How do you define success in your business? It’s a question I ask every client – and most of the prospects I ever speak with.

The interesting thing for me is how often the people I speak with don’t have a specific answer. Sure, we can come up with just about anything on the fly. Yet it’s not difficult to tell the difference between established, well-thought-through business goals and those that we sort of find when we need to talk about such things.

Having a way to measure the success of your business, however, is one of the most vital parts of running a business.

It doesn’t matter whether your business is selling products, providing services or selling ad space on your blog – it does you good to have a clear idea of your goals. And, hence, a clear definition of what success looks like for your business.

All my clients use the web in some form these days. So often I hear success measured in visits to their website or page rank in Google. Sure, those are measurable results. But I, as a business advisor, would never consider those to be metrics used to define success of your business.

Let’s think about it for a minute…

You can have a page rank of 6 in Google and get 1000 unique visitors a day to your website or blog. That’s good, right? And most of us would be happy with numbers like this, right? Heck, the way Google’s playing around with page rank these days, I’d be happy to get back to a 6.

Yet, your page rank doesn’t equal income. Nor do any of those visitors guarantee a dime of revenue. Sure, if your website is selling ad space, you might get bits of cash for impressions. And you may be able to get a little higher ad rates with traffic and page rank higher. But you’re certainly not going to make a living on that alone.

And so these aren’t very solid metrics to use for defining your business success. Don’t believe me, ask around and see. Personally, I know more than a dozen bloggers who have highly successful blogs – more successful than mine in terms of traffic, page rank, back links and Technorati rating – who aren’t making enough money to cover their monthly expenses, let alone turn a profit. A couple are good friends that I’m trying to help out.

The point is you want to define the success of your business based on what you’ve set it up to do – make money. That doesn’t mean that you only measure by your bank statement at month’s end or by your bottom line accounts receivable versus accounts payable. There’s more to it than that.

For instance, take whatever you’re doing currently to market your business and track responses from your marketing efforts. Let’s say that one of your goals is to spend some time commenting in forums to drive targeted traffic back to your site that you can convert into leads. It’s a clear goal and something that can be easily measured using basic website statistics. Measuring your success might look something like this:

You posted 50 times in the forum last month. From those posts, you got 41 referring links from the forum to your website. From those visitors 11 commented on a blog post (leaving their email address with you), 6 subscribed to your newsletter and 1 contacted you directly with a question. You can then decide whether those 50 forum posts were worth the effort (I’d say yes, depending on what the commenters and newsletter subscribers do over the next few months).

You see, the idea here is that you set metrics that relate to your business goals. The month of forum posts may or may not directly result in revenue that month. But it’s not always about revenue. To make money you need leads and so the work you did in the forum could have been about generating leads – which you did. Now you just have to create the next metric for converting those leads into paying clients.

Measuring your success isn’t difficult. It just takes a little strategy, planning and forethought. And on the web, tracking results is incredibly easy. You just have to know what you’re tracking – and why. Then you can adjust your efforts for the next round of lead generating activities. That’s how successful business owners use the web.

How are you measuring your business success on the web? Are you at all? If not, why not? Would it change if you had someone to help you (I know someone, personally)?

All-in-all, how do you know if you’re successful with your marketing efforts?

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

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)

I’m not just talking about time. Of course you’re investing time, right? If you’re not, then you’re likely not very successful.

But what about money? Are you investing money into your business?

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with hundreds of small and medium-size business owners. Some have been startups with funding while others have had large marketing and PR budgets.

But I’m not talking about those businesses. I’m talking about small business owners. I’m talking about corporate trainers, business and marketing coaches, personal development experts and other service providers. I’m talking about clients whose businesses are generating less than $150,000 per year. In other words – small businesses.

It’s been amazing to me how often small business clients aren’t willing to invest in their own business. Sure, they might buy productivity or marketing products or hire out projects like website design. But they seldom have a longer-term plan beyond the project scope. And seldom do they consider an ongoing marketing or promotion budget for the growth of their business.

What gives? How can you grow a business if you’re unwilling to promote it? How can you increase your revenue if you don’t invest some dollars into marketing? I’m not talking about thousands upon thousands of dollars each month. I’m talking a few hundred or thousand or whatever fits your budget.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this – if you’re unwilling to invest in your own business, then why should anyone else? In other words, if you don’t spend money to promote your products or services, why should anyone spend money on them – if they can find you?

So, are you investing in your business? How? What’s your budget and how are you using it? And if you’re not, why not. Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from sash / slash on Flickr)

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)

I’ve heard so many web-based small business owners do their best to avoid using the word advertise that I’ve begun to wonder why. I’ve worked with enough clients offline to know that it’s not small business owners in general. Offline businesses use advertising constantly to get the word out about their business.

But it seems different for online small businesses. Somehow it seems that the word advertise is unclean or dishonest or something. While I haven’t quite put my finger on it, it is obvious that online small business tend to look at advertising differently. They often don’t consider placing ads – even Google Adwords.

This strikes me as odd because a few, well-placed advertisements can often drive far more than business than their cost.

But the more interesting thing is watching how web-based small business owners avoid using the term altogether. Sure, they talk about marketing, but rarely about advertising. Why do you think that is?

Yet advertising is simply a part of marketing. The best, simple, explanation of the difference between marketing and advertising was written by Rick Cockrum some time back.

“Marketing is the sum of the activities you perform to get the word out about your business and attract the customers you want. Advertising is one marketing activity. It usually entails publishing paid announcements about your business. At our theatre we advertise in the local paper weekly. Our marketing consists of a website, word of mouth from our customers (our best marketing), involvement in local activities, public service functions, involvement with local business groups, (etc)… . You can see that advertising, while important, is only a small part of marketing.”

Rick goes on to suggest that you should “use both.”

I fully agree. I’m a huge – I mean huge – proponent of word-of-mouth marketing and client referrals. Yet it can be difficult to grow a successful business just by word-of-mouth. I’m not saying it can’t be done. Heck, I did it myself. But I know that the right ads in the right places can speed up the growth process immensely.

And advertisements work. No doubt about it. Otherwise Pepsi, McDonalds, Ford and every other company in the world wouldn’t spend the money on it. Even spam email works. And that’s basically what spam is – a paid advertisement sent to your inbox. What makes it spam is that you’ve not given the sender permission to email you about their product. Yet spam must work otherwise no one would be paying spammers to send their messages.

Advertising, for good or bad, simply works. That’s not the question.

The question? Is adverstising working for your business? If so, how; what sort of results have you gotten? If not, why not; what have you tried and how did it turn out?

And if you’ve not tried paid advertising on the web, why not? What keeps you from jumping in?

Let’s talk about it.

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

Your business website should effectively represent your brand while providing ways for your leads to easily engage you. All roads in your business should lead back to your website, making it the pivot point for all your marketing. And you want to treat your website that way.

Furthermore, having a website opens the possibility to not just market to your leads, but to create a powerful touch point for engaging your audience in conversation and building relationships with your prospects and clients.

So if you want a successful business, and I believe you do, it only make sense to create a website that fuels the growth of your business.

Yet, as a small business owner, it can be easy – or tempting – to get in the way of your own marketing. You may take shortcuts with your business website. These shortcuts can become mistakes that undermine your business goals and turn your website from golden egg to fried omelet.

The sad thing is that you may not know your making these mistakes and undermining your business website.

So let’s look at 8 common, and often critical, mistakes I see everyday with small business websites:

Mistake #1: No Clear Objectives for Your Business Website

The very first thing you should do when you plan your business website is define its purpose. What objectives do you want your website to achieve? In other words, what do you want our visitors to see, to read and to do. To do is the most important set of objectives so you want your website objectives to be action oriented. Do you want them to sign up on your list, get your RSS feed, buy a product or take a survey? Any of these can be objectives. Just make sure your objectives are clearly defined.

One more thing on objectives: if you have more than one objective for your website, you want to put them in order of importance. Then, make sure you primary objective is the most visible and easy to find on your site. Your secondary objective should take its appropriate place behind the primary…and so on.

Mistake #2: No Strategies For Reaching Your Business Objectives

Once you know the objectives of your website you want to create strategies around how you’re going to accomplish these objectives. Strategy gets into how you’re going to do what you’re setting out to do with our business website. The more thought out and researched your strategies, the more likely your marketing and your website, overall, will be successful. From a strategy comes our plan of action, which gets us into tactics.

Mistake #3: No Tactics to Achieve Your Business Objectives

If you’re like most people, you’re pretty good at thinking about what you want to do with your business website. Often, where the trouble begins is when you have go from thought to action. That’s where tactics come in.

Tactics are the actionable steps you’ll be taking to achieve your business objectives. Your tactics are, flat out, a task list of what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it. Think of your tactics as being the implementation of your strategy. It’s how you’re going to do what you think.

Mistake #4: No Targeted Metrics to Measure Your Progress

One great thing about the internet is that if it happens on your business website, you can measure it. Which means, you can find out amazing detail about how your visitors as seeing, reading and using your website. So the only question is are you recording that information?

What’s sad is that I see so many small business owners who aren’t even looking at their most basic website statistics. Yet, it’s so much easier to know how effectively your building your list, for instance, if you know how much traffic you’re getting. And from knowing that, you can make a plan for increasing you list signups.

There’s no way else to put it, it’s a mistake if you’re not recording your website statistics and looking at them with some regularity (not daily). And it’s a further mistake if you don’t take the time to learn how to interpret your website statistics because they will tell you what’s working and what’s not working on your website.

Yet, it’s important to go one step beyond just your basic traffic stats. You want to also consider how you’re going to measure the effectiveness of your strategy and tactics so you can see how well you’re achieving your objectives. In other words, you want a solid system of metrics – even a simple one – so you can evaluate your marketing and make it work better.

Mistake #5: No Integrated Marketing Plan

So often I see small business owners thinking of their website as one part of their marketing and their offline marketing as being another part. Don’t make this mistake. Integrate the two. Communicate your offline promotions online. And even more effective, use your offline marketing to drive people to your business website. This works great when you can make an offer on your website that your offline audience wants. As I said above, your business website should be the hub of you marketing – not just online, but all your marketing.

Mistake #6: No Focus on the Value of Your Offer

I’m asked to evaluate a lot of websites for whether they’re business ready. One of the most common mistakes I see is small business owners not focusing on or effectively communicating the value of their service. Too often, the focus is on either the cost of service or the ‘unique approach we use that makes us different than everyone else.’ Yet, this just confuses the prospect because either they don’t care about the approach or they have to consider what they’re getting for the cost. In other words, they have to figure out the value themselves.

Don’t make your prospects figure out for themselves the value of the services you provide. Tell them about it. Show them what they get, what they can expect and how you will help them solve their problems. And offer testimonials of people who you’ve helped so that they can see the social proof in your offer.

Mistake #7: No Action Plan for Your Visitors

We said earlier that your website should have clearly defined objectives. Once you’ve identified what your objectives are, it’s likely they require an action by your visitors for you to achieve. So tell them to take the action. Make it exceptionally clear that if they’ve gotten this far in your website, that ‘this is the action step you want to take next.’ Could be a list signup, a free report, a set of articles – doesn’t matter (as long as it’s toward your business objectives). Just be sure you’re hyper-clear about what action steps you want your visitors to take.

Mistake #8: No Balance Between Design & Marketing Message

Having been a website designer for well over a decade, I’ve dealt with this one a lot. Often, business owners become too concerned over the visual look of their website and it gets out of balance with the purpose of their site – which is a marketing tool to promote and sell their products and services.

That’s not to say that a website shouldn’t be visually appealing – it should. For instance, I’ve had dozens of people contact me just to let me know how much they like the design of my site. Yet your website design shouldn’t get in the way of your marketing message and business objectives. It should provide a professional, attractive frame for your all-important content.

Ideally, your design will be something people see initially and get a good impression of you from. Then, as they begin to read your copy, it should fade into the background. So think of your website design not as a paramount piece of the marketing puzzle but as a frame for your marketing message. And remember, that you want to consider your business objectives in any website design.

So these are the 8 most critical mistake I see everyday in working with clients on growing their business and on developing their web presence. There are more, of course. But I’ve found these to be the biggest and most important 8 to correct.

Does your website make any of these mistakes? If so, which ones? And what will you do about it?

Let’s talk about it.

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

Sounds sort of crazy, huh? No one in their right mind would ever conceive building a neighborhood or developing a community that wasn’t linked with ways to get in and out. In essence, without houses being connected by sidewalks and streets, there would be no community all – just a bunch of unreachable, free-standing (and empty) homes.

Well, if your website isn’t developing a community around it, then you’re not thinking too differently than the subdivision developer who doesn’t build streets. And if you’re not building community around your website, then it’s likely your business is suffering online.

The reason is people want to belong. They want to find like-minded people with similar interests to connect with. They want to associate with other people who are in similar situations. In other words…they want community.

Nowhere is this more evident today then in the explosion of social media on the internet. What do you think the 500 billion people are doing on Facebook? And what are all these ‘tweets’ on Twitter about? Why are people using these sites in record numbers?

Because these sites allow people to connect with other people. In some cases, people with similar interest. In others, people they can learn from. And in still other cases people who can help them solve their problems – whether they’re personal, professional, health or business and so on.

Everyday the internet becomes more and more of a space for social engagement. And so should your website. Your website needs  to evolve with the changes toward a social internet or you’ll quickly watch it fall behind. Right now, this moment, sites that are socially oriented are building communities and, through those communities, growing their business. Sites that are not community-oriented are merely becoming placeholders for outdated and uninteresting content. Sorry, it’s just the fact of the matter. People don’t just want to read, they want to feel they’re connected to something. That something could (should) be you, your website, your business, etc.

So what does all this mean for you?

Basically you need to engage your target audience where they are! And right now, they’re on social media sites connecting with other people (read: other service providers).

You need to develop a website where you can engage your audience – and them you. You need to develop a web-based marketing plan where you’re actively engaging real-life people through these social spaces using these social tools. And you need to remember that business happens most easily, most often from relationships. A community, remember, is just a group of relationships – nothing more really.

As for the tools – Twitter, Facebook, Biznik, LinkedIn, etc – forget about all the hullaballoo and fancy marketing tactics. You don’t need to know any of that stuff. All you need are to know can be summed up in these two words: Listen and Engage! Listen to what people who have similar interests as you are talking about. And then, engage them in conversations. From conversations you build relationships. String together a bunch of relationships and you have a community.

Listen and engage! Listen and engage! Listen and engage. That’s it. Do this and it will change your business, your understanding of the internet and bring you into relationships with people who you have a natural affinity to. Listen…and…engage!

How are you using social media and your website to engage potential clients?

Are you listening to what they’re talking about? If so, how….if not, why not?

Let’s talk about it.

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

If you have a website, it serves one purpose – to sell something

Whether you’re selling goods and services or ideas and opinions – websites are about selling. If you have an offer, you want people to buy it. If you like something, you want people to try it. If you believe something, you want people to believe it too. And if you know something, you want other people to know it as well.

It doesn’t really matter how you slice it, the point of a website is to sell something. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a website? To display pretty pictures for everyone to see? Of course not. Websites are about selling because as people, we’re selling all the time. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

You see, selling is merely an exchange of something that’s valuable to someone. That’s it. Selling is nothing more than an exchange. It’s nothing to avoid, be concerned about or even fear. We’re selling all the time. I’m selling you my opinion right now. And if it has value, you’ll buy it and make it part of yours.

I think where selling gets a bad wrap is when we remember those annoying little experiences when someone was trying to pressure us into something we didn’t want. You know what I mean. The appliance salesman who really doesn’t get that sales is about relationship rather than the next commission to be made. Or the car salesman who follows you around the lot when you just want to look around. In these cases it’s pretty obvious that some sales people just don’t understand that selling is a natural, human process. They try too hard, really. And from our experiences with these sort of people, we feel icky about selling.

But there’s no need to fell bad about selling. As I said, we’re selling our ideas, our thoughts, our beliefs and our opinions all the time. So really, selling is as natural as having a conversation. And it’s through conversation that we go about selling –

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even on our websites. We use the conversation on our websites to develop relationships with people who may want to buy what we offer (e.g. what we’re selling). That’s the entire point of having a website.

So here’s some pointers I’ve put together to help you with selling on your website – and in your business as a whole. Use these suggestions and don’t be afraid to see yourself selling what you know, think or believe. Embrace it and find a new freedom in giving what you have of value to people who value what you know.

1. Don’t try to sell. If someone’s contacting you, they have some level of interest already. Find out what their want or need is first. Then, give them the information they need to make a choice. On your website, identify their problems and help them see that you can help them solve them.
2. Engage people. One of the most important aspects of selling is engagement. You want to engage your prospective clients and customers fully. Use your website to meet people where they are and engage them in conversation. Stay in the conversation as it organically moves toward a transaction. Not all will, but if you engage more people will buy than not because you’re showing them you care.
3. Care damn it! Really care about the people who you engage and who visit your website. Caring is the single most important aspect of selling. Listen to what they want, be empathetic about where they are and just give a crap about them as people. They’ll know the difference.
4. Be authentic. Selling is a natural as having a conversation. But we don’t often approach it that way. All you need to do is be yourself. People will naturally gravitate toward you when you’re real with yourself and with them. And forget all the sales techniques and just be a person trying to help people. You’ll refine how as you go.
5. Be transparent. Be a real person being real with people. Read that again! If you don’t know something, be honest about it. There’s nothing wrong with finding out the answer and getting back to someone. People will be pleased when you say you don’t know. More importantly, it will build trust with them.
6. Know what you’re selling. Clarity in what you’re selling is so, so important. If you don’t know, you certainly can’t share it and if you can’t share it you can’t sell it. So find out everything you can about what you’re selling. See it from different angles and approaches.
7. Know why you’re selling it. So often overlooked is this question of why. But you must know the answer. Is it just to make money? Or are you wanting to make meaning and a difference in people’s lives? If your product or service is about helping people, then know it and sell it that way.
8. Know who you’re selling too. This is so often missed…you’ve got to know who you’re selling too. Not the person so much, as their need, their likes, their dislikes. That means, listen. Listen to what their need is first. Get as much information as you can about what they believe they need.
9. Match your solution to their problem. If you listen well, people will tell you exactly what problem they’re trying to solve and specifically why they called you to solve it. At that point you merely need to match your ability to solve their problem to the problem they believe they need solved. Don’t change or reframe their problem for them , reframe your solution.
10. Remember, it’s okay to sell. Selling isn’t a dirty thing. Remember what I’ve said above, we’re selling all the time – our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, etc. So selling is natural. The oddities come in when money’s involved. And there’s nothing wrong with selling what you have to someone who needs it and making money, even a lot of money, from it. It’s just an exchange.

Now, don’t treat this like every other blog post

Really, I mean that. Don’t just read this post, leave a comment and then go on to the next thing to do. Use what I’ve given you here. Sit down with it and look over your website, your marketing, and how you convert your prospective clients. Refine your sales process. And if you don’t have a sales process, create one. Honestly, it will make a massive difference in how you do business.

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I’ll even make the 10 key points here into a PDF for you to download. Just click the icon at the right and you’ll download the 10 keys here right away. No email address or opt-in of any sort. All I ask is if you find value, share it with your friends:

• Retweet this post on Twitter
• Post it on Facebook
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Remember, selling isn’t a scary thing and it’s not a bad thing. Selling is a natural part of being a human being. So embrace it. You can sell with integrity and give your more people the chance to be helped through your products and services.

How comfortable are you with selling? What’s your own sales process?

Let’s talk about it.

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

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)

What is your business about?

Is it about branding and marketing? I’m sure it is. Is your business about sales and profits? I sure hope so. And is it about making some difference in the world? Ideally, that would be nice.

But branding, marketing, sales and making a difference require one thing – relationships. Ultimately, business is about relationships. Doesn’t matter whether you’re selling products or pitching services, ultimately people buy because they trust you. And trust comes from developing a relationship – even if that relationship is built from content on your website.

Whenever I work in my business, make plans etc, I always think about people. I remember that it’s people that I’m doing business with not some segment of niche market (though I may use the terms). And I remember that my own clients hire not my business, but me; they hire me. While they may like, want or need what I know or can teach them, ultimately they’re working with me because of the relationship we’ve built – and are building.

Solid businesses, especially independent and small businesses are built on relationships.

That’s always been the case and it will continue to be the case going forward. Which is why I’m such a big fan of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Sure, Cluetrain’s been around a while. Yeah, many others have said the same things – perhaps even better – since. But I still like the original. I like the way it’s put together. I like that it can be definitive and yet explorative at the same time.

For me, Cluetrain remains the quintessential work on how businesses are relationships and markets are conversations. Probably my favorite section is a piece written by Doc Searls where he describes a conversation he had with a Nigerian Pastor named Sayo:

…After hearing (about ‘markets are conversations’), he acknowledged that our observations were astute, but also incomplete. Something more was going on in markets than just transactions and conversations, he said. What was it?

I said I didn’t know. Here is the dialogue that followed, as close to verbatim as I can recall it…

“Pretend this is a garment”, Sayo said, picking up one of those blue airplane pillows. “Let’s say you see it for sale in a public market in my country, and you are interested in buying it. What is your first question to the seller?”

“What does it cost?” I said.

“Yes”, he answered. “You would ask that. Let’s say he says, ‘Fifty dollars’. What happens next?”

“If I want the garment, I bargain with him until we reach an agreeable price.”

“Good. Now let’s say you know something about textiles. And the two of you get into a long conversation where both of you learn much from each other. You learn about the origin of the garment, the yarn used, the dyes, the name of the artist, and so on. He learns about how fabric is made in your country, how distribution works, and so on. In the course of this you get to know each other. What happens to the price?”

“Maybe I want to pay him more and he wants to charge me less”.

“Yes. And why is that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You now have a relationship”.

Their conversation goes on to talk about the importance of relationship in public markets. ”Transaction still matters, of course. So does conversation. But the biggest slice in the social pie of the public marketplace is relationship. Price is less set than found, and the context for finding prices is both conversation and relationship. In many cases, relationship is the primary concern, not price.”

In essence, price matters – but not as much as relationships. Just think about the recent purchases you’ve made. How often was it just about price and how often did you pay a little bit more because you had established a relationship with the seller? Branding, marketing, selling and good will all have their foundations in relationships.

So in creating your business, in running your business and in marketing your business, why not make it about relationships first? Sure, you absolutely need to know who you are, what you do, why do it and who you do it for. But once you know that, the rest is about building relationships. And relationships begin with conversation. And now, we’re back to using your website, your email list, social media and search engines to get into the conversation. This is where successful businesses are built.

What specifically are you doing to build relationships in your business? How do you nurture your current and post clients? And how to you build those relationships with prospective clients?

Let’s talk about it.

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

I know it’s a big question. And I know it’s a question that you can break down into categories.

However, for just these next few moments, don’t think about the parts of your life that you can answer yes about. And, don’t consider that you’re sort of doing what you want with your life or that you’re close. For the next few moments just answer the question – honestly: Are you doing what you want with your life? – yes or no?

For me, personally, the answer is no. May sound odd since I have pretty rich life. But I’m not doing exactly what I want with my life. Sure, I’m successfully self-employed with a business that continue to grow each year – even in this crazy economy. Yep, I’ve been blessed with four phenomenal children and the most lovely of women a man could ever dream of as my wife. What else could I want?

Yet there are areas of my life where I don’t feel settled; where I still don’t feel that I’m living to my potential. There’s even areas where I feel a bit off from my life’s purpose as though I’m wandering. And neither my wife nor I are settled on where we live. We’re grateful for our house and large yard, but we don’t feel like where we are is really ‘home’ yet.

Then there’s my business. If I keep doing what I’m doing, we’ll live comfortably for years to come. Building websites, coaching clients for marketing, business and social media strategies and helping build my client’s following as been good to us. No complaints there (and thank you, by the way).

However, it’s clear to me that I’m not fully tapping my potential. There’s so much more that I want to do; so much more I can do with my business. But it means changing things. It means getting out of my comfort zone and shaking things up a bit. It means trying something new and taking risks. Something that was much easier to do when I didn’t have a family to support.

Now by risk, I’m not talking about closing down or destroying my business so I can go after some new endeavor. That’s not risk – that’s stupidity. The risk I’m talking about isn’t about putting my life or my family in danger. Rather, I’m talking about the risk that puts my comfort level in danger. It’s my comforts that keeps me where I am. And while being comfortable isn’t bad or wrong, it can keep me back from growing my business and improving my life.

William James, the pragmatic American philosopher once wrote, “Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.”

Yet, to find our second wind, we have to get out  of our comfort zone. To get outside our comfort zone we have to be willing to push ourselves past our fear, past our disbelief, past our self-limiting thoughts and continue striding toward our dreams. If you can walk a mile, you can strive to run a mile. If you can run a mile, you can push yourself to run two. In other words, with a little learning, a little striving and a bit of hard work, you can go further, faster than you ever dreamed possible.

And while it may seem fitting at this point to share with you the areas if my life where I feel I can be more, I’d rather not at this point. This article really isn’t about me, my process or my own dreams. No! This article is about you. It’s a call from my heart to yours to ask you to take a risk; take a risk toward what you really want to be doing. And work at it. Give it your attention, your efforts. Stride to your dreams…and watch for your second wind.

You’ve made it to the bottom of this article. So what will you do now? Will you just go about your day believing those limiting thoughts about what you can’t do; what you can’t have? Or are you going to take a risk in the direction of your dreams?

I know what I choose.

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Two Steps Behind on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Studying philosophy makes you think. It opens and expands your mind to all sorts of different, sometimes penetrating ideas. And in many cases, philosophy is perfect for working on business strategy and tactics. Nowhere is that more obvious than salespeople, the world over, studying Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War – the great work on military strategy – to try to gain an advantage over their ‘opponents.’

If we could consult another great Asian philosopher, Confucius, what might he teach us about running our business? What wisdom might we extract from his in depth look at life and the reality of things? Let’s take a look…

Perhaps one of Confucius’ most famous quotes is: I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Think about how that applies to your business. All day long I can give you advice about how to better your business, how to clarify your marketing message, how to generate more leads or how to close more sales. And you can spend all sorts of time watching what others are doing. But it’s not until you do it for yourself that it becomes yours. And it’s not until you take action that you can truly say you understand. Understanding comes through doing.

Another great and famous quote is: It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.

So many small business owners start out running. They get an idea for their business, and go full-forward at it. Soon, however, they fizzle out. The sprinter can never outrun the marathoner – and business is a marathon. There’s no need to be in a rush. Solid houses aren’t built in weeks or months but in years and decades. Give yourself the chance to be in business for five years or more by working as though you want a business to last 50.

One of my favorite Confucius quotes is: Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

Look, as a business owner, you’re going to stumble, you’re going to have setbacks and you’re going to fail. Plan on that being the case. Successful businesses aren’t built by always being successful. Quite the contrary actually; successful businesses are built on the backbone of what’s learned in making mistakes. So when you make them, don’t allow them to be lessons in how to move forward and not nooses in which you hang yourself with.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

This one stands on its own. As a small business owner, it’s important to learn. It’s also important to think about what you learn and how it applies to your business. Most small business owners simply take advice or watch what others are doing and try to implement it. Often, they end up gaining little or no success and figure that either they missed something or that they’re just not as smart as the other guy. But when you learn something about your business, you need to consider how (think about) it fits into your business. How does it enhance your business? How does it alter what you’ve been doing? And what sort of response to you expect to see by trying it. Not everything done by others should be done in your business. Rather, find what compliments your business model and integrate what you learn.

Truthfully, I could go on and on with Confucius and his wisdom all day long. These are a few of my favorite quotes from Confucius – from amongst the tens of thousands of quotes I’ve collected over the years. We can learn so much about ourselves and our futures by looking to the past.

Who, in history, has inspired you and your business? And where have you found critical advice in those who came before us?

Let’s talk about it…

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

Lots of people are in business for the same reason. Heck, if you’re a coach, holistic practitioner or any type of service provider, it’s likely that at least part of the reason you’re in business is because you want to help people.

There was a study done at M.I.T. a few years ago* in which the increase in brain function was measured with a number of different stimuli. Basically, what they were trying to find out is what sorts of things get the brain excited. What they found was that the #3 most brain-exciting stimuli was money…#2 was sex.

But the stimuli that recorded the most brain activity – most excited the brain – was altruistic behavior. In other words genuinely doing stuff of purpose for other people. Like me, you may say, “sure, that makes sense.” But the reason I remember the study is that altruistic behavior got more than twice the response in brain activity as sex did. So doing things of meaning for people creates a massive biological response in our brain in comparison to sex. To me, that says something.

How do you feel about your work?

Just stop and think for a moment – how do you feel when  you do something for someone else? Not something you’re forced to do. Not something you’re even paid to do. Think about when  you go above and beyond what people expect from you to give them something they weren’t expecting. How does that make you feel?

Define it anyway you like, but doing ‘good deeds’ in a genuine, caring manner, makes you feel pretty good. I know it makes me feel good. I can even feel the added bounce in my step and my overall good feelings. Could this be an experience of what our brains are experiencing when we do something for another person?

My guess is yes!

What’s more, I would venture to say that there’s a measurable, hormonal response in our bodies when we do things for others. It’s probably been studied somewhere, I just don’t know about it.

So what’s it all mean for my clients?

What I’m getting to is that every time you interact with a healing or coaching client, you have the opportunity to do something good for them; you have an opportunity to make a difference in their life. And if you’re in business to make a difference in people’s lives, why not be aware of it? Why not try to do it more often? Why not look to help your client in a way that better’s their life – rather than just give them the service they’re paying you for.

This is something I, myself, had to recently be reminded of. Not that I wasn’t doing things to change my client’s lives – I was, I get feedback on that point all the time. What I was forgetting is why I got in business building websites and coaching clients.

It’s easy to get bogged down with business

And that’s what happened to me. I started being a website designer, a business coach, a marketing advisor or a social media consultant (all things that I do) rather than remembering that I was in business to make a difference in people’s lives.

You see, I figured out long ago that I could take things I was good at and use them to help individual business owners (like coaches, healers, etc) better their lives. For instance, when I build a website, I put my client’s business goals at the forefront. This often means that their websites get them more client, which increases their income and makes their life better. And that’s because for us independent business owners, our personal lives are directly tied to our business lives, making it difficult to have a peaceful life when you don’t have a solid, dependable business.

That’s why I’m not a website designer, a business coach or a marketing advisor

I may use those titles and even do the work required of each. But I’m in the business of making people’s lives better. I do it through building websites for my clients and teaching them how to use them effectively to get more clients as well as how to do all sorts of things better in their business. That’s my means.

But my end is that through what I know I can make a difference in my client’s lives.

I’m just glad to be reminded of what my own business is really about. It changes how I see who I am, what I do and how I do it. It brings a deeper sense of satisfaction for my work and a stronger caring for my clients. And, perhaps most important, it reminds me to consciously look for ways I can make a difference in my client’s lives.

How are you making a difference in your client’s lives?

If you’re providing a service of some sort, the impact you have on your clients is making a difference in their lives. Do you see that yourself? Is it something that happens as a result of the work you do? Or is it something you’re consciously aware of as you work with clients?

I’d love to know how you’re making meaning in your client’s lives.

Let’s talk about it.

*note: If you know of this study, please forward me details on how to find it. Thanks

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

Whether it’s been remodeling my kitchen, building a pole barn, learning to kayak or developing websites, I’ve been one of those people who like to do things myself. Usually I read a little, research a little, make a plan and jump right in. And it’s worked pretty good – most of the time.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with doing everything yourself. It’s certainly serviced me well. I’ve learned a great many things and have gained a number of skills over the years. And the confidence I’ve gained in doing things myself has led me to take on projects I might otherwise shy away from doing myself.

It’s also meant that sometimes things don’t go so well. Sometimes I waste more time and spend more money than I would have having a professional help me. For instance, redoing the lighting in my kitchen during a remodel. What would have taken an electrician and his crew less than a day took me 5 long days doing it myself.

So while I’m definitely an advocate of doing it yourself, there’s times when doing it yourself isn’t wise…

What are you willing to do?

Planning for success is one thing. Executing for success is another.For instance, going back to my kitchen remodel, when I think of tiling my backsplash behind my countertop, I cringe at the idea. Now I’ve tiled before, so I know how. And, I know just enough to know that the backsplash is more tedious and time consuming because of all the little detailed cuts involved. So I hired that job out.

It’s the same in your coaching or healing practice. There’s plenty of things you should be doing to increase your reach, market your business and get more clients. But how much can you really do on your own? How much time to you truly have to learn it all on your own? More importantly, how much are you willing to do on your own?

Knowing when to get help.

To be successful with your business – meaning getting more clients, or selling more products or courses – it’s important to know when you can realistically do it on your own and when you need help.

With most coaches or healers I speak with – many who aren’t my clients – it becomes painfully obvious rather quickly that the reason their businesses aren’t full of clients is because they’re trying to do too much themselves. They believe that by doing it themselves they’re saving money and increasing their bottom line. The thing is, nothing could be further from the truth. The real truth, though it’s difficult even for me to admit all the time, is that…

You can’t do everything well that you do yourself.

It’s a hard truth to swallow sometimes, but it’s true. Trying to do everything in your business yourself will lead you to going crazy, wanting to quit or working so much that you never enjoy the reasons you began working for yourself in the first place. None of these are good. All of these lead to burnout and little success. And most of us know what that looks like.

Take marketing, for an example. You know you need to market your coaching practice to eventually end up with more clients. But what you do? How do you market effectively? How do you reach the people who are looking for what you offer?

And once you do, how do you convert them into leads, move them along into becoming prospective clients and then convert them into paying clients?

All this is a process. Each step has a number of proven solutions and task that can help you land more clients. But which do you choose? And if you do choose a program to follow – such as Robert Middleton’s Action Plan approach or Mark Silver’s Heart of Business model – how do you know you can even implement what they’re suggesting?

It’s okay to get the help you need.

It really is. Not only is it okay, it’s necessary to get help in order to be successful. Apple, Inc knows this which is why they have a Board of Directors from diverse backgrounds. Richard Branson of Virgin fame knows this which is how he can run dozens of companies under the Virgin moniker and have nearly all of them successful.

A little closer to you and I – every single person you know who’s been successful, either offline or on, has done so because they’ve asked for help from people. The gurus of marketing, whose programs you’ve probably bought – have learned what they know from other marketing experts and then adapted it for their own business. The highly successful coaches out there have hired people to teach them how to be successful and grow their businesses to such levels. Even your friend from your coaching course has likely hired someone to help them learn how to build a website or write marketing copy or build a list.

Somewhere along the way, those who are successful have asked for and gotten the help they need.

So what’s stopping you from getting the help you need?

Truly? What’s stopping you?

Is it the cost? Just ask yourself how you expect to make more money all on your own. Can you do it? Well if you can – forget what I’ve said and get to it. But if you can’t then you need to seek out someone who can help you. Failing to do so is actually costing you money in lost opportunity and growth.

I went through this one myself and realized that if I paid a coach (a really good coach) $2000 per month for their help that in a few short months I’d be making enough to cover what I was paying him – meaning I’d be breaking even. And everything after that would be increased profit for me. So I figured, if he can show me how to make back his fee in a few months, then he could show me how to make much more than his fee. And it’s worked.

That’s why I say that if you’re not getting the help you need – it’s costing you money. It’s costing you lost growth

Is time the issue? Well, that’s something that just has to be broken through. Time is an issue for every type of business owner – coaches and healers included. You simply have to make time to work on you business while you’re working in your business. I say it that way on purpose. Working in your business is all the stuff you do to get paid – work with clients, bookkeeping, followup, etc. Working on your business is visioning, planning, developing new products, etc.

You must be working on your business to grow. It’s so vital to your growth that if you don’t, you won’t. Meaning, if you’re not working on developing new parts to your business, then it’ll be very difficult to make more money than you are now.So you need to set aside so many hours each week for doing things to expand your business. And what should those things be? Not to be trite, but that’s why you’re asking someone to help you – so it can be specific for you, your vision and your business.

Whatever is stopping you from getting the help you need, push it out of the way. You can find someone who will help you. Just be sure to find someone you trust, who  you communicate well with, and who you feel you can collaborate best with toward reaching and increasing your business goals.

Can I help you? Possibly. Best that we have a short phone conversation first to see if we’re a good fit for each other. But even if we’re not, keep searching for someone who is. It’s just that important! But if you want to talk with me, here’s how to get a free consultation.

Are you currently getting help from a coach, a business consultant, an advisor, a marketing guru? How’s it been? And if not, why not?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from H4NUM4N on Flickr, some rights reserved)

And one of the most popular ways to get a website is by using one of the do-it-yourself website services – such as GoDaddy’s Website Tonight Service.

Many of these do-it-yourself services sound great. Just think about it, these services let you select your own website design, add your own content, and publish your own website. Sounds pretty easy (though often it’s time consuming) What’s even better is often the price. Usually for under $20 a month you can have a website.

But what’s the trade-off? Is there something you’re missing with these cheap packages? Or is there something potentially detrimental to your coaching or healing practice? Do you even own your own website?

The Story of Lisa, Stay-at-Home Mom & Life Coach

Those are some of the questions Lisa and I talked about last week when she called me asking about getting a website for her new life coaching practice.

Lisa is a stay-at-home mom with two young daughters – one in second grade, the other four years old and not in school. She’s a mom first and a life coach second. For her that means she wants to have a small number of life coaching clients booked each month, but not so many that she can’t care for her daughters’ needs. So she doesn’t need some large, expensive website. She wants to be able to edit her own content without spending a lot of time, as she calls it, ‘being techie.’

After looking around the web her first thought was to use GoDaddy’s Website Tonight system. “It’s great,” she told me. “I can choose a design, add my own content and then publish it. And the costs are very cheap – just $10 per month.”

Coaching Websites on The Cheap, Oh the Limitations

What she was saying is true – she could get a website for just $10 per month. And GoDaddy isn’t the only one who offers services like this. You can get a website from Yahoo! Small Business, SiteBuilder, 1and1 and just about any major hosting company for less than $20/month. Seems like an amazing offer, right?

By price, it may be. But for the average life coach, business coach or holistic practitioner, is it the right option for your business needs?

Well, as Lisa and I began talking about what she wanted to do with her website – both now and in the next year – some things about this $10/mo website became clear.

• First, Lisa would have to choose between GoDaddy’s handful of designs – all of which looked dated, flat and, as she put it, ‘unprofessional and unfinished.’
• Second, Lisa would be limited to the colors that were already provided by each of the GoDaddy designs. So she couldn’t really make the site feel, in any way like her.
• Third, she was limited to a number of pages based on her plan. Need more pages than your package – the monthly fee goes up.
• Fourth, because of the colors and layout, her logo wouldn’t fit on the designs.
• Fifth, she couldn’t add the features – like a newsletter signup form – to her GoDaddy website, as far as she could see (though if you pay more monthly, there is a widget system available that will let you add outside web code like forms)

Ask the Most Important Question

Those five she got on her own as we started talking. But was the fifth point – and the most important point of all – didn’t come out until she asked me this question:

“Dawud, if I want to stop using GoDaddy, what do I need to do to move my website?”

The Biggest Problem with Do-it-Yourself Website Services

That’s when I had to tell her that the biggest problem with these services is that you can’t move your website – because your website is not yours! That’s right, that coaching or healing website you’ve put so much of your time and effort into isn’t yours – you don’t own it. GoDaddy does.

She said, “What do you mean it’s not my website, I’m paying for it?”

It’s true, she is paying for it. She’s paying for the hosting on GoDaddy’s servers and for the privilege to use their templates for her design. But she doesn’t own any part of the design itself. So once Lisa stops using GoDaddy for hosting, she loses her website all together. The only thing she can retain is her content. But only if she gets it off “her” website before closing the account.

Most people who use these do-it-yourself services don’t realize that if you decide to host elsewhere, be it for development, service, pricing, etc, you loose your site. So in essence, you’re either stuck with the service they initially chose or they have to start all over when they want to move.

This isn’t a bad situation for a personal or club website. Even for some small, brochure-style business sites it’s fine.

But for any business owner – a coach, a healing practitioner, etc – who wants their website to be a hub for growing their business it’s certainly less than ideal. Not only do you not own your website, it often difficult or impossible to alter the designs you can choose from to accommodate the needs of your growing business. What’s more is that you’re forever held captive by the service you’re paying monthly – stop paying equals no website.

If You’re a Coach, Healer or Other Type of Service Provider, You Must Own Your Website

The bottom line, really, is that as a business owner:

• you want to own your website.
• you want to be able to customize, update, alter and change your website without limitation.
• you want to be able to customize your look and feel of your website to match you so that your audience can get a solid feeling of who you are.
• you want to be able to move your website around without penalty if you have poor service from your host (does happen).
• you want to be able to easily add new content, pages and make edits any time you want – without limitations.

And as I said earlier, you can get a business-ready, fully-functional, easy-to-edit website without spending thousands and thousands of dollars. Want to talk about how, just contact me.

As a Good Coach, I Want to Be Fair

To be fair, there is one advantage to using do-it-yourself services…start up costs. You can often get a website off the ground for a very small investment – usually under $50. This may work well for you if you have little cash flow as you’re starting your business.

If you choose that path, my advice is the same to you as to my dear friend Lisa…Get a professionally designed website as soon as you have enough cash flow to do so. The investment will pay dividends even in the smallest coaching practice. Especially if your designer has the skills to help you develop and execute a web-based strategy for growing your business.

My advice: own your website right from the start. Go through the development process with a designer that can really help you craft your site into a marketing hub for your business. You really can’t measure the gains from working with a professional.

And, you can contact me anytime to discuss your website needs and how they can get met on for your specific situation and budget. And trust me, the best solution isn’t always working with me. The best solution is the one that’s best for you. I can help you with that – even if we don’t work together.

So, have you used a do-it-yourself website service yourself? What was your experience? How did you find it limiting?

Let’s talk about it.

note: image from Alexandra Moreau Photography on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Do you know that you’re not really marketing your coaching practice to a target audience, that you’re not communicating to a niche market, and that you won’t find your next coaching clients if you ‘engage a marketplace?’

It’s so true. Yet most of the websites that promote life coaches seem to think that’s exactly what they’re doing – talking to a market or an audience.

Is your life coaching website getting you coaching clients?

If you ask a life coach whether their website is getting them coaching clients – most often the answer is no. I know this for a fact because I teach coaches how to use their websites – really their entire web presence – to build a following and get more coaching clients. And most of the life coaches I work with come to me with website copy that is trying to speak to an audience.

So if you’re not speaking to an audience, who are you speaking to?

Now let me clarify for a moment. I do use terms such as target market or target audience all the time. Sometimes I add purposefully add ‘the people in your target audience’ to a statement. And, every single time I say talk about markets or audience you can assume I’m saying ‘people.’ And to be even more specific, I actually mean talking to a single person – one-by-one – over and over so that you’re really talking to thousands of individual people.

And this, it seems, is where life coaches – and business coaches, spiritual coaches, leadership coaches and just about any other type of service provider – get their marketing all wrong. You’re not talking to a market, you’re talking to people.

Your coaching clients are not an audience, they’re people.

Of course you know this. But do you use it in marketing your coaching practice? Do you think about it when  you’re speaking with a new potential coaching client? And do you keep it in the forefront of your thoughts when you’re making decisions about your business?

If not, you need to. You need to remember, all the time, that you’re talking to people.

People aren’t interested in hearing from businesses.

Are you? Do you want to hear from a business or would you rather hear from a person?

Well, you potential coaching clients aren’t any different. They don’t want to hear from a business. They don’t want to talk to a service provider. And seldom do they seek coaching.

Now that’s not to say that don’t want coaching or that they can’t benefit from working with a life coach. That would be like saying that you shouldn’t eat vegetables because the don’t taste good. That’s not true.

But what is true is that you, as a coach promoting how your coaching service can benefit people, want to know what people want. More specifically, you want to know what the people you can best serve through  your coaching practice want, need and even expect.

Show your future coaching clients who you are

The way to do this isn’t by crafting more enticing marketing messages. It’s not by creating some fancy sales materials or producing some slick product. Rather, you meet people by first being a person yourself. Show them your human side. Let them see that you’re not just a coach who runs a business and wants to get more clients. Instead, show them that you’re a human being who cares about people and want to serve them by helping them overcome their problems and concerns.

And there we find the most important point – meet the people you want to serve – the people you can best serve – where they are. They’ve found your coaching website most likely because they’re seeking answers, wanting help, looking for direction or needing to solve a problem in their life. Meet them in it and then show them the way out. This is what makes an effective coaching website.

Just remember, people are seeking answers and direction, not marketing messages and sales pitches. Meet them where they are.

As a life coach, or any other sort of coach, how are you best meeting the people you want to serve with your coaching practice?

Let’s talk about it.

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

Want To Increase Sales? There’s almost limitless methods for doing so.

Be in front of your audience when they need you.

That’s it. That’s the key to increasing your sales. Think about it, when you’re at a restaurant, do you care with the bathroom is? Not til you need it, right? Or an ATM. You likely pass dozens of them every day and don’t notice them, right? But what happens when you’re out of cash? Every ATM comes into focus. What’s more, you might scurry to find one.

So many small business owners don’t consider this when they market their business. They work hard on their vision and business plan. Then they focus on their offer and how best to communicate that offer to a target market. Ideally, they’re wanting to position themselves as an expert in a select niche market.

But no one cares that you’re an expert until they need an expert. In other words, no one cares that you can solve a set a problems until they are faced with those set of problems. Then, they go out and look for a solution.

As a business owner, you want to find the most effective ways to get your business, your expertise, your solutions in front of people when they need it.

I know what you thinking…how do I know when people need what I have to offer?

The simple answer is, well, you don’t. But you can spend time identifying a clear niche in which to spend your marketing efforts (and budget). And you can use search engines, forums, social media (blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc) and your website to make yourself more visible to people as a whole. The more people know what you do, the more potential for your work to passed on to someone who needs it.

For instance, you can use SEO and SEM to target specific key phrases that people may be searching for when they’re looking to solve their problem. But be specific and highly targeted. If you train poodles, you likely aren’t going to get much return for optimizing your site for dog trainers. But if you optimize your site for poodle trainers in New England, now you have a specfic niche you’re targeting. And when people need their poodle trained, and live in New England, you’ll likely get found.

Same is true with social media. Use your blog and profiles on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, among others, to establish your expertise. Then openly share with people who you are, what you do and who you do it for. If they don’t need your services, they may know someone who does.

And there’s other approaches as well – forums, blog commenting, article submission, etc. The list goes on. Just remember that you want to present your expertise at the time when people most need it. If you allow that to be your guiding light, you won’t be marketing in the dark. And more people will buy – today, even.

Are you targeting your audience at the times they need you most? If so, how’s that working for you? And if not, why not? Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Troy Holden on Flickr)

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)