It’s just the nature of creating something – specifically creating something that involves other people. And if you’re selling anything – ad space, products, services, etc – you’re creating something for other people.

So when you find out you’re marketing isn’t working like you thought or that your great idea isn’t seen as such a great idea by the people in your market – what do you do?

When the sales slow down and the bills aren’t getting paid – what do you do?

And on those days that you have no motivation, no real desire to grind away at making your business work – what do you?

In other words, what keeps you going?

For me, personally, it’s my vision. Certainly it’s the goals I want to achieve, that’s part of it. But it’s not all of it.

What keeps me going is wanting to live the lifestyle I want – to have a flexible schedule and to be able to work from the hotel while my family is enjoying the beach. Or the ability to work a 3 day work week (3 long days, mind you). Or the opportunity to work at night in the summer so that I can spend the days with my wife and kids. Or taking 4 day weekends to go camping. Or taking a day off so my wife can rest when she’s sick. And the list goes on. For me, as I said, I want flexibility – having the flexibility in my schedule and my location that allows me to do more of what I want when I want.

But I don’t just want to talk about my lifestyle or dream about it – I want to actually live it. And living it means actually taking the time when it’s available. It means being active and spending gobs of time with my kids. Ultimately it means balancing work with life.

You see, I don’t want a life where I’m bogged down by my work. If I did, I could go out and work for any corporation, put in less effort and allow someone else to dictate my lifestyle. Sure, I want – and do – make a nice living. But I don’t want my pursuit of money to become more important than what’s most important to me – quality time with my family, hiking, my spiritual practice, etc. All these things I put above making money.

BUT, I still focus on making money – as a means to the ends I wish to live by. So I work in my business to make money solely so I can have the lifestyle I want. And that’s what keeps me going on the days when it’s just not so easy or comfortable to work for myself.

So that’s me. How about you, what keeps you going when it’s less than easy?

(note: image from Potatojunkie on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

If it’s the latter, there are steps you can take to help you go from business duress to business success.

Last week I introduced 4 simple questions to help you start and grow your business. They are the same 4 questions I use with my clients every day. They’re purposefully simple. Yet behind their simplicity lies all the depth and detail you need to create a successful business. Answer these questions fully and you’ll be on your way.

So let’s review what the four questions are:

1. Who you are?
2. What you do?
3. Who you do it for?
4. Why do you do it?

Pretty simple, huh? Now answer them. Get our a piece of paper and write down your answer for each question. Go ahead. I’ve got time to wait for you while you do so.

Now, take a look at your answers and see what you’ve written. Is there a question you couldn’t easily answer? Is there a question that you couldn’t answer clearly at all? Be honest with yourself – your prospective clients will.

Now, let’s go a little deeper. Each of the four questions has layers – layers of detail, layers of information, and layers of complexity. Let’s break it down a bit:

Who You Are…?

First, as a human being. What are you talents, your gifts and your passions? What are your shortcomings? What areas of your life could you use some help with? What areas of your life do you want to hide from? How do each of these questions translate to your business?

For instance, if you believe you’re not a good writer, it’s good to know that so that you can do something about it. Perhaps you hire a copy editor or take a copy writing course. Either way, you need to know where your strengths and weaknesses are so you can either utilize them or get help.

Once you identify who you are as a person, as I mentioned above, you want to know how you – as a person – translate to a business owners. Are you organized? Do you use systems? Do you outsource any of your tasks? Do people tend to feel comfortable with you? Do you have any issues with selling (read: Hate Selling, Well You’re Doing It All The Time)? What knowledge do you have of using your website or social media to promote your business? How effective is your marketing strategy? The list goes on, really.

Ideally, you want to be asking yourself how you are with every aspect of owning, running, promoting and evaluating your business. And don’t worry if you don’t know something or have large gaps in your abilities. All you have to do is ask for help.

What You Do…?

The primary answer here, of course, has to do with what you do for a living. In other words, what are you in business to do?

But it goes deeper than that. You want to also consider what your service actually is and does. Meaning, you want to consider your business offerings from the stand point of what problems they solve for the people in your target audience. In essence, you’re not just providing a service but providing a way to solve problems in people’s lives.

For instance, let’s say you’re a life coach who helps women through career change. Your offer is likely so much more than just a career coach. You may have a background you can call on that gives you a market advantage. You may have gone through a career transition yourself. You may be able to provide emotional or psychological support in a different way than your peers. Whatever the offer you make, just be certain that you’re bringing your full self, with your complete background into play here. Just remember, what you do includes what you have done.

Who Do You Do It For…?

As with the previous question, this one helps you focus more precisely on what you actually have to offer. In this case, it’s not about the offer itself, but who you’re offering it to.

Who do you do it for asks you to go deeper than demographics. You don’t just serve, for instance, women between 45 & 60 who are looking for a second career. You want to narrow your focus down to a specific type of client who fits perfectly into your specific set of abilities.

And you want to think of what problems the people in your target audience are facing. What sort of stopping points are they hitting as they are, for instance, going through a career change? Speak directly to those in your marketing.

Ideally, who you do it for is one person. Just remember that there are 100′s if not 1000′s of that one person out there waiting to find you and your service. Make it easy on them by identifying exactly who you help.

Why Do You Do It…?

Ultimately, this may be the most important question of all to ask yourself. After years of working with hundreds of clients on their websites and coaching them on increasing their business, I’ve found that the most successful business people make meaning.

While making meaning may not be, in the short term, the more important than knowing what you do and who you do it for, eventually it will be. That’s because as business owners, we need to make meaning. It may sound airy-fairy, but it’s true. I’ve seen it with dozens of clients who are successful in one area but burn out because the business they made successful isn’t making the meaning they want in the world.

So your business, to be successful, needs to make meaning. And it needs to make meaning to one person – you. It doesn’t really matter what I think or anyone else. What matter is that your business makes meaning to you. In other words, you are contributing something important to you to the world.

Do you know what that is? Do you know what impact you have on the people you touch? Do you know how your offer is making meaning in the world? Take it deeper…

The key to a successful business is clarity

To create, grow and maintain a successful business you need one thing more than any other – and it’s not even talent. You need clarity! Clarity with your business will set you free from the confusion most small business owners face.

So why don’t more life coaches, holistic practitioners and other service-based business owners take the time to find clarity?

Lots of reasons, really. The biggest one is likely fear of something. Fear of hard work. Fear of not being able to do it. Fear of being boxed in by a vision and plan. Fear of putting in the effort to get clarity only to find that you have none. All these, and more, get in the way of you finding clarity and, hence, stop you from growing a successful business.

But you know the neat thing? You don’t have to get that complex. Fear is a complex thing. Fear is what makes the process bigger than it needs to be. All you have to do is begin by answer the three questions – who you are, what you do and who you do it for. That’s it. These are the seeds you need to plant, then nurture, so they can germinate and grow into a living, thriving business.

And let me know how it goes…

How well can you answer the 4 questions in your business?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from mikecogh on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Depending on who you listen to, there’s so much you need to do in order to successfully launch your business. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re a life coach, business consultant or holistic healer, launching a successful business takes time, energy and even a little bit of money.

More than anything, you need a plan. You need to know what you’re about and how your service will help other people. That’s the first step. Some would say you next need a business plan, a marketing plan and a clear revenue model (you do need to know how you’re going to make money, after all).

But I think it’s much simpler than all that.

Sure, a business plan is good. I coach my own clients on creating business and marketing plans so they can both keep themselves on track and see their progress. So using traditional business plans is something I highly recommend.

Yet, I’ve found it helpful to begin any service business with 4 simple questions. These questions provide the foundation for all else. Answer them fully and you’ll have the beginnings of your business plan, an outline for your marketing plan and you’ll know how you’ll make money. You’ll also have an idea of who your client is and what their needs are.

What’s more, these four questions give you a chance to simplify the whole business development process. You may still want to formal business plan or work through how you’ll market your business. Yet it can be less necessary as long as you can stay focused. I’ve had a handful of clients take just the answers to these four questions and go on to both build successful life coaching and holistic healing practices.

So what are the four questions?

1. Who you are?
2. What you do?
3. Who you do it for?
4. Why do you do it?

See how simple this is? Now there can be other questions to add. Depending on the client I might add ‘how do you do what you do’ or ‘what do they need.’ But honestly, even these questions are pretty much covered in a thorough answers to the four questions. Plus, I find simplicity wins out most of the time.

Now I know that the answers to each of these questions can be full of complicated processes, complex systems and overwhelming business structures. And having run a business for more than ten years, I know there’s much to do to be successful.

Yet clearly answer those four questions and you have a basic business plan. Answer the four questions and you have the outline for a marketing plan. Answer the four questions and you have, at least a beginning, for how you’re going to make money in your coaching or healing practice.

To be continued…

My Friday post this week will dive a little deeper into the four questions. We’ll take a look at just how answering these questions leads to a solid plan that even you can execute. And we’ll see what happens if you don’t know the answers to these questions. So stay tuned…

In the meantime, I want to hear from you. How would you answer the four questions on your coaching practice, holistic healing practice or other type of service-based business?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from laurakgibbs on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Most of the time the coaches give me answers that have to do with getting more traffic to my website, getting more people on my list or getting enough coaching clients. The interesting thing is even my other clients – healers, therapists, authors and other service providers – give me similar answers.

While it true that as a life coach you may need more traffic to your coaching website or you need more coaching clients in your practice, it may not be the most pressing problem in your coaching business. And often, getting more traffic to your coaching website isn’t.

But for most of my coaching clients, the most pressing problem can be elusive. This is because usually the most pressing problem in your business has nothing to do with your marketing or generating traffic to your coaching website. Rather it usually has to do with how you actually DO your business.

Think about it for a moment.

Let’s say I could triple the number of contacts you get from your coaching website in the next month (which is possible, by the way). What would happen? Could you actually manage having that many more potential coaching clients contacting you about your coaching services? How effectively would you be at converting these potential clients into actual coaching clients? Or would you end up dropping the ball on a whole bunch of your potential clients?

If you’re like most life coaches I’ve spoken with, you likely believe that more people contacting you means more coaching clients paying you.

Yet, that’s not always the case. More often than not, you need to prepare yourself, your business, your business processes and your coaching practice for this sort of growth. So you need to know how to deal with such a large influx of potentially new coaching clients. Which means to continue to have a successful coaching practice you must have solid systems in place to manage these sorts of situations.

Now how these systems get created is neither difficult nor overly complex. It’s simply a matter of knowing what your business problems are and what you need to do about them in order to grow your coaching practice. After that, you simply figure out how to adjust your already existing business practices to support the growth. But if you don’t make adjustments to how you do things, the growth you experience will likely not be significant and will almost certainly not be sustainable. So if you want to get more clients in your coaching practice, you must consider how you’ll handle not only the coaching sessions, but all the things that happen to gain that coaching client.

So as a life coach, how do figure out what your most pressing business problems are?

The easiest way is through Reverse engineering. Start with the end result. Consider what challenges you’d face if you had double, or even triple, the number of people contacting you about your coaching services, for instance.

Another way to find your most pressing problems is think about the task in your coaching business that you least enjoy doing. It’s pretty likely that you’ll find some issues there. For instance, there was a timein my own business when invoicing my clients was a pain for me. Of course, it presented a huge problem for me that I dreaded doing the thing that got me paid. So I had to look at this and find a new way to invoice my clients – a way that would be easier and much less time-consuming. I found my invoicing solution and now I can invoice clients so quickly and easily that I rarely even think about it, let alone dread it.

So you want to look for the things that aren’t working in doing your business. Find the holes in your coaching practice and fill them. To fill those holes, start thinking in reverse and consider what you’re doing well, don’t enjoy or simply don’t know how to do. Start there. Consider all the steps along the way. Write it all down, turn it upside down and now you’ve got the outline for a plan. Focus on the issue closest to where you are now, and you likely have, at least one of, your most pressing business problem.

Plan your coaching practice for success

We so often tell our coaching clients to plan for success. Why couldn’t that mean imagine the success you want and work backward to where you are today? It’s a little secret – and it works!

What is the most pressing problem in your coaching practice? In your business? And what are you doing about it?

Let’s talk about it!

note: image from tashland on Flickr, some rights reserved)

If Mr. Shaw is correct (and I think he is) then all progress – hence all success – happens when you adapt your surrounding conditions to meet your specific situation.

Think about what that means in your business.

So often, small business professionals get caught up in playing follow the leader. They find some system or program – some marketing philosophy or method for copy writing – and they follow blindly. They think that because this method has worked for others, that it’ll be great for them.

What they don’t see is that when we’re always a follower we’re always at the whims of the what’s around us. And when the marketing plan doesn’t work for them they either figure they’ve not learned enough or that they can’t learn it at all. So they either spend more time as a follower or they quit.

But successful business – whether you’re a coach, consultant, therapist, widget maker, etc – isn’t found in following the leader or conforming to the masses. Successful businesses are built out of stepping out of line and finding your own path.

I liken building a successful small business to hiking, which I’ve done plenty of in my short life. Sure, you can follow the trail that’s been cut and see some great scenery. It’s easy, just walk and let the trail be your guide. Or you can decide to bushwhack; getting off trail and taking a risk. It’s when I’ve gone off trail that I’ve discovered the most serene mountain lakes, amazing meadows full of blooming flowers, glaciers hanging off unimaginable cliffs and easy access to ridge lines that lead to breathless views – none of which I would have seen if I’d remained on the trail.

The same is true with your business. Be willing to cut your own path. At the very least, explore off trail. Don’t just be a follower who adapts his or her self to the conditions that already exist. Rather find your independence, become your own leader and make the conditions that surround you work for you and your business.

How can this be pragmatic? Don’t just settle for following someone else’s marketing plan. Learn it, adapt it to your business – rather than your business to it – and leverage what you learn to generate more business. If you’re learning copy writing, don’t just learn the formula. Instead, learn the formula and then figure out how you can adapt it to your specific way of communicating and to your specific business model.

In other words, own it. Own what you learn by making it part of you and adapting it to how you work best. Learn it, adapt it, own it! And be as unreasonable as your business success allows.

So what can  you do today to be a little unreasonable; to go off trail or to adapt your surroundings to your business?

And if you’re unsure, consider how you’re allowing your surroundings to dictate how you do your business – and share it in the comment box.

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from mutbka on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Are you one of those business owners who’s not tracking your business activity, tracking your marketing or recording how you spend your time each day working on your business?

If you are – you’re certainly not alone. Very few small business owners are measuring their business activity these days – especially on the internet. And even fewer – way fewer – have an established system for tracking and evaluating the effectiveness of each of the most important parts of their business.

This is a HUGE MISTAKE!

I don’t mean the sort of mistake where keeping your business opened is threatened – though it could come to that. I mean that you’re missing an absolutely fundamental part of running a successful business. Just ask anyone who is successful. They’re going to tell you that they key to their success is:

…doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

It doesn’t really matter your field or your niche. If you’re an engineering firm who makes $10 million per year, you need to track what’s happening in your business. If you’re a life coach making $40,000, you need to track what’s happening in your business. And if you’re just getting started, you want to track what’s going on in your business.

Why? Because what you don’t measure – doesn’t exist.

Strong statement, I know. But just consider it for a moment: Can something that’s not being measured really, truly exist?

Now before we start playing a game of semantics about what measuring means – let’s consider a couple of definitions:

To measure means to ascertain the size, amount or degree of something by using a marked standard or by comparison with a known object.

AND

To measure means to take an exact quantity or fixed amount of something.

So you don’t have to use a ruler to measure something. Your eyes measure everything you look at all the time. You don’t need a ruler to know the difference between a long board and a short one. The same is true when you look at a number of something. It’s usually pretty easy to gauge the difference in number between a line of ants on the ground and the number in and around an ant hill. So you’re taking measure of things all the time – that’s how our minds catalog our experiences. Hence, everything you see and experience in your life is because you’ve measured it in some way.

This is why I can feel comfortable in saying, “what you don’t measure – doesn’t exist.”

So let’s move from looking at the world around us to looking specifically at your business. Do you know how many people view your website? Do you know where they come from, what pages of your site they’re reading most and what pages of your site they’re leaving most from? If you have a website – you should. Just those four things alone can tell you a great deal about the effectiveness of your website in marketing your business.

Now, if you’re not measuring and looking at those statistics, are they happening any way. Sure, there are. But do you know anything about it? No, you don’t. This is why I say they don’t exist. The events are happening – xx number of people are reading your website each week – but because you’re not tracking that information and then using it to evaluate your marketing, the visitors really don’t exist to your business. Without knowing whether you have 10, 100 or 10,000 visitors this week, you can’t really know what they did on your website. And if you can’t really know what they did on your website, then you can’t use any of the information their visits left you about how well your website is doing. And if you can’t use that information, then the visitors really don’t exist. They don’t exist because you don’t know anything about them that you can use in your business.

The same is true whether you have a website or not. Following website statistics isn’t the point here. Rather, the point is to have a system setup to evaluate your business at different times, in different manners to find out how well you’re doing – and – to do more of what’s working and less of what’s not.

That’s why every business should begin with clear business objectives or goals in mind. And those goals or objectives should be prioritized in importance so that you’re always leading with the most important objectives. Once you know your objectives you want to create a method for measuring and evaluating the efforts you’re putting out to meet each of them. This way, you can know the most important thing to know in marketing:

…what’s working and what’s not.

So are you measure your business efforts? If so, what are you doing, how often to you review your marketing? And have you found it necessary to stop doing an activity because it wasn’t helping you reach  your business goals?

Let’s talk about it.

Oh yeah…I’ll be speaking live on this topic further during The Self Employment Telesummit beginning on September 10th. I’m joined by some amazing presenters such as Molly Gordon, Pam Slim, Mark Silver, Sean D’Souza, Sonia Simone, Nancy Marmolejo and a host of others. Seats are filling up so register today.

note: image from ppdigital on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Think about it. If you run a small business, where do you usually put the majority of your focus? Marketing? generating revenue? Your work with you clients? Things like this?

So often the question you have about your small business deal with how or what, right? You know – how do I generate more revenue or what do I need to do to get more from my marketing? Aren’t these the questions you most often find yourself asking?

The answers to these questions are often lengthy, require learning or have many steps required to see results. So much so that we then find ourselves lost in the jungle of what to do next. So we can learn about what and understand how, but one question – the most important business question – remains unanswered. And without answering that question, it’s difficult to truly succeed.

The question…why?

In your small business, you need to know ‘why.’ And you need to know ‘why’ about everything. And I do mean everything.

Of course, perhaps the first most important part of asking why is asking why you’re in business in the first place. While this may seem elementary, it’s of vital importance. It’s difficult to evaluate where your business is heading if you’re not clear why you’re in business in the first place. Find that out why you’re in business will help you align all the parts of your business behind a united goal. Not knowing why, in turn, often means a splintered business model where not all your business processes point in the same direction.

One note, there’s no wrong or right answer to why you’re in business. It’s only important to know why you’ve started and continue to run your small business. The goal isn’t right or wrong, it’s clarity of purpose and understanding.

This is why asking ‘why’ should  penetrate every single aspect of your small business. In other words, you should be asking it about everything. “Why did I choose to sell this product?” “Why do I answer the phone that way?” “Why am I not closing more deals?” “Why are people hiring me?” And on, and on…

Ultimately why is the foundational question about your business. No other question really matters too much until you understand why. And if you look at most small businesses that are failing most often you’ll find that they’re not clear about why they’re in business in the first place. And if, by some chance, they do know why they’re in business, their lack of success provide a window into what they’re not asking why about in their business.

Take it out of the context of running a small business for a moment and think about being a parent. If you’ve had three year-old kids, you know that the only word that ever comes out from their little lips is, “WHY!?!?” Why, why, why, why, why? There’s no end to their questions. The reason for this is that developmentally they’ve reach a place where they being to see that the world has structure and order and they want to understand it. So they ask why about everything so that they can – no, not annoy their parents and other adults. They ask why about everything so they can – LEARN! And that’s why you want to ask why about every part of your small business – to learn.

So use ‘why’ as a chance to awaken your understandings of your business. Ask yourself ‘why’ you do what you do the way you do it. Ask yourself why your customers buy from you. Ask yourself why you’ve generated less revenue this month than last. Ask yourself why – incessantly. Doing so will help understand the motivation and goals behind how you run your business. And when you understand what lies beneath, you can make better decision about marketing, positioning, pricing, etc.

Do you ask ‘why’ in your business? If not, why not?

And if you do ask ‘why’ about your business what new understandings has it led you too? What insights have you gained? And how has understanding why you do what you do changed your business?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Amish Shah on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Certainly you can approach your business as though it’s a set of skills you learn and then implement. Yet I’ve found, for myself at least, that running my business like this has no life. You can create success and make tons of money, but what’s the end game?

For me, having my own business is about living life. I utilize my business to aid me in creating the lifestyle I want. My life is not, however, my business just as my business is not my life. What my business gets me is an opportunity to live the life that I – and my family – want. And for us, that’s the end game.

So I tend to approach business as being from part of my lifestyle. Which means I bring everything I know into my business. Certainly that includes marketing strategy, business development, and sales. Yet it also means I look at business with an eye toward spirituality, life purpose and philosophy.

Now I don’t see spirituality and philosophy as being something to push through business – as many are doing today. Their approach is to create spirituality in business – and that’s fine for them. It’s simply not how I approach my own business.

My approach is take the teachings, the lessons and the knowledge I’ve gained studying philosophy or practicing spirituality and live them inside my business. So words such as integrity or honesty have meaning to me in my business not because they seem like ways to gain an advantage over the competition or generate more sales. Rather, applying these concepts in my own inner life is the foundation in which my business is built. For me, it can be no other way.

So often, when I look to solve a business problem for myself or a client or I want to make some part of my business model better, I turn to philosophy and spiritual teachings. And just this past weekend I opened again, for the first time in years, Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War. And the first passage I read included:

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

Now, of course, Sun-Tzu’s writing about military strategy in The Art of War. But the book really presents a complete philosophy for managing conflicts and winning clear victories. For instance, Sun-Tzu writes, “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.“

So consider the gem I rediscovered in considering strategy and tactics. What Sun-Tzu offers is so fundamental that there is no debate that can deem his words untrue.

If we go off and just implement our ideas without forethought or planning, we end up failing. Sure, we may gain some success in the short term, but in the long run we’ll either find out selves in a cul-de-sac or out of steam.

And if we spend so much time on planning and trying to forsee all the pitfalls and possible road bumps along the way, we may move forward, but the pace will be painfully slow. So slow that we could find ourselves questioning whether we belong doing our business or not.

There is a fine balance between planning and implementation. The two dance together in a healthy, sustainable business model. You want to be planning and visioning for the future, and at the same time you want to be implementing your plan so that your business can build some momentum and so you can learn what in your strategy works or not. Then, you will grow at a pace that’s sustainable.

How are you managing and balancing your strategies with your tactics? And what have you learned from it?

And perhaps as interesting…do you use the wisdom of those who came before us to help you gain perspectives in  your business? If so, how?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from jocuristrategice.ro/)

I’ve always been a do-it-yourselfer. I’ve taught myself a great many things by taking this attitude.

When I bought my first house, I completely gutted it – down to the timbers in most rooms. In other places, we removed and moved walls. For instance, I created a large, walk-in closet in our huge bedroom where there was once a little coat room.

When it came to moving plumbing, rerouting and adding electrical, drywall, replacing subfloor, moving my toilets and bathtub drains – I basically did it all. And in most cases, I took to each project never having done it before.

But at some point, you have to live in  your house. And that means it has to get done – as my wife might say, “be livable.”

For us that time came as we neared the birth of our first child. As the first trimester of my wife’s pregnancy led to the second, we had to make some choices. We’d remodel the kitchen later, for instance.

Well, two kids and four years later, the kitchen hadn’t been finished. Yet we wanted to redo the kitchen. It had been one of the main reasons we moved in the house – a huge dinning room adjacent to a tiny kitchen. The remodel was a no-brainer. So, as my wife was pregnant with our third, we made a strict timeline and went ahead with the remodel.

This time, the do-it-yourself Dawud gave way to the asking for help. I called in favors when it came to moving the plumbing and installing the cabinets and countertops. And I hired a contractor to do the electrical and new lighting. The demo (remove a wall, tear out old kitchen), drywall, flooring and painting I’d do myself. And in less than 8 weeks, we completed our kitchen – for the most part (there’s some odds and ends left to do).

What I learned in the process was something that I’ve seen many small business owners struggle with in their business – they don’t ask for help. They don’t seek people to help them with tasks in their business. Rather, they try to do everything themselves. This usually means one of a number of things happens: They either don’t grow very fast because they can only do so much work or their business goes backward because – well – they can’t do so much work.

But when you outsource tasks in your business, it supports your business in a number of ways. One, it frees up some of your time so that you can focus on the tasks in your business that need your specific attention – such as referral marketing or creating new products and services to sell. Two, it creates space for you to take on new projects because you have more time on your hands. Three, it allows you time to clean up the things that have gotten neglected in your business. Four, it starts the process of handing off even more tasks because once you can trust one person with managing a part of your business, you can trust others. And five, outsourcing lets you share your success with another person – helping them become more successful.

If you’re stuggling with the idea, or if it seems that it’ll cost too much, don’t let that stop you. You can manage how someone else completes tasks in your business. And managing takes far less time than doing. And consider the costs not on what you’re paying out versus your revenues. Rather, consider the costs in relation to how much more productive you can be in creating more revenues streams in your business. Paying someone $20 an hour to manage your email, for instance, is nothing when you can generate $50 or $80, $350 or more with that same hour.

Outsourcing is one of the keys to growing your business. So allow yourself a chance to ask for help. There are plenty of virtual assistants out there, for instance, that do all sorts of things – from general office work to executive resources to web and graphic design to marketing. Just find the one that best fits your needs.

And be sure you know when to ask for help.

As a small business owner, are you outsourcing in your business? If so, how’s it working out. And if not, why not…what stops you from asking for help?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from jen_maiser on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Is your business feeling the crunch of a slow economy?

Last week a client of mine, Kim (name changed to protect the innocent) told me that her business had slowed almost 40% over the past 18 months. As we talked, she explained that she’s doing nothing different with her advertising and marketing – “what worked 18 months ago just isn’t working as well now,” she said.

The reason, Kim felt, is that people have less money to spend.

That certainly makes sense. All our living expenses are on the rise. Groceries cost more, utility bills have increased – in some places dramatically – and the price of a gallon of gas is through the roof. So it only makes sense that consumers have less to spend on what they may perceive as ‘non-essential’ services.

When I asked Kim what she was going to do about it she said, “Well, I’m going to have to cut back on my business expenses.”

“What’s the first place you’re considering cutting back,” I asked?

“My advertising and marketing is my biggest expense. I just don’t think I can continue to pay for print ads in local magazines. And I should probably look at how much I’m spending on Google Adwords. And maybe I need to look at sharing my office space with someone else.”

Interesting strategy I thought. Kim’s ideas were to cut the things that were costing her business the most money. Yet cutting her marketing budget would also affect her ability to reach new clients. She seemed stuck.

Trimming fat from your business is smart in lean times. But it can also send your business into a downward spiral which leads to going out of business. When revenues are low, you cut back on marketing – which brings less clients, which, in turn decreases revenue further leading to more cutbacks. You can see, a few cycles of this and you’ll be out of business.

What small business owners seldom think of in lean times is growth. But look at the example of big business and wealthy people. They’re often the most active when the economy is slow. Investors often buy in when times are lean. And they all make a killing in the long run.

The small business owner, if they want to stay in business, needs to take a similar approach. In lean times, sure, cut back on unnecessary expenses. Readjust your books so you can loosen up some cash. But even more importantly, get active. In other words – sell.

Seems like a simple solution, right? Times are tough…sell more. But seldom do small businesses in slight downturns think of this. Or if they think about it, they don’t actually follow through on it.

Yet the key to coming out of a difficult financial period -  be it your own business cycle or that of a slow economy – is to focus on growing your business. Utilize all the selling techniques you know about to stir your way out of stagnation.

Remember that marketing is most effective when you’re solving problems for your clients and customers. Refine your marketing to meet potential customers where they’re facing problems. It might be that you have a perfect solution for their needs.

So how is your business in this economy? Do you have a growth strategy for slow times – whether you face them now or not? What would it be?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Pulpolux !!! on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Larry’s work was extraordinary. But while he managed a few customers in those first couple of years, he was barely making a living. It was just too hard to find people who really wanted a custom table.

Yet, for Larry, his heart wasn’t in it. He enjoyed the design and the crafting of these pieces of art, but he wasn’t sure this was his calling.

So he moved back to Ann Arbor from Seattle and began a home renovation company with a long-time friend. They niched themselves doing upscale remodels and additions and made their focus about quality and customized solutions. Larry did the design and custom woodwork – banisters, closets, trim work, etc. Yet he excelled in designing and remodeling kitchens and bathrooms.

I went with Larry once to a job site. It was amazing to watch him walk around a kitchen and develop a layout. In minutes he could come up some incredible ideas. I once asked him what he saw when he walked into a space. He told me that he completely ignores what’s there. He pictures the room completely empty – no cabinets, no appliances, no sink, etc. Then he considers where the doors and windows are and how the family will use their kitchen. He also takes into account unique features and shape of the space he’s in. Then he just imagines where things should go. The sink needs to go here, the stove there, etc. It’s remarkable. The day I went with Larry he had the outline for a design mapped out in about 15 minutes.

Now he’s working with $150,000 and more kitchen remodels, so people are spending good money. So he takes measurements, talks to his clients, and then enters all the room information into a computer program that generates a three-dimensional representation of the room. Then he begins placing the cabinets and appliances as he imagines them. This way he can show his design to his clients. It’s pretty neat.

Anyhow, Larry has designed some absolutely beautiful kitchen out of what was once ugly, unusable space. The project I went with him on, he opened a wall and found a chimney made of old brick. His team cleaned the brick, glazed it and made it the centerpiece of the design. When finished, it was stunning.

What’s happened for Larry is he found what he loves doing. He loves taking spaces in people’s homes and redesigning and then building them so they become the most loved rooms in the house. We had lunch after I visited the job site with him. We spent an hour talking about design. As he paid the check, I told him, “you’re not a woodworker, you’re a designer. It’s just you have the skills to create your designs.”

He’s never thought about it that way before. He’d always thought of himself as a woodworker. So he stopped and thought about it…”you’re right,” he said, “Boy that changes things a bit, doesn’t it?”

And it did. He began marketing himself, and hence his remodeling business with is partner as a design firm who could also build. Pretty rare combination. Yet it’s making them more successful every year.

Plato once said, “All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.”

Larry has definitely found how he can make a living, a pretty good living, from his natural gifts. How are you using your natural gifts in your business? How do your gifts give you an advantage in the marketplace?

And if you’re not fully using your natural gifts, or if your not doing what you’re naturally great at, why?

Let’s talk about it.

photo courtesy of Meadowlark Builders.

Walk through any supermarket here in the U.S and you’ll find tons of choices. Want a simple can of soup, you have to wade through 15 different brands of chicken noodle. Or toothpaste, or cereal, or ice cream. Heck, we even have to make a choice between ketchup brands.

Now choice may be good. I know I appreciate having a choice of certain things I need, use or enjoy. And I know I’d be upset if someone took away Breyer’s ice cream and made me buy from only one brand.

Yet, according to Barry Schwartz, choice is a paradox. While it’s great to have options, he’s observed that options often lead to bad decisions, dissatisfaction in what’s been chosen or a paralysis to taking action. As Barry observes:

“…maximizers want the best. The problem that needs to be solved is what’s the best jeans, the best restaurant, the best place to go on vacation, the best marital partner – everything. Yet that requires a search of all possibilities which is…impossible.”

“satisficers aren’t looking for the best, they’re looking for good enough and good enough can be very good, it doesn’t mean people have no standards. But it means they don’t feel the need to do an exhaustive search. They just keep looking until they find one thing that meets their criteria and then they choose it.”

[youtube 5xpA7Y1bsMM]

Consider that’s been said here: that while choice may be a good thing, it’s not always the best thing. It’s being suggested that people are tired of so many choices and that it can even paralyze them from making decisions.

So think about it from the point of marketing your specific products and services to your specific target audience. When they visit your website, what do they see? What choices do they have to make? Are there too many? Could it be that in an effort to show people everything we do that we paralyze them from taking action on something they need?

Further, how could you offer your prospects fewer choices and still grow your business?

What are you thoughts? Let’s talk about it.

And if you have a story about being overwhelmed by choice, please toss it in the coversation.

(note: image from ::: Billie / PartsnPieces ::: on Flickr, some rights reserved)

They want your stories, your perspectives, your perceptions and your ideas. And in some cases they want your help or they want to learn how to do what you know. Either way, they appreciate the value your blog adds to their life or their business. The value, after all, is why they’re spending their valuable time reading you in the first place.

I was ruminating on this while reading Liz Strauss’ new informational product – an ebook, The Secret to Writing a Successful and Outstanding Blog. In her book, Liz walks you through how to use your blog to create conversation and grow a community. You get insights and suggestions from someone who has close to 70,000 comments on her own blog. I absolutely highly recommend it. And just to be transparent, I did help her a bit on the development and distribution, though I do not receive any royalties from it.

One interesting thing about Liz’s book is that it was created from content she had published on her blog over the past two years. When she came up with the idea to create her informational product, she went back through old posts to use the ones that would fit as content. In all, the core of her ebook is the content from her blog.

Now Liz took the content for her informational product from posts she’d previously written. It worked great for her and if you’ve been writing a while, I’d highly recommend considering developing your own informational products from previously written posts.

Yet, there’s another way to approach using your blog to develop informational products – one that serves product creation and post content at the same time. You can develop and write your info product from new content you post to your blog. With a little planning, it can be simple:

1. First thing is to consider what informational products your audience would be interested in buying. Look at what posts were the most read and most commented on. Also, ask them through polls and short surveys.
2. Outline the major content themes for your informational product. Whether you mindmap or outline, doesn’t matter. Just get down a basic structure for what’s going to be included in your info product. This will help you focus on your info product’s content as well as blog content.
3. Further define your informational product outline. You have the major points, now get specific. What are the individual talking points that your info product will cover? Get as specific and detailed as you can. Layout the entire product so that you can see exactly what needs to be written in order to publish your info product.
4. Create a list of blog post topics. A checklist works fine or just an outline. Either way, translate all the talking points into a list of blog posts you can write. That way, you’ll know exactly what you’ll be writing about in creating your informational product.
5. Create a special category on your blog. Ideally, this category would be invisible, but it doesn’t have to be. Be sure to put all blog posts that you’ll use for your information product in this category. When you’re ready to compile and edit your posts into your info product, it’ll be much easier to find them all.
6. Write. Now that you have your plan, your outline and your post topics, now it’s time to write. In this case, write quality posts. As you write, make sure you’re thinking about how each post will fit into your informational product. Also, don’t feel pressured to make every single one of your next posts for your info product. Write about other things when you’re inspired too. Just remember to return to your info product content.
7. Get feedback. Watch the comment box closely whenever you write content for your informational product. Your readers will give you great insight both into what they’re interested in and how they think about the topic. Utilize this to create a better info product. And don’t be afraid to change your info product based on what you learn from your readers.
8. Compile your content. Once you’ve written all the pieces of content for your informational product on your blog, compile it. Get it from your blog into your favorite word processing or desktop publishing software. Try to put it together in sections as you’ve laid out in your outline.
9. Edit and layout. Now, with your informational product content all compiled, begin editing. Read for content and for flow. And remember to edit for voice. It’s likely you wrote differently on different posts so be sure your voice is consistent. Also, begin laying out how you’re info product will look in structure when finished. You can do this with editing or after – it’s up to you.
10. Proof and correct. Once you’ve finished your edits and your layout, get a few trusted friends and colleagues to read your information product. Get their feedback on flow, content, clarity and value. If there are exercises or to-do lists, ask them if they are easy to understand and clear to follow. Highly consider any corrections that your proofreaders suggest.
11. Decide on your format. Once you have a completed version of your informational product, you need to decide on the format to publish it too. When deciding on format, consider whether your info product will be delivered electronically or by post. If you’ve created a book, PDF works great electronically and bound publishing for sending by post. Audio can be distributed electronically as mp3 or by post on CD. For video, DVDs work great by post while Flash video, MPEG4 or QuickTime work great for electronic delivery.
12. Price and payment. While you can certain go through this process to create free products – which I do recommend, you should also consider creating informational products for sale. That means you have to decide on how much to charge and how you’ll receive payment. There are many ways to decide cost, including comparing to what others are doing. Maybe start with a lower introductory price to get some initial interest and raise the price later. As for payment, PayPal works fine in most cases. They give you a method to collect money and a shopping cart, if you need one. It’s the easiest and cheapest to setup. Otherwise, you’re looking at a shopping cart like 1ShoppingCart and an online merchant account like with Authorize.net.
13. Write your landing page. Once you have your informational product finished, you know the cost and how you’re going to collect payment and manage delivery you have to have a place to put it on your website. Often this means a landing page. While you can find many great resources on how to write a landing page, the basics are that you write customer-focused copy that illustrates how your info product solves their problem. Focus on your info product’s content but do so by highlighting how your info product will benefit the customer. Remember testimonials – which you can first get from your proofers – and endorsements from well-known sources, and a money-back guarantee. And please make the price and the buy buttons easy to find. Last word of advice on landing pages – don’t get bogged down by trying to make it perfect right out of the gate. Write the best you can, publish it and then tweak it later.
14. Market your new informational product. With your informational product completed and your landing page written it’s time to get the word out. But don’t just announce it on your blog – cover pieces of it highlighting, again, the benefits. As your proofers, endorsers and blog friends to do the same. Consider creating an affiliate program around it so people can make a buck promoting it for you. Ask friends to market it to their ezine lists or mention it in your forum. Run a contest with prizes for anyone who buys posts about it. Get it reviewed. Use your social networking contacts to help with the push. Basically, use everything you can think of to get the word out. And don’t forget to publish articles to article banks that focus on specific parts of the content and link to your landing page.
15. Get AND USE feedback. This step is often missed and yet very important to the long-term success of your informational product. You want to encourage people to share with you their experiences with your info product. Ask them for feedback. Send them emails or cards by post that ask them a few specific questions about the product. Even better, get them to a short survey for feedback. And absolutely, without a doubt, continue to get testimonials and endorsements. Then USE THEM on your landing page and in your marketing campaign.

Create great informational products and you’ll have something that you can sell for a long time. That means a stream of passive income. Do this a few times and you’ll have a fleet of info products with the potential of a significant, long-term passive income stream.

By using your blog to develop your informational products, you can serve to needs – writing great blog content that benefits your readers while create an info product that can generate sales and passive income.

Which leads me to the questions: Have you ever considered using your blog to develop an info product – whether with new or previously written content?

If you have, what were some of the barriers you faced and how did you overcome them?

And if not, what stands in the way of you creating and offering your own informational products?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Knilram on Flickr, some rights reserved)

I remember much from our conversations – though truthfully, he was often doing most of the talking as I’d just try to absorb what he was teaching me.

One of the things he said again and again is, “what you focus on expands.” He said it often, in many different ways. But the core message was always the same – whatever you think is – is.

Now I’ve seen this hold true in just about every instance in my life. If I thought something was a certain way, it would almost always show itself to be that way. Just think about how many times you’ve miscommunicated with someone because you were focused on one perspective while they were focused on another.

How you think about your business is no different. What you focus on in your business is what will expand. It’s what you believe that you’ll put effort into. Hence, where you put your focus is where you’ll put your energy which is where you’re business will evolve from. Think that you can’t get the clients you really want, and it’ll be pretty difficult too. Think that no one wants your service and you’ll become prophetic by putting your efforts into proving yourself right. That’s just human nature.

But moreover, it’s what your brain does. Your brain sees the world, sees your business, through the filters of your beliefs. How you think your business is, is what you’re business is – or what it will become. The interesting thing is seeing how easy it is to trick your brain. Just watch:

Pretty incredible, huh? See how easy it is to trick your brain?

Now consider how your your brain, your throughts, your beliefs are affecting your business. How is what you believe affecting your bottom line? Are you limiting the growth, the potential, of your business because of something you perceive about it?

Would you consider seeing it differently?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: both images from skippy13 on Flickr, some rights reserved)

But to be successful, you’re ultimately not the decision maker. And if you want to be successful, you shouldn’t be.

I know what you’re thinking (other than this Dawud cat is crazy), “Then who makes the decisions if I don’t?”

Your market does, of course.

You can sit back everyday, all day and make decisions about where to steer your business. Sure you decide what emails to respond too, what phone calls to take, and where to put your marketing efforts. You decide to develop this product or refine that service or to build this relationship or that one.

But there’s one thing about your business that you can’t decide – who buys. You simply don’t get to decide who buys what your products or services. While you can choose who you try to market too, you can’t control who actually spends money on your offerings. Each and every individual in your market decides that for themselves.

So many business owners have this backward. They think that all they need to do is create some product, market it to the right people and they just buy. That can work. But it’s like shooting fish in a fast moving river; the audience rushes by as your marketing tries to catch their attention long enough to slow them down, giving you a better shot.

Wouldn’t it just be easier if you knew what the fish wanted and built your products and services around that? Then you could give them what they’re looking for. Do that and some can be into a still pond (think big barrel). In the still pond you let them slow down, relax and rest a bit – all while listening to what you have to offer them. Effectively, you’re now able to take your shots at the fish who are interested in being there.

Smart business owners understand this so they don’t waste their resources and time shooting at the fish rushing by in the river. Instead, they craft their offerings around what their audience actually wants. This changes marketing from yelling to the mass of people rushing by to having a conversation with a small niche who need what you have to offer.

The successful business owner knows that it’s the people who make up the marketplace that ultimately decide. The audience is the decision maker. The only decision you need to make is whether to listen to them or not.

Are you listening to your target audience? What are they telling you they need? And how can you fill that need?

(note: no fish were harmed or injured in any way during the writing of this post. The author (that’s me) does not specifically advocate shooting fish whether in a river, a pond a barrel or any other locale. And if you select to use a firearm for any purpose, please get proper training.)

(note: image from SubyRex on Flickr, some rights reserved)

The answer is always quite simple, really. So simple that it can be answered in one word – change.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.“

Yet how many of us can say that we’re not doing something insane with our business? How many of us keep trying the same things again and again hoping that somehow the results will be different than before?

Well, the only way to different results is to do things differently than before. If you want to grow your business, you have to introduce something new into it. You have to do something, even ever so slightly, different. In other words, you have to change.

My dear friend David Bullock gets this. Not only does he get it, he’s an expert at finding what you can change in your business to give you better results.

Below is a short video (1:20) of David talking about how to take your business to the next level. Here’s an excerpt:

“So if you’re in your business and it’s not working for you, guess what! You have to step back from it and look at it from a very different level to get it to work. If you don’t do that your business just kind of sits where it is.”

[youtube W_GViSHTuL4]

David continues: “Going to the next level really means you really have to do something differently, but not different. So you may have everything that you need right now to make your business do exactly what you want it to do. But it’s a matter of you packaging and repackaging what you already have; putting a different a different value on it for it to go to the next level.”

So if you look at your business, what changes, even little ones, can you make right now that will affect your bottom line? What can you do differently right now? And how would you see your results changing?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from red betty black on Flickr)

But there’s a third question that I see rarely answered. That question…how! How do you actually do what and why?

For instance, if you have a business, you need to market your business. Perhaps you learn what types of marketing would work best for your business. You even learn why those types of marketing can help you be successful.

But when you get to the most important part – how – often it’s not as clear. Yet how is about implementation. How are the detailed steps you take to put into action, measure, assess and refine your efforts. So how is about getting it done – it’s about actually accomplishing in your business what you set out to do. It’s about taking your vision, your dream, your ideas and making them into reality.

So why is so little spent these days on how?

If you could ask Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Andy Sernovitz, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan (insert any name you consider an expert) any one question – wouldn’t it be ‘how? Wouldn’t that one question be – ‘how do I do…(whatever)?’

So what are the questions you’d ask about how to implement some piece of advice in your business or on you blog? Perhaps we can find some answers together.

(note: image from TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ on Flickr)

Yet, as business owners, we spend so much of our time focusing on how to do what we do better. We read, we blog, we train, we attend workshops and conferences, go to events, network and so on. All under the guise that we can gain some edge in how we do what we do.

But what if the edge isn’t in what we do for our clients and customers?

My grandmother buys a new car every four years. And for the past three decades, she’s been buying her cars from the same guy at the same dealership. Is it because the Buicks they sell are somehow better than the Buicks at other dealerships? Or maybe it’s that this specific salesman does his job better than the other salesmen do.

Certainly he does, to some degree. But I’ve spoken with him, he’s not the most knowledgeable salesman on the lot. He’s not the best dressed or most polished either.

Yet my grandmother keeps coming back. She won’t even consider buying from another salesman, let alone look at a different make of car.

I’ve asked my grandmother about why she keeps buying from him. Her answer is a simple, “I like him.” Now she doesn’t mean that in any flirty way. I’ve been with her when she’s bought a new car and there’s no weird flirting going back and forth. It’s just that she likes him.

And in their interactions is a little known secret to business success and customer loyalty – feeling. It’s not what you do that’s important with your clients and customers, it’s how they feel about what you do that’s important.

Let’s say that again:

What you do isn’t nearly as important as how it makes your clients and customers feel.

Would you say that’s true in your business?

If it is, why do you think most small business owners spend much of their time on the other?

(note: image from Storeyland on Flickr)

Yet I’m always surprised how many small business owners miss this. Somewhere in all their efforts to develop their business plan and marketing strategy they seem to forget that it’s about the people.

Maybe it’s using terms like target audience or niche market that somehow dehumanizes their thoughts, I’m unsure. Or perhaps it’s the way we think about business in general as being a cold, cut-throat world where business owners are always trying to gain an upper hand on the competition. I know it’s hard to see people when we’re thinking like that.

Yet successful businesses have something in common – people; people buying their products and services. It’s people who make the decision to buy. It’s people who use what we sell. It’s people who give us valuable feedback on how to do it better. And we shouldn’t forget that it’s people who are our best marketers.

All of this being true, why are more business owners not putting the people they sell too first? Why are they not spending time getting to know what the people they can serve want? And perhaps more importantly, why don’t small business owners spend more time learning how to communicate with the people who make up their target market?

Is it fear? Or is it that we never learned solid people skills in the first place?

Or could it be that we enter into a mindset around business that tells us that we can’t be ourselves; that being human makes us unprofessional?

One thing’s for certainly, it’s healthy relationships that lead to healthy business. So why don’t more small businesses get it?

You can guess by all the questions that I’d love to hear what you have to say on this one. I have my own theories that I’ll bring out in the conversation in the comment box.

(note: image from RyanDianna on Flickr)