“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.

• 44% of sales people give up after only one call
• A further 34% give up after the second call
• Another 14% make it to the third call
• Only 12% make it to four calls

Consumer confidence in media has declined dramatically. Only 12% of consumers trust Television news, down from 55% 3 years ago. People who believe organizations are also down from 28% to 12%.
The simple and ugly fact is they don’t believe you as much as they used to. What makes these people so sceptical?
I believe there are two primary reasons:
1. North Americans are exposed to 4 times the amount of advertising Europeans are exposed to. One study shows the average North American decision maker receives upwards of 30,000 commercial messages per day. This mostly means messages get lost in the clutter.
2. Many college graduates have done at least one marketing course and so have a much better feel for hype and what’s going on. Too much marketing is simply hype and knowledgeable people see right through it.
So what can the average business owner do to combat this?  Read more

The following three obstacles interfere with establishing and maintaining the client connection. Not only can these obstacles prevent the initial connection from being made, they can also unravel connections that have been established.

Obstacle 1—Conflicting Interests…

Business owners and customers have different goals. In addition to great service, customers want the best deal and practical advice. This simply means receiving good value at a reasonable price. What is relevant and helpful advice? Listen to what your clients are saying, watch what they are doing and respond accordingly. Draw on your knowledge and experience to offer relevant and helpful advice to your clients as a value-added service. You as a business owner want different things: loyal clients, more profit, positive image in the marketplace, and reduced selling cost.

Obstacle 2—Misalignment of What Business and Customers Want…

As a business owner, you are responsible for making the first move. The obvious starting point is to identify what individual customers want. Then do whatever it takes to satisfy them. Once you have connected with customers, you provide them with everything they want: useful advice, great service, fair price and the best deal. This will encourage them to come back to you and continue to buy from you.

Obstacle 3—The Reality-Perception Conflict…

Inside Reality:

As the name suggests, the inside reality describes what your business is really all about. It is everything that you are and that you do to deliver value to your clients. It is also everything that makes your business competitive. This includes all of your resources, whether tangible or intangible, or recorded as assets on your balance sheet or not.

Assessing our own businesses accurately can be very difficult. This is especially true if we have conceived and built them from scratch. Just as it is not easy to be objective about our offspring, it is difficult to be unbiased about our businesses. Owners face two major risks in assessing their businesses.

1. They may think their businesses are better than they really are. This happens when owners fall in love with their products. So focused on what they sell, they sometimes forget to pay attention to clients. To succeed over the long term, businesses must constantly focus on satisfying clients.

2. Their businesses may be better than they think they are. False modesty leads many people to underestimate the true value of what they do for clients. If you have satisfied clients, you must be doing something right. Don’t hide your light under a bushel. Recognize what you do really well and use it to grow your business. Make sure that each element of your Inside Reality is properly supported by objective evidence.

Outside Perception: The outside perception is how prospects and clients perceive your business. It’s based on what your clients say about your business, which in turn is based on their experiences in dealing with you. Assuming that these experiences have been positive, it is also what keeps satisfied clients coming back and encourages them to recommend your business to others.

Unfortunately, most owners can only guess at what outsiders think of their businesses. The only way to find out what outsiders think is to ask them.

Another good approach to learning what your market thinks about businesses like yours is to do some Internet research. Search the Amazon.com or Chapters.ca sites for entries related to aspects of your products. The titles and contents of recently published books will give you an insight into the current topics of interest in your market. Also check out readers’ reviews and comments. They will tell you what is important to people in your market. Or check out the postings in user groups that focus on your products. If you have an email address that does not identify what your business does, post your own questions. Users may think of you as another user and offer useful insights into important issues in your marketplace.

Marketing may be the most important business task of all. Simply put, marketing is whatever you say or do to get customers and prospects to listen to you and to buy from you. It includes everything from advertising to after-sale service. Everyone knows it is important: without it, no customers are brought into the business. However, in most businesses, it does not receive the attention it deserves. There are three reasons for this: lack of know-how, competing priorities, and pressure for day-to-day sales.

1. Lack of Know How…

All entrepreneurs have developed some marketing skill, even if only the ability to conduct person-to-person sales. Unfortunately, most of us never learn how to effectively attract customers, let alone nurture prospects until they are ready to buy. By default, we rely on making cold calls or sporadically undertaking marketing initiatives. Neither technique produces sufficient results. Because of these disappointing results many owners are reluctant to risk more time and money on non-productive activities.

2. Competing Priorities… As we run our businesses, we typically face a wide range of issues and responsibilities, most of which receive limited attention as we charge from one challenge to the next. Inevitably, this means focusing on our primary skills such as personal selling, accounting or particular technical competence. Other important areas, such as marketing, are increasingly neglected. Marketing, as we shall see is the ultimate leverage in business.

This means you have to set aside time to work on this, the most important business activity.

3. Pressure For Day-to-Day Sales…

For their businesses to survive, most entrepreneurs learn to sell. Frequently, this is the only intentional marketing activity. Because we know it works, even though inefficiently, we do it whenever we need sales. In practice, this means that most of us attack our marketing tactically. We decide we need to do something to bring in customers, so we implement some kind of marketing activity, without having developed an overall strategy.

Marketing should be an ongoing activity. It need not cost money, but you must invest time in marketing your business.

If you use seminars for selling there is one question that always comes up. “How long before the seminar should you promote it?”

In my experience for half or one day workshops, the best is about 6 weeks before the event. Any earlier than that and people forget about it or end up with conflicts. Any later than that and they already have conflicts. However once you start promoting at 6 weeks keep promoting every week until the seminar. This always encourage a few laggards to sign up.

Myth # 7. Your Advertising Must Sell To A Market

One common mistake is writing to a market as opposed to an individual. I believe all forms of direct response must be personal and relevant to an individual in order to generate a response. Before writing an advertisement, spend some time with salespeople, calling on customers and listening to what they have to say.  Pretend you are writing to one of the people you met–this keeps it personal and provides the individual with clear, concise solutions.

When writing this kind of advertisement, it is important to use colloquial language –pretend you are having a face-to-face conversation with someone. Do not worry about using big words, but do focus on connecting with your reader.

Do you write your ads to an individual or to your market? What impact would it have on your response rate if you wrote to someone you know and care about, rather that a faceless group of prospects?