Profits, Strategy, Lifestyle for Small and Solo Business

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Is Fear of Selling Hurting Your Small Business?

Written by Janis Pettit on February 4, 2010 — Leave a Comment

So many small and solo business owners over the years have told me they feel held back by their fear of selling. If you’re in that position, let’s look at that fear as, it’s not so hard to overcome.

I’ve heard that selling often conjures up an image of a used car salesman—the type of person who uses every possible trick to get you to buy something you may not want and who is pushy. This type of selling is often referred to as a hard sell and no one is going to respond to it anymore. Perhaps you’ve even encountered this type of salesperson and it’s left you with a bad feeling about sales. Or perhaps you’re afraid that “tooting your own horn” and asking for the sale will be viewed as either egotistical or pushy and you’re afraid of someone saying no. I totally understand this because when I started my first business 21 years ago, I remember feeling the same way.

This way of thinking will lead you nowhere. First you need to change your belief and the way you think about selling. You should never, ever have to push someone to buy from you. Instead, if you approach selling as a natural conclusion to a conversation you’ve been having with your prospect over time, you’ll find closing a sale will become more effortless.

When someone goes directly to closing a sale without completing certain pre-sales steps, the process doesn’t work. Here is a simple step-by-step process that does work.

1)       Marketing gets you leads; it rarely gets you sales. Once someone expresses interest in your business by signing up as a subscriber online, expresses interest when you meet them in person, or responds to other offline marketing, in most cases they are not yet ready to buy.

2)       Once you’ve got a good lead, you need to begin building trust with that person. You can do that by educating them about how your product or process gets results and what benefits they can expect. You can also prove your level of expertise by answering important questions and sharing your knowledge. E-mail, videos and phone calls are effective ways to complete this step. If you are making phone calls, make sure you write a script before you call so you get all your basic points across quickly and you don’t skip anything important.

3)       When someone is closer to making the buying decision, make sure you really listen to them. Ask them what their goals are, what’s not working and answer every question. If you are selling online you can do this through a series of e-mails, a submit-your-question form, a series of videos or a preview tele-class. It’s always a good idea to have a way for prospects to contact you or someone on your team directly if they have questions. This will leave a great impression that you really care about your clients.

4)       Once you have proven through demonstration and testimonials that your product or service works, offer a no-risk guarantee. There is always a creative way to offer some kind of guarantee that communicates to your customer that there is no risk involved and that you believe so strongly in the results you get that you are willing to give them a guarantee.

5)       At that point simply state the price and ask them to commit. If you are speaking to them directly and they say they’re not sure, then they must still have some unanswered questions, plus you can re-state your guarantee.

Using this simple process means you will never be pressuring anyone to buy from you. Instead many people will say “yes, let’s get started”! You cannot build a successful business without having enough confidence in the value of what you offer that you are willing to ask people to buy from you. Thing about this: if you truly believe what you offer can help that person, then why would you hesitate to ask them to buy something that will solve a problem or need that they are eager to solve and make there life better?

Try structuring your business using these five simple steps and I’ll bet you’ll be more confident about selling and you will be closing more sales.

______________________________________________________

Join me on Wednesday, February 10th for a free tele-class where I’ll reveal:

10 ADVANCED Breakthrough Money and Marketing Strategies

You can register for this content rich one-time-only coaching opportunity HERE

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Posted in Fear, Increase sales | Tagged , , , ,

How to Turn Your Small Business Website into a Sales Generator

Written by Janis Pettit on February 2, 2010 — 1 Comment

It’s unfortunate that so many small business owners end up with a website that isn’t much more than a glorified online brochure that attracts little traffic. If you’re in that situation I’m positive that wasn’t your intention when you shelled out the money and spent the time creating your website. At first you may have simply created a website because you knew you needed one, but other than to have information about your company on the Internet, you may not have had a specific goal for how it would create sales for your business.

Some of the fault for this problem lies with web designers who can design great looking websites, but who don’t explain to their clients that looking great and attracting traffic and sales are two different things. However, I don’t want to get started on that! Let me focus on some changes you can make that will begin to make your website work for you.

There are two kinds of websites, what I call a “rubber” site, where visitors bounce in and bounce out, and “sticky” sites where visitors stay a while and explore and/ or they take action by adding their name to your mailing list or making a purchase. Of course you want a sticky site. Here are some elements of your website that you need to fix to create a sticky site.

1) Navigation bar – make sure that the most important types of information that a visitor might be interested in are easily accessible from your navigation buttons. Limit your navigation buttons to the most general areas. Too many choices can create confusion.

2) Opt-in form on all key web pages. – it’s amazing how many small business owners don’t take advantage of the opportunity to get visitors to sign up for their mailing list. Your mailing list is your lead list. People that come to your website are targeted, pre-qualified leads who are looking for your specific type of information. Companies pay a lot to buy lists of qualified leads and here they are arriving at your website for free! Take advantage of this by offering them a downloadable gift that has value and they will willingly fill out that form. Make sure your opt-in box is at the TOP of your key web pages.

3) Ask yourself these key questions:

  • What information do my visitors really want?
  • How much can I give away to create value without giving away too much?
  • How can I give away enough that people want more, and then show how they can get more by buying your product or service
  • What resource will be compelling enough to keep them coming back again and again?

4) Make sure your website is regularly updated to include sticky elements that will keep people engaged and coming back. Here are a few ideas:

  • Discussion forum
  • Twitter update feed form to show all your latest tweets on your website.
  • Regularly updated blog with easy RSS feed subscription sign up so they are notified by e-mail each time there’s a new blog post.
  • Free tools or downloads
  • Fresh audios, videos, or articles. Ask people to opt-in to get access to these.
  • Any resource that they need to check or access regularly – like links or industry news updates.
  • Free give-away on pre-determined dates
  • E-mails that link them back to different pages on your site
  • Serial business “soap opera”. They must come back the next week for the next part in the series and you e-mail them when the answer is available, with the link.

5) Try putting a video on all your key pages. Video gives you an unprecedented opportunity to talk to your website visitors when they’ve never met you. Begin the relationship with the video. Tell them you understand their problems and you’d like to start them on finding a solution by giving them a gift if they opt-in. This is very powerful.

6) Your sales page content: Write customer and benefit focuses sales copy on your web sales pages and include video and strong testimonials. If you are getting traffic to your sales pages but still not generating sales then the problem is one of these:

  • the headline needs some changes
  • the content doesn’t create perceived value
  • the pricing is wrong
  • there is a trust issue—which can be improved with great testimonials and a strong, iron-clad guarantee.

Simple changes can increase response.

With a bit of planning and a few weeks of work you can start to get a much better response to your website. I’ve seen small tweaks to the home page of our website increase our opt-in rate by as much as 25% to 30%. Those new subscribers can then be converted into buyers. Your website can dramatically increase your sales if you give it regular attention.

Finally, although your website can generate tons of leads you need to do more to close the sale.

________________________________________________________

Join me on Wednesday, February 10th for a free tele-class where I’ll reveal:

10 ADVANCED Breakthrough Money and Marketing Strategies

You can register for this content rich one-time-only coaching opportunity HERE

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Posted in Increase sales, Website design | Tagged , , , ,

What to Do When You Feel Like Giving Up on Your Small Business Dream

Written by Janis Pettit on January 28, 2010 — 2 Comments

Having coached hundreds of small and solo business owners over the years, I’ve noticed certain roadblocks that can slowdown or stop a once enthusiastic start up from building a successful business and the life they dream about. So how do you succeed in your business without giving up when things get difficult? 

One of the problems I’ve noticed often is that a loss of motivation can make you feel like giving up. If you’re experiencing this you may feel alone, but I guarantee you you’re not. I’ve never met a successful entrepreneur that didn’t have that feeling many times, including me. Wanting to give up can trick you into thinking that you no longer like what you’re doing or that you made the wrong decision when you started your business. It may seem to rob you of your passion for your work. It may erode your confidence and try to convince you that you don’t have what it takes to succeed. At that point it’s easy to just do the minimum to save face or to start looking for the next best opportunity that you can try for a while—something that will get you excited again. 

When someone who is feeling this way comes to me for help the first thing I do is try to put their mind at ease by making them realize that not only are they in good company, there are actually some facts about business building that, once they’re aware of, may start to make them feel better. 

I explain that business building is a learning curve. At the beginning you are trying to master all sorts of new skills, like how to run a business, how to create a productive marketing plan, how to manage your time effectively, what type of clients to pursue, how to handle the financial end, how to integrate your many work hours with your family life and much more. It’s not just about doing what you do well. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. And during this period you may be making little money. 

As you climb the learning curve it feels like you’re climbing a mountain. For example, I’ve seen people who had a fear of technology completely ignore mastering the crucial technology aspect of their business, like website development, online marketing and necessary software because they thought it was too difficult. Then they wondered why they were not making progress. It takes courage and patience to climb the curve. 

Seth Godin talks about this in his book, The Dip. He says that in the beginning it’s fun and exciting to start a business. You have big dreams and you feel confident you can make them a reality.  The Dip, he says, occurs between starting and mastery or “the long stretch between beginner’s luck and real accomplishment.” 

It can hit you like a ton of bricks. So what do you do about it? First of all recognize it for what it is—you’re climbing the curve. This is the stage when you need to learn from an expert, a coach or a mentor who’s achieved what you want and who will keep you headed in the right direction, stop you from getting sidetracked or discouraged, hold you accountable and teach you the strategies and shortcuts you need. Next you need to know that once you get to the top of the curve you will start sliding down the other side. Wahoo! This is where you reach a breakthrough and your business starts to make real money. It just takes lots of patience to get there. 

Think of an Olympic athlete. How many years of training and how many disappointments did they experience before they made it to the Olympics? Why did they make it when others who had talent didn’t? Two things: perseverance and belief. Make a written, signed commitment to yourself from day one that you will keep going at full speed even when you feel like giving up. Pull it out when you are ready to throw in the towel. 

Next, spend some time sitting quietly with your eyes closed and see, in great detail, what your successful life will look like. How will it feel? Do this regularly and you’ll find you can taste success and that your belief in your goal becomes stronger and stronger. You will no longer feel like a victim who is overwhelmed and incapable to creating the life you want because you can see it, feel it and taste it and you know it’s just a matter of time. 

Finally, find a group of people who care about you and won’t judge you. Make a verbal commitment to them that you intend to achieve specific goals. State the goals clearly and ask them not to let you give up. Tell them you need their support because building your own small or solo business isn’t always easy.

So let’s review. When you want to give up: 

  • remember that you’re on the uphill part of a learning curve
  • remind yourself that you’re not alone and that you can talk to others who are experiencing the same thing
  • find an expert, coach or mentor who will fast track you through this period
  • make a written commitment to yourself to keep going full tilt even when you don’t feel like it
  • find a group of loving people who will support you and hold you accountable to stick to your guns. 

You need support; you need people around you who have your best interest at heart. And you need to take a breath and keep putting one foot in front of the other to continue climbing the curve.

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Posted in Business strategy, Fear | Tagged , , , , ,

7 Small Business Internet Marketing Success Tips

Written by Janis Pettit on January 26, 2010 — Leave a Comment

Everyday more small businesses wake up and realize how crucial it is for them to master Internet marketing if they want to significantly increase sales. Whether you are already dabbling in Internet marketing and learning about it or the concept is new to you and a bit confusing, ignoring it is no longer an option. 

Whether you’re a coach or consultant, a service provider, or a bricks and mortar business like a retail shop or restaurant, driving targeted traffic to a well written, compelling website is essential if you don’t want to leave lots of money on the table. There is so much conflicting information to be found about where you need to spend your time and money creating an Internet marketing program that I’d like to help you with a few basic tips. 

First of all you are probably not a professional Internet marketer. Professional Internet marketers look for underserved niches and create websites that sell products or information that will serve that niche in some way. They create multiple sites that are not limited to just one topic or market. Successful Internet marketers are masters at finding markets that they may know nothing about, and then finding an expert with knowledge or a product that they can sell to buyers in that market. They are experts at building compelling websites and driving traffic to those websites through online marketing methods and search engine optimization. Many of the courses and programs you’ll find online teach people how to become professional Internet marketers. 

Instead, you have a passion or skill around which you’ve built a small or solo business and you simply want to know how to use some of these tactics to drive qualified traffic to your website. So instead of focusing on multiple markets and websites you really only need to focus on a few and they are markets you know well and that are directly related to your business. Here are some simple tips to help you focus on what Internet marketing you need to master for your small business. 

Your Website 

Preparing your website for visitors is like preparing your house for a party before inviting the guests. If you get lots of visitors but they come and go and don’t take action then you’ve wasted all the time you spent bringing them there. Before you begin traffic generation: 

1) Create a website where the content is compelling, customer focused and talks to the visitor about THEIR needs, challenges problems and the results and benefits they want that you can provide. Avoid language like “welcome” and “we do this and we do that”. People want to know you understand what they want, not that you are telling them how great your business is.

2) Include an opt-in form on ALL key web pages. Ask visitors to sign up to receive a free downloadable or deliverable gift that gives them some knowledge or information they really want. 

3) Include glowing testimonials on each page. These are a priceless tool to establish your credibility. 

4) Have basic search engine optimization built into your website so that you’ll start ranking in the search engines for your most important keyword phrases. Make sure that includes an ongoing program to develop back links to your website. 

Driving Traffic 

5) The fastest way to drive traffic is to invest in pay-per-click advertising with Google or Yahoo. Money buys speed. You can easily find a local Pay Per Click expert to set up your first ad campaign and tweak it until you’ve created an ad that drives a stream of visitors to your site who are qualified and willing to take action once they get there. The great advantage to PPC is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad and you can put a limit on the amount you spend each month. 

6) Spend time each week on traffic generating activities like some combination of

  • social networking (Twitter, Facebook. LinkedIn to start),
  • writing and submitting articles to article directories,
  • posting comments on highly trafficked blogs in your niche,
  • posting to your blog and listing your blog in blog directories, and
  • submitting videos to video sites
  • submitting audios to podcast sites

Once you decide which activities will work for you, do them every single week. Schedule them into your calendar or train an assistant to do them. 

7) Do regular keyword research using the Google Keyword Research tool to find out what your potential clients are actually searching for on the web so you can use those keywords on your web pages and as blog, article and video titles. This is becoming more crucial all the time. A blog post is very likely to come up in the search engine results more quickly than your web page since it has fresh content which the search engines love. Often, keyword research is the missing piece when people tell me their online marketing isn’t working! 

Driving traffic isn’t rocket science. It’s not mysterious. It simply requires a bit of strategy and real consistency. So put a plan in place now and in a few months you’ll really start seeing the results of the increased traffic reflected in your sales.

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Posted in Increase sales, Online marketing | Tagged , , , ,

7 Tips for Getting Glowing Testimonials that Will Increase Sales

Written by Janis Pettit on January 21, 2010 — 2 Comments

There are many strategies you can use to increase sales, but one of the simplest and most effective is to get glowing testimonials that perspective clients can read. Testimonials establish you as an expert; they say you deliver what you promised and that you get great results. And if someone is on the fence as to whether or not to hire you or purchase your product, testimonials can actually close the sale. Yet, most small business owners don’t have a system for regularly getting testimonials even when they’ve been in business for a while.

If you are making money it means you have happy clients, which means you have people who would probably willingly offer you a testimonial. Even if you are just starting out, you can offer your services for free or at a reduced rate to several people in return for testimonials. This is a common practice among business owners who offer online courses. They get some well respected colleagues to review the material at no cost in return for an honest testimonial. 

Here are 7 testimonial tips: 

  1. Ask for testimonials when the client is most happy with your product or service. Determine in advance when that usually occurs and make it a point to always ask.
  2. Have a formal system for asking. One of my favorites is to ask clients to fill out a short survey about your services and at the end ask if their answers could be used as a testimonial. You can also ask directly, or send a request by email.
  3. Make sure you have as much identifying information about the person who wrote the testimonial as is possible. Ask for their photo, their full name, their city, their website address. If it’s a business they will be very happy to have you link back to their website. The more information you have, the more believable the testimonial becomes. Testimonials that are signed with just a first name and a city are pretty useless since they look like someone made them up, even if they are legitimate.
  4. Place testimonials on EVERY important web page on your website, not tucked away on a testimonials page that few people see.
  5. Use the same testimonials in printed marketing materials like ads, flyers and brochures.
  6. Show testimonials when meeting with a prospect
  7. Be strategic about the testimonials you request. For example if you are trying to sell a particular product get testimonials that state results people received from that specific product (or service). Ask people who have purchased the product specific questions that relate to the benefits they received and the problems your product solved.

Finally great testimonials can allow you to charge more for your services. When you have glowing testimonials from lots of satisfied clients, other people who want those results will be willing to pay top dollar to work with you or purchase the product.

Put together a system for getting testimonials right away and look forward to increased sales and more ideal clients who require little convincing to purchase from you.

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Posted in Business strategy, Get more clients | Tagged , , ,

How to Create an In-Demand Information Product in 30 Days

Written by Janis Pettit on January 19, 2010 — Leave a Comment

It doesn’t matter what kind of small business you have, you can create a downloadable information product in 30 days or less. Information products are in demand, and you can use them in multiple ways. Here are just a few:

  • as a giveaway for people who opt-in to your e-mail or newsletter list
  • as a lead-in product to a sale – you giveaway the product or sell it at a low price then up-sell people on a more expensive product
  • as an educational tool to build your reputation as an expert
  • as a giveaway, but with links embedded to your website sales pages
  • use a giveaway video to create curiosity about a new product or service
  • to build buzz about your business

No matter what you do you have knowledge or expertise that others want, otherwise you wouldn’t have a business. Some of that knowledge can be turned into an information product quite easily.

  • First you’ll need to create simple outline. You could tart with a list of 10 tips, ways, secrets, or mistakes people make on your topic. An example would be “10 Ways to Get Twice as Much Done in Half the Time”. This could become the title of your product. If you can expand to 20 or 30 ways—even better.
  • Another idea is take a system that you currently use in your business and write it out so you can sell it to others. If you’re unsure what people will buy, use the Google Keyword Research tool to discover what information people are currently searching for in your area of expertise. 
  • Write several paragraphs under each tip, or under each process in the system, explaining it in much more detail.
  • Check to see if you have already created content on this subject that you can re-use and include.
  • Decide on the best format for your product:
    ~ e-book or report,
    ~ audios,
    ~ videos,
    ~ autoresponder series (where buyers get a sequence of lessons or chapters over time) 
  • Include examples, and if it will be an e-book or report, include some photos. You can purchase great photos inexpensively at istock.com.
  • If it’s a video, consider making one video for each tip and making it into a series
  • If its an audio, keep in mind that you could easily make it into a CD. People love physical products.
  • Finally you’ll need a cover graphic. This will not only be used as a cover but as a product graphic on your sales page. There are many freelancers at places like elance.com that will create product graphics at a very reasonable price.

If you already have a “library” of articles, blog posts, scripts and other written material, comb through it to see what you could pull out to create a new product. Recently I pulled all of the articles and blog posts I’d every written that were “how to’s” and edited them to create an 83 page e-book on just one day.

Don’t let one more month go by thinking and wishing you had some profitable products when you can put one together in a month or less.

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Posted in Write an e-book, small business growth | Tagged , , , ,

Social Networking Tips and Time Savers

Written by Janis Pettit on January 14, 2010 — 2 Comments

When I tell other business owners and clients how active I am in social networking and what a valuable marketing tool it is, they ask me how I find the time? If you’ve dabbled a bit with Facebook and Twitter it can seem like a lot of work to keep up with everyone. For a busy business owner it seems impossible to find the time. 

The truth is that I spend no more than 20 minutes a day on social network marketing—sometimes less. There are so many ways to automate and more apps appear each month. Take a few hours to set these up and then watch them do lots of the work for you.  Let me share what I use: 

To manage Twitter I use TweetDeck and SocialOomph. TweetDeck allows you to create columns of users that you want to follow for different reasons. And you can enter all your tweets from there. So you could have a VIP column for example, or a column for people that tweet about a certain keyword or topic. This allows you to easily wade through the hundreds of tweets on your Twitter homepage and only read and respond to the followers that it’s important for you to interact with. That doesn’t mean I ignore the rest. I do sometimes scroll through them. But with thousands of followers reading them all would be impossible. It also will separate your direct messages into a column, as well as other tweets that mention your name. Overall it’s a command central for Twitter. 

SocialOomph is like an autoresponder for Twitter. I use it to do 2 things:

 1)       to automatically follow anyone who follows me and to send them an automated message when they begin to follow me

2)       it can function as an autoresponder, so I load up tweets and tell SocialOomph when to post them to Twitter. Then I can walk away and continue to have my tweets appear.

Then I add my Twitter feed to my Facebook and LinkedIn profile pages, so each time I post to Twitter it appears on my wall. My blog feed is also set up to appear on my Facebook and Linked In pages, which means when I enter a new blog post the information immediately appears on Facebook and Linked In.  I outsource the managing of my Facebook account to my wonderful virtual assistant, who handles friend requests and invitations for me in just a few minutes a day. My VA also knows the system we use for creating events on Facebook, inviting friends and announcing it on Twitter.

I also have accounts at social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon and have my blog listed at sites like FriendFeed and Technorati. I added my twitter feed to my profile pages on those sites as well so my tweets also appear there. So in essence, whatever I tweet about on Twitter gets sent out to a lot of different sites making it easy to keep active and making it appear that there’s fresh content on all of them each day.

Just like anything else in your small business, setting this up and creating this Social Network Marketing system will save you lots of time. Sure it will take some time initially, but once it’s on autopilot your social media marketing will help you create new fans and followers who are interested in your business and products and in very little time.

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Posted in Social networking | Tagged , ,

Create a 6-Figure Income with a Proven Business Design

Written by Janis Pettit on January 12, 2010 — Leave a Comment

I’ve been a successful entrepreneur for over 20 years and I ran my first two businesses without a real business design.  In other words I did what most small business owners do. They sell a few basic products or services. They find a few ways to market them and they get clients. They sell time for money and they create an income ceiling. I call this the Treadmill Business Model.

My second business was an upscale 3 Star NY Times rated restaurant.  I was pretty darn good at marketing– even got written up for it and did some marketing consulting for other restaurants. Business was great–that is until year seven when it leveled out and dropped.  At first I didn’t get it. I knew lots of new restaurants had opened nearby and I knew our wealthy clients would always try the newest trendy place. People were still telling us how much they loved our food and ambiance. So what was the problem?

After much agonizing and researching bigger competitors I got it. I didn’t have a business design. I didn’t have a well thought out plan to create multiple streams of income in a strategic way. I only had one type of “product”, and one income steam. The logical next steps became clear. I would have to look at a number of possible ways to add new services or locations, products or services that served the same market but in different ways or I was doomed. Can I tell you how grateful I am for that lesson?

I’d like you to stop what you’re doing and take a good look at your business. Are you working hard doing marketing activities and trying to get clients but your bank account is still not reflecting your hard work? Are you dreaming about a solid 6-figure income but it always seems just out of reach? Its time to develop a model that will take your clients through a series of strategic purchases so they don’t just buy from you once and disappear. Do you have entry level products that lead to higher value, higher priced products?

If you don’t, you are going to hit a wall.  Often people who come to me for help offer just one thing–maybe it’s coaching, or they sell a book, or they offer personal training or they sell a single line of products.  When I ask them the lifetime value of their customer, or how many times each customer buys from them, or how they can increase the transaction value of each sale, they really have no answers.

Do you want a solid 6 figure income or even a 7-figure business? Then you need a Business Design Model.  Not just any model but a proven model– a real blueprint for your business. One that follows a simple formula but is customized to your business. Once you have this model developed you can repeat it over and over and the results can be stunning.

If you are seriously hungry for true success including financial freedom, the joy, the exhilaration, the time freedom that comes with it, a Business Design is crucial.  If you want to serve more people and make more of a difference in the world a Business Design will get you there.

Here are the basic steps you’ll need to follow to create your Business Design:

  • Decide how you can turn your passion into marketable ideas.
  • Decide how much profit and income you want to have (sales minus expenses).
  • Do needs research—where is there an unfilled or underserved need in your niche?  Where are there people willing and able to pay for what you want to offer?
  • Create a product funnel—a series of products and services that each client could logically purchase in sequence.
  • Create a product flow—how will you lead clients smoothly through this sequence. This is about strategy.
  • Create or obtain your products—including being clear on the benefits and results buyers will experience.
  • Create your Marketing Design—how can you reach your target market as quickly, extensively and inexpensively as possible.

Implement this design, then turn it into a repeatable system that can be used for each new line of products or services you add to your business.

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Posted in 6 figure income, Business strategy | Tagged , , , , ,

Transform Your Small Business Marketing

Written by Janis Pettit on January 8, 2010 — 1 Comment

I regularly interview small and solo business owners who call my coaching company looking for help. After getting a sense of what their business is all about, what their biggest goals are, and what lifestyle they are trying to create, I ask them what their biggest challenges are.

Nine times out of ten, it’s getting more clients and the problem is marketing. Most work very hard at trying to get one client at a time. They try many different small business marketing methods that they’ve heard about or which they’ve seen their competitors use. In other words, a little of this and a little of that. The results are inevitably mediocre. It’s easy to get discouraged when you know you have a great skill or talent to offer the world and yet no one is listening to what you have to say.

The mistake made by the majority of early stage small or solo businesses, and even some who have been around for years, is to do what I call “shot in the dark marketing”. This is like playing darts with a blindfold on and being convinced that you’ll hit the bull’s eye. You may occasionally do so, but you’ll do it rarely. The same is true if you are an entrepreneur who has not mastered marketing.

I bet you’re great at what you do. But, are you also great at building and running a business? These are two separate and distinct skill sets and both are crucial to your success. When it comes to small business marketing, the real truth is that people who are marketing masters can make money even with mediocre products, yet many people with excellent products and services fail because they haven’t mastered marketing. If no one knows you exist how can you expect to get lots of clients and make a great income?

Here are some tips on what you need to think about in order to begin to master marketing:

Do Research

It’s a mistake to decide what you want to sell, create a product and then try to find some people who need it and are willing to pay you for it. Instead use the Internet to find out what people are searching for within your area of expertise and to research what and how your top competitors are selling. Also figure out where your prospects congregate online or offline so you know where you can reach them with your marketing.

Create a Marketing Design

This is a detailed plan that locks in what marketing activities you’ll pursue and how you’ll measure and track the results to know if those activities are working. Make a list of all the different ways you could generate leads both online and offline. Then pick only those that will focus on your target market. For example, join social media groups that attract your target market, mail marketing materials, postcards and brochures only to your target market. The same applies to print ads and sales calls. Don’t waste time on broad groups of people, but on the type of person who you know would buy your type of product or service.

Then pick three activities from the list and get started. You most definitely need at least one of them to include online marketing, either. That’s why I teach my online lead generation system. You can use a variety of methods such as article marketing, video marketing, blogging and social media to organically generate traffic. You can also use search engine optimization and pay per click advertising to generate search leads.

Follow Your Plan

Stick to your plan and see what works. Give it a bit of time, then focus tightly on what works and get rid of the rest. Don’t waste time, for example, going to networking meetings just because you like the people when you’re not connecting with potential clients or referral sources. Your time is limited so use it wisely.

Outsource

Why do $15 an hour tasks when you can outsource them and spend your time being the strategist and servicing clients? As soon as you outsource rote marketing tasks, you’ll find they get done more quickly and consistently and you’ll start generating a steady, reliable stream of qualified leads.

Follow Up

Once someone is on your mailing list or has called your company, have a follow up system ready to go into action so you don’t miss out on closing sales with people who are ready and willing to work with you!

Transform your small business marketing from lackluster to powerful!

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Skip Perfection and Go after the Easy Sales First

Written by Janis Pettit on January 6, 2010 — 2 Comments

If you are still at the early stages of building your small or solo business and you’re struggling to get clients, what you need now are easy sales that generate cash flow. Cash flow will allow you to pay your bills and invest in growing your business.

You may think that you need to wait until your website is perfect, your marketing materials are perfect and your products and services are fully developed, but going for perfection will take time, is almost impossible to achieve and it will shut down your cash flow. The most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that it’s more important to put your products and services out there, take action and get a few clients into the pipeline. Even big companies (think Microsoft) don’t strive for perfection, but for “good enough”.

Your potential clients need their problems solved now. You’re the expert and you can help them even if your solution will get better over time.

There are many ways to go after easy sales. One approach is to host a get together for your local network of friends, colleagues and business connections. Make it your own personal social networking event. Do a brief presentation about the problems you solve and how you do it. Then ask people to take action. Either give them an incentive to sign up for your services right away or tell them they will be rewarded for sending referrals your way within one week after the event. Initially, offer the simplest, easiest solution you have. Don’t try to initially sell your most complex, high priced solution. Just get then buying and into your client funnel.

Another is to offer some very low priced entry level products, like e-books, reports or videos. Get people onto your mailing list and offer them a one time up sell into a more expensive option.

Invite people who follow you on social networks or who are in your local networking groups to a free tele-seminar. Give them good content then give them a limited time offer to purchase your product or service. Offer them a simple easy, no brainer purchase that will allow you to show that you deliver on your promises.

Finally, consider speaking to people who already serve your target market, but who don’t offer what you offer. Explain how they could endorse your product or service and you will give them a percentage of sales. They can increase their sales with little effort. This is a simple joint venture and they will need to trust in you and your product to agree, so let them sample it for free, or try it out on one or two of their clients if that’s a possibility.

Getting some clients in the door, even at a lower price than you will charge once you’ve ironed out the kinks, will give you experience and confidence. Then you need to get great testimonials from these clients and post them on all your web pages and marketing materials, at which point you can raise your prices a bit. Also ask these initial clients for referrals in return for a referral gift that they will find enticing.

Taking action is the key. You can have cash flowing into your business in 30 to 60 days. Don’t wait!

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