“I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.”

- Alan Greenspan, Former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve - 

I was negotiating with a roofer last week to have my garage roof fixed. Toward the end of this process, he outlined what I could expect from him. Best quality materials, punctuality, clean up of the work site and immediate response in the event of any problems requiring him to come back to the house.

One thing he asked that I’ve never been asked was “Can you think of anything else that would be important to you?” Clearly this guy was a well trained professional.

As he was wrapping up, he moved on to what he expected of me. Prompt payment of the balance owing on completion of the job, care of the roof, etc. But what really impressed me was his request that if he met my expectations, would I refer clients to him? I was happy to do so as I’d already found him to be friendly, easy to deal with and very professional. I also felt better because I knew what to expect from him if the job was good and that he knew doing a good job was necessary if he was to get a referral.

He’d originally been referred to me by a friend, so clearly he was likely to follow through.

It struck me that this is an unusual practice, but in fact is an entirely logical one. It sets up the request for referrals long before the request is made. It makes you feel comfortable that he has a process and that he knows what he’s doing. Every business can do this and it’ll result in greater satisfaction, more referrals and an easier sales process.

In my last newsletter, where I discussed the benefits of outsourcing tasks I received a lot of requests from people wanting to know about web sites where they could find suitable people to outsource to. I discussed the benefits of outsourcing tasks you are not particularly good at or that are of low value to other people who more are more talented in those areas. In doing this you can grow your business more quickly and make more money.

Now I don’t pretend that this is an exhaustive list, but these are people or sources that I have either tried or have heard good things about.

I’ll start with tasks that I tend to write about and then move to other tasks that may be less common.

Perhaps the best general sites where you can find many different kinds of service providers are:

• www.elance.com
• www.rentacoder.com
• www.guru.com

Some of the services available form these sites, include virtual assistants, web site design and development, programming, copywriting, graphic design, training design and ghost writing.

With the emergence of Web 2.0 I believe that blogging and podcasting will be very important. If you are planning on doing any of this, here are some sites that may be helpful:

• www.uniqueblogdesigns.com
• http://rockinthemes.com
• www.relativitycorp.com
• www.marketingbreakhroughs.com

For video creation and submission try:

• www.mediastreams.com
• http://turnhere.com
• www.tubemogul.com

If you are looking for people to write articles, these ones in addition to the 3 in the first section offer a lot of choices:

• www.Ifreelance.com
• www.scriptlance.com
• www.getafreelancer.com
• www.need-an-article.com
• www.submitcomfort.com

While we are talking about having articles written, don’t forget that they have to be submitted to the thousands of sites on the web. This job can be made easier with article submission software. Some useful products and services include:

• www.articlesubmitterpro.com
• Unique Article Wizard
• Article Post Robot
• www.thevoiceofcopy.com/article_submission.html

If you need help with marketing services, try:

• www.jvptechnology.com
• www.outsourcingto.us
• www.online-internet-marketing-services.com

For pay per click advertising start with:

• www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

Once you understand it you can outsource the management of your pay per click campaigns to:

• www.getfoundnow.com
• www.searchengine-optimization.net
• www.redflymarketing.com
• www.weboptimiser.com

No business should be without PR and here are a few places where you can get the help you need:

• www.spreadthenews.com
• www.webresearchservices.com
• www.the-project-managers.com
• www.prleads.com

These sites are just a handful and represent the tip of the iceberg. There are literally thousands more, but they are a starting point and if you start with these, you’ll begin to find more.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world, which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

– E.E. Cummings, American poet

“Why Even The Smallest Business Can’t Avoid Outsourcing.”

So your business is running, you’ve read lots of books, you’ve done a bunch of courses and you have no intention of being one of the 85% that don’t make it. 

After a while it occurs to you that your business is not going where you need it to. You may be feeling frustrated and there seems to be a never ending stream of tasks to get done. 

You are working harder and harder, but don’t really see the progress you would have hoped for. So what do you do? You try to work even harder, often trying to do everything yourself. 

Generally speaking, this results in tasks being done at below optimum levels, employees who never get the chance to develop as well as burn out for the business owner. 

More importantly, it is one of the biggest barriers to growth. No one can succeed on their own. Everyone who succeeds does so with the help of others. 

At this stage a lot of business owners are confused. They are running the business and they know that they have to be the brain, but many don’t realize that it doesn’t have to be you doing all those tedious tasks. 

Every successful business has a hierarchy in which tasks get delegated down from one level to the next. But if you are in a small or one person business don’t think for one minute you have to be doing all the work. 

In fact if you are smart about delegating, this should free you up to do the things that make money, while others who earn less than you, do the tasks that take you away from making money and growing the business. Don’t think of paying someone else to do menial tasks or jobs you are not great at or don’t like doing as an expense, think of it as an investment in your growth. 

These people need not be employees. In fact I’d recommend against hiring employees in the early stage. It’s often much more cost effective to outsource these tasks to skilled specialists and hire them on an as needed basis. 

Growing a business is not easy, but by outsourcing, you can make it a lot easier. 

You know you should be working on your business more than in your business and outsourcing is one of the ways you get to do this. If you do a good job of outsourcing, you’ll find that you’ll work less and make more money. 

I always find that when I delegate clearly defined tasks to good people, I make more money. So can you!

It’s really interesting, if you search on the web for almost any business activity, there are people to whom you can outsource. You probably already outsource your accounting and legal work, so it’s just a matter of thinking a little differently and looking for tasks that can be outsourced. Here are some ideas:

• Website creation
• Blog creation
• Article writing
• Copy writing
• Article submissions
• Video creation
• Video submission
• Pay per click management
• Publicity and PR
• Link building to social media and other web sites
• Sales and marketing to affiliates and JV partners
• Cold calls to telemarketers
• Office work to virtual assistants

There are literally dozens of sites that do this kind of work. Of course you have to do your home work and be clear about what you want and expect, but if you do, you’ll find it a rewarding experience.

You’ll get things done that otherwise might have fallen through the cracks, you’ll often get a far better job than if you did it yourself or in house and you’ll probably pay for it out of the increases in sales you’ll get because you now can focus more time and attention on these important tasks.

Sticking Points.  What’s keeping you from achieving the growth, business success and prosperity you deserve? 

Do you ever wonder why some businesses seem to succeed with almost no effort, while others seem to require Herculean efforts and constant attention?

I know I do!

A few years ago, I began sharing what I did to grow 5 successful businesses with a select group of people in my high end training and mentoring programs. I use the exact same principles as I teach in the program, to run consulting projects with a few select clients each year.

Some of the results have been astounding - everything from making an extra $14,000 from a single idea in my newsletter to growing a business from $2,000,000 per year in sales to more than $6,000,000 in just under 2 years. 

The ability for some business owners to create MASSIVE and FAST business growth not only made me very proud, but also very curious.

• Was there something specific causing this level of success?
• What sort of things get in the way of success?
• Why are some very ordinary people successful with seemingly simple business ideas?
• Why are some brilliant people with great business ideas unable to achieve their goals?
• What are the things that slow people down and sap their profits and cash flow?

In looking at these successes and failures, I’ve found there are several “Sticking Points” which trip up smart business owners and undermine their success.

What I now see, is that to grow a successful business, requires you to understand what these sticking points are and to put plans in place to overcome them.

The good news is that these sticking points are relatively few and most are relatively easy to deal with. A few require some diligence and focussed work, most require a bit of thinking and some change in behaviour.

On May 5th I am running a public seminar called:
“Sticking Points.  What’s Keeping You from Achieving the Profits and Business Success you Deserve?”

Register right away to attend this seminar and I’ll underwrite your attendance, so you can attend for free. register now.

“Comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, then a master. And then it becomes a tamer, and with a hook and whip it makes puppets of your larger desires.”

Kahlil Gibran, Poet, Visual Artist

 In a teleseminar last week, Robin Elliott the joint venture guru, said while talking about the necessary steps to create an effective joint venture, that unless you are actually doing joint ventures you don’t know about them.

This is not only true of joint ventures, but of almost every marketing strategy and tactic.

Over the years, I’ve met people who can tell you about every marketing tactic known to man. But when you dig a little bit, you quickly realize that knowing about something and actually doing it are two different things.

Theory is fine, you can find it in any number of places including books and universities; however it is hard to translate theory into bread on the table. You only get that, by trying something and finding what works and repeating it until you get it right.

Most of us are looking for the easiest way of doing things and try to avoid having to work hard at too many things. Success is hard enough when you get all the elements right, but there is no doubt that having the right guide can shorten the time it takes for success and reduce the cost of failures.

About 12 years ago, I spent $15,000 on a direct mail letter. I wrote it myself and sent it out to about 25,000 people. I received three responses. Two of who didn’t buy, the third called to let me know her boss should be taken off out mailing list as he had been dead for 6 months.

How is it possible to waste so much money on something so simple?

Ignorance? Arrogance? A lack of understanding? Underestimating the challenge at hand? Probably a little of each. I vowed then that it would never happen again.

Has this ever happened to you, even in a small way? Everyone knows how to write a letter, but without learning the fundamentals I can almost guarantee you’ll create a poor result. And even with understanding the fundamentals, you probably won’t have any real copywriting success until you’ve done it quite a few times.

This is one of the reasons why going to a course seldom gives you the results you want, there is no substitute for the slow learning you get by doing. That’s how you become an expert.

You have to take action to put what you’ve learned into place. Ideally you need someone with real world experience to review what you’ve done and to give you feedback and direction.

Working with people like this, you get the theory, you get the practice, you get the feedback and you get the experience. Having a guide and a mentor can significantly shorten the learning curve and get you results more quickly than you would on your own.

For every marketing strategy and technique it’s the same. Some look deceptively easy but you still need the combination of knowledge, skills, experience, feedback and guidance along with time and being proactive to become really proficient.

A good coach will help you shorten that learning curve and get cash generating results more quickly.

“This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind…let it be something good.”  

-Author Unknown- (but brilliant) 

Where Should You be Focusing Your Attention as A Business Owner?

Michael Masterson, multimillionaire entrepreneur and author of Ready, Fire, Aim says that every entrepreneurial business requires four personalities at the helm, regardless of the stage of growth the firm is in:

1. A seller: someone to market and sell the product
2. An improver: someone to improve the product
3. An organizer: someone to make sure things flow smoothly
4. A pusher: someone to get people to do what they are supposed to do

When your business is small or just starting out, it’s important for you to fulfill all of these roles, but as your business grows, you’ll eventually find others to handle them, especially the ones you don’t like to do or lack the skills for.

Most experts like Peter Drucker suggest that to be a good leader, you need to be the organizer. That may be true for Fortune 500 companies, but in a small business Michael Masterson suggests you focus on the most important job of the entrepreneur, a role you should not give up; that is to be in charge of marketing your products.

Having grown several successful businesses, I agree with him. I always maintain responsibility for the marketing and selling function of the business. That doesn’t mean I have to be the only sales person, but I have to be the person who directs the sales and marketing of the organization.

Michael Masterson suggests that until the business hits approximately $10,000,000 in revenue, the priorities should be:

1. Selling
2. Pushing to make sales
3. Improving products and sales
4. Organizing.

Where are you focusing your time? Is it having the desired effect? If not do you have the skill needed?

 If not, it’s probably a good time to be looking for help in acquiring the skills you need, if you want to grow the kind of business you dreamed of when you were starting out.

Warren Buffet says; “Someone is sitting in the shade today,  because they planted a tree 35 years ago.”  So when is the best time to invest in yourself?

Many people know they need to do this, but put off making the decision, hoping for better results, but not doing what’s necessary to get them. If you want to be “sitting in the shade” sometime in the future, you’d do well to invest now.

In the next few weeks, my team and I will be launching a new program designed to give you those skills.

We asked our customers and prospects what they most needed to learn about growing their business and we acted on the results. In approximately 2 weeks, I’ll announce the program and give you all the details. There will be a limited number of slots available, so when the program is announced act quickly or you’ll miss out.

In the mean time, I still want to know what you are most interested in learning. Just hit reply and give us the details.

I got this short and to the point e-mail this morning. It came from a recent subscriber to my newsletter http://www.streetsmartmarketer.com/.  I don’t know what this person sells, but I believe it’s a more interesting question to address at a general level than at a specific level.

Here’s how I responded.

If you want to make money, the very first question you need to answer is what are you giving people in return for their money? If you are not offering people something they value and want, nothing else matters.

Once you have something of value for the hungry crowd, then here’s what I’d do:

1. Start collecting e-mail addresses and offer some valuable free information in return.

2. Build a relationship with the people who give you their e-mail addresses. You can do this through a newsletter that is not simply a promotion of your business, but continues to provide the subscriber with useful information.

3. Include occasional advertisements for your great product either with the newsletter, or send them separately to subscribers between issues. The key is a great product or service that people want. To get them to buy all you have got to do is create trust.

Read more articles on internet marketing

Creative business builders are always looking for better ways to serve customers. They know if they don’t constantly improve, they’ll be overtaken by swifter competitors

They continually ask themselves the following questions:

1. “What do potential customers need now? What’s not working for them? What worries them about current solutions? What would they be eager to buy?”

2. “How can we make our current customers more happy? How can we make the products we sell them more useful? More valuable?”

If you want to keep growing make sure you take the time to ask yourself these questions. And do it regularly. You can’t do it if you don’t set time aside for it, but it might just be the most important time you have. Its never wasted if your answers can advance your business?

Read more tips on new clients and customers

Every market has a smaller number of ideal buyers as opposed to all buyers. Ideal buyers are:

• easier to sell,
• easier to serve,
• more profitable,
• generate more referrals, 
•  likely to become the best clients.

Focusing on the relative few prospects who will probably be high revenue generators allows you to concentrate your resources on this critical group. In practice this means investing your marketing budget in pursuing the potential customers who will generate the most revenue. Your investment per prospect is your total marketing budget divided by the number of ideal buyers.

Converting Best Buyers Into Customers

To convert best buyers into customers, you must target them consistently and ferociously. This is a five stage process in which you shift your prospect’s attitude to your favour.

1. I’ve never heard of this person.
2. Who is this person?
3.  I think I’ve heard of this person.
4. Yes! I’ve heard of this person.
5. I want to meet this person!

Remember, the best clients are the easiest and most profitable to service. They buy more, spend more, and refer more.  Ideal Customers Buy FasterIf you focus on your ideal customers’ needs, you automatically tailor your business to meet their needs.

Once you have satisfied the best buyers, you have qualified yourself in two important ways. First by following one of the four ways of growing your business (), you can sell them more. And second, by asking them for referrals you can acquire more clients like them—the best clients.The Value of Ideal Buyers

Let’s say you have 1000 prospects and a monthly marketing budget of $10,000. If you target all prospects, you can spend $10 per prospect. However, if you target the critical 10%, the ideal buyers, you can spend your $10,000 on only 100 prospects. How much more marketing can you do for $100 per prospect?

Once prospects become customers, the same considerations apply. How much better service can you provide if you focus on totally satisfying 200 ideal customers rather than simply serving 1000? Clearly it is easier and less expensive to understand and meet the needs of 200 ideal customers than to try the same thing with 1000.

Successful businesses rely on recommendations by their existing contacts, customers and clients for future business. However, most entrepreneurs don’t know how or when to ask, or what to say.

Asking for referrals is an ongoing process, an essential element of what you do to grow your business. As such it should be an integral component of all of your dealings with clients.

In your early discussions with new customers, let them know that it’s your normal practice to look for referrals from satisfied clients. They might even be in a position to make referrals at that preliminary stage of the relationship. At the very least, this will prepare them for your asking for referrals from time to time.

Ideal times to ask for referrals are on completion of different stages of work or on receipt of a compliment from a client.

What’s the best way to get referrals? Ask for them, but earn them.

Instead of asking for referrals when you need new revenues, develop referral systems that ensure you do the asking regularly.

The best referral systems involve turning your clients into voluntary sales people. Three key elements of your relationships with clients make this transformation possible.

1. In completing your initial sale to each client, you demonstrated that you could satisfy specific customers’ needs. Had you not done this, few clients would have even considered doing business with you.
2. As prospective customers, your clients liked you and your products. Remember the old saying: “If I like you I might do business with you; if I don’t I won’t.”
3. Your clients trusted you enough to buy from you and as your best clients, continue to do business with you.

Helping clients become sales people is the easiest and most effective approach to obtaining referrals. Satisfied clients are usually happy to make referrals to businesses that can also satisfy their friends and associates. In most cases, you only need to make the appropriate request and you will receive high-potential leads pre-screened by your voluntary sales people. In all likelihood, they will only make referrals that they expect will result in successful relationships between you and the people they are referring. Few people will deliberately make potentially problematic referrals, especially if the referral could jeopardize existing relationships.

Referrals from clients are also the least expensive, often obtained at no expense. And with no or very low acquisition cost, they can yield a very high lifetime value, which in turn will increase your profitability over the long term.