I've been spending a lot of time lately getting ready for 2010 – 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 2010.
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 electonically, 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? I'd love to know – please leave your comments below.
(c) 2009 Alicia Forest
Aout the author: Alicia M Forest, MBA, 6-Figure Business Breakthrough Mentor, teaches self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create wild abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com
Do you often attend in-person events, such as workshops, networking breakfasts, and seminars where you network and collect a bunch of business cards from the other attendees, but then you don't know what to do with them?
Of course if someone's expressed an interest in your services, you want to follow up with them, but most people you talk with at these events may not need your services RIGHT NOW, yet they very well may in the future.
So how do you make sure you're at their fingertips when they do need you? Get them on your list! That way you'll have the opportunity to continue to get in front of them in a subtle way. Remember, though, never to put anyone on your list who hasn't given you permission to do so.
Here are three ways to encourage people to get on your list when you meet them in person, without being pushy:
1. Put your Free Taste (your freebie product that draws people into your marketing funnel) information on the back of your business card, or on whatever other materials you hand out.
Business cards are the standard pass-around marketing tool at these kind of events, but if the back of your card is blank, you're losing valuable real estate. There are several things you could add to the back of your card, and one of them is the information for your Free Taste.
Write a snappy sentence describing the benefit that the reader will get if they sign up, along with the website address of where they can subscribe.
2. Email each person whose business card you collected within a week.
Send a brief email to each person you met, reminding them that they can sign up for your freebie offering at your website. Make sure you include a live link to make it super-easy for them to click and sign up.
3. If you're a speaker at the event, or if it's your own event, have a sign-up sheet for the attendees.
At the beginning and end of your talk, make sure you tell your audience that they can receive FREE valuable information from you if they will simply sign-up on the form. Ask them for their first name and email address, and make note on the form what it is they will receive.
You can give each person a separate sign-up form or have one that you pass around for everyone to sign. You can also pass around a basket or bowl for people to drop their cards into to win a prize, AND to be put on your list to receive your Free Taste. (Most email list services require anyone signing up to double opt-in now, so you will be giving them another opportunity to confim that they do in fact want to be on your list after you've added them.)
You've probably heard "the fortune is in the follow-up" and that's exactly what this will do for you. If you collect their names and email addresses at the event, add them to your list with their permission, or send them a reminder email to do it themselves, your Free Taste (and your ezine) will do the follow up for you. It will keep you on your prospects' radar screens so you'll come to mind immediately when they do need your services. And that's exactly what you want!
(c) 2009 Alicia Forest
About the author: Alicia M Forest, MBA, 6-Figure Business Breakthrough Mentor, teaches self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create wild abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com
"Hey, I own this business, kid. I built it. This is mine. I'm not at the mercy of some boss waiting and hoping to be chosen employee of the month for a couple extra hundred bucks and a plaque. I'm always employee of the month. I'm employee of the year, of the century, of the universe. You should be so lucky to have a job like mine."
~ Luke Danes, Gilmore Girls
James and I were chuckling this morning, remembering when Jack decided he was ready to grace us with his presence - 3 hours shy of his scheduled c-section time 😉 Damn kid decided he was going to come when he decided, not when we did… two years later, that independent streak has only gotten stronger. But it's all good…
Here he is this morning as he turns 2… doesn't it go by in a blink? I'm grateful for every moment…
Want to encourage people on your email list to buy one (or more) of your products or programs sooner than later? Have a sale! The following are 7 ways that you can provide value to your potential clients/customers and still bring in a 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.
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 other 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: My recent close-out sale 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 is 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 will hunt through a half dozen or so websites to find the one that offers free shipping and make my purchase through them (price of item being equal).
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 increase your sales, but there are some cautions to take when doing so. 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 usual price.
So, which kind of sale are you going to have to put some extra cash in your pocket?
Once you've figured out your target market (or you've at least narrowed it down significantly), it's time to figure out what problems they are struggling with, and what they want by way of solutions.
Remember, if you will only ask your market, it wants to help you create the products it wants to buy!
How do you find out what your target market wants? There are several ways to get this information and use it to help you create an offering that will solve your market's problems and make a profit for you at the same time.
The best way is to do your research. The most critical research to do is to join the conversations that your market is having:
Here are two 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 target market and use the information you receive to help spark ideas for new products and services.
2. Almost as Simple: Do a simple survey…
… that asks 1-10 questions using a survey tool Survey Monkey. 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.
Once you've figure out what your niche's problems are, you can create or find the solutions to solve those problems. Your solution can be packaged in a variety of ways: an ecourse, a PDF manual, an ebook, an audio download and/or CD, group programs, teleseminars, e-manuals, etc.
3-Step Process to Creating Products:
Here's a very simple process to follow to create a product to add to your offerings quickly:
1. Do a free or paid live class on your product
Once you've done your research and you've chosen a topic your target market is interested in knowing more about, offer a 1-hour teleclass on that topic. Cover three points and offer your solutions. Most important is to make sure you record the teleseminar, as this is what leads to a product for you.
As you're designing your outline for the class, do so in a way that creates notes for your participant. As the end of your live teleclass, you'll have the recording and notes to then…
2. Package it virtually.
Now you have the audio recording and notes to offer as a bundled product and…
3. Package it into a tangible product.
You can then take it up a notch and turn it into a physical product, which instantly creates another income stream for you.
And here are some of my other favorite tips for simple product creation:
– If you don't have a list or access to a list, you can offer a free class on a topic and then charge people for the product down the road, or afterwards.
– Another option is to have someone interview you on your topic to create your product. You can offer the questions along with the interviewee's questions. This is a good strategy if you don't think you can get enough people on a call.
– You can record any live classes or workshops you're holding as well, and re-package those presentations virtually or tangibly.
– Try to record everything so you always have the option to offer it at some level down the road.
– Promote your teleclass to your list, via colleagues who are willing to spread the word (especially if it's free) and at teleclass listing services.
– Promote on the discussion lists and groups that you're a part of, promote it there with permission and on the appropriate day.
– Pricing: If this is a new process for you, if you're offering your topic for the first time and sort of feeling out your market, go with the lower end. If you're putting together a 90-minute class with lots of comprehensive step-by-step information, charge more.
– When it comes to creating your big-ticket item, they can be created from all these little products along the way. So, if you were creating a product a month or every other month, that gives you 6-12 products at the end of the year that can be packaged together into your big ticket item.
(c) 2009 Alicia Forest
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