If you’re anything like me, you start looking forward to summer as soon as the calendar flips to a new year. 😉
Why not take advantage of summer’s slower pace and people’s more casual attitudes and plan to not only take time off but to make some money while you do?
Want to encourage people on your email list to buy one (or more) of your products or programs sooner than later? Have a sale! I’m sharing 7 super-simple ways that you can provide great value to your audience while bringing in a great profit for you at the same time!
1. Half-Off Sale
Offer your product or program for 50% off its usual price. That may seem like a big discount – and it is – which means that many more people are likely to buy it.
Or go one step further and offer all your products or programs at 50% off (except any one-on-one work with you, of course!).
I’ve been thinking about buying a few products over the past year from one site, and when they had a 50% off sale recently, I jumped at the chance to buy not just one, but three products for half-price. Give your list the chance to do the same.
2. Close-Out Sale
Do you have a product or a program that you are no longer going to offer, perhaps to make room for some new offerings? Or are you coming out with a new version of one of your offerings? Have a close-out sale by offering a deep discount.
As an added bonus, you could then offer those people who bought your offering at the close-out price that same amount in a discount if they buy the new version.
Here’s a bit of inspiration for you: One of my close-out sales brought me over $10k in less than a week.
3. Re-Gift Sale
Remember the Seinfeld episode about re-gifting? Do something similar for the stock of any of your products that have been returned. “Re-gift” the ones in good condition to a new buyer for a discount.
4. VIP Sale
Offer a coupon or promo code ONLY to your email list, or to your clients, or to those people who have bought from you before, that’s good towards the purchase of any one or all of your offerings. You can set this up in your shopping cart system very easily, so there’s no other extra work on your part.
5. Free Shipping Sale
Offer free shipping on any of your physical products for a limited time, or offer free shipping on all orders over a certain amount.
Personally, if I’m looking to purchase something online, I always search for (and almost always find) a ‘free shipping’ code before I buy.
6. Bonus Sale
Add a valuable bonus or two to your offering for a limited time. It can be something you’ve created or something from one of your colleagues that your niche would benefit from.
Leverage this kind of sale by doing a “bonus sale swap” with a colleague, where they would offer a bonus from you and vice versa. Your own sale will bring you cash, and your bonus offering for your colleague’s sale will bring you more subscribers to your list, which will ultimately bring you more cash.
7. Just Because Sale
This is a favorite of mine – having a sale just because – it’s your birthday, you want to show your gratitude to your list, it’s the 1, 5, or 10 year anniversary of when you went into business for yourself, or for any other reason you can think of.
Having a sale WILL bring in more immediate cash, but there are some cautions to take when doing so too. Only have a sale occasionally, and when you do, have a compelling reason for it. Otherwise, if it seems you’re always having a sale, you’re planting a seed in your potential buyer’s mind that your offerings may not be worth their regular price.
So, which kind of sale are you going to have to put some extra cash in your pocket today? Share with me in the comments.
Feel free to share this post with your friends and colleagues via the buttons below too – thanks!
PS: There are definitely some nuances to making a sale be really successful for you, and that’s something we talk about in the Lively Biz Business Club (my most affordable coaching option). To find out more, be sure to get on the wait list here today, ok?
I’ve personally invested over $100k in my own business education (not including my MBA) and I’ve leveraged that investment into well over a half-million dollars in the last few years.
I’ve said before that I will make my million – in my time and on my terms. And because I’m sensing this strong undercurrent of desperation in many business owners about making 6 or 7 figures, I wanted to invite you to take a different tact:
Ask yourself, what’s the least income you can make right now and still live a happy life?
Not ‘I want to make a million dollars by the time I’m 40’ and you’re 39 now and the most you’ve ever made is $50k. Not ‘I want to make 6 figures by the end of 2013’ and your current monthly revenue is $2k.
So, what’s the least you can make that will take you to that very next step in your vision – not the BIG vision – but just the next bump up?
What’s the least amount of money you can bring in that will give your current lifestyle the boost that will make you smile, that will make you feel and know you’re moving forward, and that will continue to motivate you onward?
You see, I’ve been asking myself the same question lately. And the reason is because I’ve been starting to feel really stressed in my business and frankly I’m not having as much fun as I used to in it either.
And because of a few other things that are attributing to this feeling of heaviness that are outside my business, I’ve been feeling a need to shift things. Just small shifts for now, while allowing the bigger shifts to more fully form without pushing them into fruition until next year.
So here’s my answer to this question and how you can figure it out for your own business too:
Step 1: Get cash clear
Get crystal clear on how much money you really need to live the lifestyle that you’re happy with, not the one you’re striving for (I guarantee when you give up this grip, money will flow more abundantly to you).
This may mean having a conversation with a spouse or partner. Do it. Especially if you are in a financial partnership with someone else, you’re likely not the only one feeling the push and the pressure for more. Do yourselves both a favor and figure out what’s the minimum level for you. You may be able to give up or put aside one or more of your current income streams so you can have more of the time freedom you crave, knowing you still have enough to enjoy your life.
Step 2: Be sure all your eggs aren’t in one basket
If you’re relying on high-end pricing and programs to carry your business, you may be setting yourself up for a financial fall. Your clients and customers are being more and more discriminating about where they’re spending their money – and that’s not going to change anytime in the near future, not while our economic outlook is still bleak.
Be sure to have different ways in which you can serve your market, not just one-on-one. Offer lower priced programs and products to help more people as well as to diversify your cash flow.
Step 3: Build your business around your life
This is a mindset shift for many people. But if you’re in business for yourself, isn’t it so you can design the life you want to live? Not so you can work more, but so you can work less, and still enjoy a great life with the income to support it?
In order to do that, you have to schedule your life first, then your business-building activities around that. This is how I’ve been able to take off almost 3 months every summer for the last 7 years. My business doesn’t suffer; in fact, it grows because of my commitment to this principle.
Figure out how to make the money you want for the next level of your business (again, not the BIG vision, just the next bump up) in the time that is left after you’ve planned the life you want to live first. Then ask for the support or hire the team you need to help you make this happen.
When you put your life first, the time towards what makes you happy, the focus on just the next bump while you tend to LIVING, all the ‘more’ you want (which we all want, by the way – we are all here to grow and to be, do, and have more) will come. This I know for sure.
I’d love to know your thoughts on this – please leave your comments below.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately getting ready for 2012 – planning, organizing, strategizing, visioning, and more. There are many transitions and transformations on the horizon for me and my business, and much to do to prepare for them, so I’m making space and opening the flow.
Here are some of the ways I’m doing this in my business that you can do too:
1. Clean Up Your Business Time
Time is your only non-renewable resource. If you’ve ever experienced days when you don’t know where the time has gone, but you do know you haven’t accomplished much, then you need to take a serious look at just what is eating up those precious minutes. My coach’s request of you is to track your time for the next two weeks. Like a food diary makes you intensely aware of what you’re eating, a time log will allow you to quickly and easily identify where you’re frittering time away.
Most likely culprits?… Email and TV (yes, I know some of you are ‘watching’ TV while you’re online, and no, that’s not multi-tasking, that’s just pure distraction).
Once you are aware of where your time is going, make a conscious effort to redirect it to more productive – or even more restful – activities. Turn the TV off (or TIVO/DVR whatever it is you must watch and give it your full attention later). And don’t leave your email open all day long! Allot specific time to read and respond to it instead.
You’ll be amazed at how just doing this simple exercise will free up the time you want for more important (and fun!) things. (Be sure to read Part 2 of this article next week where I’ll share more specific and effective tips for handling email overload.)
2. Clean Up Your Business Space
Now is a great time to go through your files – computer and physical – and delete or organize them for moving forward to 2012. I spent several hours going through my physical files recently, shredding lots of documents (I love to purge!), and setting up new files for my new Platinum clients as well as empty files for the ones yet to come. During this process both online and off, I also found a lot of gems I’d forgotten about – pieces of content, systems and processes, tools, resources, audios, and more.
And now that I have a recent visual in my mind of what’s in my files, it’s literally at my fingertips as I move forward in building my business. As for my computer, I actually went so far as to purchase a brand new laptop, and I’m being very discerning about what gets transferred over from my old PC to the new. Energetically and electronically, I can feel how much more open the flow is by doing this.
3. Clean up Your Business Circle
This one can be a bit difficult, but it’s necessary to prune the people you surround yourself with from time to time. It doesn’t mean you have to completely disconnect from them (unless they’re just weighing you down energetically), but do make a conscious choice to spend more time in the company of those who lift you up.
Let me give you a simple example. If you’re on someone’s ezine list just because everyone else is or you feel like you should be, but you either a) don’t read it or b) don’t feel good when you do read it, just unsubscribe and allow the space for something that resonates with you to take its place.
Or maybe you’re part of a mastermind group that you feel you’ve outgrown. Now is the time to graciously bow out. Once you do, you open the space for a new group to form around you that better supports where you are now.
How are you making space and opening the flow for the new year? Please share below…
I had many light bulb moments during my three days in Dallas at SHINE this year, and I wanted to share with you 10 of my top take-away’s:
1. Opportunities come through people, not your computer
Think about that for a minute. Yes, you can build good relationships with people over email and social media. But when it comes to the really juicy opportunities, those are going to come through meeting people and spending time with them IRL (in real life). That’s one reason why it’s so important to get out there at least a couple of times a year.
2. BLT – Believe, Like, Trust
We often hear and I say it myself – that people need to know, like and trust you before they will buy from you. But I liked this version better – that people have to BELIEVE you, like you and trust you. So the more YOU you put into your marketing, the more authentic you are, the more people will get to believe, like and trust you, and the more sales you’ll make.
3. When you are yourself, you have no competition
Enough said.
4. No Plan B
If you have a Plan B, then just do Plan B. Otherwise make the commitment to Plan A, with no other option.
5. Your best ideas don’t come from sitting at your desk
My best ideas come to me in the car. Or sitting on the dock in the early morning of summer. I created this business under a palapa in the Turks & Caicos. Where do your best ideas come to you? When you’re stuck or need to hit the refresh button, go where your best ideas are able to pop into your mind.
6. You’ve got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable
Being an entrepreneur will bring up all your stuff. 🙂 Most of the time, that’s going to make you uncomfortable. You have to be ok with that and recognize that it’s just an indicator that you’re moving through whatever you need to in order to grow and reach the next level. If you can remember that, it’s actually pretty exciting, isn’t it?
7. Balance
I always say there’s no such thing as balance, that there’s an ebb and a flow but no such thing as balance. So it was empowering to hear two of the speakers say the same with their own spin:
“Life if not about balance; it’s about resilience.” and “Balance is for ballerinas.” 🙂
8. Eat that frog
You may have heard this idea before – to do the thing you most do not want to do first. Eat that frog and get it over with. Once you do, your energy is free to work much more productively and enjoyably on everything else.
9. Focus on your zone of excellence
If you’re still trying to be all things for the people in your market, I’m going to make a coach’s request that you make a commitment to stop that right now. Spend some time focusing on who your ideal client is and what is the ONE thing that you LOVE to do in your work with that ideal client? Start re-designing your message and your offerings around that.
10. Business happens at the bar
…or on the shuttle from the airport, or while waiting in line for the restroom, or when you step outside on a break for some fresh air. If you’re taking the time away from your business and your life to attend a live event, then you need to be talking to people, engaging with them, and letting them engage with you. Let me be clear – I don’t mean selling to them and I’m not fond of the word networking, but just talk to people, have a conversation. The best business relationships I have were built from a simple chat over a drink.
I’d love to know which of these resonates with you. Please leave your comments below…
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