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Other Added - How To Make More Money
Many folks know that our nation and business community is being turned over to the lawyers and therefore many parents want their kids to become a lawyer. But which kind of law should they practice?Should they become a class-action lawyer, which often destroy jobs in America and rape Corporations like John Edwards? Should they become a lawyer and then become a district attorney and parlay that into becoming a politician? One would suppose if misrepresentation runs in your family genes then that would make sense. Two-thirds of our politicians are lawyers and all the Judicial Branch.Franchise Law is a good place to work because you are dealing with a business model, which works best when there is a win/win situation. For instance when the franchisee makes money the franchisor is happy because they make money, extend brand name and are able to sell even more franchises.When a franchisee buys a franchise he or she is basically leasing a business plan, model and brand name for the duration of the franchise term. These agreements are therefore quite lengthy and this means a challenge to keep up with them. If you are considering becoming an attorney then perhaps franchise law might be right for you. Consider all this in 2006.
3. All of your communication must be emotionally impactful.
Anyone can quote statistics or develop an advertisement on a cognitive level, but the most effective way to ensure an impact on your clients is to communicate with them on an emotional level. You must find their "pain." What is it about their business, life, family, time, or environment that is causing pain? Are they not working or working too much? Is their business growing too fast or too slow? Is their family falling apart? Do they feel too old or overweight? Do they have a hard time tracking their projects or employees? Find their pain and communicate with them on an emotional level about how you can help heal their pain and make their business, life, family, time or environment pleasurable.
ACTION STEP: List all of the things you want your customer to feel when they think of your company: excitement about the future, feeling younger or prettier, more balance, more fun, more time, closer to t
Package Inserts – If you’re going to mail out a product or package to a customer anyway, always tuck a sales letter for another product in the package. It won’t cost you any more, and when your customer receives that package, he or she will be pleased with the product (assuming your product isn’t junk) and be more favorable towards another purchase from you. You can also joint venture with other companies that target your niche market and get them to include your insert when shipping their product.Mini-seminars – A great way to bundle up all of your products and services and sell them from the platform. It’s very inexpensive to rent a hall and put on a 2 hour presentation for your target market on something that interests them. You position yourself as the expert, and you get to pitch your products and services. Be sure to record the event and offer it to other prospects who may not be able to attend the presentation in person.JP Maroney (http://www.jpmaroney.com) did this for a shoestring cost and raked in six figures as a result. Michel Fortin (http://www.successdoctor.com) has done this also, repeatedly, and to my knowledge has never failed to make money. Look at the model of the Big Seminar (http://www.bigseminar.com). Speakers don’t get paid, but still make money by pitching the
The biggest crime in small business today is the crime of being forgotten. Think about it-you can recover from most other crimes by installing an alarm system, filing patents, or buying insurance, but if your business falls victim to the crime of being forgotten it is on the fast track to failure. There are opportunities every day for your business to be forgotten by existing clients, potential clients, your best employees, surrounding businesses, your neighborhood, vendors, the media, and your potential investors.
SIGNS OF THE CRIME
Have you fallen victim to the crime of being forgotten? Here are some of the signs of being forgotten:
• Lowered top line sales
• Few people visiting your website
• Less customer inquiries
• Losing large accounts
• Losing long-time accounts
• High employee turnover
• Inability to attract top candidates to help run your business
• No "new" news
• Fewer repeat buyers
• Less revenue
STEPS TO SOLVE THE CRIME
There are many things you can do as a small business owner to help people remember you. I am not of the opinion that hiring a big PR company is the only solution. Here are some things you can implement today:
1. Focus on the question that every customer and client wants to know: What's in it for me?
At the end of the day, every client is selfish. With so many things out there vying for their time, attention and money, they have become more and more cynical and self-centered. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but more a self-protective measure.
Your job as a small business owner is to tell them what your service can do for them personally and remember-they do not want to spend time looking for the answer. The answer to this question must be one of the first things your clients see on your website and in your company-wide communications. If your clients are going to remember you, you must first answer the question "What's in it for them?"
ACTION STEP: List everything your client receives from your service or product. Closely examine all of your corporate communications with a critical eye. How accurately and consistent are they in answering this question to your clients and customers?
2. What differentiates your service or product from everyone else?
If you believe there is nothing new under the sun then you must recognize that for every product or service you provide, chances are very good that someone, somewhere else does almost exactly what you do.
Then the question becomes, not WHAT do you do, but HOW you do it. In other words, what is your U.S.P.-your "unique selling proposition"? What can a client get from you that they cannot get from anyone else? Perhaps it is your broad-based expertise or that every solution is completely customized to meet their needs or your company's 100% satisfaction guarantee. You must determine what differentiates your business from anyone else and market that point.
When defining your U.S.P., one of the keys to being remembered is to not use either of these two characteristics: quality or service. The reason is that EVERY business says they provide quality and service (even though we know they don't). Therefore quality and service have become meaningless when it comes to differentiating your service because every customer EXPECTS quality and service and will not do business with any company that doesn't have both already. Your U.S.P must be creative, yet accurately reflect who you are and what you offer that no one else does.
ACTION STEP: Set aside a few hours this week to brainstorm with your partner and employees on what your company offers that other companies do not. Do some research to find out how other companies in your field are differentiating themselves. Be sure to develop a U.S.P that your clients will not confuse with your competition's.
3. All of your communication must be emotionally impactful.
Anyone can quote statistics or develop an advertisement on a cognitive level, but the most effective way to ensure an impact on your clients is to communicate with them on an emotional level. You must find their "pain." What is it about their business, life, family, time, or environment that is causing pain? Are they not working or working too much? Is their business growing too fast or too slow? Is their family falling apart? Do they feel too old or overweight? Do they have a hard time tracking their projects or employees? Find their pain and communicate with them on an emotional level about how you can help heal their pain and make their business, life, family, time or environment pleasurable.
ACTION STEP: List all of the things you want your customer to feel when they think of your company: excitement about the future, feeling younger or prettier, more balance, more fun, more time, closer to t
How detailed is your marketing plan? Are you using the best resources? How achievable are your goals? Do you have the patience to see your efforts pay off?Research shows that 73% of entrepreneurs do not recognize what’s involved to be successful.Excited about their new venture, they can be overly optimistic about achievable sales. Many think that within a short time and with some effort, sales will begin to roll in. I know I did. This thinking, in most cases, is triggered by the hyped claims that draw in new participants with promises of fast riches. That, along with the “I want it now” attitude.At the start, many preliminary steps must be taken to set the snowball in motion. Once it’s started, it must be constantly pushed along the path one day at a time until it picks up momentum. Think of it as learning to walk. You didn’t just pop out of your crib one day and high tail it down the street. It took time to develop the strength and the knowledge for you to progress from crawling to walking and finally, to running.New business operators also underestimate how much money is required to start a business and finance the stages of growth. It’s important to understand how much work and what steps are involved. Then you can better determine the length of time it will take to
SIGNS OF THE CRIME
Have you fallen victim to the crime of being forgotten? Here are some of the signs of being forgotten:
• Lowered top line sales
• Few people visiting your website
• Less customer inquiries
• Losing large accounts
• Losing long-time accounts
• High employee turnover
• Inability to attract top candidates to help run your business
• No "new" news
• Fewer repeat buyers
• Less revenue
STEPS TO SOLVE THE CRIME
There are many things you can do as a small business owner to help people remember you. I am not of the opinion that hiring a big PR company is the only solution. Here are some things you can implement today:
1. Focus on the question that every customer and client wants to know: What's in it for me?
At the end of the day, every client is selfish. With so many things out there vying for their time, attention and money, they have become more and more cynical and self-centered. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but more a self-protective measure.
Your job as a small business owner is to tell them what your service can do for them personally and remember-they do not want to spend time looking for the answer. The answer to this question must be one of the first things your clients see on your website and in your company-wide communications. If your clients are going to remember you, you must first answer the question "What's in it for them?"
ACTION STEP: List everything your client receives from your service or product. Closely examine all of your corporate communications with a critical eye. How accurately and consistent are they in answering this question to your clients and customers?
2. What differentiates your service or product from everyone else?
If you believe there is nothing new under the sun then you must recognize that for every product or service you provide, chances are very good that someone, somewhere else does almost exactly what you do.
Then the question becomes, not WHAT do you do, but HOW you do it. In other words, what is your U.S.P.-your "unique selling proposition"? What can a client get from you that they cannot get from anyone else? Perhaps it is your broad-based expertise or that every solution is completely customized to meet their needs or your company's 100% satisfaction guarantee. You must determine what differentiates your business from anyone else and market that point.
When defining your U.S.P., one of the keys to being remembered is to not use either of these two characteristics: quality or service. The reason is that EVERY business says they provide quality and service (even though we know they don't). Therefore quality and service have become meaningless when it comes to differentiating your service because every customer EXPECTS quality and service and will not do business with any company that doesn't have both already. Your U.S.P must be creative, yet accurately reflect who you are and what you offer that no one else does.
ACTION STEP: Set aside a few hours this week to brainstorm with your partner and employees on what your company offers that other companies do not. Do some research to find out how other companies in your field are differentiating themselves. Be sure to develop a U.S.P that your clients will not confuse with your competition's.
3. All of your communication must be emotionally impactful.
Anyone can quote statistics or develop an advertisement on a cognitive level, but the most effective way to ensure an impact on your clients is to communicate with them on an emotional level. You must find their "pain." What is it about their business, life, family, time, or environment that is causing pain? Are they not working or working too much? Is their business growing too fast or too slow? Is their family falling apart? Do they feel too old or overweight? Do they have a hard time tracking their projects or employees? Find their pain and communicate with them on an emotional level about how you can help heal their pain and make their business, life, family, time or environment pleasurable.
ACTION STEP: List all of the things you want your customer to feel when they think of your company: excitement about the future, feeling younger or prettier, more balance, more fun, more time, closer to t
If you will stay with me a while, I am going to tell three related stories and then make a point...I promise!Story number one goes back to the days when I was a truck driving instructor. Many new truck drivers are very cautious, and even frightened at first. It is not unusual for a student driver to drive verrrry slowly. However, one young lady was going at incredibly slow speeds in all circumstances, and nothing I could do could get her to speed it up a little. She constantly spoke about never having made any real money in her life, and this gave me an idea.One day, I said, "Shirley, how would you like a $4,000 a year raise?"She said she'd love that, so I went on. "The company is going to pay you 25 cents a mile when you start driving full time. Let's say you can safely improve your speed and efficiency by 10 miles per hour. You will easily drive 50 hours a week or even more. That's at least an extra 500 miles a week. Over the course of a year, even if you only did that 65% of the time, and took a two week vacation, you would still make an extra $4,000.00 a year or more."After that, Shirley speeded up quite a bit and turned into a fine driver.Story number two happened a few days ago.Several years ago, I put my daughter, a single mother, in one of
Your job as a small business owner is to tell them what your service can do for them personally and remember-they do not want to spend time looking for the answer. The answer to this question must be one of the first things your clients see on your website and in your company-wide communications. If your clients are going to remember you, you must first answer the question "What's in it for them?"
ACTION STEP: List everything your client receives from your service or product. Closely examine all of your corporate communications with a critical eye. How accurately and consistent are they in answering this question to your clients and customers?
2. What differentiates your service or product from everyone else?
If you believe there is nothing new under the sun then you must recognize that for every product or service you provide, chances are very good that someone, somewhere else does almost exactly what you do.
Then the question becomes, not WHAT do you do, but HOW you do it. In other words, what is your U.S.P.-your "unique selling proposition"? What can a client get from you that they cannot get from anyone else? Perhaps it is your broad-based expertise or that every solution is completely customized to meet their needs or your company's 100% satisfaction guarantee. You must determine what differentiates your business from anyone else and market that point.
When defining your U.S.P., one of the keys to being remembered is to not use either of these two characteristics: quality or service. The reason is that EVERY business says they provide quality and service (even though we know they don't). Therefore quality and service have become meaningless when it comes to differentiating your service because every customer EXPECTS quality and service and will not do business with any company that doesn't have both already. Your U.S.P must be creative, yet accurately reflect who you are and what you offer that no one else does.
ACTION STEP: Set aside a few hours this week to brainstorm with your partner and employees on what your company offers that other companies do not. Do some research to find out how other companies in your field are differentiating themselves. Be sure to develop a U.S.P that your clients will not confuse with your competition's.
3. All of your communication must be emotionally impactful.
Anyone can quote statistics or develop an advertisement on a cognitive level, but the most effective way to ensure an impact on your clients is to communicate with them on an emotional level. You must find their "pain." What is it about their business, life, family, time, or environment that is causing pain? Are they not working or working too much? Is their business growing too fast or too slow? Is their family falling apart? Do they feel too old or overweight? Do they have a hard time tracking their projects or employees? Find their pain and communicate with them on an emotional level about how you can help heal their pain and make their business, life, family, time or environment pleasurable.
ACTION STEP: List all of the things you want your customer to feel when they think of your company: excitement about the future, feeling younger or prettier, more balance, more fun, more time, closer to t
Wise experienced leaders from all walks of life tell me that personal reflection is one their most valuable tools for remaining effective and ahead of the game.When I seek to pass this advice on to my clients, I often get this question "How does one effectively reflect?"Reflection is the point of maximum learning from one's experiences. Whilst experience is learning, reflection about the experience provides even more learning.To maximise the learning opportunity from reflection, create a simple process that enables you to think clearly and record your reflections.Here are some tips you can adapt to suit yourself.1. Choose a regular time to reflect, say 20 minutes early in the morning or at a quiet time in the evening.2. Choose a quiet place with no disturbances such as phones or TV.3. Keep a reflection journal to record insights, thoughts or decisions you make.4. Play soft music - 60 beat per minute works well, or baroque music.5. Choose a specific experience; event; time block; or relationship for reflection.6. Ask yourself a series of questions that stimulates deeper and improved insights about the topic of reflection.7. Here are a series of questions you can build upon or adapt to suit yourself: -a. What are yo
When defining your U.S.P., one of the keys to being remembered is to not use either of these two characteristics: quality or service. The reason is that EVERY business says they provide quality and service (even though we know they don't). Therefore quality and service have become meaningless when it comes to differentiating your service because every customer EXPECTS quality and service and will not do business with any company that doesn't have both already. Your U.S.P must be creative, yet accurately reflect who you are and what you offer that no one else does.
ACTION STEP: Set aside a few hours this week to brainstorm with your partner and employees on what your company offers that other companies do not. Do some research to find out how other companies in your field are differentiating themselves. Be sure to develop a U.S.P that your clients will not confuse with your competition's.
3. All of your communication must be emotionally impactful.
Anyone can quote statistics or develop an advertisement on a cognitive level, but the most effective way to ensure an impact on your clients is to communicate with them on an emotional level. You must find their "pain." What is it about their business, life, family, time, or environment that is causing pain? Are they not working or working too much? Is their business growing too fast or too slow? Is their family falling apart? Do they feel too old or overweight? Do they have a hard time tracking their projects or employees? Find their pain and communicate with them on an emotional level about how you can help heal their pain and make their business, life, family, time or environment pleasurable.
ACTION STEP: List all of the things you want your customer to feel when they think of your company: excitement about the future, feeling younger or prettier, more balance, more fun, more time, closer to t
The Super Bowl is a game but, like sports in general, it offers useful life lessons that we can take with us . . . if we only look below the surface. As I watched the game, I saw a number of things. How many did you see?1. Winning is a team effort. The teams that make it to the game don’t get there by accident. There are teams of planners and leaders who are constantly evaluating player performance and performing competitive analysis of the team and its capabilities with others. Scouts are looking to improve it. A GM looks at the draft and player cost to see where he can improve. Trainers and doctors are reviewing medicals. And then the coaches start getting involved.You need to look at your own career in the same way in advance of when you need to make a job change. What is the market like for what you do? Do you excel, are you ordinary or below average? What can I do to upgrade my skills before management starts looking for lower cost alternatives? What is my real value (and understand that is a changing figure both up AND down)?2. It is important to network to develop close and effective relationships with other professionals in your field. When management starts looking to hire new players, they are working with player agents who they often know from other negotiations. Do
3. All of your communication must be emotionally impactful.
Anyone can quote statistics or develop an advertisement on a cognitive level, but the most effective way to ensure an impact on your clients is to communicate with them on an emotional level. You must find their "pain." What is it about their business, life, family, time, or environment that is causing pain? Are they not working or working too much? Is their business growing too fast or too slow? Is their family falling apart? Do they feel too old or overweight? Do they have a hard time tracking their projects or employees? Find their pain and communicate with them on an emotional level about how you can help heal their pain and make their business, life, family, time or environment pleasurable.
ACTION STEP: List all of the things you want your customer to feel when they think of your company: excitement about the future, feeling younger or prettier, more balance, more fun, more time, closer to their friends, better organized, safer, etc. Evaluate how well your current communication creates this feeling and specific areas where you want to improve.
4. Distinguish your benefits from your features and communicate them clearly.
Features are what your product or service does. Benefits are why your client needs your product or service. For example, a famous company advertises "our servers allow your website to be up and running 99.999% of the time." That is a feature, but you must also tell your client what the benefit of this is to them. Well, if their on-line business sells $200,000 worth of product every day, then being on-line only 98% of the time will cost them serious money in lost sales. For every feature you have, you must tell your client what the benefit is. Is your product better, faster, cleaner, guaranteed or longer-lasting? Will your service create more clients, decrease turnover, or increase margins? These are all great features, but you must tell your clients how this benefits them specifically.
You must get in front of your potential market and detail your specific benefits. Build value into what you do and how you do it. If you fail to clearly communicate what your benefits are to customers, rest assured-your competition will.
ACTION STEP: Take a piece of paper and draw two columns on it. Label on side "Features" and the other "Benefits." List all of the features of your service or product and for every feature state what the benefit is to your target client. Integrate these statements into all of your communication efforts on a regular basis.
5. Reduce the risk of working with you.
Many entrepreneurs have products or services that are similar to what much larger, more established companies have. Why should your potential customer buy your product over the big company's product? Are they taking a risk with a company that may not be around 5 or 10 years from now? Will your 10 year guarantee really mean anything in 10 years?
While no one can predict the future of your business, the smart business owner recognizes the need to develop creative ways to reduce the risk of their clients in working with them.
ACTION STEPS: List what your company is doing to reduce the risk potential customers see in working with a small, entrepreneurial business. Do you offer a written guarantee? Will you stand behind it? Do you offer a trial period? How have you achieved success with other clients? Will you provide them with case studies on previous clients? Do you have a strong reference list?
6. How effective is your cheapest form of advertisement-your business card?
Examine your business card as if you were one of your target customers. Does it tell them succinctly who you are, what you do and how you can help them? If not, perhaps it is time to redesign it.
ACTION STEP: Ask several of your existing clients what they think of your business card. What does it say to them? Is it memorable? How could you improve on it? Thank them for their suggestions and implement them in your redesign.
7. Can people find your product or services on the internet?
Near the beginning of the internet age only Fortune 500 companies had websites. It was seen as a sign of being on the "cutting edge." Today that perception has changed. More and more consumers perceive a website as a sign of legitimacy. Many consumers now believe the lack of a company website to be a sign of a questionable business. With an increasing number of ways to create a decent website on a small budget ($2000-$5000), lack of money is not an acceptable excuse any more. Not every business will benefit from having a web presence, but most will. The question is not, "how long can I get away with not having a website?" but, "how many potential customers am I loosing without having a website?" A good website can be a great source of passive income.
For those of you who already have a website, how many of you regularly profit from it? How many people are visiting your website every week? What is your conversion rate for these visitors? What percentage of your existing customers found you from your site? How can you better serve your existing clients on your website? What are you doing to increase the visibility of your site on search engines?
ACTION STEP: If you do not have a website you should have
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