Have you ever done a cleanse of your body? It’s an enlightening experience, to be so aware of what you put into your body and how that effects everything, from your mood, to your brain power, to your energy level, to your creativity, to your health and well-being overall.
And it’s really no different for your business. Whether you’ve been in business for awhile or not, at some point – and I recommend at least once a year – it’s good to detox your business too.
Here are four of my favorite ways to detox your business:
1. Complete working with any ‘messes’ in your business
What do I mean by ‘messes’? Basically, I mean the clients that are difficult or demanding, who don’t respect the relationship between you, and who make your heart sink when you see their name on your calendar.
This also applies to any service providers you’re working with. Jot down a list of the people who do work for you in some regular capacity. Then ask – are they easy to work with or difficult on some way? Do they complete tasks well and on time or do they take too long with constant revisions? Do they keep things simple or make things more complicated?
Did you think of someone? My coach’s request of you is to determine a completion date for your work together and honor it for yourself. And know that releasing that person opens the space for a better client or service provider to come along and fill it.
2. Detox your inbox
This is something I talk about a lot. There can so much overwhelm and negative energy in your inbox, even if you’re so buried in it that you’re not sure what’s even in there anymore.
Here’s what I want you to do – Unsubscribe, Delete, Delegate, and Move.
Go through your inbox and unsubscribe from any list that a) you don’t read (even if you plan to, let’s be honest – you won’t) or b) doesn’t make you feel good when you do read it. This one act alone is going to release so much energy that’s pulling you and your business down.
Then delete anything that’s left that’s irrelevant, delegate to your team anything (and more than you think you can) they can take care of, and move any emails that you want to keep into appropriate folders (better yet, set it up so they automatically go into those folders).
The only emails left in your inbox should be the ones that only you can take action on.
3. Pare down your offers
Look at your offers one-by-one and see if there’s any way to simply them. That may mean breaking up a larger offer into smaller, more easily consumable pieces, or it may mean simplifying the delivery of the offer. And some offers may just need to be retired.
4. Release the ways you run your business that simply don’t work for you
This is a big one. Instead of trying to run your business one way, following someone else’s formula or blueprint, doing things your own way will always serve you and your market better. I’m all for following a proven process – I definitely don’t think anyone needs to re-invent the wheel – but just make sure that you tailor that process in a way that feels good and true to you. Don’t be afraid to throw out the parts that don’t resonate, or to add something in that is unique and different. The biggest successes I’ve had in my business have been when I’ve done it my way.
I’d love to hear how this resonates – please comment below.
By Alicia Forest, MBA
The Business Shifter™
I have a successful business because I know what to do and I do it. I make a good income, I work with clients I enjoy, I get to be creative and I get to do all of that in a way that keeps my family and my life first.
So while I’m always open to learning how to do all of this better, at the moment, my intention is to shift the way I envision my business as I reinvent it for its next iteration.
Here are four of those shifts:
1. Money comes from within
As I assess the current state of my business, I’m excavating where I need to spend my time and energy on to continue to evolve my business in the way that honors my life and my own strong boundaries around that life.
For me that means really listening and following my intuition more, taking care of my personal energy more, hiring a higher level assistant, and adding a whole lot more ‘Alicia flavor’ to the mix.
2. Always come back to what I want
When the thoughts get muddled and the confusion sets in with all the choices of what to do in my business (and my life), I will keep coming back to this single question:
What do I want?
And I’ll keep asking it until what I want is crystal clear. Then I will know exactly what to do.
3. Systems and structure equals more freedom
I’m great with systems – we have one for pretty much everything in my business – but structure is lacking a bit, and that is because I can operate well on the fly. However, just thinking about how a little bit more structure would benefit me and my team and how that would lead to more freedom for me got me excited about actually putting that structure in place right away.
4. My non-negotiables are my success
I have been looking more closely at this, and I realized that a big attraction piece for my audience are my non-negotiables (family first, summers off, etc.). From this place, I’m able to draft the new design of my business and I could not be more excited about what is to come.
Designing a business on your terms, in your time, is one of the pillars on which I stand and teach. Learn how to do this for YOUR business and life at my annual Online Business Breakthrough Workshop here.
Many small business owners like us have a difficult time asking for business. It’s not that we don’t want the business, but wouldn’t it be so nice if people just handed over their money for our product or service rather than our actually having to ask them for it?
And this is one of the most common ways that small businesses stay really, really small, and sometimes peeter out altogether. They don’t ask for the business, or they don’t ask for it often enough to create a successful and sustainable business.
Here are 5 easy ways that you can ask for the business that if you implement on a consistent basis will guarantee that your business – and your bottom line – will grow.
1. Ask what they want…
The #1 way to grow a profitable business is to offer what your target market wants. And the best way to find that out is to ASK them.
At least once a year, survey your target market, asking them specifically what their biggest challenges are and what products and services they are most interested in. Periodically ask your current clients and customers the same question.
Use their responses to develop your offerings and you’ll practically guarantee yourself a source of steady in^come.
2. Ask for the sale…
Once you’ve create the product or service that your target market has told you it wants, you have to put it out there and ASK for the sale.
Don’t just stick it on your website and hope people will see it. Put together a promotion plan for each product or service you put out, including email promotions, using your online networks, utilizing your affiliates, and even consider pay-per-click advertising.
Then periodically ASK for the sale again. Plan a year’s worth of regular promotions for each of your offerings and you’ll increase your in^come.
3. Ask for the order…
A simple but oft-missed tip: Make sure that on your sales page for your product or service, you ASK for the order.
Just flat-out ASKing for the order can increase your sales dramatically.
Aside: Have you ever been on a website ready to buy something but you couldn’t find the order link and ended up clicking away in frustration to go find what you wanted somewhere else? Don’t do that to your customer. Make your order link or buy button very obvious!
4. Ask for the referral…
Another way to build your business is to routinely ASK your current clients and customers to refer others to you. You can do this via a simple email that you send out periodically. You could also offer an affiliate program to entice people to refer your products and services to others for a small commission.
5. Ask for the recommendation…
Make a request of a colleague whose offerings complement yours to recommend you and your offerings to their list. Because the people on your colleague’s list already know, like and trust him/her, they are much more likely to follow his/her recommendation.
Now you have 5 simple ways to grow your business that you can put into practice today.
© 2013 Alicia Forest International | All rights reserved.
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Alicia Forest, MBA mentors women entrepreneurs on how to build a priority-based, highly profitable business, in less than part-time hours. Get her FREE series on how you can do this too at http://aliciaforest.com
by Alicia Forest, MBA
The Business Shifter™
In coaching clients this month, I’ve been reminded of many of the common blocks that come up for entrepreneurs as they grow their business. The good news is that to move beyond them simply takes a different perspective.
I’m sharing three of the most common ones below and a shift for you to consider if you’re finding you’re struggling with any or all of these blocks yourself.
1. In terms of money, you can only receive what you allow yourself to receive.
So consider how that may play out in your own sense of worth, in both the level at which you invest in yourself as well as the level at which you ask others to invest in you.
For example, if you invest in a $2500- program, are you asking your market to invest in a $2500- program with you?
On the other, more common, hand, are you asking your market to invest in you at a price point that you’re not willing to invest in for yourself?
Where in your business might there be this incongruence?
2. When you feel like you need to add another element to a program (to ‘justify’ a higher price), add more transformation instead.
You may have heard me say before that people buy based on emotion, not necessarily on logic.
When you’re writing your copy for your offer or speaking about your offer, you want to spend 90% of your words on the transformation that people will get as a result of engaging your services.
You can think of it as the transformation, or the outcomes, or the benefits, that someone will receive as result of being in your program, buying your product or siging on to work with you one-on-one.
3. “I already know that…”
Whenever I attend an industry event, I make the effort to pay attention as if everything was new, which enables me to see the holes that are present in my business. And when I find that “I already know that…” I ask myself, “Am I doing that?”
And if the answer is “yes” then my next question is “is it working?” And if the answer again is “yes” then my next question is “how can I make it work even better?”
Where can you plug a hole in your business or up-the-ante on one thing that’s already working well in your business?
I’d love your thoughts on any of the above – feel free to leave them below.
Pinterest: 5 Ways to Use It Effectively
by Alicia Forest, MBA
The Business Shifter™
Oh no! ANOTHER social media platform?
Oh yes – and it’s one you might want to take a look at, to see if it makes sense for your particular business. But a caution here – even it does – don’t feel you have to add it to your social media marketing. If you’re already overwhelmed just keeping up with your current social media efforts, then leave Pinterest be, at least for now.
But if it appeals to you and makes good business sense to add it to your business platform, here are five specific ways you can use it in your marketing efforts:
1. Less Clicks = More Conversions
The less clicks your visitor has to make to get to the information or product they want, the higher your conversion rates. With Pinterest, there are just two clicks from first seeing something of interest to visiting its site of origin. That translates into more leads and more sales.
For example, let’s say you have a book for sale and you pin the image of the cover from the book’s sales page to your board. When one of your followers sees your pin and clicks on it, it will allow them to share it with others immediately. And if they click it again, it will take them to the site where the image was pinned from, in this case, the sales page for your book.
2. Drive tons more traffic to your site
Because Pinterest has such a large following (10 million+ unique views at this writing) it’s a great tool for driving more traffic to your site via the links that are attached to the pins you make to your board. In fact, there are tracking stats that are showing Pinterest is driving more traffic back to websites than Facebook or Google+.
3. Easy for people to share your content
Pinterest makes it super-simple for your followers to share your pins and therefore links back to your site. Because every pin includes a link leading back to the source of the image, this can translate into a lot more inbound links to your website. So the more followers you have, the more those followers share your pins, the more traffic to your site.
4. Gain from user addiction
Some markets have already fallen in love with Pinterest, with more to come as more people become aware of and start utilizing this new social media platform. If your market is a fan of Pinterest, then you need to get onboard and get in front of all that traffic. Just start with one board, pay attention to what your followers are re-pinning (sharing with others) the most, and pin more of that content.
5. Connect it with your other social media sites
Since I’m all about leveraging your time and talent, if you’re going to use Pinterest, then you need to connect it with your other social media platforms to do so. You can connect Pinterest with your Facebook profile (hopefully they will add the ability to connect to your fan page soon). You can also connect your Pinterest account with Twitter so your pins are automatically tweeted. And you can add a “pin it’ button to your website, much like other share buttons, so your visitors can pin for you.
by Alicia Forest, MBA
The Business Shifter™
Do you get stuck when trying to figure out what to offer to your market next?Do you wonder if they’ll buy what you put together for them?
Just follow these three steps to easily create your next successful offer:
Step 1: Know what your market WANTS
Be really clear on your market, what their problem is, and what your solution to that problem is. And more importantly, don’t make the mistake of creating something that you think your market needs before you find out if it’s something they want.
How do you find out what they want? Ask them!
Step 2: Fill in the holes in your Planned Profit Path™
In the business model I designed and teach, there are different offers at different price points. When deciding what to offer next, take a look at your Planned Profit Path™ and see where your next gap is and then fill it.
So, if you have a Free Taste and nothing in the less than $50 range at the first level of the Planned Profit Path™ that’s the first gap you’ll want to fill.
One way you can fill this gap is to take one of your larger offerings and modulize it to fill in a lower level of your Planned Profit Path™.
Advanced TIP: if you have a $50 product and it’s selling really well, that’s when you want to start creating something at the next level of the Planned Profit Path™ to offer, which would be at a higher price point.
Step 3: Create the Offer
Once you have identified the hole to fill you can start creating your next product, program or service.
Knowing what level you’re creating your product for will inform the end product. And you’ll want to make sure your time and effort equals the price point.
Here are some examples to get you started. Know that your market may demand higher (or lower, but not much) price points:
Level 1: $50
– ebook
– CD
– print book
– journal/day planners
– teleseminar
Level 2: $200
– teleseminars – single or series more comprehensive
– e-manuals
– short group coaching programs
– two-part-multi-media module
– live workshops or seminars
And don’t forget – create a product that you actually enjoy creating!
How you’ve decided to package your product will determine your delivery system. This is the path to getting your product into the hands of your buyer. Some systems only do one thing, but most overlap, so it makes sense to think about your bigger vision for your business as it grows and make the investment in some of the systems that do several things if you can.
I’d love to hear your thoughts below…
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