Category Archives: Success Strategies

Modest Business Success Habit #2 – Working Too Hard

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In a previous post, I introduced you to the first habit in my series, The 4 Habits of Modestly Successful Entrepreneurs.  The goal of this is to help small business owners and solo-preneurs to understand the business practices and even models that may be keeping them in the middle of the pack of entrepreneurs achieving modest levels of business success and exposing them to strategies that will lead to phenomenal success.

Our first habit was selling time for money.  We discussed some of the challenges of that business model and the inherent limitations it poses on the maximum amount of revenue your business could earn.  This post covers the second habit.  Feel free to watch the video for a more thorough explanation of this habit.

Modest Success Habit #2:  Working Too Hard

Who would ever think that working too hard is a problem?  Aren’t entrepreneurs known to be some of the hardest working people on earth?  Doesn’t it take commitment, dedication, and a singular focus to make a business successful?

Yes, is the answer to all of those questions.  Yet hard work is something that must be managed.  There is a saying that when you want something done, give it to a busy person.  That is because most busy people have learned how to manage the work they do effectively.  For an entrepreneur though, when things start to pile up, it is easy to slip into the mode of, I’ll just work harder and end up with the habit of working too hard.

Why working too hard is a problem

Here are some of the perils of indulging this habit:

  • Working on the wrong things – More than likely, people who are working too hard are caught spending most of their time putting out fires and ignoring the important, non-urgent items.  This creates a vicious cycle of too much work.
  • Inefficient performance – You cannot perform your best when you are constantly over-worked
  • Performance that is not sustainable – Burning the candle at both ends is not something that can be kept up forever.  You will pay the price in:
    • Health problems (stress, weight issues, heart disease, etc.)
    • Degrading relationships (including the support system necessary to keep you successful)
    • Loss of passion that can lead to mental drain burnout

Solutions to break this habit

Create a plan that covers both vision and goals

  • Holistic plan that includes your personal goals as well as your professional goals since, with entrepreneurs, the connection between the two cannot be ignored
  • Have a strategic plan for your business that includes a long-range strategy and short-term operational plans.  Doing this will allow you to feel more in control and have opportunity to spend your time on the things you loved about your business when you started it versus the stress inducing activities  that fire fighting causes(There are more benefits of strategic planning that we don’t have time to cover here, but, as a strategist let me say that good strategic planning and execution can propel your business to success in a more efficient manner than just winging it can)
  • Build into your schedule regular “think time.”  While it doesn’t require much movement, thinking is a necessary and productive activity that allows you to pull up from the details periodically to see the big picture and tap into your creative juices.
  • Build into your schedule time to engage in the things you love to do and that will re-energize you.  This may include:
  • Playing hard (after you work hard)
    • Celebrating your victories
    • Investing in your continuous self development
    • Getting some rest

If you remember that you are running your business for the long-haul, for the marathon versus the sprint, you will understand why consistently working at maximum capacity will reduce the length of time over which you are able to produce results.

Stay tuned for Habit #3.

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Modest Business Success Habit #1 – Selling Time for Dollars

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There are over 20 million single person businesses in the U.S. with an average income of about $47K per year.  I would call that modest success in business.  I suspect, however, that most people do not forgo the “security” of a steady paying job, take on the financial risk, and put in the countless hours worked by committed business owners to generate mere modest levels of business success.

What people really want is phenomenal success – financial security, time to pursue goals, and work that fuels their passion.  Why don’t most people achieve this?  Because they establish the habits that lead to modest success.

This is the first in a series of seven articles – The 4 Habits of Modestly Successful Entrepreneurs – that will cover the most common habits that limit success and highlight strategies that can be used to overcome them. (Each habit will have an associated video that explains it in a bit more detail.)

Selling Time for Dollars

The first habit, and perhaps the most common, is to sell time for dollars.

What does that look like?

  • Solo-preneur businesses based upon their expertise
    • Years of education – e.g. doctors, therapists, lawyers, accounts
    • Specialized training – e.g. coaches, stylists, PR specialists
    • Experience – e.g. consultants, coaches, and people leaving corporate America and now starting their own businesses
  • Set up an hourly rate that clients pay – charge clients $35 – $1,000 per hour.  Some people charge by the day
  • May have a retainer based upon commitment of time – rent an executive, people who help companies outsource their services

Why is it a problem?

  • You only have a limited amount of time that you can sell.  This caps you revenue potential
  • You must spend time on activities required to run and grow your business – administration, finances, marketing, etc.  These activities reduce the amount of time you have available to sell and further reduces your revenue potential
  • You don’t get paid when you don’t work – vacation, illness, etc.  Furthermore, your clients receive less reliable service when you are need to handle emergencies or are unexpectedly sick
  • When you stop working, the business stops being valuable.  Entrepreneurs make money when they create salable assets that are of value to a buyer.  If it’s just you and your time, the value of your business goes to zero when you stop working.

What could it look like?

  • A limited portion of your time being is sold by the hour – after all, for most people, this is where your passion and interest lies, so you don’t necessarily want to cut it out entirely.  Also, it gives you great experience to use in other parts of your business
  • Your business has established systems that can be taught to other people – this is a way to increase the hours that can be sold.  If everything is in your head, only you can provide the service.  With a system, you can continue to increase capacity by adding people.
  • Your service is delivered in several ways – because you obviously are very knowledgeable, it is more likely than not that you could add value to others by monetizing your knowledge.  Delivering content in a group setting, via information products, or over technology are all ways to create additional value and serve more people.  The use of the internet makes this possible and affordable today more than ever.  (In fact, I believe that all business should have an internet strategy in place for both service delivery and attraction marketing.)

Applying some of the same business strategy tools used by large corporations, you, as a solo-preneur can have phenomenal success in business.  Keep a look out for Habit #2.

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Gain Business Success by Giving Away Value

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It is possible to gain business success by giving away value?

free

It seems as though everyone is giving something away for free
these days.  On the internet, you can free find information and tools to address virtually every need a business or consumer has.  But is anyone making any money? And can a solo entrepreneur employ this strategy to obtain business success?

Most definitely one can be successful with this type of business model.  But financial ruin is also possible.

Much can be learned by the small business owner from the strategies of both Twitter and Skype.

Business Success for Twitter is in Long-term Value Creation

First, the Twitter model.  Twitter, which has millions of subscribers and people using it as a primary business development tool, is free.  In fact, this free service has no advertising on it and, currently, no way to upgrade to a premium service.

Will this model work for the small business?  Definitely not.  The founders of Twitter raised over $20 million in funding to support the development, bandwidth and operation of the service.  Is it a bad business model for Twitter and it’s investors? Not if they are in it for the long haul.  Twitter’s user base and the software applications being developed around it are making it an extremely valuable asset.  Facebook offered to buy it for half a billion dollars and rumors of talks with Google suggest it may be selling for twice that.

Small businesses, or really any business that is not able to raise tens of millions of investment dollars, need business models that will provide cash flow while creating value.

Skype Achieves Business Success Through Premium Services

Skype provides a second example of how business uses free service as a value creation strategy.  Skype offers free calling, voice and video, to its users over the internet.  However, their value creation strategy is not trying just to build a huge user base to sell later.  They offer premium services that appeal to business users.  These business users, perhaps introduced through the free service, are willing to pay for additional services.  This provides cash flow while the user base grows.

This approach to business value creation is much more realistic for a solo entrepreneur to employ.  Newsletters, free teleseminars, articles, blog posts, free reports – these are the types of value you have to give away.  In order to achieve business success, however, you must build a following by giving people an opportunity to stay in touch with you.

Keys to Turn Your Free Offering into Business Success

After you have created some type of free connection with people, in order to use the Skype model versus the Twitter model, you must offer them something they find of value that they can buy.

Here is a summary of the steps that are necessary to create a model for business success:

  • Offer something of value for free that will encourage people to repeatedly connect with you.
  • Establish a process to be able to proactively communicate with them. You will have a hard time creating value if you have no way, such as through an opt-in email list, for communicate. your messages when it is time for you to request action from your followers
  • Create something that is of such value that a subset of your followers will be more than willing to pay for it.

I think I like this new trend of demanding value from businesses before you are sold something.  I believe, it the long run it will cut down on the volume of junk offerings available and will make the internet overall a better place in which to do business.

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3 Reasons for Small Businesses to Rebrand, and 3 Ways to Avoid It

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The AIG leadership team has recently concluded that their brand is tarnished beyond repair.  Their solution – rebrand.  They are changing their name from AIG to AIU.  I’m not sure how effective this strategy will be for them.  After all, many view them as the catalyst for the global financial crisis we are now in and their posh executive retreats after receiving billions in government bail out funding didn’t help with the public’s perception of them.

However, this does shed light on an important issue for many companies – rebranding.  Small businesses can learn some valuable lessons from looking at the rebranding activities of some of the big guys.

Reasons to Rebrand

There are a number of reasons companies of all sizes consider rebranding:

1. The brand is just wrong

This reason is particularly relevant for relatively new businesses.  Brands are often established by small companies without the large marketing research budgets of corporations that allow them to test every aspect before deciding.  Small businesses, including solo-preneurs, will often just brain storm and pick branding that sounds good to them.  After getting out into the marketplace and learning more about what works for their target market, it becomes apparent that a new brand is needed.  Without much investment, it can often be the right move to make a change.

Small businesses aren’t the only ones that deal with this though.  Large corporations are suseptible when they enter new markets.  Perhaps one of the legendary branding errors of this kind was when the Nova was introduced years ago in Mexico.  As a brand, Nova works fine for a car being driven by an English speaker.  In Spanish however, Nova means “no go.”

2. The offering has outgrown the brand

Companies select brands based upon their current understanding of the market and the customers they intend to target.  With success, however, they can potentially outgrow the original intention of their brands.  IBM used to stand for International Business Machines.  After that name was no longer relevant to their expanded target market and product offering, IBM now just stands for IBM.

3.  Something bad has happened

This is the AIG scenario.  Get blamed for a global financial crisis and you now have a branding issue (although AIGs issues are broader than this.)  Sell a tainted product and your company could go out of business.

Brands are people’s expectation of future interactions with a company based upon past performance.  If not enough positive brand equity has been established, a negative experience could put an end to a brand.

Lessons for Small Businesses

There are a number of lessons small businesses can and should learn from these corporate examples.  Branding is an expensive proposition, it takes both time and money.  Rebranding is even trickier and laden with more risks.  It’s best to try to get the branding right to begin with.  Here are some things that can be done.

Ensure that you understand well your company values and that they are reflected in your brand.

While AIGs negative scenario ruined thier brand, Tylenol was able to emerge stronger from the tampering incident a few years back that resulted in a widespread recall of their products.  They had such a strong and positive brand, and acted swiftly and consistently with that brand that they were able to maintain the trust that consumers placed in them.

Make sure your brand can withstand the changes in the marketplace.

A great example of a company that did not do this well (yet still managed to survive) was Net Zero.  Their original branding revolved around the idea that no one should ever have to pay for Internet service.  The market obviously did not agree with them on that one.  I still get a chuckle every time I see a commercial now that points out they have the lowest cost internet service (low, but not free) around.  So much for the “zero” portion of their name.

Consider the possibilty of phenomenal success when selecting a brand.

If you pick a brand that is tightly aligned with a niche, you might find yourself having difficulty expanding without investing in rebranding expenses when you are successful enough to grow.  The difference between Amazon.com and BarnesandNobel.com brands are a good example.  While Amazon started out primarily as books, they are branded as an online retailer.  Barnes & Nobel, while they do have a few other items, is primarily branded as a book seller.

    Small businesses would do well to learn from the branding successes and failures of large corporations.  With much smaller budgets than the industry giants, an error could be fatal.

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    3 Ways Validation Can Increase Your Profits

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    Many people have watched this wonderful short-film on validation.  (If you haven’t taken the time before, it’s worth the 16 minutes.  If you have seen it before, it’s still work the reminder.)

    It seems nice in theory and in the end, the guy does get the girl, but can this simple technique do anything to increase the profits of your business?

    There are at least three ways in which your bottom line can benefit from this small yet extremely powerful gesture.

    1. Employees will give more of themselves – Most employers don’t get the full benefit of the employees talent, intellect or energy.  After all, it’s not their business, just their job.  As long as the company is doing reasonably well, they are going to get the same pay (okay, some may be bonuses, but stick with me here for a moment) regardless of whether they go above and beyond.  They don’t have to be passionate to be successful employees – only very competent.
      If, however, you began to validate your employees, you are much more likely to ignite their passion for your business.  When people are passionate, they think about ways to do things better, more efficiently, and more profitably.  They go the extra mile without being asked.  While it’s not their company, validation can cause them to begin to think, act, and care like owners of the business. Imagine the benefits of having a culture where everyone had total commitment to the success of the company.  Costs would certainly go down and revenue would have to increase.
    2. Customer loyalty will soar -The old adage “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is applicable here.  Validation can be a significant product or service differentiator that will not only keep your customer coming back but have them skipping the process of shopping around.  Trusts increases when a person feels they are remembered, listened too, and engaged with in an authentic manner.  Not only will they be loyal, but your customers are more likely to make referrals.  Less customer turnover and more word-of-mouth advertising equals higher profits.
    3. Your commitment to business growth will increase - There is a well known poem, Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson, that suggest that our deepest fear is success. That could very well be true for business owners.  If you aren’t really enjoying the whole process of owning and running your own business (and who really enjoys every aspect) the thought of lot’s more of it could subconsciously be holding you back from phenomenal success.  Validation not only makes other people feel good about you, it makes you feel good about you and all of your relationships.  It’s much easier to have higher levels of passion when you enjoy your work environment.  More passion means you will have less hidden resistance to doing the hard work of continuously growing your business and increasing its profits.

    While the Validation movie takes things to the extreme, the lines were longer in the parking garage where validation was happening than in the mall stores.  Too bad he didn’t have anything to sell.

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    Book Highlight: The How of Wow

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    Great speech-making skills are not only beneficial to those who must get in front of large audiences on a regular basis. The advice provided by communications expert Tony Carlson can benefit anyone who feels they have something important to communicate.

    In the The How of WOW: A Guide to Giving a Speech That Will Positively Blow ‘Em Away, author Tony Carlson shares his tips on delivering effective speeches that get the attention, empathy, and respect from any audience. He covers techniques that allow one to build a bigger and better stage presence and make create a memorable experience. As a communication expert, his advice on body language, creating hooks, advancing the room, and getting media coverage are primarily directed toward those who have an opportunity to deliver public speeches to sizable audiences.

    However, the benefits of being an effective speechmaker are more broadly applicable to anyone who wants to effectively communicate a message to another person. One of the primary benefits from developing effective presentation skills is that personal brands are build not only through your actions, but also through communication.

    Effective communication can position you as an expert in your field or area of interest and it helps you establish a name for yourself that people will both know and respect. A worthy goal from most communication encounters is to have the person or people with whom you are speaking remember you in a positive way and remember your headline in a positive way.

    This is true whether you are delivering a speech to hundreds of people, are making a presentation to your clients, are having a conversation with your boss, or have a chance meeting with a potential investor in your business. In a personal sense, conversations with friends, spouses, and children could also benefit from the advice shared by Carlson.

    The focus on the audience is a tip shared that diverges from much of the traditional speechmaking advice. There are three elements required for communication:

    1. Information or data that needs to be communicated,
    2. A person to do the transmission of the information, and
    3. A person to receive the information. Often, the focus is primarily paid to just the first two elements – what needs to be said and how is it best shared.

    Carlson suggests that by considering the end goal at the beginning, communication will be much more effective. The starting question should be less around what you want to share and more focused on what you want the audience to believe or do. This shift in focus automatically works to improve the effectiveness of your communication because all of the delivery tactics you select will be geared towards your understanding of the audience and your desired outcome.

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    Is It Possible to Avoid the School of Hard Knocks?

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    Avoiding the School of Hard Knocks should be much easier today than it has been in the past. In all likelihood, someone else has already figured out how to do so or all of what you are trying accomplish. Why not learn from them. With the level of access we know have to information through the Internet, researching is getting easier. But to avoid learning from the wrong people, or learning the wrong lessons, here are some suggestions:

    • Be clear about what you are trying to accomplish. The old saying that if you don’t know where you are headed any road will lead you there rings true here. Make sure you can not only articulate what you want to do but also what you are trying to accomplish.

    I have an affiliate program for my coaching services and membership program and was recently researching the best tools to use to execute it. During my research, I found out that many of the affiliate marketing tools are for people who are looking for products created by other to sell on their sites. For these people, sites like ClickBank are a great resource. I wanted a way to track referrals and support people in selling my products. Same name, very different set of tools and/or different ways to use the same tools.

    • Find people you believe are doing the same thing you are and see what they use. I selected my auto-responder by checking out the services used by people who have tens of thousand – or even hundreds of thousands of people on their lists. If it works for them, it will likely work for me. I made the services used by those who appear to be successful high priorities on my research list.
    • Don’t over-react to negative feedback. Some people provide negative feedback on processes, services, and products because they do not work for them. Maybe there was nothing wrong with the product but the person was not in the target market. Use some discernment before you through out an approach because of one person’s bad experience.
    • Be curious. I found out about Ning, which is the platform I use for the Partners InPower social media site, by clicking on a “learn more” button on someone else’s Ning site. There are so many clues available on the web for you to find out about just about everything – if you are curious enough to dig deeper when you spot something interesting.
    • Get references from real people. Just because we have access to people on the web doesn’t mean we need to stop speaking to each other. People still have lots of value to add. After you’ve done a little research, talk to someone directly. Most people will be happy to share if you express a genuine interest in something they are doing. You may even have an opportunity to enter into a mentor relationship if you are a receptive apprentice.
    • Get help from a coach. Coaches are there to guide you through the journey of accomplishing your goals. Find a coach who is experienced in what you are trying to do and use them. Good coaches don’t have their own agenda, just a dogged commitment to your success unlike anyone else you will encounter.

    Follow these tips and graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.

    Have a powerful day!

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    When’s There’s Nothing You Can Do About It, Dont Worry …

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    … But when you can do something, ACT and don’t complain.

    There are few power busters greater than worrying about the things over which we have no control. This is especially true for, and probably the real definition of, people who have control issues. We spend time trying, in vain, to gain control over situations and people where it is not our place or within our capability to be successful.

    If being a “control freak” does not describe you, how about being a “worry wart?” Once we are resigned to the fact that we have no control in a given situation, we often spend needless time worrying about it. The weather is a great example of this. We have a big day planned of outdoor activities and the weather forecast shows a probability of rain. We hope that our plans aren’t ruined and then complain bitterly when the showers come as predicted.

    Instead of obsessing about the weather, we can focused on the things over which we have control. There are several decisions that can be made:

    • Determine that it is okay to proceed in the rain
    • Figure out a way to hold our activities indoors, away from the rain
    • Cancel the plans and wait for another clear day

    When we acknowledge that we have choices and exercise our power to make those choices, their is no need to then complain. Complaining puts us in victim mode, while exercising choices keeps us powerful.

    I used weather to illustrate this, but the same holds true in business. Today, our nation is facing one of the greatest economic storms any but the most senior of us has ever experienced. What are you going to do about it? Should you just sit back and worry? Hope that your plans don’t get ruined? Well, hope is not a strategy. Instead you can review your choices and exercise some options:

    • Is your business’ economic position healthy enough to sustain itself through a credit crunch and depressed sales?
    • Do you need to change your strategy and find ways to operate in either a new market or with a different business model?
    • Is it time to realize that continuing with the current plan is a losing proposition and that it is best to halt operations and relaunch at another time?

    These are all decision that you can make regarding your business. They may be easier said than done, but, unlike worrying, hoping, and complaining, making a choice and taking the difficult steps is what will lead you to achieve your desired results.

    Have a powerful day!

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    New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work – Time for a New Approach

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    Each year nearly 100 million Americans make New Years resolutions to lose weight, eat better, exercise, save, invest or earn more money, quit drinking or smoking, strengthen or make new relationships, or a host other things that might otherwise eliminate unnecessary pain or cause joy in their lives.  Every year, 97% of the resolutions made are broken.  25% are broken within the first week, close to 40% are broken within the first month, and nearly 60% don’t make it past the six month mark. The next year, the same resolutions are made to do, start, or stop the same things again.

    New Year’s resolutions – the way our tradition would have us make them just don’t work.  Here are two major reasons why:

    1. Relatively little thought goes into determining the resolutions.  Either the last few days of the year or on New Year’s day, a list of things that are top of mind are jotted down as resolutions.  The draw backs to this are numerous, but here are a could a major ones:
      • All of the bad behaviors and indulgences from the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season are on the top of our minds.  These do not necessarily reflect the things of most importance for the whole year
      • Usually includes a list of things we think we should do regardless of our level of motivation.  These are the things we want to do so our commitment to them is relatively low
    2. Resolutions usually focus on completing tasks and not transforming behaviors.  A resolution to clean out the garage will usually need to be made the following year because no effort is taken to change the behavior that led to the junkie garage in the first place.

    A much better approach is to focus on goals and objectives that are in alignment with both who we are and who it is we desire to become.  Doing this will require more work – the kind of work that will increase the odds of the objectives being met.  You will therefore be better off reducing the number of goals you set each year and creating a plan for each one.  The process might look something like this:

    • Determine the areas of your life or work in which you have the greatest desire to make a change
    • Craft a long-term vision for what things would ideally look like in that area
    • Create a shorter-term goal for the year that will move you closer to that vision
    • Determine what structures and supports you need to put in place to accomplish the goal – including potentially a coach or accountability group

    If you have no commitment to follow through on your resolutions, they do more to rob you of your power than they do to support.  This year, try it a different way and create plans to which you are committed and build in accountability.  This will increase your odds of having a powerful 2009.

    Have a powerful day!
    Cecilia

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    The Value of Books as Mentors

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    Since I have recently been asked to serve in two new board leadership positions, I have decided to brush up on my leadership skills. I have starting reading John Maxwell’s The 21 Most Powerful Minutes in a Leader’s Day which has a series of daily lessons and thoughts on leadership. On the second day, the thought for the day talks about mentors.

    It has long been advised to anyone who wishes to be successful that having a mentor was critical. Well, my experience has been that having a mentor is also very much a luxury. With the globalization of business and increasing demands on everyone’s time, it is becoming increasing difficult for everyone who desires a mentor to find one who is willing and able to spend the amount of time historically invested in mentoring to ensure the success of the next generation. Additionally, the more successful one becomes, the fewer the number of people there are that are more senior and experienced. Does this mean that mentoring is only available to the few lucky ones and that it stops once a certain level of achievement has been reached? Most certainly not.

    Fortunately, successful people have been sharing their experiences, both their failures and successes, through books for years. If used correctly, these books can provide a wide range of mentors on any area of your professional and personal life you could possibly imagine. The world’s most successful people in business, finance, real estate, marketing, sales, politics, families, religion, sports, cooking, child rearing, personal development, public speaking, etc., etc., etc., have given us access to all of their decades of learning. This is a valuable treasure that we should learn to mine.

    The obvious first step is to become a prolific reader. Yet that is not enough. We have to spend time determining what portions of the materials apply to us and how we intend to apply the learnings. Just as it doesn’t make much sense to have a live mentor with whom you meet on a regular basis only to ignore everything they say, it doesn’t make much sense to spend time reading the books filled with a much wider range of information that could possible be provided by one individual only to ignore it.

    The success of time spent with mentors, whether live or via the written word, is measured by the impact that it has on your life. Take the extra steps to ensure you get and adequate return on your time.

    Have a powerful day!

    Cecilia

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