Success Fanatic Blog

Should You Open Your Own Business?

Answer the following questions as honestly as possible.

1.) All I need to be a successful business owner is to be good at what I do..
2.) My friends and family will send me a lot of business.
3.) I'm versatile enough to learn to do whatever I need as I go along.
4.) If someone asks me to do something, I do it right away.
5.) I won't have a lot of overhead so I can charge less than my competitors.
6.) I take my time and do the job right even if it means that I can't charge for all my time.
7.) I don't care about being rich.
8.) I can work my hours around my family time.
9.) My customers will be so impressed with my abilities that they will keep coming back.
10.) My customers will be so impressed with my abilities that they will always come back to me.

If you've answered True to less than 3 questions, you have nothing standing in your way of success. If you've answered True to 3 or less, you are on the right track. If you've answered True to 5 or more of these questions, you may want to keep working for someone else.

I'm back! I've spent the last year really concentrating on my local market. Now it's time to integrate both of these.

It used to be that all of my business came to me through the internet, but I realized that I was totally losing my social skills, so I decided to venture out into my local area.

Big things have happened and I am really excited about where I am going in the future.

Keep watching and I'll share my thoughts and progress with you.

Marketing Strategy - Figure out where your customer is and go there

Marketing Strategies need to also include the location of your potential clients. This goes back to the idea of selling ice cues to Eskimos - you probably won't get top dollar. Unless you sell ice cubes that are different than the other ice they have available. Suppose you could sell them an ice cube with a liquid that would warm them for 8 hours?

If you can't come up with something different, then you need to find the market that will want what you offer - so if you're selling standard ice cubes, you may want to do that in South Florida.

Use that as a starting place and stay alert for any new ideas that you have. Sometimes your best idea will come after you've set your course. Be ready to adjust your course along the way.

Marketing Strategy - Pricing

I've watched so many service professionals underprice themselves for all the wrong reasons. I can now tell just by having this conversation exactly what they think of themselves and their own abilities.

It now comes down to this: In many cases if you don't think you're worth more, then you may not be. In many cases these are the professionals who don't understand value, and don't know enough about their business to make sure that they have something of value to offer.

If you think you are just like everyone else, then maybe you are, and if you are just like everyone else, then you will need to underprice yourself to get business, and it is probably also true that many of your clients will not be happy with your services even at a really low price.

Start treating your business like a real business. Develop your area of expertise, and help your clients solve a problem. Then you can get paid what you deserve.

Marketing Strategy - Tipping Point
What is it you can offer your potential client that will push them over the edge so they HAVE to order what you have to offer? Play with this concept for a while. Try different things, and you'll find the answer. Once you do, it is easily repricatable. It's a personal formula.

For instance, if you offer a package, you can configure it with different services so that you are offering several packages. See which one sells best. Then you know what your clients really want.

This is a time when potential clients will still spend money, they just are careful to get what they really want when they spend it.

SLIM concept Marketing Strategy

Marketing Strategies sometimes get convoluted. When that happens, you lose your audience.

Great copywriters like to use extreme language to show how bright they are. I have a friend who is a great copywriter, and she asked me to critique her sales letter.

I was honest, (as always) and told her that although her idea is great, her sales letter is too hard to understand.

I always use the SLIM concept. Simple Language In Marketing. Say exactly what you mean without painting too complicated a picture. If you paint a picture that includes little tiny daisies, your audience may get too involved in looking at the daisues, and miss seeing the part of the picture that relates to them.

If the language is so complicated that they have to translate each sentence, you'll probably lose them after the first sentence. Click. On to the next site, or email. Done. Gone. Never to return again.

Great marketing strategies in your marketing plan are the simple ones that you don't agonize over. So just say what you mean. Tell them how you'll help them

Marketing Strategy - Maintaining Trust

A good marketing strategy includes knowing that you must not just build trust and credibility, you must maintain it.

I recently had an experience with someone in business who I've trusted for a while. It happened gradually. Here's what happened.

This person built trust and credilbility with me and I invested quite a bit of money into what this person was selling. I was very excited about this whole thing. That was a little over a year ago.

Since then we haven't had a lot of personal interaction. It's only been in a group setting. In that context, this person said they were going to do some things and there were other things they wouldn't do.  I listened carefully - we all did. It was important to our futures.

Over time, it turned out that this particular person changed their mind. Things they were going to do didn't happen. Things they weren't going to do, did happen. The result is that one person spoke out. Others who were trying to be polite also spoke up. Some have been given things others haven't so they are alright with this person.

But this person has now lost about half of the original group and I'll bet that they are telling some of their people their story. It will be just a matter of time before they start telling the masses on the internet. All of the time that this person has spent building a company and reputation will be affected by this.

The moral of the story?  You need to not only build trust and a marketing strategy, you must be sure that your business plan insists on congruity and living up to your promises.

Marketing Strategy - Customer VS. Client

Your marketing plan must include a marketing strategy that differentiates between customer and client. In some industries, you have only one or the other. For instance, a chiropractor, coach, consultant, will only have clients. Then there are other industries like real estate that have both. In real estate everyone is a customer (limited fiduciary responsibility) unless you're a buyer's broker then they are your clients. In real estate, these are legal terms and if you call someone a client who is really a customer, you could get into legal trouble with the Real Estate Commission. This is probably the most extreme example.

The easiest way to generally differentiate this twist for your marketing plan, is this: if you work with them one time on a non personal level, they are customers. If you work one on one with them, they are clients.

After you do it for a while, it will become obvious to you. But if you delineate it ahead of time, you'll know what they expect, which is important in knowing how to treat them.

Marketing Strategy - Chumming

Marketing Strategies come in all shapes and sizes and are only limited by our imaginations.

I've always talked about the value of fishing when you are marketing your business, because , in effect, that's what you're doing. You cast your line with your bait in a place where you know you'll find fish, and you wait for a nibble.

I just learned about the concept of chumming. This takes fishing to a whole new level. Here are the basics. You find your favorite spot, you put great bait on 4 hooks at one time, all on the same line, then you cast. After you cast, you take a mixture of chicken feed, flour and water, form it into a ball, and throw it right where your line is. The fish come running (or swimming very fast) and get a taste of food, want more, and chomp down on the hook. You reel them in.

Great comparison to marketing and a brilliant marketing strategy to add to your marketing plan. Have four different hooks to get them there in their own way, use chicken feed (free great content to make them want more) then reel them in. How awesome is that?

Marketing Strategy - Room Service

Your Marketing Strategy must be clear, whatever it is.

Many businesses start out with very clear promises and prices, then eventually dilute their message by making changes in the service or product and forget to change their message.

An example of this in the retail world happened to me last weekend. I was staying at a hotle in LA. My first night there I was tired and had some work to do. I ordered room service, so I could get comfy and settle in to work.

I placed my order and it came as promised, but when I looked at the bill, there was a significant difference in to of the three items (much more expensive, of course).

I called down to ask about this and was told the prices had increased but they hadn't gotten around to changing the menus in the rooms. We're talking about a difference of $16.50 on this bill for one person.

I'm considering taking this up with corporate on principle. I make my livelihood delivering what I promise for the fee I will charge. They need to do the same.

Be sure that you deliever what you say you will for the amount you advertise or agree on.