Part 3 Business is Different For You: Don’t Do This!

burnboat

So, did you do it?  Did you go into the fields last night and have your Scarlett O’Hara moment? Did you feel that full-bodied determination to get out from the middle-of-the-curve, where everyone is okay with average?

Did you feel the hope and belief in something so much bigger for your life and your business than that?

Did you then cut-off all other options? Burn your boats? (Read part 2 here.)

I told you yesterday that if I’d had time, I would have stimulated a reckoning like this with my lackluster audience (read part 1 post here), who revealed that, deep down, good enough might just be good enough for them. Even though they’d been called to so much greater. Even though they were born to lead.

If you’d been in that room while I facilitated such a reckoning—but decided to sit it out, I’d have lost it again: you have the chance to leave average and ordinary and you’re staying in it?

So, for all of our sake’s, I’m going to assume that you went into the arid fields of your business last night and declared, “As God is my witness, I will never ___________ again!!”

And now that you are all dressed up, let’s give you some place NEW to go. Your decision to leave the crowd behind must be rewarded—and sustained—by much, much better solutions.

NonConformityWomenFashionLet’s remember what we’re achieving here by leaving the pack: the ability to be seen, to have your message heard over the roar of thousands of competing voices. The capacity to honor the Impulse that brought you to this work in the first place, which isn’t possible when you’re looking and sounding like everyone else and offering superficial, cookie-cutter business brands, packages, workshops and presentations.

So, now that you have made the courageous decision to walk away from the middle that most everyone else calls home–how do you do it? How do you stand out?

Well, not the way you’ve been taught to. Business is different for you, so you have to do business differently—which means, giving up strategies meant for everyone else.

How many of these techniques for differentiating yourself in business have you heard?

  • Stand out with your personality. Wear some signature clothing item, or accentuate your heritage, or embellish your attitude—maybe your in-your-face irreverence or quick-witted humor.
  • Stand out with your past career or adventures. You’ve been a mountain climber, so be known for helping others scale the highest peaks in their own life. Or you once were a musician, so you should help others sing their life’s song.
  • Stand out by merging credentials with a contrasting industry. You are known for having a PhD in theology but consult to corporate clients. Or you’re known for uniquely bringing your experience as a high school principal into coaching political leaders.
  • Stand out with a narrow target market. You are known for working with mothers of newborns, or with teenagers, or young couples or retirees. Now, don’t get me wrong—every business needs a narrow market!!! But in this typical strategy, you’re known for it.
  • Stand out with your unique work style. You lead education cruises or do wilderness, beach or equine coaching.
  • Stand out with your specialty. I’m a divorce coach, an ADHD therapist, a career consultant, and EFT practitioner, and on and on.

These are familiar to you, right? Straight out of the differentiation handbook.

And sometimes they workfor much the same reason that our eyes are drawn to bright, shiny objects: they have flash-appeal. But they do not last.

Furthermore, there’s a MUCH bigger problem with all of these. Can you guess what it is?

All of them are much too superficial for what you are here to do. Again—you are a different BREED of entrepreneur; a “transformation artist.” None of these brings out the voice of the Impulse.

That voice is a leader’s voice. And it’s YOUR voice.

And it’s that voice that will differentiate you in a way all of these other strategies NEVER, EVER will.

You have something the world needs–and it won’t get it unless you lead.

Business is different for you, so you have to do business differently.

Go ahead, repeat after me:  “Things are different for me.”

Yes, they are. Now this: “Leadership is going to differentiate me!”

Click here to continue this 5-day story-series and find out just what kind of leadership will set you far apart…

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 4

In this 6-part series, I’m offering tools to help you determine the market that is best for who you are, what you do, and that will actually buy you. I can’t possibly underestimate the importance of a niche-market or underestimate the difficulty in getting this right for most coaches, consultants, practitioners and speakers. This is Part 4 in the series. Be sure to read the previous posts for all of the tools, then blend them together for your Perfect Buyer mix.

#4. With Whom Do You Have the Most Credibility?

You must go where you are seen as valid and valuable. Many clients come to me and don’t consider this at all, let alone thoughtfully. Here are some questions to help you:

    1. Where do you have solid contacts? Do you have them from your previous career? From your PTA days? From your church? This is one of the very first questions I ask, in large part because you do not want to make business any harder than it needs to be! Go where you have contacts, but also, go there because where others know you, you have credibility.
    2. What have you experienced and conquered? Yesterday, my advice was, “be your market.” If you have gone through something that your market has gone through, as well, you have instant credibility. Downsizing; divorce; teen motherhood, etc. In determining your market, look for the experiences you’ve had because your success journey will be wanted by the market going through the same thing–and they will buy you because you are credible.
    3. Who would resonate most with your beliefs? Like-minds find each other credible. If you say something that causes others to fervently nod their head in agreement, you have credibility with them–even if you lack experience in what you do. Even if it is a market in which you have interest, but no contacts. If you believe in something they do, you are one of the tribe. I always delve deeply into my clients’ beliefs, and eventually have them include them in their marketing because inspirational marketing works for this very reason–you are powerfully credible with those who share your philosophies.

By now, you must be getting ideas. Who is a strong contender for your target market?

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 3

Today, we’re moving to the 3rd post in a 6-part series designed to help you determine whom you should be leading. I expect this will be enlightening and helpful to even the most successful service entrepreneurs.

 3. Who are YOU? BE your market.

Richard Branson was featured yet again in Entrepreneur Magazine, June 2012, and was quoted as saying, “All startups should be thinking, ‘What frustrates me [as a customer] and how can I make it better? It might be a small…or…a big thing, but…if they think like that, they’re likely to build a very successful business.”

The most relevant piece to our discussion is this: he spoke of the fact that he has always been his own customer. Everything he ever created, from Virgin Records to Virgin Airlines and everything in between and after, came from his own need. And he credits “being his own  customer” to his success.

This has now become a topic of conversation between me and my clients who go through my 7-session private program, The Powerhouse Method, looking to build a highly-marketable, one-of-a-kind business. The first order of business is to determine whom they will be serving. To aid in this extremely (for most) challenging act, I tell them what Branson advises: You should be your market. But the converse is equally true: your market should be you. Either who you once were, or who you are now. Do not try marketing to a group you are not. Branson never did. Help those with the same needs you had once upon a time. If you’re frustrated now by how things are being done in your field–close the gap with an innovation and then sell it to others just like you with that need.

When you are your market, and your market is you, you secure one of the most important factors of success in business: credibility. They will listen to you because you are them and have an answer relevant to them. It means you will communicate (i.e. sell) to them like no one else because you speak their language and understand them at a deep level. It means you will design “urgently wanted” programs and products that nail their needs and desires because you know them so intimately.

I have always been my market, and as a result, every one of my programs through the years has knocked it out of the park. I have also always sold quite easily (once I overcame my issues with selling), because I created content *I* would have wanted and that my market (me, in an earlier time) wants and needs.

So, in trying to decide who your market is, look no further than your own mirror.

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 2

This is the 2nd in a 6-part series on mastering who your sliver-population market is. I’ve said to my students and clients for years that your market *is* your business. Without a market, you have either an unwieldy, undefined business or you have no business at all.

It is your market that will determine how you sell to them–the communication that will actually work.

Your market that will determine the free and paid programs you offer.

Your market who will create your expert-status.

Your market who will make you money.

And your market who will determine your destiny. If you are here to change the world, it is only a very segmented population that will help you do it.

There are many things I ask my private clients that enable them to take the vital step of shaping their all-important market, and recently, I’ve been directing them with these 6 tools. Today, I’m giving you the 2nd one.

 

2.    The 4 Criteria

I have found these 4 questions quickly answer whether or not a market is a smart decision. You need to have a sense of a market in order for this to help, but once you have an idea of one or even two markets, measure your options (independently) against these 4 criteria:

On a 1-10 scale (0=not at all; 10=extremely), how would you rate your TM option on the following:
 
1. How “on the surface” is their awareness of their pain?

2. How credible are you to them? (They would believe you; respect you; resonate with you.)

3. How passionate do you feel when you think of working with them?

4. How able are they to pay for you?

Every single one of these is important.

And you want to be answering at an 8 (lowest), and preferably a 9 or 10.

If a market is a 9 or 10 in awareness of their pain, this is very good. It means they have an urgent need, and your business *must* be “urgently wanted”–or you will simply sit on the shelf as a one-day possibility (if you’re lucky.) Sound familiar?

You are credible to a market if you have been through what they are going through; if you have overcome what they’re in the midst of; if you express beliefs that immediately align with theirs. If you are an 8-10 in credibility, there is a high likelihood that they will buy you.

You must be at a 9 or 10 in passion for your  market. If you are a follower of mine, you are here to effect change in the world and must want that change for a particular segment far more than for any other segment. You must be passionate about what you see is possible for them; what you think they’re here for–after all, you’ll be helping them get it. I am off-the-charts passionate about visionary entrepreneurs, those who are here to inspire change. I could do what I do for corporations, but I believe the world should be run by entrepreneurs, so I have no interest in helping executives. I used to work with any type of coach and consultant, but then decided that I only had interest in working with those who want to have a powerful impact in the world. I believe they have a purpose on the planet at this time and am extremely passionate about that and them. So, they are now the only type of service provider I work with.

And finally, needless to say, you want your market to be able to pay you at an 8, 9 or 10 level. If you answer anything lower than an 8, you will pay for it.

So, what are your answers when you take yourself through all 4 criteria?

How to Determine Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered

It is a constant trouble-spot for my market of authors, speakers, consultants, coaches: Determining their market. I have a free ebook to help the process, but there are so many fine hairs to split, that it’s not really enough.

The Target Market question is the biggest boulder in the way of success for an entrepreneur; the hidden answer to their struggle; and the place that gets nearly every one of them—to use a term favored by a dear friend—“wonky.”

Tussling with who it is they will serve reveals commitment issues (I have to work only with them? For years??). Trust issues. (What if this market is a mistake and everything I build for them doesn’t work?) Ego and pride. (The big successes don’t target their market; I’m going to follow them.) When these issues become so obvious that they need to be pointed out lest we spend precious time extracting bullets from their feet, I provide these incisive insight–then end the nurturing with, “Get over all of it. Just pick.”

The other day, I was working with a client on his market and heard myself moving him through six ways to grab hold of a possible market for him. I am going to share them all with you in this diagram today and comment on the first, and then write content for the other five over the next week.

So, you can, and must, evaluate your market on at least the following conditions:

 

  1. What Market “Urgently Wants” What You Have?

Even this is not a cut-and-dried question, and is hair that can be split dozens of ways, but it must be answered! The biggest problem I see for service-based entrepreneurs is that they do not ensure that they are delivering something to the market that the market would “climb over chairs to get.” They’re putting out what they want to put out.

But even if they work on this some, they’re still not reasoning it through enough. They really believe “everyone” could be served by what they offer. But this is not true. Some age-group (the fastest way to get at this if it’s a consumer market) or some company desperately wants what they have more than another. So, what is that age group? And then, what is the situation they’re in that heightens their urgent want? Did they just get divorced? Just graduate college? Did the corporation just merge? Who is in urgent pain and therefore urgently wants what you have?

You *must strike* where there is pain, or you will gather dust very quickly. And there are times in life when the pain out there that you can heal is more acute than at other times. Yes, you provide outstanding marketing services–but at what stage does a business recognize that it REALLY WANTS marketing help? Probably after about two years of failure.  Yes, you’re a great parent coach, but what situations would cause a parent to come seeking your services? There are only a few times when pain is acute: during pregnancy; toddler years; teen-age years.

Look for stages of life and situations that will cause an upsurge of interest in your solution. You are not wanted all of the time. AND you are not wanted by everyone. You are wanted at a specific moment in time, by a very specific type of person/company.

So, what are the crackling synapses in your brain telling you right now?

Stay tuned for the next installment…

Your Target Market is the Problem With Your Business

I’ve never met a service entrepreneur who didn’t squirm when confronted by a marketing truism: you must target your market. You cannot serve “everyone.” I cannot tell you the stunts students and clients have pulled, trying desperately to defend their position not to choose a narrow-population market. They fear they’ll be confined, bored, and will lose money. If you relate to that and haven’t chosen a targeted group of people to market to, that is your problem.

You are shooting yourself in the foot and setting yourself up for a business of fits and starts; erratic client income…and invisibility. Furthermore, you won’t be recognized as an expert if you’re talking to “everyone.” Experts are experts because they help a particular group.

So, here are 6 reasons you MUST narrow your market to a slim population and why you’ll FAIL if you don’t:

  1. Your target market IS your business when you’re a service entrepreneur. Every program you offer and information product you develop must be directed and composed specifically for them. If you are targeting “everyone” or straddling a few markets, your program offerings can’t solve the very unique and specific needs and desires of that market and will fly under their radar; they’ll never even “see” what you have to offer because it’s too general.
  1. It’s the fastest (and, most likely only,) way to become an expert. When you have a solution for, say, teen-age girls at risk, you will be noticed and sought out because it is assumed that you have very specialized knowledge and experience with that group. When you stay broad, you will never, ever become an expert.
  1. It clarifies your thinking. Your brain cannot picture “everyone” and so your thinking stays unfocused and broad. When you can see a specific population in your mind’s eye, you are able to form the specific wording that gets noticed by your prospects’ brains—which are always looking for one thing: how does this apply to me, specifically? I always say, “You write only as well as you think.” That goes with anything you’re producing, really. It all starts with a clear image. If you cannot SEE the careers and lifestyles of your market, your thinking is fuzzy and so will be your business identity.
  1. Your promotions get heard and noticed. When you speak to the laser-focused specific needs of your market, you leave them feeling something that is priceless for a business: heard and understood. If you convey your value in vague and general language, it won’t hit your prospect’s heart. EVERYONE wants to feel that they are fully and completely understood. When you have a sliver-population-target-market, you will tailor your message to them; they will feel embraced and understood and valued by you—and compelled to work with you. It is the most powerful, psychological gift you give to people who haven’t worked with you: I know you. I get you. And I can help YOU, specifically.

When a business speaks to everyone, it gets heard by no one.

  1. Your excitement will increase. When your communication about your value is specific to a specific group’s needs, you get excited because suddenly you really know who you’re helping!  You are here to alleviate pain, solve problems—when you are doing that for a narrow population who needs you, the very best of you will spring forth and you will love sharing what you do! Trust me on this. If you are feeling flat about your business–it’s probably because you don’t really know who needs you most. If you’re uninspired, your business will fall away.
  1. Your marketing efforts explode in effectiveness because you know precisely where to put them. You find where your target population congregates, and your articles, website links, advertising, newsletters, etc. go directly to them. The time and effort you put into marketing drops dramatically—something every business owner must appreciate!

I’ve got a 24-page workbook for you that will help you determine your narrow market FAST–AND it also gets really deep into their heads. Part 2 takes you into the “inner psyche” of your market’s minds. You will know exactly what they need so you can build the most marketable programs and write the most compelling copy. And there’s a 2-hour workshop that goes along with it next Thursday, April 19th, when I will coach you to have your perfect buyer AND teach you how to use their psyche to sell. Jump on this asap!!!

How A New Program Drew 350 Registrations–the First Time Out

A client of mine, Teresa Aziam of The Aziam Center, led a telecall last night that interested 350 people in just a few days of promotion. She went to her list and asked two JV partners to promote for her—but out of the gate, with not a whole lot of promoting at all, this was a strong number.

Here’s what they were drawn to: There is a single formula that explains your lagging business success—and it’s the same (and only) formula you will ever need to get all the clients, sales, buzz and love you want!

That was the hook–and the essence of her “Teaching Story”—the story she unfolded on the call.

They may have been drawn to the title, too, but we didn’t measure that: Off-the-Charts: The Only Formula You Need for Breaking the Ceiling on Business and Life Success.

They stayed because—as one woman near the end of the call said, when asked how one of the exercises affected her, “I can’t even express it, it was so profound.”

 

This is Teresa’s “Portal Program,” as I call it–#3 on the diagram. It is the pre-event to her star-money-maker, Signature Program.

This diagram illustrates the strategic line-up of offerings I help my clients create. But it doesn’t just magically happen. Here’s how Teresa and I got to her “Teaching Story” hook above.

She came to me, knowing that her specialty was “mindset work.” First order of business is always determining target market.

 We went back and forth on that for a few sessions and finally she decided on “mom-preneurs” with kids under eight years of age. (I always have my clients, working with mothers, determine the age of their kids; it reveals yet another dimension of their problems/needs/desires that need to be addressed.)

The next order of business is determining that market’s “urgent problem.” I always say, “You must be urgently wanted (b/c you solve an urgent problem) or you will be an elective…and you can’t afford to be an elective.” So, we quickly determined that her market’s urgent problem (even though Teresa didn’t feel qualified at first to address it) was, “poor sales.”

“I don’t teach sales,” she said to me repeatedly, as she was trying to grasp that as her business future. She felt she wasn’t credible to solve that urgent need. (Can you relate? Then read on.)

“There are many solutions for someone, for example, who needs to lose weight,” I told her. “Someone can help nutritionally. Someone else can provide hypnosis treatment. Someone else, liposuction. Someone else, self-mastery techniques. The problem is the same, with many solutions. You can help that problem, as one of the solutions.”

That accomplished, we began to drill down into what she believed mom-preneurs needed to do to succeed. It wouldn’t be a sales technique, or strategy for attracting leads; it would be her answer, based on what she does well. After days of thrashing about in deep reflection (my questions tend to do that to people), she determined that above all, (that’s what I look for) her market needed to know their own self-worth to succeed. Without it, there can be no success.

And that began the very mysterious process that happens between me and a client in developing their Teaching Story. We sit on a see-saw, the two of us, and as she pushes off the ground in answer to a question of mine, it rolls down to me, and stimulates an idea, and back and forth we go, as my brain—always scanning for a Brain-Sticky concept—begins to think of what to teach to the market.

It’s completely non-linear and a process I cannot teach or I would make it a group program, but in no-time on that see-saw, keeping in mind a) her market; 2) what they most want; 3) what they need to know; 4) what she does best and 5) what they don’t know, I knew the hook: your sales are directly proportionate to your self perceived value. They will be low if your value of yourself (in any or all areas of life) is low; they will be high, if your self-perceived value is high. Teresa loved it because it was true. She said, “Yep. There is no exception. It can’t be any other way.”

I always test and test my clients’ convictions, and so I asked (as I’d asked it multiple ways before), “If they try any of the other solutions to boost their sales, will it work?” She was an emphatic, “No! This is THE answer!”

And so, I whipped the concept into a formula (which I don’t want to reveal here, for proprietary reasons, but you can go find out yourself!)

From there, I began to design the “arc” of the Teaching Story—how she would teach this to an audience. As you know, she gave it last night to a live audience, but even if she was never going to “be on stage” with it—having a Teaching Story Arc is a sweet, key way of developing an “idea” that no one else in the world has. No one else has the formula of her Teaching Story—and no one else has the teaching content we developed that teaches the formula, what do with it, and then presents a natural new problem to the audience.

Her Teaching Story was “urgently wanted” because it: addressed a nagging problem (low sales) with a irrefutably true concept (your sales are proportionate to your self-perceived value), spun in a unique way with a hook, (the formula), built with unique content (provocative exercises and data that taught the formula and the science behind it, in her case), delivered, using the unique curriculum design I’ve been teaching for years, which “teaches to the brain”—then resurrecting a new problem (how to effectively change self-perceived value forever to achieve off-the-charts sales and other business success), which is solved by the next event, the Signature Program.

And that is how 350 people came to register for the “only formula you need for breaking the ceiling on business and life success.” Congratulations, girl!! If you want to find out more about Teresa’s event, click here.

To do this work with me, email info (at) inspiredleadersacademy.com with “I want lots of people on my telecall, too!” in the subject line 🙂 or go read more at: www.inspiredleadersacademy.com/powerhousemethod2.

 

 

10 Years in Business–Tip #62: Are You Building Your Business Around Your Favorite Style?

In my special report, What I Know For Sure: Lessons Learned in 10 Years of Business, I list 75 topic areas that I have bumped into over ten years. And every day in October, I will randomly choose one of the 75 and expound on it. So here’s today’s:

TIP #62 It is essential that you build your business model around how you want to spend your days. You’re working for yourself, not for someone else! You don’t have to be miserable. Do your work the way you like to do it. Be in front of the computer, if that’s how you like to spend your days. Be on the phone, coaching. Get out and teach and speak. Write. But spend it the way you want to spend it.

This is another one of those tips that can be glossed over because you think you are spending your day doing what you love. You love your niche and you love your target market. But are you spending the hours in the processes you love the most? Or are you spending them the way you’ve been told you “should”?

At some point, you need to take stock: are you coaching when you should really just be writing because that’s what you love and it’s where you want your future to go? (A past client of mine just had this aha-moment recently). Are you giving seminars to groups when you really just want to do one-on-one consulting or coaching? Are you giving keynotes, when you really want to be creating changes, which means more time with your audiences than keynotes ever provide? Are you coaching when deep-down you know you’re a teacher? Are you poring over the internet to get clients–engaging with social media–when you really need to be in-person with people?

Are you making choices out of a presumption of what you should do, rather than what you love to do?
It is essential that you build your business, (which means your days) around your favorite things to do.

I’m celebrating 10 years in business all through October with these blog posts, a party/call on Monday, October 10th–and special invitations to take my programs and get my products at deep discounts. Today’s offer: work with me privately. This RARELY happens. Go see the 3 business-building options I’m offering here.

Celebrating 10 Years In Business This Month!!

It was October 2001. After nearly nine months of rigorous study and practice, I charged out of the iPEC Coaching school in New Jersey, where I’d just earned my ICF-accredited certification, and was ready to change the world. After all, two years before, I’d left my marriage to do just that (that’s another story) and I figured it was about time I followed through.

Never mind that I had no idea how to run a business. My father had been a minister, my mother a psychotherapist and the very cornerstones of any successful business—selling and marketing—had never been skills they’d needed, and in fact, they had quite openly disparaged them. While it has become a cliché now, I was one of those who truly believed that all it took to be good in business was being good at what I did. And I was great at coaching. So, it wasn’t much of a leap, I figured, to assume I’d be great in business.

Are you laughing? I wish someone had laughed at me and set me straight back then, but I didn’t have any entrepreneurial friends or family members, so they stepped into the poppy field with me and off we marched into my fantasy.

I soon woke up. With a start.

As I’ve said, I had no idea how to sell—but it was all much worse than just that. I didn’t want to sell. Like, fiercely. I honestly would have rather starved—and if it hadn’t been for my ex-husband, I probably would have. Sales people were desperate, sleazy, manipulative. And since I wasn’t any of those, I was not going to risk my reputation and become them. Lesson 1.

I had no target market. If you’ve been a student or client of mine, you’re openly gaping right now—but I assure you, it’s true: I wanted to be a generalist coach. After all, Marianne Williamson and Wayne Dyer didn’t have narrow markets: they spoke to the whole world and so would I. Lesson 2.

Then there was the clarity thing. It was bad enough that the world didn’t really know what a “coach” was outside of sports–and while making the analogy helped, still, furrowed brows dominated the faces of those to whom I tried to describe this new profession. And since I was a generalist, I had very little compelling to say about what I did. Lesson 3.

There’s more to the story–not trying to tease, but too long for a post. Go get the rest PLUS the 75 lessons I learned the hard way: http://inspiredleadershiptraining.com/10Years/report/

Passing on Tips from Michael Port’s Mastermind

Last week, June 16-18, twenty incredibly wonderful entrepreneurs gathered in the quaint town of Lambertville, NJ, in the conference center of the Lambertville Inn, with Michael Port, of BookYourselfSolid fame. For pictures, check out my facebook page.

A lot was covered, with everyone coming in at different levels, but I wanted to share with you some of the tid-bits from the weekend. Enjoy…and *consume* them!

1. Target market is EVERYTHING. (I tell my clients this ad nauseum.) As with my own clientele, 85% of the people in the room (out of 20) either had no target market, OR didn’t have a narrow enough one. NEW TIP: you can choose a target market around a common interest of theirs: 2 examples that came up—“golfers,” even if you do not sell anything for golfers, but it’s a strong hobby of yours; or “Christians”—even if you are not selling a Christian item. This is actually a brilliant way to instantly accelerate the “trust-factor”—because you will have an emotional bond with them that is stronger than anything else.

2. Imperative question: What kind of business do I want to be in? How do I really want to spend my day? Do I really want to be on the phone?? Do I really want to do group calls? You answer determines your business model.

3. Information Products—worry less about your price, and more about how many units you’re selling because that is the indicator of how many clients you’ll get.

Must help them “consume” your products with immediate and compelling follow-up.

4. How are you doing with your processes? Like, the steps you go through when doing anything for business? You should have them written down so that if something happens to you, someone else can step in, take over the steps, and know when and where to implement them. For instance—getting out your email newsletter involves a certain # of steps. Write each one down. Then do it for getting a blog post out, etc. TEDIOUS work, but essential.

5. Have you planned out your deliverables for the next 12 months? What you must produce, how much it will cost you, how much it will make you (for each one). Then, break that into 6 month and 3-month deliverables.

6. Look into “live support” software! A window pops up on your screen so you can see when anyone is on your website!! Then you can do and introduce yourself to them and ask if you can help. Cool, huh?! (Ask your web-designer about it.)

7. Put your opt-in box on the bottom of EVERY BLOG POST!

8. Getting lots of mysterious spam lately? It could be because you have your email address on your site with the @ sign. Change @ to this exactly: “at”

9. Some URL’s to check out:

            www.Gomockingbird.com—design the layout of your website with this cool tool, and then send it to your graphic designer!

           www.Basecamphq.com –manage all of your products. People swear by it. I’ve never used it.

           www.Backpackit.com—if you’ve got a team; this is great. People at the seminar were raving about it.  Or www.37signals.com that includes the 2 above, plus others.

            www.Highrisehq.com–a web-based CRM software that prepares you for your next call, meeting, pitch, follow-up, and sale.

            www.Uberview.com—plugin that pulls in all twitter mentions into your blog comments.

            www.Solid.ly—(One of Michael’s new businesses): Simple, sound and satisfying daily activities to build your network and get booked solid. It’s in beta right now, so you can sign up to be one of the first to try it!

What from this list stood out the most for you?

� 2011-14 Inspired Leaders Academy. All Rights Reserved.