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Monthly Content Compared: Text vs. Audio vs. Video

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When you’re running a content-based membership website or posting content online to build you brand, one of the first things you’re going to have to decide is the format of the content.

Will it just be text? Will it be audio, in the form of recordings or interviews? Or will it be a video of you talking?

The two most important things to evaluate for each choice are its ease of production and its perceived value.

Ease of Production 

What should you consider when you’re trying to gauge how easy or hard the content is going to be to produce?

First, evaluate any “additional” tasks that need to be done in order to fulfill on one product.

For example, with DVDs, you’ll need to edit the video and coordinate with fulfillment in addition to filming the product. Text, on the other hand, doesn’t have that additional task.

Then consider whether or not outsourcing is possible. Video, especially of you, pretty much can’t be outsourced.

Audio, on the other hand, can take the form of interviews or even audios of other people, so long as they’re recognized or are perceived as a credible source of information in your industry.

In other words, if you can have someone else do the hard work every once in a while, that can make it a lot easier in the long run.

As a rule of thumb text will be the easiest to produce, followed by audio and finally video.

Perceived Value 

There’s an almost inverse relationship between perceived value and the ease of production.

In other words, a video has the highest perceived value, audio next and text the lowest.

People will only be willing to pay as much as they believe something is worth; usually a bit less.

In other words, you need a perceived value of at least $50 a month if you want to charge $35 for a membership site.

If your using content to build your brand, (which you should), then you can get a competitive advantage by posting more videos then text.

The videos can give you and your brand a higher value rating, vs you just posting text or some pictures.

A solid strategy would be a combination of text, images, audio and video with video being the highlight and a video posted at a minimum once a week. The other days you can post text, images and audios.

What else influences perceived value?

After all, one subscription might charge $20 a month for content, while another charges $200. It’s not just the format.

First and most importantly, what is the solution worth to the subscriber?

If you can solve someone’s marriage problems, that’s worth a lot more than teaching someone to perform magic, for example.

Who you are also plays a big role zithromax cena. How well known is your name in your industry?

A no-name financial analyst might only be able to charge $50 a month for a newsletter, while Warren Buffet could easily charge $5,000.

All that said, the actual format still plays a big role. You’ll be able to charge as much as quadruple for video than text.

At the end of the day, the two questions you should ask yourself are:

  • A) How much money do you want to make? And
  • B) How much work do you want to do?

Based on these two answers, pick the format that makes the most sense.

Use the Power of List Building to Generate Monthly Income

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Building a responsive list is one of the most powerful tools available to entrepreneurs who want to get paying subscribers to a membership website. It can help you get new customers, keep old customers on longer and even make money from non-subscribers.

Here’s how to use list building to generate monthly income.

Increase Subscriptions to Recurring Billing Products

It’s a lot harder to get someone to agree to be billed once than it is to get someone to agree to be billed again and again, indefinitely.

This is especially true if they’re only hearing about you for the first time. If they land on your website from an AdWords ad, read a couple articles and see your sales page, there’s usually just not enough trust established to get someone to agree to be billed every month.

List building can change that.

By getting someone on your list, you can extend that sales process over the course of weeks and months. They’ll get to trust you, believe in you and believe in your products. This will increase your overall conversion many folds, even if it doesn’t increase your upfront conversion.

The “Monthly Push” Strategy

One time tested strategy to get people to sign up to a membership site is to do a monthly push, promoting whatever the product is this month, rather than the program itself.

For example, let’s say you’re in the “how to invest your money” market. Every month you send a different DVD out about various investing strategies. This month, you’re evaluating gold investing.

Instead of promoting your membership program, you send an email blast out promoting the virtues of gold investing. You talk about why most people make mistakes investing in gold and how the right investors with the right mindset can make it big. You sell this month’s program as if it were its own product.

Do this every month, for every different topic that comes out. Of course, the rest of the time you need to be providing valuable content to not burn out your list. But this “monthly push” strategy is incredibly effective if you’re putting out content on different topics every month.

Recurring Revenue Affiliate Products 

If you have people who aren’t signing up to your programs, if you have them on your list, you can promote affiliate products to them instead. In fact, you can even promote affiliate products to them even if they did sign up for your program.

Recurring revenue affiliate programs can be a nice supplement to your existing recurring income. In the above example, the investing newsletter’s owner might sell someone else’s newsletter that’s just focused on gold investing as an affiliate. He’d get a commission every month that buyer remains a paying subscriber.

These are just a few ways to take advantage of having an email list to generate recurring income. Setting up an email list just takes a few hours and the returns will be well worth your effort.

The “Solving Problems” Attitude V.S. The Quick Money Mentality

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There are two ways to approach the process of building wealth: Through “make money quick” schemes, or by creating value in the world and solving problems.

Businesses that work in the long run tend to fall in the latter category.

Is it Possible to Make Money with Quick Money Schemes?

I’m not going lie to you. It’s absolutely possible to make money with quick money schemes. In fact, some people make a lot of money from it.

That said, there are a few deadly drawbacks:

  • It doesn’t last. No matter how brilliant the scheme, if you’re taking value rather than providing value, if you’re creating problems rather than solving them, at some point the revenue will completely die out.
  • You’re hurting your reputation rather than building it. In the long run, your reputation in the business community and marketplace is more important than the short-term amount of money you make.
  • You risk permanently damaging traffic sources. For example, many blackhat marketers in the last few years have had their accounts with AdWords shut down, entire networks of sites delisted from Google and even personal Facebook accounts deactivated for violating Facebook PPC terms.

That said, let’s take a look at the “Solving Problems” mentality.

The Problem Solving Mentality

At the end of the day, people who solve problems and create real value are the people who make the most money. There are more benefits than pure profits, however.

Other people want to deal with you. You’ll be invited for interviews, to speak at conferences and to appear in other people’s products. In short, you’ll have both respect and money.

You’re also increasing your long-term prospects rather than decreasing it. A strong brand in and of itself brings in traffic and increases conversions.

People who think in terms of creating something valuable tend to think long-term. Instead of trying to find a loophole somewhere that’ll make some quick money for a couple months, they’re thinking of creating real businesses that’ll help real people and continue to bring in revenue for years and years to come.

Every highly successful business today, from Google to Facebook to Intel, all started with people who wanted to create something. They weren’t trying to make a quick buck; instead, they aimed to create something unique and valuable that the marketplace has never seen.

Take on this mentality for yourself and your business. It’s better for your customers, it’s better for you and it’s more profitable for your bank account.

Although it is important to understand the technical aspects of making money (i.e. conversion rates, SEO rankings, etc) it’s also crucial to have an underlying product that creates real value.

Do so and in the long run, you and your business will prosper.

If you need some help identifying, crafting and communicating your value proposition, then be sure to check out our Rainmaker Summit. We can help nail down the value you offer, craft your message and communicate it in a way that can have people literally banging on your door to do business with you.

Just give us a call at 866-238-5920, or go here to learn more about the Rainmaker Summit.

The Face Of Your Business

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Your  is what others use to identify you.

You see it every day when you look in the mirror.

Your eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, and even your ears are all unique to you, serving to make up the exterior you show to the world.

Your business also has a face.

While it’s not as physically tangible as your personal face, it carries as much identifying importance.

The face of your business is designed and developed by four different elements: your products and services, your customers and users, your industry segments, and the different geographical areas you serve.

As you seek to mold your business’s face, there are a few questions you should consider.

  • What is driving you today?
  • What are your current products and services?
  • Who are your current customers?
  • What are your current industry segments?
  • What are the current geographic markets that you’re serving right now?

These questions are terribly important.

If you don’t understand what drives your company, you will likely drift from the course you should be on.

Strategy defines the rules

Strategy is essential for giving you a path to success.

While you must know what to do, knowing what not to do is just as important.

When we think about this in terms of our business’s lives, we can see how pervasive the issue is.

  • How many times have you bought something you had no reason to buy?
  • How often do you buy things you don’t end up using?
  • How many times do you find yourself trying to sell something that you had no business trying to sell?
  • How often do you attempt to sell to people outside your core market?
  • How often do you venture into places you shouldn’t be going?
  • Do you find that you are seduced or distracted by what other people are doing?
  • Do you chase new ideas because they’re interesting and exciting, or merely just popular?

The essential question

Oftentimes, we ask ourselves, “What is everybody doing?”

What everyone else is doing is irrelevant to your business.

The essential question to ask is, “What is going to help me accomplish the defined goals that are located in my strategic plan?”

Nobody wants to miss out on an opportunity.

There are all different kinds of software, seminars, programs, and home studies that relate to your business so you’ll never have a shortage of choices to distract you.

If you are unsure if you are on the right path I suggest you attend our Rainmaker Summit, and we will help you question the reason that you are pursuing a particular idea.

Match that idea with your strategic plan.

If it fits, continue on that path. If it doesn’t match up, you need to cease that pursuit and get back on track with your strategy.

One of the best things about a strategic plan is the simplicity it brings.

A lot of choices disappear because they’re irrelevant to your plan.

Remember, just because somebody puts an idea in front of you doesn’t mean you have to consider it.

You’ll find that your strategic plan clears away a lot of the irrelevant choices that clutter your mind.

With your strategic filter in place, you’ll know when a new idea fits with your plan.

Intuitively, it will feel right because it matches up with your business concept. In most cases, other essentials will accompany that intuition.

For example, the idea may have buzz around it, or it may hold good pricing and stellar benefits for your company.

3M Company is a good example of a company that has had success in more than one arena.

They have their Post-It division, masking tape division, videotape division and film division.

Even though they are completely different markets, they are all driven by their primary technology, polymer chemistry.

Despite the different divisions, they are all linked by their driving force.

Now, what would happen if they decided to get into the DVD business?

In order to achieve the same success in a new division, they would have to be true to that driving force.

If they merely tried to force a new division to fit into their company model, it would fail.

Even though DVDs seem related to videotape, it doesn’t fit with their driving force.

If they can’t use their polymer chemistry in it, there’s no need in pursuing it.

Even if something seems sexy, nice or even logical on the surface, if it doesn’t fit with your strategy and driving force, you absolutely should not do it.

This is why strategic thinking and driving forces are so important to your business.

They set the foundation. Once you have them in place, you can quickly separate the choices that are good for your business from those that aren’t.

Becoming an untouchable Rainmaker

When you know your company’s driving force, core competency and business edge, you become untouchable.

When you achieve that, you can start dominating in different areas.

You’ll find different pockets, such as reshaping competition areas.

David Glass, the former CEO of Wal-Mart, once said, “Our distribution facilities are the key to our success. If we do anything better than other folks, that’s it.”

Wal-Mart knows that their driving force is a distribution method, and they’ve mastered the areas of excellence there.

The former CEO knew where their competitive edge lay.

Because they mastered that core competency, there is not another company that would be able to get an edge on them.

Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx. He said, “The main difference between us and our competitors is that we have more capacity to track, trace and control items in the system.”

As far as driving forces and areas of excellence, FedEx is driven by a distribution method. One of the areas of excellence is their systems and they have mastered that.

There is no way anybody is going to be able to beat them in that game.

Your driving force will identify a lot for you. It will tell you what kind of products and services you should be developing.

It will dictate the kind of customers and users you should seek and the industry segments you should be pursuing.

Finally, it’ll lead you to the geographical areas you should be targeting.

The post The Face Of Your Business appeared first on Rainmaker Tips.

The Driving Force Of Rainmaking

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Today let’s talk about the driving forces in Rainmaking.

The driving force of your business creates business power and propels forward movement in your company.

Each force layers on top of another, forming an increasing crescendo which develops into significant progress in your business.

History shows the importance of a driving force

IBM and Kodak are two companies who strayed from their driving forces.

IBM was computer-driven and Kodak was film-driven.

While both companies had different core focuses, they tried to compete against Xerox for business in the copier world.

They foolishly tried to unseat a company when they had no business competing in that realm.

While both IBM and Kodak had significant amounts of money and access to additional capital, they weren’t true to their driving forces.

Xerox was already the leader in the high-speed copier market; Xerox had driving forces in that arena.

IBM and Kodak are not driven in the same way that Xerox is driven.

Neither company has the technology or focused skills to be able to compete in that realm.

As a result, they lost hundreds of millions of dollars and had to retreat, ceding victory to Xerox.

Xerox, however, didn’t emerge a total champion. Later down the road, they were devastated by Canon due to their own business mistakes.

Other large companies have been distracted by competition and veered away from their driving forces.

RCA, GE and AT&T are all major companies who should have been focused on the Internet’s infrastructure and cellular technology.

Instead, they veered off course and tried to get into the mainframe computer business in order to compete against IBM.

IBM failed in its attempt to compete against Xerox but they excelled in their core competency.

While RCA, GE and AT&T are all huge companies with substantial market caps, IBM held them off.

This is because IBM remained true to its driving forces.

RCA, GE and AT&T didn’t have the technology, areas of excellence or driving force to compete against IBM, a company that specialized in that arena. These companies lost hundreds of millions of dollars in their bids to compete.

Identify your driving force

Once you identify your driving force, it will keep your business on track and your entire company will be a Rainmaker.

You won’t be distracted with extraneous ideas or competition.

If you fail to know your driving force, you’ll be easily seduced by things you shouldn’t be doing.

When you begin developing products and pursuing markets in which you have absolutely no business, you only cost your company capital, energy and time.

Analyzing your business

In order to identify your driving force, you must understand your business concept.

At the Rainmaker Summit Bill Walsh and the Powerteam will help you to effectively analyze your business to identify your driving force.

You see, so many people have blurry business concepts, and a clouded business message is doomed to fail for two reasons.

First of all, you can’t remain on track to success if you don’t know what that track entails.

Secondly, you won’t be able to get the support you need to succeed if you can’t articulate your core business.

When people clearly hear what drives your business, they can then get behind it.

As you mold your business concept by attending the Rainmaker Summit, you’ll be better able to properly align your resources so that you can grow your business rapidly.

In the process, you’ll also identify your rallying cry, thereby giving your business its own unique voice.

As you continue to classify your business plan, you’ll see that each step in the process builds on the prior, just as your company’s driving forces layer on each other.

That momentum propels your company to eventual success… and ultimately a Rainmaking business.

The post The Driving Force Of Rainmaking appeared first on Rainmaker Tips.

The post The Driving Force Of Rainmaking appeared first on Rainmaker Tips.

Strategic Thinking – The #1 Key To Rainmaking

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The first step to succeeding in business as a Rainmaker is to learn how to think strategically.

What I want to share with you here today is the cost that not thinking strategically.

In order to succeed, it’s essential to study those who have failed and thrived, as well as those who simply missed out on opportunity.

Companies that missed out Kodak and Polaroid are two companies who missed chances to break out in their fields.

These two leaders in camera technology should have been the firsts to recognize and act on the opportunities of digital imaging. Because they sat on the sidelines rather than playing the game,

Sony was the breakout company that unveiled the very first digital camera. Undoubtedly, executives at Kodak and Polaroid have asked how many dollars their lack of strategic thinking cost them.

AT&T is another company that missed out. They completely  missed the development of the cellular phone industry.

The startling component of their absence from the cellular field’s emergence is that AT&T actually invented cellular technology.

AT&T created the technology but it is Cisco’s technology that is driving 70% to 80% of the Internet’s backbone today.

AT&T had a huge opportunity to be in that position. Truly, they should be in that position; however, should doesn’t amount to much in the business world.

Due to AT&T’s negative paradigm, they weren’t thinking strategically. As a result, they gave up the opportunity. They could have been the ones to develop the hardware to drive the core the Internet but they missed out.

This mentality extends to virtually every type of business. Pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Pfizer completely missed out on the advent of biotechnology.

IBM missed out on the growth of personal computers. In a similar situation to AT&T, IBM was in the mainframe computer business but they completely missed out on the personal computer boom.

One would assume that the Swiss watch industry was responsible for the big spike in watch development and technology in watches but they weren’t. Remember Seiko digital watches?

The Japanese literally brought the Swiss industry to its knees with their innovative technology. It devastated the Swiss watch industry.

In 1997, the government auctioned off license positions for only two companies to provide satellite radio services.

The two companies who won, thereby obtaining the licenses were American Mobile Satellite, now known as XM, and CE Radio, now called Sirius.

Why didn’t Clear Channel and Viacom fight for licenses? At the time, both companies controlled close to 50% of the U.S. radio market. What were they thinking?

Instead, Clear Channel snapped up over 1,000 different radio stations while American Mobile Satellite and CE Radio were pursuing the satellite radio services licenses. Performance-wise, Clear Channel is not necessarily on a move up; it’s on a move down.

In the book industry, Barnes & Noble and Borders completely missed Amazon’s emergence.

With Amazon making it so easy to buy books online, Borders and Barnes & Noble’s traditional stores took a major hit.

Those companies should have been the ones to come up with the new method of doing business.

Since they didn’t, Amazon swooped in and took a major chunk from their bottom line.

In a similar manner, the major airlines did not foresee the extent of the digital move. As a result, they were completely devastated by Priceline.

Ford, GM and Chrysler displayed a major lack of strategy when they completely missed Toyota. The U.S. automobile industry underestimated the potential of these new, relatively affordable
cars.

Perhaps at the time, the industry was right; Americans didn’t want these comparatively cheap cars at that precise moment. But that is incremental thinking, and a perfect example of a situation in which it cost several companies dearly.

Instead, the industry allowed Toyota to develop its foothold in the U.S. market. As a result, Toyota was able to rapidly build up their technology, and now they have crushed the U.S. automobile
industry.

All these examples are big companies and brands that got seriously hurt because of their lack of foresight. It’s no different for your company. If it can hurt the big guys, it can hurt any of
us.

The preparation is the same for any size business—in order to succeed, strategic thinking must be in place.

So how many opportunities are you missing because you haven’t been properly trained to think strategically in business?

Chances are you are missing thousands of dollars… hundreds of thousands of dollars… perhaps even millions of dollars in revenue because your own current thinking is blinding you.

Smart business owners are expanding their strategic thinking skills by attending our Rainmaker Summit. Click here for full details and come join us to taking your mind from thinking like a business owner and start thinking like a Rainmaker… the king of all strategist!

 

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Business Success – Lead with Enthusiasm (Part 5)

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Last week in this business success series I gave you a simple process to help you execute with focused effort, definable activities and measurable results.

Unless you are operating by yourself, you will have a supporting cast to help you move forward with focused effort, definable activities and measurable results.

Your business success is built on the foundation of your business leadership skills.

When you think of your role as a leader or motivator for business success, think about how you help you will create phenomenal teamwork within your company.

A positive attitude on your part is a start.

It may seem simple to have a “positive attitude”, however this outward display of passion helps your ability to lead your team and it’s essential to your present business success and future progress.

Here are 5 key elements to consider that will impact your teams success:

  1. Shared values
  2. Mutual trust
  3. An inspired vision
  4. Complementary skills
  5. Rewards

My Enthusiasm to Lead for Business Success

Great marketers are those with energy and drive; that’s basic to success in business.

You have to believe in what you are offering, and you have to believe in yourself.

Why would anyone put their faith in what your offering and you should no confidence in it yourself?

When you meet someone that talks enthusiastically about anything from products to movies, and vacations to food… the enthusiasm is so contagious you can literally feel the transference of the feeling from them to you.

And that’s what you want within your team and it’s certainly what you want when communicating your marketing messages to your audience.

The great thing about enthusiasm is that it is infectious. Enthusiastic people are people whom you would want to hang out with.

More so, they are the people who can inspire you.

Thus, when you’ve managed to inject more positivity and optimism in your world just for having something to rave about, you create more success for yourself!

This success is not just in business but in your personal life as well.

So here’s what we’re going to do next.

Below are some personal assessment questions about enthusiasm.

Reflect on each one and give your responses in the space provided.

Define what enthusiasm is for you in behavioral terms (behavioral terms mean what you do and what others see in you when you are enthusiastic e.g. your voice is strong and firm, you go to work in time, etc.). How do you know when you are enthusiastic?

What are your top 3 main sources of enthusiasm?

Call up 3 people who know you personally. Ask them to rate your enthusiasm on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 as the most enthusiastic. Ask them as well to describe your enthusiasm using three adjectives. Write their responses below.

What can you say about other people’s view of your enthusiasm? Do they reflect your personal view of yourself?

Business Success  Needs Team Enthusiasm

How you act as a motivator of others is also an important aspect of being enthusiastic.

A great marketer can sell not just products and services, but sell visions, sell the future and sell a totally different way of thinking, feeling, believing and living.

Think of three people in your business or in your life who in your opinion can use more doses of enthusiasm.

What can you do or say to get them all warmed up? Write your responses below:

PROCESSING QUESTIONS

Does your team have the 5 keys to success?

  1. Shared values
  2. Mutual Trust
  3. An Inspired Vision
  4. Complementary Skills
  5. Rewards

If yes, which ones do you have?

If not, what is keeping you from having the ones that are missing?

Overall, how would you rate yourself in your ability to motivate others? What works? What needs improvement?

Next week we will shift gears in an exciting and productive way with some rock solid tips on being a Rainmaker in your business.

So stay tuned for that.

Until then, be sure to complete the above exercises.

The post Business Success – Lead with Enthusiasm (Part 5) appeared first on Rainmaker Tips.

Business Success Marketing Mindset (Part 4)

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In this part of helping you business a Business Success System, we want to look at your Marketing MINDSET.

You should think about marketing every day, and at all times.

Making certain things a habit or mindset can produce returns sooner than you would expect ordinarily.

Marketing is not something that you think about only during your product launch.

If you want to draw the financial rewards from your efforts, you must think about marketing 24/7.

Make it a habit to read about trends, to contact prospective and current clients and leads, and even pick one or two different items from your personal checklist to concentrate on during a specific length of time.

Your marketing schedule should include activities such as, visiting a competitor’s website, writing a press release or composing an email sales letter, starting a direct mail campaign and designing an incentive campaign… just to name a few.

If you have a team of people or you outsource your marketing, then you must have a Marketing Huddle to discuss, assign and hold people accountable for results scheduled every week.

Planning is the key.

Study all your options and check which are most cost-effective.

And if you are a bit wary on investing a lot of time, money and effort on something that you are not yet familiar with, you can always begin work on a small scale.

Things You Could Try Out

Let’s have a brainstorming session. Sometimes the best way to get your creative juices going is to just start listing possibilities without analyzing first which would work and which wouldn’t.

So come up with as many ideas as you can!

What are the ways you can improve your marketing that you haven’t tried before?

What are the things that you should read about to get a better grasp of the trends? The marketing process? Your customers?

Who are the people you should consult/talk to? (Include customers, team members and field experts.)

PROCESSING QUESTIONS

Were you able to come up with many possibilities? It will also help to gather your team around for this process and solicit their ideas. If you have time, you can do some internet research.

Once you’re done, revisit the entire list that you made. Rank them in terms of the order in which you’d like to do them. Consider program effectiveness, resources needed and preference when deciding which you like the best.

Summarize your top 3’s below:

Creating Marketing Habits

Congratulations for successfully listing the things that you can do to improve your marketing.

Now the only thing to do is try to see if we can make all these things into marketing habits.

Remember that Powerteam Weekly Action Planner I gave you 2 weeks ago?

Now you can put that to use. If you need it again, you can download it here.

I would make 12 copies of these which would represent your schedule for the next 3 months or 12 weeks.

Your Weekly Preview

The Weekly Preview is all about setting yourself up to win by identifying high value activities, focusing on them, scheduling them and completing them.

In the “Important Notes/Reminders” section write down all the top 10 things that you can do in the coming week to improve your marketing.

Be sure to use the insights that you have from the above activity for your reference.

For example, you can make reading a particular business magazine a weekly Wednesday routine.

You can make every first Friday of the month your time for experimenting on your untried ways of improving your market.

You can make every Monday your “talk-to-a–customer” day.

Our objective is for you to develop at least one productive marketing habit every week.

The more you make marketing part of your daily ritual and schedule, the sooner it will become part of your mindset.

Make certain you go back to your list at the end of each week to see what habits you have successfully developed!

Okay now…

From the top 10 items you listed, pick the top 3 you are committed to doing and put those top 3 for the week in the “Major Focus Area For Next Week”

In the “Action Plan For The Week” section  write out the individual task required, who will do them and when they will be done by.

This is giving you the micro view on the task to make sure you follow-through on your top 3 you are committed to doing for the week.

Your Weekly Review

Your Weekly Review is about recapping your wins and challenges from the previous week and giving yourself a score based on the results your produced.

To do this, grab a fresh copy of the Powerteam Weekly Action Planner.

In the “Last Week’s Achievements” section right down the top 3 things you are most happy about that you achieved or made major progress on.

In the “Last Week’s Obstacles – Barriers To Success” section, make note of the #1 obstacle you battled with during the week. Also make note of how you dealt with it.

Now, is you go to the “Major Focus Area for Next Week” want to consider that obstacle. Has it it been handle? If not, do you have the strategy in place to handle it?

It’s also a good idea to anticipate any possible obstacles so you can incorporate contingency activities in your “Action Plan For Next Week.”

This single sheet of paper will provide you with focused effort, definable activities and measurable results.

So let’s get to it and I’ll see you back here next with the #1 thing you can do right now to have greater influence as a marketing leader in your industry and in your business.

So, see you next week as we continue building your own…

Business Success System!

 

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Business Success System (Part 3)

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Business Success System Part 3

Here’s the next installment in helping you create your own Business Success System.

Are you ready?

Cool!

Let’s get to it.

This week will be a short lesson because this is more about reflecting instead of reading.

That being said, please don’t let the short lesson and the simple exercise that follows to fool you.

It’s so critical to business success you won’t find one single success Business or Owner or CEO who doesn’t practice this in one form or another.

Last week in this Business Success Series I asked you the question:

“Is Your Marketing TRANSPARENT and CAN IT BE EVALUATED Anytime?”

That answer to that question is important because it’s the means by which you gather, analyze, filter and use data for your product and service creation and marketing.

Today we want to gather some data to create a “Motivational Profile” of the most important person in your business…

Your Customer… Clients… or Patients.

Without them, you have no business.

So here’s what to do next…

Imagine yourself as one of your most faithful clients or customers.

By putting yourself in his/her shoes, you can better connect with their personal meaning, why they buy from you and what they ultimately get from you.

QUICK NOTE: Doing this easy exercise regularly will help you to develop an instinct for how you can best serve your market that will lead to growth in your business.

I want to stress again: visualizing your client is about more than being able to empathize with them.

When you really connect with your purpose in business, like a Doctor connecting emotionally to how he/she saves patients lives.

It can energize you in your journey towards continued success in ways nothing else can!

You will keep going when things are tough and you’re tired.

You’ll find a way when it seems like there is no way.

The reason why is because you will fully understand why your business exist… beyond giving you and your family a financially powerful lifestyle.

In fact, every financial gain you get from your business is a reward for successfully serving your market.

So let’s continue…

By being able to feel your customers enthusiasm and wholehearted support for your product or service, you’ll have that easily accessible source of drive to keep you pursuing your vision.

It’s empowering to know that your efforts are being appreciated.

You are not just in business to earn money; you are in business to make a difference in people’s lives.

So let us document and process some of what you visualize.

Complete the questions below:

Name of the customer that I envisioned in my mind:

________________________________________________________

What did he/she wish to accomplish by buying your product/service?

What made him/her choose your product/service instead of the competition?

Describe how he/she felt upon satisfaction with your product.

From your visualization insights, name four affirmation statements that can help you focus on your vision during those challenges times:

No take some time to look over what you have written down.

This is the fuel for why you’re in business… the reason why you must be a Rainmaker.

You see, by being a successful Rainmaker, that means you are reaching more of your market and they are giving you money in exchange for the value you provide.

The more value you provide, the more money you make.

True Rainmakers know this and they practice the art of knowing who their customers are, why they buy and what they ultimate what to feel and experience from buying.

Okay now…

Why would I present this to you as an exercise as part of your business system?

Pretty simple actually.

You see, as a business owner, you are faced with many challenges.

It’s very easy to focus on the frustrations, the problems, the conflicts, the competition, the economy… and so on.

It’s not that the competition and the economy doesn’t matter… the question is “what matters most?”

The moment you lose site of our customers and the people you are in business to serve, that becomes the beginning of the end.

Let me leave you with these three simple words.

  • Attitude = What and how you (the business owners) thinks.
  • Servitude = The way you deal with the Customers, Clients and Patients you have agreed and consented to serve and provide value to.
  • Altitude = How well your business grows in sales and profits from the combination of your Altitude and Servitude.

So take some to to connect with this.

Your business success literally depends on it.

To further help you build a powerful and profitable business success system, in the next installment we will get into the “Marketing Mindset.”

I’ll have some pretty cool exercises and worksheets for you that will help your fine tune your marketing mindset so you can think like a strategist.

So stay tuned.

By the way… have you taken this survey to discover your #1 Profit Bottleneck.

Check it out… it’s an absolutely free survey!

The post Business Success System (Part 3) appeared first on Rainmaker Tips.

Business Success Series (part 2)

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Before we get started today I want to introduce you to the most powerful single piece of paper you will ever get.

It’s called the “Powerteam Weekly Action Planner.”

I want you to click here to download it now.

Just hold on to it because later on in an upcoming post I’m going to show you how this single piece of paper can 10X your productivity, and double if not triple your revenue and income.

It completely changed my life and business and I’m pretty sure it will do the same for you.

So grab it real quick here and let’s get started with Part 2 of this Series.

In part one of this Business Success Series, we looked at the principle of ‘the right marketing message for the right market’ as one of the most fundamental principles in business.

I know you want to get to making sure you are targeting the right market.

However, there is something important we need to cover first.

In an up coming post, I promise you will get a slam dunk way to ensure you are targeting the right market.

For today however, in Part 2 of this Business Success Series we want to look at how you are evaluating your marketing.

Real quick though…

There are a few guiding principles  about “marketing” I want you to keep in mind.

Marketing is not an event, but a process.

It has a beginning, middle, but never an end, for it’s a process.

You decide it, create it, improve it, perfect it, change it, innovate it, manage it, analyze it and even pause it. But you never stop completely.

It’s an ever-changing series of good and sometimes bad decisions and a unique set of adjustable plans that should over time get better and better as you learn and see yourself evolving and being reinvented continually.

Think of it as an on-going experiment and a fluid reaction and adjustment to fluid needs and changing times.

Always ask questions along the way and remain open to change and study.

At Powerteam International, we focus on the processes which produces the outcomes you desire.

We are about helping you to understand what the process looks like and how to use it in your business so you too can become a master marketer… a kick-ass money maker.

What we call… a Rainmaker!

So let’s get it going here today.

Marketing does not begin and end with identifying the right market.

In fact, I don’t think you can ever retire from marketing.

As long as your business is in operation, you can always innovate on your marketing strategy.

The most successful businesses are those that are flexible enough to change and adjust along the way.

It is important that you and your team can clearly tell whether your marketing is working or not, and how well it is working.

Only with regular and accurate feedback can you fine-tune your approach.

So make sure that you take the time to study your sales progression and results.

More importantly, get in touch with your clients, customers or patients.

Ask them relevant questions.

Being able to genuinely connect with those who trust you enough to give you their money in exchange for the value your offer, can help you unearth insights that you likely will not find in any paid surveys or research.

Is Your Marketing TRANSPARENT and CAN IT BE EVALUATED Anytime?

Constant evaluation is a key element in marketing successfully.

This goes to the “analyze it” as I mentioned above.

You must always check whether or not your efforts are working the best that they possibly could.

Because markets can change fast, what worked today may not work anymore tomorrow.

Transparent criteria are a key element for effective evaluation.

A good performance indicator should be something that can be understood by everyone in your team.

More so, it is not subject to one person’s bias and stereotypes.

For your marketing efforts, consider the following questions:

How often do you evaluate your marketing efforts? Do you feel that you are evaluating your strategies as often as you should? If yes, why? If no, why not?

What are your performance indicators (e.g. unit sales, optins/subscribes, unique visitors, rate of conversion etc.)?

Are these the best performance indicators for your product/service? If yes, what makes you say so? If not, what else is missing?

What are the sources of your information?

Are these sources reliable? How can you confirm their validity? What do you think could be other valid sources of quality data about your marketing?

How about the role designation in your team? Complete the following:

  • Who is in charge of…
    a) Gathering data?
    b) Organizing data?
    c) Studying this data?
    d) Creating new ideas from the data?
    e) Developing an action plan?
    f) Implementing this action plan?
  • When is he/she supposed to do this task?
  • Does he/she knows that this is his/her job? (yes/no)
  • Does he/she complete his/her task satisfactorily? (yes/no)

Is the evaluation of your marketing decisions well-assigned to responsible team members? If yes, what works? If no, what needs to change?

Finally, create an evaluation plan for your future marketing strategy.

How Has Your Marketing Evolved Across Time?

One way to tell if you are open to change and study is to see how your product/service, as well as your marketing strategy have evolved across time.

Were you able to successfully adapt to the changes in the market?

Were you able to incorporate the results of your evaluation?

Let us take a moment to track the changes that you have made to your product/service and or marketing strategy since the time you started in business.

Inside each of the arrows below, track the different versions that you have of your product/service or marketing approach.

For example, if your business is selling baby shoes, your responses may look like this:

(1) sold baby shoes in retail outlets -> (2) built a website -> (3) added free parenting ebook per purchase.

Underneath the arrow, write down what factors prompted the change.

Was it to match a competitor’s idea?

Perhaps to raise dismal sales?

What influenced your decision?

PROCESSING QUESTIONS

Overall, do you consider your marketing as open to change and study? On a scale of 1 to 10, if 1 is the least open and 10 is the most, how would you rate yourself? What made you choose this rating?

In hindsight, were there times when you knew you should have innovated but didn’t? What made you ignore the feedback then? What makes you say that you should have pursued change?

If you were to repeat this activity, this time documenting your most successful competitor’s product/service and marketing strategy, what did they do that you didn’t? What important feedback did they not ignore?

Okay, man…

That was a lot today, wasn’t?

The reason why we want you to tackle these questions is because business is really a battle of the minds of the business owners.

You must first out-think your competitors to be able to out-maneuver them.

You must know how to take insights and turn them into income for your business.

I fact, remember this.

Insights -> Implementation -> Income!

By the way, if you want a quick way to discover your #1 Profit Bottleneck. I suggest you click here to take a quick survey we designed that will give you instant feedback.

Coming up in the next installment of this Business Success Series, we will actually get into one of the critical parts of effectively targeting your market.

In fact, I’ll give you a simple set of questions that will help you fine-tune and master your marketing instincts.

It’s these instincts that will lead you and your company to victory on today’s business battlefield.

So I’ll see you back here next week.

In the mean time, take a few minutes and click here take a survey to discover your #1 Profit Bottleneck.

It’s an absolutely free survey!

 

 

 

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