Simply Business Coaching

Are you confusing your prospects?

I’m all for creating lots of different streams of income, in fact, the more the merrier!  But they do need to be related in some way to your core business, or be kept separate so as to avoid confusion. 

You don’t want to dilute the expertise you’ve spent a lot of time, energy and money building up.  Being a Jack (or Jill) of all trades may be useful, but people prefer to deal with a specialist when they have a problem they need help with.

You do want people to remember what you do.  If you have a long and diverse list it will be harder to make your message clear and succinct, especially when you’re out networking.

You will have to work so much harder!  If you’re effectively running several different businesses, you’ll need to market each of them separately.  Imagine the plate spinner who has to keep checking and adjusting to keep each plate from falling.

Your website will be a mess if you use it for several unrelated products or services.  I remember visiting a life coach’s site a while back and being surprised and confused to see a page about candle-making!  Even a hobby deserves to be separate and there are many completely free ways to do this.

It’s perfectly possible to have more than one business provided you take care with their organisation, presentation and with your time.  The alternative is to ensure your additional revenue streams are clearly related to your existing business in some way, so you don’t confuse your prospects!

Ready, Fire, Aim!

When I first heard this expression a few years ago, the perfectionist in me said “No way!  I need to be totally prepared and have everything in place before launching a new product or service.  Otherwise it might not be perfect and that would be terrible!”

Unfortunately there were some serious flaws with that way of thinking, and here’s what I found out:

No matter how hard you try, it will never be 100% perfect.  You can expect at least one person to take great pleasure in pointing out any typos or mistakes to you.  All you’ll get by aiming for perfection is stress.  Learn to let it go when it’s good enough is the advice from Dan Kennedy.

By delaying your launch until it’s completed to your satisfaction, you run the risk of someone else beating you to it!  Although their product may not be exactly the same, your sense of disappointment when you see this happen will spoil the excitement and mean you won’t get the impact (and sales) you were hoping for.

If you take too long to finish a product or service, you’ll probably be bored with it before you even start selling it!  That’s because, in your mind, you’re already getting excited about your next idea.  I find that setting a tight deadline for launching helps to keep me focused on one job at a time and gets the product finished!

3 reasons why your marketing isn't working

What most small business owners don’t realise is that marketing becomes your number one job when you have your own business.  Because without marketing there are no customers and without customers there is no business.

When clients say to me that they’ve tried everything to bring in more business and nothing’s working, what they really mean is they’ve tried a few things and they haven’t worked yet.  Here are three possible reasons why they may not be getting the results they want:

Only doing what feels comfortable
While this is better than nothing at all, the danger is that you’re only going to be doing ‘passive’ marketing.   You need to talk to and meet your prospective clients face to face and by phone.  It’s also important to keep trying new ways to get your message across – aim for one a month!

Not doing it often enough
I’ll never forget a young business owner’s words when I invited her to a networking breakfast. She said "Oh I tried networking for a month and it didn’t work, so I don’t do it any more.”  That’s like placing just one advertisement, or sending out only one mailshot and expecting a flood of orders.  Remember that people usually need to see or hear your marketing message at least 9 times before buying. 

Not having an adequate follow-up system in place
I make no apologies for writing about this yet again!  You must put in place a system to follow up with clients and prospects means that it will get done, even when you’re busy.  It’s the only way to avoid the ‘feast and famine’ trap that so many small businesses fall into.

People to model and study

When you want to find out how to be successful at something, who do you prefer to learn from?  Would you choose someone who’s doing OK or someone who’s doing very well?  Another reason, if you needed it, to clear the ‘pond life’ out of your networking circle.  Or at least keep contact with them to a minimum.

Study, if you can, those business owners who went through the last recession and are still going strong; they will have learned valuable lessons on how to survive and thrive.  Be wary of those who have lots of untested ‘magic’ theories but little practical experience.

Maybe you can’t easily pick up the phone to your business idols, but you can study what they do and do it too.  The internet has made it much easier to people watch.

For example, successful business owners are not moaning about the economy, they’re looking for opportunities.  They’re not cutting back on their marketing; they’re finding different ways to get their message out there.  I’ve noticed that they’re also taking their pick of the best talents who find themselves out of a job!

(Last chance to get your free copy of “Why Business Owners need to Network?”)

People to seek out and mix with

Having a supportive group of contacts is invaluable to the small business owner at any time, and especially now.  If you work alone, you need to build a support group to keep you sane and networking is a good way to do this.  I’ve even read a few articles saying that Twitter is fast becoming an online means of support for entrepreneurs! 

Now the purpose of your supportive network isn’t to have a mutual moan – re-read my last post if you think it is!

The type of people who qualify are those to whom you can pick up the phone and say “I need a pick-me-up, please can we talk for 10 minutes?” After the call, you feel re-focused and back on track.  Or perhaps you meet up for coffee every so often and encourage each other, no negativity allowed!

I challenge you to put together your own small group of supportive contacts.  You’ll be glad you did!

(Don’t forget to get your free copy of “Why Business Owners need to Network?”)

Are you keeping the right company?

Now, more than ever, business owners are busy networking.  But I get the impression a lot of networking is being done from a sense of panic and without a clear plan.

I agree 100% that you need to be seen and to keep your name in front of people.  However, your time is limited so don’t just pitch up to every event at the expense of all the other marketing you need to do.

Depending on the people you meet when you’re out networking, you can return to the office feeling inspired and motivated or despondent and gloomy.

In such uncertain and worrying times it’s vital that you mix with the ‘right sort of people’!  Apologies if that sounds snobbish; let me explain.

Last week I posted about some of the different negative characters who you might have come across.  I recommend that you give such people a wide berth or they will drag you down and sap your energy.  Remember the saying ‘misery loves company’ so let them mix with each other!

You want to meet a different class of person altogether, and I’ll introduce you next time!

Following a well-received series of talks I gave about networking for small businesses last year, I put together a short report “Why Business Owners need to Network?”  (If you’d like a free copy, you can get it here, but only this week!)

It's all very scary isn't it?

Freddie Fear

"What if I do the wrong thing?  What if the house prices keep going down?  The bank interest rates are so low at the moment – it’s all very scary isn’t it?  I can’t possibly spend any of my precious money on marketing or training at the moment – I might leave myself short and that would never do! 

What if my clients stop ordering? Or they start paying me late? And you want me to spend out just on the off-chance?  Oh no, that’s far too risky.  Don’t you see, business has gone very quiet, because people are nervous about what might happen?  And they’re absolutely right to think that way – you can’t even trust the banks to look after your money now.

Oh no, this isn’t the right time to invest in my business at all.  I’m going to keep my money safe where it is, under the mattress, and wait until all this trouble is over and things get back to how they were.  Then I’ll think about spending.  Perhaps I’ll take out a little ad in the local paper in a month or so, but I’ll wait and see how things are before I do.  It would never do to guess wrong – oooh no!"

Being paralysed by fear into doing nothing will seriously damage your business!  While you’re busy keeping your money safe under the mattress, your competitors will be investing in bringing in more business – possibly from your client base! 

Have you met any of these three characters?  Or perhaps you can relate to them? 

Someone should do something....

Bernie Blame

"Well, someone needs to do something about this recession don’t they?  I mean, it’s not my fault is it?  It seems to me that between the Americans and the Iceland mob, they’ve got a lot to answer for!  And what about the banks and their fat cat bosses?  How dare they refuse to give us credit?  I mean, we own quite a bit of the banks now don’t we?  So it stands to reason that they should be lending us money to help out, especially while things are so tight.  It’s because they won’t that my business is suffering.

Hasn’t the weather been dreadful?  I mean, it’s stopped me from getting more customers.  Just look at the state of the roads!  The council should have done more to keep them gritted, I mean, really!

And don’t get me started about the government!  All the parties are as bad as each other!  Between them they’ve landed us in a rare old mess.  I mean, they were voted into power so they have a responsibility to get the country out of recession, don’t they?  Yes, it’s because of this recession that I can’t get more clients.  I mean, someone should do something about it, shouldn’t they?"

So the whole global situation and the weather aren’t directly your fault, but playing the blame game isn’t going to be of any use to you at all.  You have to take responsibility and do what’s needed to address your personal & business situation!

The three person blog week

Are you as fed up with all this negative stuff as I am?  Even though I stopped buying a daily paper some months ago, I still listen to news bulletins and read stories about what’s happening on the internet.  These stories make me so cross! 

I’ve also been speaking with fellow business owners from my local business community.  And quite honestly a lot of what I hear makes me want to give some people a good slap!  For this week’s posts, I’ve come up with another group of three, this time three types of people, based on the attitudes I’ve encountered in the last few days, straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were .....

Andy Apathy

"Oh dear, woe is me!  I really haven’t got the energy to deal with all this recession stuff.  And even if I did, it wouldn’t make any difference, would it?  I’m far too exhausted to do any marketing.  You know, I really think clients should just come to me, they should know how good I am without me having to tell them, shouldn’t they?  Oh no, you don’t expect me to learn anything new, do you?  Don’t you know I’m far too busy organising my stationery drawer to do that. 

What’s that you say?  Get in touch with my existing and recent clients?  I don’t think so, that sounds rather tiring.  How dare you suggest my website needs working on!  It’s been there for nearly 10 years and no-one’s ever complained about it before.  Oh alright, I’ll give it go, maybe tomorrow.  Stop rushing me, will you?  Let me sleep on it and see how I feel in the morning...."

This economic situation has changed everything.  This is not a time to be doing nothing, or coasting along and expect what used to work to keep on working. 

I dare you to be different!

Have you ever noticed that small business owners behave a bit like sheep with their marketing? They all go along to the same networking meetings and mix with the same people. They take a look at how other business owners are promoting themselves, and then do something very similar.

It’s not so surprising. There’s a certain amount of comfort to be had from knowing that they’re not being left behind.  But the crazy – sheep-like – part is that the flocking is done without first finding out if what they’re about to copy actually works! 

When I first became a business coach I spent ages looking at the websites of other business coaches and planning my own site to be very similar to theirs. Now, I’m a lot more discerning! I only look at the sites of the very successful coaches and business owners. They’re the people I want to model (not the slightly successful ones)

What tends to happen in a recession is more people start up in business, probably because they can’t face the thought of becoming another redundancy statistic, again.  And the need to stand out from the crowd becomes more important than ever – and more elusive.

Just what can you do to be different, to really make an impression in these times of such short attention spans?

• If you’re going to do what other people are doing – make sure you do it better by a long way!  Look for the little twist that will get people talking about you!
• Seek inspiration from the masters – Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell have both written several excellent books that are good places to start.
• Work with a coach.  I don’t say that just because I am a coach, but because I know from experience what a great difference it makes!

Being different takes imagination and courage – but then you already knew that didn’t you?  And I know you’ve got both those qualities in abundance.  Be different – I dare you!