I wanted to talk to you today about being purposeful in your business, and in particular in being purposeful today with what’s going on in our current reality.
A lot of times
when I talk about being purposeful in your business, I’m talking more in terms
of understanding that at some point, usually after you get through that first
initial startup phase, it’s really important for your business and all of your
income streams to have a purpose beyond making money.
If you want
your business to be sustainable for the long term, there has to be something
more significant behind it, and I talk about that in a lot of different ways.
We talk about
what your big money why is, we talk about each income stream having a specific
purpose. But for right now, I really wanted you to think about the way your
business is structured right now, What your current income streams are, and to
think about the one that’s working the best for you right now.
And maybe one that’s different than in the past of what’s worked best for you just because things are shifting so much. But really think about which of your current income streams is working the best for you right now?
– How can you be more purposeful with it? – How can you be more purposeful with it in terms of reaching your audience about it? – How can you make your messaging be more concise, and be more specific to them, and to what’s happening and what’s going on in their heads in their hearts right now? – How can be more purposeful with your messaging? – How can be more purposeful with your market and how you’re reaching your market? How can you be more purposeful with each of your offers?
Think about
that income stream, in particular, the one that’s working for you. How can you
amplify that right now and make it so it really fits in to what’s going on in
our world and how you can be more purposeful and more of service to the people
that you’re trying to reach and help solve their problems?
I really want
you to think about this. This is something we talk about all the time with
private clients and in my Lively Biz Business Club. But it’s really important
to take that step when you are in the beginning stages of building your
business.
And I know some
of you are just starting right now because it really is a great time to start
your online business or bring your side hustle into more fruition online or to
extend your offline business into online. It really is a great opportunity to
do that today.
But to think
about, once you’re through that startup phase, because when we’re in startup,
we’re figuring things out, right? We’re bootstrapping, and really our priority,
our purpose is to make money, it’s to bring cash in the door, it’s to be
profitable. But at some point there is a shift where you can start being more
strategic. And you start thinking about how can you be more purposeful both in
terms of how your business operates, And how can you be more purposeful when it
comes to reaching your market and your messaging.
I talk a lot
more about this in a free playbook that I’ll add a link here too, that you can
get today, that goes into it a little bit more about having meaning behind the
work that you do, and particularly about having a purpose for each of your
income streams, and how you can leverage being purposeful in your business too.
I wanted to talk to you about some of the conversations that I’ve been having with clients and folks that are in my Lively Biz Business Club lately.
You’re probably having these conversations as well. Or maybe they’re just thoughts that are in your own mind.
It’s about charging for our offers right now during our current crisis.
I
just wanted to talk to you a little bit about what I think is true and what I
know to be true through all these years of experience of being online and being
in business, being a business owner, and hopefully helping to give you a
different perspective.
If you’re feeling uncomfortable about charging for your products, your programs or your services, or you’re feeling guilty about it, or you’re just really not sure what to do, here’s why it’s okay to charge.
The first reason is based on historical data and my MBA experience which has shown me that our economy will only stay afloat or not dive deeper into the abyss where it’s already headed as long as we continue to exchange money.
We
need money to keep flowing in order for our economy to stay afloat, in order
for our economy to bounce back quicker from our current reality and our current
crisis right now.
We need that money exchange, we need to exchange value for value, money for money. If nothing else, if I can appeal to your logical left brain and historical data, just know that that’s true. If you want to help our economy, small business owners are in the best position to make that happen. So I’m going to encourage you to do that, if only from that perspective.
But I also want to address this from a more internal perspective, which is probably where you’re struggling with the most.
One thing that I love seeing and I talked about this recently is the generosity of all the free invitations that are out there right now. And if you can take advantage of some of those, I shared some tips on a recent Facebook Live that hopefully will help you really utilize those free invitations, those free offers and different programs and products without hopefully overwhelming you or adding more to what’s already a stressful situation.
Skin in the Game
But from a perspective of yourself and your business and charging for your products, programs and services, the fact of the matter is, if you really want to continue to serve your people, and for all of us who are service based business owners, that’s what we’re all about – we’re here to serve our market, our audience, our people. If we want to do that, then the best way that we can serve them is to ask them to put a little skin in the game – at least a little bit.
There’s nothing wrong with offering things for free. And there’s certainly a place for it. I offer a lot of content for free. But make sure that you don’t open up your stores to everyone for everything that you offer without charging them. There needs to be some skin in the game so they show up and do the work.
If
you’ve ever had an experience like that, where maybe you took advantage of a
free offer, but you didn’t show up and do the work, or maybe you had someone in
one of your products or programs or services who took advantage of an invitation
for free, but didn’t show up and do the work, then you know what I’m talking
about.
Consider Scholarships v Free for all
Now,
I’ve also had many people come through different offers that I’ve made over the
years as a scholarship recipient. And those people have been some of my
absolute best clients, and a lot of them are still with me today because of
that first experience.
So if you’re thinking about making some of your invitations free to your audience, to help them, to serve them through this time, think about maybe offering a scholarship because that is a little skin in the game, right? They have to apply, maybe they answer a couple questions, maybe you only have so many spots to offer for people. That’s one way that you could approach this and still be of service to your market. To do it in a way that serves both of you – you’re serving both your potential client or customer but also serving your business as well.
Still OK to Charge
But the other thing that I wanted to say is that it’s perfectly okay for you to charge for your products, your programs and your services right now, even if it’s a little bit, maybe you’re adjusting your pricing right now to because it feels better for you to do that, that’s great.
But
even if you don’t want to or don’t feel like depending on your market that it’s
necessary for you to do, so don’t feel guilty about continuing to charge what
you’re charging right now. It’s all perfectly okay. And it’s all very
individual.
But
I wanted to really just say that if you’re coming to your work and giving your
work to your potential clients and customers, from a place of service, if
you’re coming from your heart and you really are just there to help them and
provide solutions, then it is okay to charge for that. Because doing so is
going to help everyone. It’s going to help you, it’s going to help your clients,
it’s going to help your customers, it’s going to help our economy. So it really
is a win-win-win.
So
again, yes, continue to offer your free content. So maybe do scholarship spots,
maybe change some of your prices. I just did a course that I normally charge a
couple hundred dollars for at least, and I did a “pay what you can” where I
gave some lower prices because that was a way that I could serve my market. But
I also know that charging them even little bit means they’re going to show up.
They’re a little bit committed, they’re doing the work, they’re going to get
what they came for in the program, which is going to help them and it’s going
to help their families and it’s going to help their communities.
So
don’t feel guilty about charging. Don’t feel uncomfortable about charging. Maybe
look at it from a little bit of a different perspective. Have some free stuff,
maybe do some scholarships, maybe do a “pay what you can” or “pay what you want”,
or continue to charge what you’re charging right now and keep putting one foot
in front of the other.
It’s
all good but you have the absolute opportunity here to serve your mark at an
even higher level by coming from your heart by actually asking them to commit
back to you as well. It’s truly a win-win-win all around.
I’d love to know what you think. Go ahead and drop your comments in here below.
Picking a group of people as your niche or target market is a critical foundational piece for building a really successful online business.
But you knew that already, right? 😉
Because once you do, your marketing messages become very clear and targeted, you know exactly how to talk to this group because you can speak their language, and it makes it much easier for others to refer business to you.
That being said, once you’ve chosen a group of people to work with, you’ll want to make sure that it’s a viable one to sustain your online business for the long-term.
It’s fantastic to be passionate about your niche, but if those people don’t have money to spend on your offerings, or there’s simply not enough of them, you’re not going to be able to grow and sustain an online business based on it.
Here are 5 keys to look for to decide if a niche/target market is a viable one for your business:
1. They are easy to find and reach.
Can you think of three places (online or off) where your target market gathers, whether it’s in a formal or informal fashion? Can you get easy access to them?
2. They hang out in some organized fashion.
Are there memberships, associations, organizations and online groups made up of your target market?
3. There are enough of them.
Your target market has to be large enough to sustain your online business for the long haul. It’s great to have a highly specialized niche that’s small, but if you do, see #4.
4. They have money.
In order for you to stay in business, your target market has to have enough money to pay for your offerings. In addition, they need to understand the value of what it is that you’re offering in order to invest that money with you. In other words, do they need to be educated about how your offerings will serve them in some way, or do they already get it?
5. They have a problem worth solving.
Every target market has struggles and challenges. But in order for you to build a viable online business within that market, they have to have problems that they will “pay anything, do anything” to get solved. Be sure to listen to the conversations the people in your target market are having to understand what they are struggling with the most to create the solutions they are willing to pay for.
In Online Business Breakthrough, there are several trainings on how to figure out who you are most meant to serve, how to find them and connect with them, and how to create products and programs they most want to buy to from you.
If you’re a female entrepreneur who’s building a leveraged online business so you can keep your family first, this is for you.
As the same, I’m always looking for ways to leverage what’s already working in my business to improve my results so I can grow my business more quickly without more effort.
Where in your business could you do the same? Take this mini-assessment to find out.
__ 1. Do you know your priorities?
You need to know the highest-payoff activities to focus on in your business before you can fully leverage them for a far greater result.
If you often feel scattered, and that you’re too often flying by the seat of your pants, and you would LOVE to have a much more streamlined and simplified process for creating flow in your business on every level, it starts with knowing and focusing only on what matters.
What’s your #1 highest-payoff activity in your business today?
__ 2. Are your sales lacking?
If you’re not making as many sales as you want, there’s likely some missing pieces in your sales flow. I’m sure you know that just putting something out there online does not equal a successful offer. There are several critical pieces you need to have in place first, and then a strategy to convert from offer to sale.
What is the #1 missing piece in your sales process today?
__ 3. Do you abandon your current clients/customers?
It is far easier to sell something to someone who has already bought from you, and yet this is one of the most common places where entrepreneurs leave money on the table.
What is the natural next step you could offer to your current clients/customers?
__ 4. Do you leave your prospects hanging?
70% of your sales are in the follow-up. Don’t leave your potential clients and customers hanging just because your offer went live. Keep touching base with them, making sure they don’t feel abandoned, that you truly do want to help them.
Where in your current or next offer could you add a follow-up process?
__ 5. Do you have an “easy yes” offer?
Do you have a way to work with your market that’s an easy yes for them? I’m not talking about private work at your highest level. I’m talking about being able to experience your work in a way that leverages your time yet supports your client as well?
What simple product or program could you create that walks your client through your process in a do-it-yourself way?
These are just 5 areas to be looking at where you could up the ante on what you already have in place in your business – or what you should have in place to create the success you desire. We’ll cover 5 more in Part 2, but in the meantime, spend some time figuring out for yourself where you can apply the above to start seeing better results for less effort.
Seeding your offers is an elegant, easy, and graceful way to let people know that there is an invitation coming, an opportunity to take the next step with you, that they can learn more and go deeper into your topic with you that you will tell them about soon.
It’s a really nice way to lay the foundation for an offer that you’re going to make at a certain point in time. It helps to create anticipation and excitement for what’s coming.
Seeding is giving people a glimpse of what’s coming within your talk or written document instead of waiting until the end of your talk, sales conversation or written document to make the pitch.
These five techniques are really effective whether you’re giving a live talk or using an email campaign to enroll people into a program or selling a product.
So, whether it’s something that you’re doing when you’re speaking or when you’re writing, you can use these five ways to seed your offer.
And the best part is that seeding is a great way to make things that you’re offering come off as far less salesy. 🙂
1. Define the Problem
Define the problem that your audience, readers or subscribers are really struggling with. It can be the overall general problem that you help your audience solve or it can be something that is very specific to what you’re talking or writing about.
This is a different school of thought than what you might be familiar with. Many times when we’re doing free talks, preview events, or special reports we hear about giving the “what” and “why” but not the “how.”
This means that you describe the problem and why your client or audience needs to solve that problem, but “how” to actually solve the problem comes later – in the paid product or program.
However, the way that I like to do business – and the way that a lot of my clients have followed and had success with – is to do this a little differently.
I like to give the “what” and “why” but also give a little bit of the “how.”
That way, people are comfortable that you know what you’re talking about, and they leave the time with you having at least the first one or two steps of an action step that they can implement on their own.
I always like to give something that someone can take away and put into place for spending that time with me. And being gently generous this way has absolutely worked in my favor as well.
So, you define the problem for your audience or readers, and then you offer them a piece of the solution.
That solution is just a suggestion. For example…
“Here’s one way that you could approach this…”
“Here’s one way that you could solve this problem…”
“Here’s one thing that will help you do X, Y, Z and solve the issue that you’re struggling with…”
“Here’s what we’re here to talk about today. Here’s one way you can solve it.”
This is a very gentle, very light touch way to seed.
This kind of seeding shows that that you are an expert and that you have more information to share.
Here’s another example:
Maybe you have a seven step program. You can give a little bit of that first step as an opportunity for that listener or reader to understand where you’re going with it, your process and your perspective on the solution.
They can decide for themselves, “I think she really knows what she’s talking about. That was a really good idea. I wonder what else will come through for me in this (paid) program or product?”
They’re paying attention a little bit more. They might look into it a bit more and think, “This is really interesting. I think I’ll keep listening or reading.”
2. What’s Coming
This is a way of talking or writing that can come naturally for some people, and it’s a skill that can be learned as well.
It’s remembering at certain points throughout your talk or within your writing to mention that you’re going to go further into it. For example…
“In the program, we take a deep dive into X. Coming up, I will be offering something that will go into this in much more detail. For now, I want to give you this to take away.”
That is the little piece of the solution. It’s about inspiring them to know that there will be more coming.
There is an opportunity to learn more, that there’s additional training, tools and support available.
It’s plugging this language into your natural talk or way of writing. You mention, or seed, that there will be an opportunity to go deeper if they so wish.
3. Mention your clients
This is educating people and making them aware that you do work with clients.
There may be people who are reading what you’re writing or listening to you speak who already know that. There also may be people who don’t.
So, be sure to mention your clients. Again, this is a skill that can be learned if it doesn’t come naturally to you.
As you prepare your talk or as you write, think about the clients you’ve worked with who have implemented your strategies or ideas with success, and who you could mention in support of what your sharing for the people who are listening to your talk or reading your writing.
At this stage it can be something as simple as saying,
“My client Lisa applied this list-building solution that I just shared with you. She saw how effective it was in her market because her subscriber base increased by 30% within the first month.”
You can get specific or stay more general. It’s making them aware that whatever it is you are teaching, you have guided someone else through implementing it and you’re sharing their results.
You could say,
“Many of my clients experience this particular problem. I often find with my clients that their biggest question is X.”
Think about what you could mention about your clients that would support what you’re teaching.
4. Share a Case Study or Client Success Story
To take #3 a step further, you seed with a case study or a client success story.
For example…
“My client Lisa implemented this particular strategy. She saw her subscriber base increase by 500 people within 6 weeks and ultimately enrolled the 10 people she wanted into her program from implanting this strategy that I just shared with you.”
That’s a quick example of being able to share case studies and client success stories as it makes sense through your talk or writing. Sharing those stories really grounds you and your potential clients.
It makes people able to see themselves in that same position. It’s telling that story, giving the results and then crediting the results to that specific part of your program or product.
5. Give a Gift
You seed by giving a gift in the form of a fun drawing or a contest.
Maybe one person who throws their hat in the ring gets a free spot in your program. Maybe one person wins the product.
(You can also use this strategy as a lead generator to get more prospects to sign up to receive your initial information.)
Your potential client or customer has a certain number of decision points before they will get to a ‘yes’. For most people, it’s three. So, the first one may reading your email that invites them to sign up for a free preview call. They decide to do so, so that’s the first ‘yes’. Then they show up live for the call or listen to the recording. That’s the second ‘yes’. They get to the end of the call where you’ve used some of these techniques and that tips them to the third and final ‘yes’ into your offer.
But some people will be thinking, “This sounds really interesting. I’m not quite ready to sign up or buy but I’d like to know more.” Giving a gift can help move those people a little further towards making a decision.
You always want them to make a decision one way or another, “yes” or “no.” You want to push them off the fence one way or another. Giving a gift or offering a contest or drawing can help people take the next step.
I would do something where you create it once, it’s out there and people can download or watch it. Maybe you can do a video. It can be something really simple like a special report.
It goes deeper into the material in more of a strategic way. You are leading them through the decision-making process about taking the next step with you.
You can at least offer the opportunity to win a spot in your program or a copy of the product. You can do a drawing. Consider doing something like a special report that leads them further into the sale.
This is a little more advanced but I always like to give you an advanced tip in moving people further along into the sales process for you.
Caution: You don’t want to overdo any of these.
You can do each of these once or maybe twice as it makes sense in your presentation. It will depend on how long your presentation or campaign is. Then you can give a gift.
That’s a great way to close it, especially for those people who still need a bit more for the decision-making process. Give that gift and continue to follow up with them in your regular sales process.
Unfortunately, when it comes to your website, the “if you build it, they will come” strategy just doesn’t work. Fortunately, there are many ways to drive high-quality traffic to your website for free. The following 5 strategies will show you how.
5 Free & Easy Ways to Get Traffic to Your Website
1. Optimize your site for the search engines
You’d have to be a full-time SEO expert to keep up with all the changes the major search engines make, but there are a few basic things you can do to help your site come up for relevant searches. Here are 3 basic SEO traffic strategies to get you started:
a. Define your keywords
This is how people find your business online. The trick is to find keywords that are highly relevant to what you offer and popular enough that they will attract decent traffic to your site, but not so competitive that you can’t rank well using them. Use your keywords in your web page copy and blog posts.
b. Create your meta-tags
This is how the search engines “read” your site. Put your keywords in your meta-tags on each page of your website.
c. Create your meta-description
Your meta description usually summarize what your site is about, and it’s what Google will show as a snippet in the search results.
For example, mine says: Lively Biz programs help you design a priority-based online business that moves your income from 0K to $8k+ a month consistently in less than part-time hours.
You can do this very easily right inside your WordPress dashboard with Yoast (the free version works great!).
2. Post on Medium
I love Medium for repurposing my content because it gets me in front of new readers who then visit my website and are invited to join my email list.
Medium makes it super easy to import your existing blog posts. Then you just add a call-to-action at the end that directs your readers to your website.
As a traffic-building technique, offer one of your valuable digital products as a bonus to a colleague’s launch.
For example, I often will offer my 101 Ways to Attract & Keep an Abundance of Clients & Customers as a bonus for someone else’s launch because it always brings me fresh traffic to my website and new subscribers to my list.
4. Join the conversation that’s happening in your market via Facebook groups
Seek out Facebook groups made up on your audience and join the conversation. Participate and educate, don’t sell.
As you offer your advice and suggestions, members will start to see you as an expert and will click on your Facebook profile to find out more. Just be sure you have a link to your website on your profile to drive traffic to your site. 😉
5. Be smart with your social media
When it comes to driving traffic to your website using social media, be sure your efforts are worth your time.
Show up on the social media platforms where you know your audience already is, post daily (easiest way to do that? Batch and use a content syndicator like Hootsuite), have a call-to-action back to your site, and TRACK your traffic.
For example, I didn’t know if Pinterest was worth posting on, but by looking at my analytics, I can see that traffic to my website from Pinterest continues to show up in the top 10.
These 5 ways of attracting targeted traffic to your website are simple things you can do right now to start driving more high-quality traffic to your online business today.
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