Work Smarter Not Harder and Fast Track Your Business

  In this business tip, I am going to focus on marketing and how to market an investment and not an expense. Lots of people look at marketing as an expense in their business. They're skeptical about marketing. They're afraid to put money into marketing because they think it really doesn't work, and all they do is they spend money and they see no results. And that's because their marketing focus is all wrong. When you do marketing right, it needs to be looked at as an investment. So what do I mean by that? Some people might not like to hear this, but when it comes down to it, Marketing is Math. It's all about understanding how much does it cost you to buy a customer? In other words, if you spent a $1000 on advertising and get 10 new customers, you spent $100 to buy each customers. Spend a $5000 and you get to 10 customers, you're gonna spend $500 to get each new customer. The next thing we need to look at in marketing is how do we buy customers at an effective pr

  How do you create an automatic business that runs without you? This is not just theory. It comes from guidance, a system, and a commitment from the business owner that they want to work on it. Let's get started with the definition of a Business according to ActionCOACH.  It is a commercial profitable enterprise that works without you - the business owner. You see, when I work with my clients, I get them to just work on one of these areas. Is it a commercial enterprise? Or is it a profitable enterprise that works without you? See, I meet lots of entrepreneurs that want to start, maybe, one, two, or three businesses, and guess what? They all have the same problems. Because the fundamentals are not set up correctly. Commercial means that you're selling something that people value or something that they want to buy. Profitable means that you understand enough about your business finances that you could possibly increase your profits without even increasing your revenue or even l

  Let's start by digging into some of the frameworks that ActionCOACH has to help entrepreneurs understand their real role in business and how to run an automatic business that runs without them. You see, as a small and medium-sized enterprise, what is your product? Is it the food that you serve? Or the service that you sell? We say that your product is actually your business, and the only reason that you would want to build a business is to eventually sell it. Now some of you I think might disagree but some of you might decide to franchise it. Well, that's selling. Some of you might decide to bring in new shareholders and that's selling it, partially. Some of you might want to sell it all together and then again, some of you might want to go IPO with this business. The essence is that the name of the game in owning a business is “How can I further expand my wealth by using other people's money?” Whether it's expanding my business or selling it or building other bu

  Today, we're going to talk about how we can improve the quality of life and businesses for small and medium-sized enterprises right here in North Florida and beyond. ActionCOACH is a globally proven system that I want to talk to you about and how we could really work for you and your business, to provide a different way of guidance and support for your businesses and really other small and medium-sized Enterprises right here in the North Florida area. You see, 80% of small and medium-sized businesses closed their doors within 5 years. That's pretty sad, isn't it? But why is this? Because many of the small and medium-sized business owners just burnt out. They're not getting enough results. And this is not the dream that they had. And so they had to close their doors and they had to try to maybe go into another business or go back to work for other people. This is why we have to bring a different way or a different kind of business education and business guidance to t

Stop Selling!... Build relationships! What makes a sales call a success or a failure? Are there really secrets to sales success? With today's economy, relationships count more than ever. Only the truly professional salespeople will survive in an unpredictable economy. If you look at your industry, there are probably enough people still wanting to buy your product or service to keep you busy all year long. Your challenge is, how do you increase your market share or "unfair share"? Sales are tougher to generate in a bad economy than in a good one. Nevertheless, why does it seem that some salespeople seem to do well in all types of environments? When the economy is good, it's relatively easy for even bad salespeople to make a living. In a good economy, often, salespeople make sales by just contacting a high volume of prospects without developing any relationships. There is so much "low-hanging fruit" out there that just about anyone can make a sale. So what is

   I want to share with you a little question, the answer to it... is critical to your marketing success. What is the one question that you have to get right in order to have success in your marketing? It's a very simple & short question. It's just, " So what "? Or another way of phrasing that is... Who Cares? And so who's asking this question? Well, it's anyone that's receiving your marketing. They're going to be asking themselves that question of So What, even if it is just in a subconscious way. If what you have to say resonates, they'll keep reading, and they'll keep engaging, if it doesn't they are off to something else. A while back, I did an ad critique for an IT company that wanted me to review their brochure. They thought it was It was beautiful, but it was actually a crappy brochure. It did look nice, but it was all about speeds, servers, motherboards, memory, and all sorts of technical stuff. Stuff that he thought was re

  In today’s tough competitive marketplace there are a lot of businesses seeking out business help to change the perception of their business of being a commodity to a business that is unique and provides something of value to the marketplace.  One way of standing out and providing value to your industry and your local market is by positioning yourself as the local market expert.  You are the one everyone goes to for information on your industry. Here are 3 tips to help turn you into a market expert. 1. Tell your Story – We all have a story to tell.  What’s your story?  Why did you choose the industry you are in?  What challenges did you face while creating your business?  How does your story (your past experience) help you to be a problem solver for your clients?  Using stories to help clients relate to your vision & mission of being in business will help you to begin to create trust with your prospects and your market at large. 2. Create a personal identity brand – What do you s

Money is not good or bad. It's just a tool we can use to help us achieve our goals. With that said, we can use it for both good and bad. Today's tip is based on a comment I got from a business consultant with the SBDC. One of the areas that he sees as an opportunity for growth for business owners is in the area of understanding how to manage their profits better. The reason we are in business is to make a profit, but profit is just a theory. We can be making a profit but if we can not turn it into cash quick enough, we can go bankrupt. As a business owner, how can you manage your profits better? In order to build your profits in your business, you should have 3 different bank accounts. Why? When you have all your money in just one account it's harder to manage. Our first instinct when we see our bank accounts growing is to spend it. So let's take a look at the 3 different accounts you should have. One is your operational account, the 2nd is your taxation bank acco

  Should you fire your clients? You’ll always get the customers you’re willing to accept. You may think that any paying customer is a customer worth having, but I’d argue that some customers are more trouble than they’re worth. There are some who actually cost you money every time you deal with them. The 80:20 rule (also called the Pareto Principle) states that 20 percent of your business comes from 80 percent of your customers, which also means that 80 percent of your headaches will generally come from just 20% of your customers. Make a list of the qualities you want in your ideal customers. This may include things like “they pay on time”, “they don’t fight me on my quotes” or “they refer their friends to me”. Now, go through your customers and categorize them into four “grades” – A, B, C or D. An A-grad e customer is your favorite kind of customer. This person probably pays your invoices on time, is pleasant to deal with, is happy to pay your quoted price, refers people to you, spend