1. Embrace uncertainty and hardship rather than trying to avoid it.

Sounds a bit cliche, but I believe that uncertainty is part of this game of starting and running your own outfit – even when things are going great. Constantly focusing on avoiding uncertainty and trying create safety like you would have in the 9-5 situation, is usually what gets you stuck.

In the past 10 years of starting and running businesses, i’ve found that the more certainty, I sought in my situation, the more stuck I became. The more I focused only on things I thought would create certainty, the harder it was to get traction.

Focusing more on being interesting and resonating with the people I wanted to work with FIRST, is what started changing things. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a photographer, designer or coach, resonating first with people and aiming to be interesting is ultimately what will bring certainty and get you moving from stuck to momentum.

2. Focus on your actions, not your passion.

It’s all well and good to say you became a freelancer or solopreneur to do what you love but what they never tell you before you make that jump is that you only get to do what you love 20 percent of the time. The other 80 percent of your time, is spent doing marketing (in other words, being interesting and resonating with people) which is something you may not love so much  but is absolutely essential to enable you spend that 20 percent doing what you’re passionate about.

You’ll begin to get unstuck when you accept that your business is not about your passion but how good you resonate with people.

Every single day, ask yourself what actions you’re taking to resonate with people. People only begin to care when they find you interesting. Things changed for me as a photographer, when i finally got this - Don’t follow your passions, follow your effort to resonate and be interesting. It is what will lead you to your passions and to success, however you define it. 

3. You’re not special. There are people like you. Find them.

Sounds harsh, but it’s true. People don’t really care until you begin to care.  Here’s what I’ve learned on my journey so far, when I’ve held back because I wasn’t sure people would like something, I became stale and uninteresting. It doesn’t matter whether it was with my photography, stationery design, or marketing work here at minted creative.  I’ve learned that you and all the others i’ve met on my journey don’t care what I do in my life as long as I’m interesting. If I am able to share with you my journey, and things that i’m doing or have done, then you can identify with me when you do the same things. This is what begins to build traction and get you moving from being stuck towards momentum.

Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable from time to time. People resonate with people. The more people say: “wow, i’m going through the same thing” as they follow your journey, the more unstuck you become. We’re all going through the same drama

That’s the beauty of being a one man show or small outfit. People don’t want you to be something you’re not, they just want you to be more of YOU and not be afraid to show it. 

- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

I come from an entrepreneurial family, so starting a business was always a given.

No lie, almost everyone in my family has a side business going – it’s just something we do, back home in Africa.  What wasn’t a given was probably immersing myself full time in my business and using it as my primary source of income. This, was new territory. 

I’ve launched several businesses…some succeeded, but most failed. While I made and lost a lot of money, each success or failure always led me to learn something new and build on my experiences. So, looking back over my  career path, here are the 10 things I wish I’d known before I started my first full-time business.

1. Get clear on your end game

It takes just as much energy to create a small “life style” business as it does to create a large company. There’s no right or wrong answer here, but you do need to get clear on what the end game is for you.

Like some members of my family, you may just want a side business that brings in enough to ensure you’re not totally dependent on the carrot  the boss man at the 9 – 5 job uses to “motivate” you and encourage results. 

Or, you may want this to be more than a side business. If you fall in this second category, I say  - push the envelope. If you’re going to put in 80 hours a week, you might as well aim for a bigger end game. It’s the same 80 hours whether you’re tinkering with your small idea or pushing the envelope

So the question is: where do you want to be?

If i’d focused all my energy in my first business on really pushing the envelope rather than playing small and trying to create a “lifestyle business”  - I think I would have had a lot more than I do now, and the lifestyle I was aiming for, would have been a side benefit of this anyway.

2. Keep your offers simple

The need to be all things to all people is something that hinders us all when we’re starting out. You want to have everything with bells and whistles on, and you keep delaying launching your product or offer because “it’s not quite ready yet”. You could easily spend up to 6 months creating something that nobody ends up buying.

When I started my lingerie business, I wanted to carry every option going – so I ended up with so much stock, it was ridiculous. Same goes for my photography business, where I had so many product options, my customers ended up confused, as there really wasn’t that much difference between the products anyway. 

Business picked up when I started defining who I was in the market and streamlining my offers to match that positioning. 

Make it easy for people to know who you are, what you’re about and what you offer. Keep it simple. 

You can’t do a good job of building a business if you don’t focus. The golden rule in business is this: “Find the things in your business that make you the most money and focus on them. Eliminate everything else!”

3.  Solve a problem…

…and make sure it’s a problem that people want solved.

Confusing? I know. But here’s the thing…

If you want a successful business, you need to solve a problem. Not only do you need to solve a problem, it has to be a problem that people find pressing. If people feel they can live with a problem or do it themselves, you will struggle.

When you’re offering a product or service that solves a pressing problem, selling it comes down to how good you are at marketing and closing the sale.

Focus on the problem first, then build your service or product around that.

4.  Know how much people are willing to pay

 You need to test things out. Don’t just fix your prices based on what competitor X is doing.

This is a major lesson I learned when running my photography business. At that time, all the photographers I knew did not want to offer digital products. They only offered digital files if the client first spent a good chunk of money on other products.

I tried this for a while, but there was a lot of resistance from clients and I wasn’t making as much as I knew I could, because they ended up going for the lowest priced options and then heading over to the my blog and downloading the low quality images from there….

It was time to test my offers and pricing.

I knew my clients were online and particularly on Facebook so, they wanted digital images rather than prints. I decided to only offer digital packages without forcing them to buy high end albums and prints that they didn’t necessarily want.

guess what? It worked.  I was selling a lot more digital packages BUT at higher prices than the expensive albums and prints.

The lesson here: Test your market. Change things that aren’t working. Don’t be afraid to be the only one doing something different. You need to be in a business where people can afford what you sell. It’s a temptation to think that if you sell a high-end product that the customers will come and pay whatever you demand, but that’s not always true. You have to know your market, HOW they want to spend money with you and what their price range is for your product value.

5. Make it easy for people to pay you.

If customers have to jump through hoops to give you money, you’re going to lose money.

With so many options now, like Paypal, fastspring, 2checkout as well as more affordable offline options such as Square  there’s no excuse for your customers to have difficulties paying you.

Make the process as smooth as possible.  Figure out how you are going to accept money. And make sure you don’t have any roadblocks in the way of you making money…such as requiring too many form fields on your checkout process. The more information people have to give, the more likely it is, that you will not convert the sale.

6. Set Realistic Expectations

This is where I tell you to ignore the gurus that tell you how they made 7 figures in 6 months. I’m sure it’s true in some cases, but what they fail to tell you, is that it took them 5 years to set up their businesses to the point where they make 7 figures in 6 months.

You can learn by absorbing other people’s experiences and avoid a lot of unnecessary mistakes, but you still need to get your feet wet, test things out and find what works – this takes time.

Setting realistic expectations is important. Some companies do grow super fast with a great product but for the most part, you won’t become a millionaire so fast.

I expected to have loads of clients in the beginning but when you’re a startup with a small business network and limited know-how, it takes a lot of time and networking to grow and get the ball rolling.

You have to be patient. Don’t expect miracles to happen.

7.  Learn From Others’ Mistakes

 There’s nothing that can super-charge your speed, than learning from others.

Life is really too short to expect that you can learn all the necessary lessons from your personal mistakes. That’s why it’s essential you watch others and learn how not to repeat them.  But here’s the thing: Free information can only get you so far.

The internet is great, because it gives you a wealth of information but on the other hand, you do get too much information. This means you run the risk of getting overwhelmed quickly. You also run the risk of getting just snap shots of a bigger picture without necessarily knowing how it all fits together.

Be prepared to invest in your education. Find a mentor, read books, join groups – do something other than depending on only YOUR knowledge and free scraps of information you can get off the internet.

8. Alway Be Marketing

You can have the best product and service in the world, but if  people are not buying, you only have a hobby and not a business.

Resolve to learn not only how to drive eyeballs to your business but how to convert them into qualified leads. Whether you’ve got clients or not, your pipeline should always be full of potential customers.

You don’t need to know every marketing trick out there. Pick one to three key strategies, master them and work them HARD.

Keep what works, ditch what doesn’t. Rinse and repeat.

9.  There is a case for premium pricing

Most solopreneurs I know always undercharge when they start. There’s a belief that higher prices will only come when more people are buying your stuff.

Here’s the thing: once you have more people coming in, they are coming because of the low prices amongst other things. So, if you increase your prices after working to build a business based on your low prices, your business will suffer.

I tried the low prices thing for a while in my previous businesses, but quickly learned that those who liked lower prices also liked to complain… a lot…especially when you’re offering an intangible service.

It’s not worth it.

What has always worked for me is giving my target customers OPTIONS.

I do have lower end products that do not require any input from me and with this option, it’s up to the client to take the information and make it work. 

At the higher end, I am a lot more involved and the client knows they are paying for my expertise and faster results than they’d get if they’re working on their own.

the lesson here is: Give people options. Don’t just charge either low or high prices. You’ll make money either way but your time and expertise are the premium resources, so make sure that you’re getting paid accordingly for them.

10. Get good at Closing the sale

Just having qualified leads is not enough, you need to have systems that convert them into paying customers. 

Just meeting people, growing your contact list and building relationships will not grow your business. You need to actually look for clients and customers who will pay you.

And once you gain momentum and are starting to make good money, don’t stop. Because once you get lazy and stop closing, you’ll stop making money. This is one of the main reasons my old consulting company never had steady revenue growth…the finances looked more like a roller coaster – because I always stopped marketing and closing when things were great.

Conclusion

Every mistake I’ve made in my career has been a learning experience and stepping stone  for me. Even though I made a lot of mistakes and they were painful, I don’t regret making them, neither do i regret taking this path. They have led to some awesome insights, and I’ve gained so much experience in the meantime that has fed into every new venture…

What lessons do you wish you would’ve learned early on in your career?

- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

I have failed miserably in many attempts. And along the line, I have learned not to be afraid of failure. Starting a business is almost like a race. You’re always in a heightened state, always on the brink of crashing – no matter how much you prepare for the race. It’s about constantly bumping up against  resistance and getting comfortable with the fear – and then pushing the envelope a bit further knowing you could crash but, it’s the fastest way to get to where you want to go.

I love this video because the concepts they experience and how they deal with it, are things that can be adapted to any situation.

In the current state of our economy, it is likely that one will lose hope or fail in a business. But you have to keep improving step-by-step. You have to allow yourself to keep bumping against the resistance and learning to get comfortable there, and then push the envelope a bit further again.

Most importantly, allow yourself to evolve. Minted Creative Started solely as a marketing training company, but there are so many new things coming through this year based on previous businesses I’ve owned and I know it’s opening up a whole new side to this business that would not have happened if I didn’t keep going back to the drawing board with my “failures” and then pushing the envelope a bit further.

It’s easier said than done, but don’t be afraid to fail – this is what will lead you down your path to greatness. Being afraid to fail is what limits you. You don’t have to know everything, neither do you have to know what the whole journey is going to look like, you just need to keep taking note, and making the small changes that will add up to the bigger picture.

- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

I’d grown a bit quiet.  Because at that time, in my head,  I was busy wishing I had someone else’s life. My mother  paused the conversation and looked at me as only a mother could. She asked me what was wrong. “I’ll never be as good as X…I can’t seem to get that missing thing that she seems to have…It doesn’t matter what I do…I seem to push to so hard…it’s just not in me…”.  She took a deep breath, looked at me and I could tell she was debating with herself on whether to delve  into the conversation or stay silent this time, and let me work out my demons. She knew what I meant. And it’s a long story.

Lately, I’ve been struggling with the merits of my own work and the significance of my efforts. I look to others in the fantastic industries I’ve worked in previously and now,  and their ability to bring it all together in a way I feel I simply don’t know how. And this conversation reminded me of a friend’s work that I absolutely love…work I feel I will never be able to capture or express like she does. Then Mum reminded me of something…

“You are the strongest person I know, but you are also your own worst critic. We all have our own unique abilities. Focus on what you can do to make yourself better rather than what others can do or have achieved.” 

This brought me back to myself  and I realised that I have built three businesses. Learnt from bitter and great experiences from these journeys – and i’m still learning.  I taught myself everything to get to where I am now, and I’m getting better each day…I won’t envy her achievements. I will Appreciate them. And Appreciate and Embrace Mine.

And just like that…there it was. My Personal Truth. Learning to appreciate others’ work  is linked to what will inspire me to get better…and appreciate how far I’ve come. Flaws and all.

- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

There are countless ways for marketing your small business, but consistent profits come from understanding what marketing really is at it’s core, and having a framework in place that will help you use the numerous tools available to get consistent results.

Here are 6 important things to keep in mind about marketing your small business

1. Marketing is is all about telling people what you do – over and over again

There is no magic bullet in marketing. You’ve got to keep talking to people and talking about your product or service.  The problem is, a lot of solopreneurs are reluctant to talk about their service. A false thought exists, that people already know what you do, and they’ll find you if they require your service.  It doesn’t work that way. We, as consumers, get a lot of information coming through every day. Information gets lost in noise of the marketplace.  The successful marketer is the one who understands that we need to see or hear about their product or service more than once before we take some sort of action.

Your marketing challenge as a solopreneur should NOT be about telling people what you do over and over again (you should accept that this is necessary), BUT finding creative ways to do it so the people you’re talking to are happy to receive the information from you.

2. test more, talk less

Got a great idea of how to creatively tell people about your business? – Test it. 

The only way you’ll know if something works is if you stop talking and over thinking it and actually go out to the marketplace and test it. You’ve got to accept that you’re going to spend a bit  of money finding the right balance. Stop wasting time looking for FREE methods of getting customers and money into your business. The best methods will require you to pay either with a long stretch of time invested or a little bit of money – it’s your choice but, you MUST keep testing to get the results you require.

3.  marketing your small business requires a goal

Social media, webinars, blogging etc. —these are all tools and they don’t get results unless you have a plan on HOW to use them to get results. Your plan is based on what goal you really want to achieve in a particular time frame.

Don’t waste your time fussing about the tools, get clear and specific on your marketing goal. What do you really want?  10 new clients? 5000 subscribers? – put a number to it AND a time frame and then go from there..

4. understand that visitors aren’t customers

Eyeballs don’t pay the bill. People who visit your website to get free information and leave comments about how brilliant your blog is – don’t pay the bills. People who come into your shop, and look around cooing about how lovely the designs are, don’t pay the bill. People who talk about how they’d like to go to your restaurant don’t pay the bill – people who SPEND money pay the bill. Learn to tell the difference – don’t spend money on thousands of visitors who want to look – attract the tens who want to buy.

Focus on people that are serious on buying and learn and create a system that converts these people into paying customers 

5. It’s easier to sell what people already want

It’s all well and good talking about how people would like  and buy your service or product -  if only they’d take the time to understand how it would revolutionise their life / office / clothing / kitchen… but they just don’t ‘get it’.

It is not about giving people what you think they need , it’s about giving them what they want.  You need to understand that your target market is not ready to be an expert in your field and they don’t have the desire to know everything. They just want enough to solve the problem and ease the pain. Your job is to create offers that make sense to your target customer as well as your bottomline – in otherwords, it’s about giving them enough of what they want so they get excited enough to keep coming back for more….

6. your service or product should not appeal to everyone.

Time is precious…people need to know exactly what’s in it for them to engage with you and your business. Most importantly, you need to get clear on WHO you really want to talk to. Even for something as basic as a dinner plate, there are customers out there that would only be willing to spend $5 and others that would willingly spend $50.

When it comes to marketing your small business, both groups may be interested in dinner plates, but they’ve VERY different and you need to get clear  on what your message really is and for whom.

read more:

Targeted Lead Generation: How to Get More Customers

How to get your marketing basics right the first time

5 Common Marketing Mistakes

like this article?

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- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

As a solopreneur, it’s a given that your budget is tight but SEO, is not a quick fix, flash in the pan. It takes time. You’ve  either got to be willing to get dig in to get some sort of result – especially when the budget is tight.

Here are few  tips, techniques and tools that you can use for your blog seo, without having to hire someone.

Build Your Blog on your own Domain.

I love wordpress.com and blogger, but if you’re really serious about this SEO thing, you need to have a blog on your own domain. When you build your blog on someone else’s domain – ilovecooking.wordpress.com, you’re building their search visibility, not yours.  Why go through all the drama of optimizing someone else’s site? – Build your own house - ilovecooking.com/blog – and stop renting from someone else — you’ll never get that way

Have  Keyword Rich Topics

A Blog is  powerful tool for SEO (search engine optimization) and online visibility because every blog post you write becomes another web page, and every web page is another opportunity to get found by your ideal customer who is searching for information on that specific topic. But before your web pages can get found, you need to have the right content that people are actually searching for.

Quick ways to generate “in-demand” content include

1. Customer questions - there are questions that your customers keep asking or seeking answers to, these make great blog content. If a few customers are asking, you can be assured that there are others out there you’ve yet to meet that need the same information.

2. Sites like Quora, Yahoo Answers, or other forums are great for getting ideas for blog content. These are where you ideal customers are hanging out, so you should be there as well. The same questions being asked in these forums are the same that your customers outside the forum are asking as well. 

Create Keyword Rich Titles

Titles play a huge importance for SEO on your blog, Search engines place a high importance on your titles and so do your readers. Your title is what is used to determine if your content is relevant or not. It is what signals to your audience if it’s worth clicking on to find out more.

Here are some tips to keep in mind

1. Start with your keywords.  The first few words of your title have more weight on search engines, so make sure your key words are in there. Case in point – this blog post is titled: “Blog SEO for Beginners: How to Get Found on A Small Budget,”  (I think you have a clue what they keyword focus for this article is)

2. Number your lists. Doesn’t matter what people say, numbered lists work. They break down content, make it easier for people to digest the information quickly. That, in my opinion, can only be a good thing. 

Use your keywords early in your content.

Your title is critical, but it also needs to be supported by relevant content.  Working your keyword phrase in the first few sentences of your copy as well as repeating it several times in your post is what signals the relevance of your content to the search engines.

Warning!  Do NOT stuff your content full of keywords. Whilst SEO is important, your Blog is primarily to create valuable content for people. A quick trick I use is to write first for people and then optimize after for the search engines. Your Blog content has to flow, and your keywords should not feel forced.

If you overuse your keyword phrase it can backfire. Google and other search engines may punish you for “over-optimizing” your post.

Grab your SEO Plugin

Tools such as WordPress SEO by Yoast  and Scribe SEO  are great to use,  as they help ensure you are optimizing each page and post for their respective keywords.

These tools give you control over the title, allowing you to give your blog post and the page unique titles. They also allow you create a meta-description –  the snippet-length phrase that appears below the big, blue link on the search engine results page. While opinions vary on whether meta-descriptions impact your SEO ranking, it can certainly increase your click-through rates when it’s well written and appears to focus on the problem your prospect is looking to solve.

Market Your Content on Social Media

Just because you’ve written it, doesn’t mean they will come. You’ve got to go out there an let them know about it. All other things being equal, links from other websites and blogs increase your search engine visibility. Social Media can help with this. By sharing your post through social media platforms, and getting others to do the same, you’ll drive more traffic and build awareness of your post.

Google Plus affects your search results. Google Plus Authorship  lets you easily associate your Blog posts with your Google+ account, which gives you author status on Google (thumbnail and name in search engine results). This increases click-through. On that note, if you don’t already have a Google+ account, create one, and ensure you are sharing your posts through Google+

There’s also no question that Facebook powers Bing’s customized search – so you should be sending your content to your facebook page as well

Transfer your Blog’s visibility to your main website and services

Whilst it’s great to have a blog that gets traffic, you can’t lose sight of the end game – making money in your business. You need to find a way to convert this traffic into cash. Leverage your blog to grow your business, by creating keyword-rich links from blog posts to sales pages on your website. It can be something as simple as adding links at the end of each post to other  ’related” content on your blog.

Conclusion:

SEO is an on-going game. Once you’ve grasped the basics, you’ve got stay at the game like everyone else. Keep working on building your inbound links and external visibility strategy 

READ MORE

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Content Marketing Strategy : How to Generate Leads with Magnetic Content

5 Automated Email Marketing Campaigns that create Leverage

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- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

As a general rule, people won’t buy from you unless they know you, like you and trust you. Unfortunately, many small business owners make these fundamental errors that create immediate distrust and the less likely chance of being liked.

Here are the four most common errors (and how to correct them):

1. You make unbelievable claims.

There’s no point trying to be something you’re not. The Beauty of being in small business or self-employed, is that you have so much to offer that the larger companies spend money trying to cultivate – one of those things being personality. As a small business, people should know up-front, exactly what they get with you and your service. It’s amazing how many people make claims that they can’t back up. 

The internet makes the world a very small place. Majority of your customers, do have an internet connection, so, you can be assured that you will be googled and compared with all other competitors. That’s what customers do – especially when you’re asking them to invest a lot of money with you. 

How do you Fix this?  Focus on  what’s unique about your product or service  and communicate what that uniqueness means to the customer, preferably in financial terms. If you don’t have the lowest price, show how the extra cost, if any, is more than worth it. Focus on the BENEFITS. What’s really in it for them to use their business?

2. You’re too focused on Closing the Sale.

One of the hardest thing of being slef-employed or running a small business, is the fear of not having enough customers to keep your head above water. So a most times, you get desperate. And even when you think you’re hiding it so well, it seeps through your interactions with potential customers and you eventually lose the sale – which is the one thing you were trying so hard to avoid.

Customers sense and resent it, when your sole motivation is to make a sale. Even if you really need the money, you must keep the customer’s interests a priority. Otherwise, it never goes well. Not only do you take on the wrong type of customer because you really need the money, you’ll most find yourself undercharging just to get the sale.

Customers aren’t stupid, they will expect you to want to make a sale (if they don’t, you need to tighten up marketing and sales funnel to get the right leads) However, they also expect you to put your needs aside, keep it real and tell the truth when it’s not in their interest to buy from you… even though it means that you’ll lose a sale.

How to fix this: Think of every customer contact as a long-term investment rather than a short term opportunity. There’s no better way to prove you’re trustworthy–and build a relationship–than telling a customer that this isn’t the right time to buy. They will remember you. And even if they never became your customer, they will become evangelists for your business. 

3. You’re relying on opinions not facts.

As lovely as you think your service is, it doesn’t count for anything unless that opinion is backed by hard facts. Hard facts are case studies and testimonials from people that have actually tried it out.

As customers, we’re naturally suspicious – we’re hard wired that way. We subconsciously tend look for things that are not right when  claims don’t seem to be tied to verifiable, quantitative facts. 

How to Fix This: Let your customers do the talking for you. Get into the habit of asking for testimonials from customers. If you’re just starting out, offer your service to a few potential customers in exchange for creating a case study or honest feedback on the service – be sure to disclose this in the testimonial.  Please do not use anonymous testimonials – people know it’s BS. It’s better not to have any testimonial at all.

4. You begin your relationship by being dishonest

People buy from people. There really is no need to be coy about anything. Stop sending out sales letter or emails telling customers “you were thinking about them when you created this special offer because you know they have this specific issue….”  - acting like you’re best friends when you don’t know a single thing about their specific situation

Customers aren’t stupid. They expect to be sold to at some point – or they would have unsubscribed from your mailing list by now. However, as they are sharing their inbox with you, they do expect you not to waste their time constantly spouting obvious sales BS which ultimately pushes down their opinion of your trustworthiness.

How to Fix This: Get good a segmenting your database, so you’re sending out relevant offers, get clear on your customer buying journey (how long does it take a prospect to become a customer) and finally, Just tell the truth. Example: “I’m actively looking for new customers “  and then focus on telling them exactly what’s in it for them (emotional benefits). More importantly: why lie anyway? You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You’re in business. Nothing comes for free. If you need customers, be open about it and learn how to engage in value selling .

READ MORE

Targeted Lead Generation : How to Generate More Customers

Money Confidential : How to increase profits and reduce overwhelm with irresistible offers

Marketing Ideas for Small Budgets

Effective Marketing Campaigns : Your 5 Step Guide

- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

The problem with “over-loading” your packages and offers, is that it’s very easy to overwhelm people with too much information and stuff, making it more difficult for them to achieve results quickly. It can also be frustrating for them, and lead to feelings of failure and early drop outs from programs.

Remember that YOU didn’t get to where you are overnight (even if you’re just starting on your journey, you  have a wealth of experience that took time to build) – and your clients probably won’t be able to get results overnight either. However great your content and offers, your customers will still need time  to absorb everything  and apply it to their own situations..

Here are 3 tips for breaking down your offers and delivering it in a way that keeps clients coming back for more!

Step #1: Have and follow a system that spells out your exact steps to getting the results you create for your clients.

The trick is to have a step by step plan that lays out the basic tools and techniques you offer to solve a particular problem. Take a good look at what’s involved for clients to work with each step of your plan, then segment the content into bite-sized learning chunks.By taking out the guesswork for your customers and showing them in step-by-step bite-sized chunks how to solve their problem, you automatically solve your  problem of being overwhelmed when marketing your services.

Step #2 – Seed Your Customers and Market Your System for “Rolling” Sales

A lot of  the self employed  think they have to keep getting new customers in to keep revenues high. If you’re one of those that thinks this way, you’re missing a big trick. New customers are important, but people who are already customers, know you, like you and trust you. If they’ve bought from you in the past, they’ll buy from you again – a lot quicker than brand new customers.

Keep your revenues steady by regularly offering the next step in your system to existing customers. If you’ve got customers already working on one step in your system, it stand to reason, that they will want to continue on the next step.  This also works well for promotions to your list or to your speaking audiences. Rather than trying to sell “the whole system or pie” at once – make your offers more irresistible by focusing on one specific topic / step / part of your system.

Step #3 – Get Rid of Most of the Extras

I find that business owners who struggle with pricing and charging their customers are the ones that tend to stuff their packages with so many unnecessary extras. Most of the time it’s because they are concerned about providing enough value to justify the fees they want to charge. Here’s the thing, bonuses are great for adding extra spice to your offers – in moderation. But too many freebies and you start  watering down the value of your main offers and setting yourself up for a lot of extra work and expense.

TAKE ACTION:

There is a balance between offering speed and value and trying to accomplish too much in one sitting. Streamline your offers and give your clients time to absorb and put into action what they get from you . You’ll find them coming back again and again as they achieve the results with each new step. 

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- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

The problem a lot of soloprenuers face with Facebook is that it can get overwhelming pretty quickly because there are so many gurus out there making things a lot more complicated than they need to be. This translates to a lot of time and money wasted.

Here’s the thing, facebook marketing can be as complicated as you want it to be or as simple as you allow it to be. I’m in the simple camp, and I’m going to share 3 quick tips I used to triple my mailing list numbers using facebook  Ads.

1. Use words that your Ideal Customers use.

This is advertising 101. If you want to attract a certain type of customer, you have to use the same words they would use to talk to them. Your Ads will only convert, if your target customer believes it is relevant. For your ads to be deemed relevant, you have to use the same words your target customer would use.

How do you know what words they use?

Look around you. All over the internet, your ideal customer is leaving reviews on services and products similar to those you want to sell to them. What are they saying about those products? What language are they using to describe those products and the results they get? that’s the same type of language you want to use in your facebook ads to grab attention and convert.

2. Give them what they want not what you think they need.

The major problem I see with Solopreneurs is that we’re all so passionate about our business and what we do. We really want to share this great thing that we have, so we go ahead and create products and offers without really listening to what the target customer really wants.

Your Ads will only convert if you’re focusing more on what your target customer wants rather than what you offer.

for example:

My passion is marketing. It means that any given time, I’ve got 5 – 10 ideas on new marketing courses and programs I can offer but, I’m talking about facebook Ads that convert here, because that’s what 80% of target customer base really need information on. They don’t really want to know about “closed loop marketing” – at least not yet. If I wrote an ad about closed loop marketing – important as it is, I would not get a great conversion on my ad, because it’s not what my target market wants. They just want to know, how to make money and grow their business with facebook Ads.

Give people what they really want and not what you think they need.

3. Be specific with your Targeting

Here’s the thing, you do not want to talk to everybody on Facebook – Shocking! I know, but you really don’t. In fact, as a one-man business, you don’t want to target more than 1 million people or less with your Ads.

Dig deep, target you customers based on their location, their age, their interest and possibly gender.  The more specific you are, the greater your chances of creating successful Facebook ads that convert.

Facebook can be as complicated as you want it to be or as simple as you allow it to be. Start by getting good at simple stuff and then thinking hard about making if more complicated, if the simple stuff is already getting the results you need.

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Online Marketing Strategy – How to make it work

The Email Newsletter – How to craft one that gets results

- ...money and marketing for the self-employed

This worked and still works for me on a strategic level but a couple of years ago, I started setting my “intention” for the year.  Choosing one word to guide you through the year instead of making New Year’s resolutions. This idea got even clearer when I discovered Christine Kane’s word of the year discovery tool.

Last Year, my word for 2012 was Transition. I’m amazed at how much this word guided me and how much I achieved personally, and in business just by focusing on this word. It was all about transitioning and letting go; Not holding on to things longer than I needed to. Simplifying and clearing out the junk. Doing more with less….this meant that :

• I let go of a lot of relationships (personally and in business) that just weren’t serving or growing me in anyway,
• I changed my offers and created a lot of  new projects, courses, products that created attention for my business
• I discovered so many new sources of income for my business
• Tripled my mailing list size,  just by letting go of some of the stuff in my business that I didn’t want but felt I needed.

This year, my guiding word will be Resonance.

The dictionary defines resonance as:

The quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating.
The ability to evoke or suggest images, memories, and emotions.

In Physics it’s about : re-enforcing or prolonging a sound. 

I started off with a few other words that I see as my “big vision” for myself but this just kept coming through in a big way.

My intention this year is to resonate. From the content I create, to the clients I work with, to the mentors and coaches that I have, to the daily interactions I have . I aim to keep stepping up and being at a higher frequency / level that means even the smallest action I take creates a re-enforced, prolonged and amplified result.

It means I’m not sweating the small stuff but focusing on those that bring in the best results. This could be translated as

• getting an assistant to do all the admin work I hate doing so I can actually focus on working with clients,
• It means being a lot choosier about the people I work with – clients, coaches, suppliers
• It means setting boundaries for those around me (clients, friends and family) with so they are pushing themselves to go a lot further than they think they can…..
• It means revamping ALL my programs and offers to create a deeper quality that reverberates
• It means slowing down and thinking about what I say – especially to family (regardless of how justified I feel about saying it.) We tend to be thoughtless when speaking to those closest to us, that we sometimes don’t realise the damage we cause
• It means I’m pushing for a much higher income level than I’ve ever attempted because there’s so much more that I’m positioned and blessed to achieve – so playing small is not going to get me or anyone else that really needs me very far.
• It means taking my business in that resonates with me and not necessarily what everyone else is doing
• and so much more….

It’s all about actions and decisions that will have deep, full and prolonged results – not only for me but for those around me (clients, friends and family)

Okay, so writing down a few ways that I can foresee how the word “Resonance” will be making an impact on me this year was a little freeing. Just focusing on this word each day, is totally changing how I might have reacted in certain situations ad chancing the outcomes that I get.

No matter what word you choose, it should take you out of your comfort zone in one way or another.

Now I’m curious, what word will be guiding you into 2013?

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6 Habits of incredibly successful people

Simple Ways to give your business a financial re-boot

On riding the fear train and travelling the “what if” journey

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- ...money and marketing for the self-employed