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 2011′ 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 6 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.

Tweet

One of the biggest mistakes I see entrepreneurs make is creating what they think their market needs instead of what it wants. Then they’re left disappointed, discouraged and with little to no sales – and maybe even unwilling to try again.

So if you’re creating products/programs/services that you think your market needs – offerings that seem the most logical to you that will help your prospects do, be or have better – but you’re not selling many – or any, then keep reading.

There are two things you need to remember when creating any offering for your market:

1. People buy what they want, not necessarily what they need.

2. People buy based on emotion, not necessarily on logic.

There are several ways to get this information and use it to help you create an offering that will solve your prospect’s problems and make a profit for you at the same time.

The best way is to do your research. Make sure you conduct market research of your market at least once a year. You want this to be an ongoing part of your marketing campaign so you can keep up with the changing desires of your target market and continue to offer them what they want (not what you think they need).

Here are some ways to do this:

1. Simple: Ask them!

Ask your prospects a simple, open-ended question, like “What’s your biggest challenge with building your business online?” or “What’s the one thing you’d like to learn more about that relates to balancing your work and family life?” Tailor the question to your niche and use the information you receive to help spark ideas for new products and services.

You can put this question to your target market a number of ways: as an autoresponder when they sign up for your freebie offering, periodically in your ezine, ask them on your teleclass and have them email you their response, or ask them on discussion boards and blogs in your niche.

2. Almost as Simple: Do a simple survey…

… that asks 1-10 questions using a survey tool like SurveyMonkey. This allows you to ask more specific questions to elicit more specific responses. Doing a survey like this really helps you to NOT waste your time creating offerings your target market simply doesn’t want.

Continue reading this and share you thoughts on my blog…

3. Advanced: Set up an Ask Database campaign (www.AskDatabase.com).

This tool helps you ask your niche what they want in a sophisticated and professional-looking way. It does a few other things besides just asking the questions, so if you have the budget, it might be worth looking into.

One last tip: To entice people to share their thoughts with you, offer them a free gift for answering your question or taking your survey. It’s also a nice way to say thank you for their time and for the very valuable information they’re sharing with you.

The information you glean from implementing this strategy (especially over time as your list grows) is priceless! Try it for yourself and see if you don’t agree…

30 Days to an Income-Generating Info-Product

It’s absolutely possible to create a new income stream by putting together a simple product in as little as a month. I’ll teach you not only how to do it, easily and inexpensively, but also how to choose a topic that’s guaranteed to lead to a lucrative product for you.

As a bonus, I’ll also share with you the exact steps I used to create a simple multi-media product that continues to generate consistent sales with very little promotion that you can do too!

Only *2* seats left – reserve yours

I’d love to hear which of these tips you’re willing to embrace today. Feel free to share with me below.

Tweet

Want to increase your sales BEFORE you launch your product or service? The following are some of the most effective ways to do just that:

1. Use Social Proof

What is “social proof”? Simply put, we are all conditioned to watch what others are doing and follow along (think teenagers). Using social proof in your marketing helps you to influence your customers to purchase your products/services, get new prospects to sign-up for your list, and get people talking about you and your offering – and that’s just the start.

So, how do you use this psychological trigger in your marketing?

One way is to use results-based testimonials. Ask your current customers or clients to give you results-based testimonials. They literally say, “I used this product and these are the results I got.” Having celebrities give these to you is great, but make sure you have testimonials from REAL people. Those are the ones that are really going to cement the idea in your potential buyer’s mind that they can do it, too.

2. Answer your prospects #1 objection

To take “social proof” to a deeper lever, anyone who is buying anything almost always has this #1 objection: “Sure, you can do it, but can I do it?”

In addition to using yourself as an example (if appropriate) as evidence that what you are offering does what you say it will, it’s also important to make sure you get “social proof” from people in your client/customer’s peer group. Then your potential buyer sees people like themselves and understands that “Hey, it worked for them, it can work for me, too.”

3. Use a time limit

Creating a sense of urgency around your product or service will make it that much more enticing to potential buyers. For example, offer special pricing for one week only and tell your buyers that after that week, the price will go up. You don’t even have to say by how much (but DO raise it if you say you will). Just knowing that there’s only have one week to buy at a lower price creates that sense of urgency.

4. Use a limited quantity

If you are selling a physical product and you are only having 100 produced, then use that information to create the same sense of urgency you would with a time limit. Use a countdown on your website to further create the feeling that if your potential buyers don’t buy now, they may miss out.

5. Use a time or quantity limit on bonuses

Additionally, you could offer bonuses for a certain length of time (first week only) or for a certain number of products sold. For example, the first 30 buyers would get an additional special report (valued at $XX).

The last three strategies also help your buyers feel like they are part of your “club” when they join by purchasing your product or service.

Obviously, you can use these tactics unscrupulously, and I’m sure you’ve seen it or experienced it yourself. But if you want your business to truly be successful, in all the ways that are important and meaningful to you, then you must only use these strategies with integrity and honesty.

If you really are only going to print 100 copies of a physical product, then only print 100 copies. That doesn’t mean that you can’t do another print run. It just means that you tell your market that you’re only going to print 100 now, and if you do decide to do another run, then they will have to wait before they can get their copy.

If you really are going to raise your price after a certain date, or after a certain number of items are sold, then you must follow through. You can give your current base a chance to buy at the “original” price before you raise it, but you still must raise your price if you say you will.

Your integrity using these strategies will create more sales for you than ever before. Choose one to try and enjoy your results!

Are you ready to learn how to “Launch Your Products, Programs, and Services to Instant Success”?

In my brand-new L.E.A.P.™ GOLD* program, Once your product or program or service is complete and you’re ready to offer it to your market, if you don’t know how to effectively launch it, you’re leaving a ton of money on the table. There is a science to it and I’m going to teach you the precise steps to take, pre-launch, during the launch, and post-launch to guarantee you get the biggest return on your investment in your time, energy and money.

Most entrepreneurs simply don’t know how to offer their products, programs and services to make the most of them in sales and clients. It’s a simple process that you’ll learn from me (the first launch I did using this formula converted 40% of my list from potential buyers to paying customers (many of whom turned into clients as well) – that’s unheard of in the industry).

To make it even easier for you to follow this process, I’m including the same checklist we use in my business every time we launch something new.

Interested? Reserve one of the *very* limited seats TODAY

I’d love to hear which of these tactics you’re going to try and what your results are. Feel free to share with me below.

Tweet

Basically, there are two things that must be in place before any of your offerings can be successful (read: profitable). One is that it must be designed for a niche. So, there must be a group of people who you are targeted to offer your product/program/service toward.

The other is that is must solve a problem that your niche wants solved. Sounds obvious, yes? But many times, we create what we think our niche NEEDS instead of what it WANTS. It’s critical to know the difference and to use that knowledge to create your offerings.

There are many ways you can find out what it is that your niche wants most so you can create it and offer it to them. One of those ways is to hold a teleseminar that both delivers value to your participants as well as provides you with market research to use to inform your product line.

The best thing is that these types of teleseminars can be easy to fill and fun to host. Here are the steps:

1. Decide on the topic

Your best best is to choose a topic that’s broad in scope, meaning that it discusses a problem that the majority of your niche struggles with and would like help in solving. This will get you more people on the call as well as give you a more diverse group from which to learn from for your own market research purposes.

2. Use a mini-application

When people register for your teleseminar, ask them to fill out a short questionaire. This really begins your market research because you’ll be asking them what it is that they are struggling with specifically in relation to the bigger topic.

For example, if your topic is “How to Balance My Business and My Family and Still Have Time for a Great Life”, one question you may ask in your questionaire is, “What’s the ONE thing you struggle with most when it comes to balancing your business and your family? Please be as specific as possible so I can give you some specific strategies to help!”

You could also ask the question in another way: “What two questions do you have that I must answer on this teleseminar for you to feel it was of value to you?” You may also want to ask where your participant is at present with regard to your topic and where they’d like to be.

Tell them you’ll be answering as many questions as you can on the teleseminar itself, to engage people right from the start when they are registering for the call, as well as encourage them to show up in the first place (this is particularly helpful if this is a fre*e call).

Also, don’t be shy about telling your participants that you’ll be using their comments and feedback as part of growing your own business. For example, if you’re writing a book and you need some more content for a certain section, hold a teleseminar on that topic and share with your teleseminar participants that they may be featured in the book if their comments, suggestions or examples are used. People will jump to sign up for your call!

3. Ask questions

At this point, you have an outline for the call itself, and now you’ve filled it in with more content with the answers to the questions that were submitted when people registered.

The next step is to weave those questions and answers into the conversation on the call itself, and ask if there are MORE questions or comments around them. This will give you more in-depth and insightful information for your purposes, as well as be valuable to those on the call. This is when you really want to give the space and the time for your participants to talk (count 5 Mississippi’s if you have to to stop yourself from filling any silence while people are thinking).

Be sure to record the call so you can listen carefully to the conversation again and take notes about what you hear that your participants are looking for in terms of solutions to their problems.

4. Send a follow-up email

As soon as possible after the call, send a follow-up email thanking your attendees for their time and participation. Include notes from the call that you’ve cleaned up and converted to a neat PDF file for them as well for added value.

What you’ve done with this is type of ‘Open House’ teleseminar is invited your attendees to ask you anything they want about your area of expertise. With the information you glean, you can easily tailor your next product around the things they most want, which equals a successful offering for you!

Do you want to Master the Art of Teleseminars to Make Thousands of Dollars?

In my brand-new L.E.A.P.™ GOLD program, we’re going to go well beyond these basics with this topic, including delving into cutting-edge methods and new technologies to ensure your teleseminars are the ones your target market clamors for!

Although there are fancier ways to teach ‘virtually’, teleseminars are still HOT, simple to do, have stood the test of time and, with the methods you’ll learn from me, are proven to make more sales. You can be creative with them, making them more fun for you to host as well as for your attendees, and you can make A LOT of money from just a single hour of work that you can do in your pajamas from your office, back deck, front porch, dock or sailboat (I speak from experience here)…

We’ll cover both free and paid teleseminars, which to offer and why, what technology to use, pricing, what to do if something goes wrong (it happens to all of us at one time or another), and much, much more. I’m even going to share all my templates and other how-to pieces to model to host your own successful teleseminars.

Interested? Reserve one of the *very* limited seats TODAY

I’d love to know your thoughts on hosting your own teleseminars – please feel free to share your comments below.

Tweet

If you’re reading this ezine, it’s likely that you’ve participated in a teleseminar, whether it be mine or one of my colleagues. You’ve probably been on some that have been very good, where you got tons of really valuable information. And you may have found yourself on a few that were nothing but pitch-fests for the host’s latest product.

But I want to share something with you. Hosting content-rich teleseminars for my target market is some of the quickest and easiest mo^ney I’ve generated in my business.

Holding F.R.E.E. introductory teleseminars are a great way to promote your business, increase your email subscriber list, make more sales on your products, and enable your potential clients another way to connect with you. By being on the phone with you, they get to know you through your voice, adding the human touch that can be so hard to cultivate online.

When I first started building my business, I offered a f.r.e.e. monthly teleseminar that gave people an introduction to what I teach. From each of these calls, I got more ezine subscribers, more members for my group coaching membership, and more sales of my products.

Holding PAID teleseminars helps to promote your business and generate revenues as well. I do 2-4 paid teleseminars a month, each on a different marketing or success topic, and each of these revenue streams generating thousands of dollars.

Another way to offer teleseminars is to do “intensive” or “bootcamp” series of multi-week teleseminars. I’ve offered 8, 10- and 4-week ‘”workgroups” on the topics of listbuilding, creating a successful business online from scratch, and search engine marketing that have been very profitable.

Hosting teleseminars is easy and here’s 4 simple things you need to get started:

1. The Right Target Market and the Right Topic

Here’s the secret for producing and profiting from a teleseminar: It must be designed for a target market AND it must solve a problem that that target market is struggling with. If you have those two keys in place, you’ll be sure to attract enough sign-ups and make money from your topic.

2. A Bridge Line

There are several good no-cost bridge lines available for you to use, but the one I’m currently recommending is NoCostConference.com because you can record the teleseminar for free as well. This is a nice benefit to offer your participants and to anyone who had to miss your teleseminar for any reason. I use it as a back-up recording for all my calls.

3. Recording Service

You’ll need a way to record your teleseminars so you can provide the audio for people to listen to later and for you to make CDs from if you decide to package your teleseminar into a physical product later. I use AudioAcrobat to record all my teleseminars, with NoCostConference.com as a back-up.

4. Automatic Registration

You’ll want to be able to have people sign up for your teleseminar without you having to do a lot of work. I use Aweber for all my teleseminar registrations, but you can also use your shopping cart’s autoresponder service if you have one.

I’d like to invite you to start offering f.r.e.e. teleseminars to promote your business, and once you get more comfortable with both the format and the technology, start offering paid teleseminars. Even if you only have a handful of people on your first call, it’s great practice. And I guarantee your numbers will increase as you continue to build your email list, and you’ll be profiting from teleseminars in no time.

Do you want to Master the Art of Teleseminars to Make Thousands of Dollars?

In my brand-new L.E.A.P.™ GOLD program, we’re going to go well beyond these basics with this topic, including delving into cutting-edge methods and new technologies to ensure your teleseminars are the ones your target market clamors for!

Although there are fancier ways to teach ‘virtually’, teleseminars are still HOT, simple to do, have stood the test of time and, with the methods you’ll learn from me, are proven to make more sales. You can be creative with them, making them more fun for you to host as well as for your attendees, and you can make A LOT of money from just a single hour of work that you can do in your pajamas from your office, back deck, front porch, dock or sailboat (I speak from experience here)…

We’ll cover both free and paid teleseminars, which to offer and why, what technology to use, pricing, what to do if something goes wrong (it happens to all of us at one time or another), and much, much more. I’m even going to share all my templates and other how-to pieces to model to host your own successful teleseminars.

Interested? Reserve one of the *very* limited seats TODAY

I’d love to know your thoughts on hosting teleseminars – please feel free to share your comments below.

Tweet

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 2011′ 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 6 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.

Tweet