Blind Leading the Blind

Let's get right into the blind leading the blind with an example using kids. What if you had a child that wanted to learn how to play baseball? I'll assume you admit to knowing nothing about baseball fundamentals so you decide to send your kid to a coach for help.

Very smart move. Now how do you choose this coach for your very impressionable child while you pay for it with your hard earned money?

Would you take them to a gym teacher that teaches kids baseball on the side but has no particular baseball experience? Would you take him to a little league coach that is nothing but a huge baseball fan coaching a group of tykes because his child is on the team? Would either of these types of people be worth $50 an hour? $20 an hour? $5 an hour?

The obvious answer to all of these questions is just plain NO.

So who would you trust with your child and your money? Well, my thoughts would be a High School or College coach. Or someone that has played organized baseball at a high level such as in college or professionally. That would certainly be worth the money and time and would provide a huge value.

Of course the method of coaching and teaching would also be a factor. Do they coach on an individual basis, as a group or a combination of both. Do they have instructional videos available for self learning? All of these ways have their merits and probably should be tried to find out which method or combination would work best for the individual.

So what exactly is my point here? Well, there's actually a bunch so let's break into them.

First, every athlete from beginner to elite pro, has had and still has a coach and teacher to learn new things, keep them on track, and hold them accountable for whatever mental mistakes they make so they can avoid doing them again. These coaches have been above the athlete's current level. This allows them to teach the unknown and prepare for the next level before they are handed off to another coach.

If they haven't reached the level the athlete is going for, they can only do so much in coaching them to a higher level. Experience at this higher level is very often a must but hands on knowledge of the basics are definitely needed.

When an athlete gets help from someone who has never played the game and is taking a guess at the basics from say watching games on TV... it's the blind leading the blind.

Now let's bring this back to your business. Every successful business owner has had, and continues to have, contact from a mentor, coach, or advisor that has already been in their shoes before with the hands on experience to help them out.

Do they take advice on operating and building their business from someone that has never even owned a business before? Of course not.

Do they look for answers from people that have never done anything but read other people's business books or has an academic business degree? I sure hope not since we would be back to the blind leading the blind again.

Are you getting my point yet? I'm pretty sure you are.

Even Bill Gates doesn't know everything about business. He surrounds himself with smart people as his employees and experienced smart business people as his mentors. Just like you, he needs the input from others that have personally met the milestones he's looking at which is needed to draw from their experience.

Don't be an island in running and building your business. But also don't just read books (especially by authors who have never left the security of a paycheck based job) and go to meetings that surround you with other information craving entrepreneurs.

Find a mentor and coach (or more than 1 for that matter) that has already been where you want to go and has the ability and desire to share that knowledge with you. Do it individually and/or in a group but make sure that leader you are following is a true experienced mentor and not a down sized Fortune 500 Vice President.

I'm telling you this help is worth its weight in gold especially to speed up the process in reaching your goals. Think about how much that's really worth to you in terms of money and time spent.

Keep on keepin' on.

Working Hours for Dollars vs Developing a Business

Hi, All-

Don't get me wrong with the title. Getting paid for your time is a good thing and anytime you can get paid upfront for your time is a really good thing.

My point is that as a business owner, you want to be the person in your company working the least amount of hours and maximizing the dollars you are getting for it. Why? Because you need to be spending a good chunk, if not all, of your time doing the strategic portions of your business like product/service development and marketing work.

It becomes even more important if you are a one person show. Especially if you want to stay that way without relying on the need to always increase prices or the amount of time you work to put more money in your pocket.

So how do you do this? Well, you need to figure out a way or 2 or 3 to take your niche or niches and add to what you can provide for these same customers. And even more importantly, make the added products or services and the sale of them as automated as possible.

Take for example someone that owns a programming service that develops custom web-based products for their clients. What would happen if they could develop a webinar course for their customer base on how to properly do something related to using web-based systems? Or made a tiny program that runs inside of a web-based program that all of their clients can use as an add-on to make them more money or save time?

I'll tell you what will happen. They will have created something that they have inside knowledge about concerning its usefulness for their client niche and in the process be able to sell it to a captive audience with no more effort that sending a letter, email or newsletter letting them know it's available.

That's called building passive income inside of your niche of customers. And there's nothing to stop you from taking it online and automating it from marketing through sale and delivery.

Is there something inside of your client/business niche(s) that you can use to create additional income streams?

There is No "Easy" Button

Hello my business owner friends. Have you seen the Staples commercials over the past few months with their "Easy" button? What a great concept!

Too bad there is no such thing. Well, actually, you should be glad about that because if there was a "make a lot of money owning my own business- easy button", everybody would be able to be a huge business success. Which in turn would make nobody successful.

Does that actually make sense? Probably not but it is the truth.

Here's my point: If you are reading this blog, then you have a distinct advantage over others in your industry. Why? Because you have already realized not onyl that being a business success is not easy and takes hard work as well as the fact that you need help in doing it.

Most people in the world are looking for things to be handed to them. They think tools such as the Internet will automatically send them massive amounts of money by doing nothing.

Let me let you in on a little secret: Nobody that has done well online or offline has had it happen instantaneously and it was never a guarantee. Even those you may feel have been "handed" a thriving business have no success guarantees.

Let's take George Bush for example. He was handed several businesses and he tanked every one of them. We're not even going to get into the country he was handed that is now nothing like it was. Bottom line. President Bush is not a good business person so even handing him a great opportunity doesn't help.

Getting back to my point, I want to congratulate you on being intelligent enough to read this blog and anything/anybody else you go to for help and support.

People spend a lot of money to avoid work instead of paying to actually learning to do something and then applying it. It's amazing. And these are the same suckers that buy every get rich quick scheme out there.

There is no magic pill. Look at any successful person in any field including sports. Even if they were handed an opportunity, they are only still in that great position because they learned what they needed to know to stay there.

So again, congrats on looking to better yourself and your business by reading this information. Please stay away from the "Easy" button BS and I'll be right here to push you through to your goals.

6 Changes You Can Make to Increase Business Profits

Use this checklist to make sure you are taking best advantage of all the opportunities for earnings that would be arriving safely if you only plugged up those holes.

1. Improve your follow-up. According to the National Sales Executive Association, only about two percent of sales occur on the first contact. Eighty percent of sales require at least five contacts before the transaction occurs. You must repeat that message again and again before it wakes up busy people to what you are offering and also to hit them when they are ready and in need of your help.

2. Put your marketing activities on schedule with a plan. I see a lot of businesses living the "feast or famine" syndrome, where they stop marketing when times are good and therefore have no pipeline in place bringing them new leads when the economy slows down.

3. Increase your personal productivity by working at your most creative times. Follow this process that creativity researchers will tell you is used by top scientists and inventors: Absorb all the facts and define the challenge for yourself, then go to sleep, take a walk or step into the shower.

4. Stop unproductive marketing activities, boosting your profits. Advertising pros know that most advertising doesn't work, but they continue to spend like crazy because part of it does. If you can identify which marketing efforts of yours are not giving you a return, and stop spending money and energy on those, you'll be earning more from what you spend.

5. Market more often to your customer base - much more often. Hardly anyone stays in touch with existing and past customers often enough. They think they might be "bothering" their clientele by letting them know about new products/services, opportunities to buy before a price increase, success stories of other customers like them, and so on.

6. Hire help for mechanical tasks or a virtual assistant to help manage communications. Feeling overwhelmed? If you can make, let's say, $100 an hour doing what you do best, you should not be spending too much energy on routine things. An exception to this principle is when you do the repetitive tasks as a break or rest from money-making activities that tire you out.

Increasing your productivity means increasing the income from your business without spending more hours working.