This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
How To Make $1 Million In Your Small Business by Richard Wilson
There are hundreds of thousands of small business owners within the U.S. and millions around the world; they form a vibrant core to many national economies. However, a large portion of small businesses do not survive. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, only about 31% of small businesses survive for at least seven years - never mind making it big.
Almost every small business would like to grow its revenues, but most are only working with teams of a few employees. While some marketing and growth tactics that work well for large corporations can be applied to small businesses, many cannot, and growing a new business from scratch is even more unique.
Read on to find out how to grow a small business and bring it to the big leagues.
1. Become a Thought Leader in Your Industry
Start a blog, give speeches, write articles or publish a book on your niche area of business. Become the expert that people seek out when they need a solution. If you market yourself enough you will be receiving warm phone calls from individuals wanting to buy from you instead of potentially cold calling on individuals who have no interest in your business. (For further reading, check out Small Business: It’s All About Relationships.)
This is the least expensive suggestion on how to grow your business - there are many places where you can start a blog for free. Invest one hour a day in learning about your market and writing about what you learn and within one year, you will have potential customers and joint venture partnerships approaching you. This strategy works for all types of niches, including dog training, hedge fund investing, copywriting, fundraising and physical therapy. Every niche has an online audience looking to learn more about the subject. Start feeding them with valuable content and they will start feeding your business with leads and marketing opportunities. This tip is provided first because this alone has helped hundreds of businesses grow to more than $1 million a year in revenue.
2. Create Passive Income Streams
Subscription-based models and membership programs sell a customer once and earn a profit every month as long as you keep those customers happy. An example of this is a website information portal selling a service provider directory listing. The website charges $99 a month and receives that payment every single month of the year as long as the website remains popular and relevant. Passive income models could incorporate a low monthly fee for on-demand customer service or maintenance, subscription access to exclusive coaching or a newsletter with interviews, book reviews and market analysis on your industry.
3. "Up Sell" Your Current Customers.
If you have a customer who loves your product, perhaps he or she would like a premium version of that same product, or a second one for a coworker or a family member. One of the easiest ways to quickly grow your business is to earn additional sales through your current customers.
4. Over-Deliver to Every Customer Whenever Possible
Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool that you can employ. Many large corporations spend millions of dollars on marketing only to pay their customer service personnel minimum wage. This is their area of vulnerability - your small business can create more personal relationships and provide better delivery and customer service than most of the large players in the industry.
5. Conduct a Best Practices Analysis
Analyze your top five competitors; everything from their websites, customer service, to product lines and prices. Take notes and write down 10 new ideas you could use from each of these competitors. If you do this once a year, not only will you keep up with your competitors as they innovate and evolve, but you will leapfrog over them as many others will not do this hard work, and the combination of new ideas will lead to new creative solutions for your customers.
6. Stay Focused
Your business is an investment; changing your environment by spending time with other motivated individuals can help you keep focused. Become a student of positive psychology, and clear your office and desk of distractions. If you get up early and start each day by studying your industry, your competitors and your top-level goals, you will work more efficiently and gain an edge on your competition.
7. Sell Your Products and Services Internationally
Choose one to three target markets outside of where you are currently operating and identify would-be competitors there. What do they charge? What products do they offer? Call or email these companies as time permits, and introduce yourself. Tell them you are doing research, as many will be happy to lend some advice or tips. In a worst-case scenario, you will find that there is no way to expand abroad, but you will probably come across another product idea or customer acquisition strategy by completing the research and seeing what the industry is like within other regions of the world.
8. $1 Million Is an Intimidating Number
Work toward $1 million a year in revenue backwards. If you want your business to earn $1 million a year, that means you must make $83,333 a month, or $20,833 a week, or $4,166 per business day. That is a lot of money to earn every business day, but what new products or services could you add now that could possibly earn that much within one to two years? Think in terms of leverage, developing systems and residual passive income streams. Every minute of time you spend should be seen as an investment.
9. Acquire Businesses
Who are your competitors? How are they doing business-wise? Are they about to retire? Most businesses sell for two to five times their annual earnings or profits, and many parties who are interested in selling end up simply closing shop after not finding an interested buyer. Many times, you may be able to pick up a business that, when combined with a business you already own, could pay for itself within 12-18 months. This is one of the most expensive but quickest ways of reaching $1 million a year in sales.
10. Experiment
Many business owners find that it is only through listening to customers and/or trying to offer a dozen business services or products that they finally find one that really resonates with their target market and takes off in terms of sales. Each experiment that you try will teach you something about your business and customers. Many of the largest, most successful companies have market-tested thousands of products to develop their portfolios of one- to two-dozen existing product offerings. Hard work creates luck and if you experiment long enough, you will find something that sticks.
Conclusion
This list is not exhaustive, but it should help create some momentum and spur creative thinking on how to grow your business. While it is true that some of these tips may be applied more readily to some businesses than others, those that appear most foreign to your industry could be most valuable as it is less likely that one of your competitors has used them.
Almost every small business would like to grow its revenues, but most are only working with teams of a few employees. While some marketing and growth tactics that work well for large corporations can be applied to small businesses, many cannot, and growing a new business from scratch is even more unique.
Read on to find out how to grow a small business and bring it to the big leagues.
1. Become a Thought Leader in Your Industry
Start a blog, give speeches, write articles or publish a book on your niche area of business. Become the expert that people seek out when they need a solution. If you market yourself enough you will be receiving warm phone calls from individuals wanting to buy from you instead of potentially cold calling on individuals who have no interest in your business. (For further reading, check out Small Business: It’s All About Relationships.)
This is the least expensive suggestion on how to grow your business - there are many places where you can start a blog for free. Invest one hour a day in learning about your market and writing about what you learn and within one year, you will have potential customers and joint venture partnerships approaching you. This strategy works for all types of niches, including dog training, hedge fund investing, copywriting, fundraising and physical therapy. Every niche has an online audience looking to learn more about the subject. Start feeding them with valuable content and they will start feeding your business with leads and marketing opportunities. This tip is provided first because this alone has helped hundreds of businesses grow to more than $1 million a year in revenue.
2. Create Passive Income Streams
Subscription-based models and membership programs sell a customer once and earn a profit every month as long as you keep those customers happy. An example of this is a website information portal selling a service provider directory listing. The website charges $99 a month and receives that payment every single month of the year as long as the website remains popular and relevant. Passive income models could incorporate a low monthly fee for on-demand customer service or maintenance, subscription access to exclusive coaching or a newsletter with interviews, book reviews and market analysis on your industry.
3. "Up Sell" Your Current Customers.
If you have a customer who loves your product, perhaps he or she would like a premium version of that same product, or a second one for a coworker or a family member. One of the easiest ways to quickly grow your business is to earn additional sales through your current customers.
4. Over-Deliver to Every Customer Whenever Possible
Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool that you can employ. Many large corporations spend millions of dollars on marketing only to pay their customer service personnel minimum wage. This is their area of vulnerability - your small business can create more personal relationships and provide better delivery and customer service than most of the large players in the industry.
5. Conduct a Best Practices Analysis
Analyze your top five competitors; everything from their websites, customer service, to product lines and prices. Take notes and write down 10 new ideas you could use from each of these competitors. If you do this once a year, not only will you keep up with your competitors as they innovate and evolve, but you will leapfrog over them as many others will not do this hard work, and the combination of new ideas will lead to new creative solutions for your customers.
6. Stay Focused
Your business is an investment; changing your environment by spending time with other motivated individuals can help you keep focused. Become a student of positive psychology, and clear your office and desk of distractions. If you get up early and start each day by studying your industry, your competitors and your top-level goals, you will work more efficiently and gain an edge on your competition.
7. Sell Your Products and Services Internationally
Choose one to three target markets outside of where you are currently operating and identify would-be competitors there. What do they charge? What products do they offer? Call or email these companies as time permits, and introduce yourself. Tell them you are doing research, as many will be happy to lend some advice or tips. In a worst-case scenario, you will find that there is no way to expand abroad, but you will probably come across another product idea or customer acquisition strategy by completing the research and seeing what the industry is like within other regions of the world.
8. $1 Million Is an Intimidating Number
Work toward $1 million a year in revenue backwards. If you want your business to earn $1 million a year, that means you must make $83,333 a month, or $20,833 a week, or $4,166 per business day. That is a lot of money to earn every business day, but what new products or services could you add now that could possibly earn that much within one to two years? Think in terms of leverage, developing systems and residual passive income streams. Every minute of time you spend should be seen as an investment.
9. Acquire Businesses
Who are your competitors? How are they doing business-wise? Are they about to retire? Most businesses sell for two to five times their annual earnings or profits, and many parties who are interested in selling end up simply closing shop after not finding an interested buyer. Many times, you may be able to pick up a business that, when combined with a business you already own, could pay for itself within 12-18 months. This is one of the most expensive but quickest ways of reaching $1 million a year in sales.
10. Experiment
Many business owners find that it is only through listening to customers and/or trying to offer a dozen business services or products that they finally find one that really resonates with their target market and takes off in terms of sales. Each experiment that you try will teach you something about your business and customers. Many of the largest, most successful companies have market-tested thousands of products to develop their portfolios of one- to two-dozen existing product offerings. Hard work creates luck and if you experiment long enough, you will find something that sticks.
Conclusion
This list is not exhaustive, but it should help create some momentum and spur creative thinking on how to grow your business. While it is true that some of these tips may be applied more readily to some businesses than others, those that appear most foreign to your industry could be most valuable as it is less likely that one of your competitors has used them.
Inspiration Is Not Action by Stuart Tan
In a recent seminar, someone came up to me and told me how inspired she was about the event, and that she was impressed at how she could stay awake compared with other seminars she had attended where other trainers were not as compelling.
You have to realize how awkward it must have been for me. On the one hand, this lady has learnt something, but she hasn’t really learnt much. The only measure for success in her life is that she doesn’t fall asleep in the classroom. While I honestly feel flattered, I think that the trainer has far less bearing on the success of a student.
If you analyze the situation properly, a trainer spends between 2-4 days in an average person’s life in a year. That leaves about 361 days for a person to be totally alone by oneself. That’s time spent at 98.9% away from the trainer. Sure, the trainer may have good qualities you would like to model, but the trainer is never in charge of your everyday living.
After running a training program, I find that the best thing people can do is to keep focusing on their goals and be more aware of their direction in life. This requires not just a seminar, but a range of other things such as:
•Life Builder Groups. To learn more about LBGs, you’ll need to attend our Patterns Of Excellence program, where we show you how the power of teams can make a difference in your everyday life. LBGs are great to build and maintain a culture as an organization. Without a structure, LBGs are likely to fail, relying only on dogma and personality to run the show. It’s important to build a culture of commitment and organize this properly so that it is a culture for life.
•Coaching. Contrary to what a lot of people think, coaching does not help you achieve a goal. You have got to achieve the goal yourself. Coaching is a way to open yourself up to resourcefulness in the achievement of your goals. It is also a way to remain accountable to your results. Probably the hardest question to ask is if you are honest with yourself while undergoing coaching. A lot of the time, ego forms a barrier and a good coach is able to break those down and confront the real issue.
This allows you to focus on what direction you want to take. No matter how inspired you feel after a seminar, you really need to use this to take action on the things you want to achieve.
ACTion Planning
You would agree with me when I say that our emotions drive a lot of our actions. The question is where do those emotions come from? See, if you are motivated, it probably means that you have a significant set of needs and desires. You want to look good? That will drive a set of actions. You got hungry? Same thing.
It’s not really rocket science, but I think action planning requires much more than just setting a goal. It means you need to align your needs and emotions toward the attainment of short-term and long-term goals.
Step #1: Create a vision of the future.
You need to be able to project and see into the future, dreaming up your ideal situation.
Step #2: Identify the reasons why you would like to be able to do this.
The “why” is very important. In most cases, you should ask several “whys” to reach depth of the reason. Let’s say you want to buy a new house. Of course the most simple reason for it is to have a roof over your head. But why do you want that? Maybe a deeper reason is that you want to provide a safe and secure environment for your children and family to grow closer. Now that might be a deep enough reason to drive you.
Step #3: Create Daily Rituals
Did you know that having lots of choices creates a lack of action? That’s the main reason why it is important to cut down everything to one choice if that is a must for you. Instead of taking two or three things at the same time, cut out all bridges that allow you to go elsewhere. Make sure you finish them and complete your cycle and turn it into a ritual every single day. If it’s exercise, do it every day like a ritual, just like breakfast, lunch and dinner (unfortunately some people don’t even do these as a ritual).
Step #4: Make it as natural as you can.
When you do something often and create a habitual cycle, it’s going to make you more focused on what you need to do because you took that for granted. Unfortunately, many people believe in waiting for the feeling to do something. You can’t afford the luxury of that time. You have got to do it as though it were a part and parcel of your everyday life, that if you don’t do it, you will feel extremely uneasy. Make it a “you” thing.
Step #5: Keep track of your successes while propelling yourself to the future.
All successes eventually become a thing of the past. However, you can use this to solidify the belief that you can get things done. Collect your trophies not for display, but for encouragement. If you’ve done it before, you know you can do it again. Then, focus on what you have to do next.
You have to realize how awkward it must have been for me. On the one hand, this lady has learnt something, but she hasn’t really learnt much. The only measure for success in her life is that she doesn’t fall asleep in the classroom. While I honestly feel flattered, I think that the trainer has far less bearing on the success of a student.
If you analyze the situation properly, a trainer spends between 2-4 days in an average person’s life in a year. That leaves about 361 days for a person to be totally alone by oneself. That’s time spent at 98.9% away from the trainer. Sure, the trainer may have good qualities you would like to model, but the trainer is never in charge of your everyday living.
After running a training program, I find that the best thing people can do is to keep focusing on their goals and be more aware of their direction in life. This requires not just a seminar, but a range of other things such as:
•Life Builder Groups. To learn more about LBGs, you’ll need to attend our Patterns Of Excellence program, where we show you how the power of teams can make a difference in your everyday life. LBGs are great to build and maintain a culture as an organization. Without a structure, LBGs are likely to fail, relying only on dogma and personality to run the show. It’s important to build a culture of commitment and organize this properly so that it is a culture for life.
•Coaching. Contrary to what a lot of people think, coaching does not help you achieve a goal. You have got to achieve the goal yourself. Coaching is a way to open yourself up to resourcefulness in the achievement of your goals. It is also a way to remain accountable to your results. Probably the hardest question to ask is if you are honest with yourself while undergoing coaching. A lot of the time, ego forms a barrier and a good coach is able to break those down and confront the real issue.
This allows you to focus on what direction you want to take. No matter how inspired you feel after a seminar, you really need to use this to take action on the things you want to achieve.
ACTion Planning
You would agree with me when I say that our emotions drive a lot of our actions. The question is where do those emotions come from? See, if you are motivated, it probably means that you have a significant set of needs and desires. You want to look good? That will drive a set of actions. You got hungry? Same thing.
It’s not really rocket science, but I think action planning requires much more than just setting a goal. It means you need to align your needs and emotions toward the attainment of short-term and long-term goals.
Step #1: Create a vision of the future.
You need to be able to project and see into the future, dreaming up your ideal situation.
Step #2: Identify the reasons why you would like to be able to do this.
The “why” is very important. In most cases, you should ask several “whys” to reach depth of the reason. Let’s say you want to buy a new house. Of course the most simple reason for it is to have a roof over your head. But why do you want that? Maybe a deeper reason is that you want to provide a safe and secure environment for your children and family to grow closer. Now that might be a deep enough reason to drive you.
Step #3: Create Daily Rituals
Did you know that having lots of choices creates a lack of action? That’s the main reason why it is important to cut down everything to one choice if that is a must for you. Instead of taking two or three things at the same time, cut out all bridges that allow you to go elsewhere. Make sure you finish them and complete your cycle and turn it into a ritual every single day. If it’s exercise, do it every day like a ritual, just like breakfast, lunch and dinner (unfortunately some people don’t even do these as a ritual).
Step #4: Make it as natural as you can.
When you do something often and create a habitual cycle, it’s going to make you more focused on what you need to do because you took that for granted. Unfortunately, many people believe in waiting for the feeling to do something. You can’t afford the luxury of that time. You have got to do it as though it were a part and parcel of your everyday life, that if you don’t do it, you will feel extremely uneasy. Make it a “you” thing.
Step #5: Keep track of your successes while propelling yourself to the future.
All successes eventually become a thing of the past. However, you can use this to solidify the belief that you can get things done. Collect your trophies not for display, but for encouragement. If you’ve done it before, you know you can do it again. Then, focus on what you have to do next.
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