4 P’s to Business Success

If you know me and my work at all, you know I am a big fan of having a solid foundation that allows you to build a business of any model or size to any scale you wish.

I’m a big fan of systems, metrics and all things controllable and measurable that goes along with them.

But I also believe that with these items, there are 4 P’s (principals or pillars) that must be understood and worked on that hold up a service and consulting business structure.




These P’s stand in the 4 corners of your business “building” and hold up the walls and ceilings that make up this structure. They are individual to each other but also attached as well.

Without them there, you can’t build solid walls or ceilings in each floor of your business structure as it grows and because they are also attached to each other, if those attachments don’t exist it makes the structure even weaker.

Those 4 P’s are:

• Positioning
• Processes
• Pricing
• Profits

Sounds simple and it is. But more often than not most small businesses struggle because one or more pillars do not exist or are too weak to do the job that needs to be done. Understanding what they are really all about as well as how they interact usually starts the light bulbs going on as to why certain parts of a business are struggling.

It’s too much to explain here but I will be at Harry Brelsford’s SMB Nation East doing a Pre-day event on the 4 P’s for anyone to come to (you do not have to be going to SMB East). The date is April 29th from 1pm to 5pm. Early bird pricing of $49 is available until March 31st ($99 after that date). Link is here http://consultantscoach.com/smbeastpreday.php

I hope to see you there to enlighten you on Positioning, Processes, Pricing and Profits as well as how they work together.

In addition I will also be doing a session on May 1st at the SMB Nation East event entitled 6 Systems Your Business Can’t Live Without. This will be a great addition to the pre-day topic.
Hope to see you there.


To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Developing Valuable Email Marketing Lists

Email marketing is by no means a perfect medium. To be honest, if it wasn't free to send emails, the return on investment would be no different than the best direct mail campaign.

But that's really what email marketing is... direct mail with no postage required.





In some ways it's a much harder thing to pull off than direct mail because you don't have many options to compel someone to open it.

And of course the other minor snafu... being nailed as a spammer. This can happen even if you did everything right and emailed the best content to someone that GAVE YOU their email address. Some will forget that little detail and complain anyway.

Sometimes you just can't win and the only saving grace is that a wasted stamp was unnecessary.

Now to my real point.

Just like absolutely any type of marketing, email marketing starts out with the list. Who you are sending an email to matched with a headline (subject) and then the right message in the content is key. Just as important as it is with mail or calls or knocking on doors.

So how do you make the best, most responsive list? Watch this 7 minute video below for a few pointers to generate and manage a solid email list:

As I said in the video this can be a pretty comprehensive conversation to fit all of the pieces together and make a plan to have it work as a part of your particular business's marketing campaigns. But having an understanding of a good list, ways to make that list (without buying it) and tools to manage it are important basics.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments below or to feed me with any topics you may want to see covered on the blog.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Planning Vs. Implementation

Many business owners that I come across suffer from the same problem. They have a very difficult time with getting their business to operate in the way they envision it. It's not so much a lack of planning, but really a lack of implementation.

The first step in getting past this blockade is to realize the thing or things that are standing in your way and making yourself accountable to break those barriers down.




It usually comes down to one or several of these six common blockages:

• Fear of failure
• Lack of direction
• No proven system
• Nobody to ask for help or a fear of doing so
• Lack of organization
• No clarity in goals

Ultimately these six items contribute to procrastination or no implementation of what needs to be done to bring a plan to fruition. Once you identify what's truly holding you back, then you have the ability to adjust to get around these items and/or get help in doing so.

Once you set yourself up to go from planning to actually executing or implementing, the best way to keep yourself moving forward is to keep things in bite size chunks or smaller goals to reach the ultimate goal. This will help in keeping you from slipping back into what was originally blocking you.

Of course setting metrics to measure how well you are doing with these smaller goals and let you know when you have reached the ultimate goal is a must.

Don't let any blockages get in the way of achieving what is your right to go after. Realizing there is a problem and doing what needs to be done to stay on the path you have chosen is the difference between a business that is OK and one that makes a difference for you and your clients.


To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach