Tag Archives for " young entrepreneurs "

0 How to Develop Entrepreneurial Thinking Skills and a Marketing Savvy Mindset

Today’s post is reprinted with permission from Adam Urbanski

Millionaire Marketing Mentor

 

This past weekend I received a disturbing message from a dear friend. His business wasn’t generating all the income he needed. He’s exhausted all savings, started depleting credit card reserves and badly needed money to pay this month’s mortgage... Ouch! I wish I knew sooner…

Whether it’s pride or just human nature that keeps professionals from asking for help sooner, it’s just plain silly to keep “toughing it out” when there are so many strategies for generating new business fast.

You see, there is really no shortage of new business, there is only a shortage of knowledge how to get this business.

So if you are one of those professional folks who could use a few hundred bucks to help out with this month’s mortgage, here are a few strategies to get your business buzzing with new customers or clients:

1. Get on the phone!

Pick up the phone and call everyone you know. Contact all clients, prospects, friends and family. Make sure they all know what you do, who you are looking for as a client, and how to “give you away.”

2. Get out and meet people!

Sitting in the office, shuffling paperwork and piddling around with emails will not take you far enough fast enough. You need to be talking to people who can buy your product or service. Set a goal of how many people you want to see in person every day and find ways to meet that goal!

3. Stop competing and start leveraging!

Instead of being mad at your competitors for stealing all your business, approach them and offer to help out. At times we all get projects that are too big, too small, or too “whatever” for us to take on.

Contact your competitors and ask if they would be willing to outsource their “too whatever” jobs to you – so that you can both make some dough. (Yeah, I know, it sounds like eating some humble pie – but hey, I think it beats living under a bridge 😉

4. Ask for referrals!

You should be doing this anyway. Have a conversation with all clients (past and current) and help them think of people they can introduce you to right away. Oh, and don’t forget – just because a prospect says “no”, it doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t know someone who would gladly say “yes”.

5. Crank up your follow-up!

Do you have a stack of cards from people who turned you down once before? Maybe it’s time to resurrect them. Reach out to your “old” prospects – even if you previously gave up on them. Give them a call, send them a postcard or an article, and give them a special reason to say “yes” now!

6. Forgive your ex-clients!

Frequently ex-clients realize they made a mistake by getting involved with another vendor – but they are too embarrassed to admit it. Give them a way to gracefully come back to you and many will do it.

7. Catch a COI!

Form an alliance with Centers of Influence who can introduce to a large number of prospects at once and give you instant credibility. Well thought out and carefully executed strategic alliances with COI can infuse your business with all the new sales you can handle.

8. Educate, educate, educate!

Regardless of what business you are in you can always find things your clients and prospects would appreciate learning from you. How-to tips, informative case studies, industry reports – those are all great tools that can easily attract prospects hungry for your “stuff.”

9. Start thinking strategically!

If you are having trouble attracting enough new business, the marketing tactics above should help you get things hopping, but to achieve a long-term sustainable success you’ll need to address your marketing on a strategic level.

Identify or re-evaluate your ideal target market, clearly describe the benefits your product or service provides, create a compelling marketing message, re-evaluate your business model and re-define your methods of delivering your product or service, etc., etc.

10. Stop getting and start giving!

When you are in the “how I can GET a client” mode, you are focused on you – and that doesn’t make you very attractive. Shift your thinking to “how I can GIVE clients more VALUE” and you’ll become an irresistible client magnet!

11. GET HELP!

When you are in the midst of a demanding situation you cannot always have the clarity needed to creating solutions. Collaborate with a successful associate, start your own board of advisors or a mastermind group, or hire a marketing mentor to pull you out of the quicksand. Remember, when time and money count – you can’t afford the expensive “trial and error” learning curve!

Oh, and one final thought – now that you are done reading – get busy implementing!

The Author, Adam Urbanski, The Marketing Mentor, helps Service Professionals and Small Business Owners attract more clients. http://www.themarketingmentors.com

• Do you worry that you don’t have what it takes to help tweens, teens and young adults achieve the success of their dreams?
• Are you frustrated because it seems like every time you try to communicate with your kids, it turns into an argument?
• Are you looking for new strategies and tools to empower your kids to take responsibility for their actions and for their future?

If you answered yes to any of these questions,

The Youth Empowerment Telesummit is meant for you!

 You can OWN this amazing content filled series The Youth Empowerment Telesummit.  The program will provide you with practical, easy to implement strategies to engage the tweens, teens and young adults in your life to improve communication, build trust, and empower them with life skills.

Own It Today!

 

0 What is Being Asked?

I was just checking in with some of the groups I’m involved with on one of the social media sites and left with a take-away that is a great lesson for young entrepreneurs or anyone really.  Briefly, one person asked if anyone had suggestions on what skills to teach young people before they leave home to live on their own.

Immediately, as a life skills professional, I thought of at least 20 things that I could list for her.  Not wanting to repeat what others contributed, I read all of the replies.  My immediate thought was, “huh?”

Interestingly enough, not one of the replies provided what she was asking for.  Each and every person who responded gave her a list of core values that kids should have to be a good person; things like courage, perseverance, integrity, honesty and other such qualities.

“Hmmm,” I thought, I wrote a book about all these things – 31 Powerful Lessons Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop An Entrepreneur Mindset, yet, I didn’t get the sense that this is what the poster was asking about.  She said “skills” not values or qualities.  I had to wonder if maybe I had misunderstood what she was asking for because all of these other people were answering the same way.

Then, the poster appeared again and thanked everyone for their thoughtful answers and asked if they could now provide some simple skills like how to do laundry.  That made me laugh because I had been doubting myself and wondering if all these seemingly unrelated answers were what she was looking for.

Only one of the previous posters came back and suggested she teach them how to use a bank.  I posted my reply listing about 20 skills.

So, you are probably wondering what my take away is? It is just that you should be very sure what someone is asking for  before you answer because someone like me, who does understand, will come along behind you and wonder why you didn’t get that question before you provided an unrelated answer.  You then appear as some who is confused, unsure, or disconnected.  If you aren’t sure, ask the poster for clarification.  It’s a good lesson that we often see the world from our point of view, but that isn’t necessarily what someone else is asking for.

I think it comes down to being a good reader in the same way you need to be a good listener.  Take a moment to really read what is being asked and if what you want to say really answers the question or not.  This poster specifically asked about “skills” not values or qualities.  She was looking for answers that included teaching kids to cook, how to search for an apartment and understand a rental agreement, how to buy and care for clothes, how to access health care, and so one.

What would you have provided as an answer to her question?  Do you know the difference between skills and values?  An entrepreneur would certainly know the difference.

2 Praise for Pick from the Passion Tree – Empowering Young Entrepreneurs to Start a Business

I am very excited to share with you some of the wonderful comments I have received for my new book, Pick from the Passion Tree – Empowering Young Entrepreneurs to Start a Business.

This book was born during an Ultimate Blog Challenge last year and it is scheduled to go to the printer this coming week and I will begin promotion shortly.  The book will be available only on my website for a while and then on Clickbank.  I might also list it with some of the larger book sellers, however, I will not list it on Kindle again.  I was not happy with the Kindle experience and the fact that you cannot do any other thing with your book while it’s on Kindle for 90 days.  The free days were a huge success, but there were no Kindle sales after that.  I did much better on my own.

Without further ado, here are the wonderful things being said about the book.

Julia is the sweetest person I know with an amazing heart and a fierce dedication to young people having the opportunity to live their dreams.  This book she has written empowers young people to get into the right mindset about becoming entrepreneurs and starting their own business.  Every young person in high school should have a copy of this book so they can have choices about their future and the opportunity to have the lifestyle they dream of.   

Rich German, Epic Coach Academy, Author, Monetize Your Passion, follow your hear and create life’s ultimate win-win-win

The world is changing at an unprecedented rate.  The old adage of “get a good education, get a good job and you’ll be set for life” no longer exists.  The time is now to chart your own path and start your own business that will set the world on fire.  Julia Neiman’s, Pick from the Passion Tree, provides some great information to get you thinking and moving in the right direction.

Bob Proctor, best-selling author, You Were Born Rich

What I like about Julia is that she marches to her own drum.  She doesn’t tell young people what to think or what to do, she empowers them to think for themselves and hands them all their own drums.  I love that she is empowering young people to become entrepreneurs.

Adam Urbanski, The Millionaire Mentor

Julia Neiman is on a mission to make dreams come true! Her powerful book for teens and young adults is chock-full of provocative questions, inspiring stories, uplifting quotes, and most importantly—action steps. In this easy-to-digest and enjoyable-to-read book, Julia takes potential young entrepreneurs on a journey from picking their passions to promoting their products. Her holistic and thorough approach is a must-read for any young person who is considering starting a business. (Heck, a budding entrepreneur of any age will love it!)

Sherry Richert Belul, founder of Simply Celebrate and former editor for Nickelodeon’s ParentsConnect.

Entrepreneurs may think big, but they know that small focused simple shifts and daily actions are what make them successful. The step by step approach of Julia Neiman’s, Pick From The Passion Tree creates an easy to read and easy to follow path for the young entrepreneur. Julia has a way of challenging young people to think big while guiding them with questions that will empower them to make decisions as they set off towards their own success.

Alisa Ugalde, Entrepreneur, Claim Your Clients.com.

In today’s fast pace and information overload it’s enough to give anyone a serious case of overwhelm and procrastination.  Julia helps you get your breakthrough by giving you a thorough overview, plus totally breaks it down to the basic level.  The core statement which really brought it home for me was, “When you’re searching for your passion, it’s important to pursue things that you enjoy for one reason…to find your passion, you need to dedicate yourself to a cause”.  I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially teens and young adults who need to “work out what’s important in their lives, follow their passion and set out on the entrepreneurial path, today!”

Keith LeBlanc RPh.  Social Media Strategy Consultant

One of the challenges of the next decade is how we’re going to create enough jobs -especially for young people. Recession or no recession, the nature of work is changing, workforces are shrinking in the major companies, new patterns are emerging.

The most important is the growth of self-employment and new start-ups.  Already numbers in the US and across Europe are at record highs, and that’s where most of the growth in the employment market is coming from.  Some commentators predict that half the US workforce could be employed in micro-businesses by 2020.

It’s for them that Julia Neiman has written her book, Pick From the Passion Tree – Empowering Young Entrepreneurs to Start a Business.  She challenges young people to work out what’s important in their lives, follow their passion and set out on the entrepreneurial path … today!

Alan Miles, Human Resources Consultant, Achievement Management Specialist

 

Only 33 hours left to be eligible for the VIP Upgrade at The Youth Empowerment Telesummit.  Take advantage NOW, before the prices increase dramatically!  Own this amazing content filled series that will provide you with practical, easy to implement strategies to engage the tweens, teens and young adults in your life to improve communication, build trust, and empower them with life skills.

2 Success is Relative

Day Two of the UBC.  No need to leave a comment today – that function is still being fixed.

Currently, I am hosting The Youth Empowerment Telesummit.  It’s a gathering of 18 parenting and life skills professionals who are talking about current trends and strategies in parenting and life skills training.  The interviews have been great and the information shared is fantastic.  In that aspect, it was a huge success.

However, success is relative – relative to what the goals are.  Obviously the overall mission was to get this information out to the people who need it – parents, teachers, coaches, mentors and anyone really who works with tweens, teens and young adults.   One of the business objectives was to add 1000 names to my list.  That didn’t happen.  There was a gain for certain, but not anywhere close to 1000.  Considering some of the speakers, that was an entirely obtainable number.

So what happened that we didn’t have a lot more registrations?  After all, the event was free and we offered replays.  Well, some of the speakers may not have promoted as much as they could have, I think that much is obvious.  Some simply clicked like every time I put something on the Facebook page.  I started posting on the speakers’ Facebook pages and that always got one or two more registrations.

Could it have been the copy?  Very possible.   I used to be a great writer, now not so much.  My coach and fellow classmates have been great about feedback and suggestions.  I sort of have to march to my drum because my business isn’t about helping others break through to seven figures or get more clients.  I am trying to attract the people I mentioned above.   Maybe I didn’t make it interesting enough.  Most days, it was all I could do to get those emails out with the call in information and replay links.

The event isn’t over yet and I’ll continue to analyze the numbers and figure out why there wasn’t more participation.  I can say I learned a lot of lessons so far and there are more to be learned before this over.   The feedback from those who listened to the talks was very positive and that makes me feel great.  The Youth Empowerment Telesummit website turned out great – the art work was from Fiverr, and the graphic for the CD package we’re selling looks great.   All the systems I need to do this again are in place so there will be a lot less work involved for the next time.  I’ve developed some great relationships from this project and added to my professional network and support system.  So all in all, I think this was a huge success and there will be a next time.

So what does this have to do with empowering young adults to develop an entrepreneur mindset?  I’m sharing my experience so they can see what is involved and how to look at things that don’t work out the way you want them to.  There’s success even in things that don’t work out exactly the way you want them to and it’s all about attitude.

I will be blogging more about the event and may even turn this into a Kindle single entitled How To Have a Telesummit Without Exploding Your Head.

If you are interested in The Youth Empowerment Telesummit, you can find the link here – http://TheYouthEmpowermentTelesummit.com.  And you can also reach it from our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Youth-Empowerment-Telesummit/158566284296005.

If you’d like to purchase the recording of the event, you can find that information on either one of those pages and be eligible for our VIP discount through April 14^th when the price will increase by a lot.

 

19 Choosing Your Online Business Model

There are many internet- based business models to choose from, however, they are broken down into two types – low traffic and high traffic.  My personal online business falls in the low traffic category, however, that will change to be a combination of both once my new program is launched.

Since there is a large learning curve on the internet, it’s a good idea to start out with a low traffic model.  Service based businesses are considered low traffic.  A sales site such as an ecommerce store is a high traffic business because the volume of traffic has to be high in order to make money.

Examples of high traffic business models includes low price products, the sale of merchandise, ebooks, videos, webinars, online courses or a combination of all of those.  It also includes paid subscriptions to newsletters, ezines, community membership sites, affiliate marketing, adsense sites and blogging.

Low traffic business model examples include mid to high priced products or training courses, coaching, consulting, freelancing, speaker services, and higher priced services, membership sites and others.

As you can see, there are similar types of models in both the high and low traffic categories – the higher priced your service or product, the less traffic you need to make money.

Let’s take a look at the six most popular models of online businesses.

1.     Blogging

A blog is simply an online journal of sorts.  You decide how many times a week you are going to post a new article, then write something to post on your blog.  Through Google you can add advertisements to your page, called AdSense.  The idea is that you drive traffic to your blog and they click on the ads and you make money.  The drawback is that for you to make money doing this, you have to really understand SEO and Google rankings, or hire someone that does.

My blog is a page on my website http://www.julianeiman.com/blog where I post articles relating to empowering teens and young adults to become entrepreneurs.  The majority of my articles are geared toward this topic.   I do not use Adsense though.  My blog is an addition to my online business rather than a business itself.

Right now I am not consistent with how often I post an article because I’ve been busy creating a new program.  However, I participated in several blog challenges where you post a new blog every day and other people comment and share your blog with the goal being to increase awareness of your business and traffic to the blog.  I used the posts from two of the challenges to write this book and my first book, 31 Powerful Lessons Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset.

2.      Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is where you make money through commissions from selling other people’s products.  This works if don’t have a product of your own to sell.  However, be aware that affiliate marketing is a high traffic model.  The person whose product or services you are selling has all the systems in place, you sign up with them, get your personal affiliate code, then hit the internet to promote their product.  I am an affiliate for the Word Press Store and for several coaches who sell expensive programs, or what’s commonly called big ticket products.

Once you drive traffic to their business, it’s up to them to make the sale and you receive whatever commission they are offering.  I earned two $1000 commissions when two people signed up for an online course that cost in excess of $3000 and I receive commission from time to time when someone uses my link to purchase the Word Press Estore, the Affiliate Software or other products.

You can do affiliate marketing through Clickbank as well.  They have a large database of products to choose from.  Find several that interest you, sign up and start promoting.

3.     Information Products

People that create and sell information products are often called Infopreneurs.  This is where you are selling information products that teach people how to do things.  For example, “How to Market Online,” “How to Buy a Car,” “How to Cook Chicken.”  The topics are only limited by your imagination.  You can also sell information products that are created by others if they have the resell rights attached.  Make sure you have permission to sell someone else’s work before you do.

You need to develop some skills to be an infopreneur.  You need to be able to either create or locate products with great content that people want.  You need to be able to drive traffic to your site in order to make sales, and you need to have some sales ability in order to convince people that this product is a good investment and will help them either solve a problem or learn how to do something.

Once you have these skills, you are in a position to make a nice income as information products are the top selling products on the internet.

4.     Ecommerce Sites

An ecommerce site is online retail store.  You can create your own store front of buy one from a company that is already set up.  This is called a “turn-key business.”  A turn-key business is like an online franchise.  The person you buy they store from usually has additional fees aside from the purchase price so do your homework before deciding to go this route.

Ecommerce sites are more difficult to position in terms of ranking in the search engines because they don’t often have fresh content.  You might want to add a blog to your ecommerce site so you do have fresh content and are consistently updating.  You can sell your own products if you have them to sell, like shoes, or car products, musical instruments, jewelry and just about anything that is legal.  You have choices here too.  You can keep your own inventory, or use a drop-shipper.  A drop-shipper is a company that stores the product and ships it for you.  You receive the order from your customer along with payment, you send an email with the order to the drop-shipper and they mail it out and charge you their price for the product.

I don’t recommend ecommerce as a way to start online if you aren’t already experienced in retail sales.  This type of business has a large learning curve and there is a lot involved, including returns, replacing broken items, knowing if there are restrictions to shipping certain items to certain states and a lot more.

5.     Provide Services

Providing services through an online site is known as freelancing.  You have to have a skill that you can promote in order to be a freelancer.  If you can write, do graphic design, know programming code, design games or be a virtual assistant (an online secretary or business manager), you can build a successful business as a freelancer.  You can also coach other people if you have the know-how and experience in a particular area to do.

There are drawbacks to freelancing such as having deadlines to meet.  If you aren’t disciplined and can’t meet deadlines, then this isn’t for you.  I used to freelance my writing services and believe me, it was a struggle sometimes to meet a deadline.  I never missed one, it just isn’t professional and you won’t get repeat business.

There are many places where you can list yourself as a freelancer.  I used to use Guru.com and elance.com.  Now there’s Fiverr as well where you provide a service for $5.  That gives the customer an almost risk free way to use your service and if they like you, you will have repeat client at full price and perhaps some referrals as well.

6.     Membership Sites

Membership sites seem to be trending as a business model right now.  Basically, they are a community that you provide an online site for, that people pay a fee to be a part of.  They are a lot of work because you have to continually update your information, add new content and keep up with your subscribers.  People can cancel their subscription at any time so your income could be inconsistent.

My business is going to have a membership site soon; however, there will be no charge for the site, at least in the beginning.  I will start the site as a Facebook group.  Membership will be limited to those people who have completed the certification process to coach my new program, Monetize Your Passion: Empowering Young Entrepreneurs to Start a Business, as well as their teen and young adult clients that have completed the coaching program.  The group will offer a place where both coaches and clients can make connections, network, find answers to their questions, marketing ideas, mentors and further learning opportunities.  Through this site, I hope to provide the support that is required long after the coaching program is complete.

I hope this helps you on your journey to choose the type of online business model that will be right for you.  As you can see, it can be complicated and require a lot of research and work on your part.  Are you willing to do whatever it takes to get a business up and running?

Do you have a clear picture of the areas of your life and business where change is required?  It might be time for a reality check so you can discover those areas where you are incomplete or could improve.  If are subscribed to my blog, then you already have Julia Neiman’s 2 Step Reality Check to Discover and Overcome the Hurdles That Stand Between You and Your Dreams.  If you don’t have a copy of the Reality Check, simply enter your name and email in the box at the top right side of the page and it will be on it’s way to your inbox in seconds.

 

11 So You Want To Go Online With a Business

Today’s article is by guest blogger:

Kaye Dennan of Home Business Success Ideas

If you are an internet surfer you go online and within minutes you find answers to your search. The first ten listings for your search term come on the front page of Google (although I appreciate there are other search engines you may use) and the sites on the first page are not necessarily the best, but they are the best ones recognized by the search engines. If you look at the top of the Google page you will see that there can literally be millions of pages covering the search term that you have used.

So what you have to do to get your site recognized is find keywords (search terms your customers will use) that are not so common so that your site will be easily found on the web.

Let me assure you that there are plenty of clients out there for everybody and if you try to get page ranking with the more popular keywords it will be years before you get to the front page. But if you use the less common search terms you will be found by more than enough customers to keep you busy.

In saying that, you will have to be patient. The internet has billions of written, videos and graphic items being posted every single day so it may take up to 3 months before you will get to the front page for your chosen keyword.

Getting to the front page is not just about using the right keywords but also marketing your site using that keyword.

 How Does This Affect You

It affects you in the way that when you build a website you need to be able to get your pages up into the first 10 search terms so that you will get the clicks from potential clients.

Without optimizing your website with keywords to take advantage of the search terms you are really wasting your time building a website in the first place. If page placement is not important to you then this exercise is not so critical.

So let me tell you how to make sure that your website or at least some of its pages are going to get front page ranking.

 Pretty Is Not Always Best

I know many people who have paid thousands of dollars to have the ‘prettiest’ website made by skilled technical people, but there has been no keyword research and these website owners are wondering why their website which they paid thousands of dollars for is not being found on the internet.

Google and other search engines do not care about ‘pretty’ they care about content.

The Very First Steps To Building A Successful Website

Whatever you do, don’t underestimate the importance of doing your keyword search first. It is absolutely critical to the success of your website and your business, even when deciding on your business name.

Keyword research will ensure that you find the best keywords for your business, not only for online marketing but offline as well.  These words should be the focus when you are deciding on a business name and also on a domain name (the name of your website, e.g. http://julianeiman.com   In Julia’s case she is well recognized in her industry so she can get away with using her own name for her website.

But if you do not personally have a well recognized name in the field that you wish to pursue then you need to choose a name which will find bring you clients when people use these search terms.

So How Do You Find Quality Keywords

One of the simplest ways is to go into the Google keyword tool.

Here is how to fill this form out:

• Go to the ‘word or phrase’ box and type in the best word that describes your business
• In the left-hand column tick the ‘broad match’ box
• Make sure the locations box (in gray) says ‘All’
• Then fill in the captcha word box.  (In the screen shot below I have already filled in the captcha word box and been taken through to the next step.)
• Scroll down and you will see a list of keywords of which some of them will be suitable to use for your business.
• You can download these keywords in a csv file to your computer.

At this point you are looking for keywords that have a quality score.

Find keywords that have a Global Monthly Search of 500+ preferably over 1000. Then go into Google search and see if the pages come up to under 30,000.

It is tempting to go for the higher number in search terms but if you do you have so much competition that you will find that your website just does not get ranked and your potential customers just do not find you.

Here is an example of two keywords. The first you might think of is “tomato blight” but when you do your searches you will come up with over 120,000 pages but if you use the keyword “tomato blight treatment”, which is a much more defined keyword you still have a good monthly search volume of 1,600 and only 30,800 competitive pages. So by defining your main keyword “tomato blight” even further you will get quicker and better rankings in the search engines.

So if you were going to have a website about tomato blight you could if it was available have tomatoblighttreatment.com (I don’t know if this is a domain name or not) with your the tag line saying “Stop Tomato Blight From Ruining Your Tomato Crop”

Another Consideration

One point that I have not brought up is the fact that you may only be interested in local contacts. Say for example, your business is to visit people in their homes and eradicate tomato blight then might use your local town, area or county as part of the name and this will definitely help in that instance.

Finally

Put the time into your keyword research as it is the most important part of a successful website. Don’t rush in to setting up your website or choosing your business name and domain name until you have done this keyword research because it is such an important part of your business success.

Make sure you follow the links on this page because it was not possible to cover all the information you need in this one article. Good luck.

Kaye Dennan is an author of many ebooks but her passion is helping people set up and market home businesses.  For this specific purpose Kaye has set up http://homebusinesssuccessideas.com and has shared tips for people wishing to start all types of home businesses and who want to market online and offline.

 

One very important skill or attribute of being an entrepreneur is the ability to get stuff done.  Not everyone is organized and some might require a system to help them figure out what needs to be done.  Whether you are an entrepreneur, a student or a homemaker, The Get Stuff Done Tool is that system to help you manage your time.

Time is the one thing that we all have the same amount of every day.  Time, when lost or wasted, can never be replaced.  Don’t waste your time or anyone else’s. The Get Stuff Done Tool is still available as a free download.  Leave your name and email address in the box with the red arrow at the top-right hand side of the page and get the free download now.

Have you obtained your copy of 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset?  Click here and get your copy now.

 

6 The Six Phases of Business Development

There is a normal progression of six stages that businesses go through while under development.  Understanding these six stages will allow you to be okay with where you are at any given moment.  It can also help you move through potential meltdowns because you’ll know where you are and where you have come from and what is normal in the phase where you are.  Further, it can help you develop the patience required to achieve success.

The six stages are:

Phase 1:  Strategizing.  This is the planning stage.  In this phase you begin to develop a clear vision of what you want your business to be, what your goals are and what you are committed to.  You are creating your business plan and a schedule; you are identifying the actions that you will need to take and creating routines to follow.   This is the phase in which you want to find your mentors and have help that you trust.

Phase 2:  Implementation.  Phase 2 is a busy time.  It’s the phase where you roll up your sleeves, put your head down, shut out the diversions and get to work.  Your focus needs to be on putting your plan into action and working on your goals by following your schedule.

Implementation is where you put it all into action – creating and launching your products, building your list of leads, improving your website and putting your systems and technology into place, mastering social media, networking, joint venture partnerships and so on.

This phase takes an enormous amount of commitment.  It is the phase where you are doing the most work and not earning much, if any income.  This is where you demonstrate how consistent you can be and how committed you are to your dream.  It requires faith in yourself and your business plan and also accountability.  Use those mentors to help you stay on track.

Phase 3:  Momentum.  Momentum is where you are moving forward as a direct result of all your hard work in the previous two phases.  This is a great stage because you start seeing a surge of results with less effort.  By this phase you have customers who are buying your products and services.  You may be getting noticed by your competition and have an opportunity to turn them into allies by joint venturing with them.  Your audience or customer base is growing and you are finally seeing money come into your business.

Phase 4:  Stabilization.  The key to your long-term success is your ability to stabilize your momentum.  In order to hand the pace of your business without breaking down you need the following:

•  Systems

•  Automation

•  Delegation

•  Accountability

In this phase you have effective systems (autoresponder, shopping cart, affiliate program, sales page, etc.) in place for every facet of your business.  You now have paid help to maintain your systems and you can take a breath and review all your plans – business, action, marketing, product creation, etc.

It is not a good idea to try to make major changes during this phase of your business.  This is the time to just let your systems work and make money for you.  You can hurt yourself in this phase if you get bored and try to make changes that aren’t needed.

Reaching this phase can take a year and a half to two years.  Don’t try to rush it to happen faster and you don’t want to push it once you’ve reached it.

Phase 5:  Breakthrough.   This is a very exciting phase to be in.  This is where your business has really taken off and you see the quality and number of your customers increase and they are spending more money with you and buying your high ticket products and services.  This is a busy time and you need to master time management.   You must be very careful when you reach this stage that you maintain your integrity, it’s essential and helped you get here.

It is important to note that you will probably move back to phase 4, stabilization, after you reach breakthrough because it will be necessary to stabilize this new level.  That doesn’t mean you have slipped backwards, it means you have to repeat phase 4 at this new level.  This cycle will continually repeat itself for the life of your business.

Phase 6:  Mastery.  What started out as simply “your passion” can lead to a successful business that has a life of its own and is no longer dependent on you to be around all the time.   The majority of your business is being handled by others.  You have learned to delegate and be a good manager, empowering others to run things for you.   You become the visionary who oversees the operation, offering guidance when necessary, free to create the next thing, to just work those parts of the business you love most, or simply have more time for the lifestyle you want to lead.

It’s important to understand these six phases of business development so that you can know where you are during the progression of your business.

The Get Stuff Done Tool is still available as a free download.  Leave your name and email address in the box with the red arrow at the top-right hand side of the page and get the free download now.

Have you obtained your copy of 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset?  Click here and get your copy now.

 

8 Create Your Product Funnel: Building Relationships with Your Clients/Customers

A product funnel is essential for monetizing your clients and customers.  It’s a process whereby you attract people to your webpage and build relationships.  If they like and trust you, they will come back and pay for your more expensive products.

It works like this:

You create something they can get at your webpage for free, also known as a “freemium.”  You promote whatever that is on social media, on other people’s blogs, and anywhere else you can find to mention it.  People who want to get that free product come to your site, enter their name and email in your registration box and receive the free product via the autoresponder you set up as one of your business systems (we’ll get to this in a future article).

Your freemium can be a report, a checklist, a survey, a video, an audio, an ebook, you can even give away someone else’s work that you have rights to or ask them to participate in a poll.  Be creative and make it relative to your business because you are trying to create a buzz about yourself and capture people’s names and email addresses.

You may want to create a second free product as an introduction to a new product or low priced program you are preparing to release.  That could be a report, a PDF tool that relates to your new product, a teleseminar or webinar.

When you have prospects in your funnel, you need to find ways to give them more valuable content at increasingly higher prices as they go through the funnel.

Once you’ve sent them some really great content they’ll trust that you do in fact know what you’re talking about, and if you have related products that you are selling, you can make an offer to them.  If they buy… great!  Send them onto another list that is for buyers and start promoting more products that will further enhance their lives.  If they are not buyers, simply continue to offer free information and improve their lives regardless.  The ultimate goal is simply to ensure that you are enriching the lives of those people who have trusted you with their name and email address.

The first product you ask people to pay for should be a low priced item such as an ebook, an audio book, a teleseminar or webinar.  The price range should be between $10 – $50.

The second product or program you create should be within the $50 – $200 price range.  Again, it can be a webinar, teleseminar, telesummit, home study program or anything else that fits your business and addresses your customers’/clients’ issues and needs.

By this time, your community has come to trust you or they wouldn’t still be around.  The fourth level price range should be $200 – $500.  You might offer a boot camp for $347, and the fifth level might offer your one-on-one services for $500.

Get the picture?  By the way, when you offer your products and services at different price points, you are lowering the financial and emotional risk for your prospects. You are essentially making it impossible for them not to buy from you!

What’s in your  product funnel?

The Get Stuff Done Tool is still available as a free download.  Leave your name and email address in the box with the red arrow at the top-right hand side of the page and get the free download now.

Have you obtained your copy of 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset?  Click here and get your copy now.

 

 

2 There’s a Traffic Jam on the Internet Super Highway!

Now that you have researched your competition, you are probably feeling like everyone and their brother has jumped on the online highway and there is no room left for you.  Well, the truth is that everyone and their brother has jumped on this highway and you need to find a way to be the lead heading on down that road.

My personal business coach, Rich German of Epic Coach Academy, has an answer for getting around this traffic jam – “create, don’t compete.”

Depending on your niche, you may have a lot of competition and the way to stay ahead of the crowd is to create new and useful products.  Rich tells his clients that the facts, at least the way he sees them are:

•   Most people will quit before the payoff (meaning they’ll quit too soon).

•   Most people lack the patience and consistency required to succeed.

•   You have a unique gift and it is your duty to put it out there, and

•   No one can do it as good as you are going to do it.

He also says this, “Even though we’ve been programmed for mediocrity, we clearly have the option to rise above it.  When you establish yourself a true expert in your passion—through time, patience, consistency, dedication, and devotion—you will rise to the top.  You will monetize, you will make a serious impact, you will be happy, and it will be fun.”

The fact of the matter is Rich is right!

In our next article, we’ll talk about a sales funnel and the various levels of products you can create to put you at the head of crowd in your field.

The Get Stuff Done Tool is still available as a free download.  Leave your name and email address in the box with the red arrow at the top-right hand side of the page and get the free download now.

Have you obtained your copy of 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset?  Click here and get your copy now.

 

6 Develop Your Business Plan

A business plan is a necessary basic strategy to run and grow your business.  This plan can be a simple strategy or be very detailed, depending on how your mind works and you how detailed you need to be for yourself.

There are many different styles of business plans including all the way from a one page outline style plan to a very long plan with several pages for each section.  You can include simple steps in outline form, or all the way to including charts and graphs for growth projections.

Whatever style or level of complexity you choose, your plan should include the following elements (in section 1)

•   your mission: why does your business exist?

•   your vision: where is your business going?  What impact will it make on the world?

•   your values: what do you stand for?

•   a business profile: what are your products and services?

In section 2 you want to create one-year goals and three-year goals.   Your goals should include strategies for each of the following areas:

Management and Administration.  Will you need to hire any employees or team members?  An assistant or business manager?  Include a job description and goals for each team member.

Outsourcing.  Will you do everything yourself or will you “outsource” the work?  The more work you outsource, the more time you have to be creative and do the work you love and started your business to do.  Outsourcing projects include web design, social media expert, copywriting, bookkeeping and others.

Customer Service.  What kind of service are you committed to?  How will you achieve it?

Business Planning.  How often will you review your plan (monthly, quarterly, twice a year)?  How will you reassess your goals if necessary?

Bookkeeping and Accounting.  How will you keep track of your income, expenses, profit and losses, payroll?

Other Professional Services.  Will you need a lawyer to help you incorporate or draw up nonprofit documents?  Will you need a human resources manager to set up an employment program?

Technology.  Who will manage your database?  How will you ensure your technology always remains cutting edge?

Products and Services.  This is where you create a detailed plan for the products and services you have decided will be in your product funnel.  What will you create and in what order will they be created?  What is your pricing plan for each produce?  Will you repurpose the product (use an original product for something else?

Marketing.  What is your plan to market and sell your products?  This section is critical.  Without a strategy for marketing your products you won’t sell them.

Website/Blog.  Will you have a website that you use as a storefront?  How many pages will it have and what is the purpose and content for each page?  Will it be just a blog where you write about a particular topic and monetize it by using paid advertising?  Will you review other people’s products and get paid a commission (affiliate marketing)?

Joint Ventures.  What is your plan to create marketing partnerships with other people in your area of business?  Who do you want to partner with and how many partnerships do you wish to have?

Affiliate Marketing.  Affiliate marketing is where you sell other people’s products and services.  What kind of products do you want to sell?  Who’s products will you promote?  How many?  How will you find them?

Social Media.  What is your plan to create visibility on the internet?  Will you have a Facebook page, post videos on YouTube, be on Twitter and Pinterest?  Who will manage these sites for you?  How often will you post on these sites?

The financial section of your plan should include:

Income Projections.  This part can be scary, however, it can be fun too.  Set your desired monthly income then break it down by product sales.  Once you decide on what you want your income to be, you can figure out how many products you need to sell to meet the goal.  Hopefully you will have priced your products before you get to this section so this will be easier to accomplish.

Expenses.  Last but not least by any means are your expenses.  How much will it cost to run your business?  Will your website cost you money?  Will you have an autoresponder, use a shopping cart or other service that has monthly charges?  Remember that many services are free to use and you need to do your homework.  It’s is possible to run an internet business for under $30 a month.

Now that you have a good idea of what needs to be included in your business plan, you should decide on what style of plan will suit your business best.  If you are going to use your business plan to find investors and otherwise raise money, you will need a fairly detailed plan with a lot of information.

If you are going to have a simple, straightforward internet business that does not require investors, then a simple plan meant to keep you on track will work just fine.

What is in your business plan that I might have missed?

The Get Stuff Done Tool is still available as a free download.  Leave your name and email address in the box with the red arrow at the top-right hand side of the page and get the free download now.

Have you obtained your copy of 31 Powerful Lessons: Empowering Teens and Young Adults to Develop an Entrepreneur Mindset?  Click here and get your copy now.