you are every second of the day. Get used to that fact and look at every possible moment that you hand over money to someone else - you have been sold.

Last weekend, my wife and I went shopping. It's a weekly chore that millions of people do every week. It's your own free will to do it, and you go where you want to, not where you are told to, right? wrong!

You go to that Mall, because it is close to you, and that is a sales job that has been done to everyone, not just you. Everyone in your neighborhood goes there because they have been sold on it.

My wife went to look at the 'posh frock' shop, because she saw a sale sign and wanted to see if a dress she had previously tried on was now a lower price. The dress, the sale, the timing and the poster are all sales techniques. I went for a Starbucks, becuase I hate the 'guy' chair in those places. So completely sold, it is untrue! I went to Starbucks because I wanted a coffee? No,because I haveSbeen conditioned to go to a coffee store, and to that chain in particular.
Then it was on to Safeway, because it's only next door and is huge, meaning we can make as few a stop as possible: Because they almost seemed to know what we wanted. We were not only sold to go there, we are sold on what to buy!

Sales is simply the gathering of information to ensure that you can offer the best product or service in the shortest possible times. if you knew where a line of people were right now that wanted a red widget - you would buy them,m go there,m and sell to them, right? So make it happen.

When you talk to someone, make it a game. The winner is the one that asks the most questions, the one that comes away with the most information about the other. The questions you need answering are about your service or product, what they want to know is what it will do, why they should have it and how much it costs. This puts you in control, because you know what they are going to ask at some point. This is your assignment. How many times a day do you hand over money? What information is being collected from you, and how does it answer your questions?

Be sure on one point, though: Behind of all these questions is a real person. You have to stand behind your product, and be happy to be doing what you are doing. If you are not, you will not make a sale, because people will not trust you. This is true of either face-to-face, or distance sales. Sooner or later, it comes down to you. Before you start, take a real hard look at your business plan, and be sure that you are ready to not only stand behind it, but to stand for it.
Create your question list, and learn when and how to use them. Then you can sell anyone, anytime on anything. Get their personal information to create a freindship as part of the 'game'.
It takes about 7 touches before a sale is confirmed so be ready to create and strengthen a freindship between introduction and sale. You will learn to talk a lot, say the right things at the right time, and enjoy your sales experience. oh...you will make MONEY TOO.

Mindset: 6 months, 1 week, and 4 days from now

God, How I hate that word! When I was starting out, this is all I ever heard. It prefaced every argument and conversation. I couldn't get a single piece of information without listening to someone question my staying power, and positive mindset.

In one incredibly 'Kafa-esque' episode, I couldn't post on a forum to get answers to similar responses because I was being too negative, and didn't have a positive angle to my question. Considering that my question was about how to get feedback, because I wasn't getting any, there wasn't a way to actually sound 'solution-driven', because I couldn't get assistance in getting my foot on the very first rung of the ladder. Frustrating wasn't the word for how I felt. It was as if having access to the Web had itself become a hindrance.

The question has to be asked, though, and you are the only person that can answer it to your own satisfaction. You have found the gap in the marketplace, and have found the opportunity to fill it. Now comes the tough question to answer: Can you do it? If the question of financial funding isn't tough enough to face, you then have to find the reason WHY you want to do it. Let's go into that a little deeper.

If you have realised that you have something else to offer society, rather than simply earning a salary helping someone else out - known as hiring yourself out for the lowest possible amount to receive the highest workload possible and have someone else get wealthy on the results - then the question you have to answer is this: Do I have what it takes to get to the end of the journey. Because along with opportunity comes responsibility, and if you cannot face the latter, the former is a wasted exercise. No matter how you feel today, amid all of the certainty that this is for you, tempered by the excitement you feel about actually starting to do this, how are you going to feel 6 months, 1 week, and 4 days from now? On that day, you will have to feel the same. You may also be in exactly the same situation you are today, or even worse - you could owe a lot of money, and be honour bound to continue with your new business, already hating both the daily grind, and the decision to go ahead with it in the first place.

Put another way: If you hate life now because the only motivation you have in your life is to get up because you need the money, you may be faced with that every single day, and have added the responsibility of earning it yourself. Now you not only have to roll that boulder uphill, a few weeks or months from now, you will be doing it alone, without the Corporation to lean on. The answer to this is research and information.

You may have gone through an exhausting search to find the business you decided on, and learned a lot about being an entrepreneur along the way. The time spent now researching yourself will pay off in the future. It isn't the product or service you chose that will make things easier for you - it is the certainty in your own success that will. No matter how long it takes, the sacrifices you have to make, the ever changing schedule for success, you have to keep going. Only you can answer these questions. There are books and other tools from a whole host of people telling how they 'made it', and all of them state that they went through hard times to get there. What they won't tell you is how to actually do it, other than persevering, and that is what you have to have: The ability to keep going knowing that the business idea you have had is right, AND you are the right person in the right place at the right time to do it.

While you get up every morning, and feel good about the decision you have made to do this, you have to know that the struggle to get there has to be just as enjoyable as the end result you have in mind. Running your own business means being an accountant, to ensure that every penny spent has some kind of payoff for the business. You have to be in charge of Sales and Marketing, and have the desire to stand up and be seen as the spokesperson of this business. You have to be the CEO, and to make the decision necessary to keep going, change your expenditure, be honest with the Accountant and the Sales Manager about how it is all going, and you have to ask for help from everyone to make some tough decisions.

While you have being doing exercises where every single aspect of the business plan has been ripped apart, parsed, and coldly looked at, the next step is the toughest one of all.
You have to start again with the same exercise, and do it to yourself: About 10% of the population can sell, and that includes being the centre of attention and being proud of what you are doing. Only about 15% of the population can be an accountant without having the years of practice to get there. Can you do it? If you aim to be as successful as a member of the Fortune 500, then that is only a drop in the bucket compared to all business owners out there, not including the 70% or so of all businesses that fail within 5 years. Altogether that puts you in a certain 1% of the population: Not the most talented, not the most committed, or the most creative. It is a mix of all of these and more that matters, but most of all perseverance. Most of all it requires standing in the shower 6 months, 1 week and 4 days from now, looking forward to getting to work, and not being as pissed off at life as you are now.

Mark your calender, and let's see how you feel.

Your new Business

Chances are that you found this through a web search of some kind, and are looking for the 'secret' to making your future better, by becoming an entrepreneur of some kind.
It's a good bet that you are a beginner, and want as much information as possible, and do not want to pay for it. Good - you have come to the right place.

Any business venture, either online or a 'bricks-and-mortar' enterprise, must do one simple thing: Fill a need. The more needs it fills, or the better needs it fills, the more successful it becomes.

What is your need, and how are you going to fill it?

Every business requires customers: people who will pay for the answer to their need. Who has a need that requires an answer? Where are they? What are they currently doing about it? When do they require it to be done? Why do they need a new answer.

These simple '5W's' are the basis of almost every conversation in our lives. Can you answer them?

It's time to start making lists. Answer each of these questions with four businesses that you know, or have heard of, and see how established businesses have answered them. Think basically, not advanced thought: McDonald's sells cheap food, BECAUSE PEOPLE WANT IT. They have been moving toward a faster, more mobile lifestyle for over 40 years, and now require food that is filling (if not exactly wholesome!) NOW - not the traditional way of eating.

Answer these questions, and put your business ideas to the test, because your first sober, cold-light-of-day, question is more basic than you think but it is often overlooked.

Should this business be launched at all?

More soon....