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Step one to Success.

May 28, 2013 by

Creating and keeping healthy business (and personal) relationships it at the core of success. Some relationships are for a lifetime. Business relationships are in most cases time dated in that either the relationship is at one passing point of sale or last throughout the course of a business. Thinking about your business as a ‘factory’ for building good relationships will give you a sense of how  relationships are the meet and bones of your business. The blood of your business is of course, positive cash flow.

Back in the day “the customer was King” was our mantra. But I’m going to recommend something a bit more radicle. Depending on what kind of business you are in the type and term of your business relationships may vary. Howeve,r the more you put into the ‘relationship’ the bigger the return. This is common sense but harder to do than to talk about.

I do stand on the golden rule: treat others as you would treat yourself. However, some of us don’t treat ourselves very well do we? If you are overworked and underpaid, well you get my point. That said, the goal is to be as present with your customers and potential customers as possible. What does “be present” mean?

Technically, to be present means that all your focus, your attention is with the other person. To accomplish this I recommend you take a deep breath each time you engage someone and then focus your eyes on their eyes while standing not too close. Breathe into your belly thru your chest and back out. This may take practice…so practice with another person or at least in front of the mirror. Etiquette may dictate that you shake hands or more likely at work, you may have a greeting already prepared. No matter what you say, saying it from a grounded place will be way more effective than as an automatic greeting usually sounds. Greeting someone from this grounded place will have a positive effect for you and the person you’re greeting.

This may be a baby step on the road to building customer relations but it is a very important step. Do not skip this step. Again try this exercise and practice it until the people close to you notice “something different”. This is not about being forceful or manipulative. This is about you being REAL and in the moment. The better you get at this the more successful you will be…in whatever you do.

Practice, Practice, Practice.

mgmauldin

Filed Under: Strategies for Success, Tips

Work as a Pilgrimage

May 20, 2013 by

In David Whyte’s well written and insightful book “Crossing the Unknown Sea—Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity”, we are given a new perspective on what it means to ‘work’ in the world. This is no small thing.

How many times in the course of your life, or the course of a year or even sometimes in the course of a day do we pause and say “what the heck is going on here?” The real question is, “what the heck is going on with me”?

Sure, we all have our bad days, our out of sort days, our wish I were somewhere else days. However, David’s insights go to a deeper level a level I find that will come up in my coaching conversations with clients more frequently than not.

Let’s make a leap, an assumption for a moment. What if…what if the world you are looking out at right now is a reflection of what is going on inside you right now. Yes, that’s a big jump I know, but stay with me a moment.

Is everything as it should be? As you look out there do you see your life flowing along? Is your work life, your business flowing along? Are there small ripples or large waves flowing across your life’s pond of tranquility? If so, do you know what created those waves, or how to let them subside? Maybe you like waves. Maybe you like sailing and a strong wind suits you. However, without a rudder a strong winds will blow you where they will, not where you intended to go.

Mr. Whyte’s book is about the journey we take once we commit ourselves to a given path we call our job or our business. If you have your own business or work for someone else you have chosen to do so and in doing so you become and/or must ‘own’ that role. So now you have responsibilities and time constraints and commitments that you must bring yourself to…all of yourself, your fully present and aware self if you intend to be successful in that role.

Work for ninety nine per cent of us is more than one third of our daily existence. Many business owners will spend more time working than time with family, friends, and even sleep. Is that a given? Is that not the way it’s done you may tort. As a former entrepreneur there was a time I could only see the trees and not the forest. Please do not take this as a criticism but rather a poke at your ‘reality’ beliefs.

One of my clients has a business that is not yet 5 years old and which is not yet over the profitability hump but is well on its way. He is young and ambitious and married and with kids and has tremendous discipline. He only works 8 to 10 hours a day 5 days a week. Not 6 or 7 days a week, just 5. He has a life because he values the rest of his life as much or more than his work life. Also, he loves his work life and the challenges it brings him. His ocean has its rough and smooth days but he stays fully present and has learned, with help, to sail with the wind, rudder in hand going in the direction he intends. Can you say that?

Getting back to Mr. Whyte’s insights, he is saying that one of our greatest opportunities for discovery and growth is in our work life. If you think about the times in each work day where you either get to make a choice or engage in relating to someone else you will have in those moments the opportunities of which David speaks so eloquently. Work is about creating successful relationships. Creating successful relationships with yourself, your family, your co-workers, your employees, your customers, your vendors, and your environment will lead to a meaningful life, a successful life, a rewarding life. This is the life you want to see in the mirror of your day.

What does it take to create such successful relationships?

More to come…enjoy your week, and stay in touch.

mgmauldin

Filed Under: Strategies for Success

What drives you?

May 13, 2013 by

What ‘drives’ you?
What are your motives?
Do you know who you can trust?
Do you think you know the answers to these questions?

Something (or someone) is always ‘driving’ us, pushing and pulling us. Getting in touch with what that is, and where ‘it’ comes from can and will make the difference in creating a happy healthy successful life in business.

If you find yourself searching, seeking for some kind of assistance, some boost or pat on the back and recognition, I invite you to sign up here.

Success can be had on many levels. A well balanced life will be one with few if any regrets. Meeting life’s challenges, most of which we create ourselves are for one primary purpose: to learn, and from that learning, prospering and experiencing joy and comfort.

I recommend that a ‘sober’ evaluation of one’s choices and motivations for those choices be done. Whether you are just starting out in business or moving past that important 5th year milestone an annual ‘taking stock’ of oneself is always a good idea.

Taking stock is an older phrase originally used in business…as in accounting for one’s inventory. The word ‘stock’ also could mean shares of a business, or reaching back in time could also mean a device for holding one in place: “stock and chains”.

What are your talents, what are your shortcomings, what is missing from the business plan, where is the plan out of balance? Are you taking home at least a living wage? Does the business turn a reasonable profit? Maybe your business is a hobby? These may be easy questions to answer yes or no to. However, often it’s what is beneath the “yes” or “no” answer that will lead one to the truth in a given situation.

If you have chosen to be a business person, and more so, if you chose to be an owner of a business then you have chosen (consciously or not) to have those kinds of challenges that will help you become the skillful person you truly want to be. To go down the path of facing challenges and learning how you create them is not an easy task or one you should do alone. Get outside help! Friends can be a great help but they may not have the skill set to really help coach you through certain business challenges.

My intension is that through this blog and our interactions much will be gained by all who participate. Reading and responding to the blog will be helpful for all who are reading along. We can learn from each other and save time and money in doing so.

That said some issues are too complicated to be fully served via this one blog. The smallbusinessinaction.com website connected to this blog is also available as well as reaching me directly via the contact form.

I offer this blog to be a sober place to take stock of your business self, your actions, and thoughts. You will not find judgements or useless negative criticisms but rather an open forum of ideas and possible solutions.

Welcome,

mgmauldin

Filed Under: Analysis, Planning, Strategies for Success, Uncategorized

The Challenge of Leadership

November 14, 2011 by

“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude;
be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be
humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without
folly.”

~ Jim Rohn

Good leaders are made not born. If you have the desire and willpower, you can
become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a never ending process
of self-study, education, training, and experience. This guide will help you
through that process.

To inspire your workers into higher levels of teamwork, there are certain things
you must be, know, and, do. These do not come naturally, but are
acquired through continual work and study. Good leaders are continually working
and studying to improve their leadership skills; they are NOT resting on their
laurels.

Before we get started, lets define leadership. Leadership is a process by which a
person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the
organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent.

Leaders carryout this process by applying their leadership attributes. Although your position as a
manager, supervisor, lead, etc. gives you the authority to accomplish certain
tasks and objectives in the organization, this power does not make you a leader, it
simply makes you the boss. Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to achieve high goals, rather
than simply bossing people around.

Achieving excellence through performance is accomplished in two major ways. The first way
is taking a proactive stance by unearthing or preventing counter-productive
methods. For example, you might implement diversity and sexual harassment
training programs before they become a problem within the organization.

The second way is to correct performance problems that arise within the
organization. This is accomplished by first, identifying the root cause
and secondly, implementing a plan of action to correct the problem. Although
people are our most important asset, it sometimes seems as if they are our
biggest headache.

There are four major causes of performance problems:

  • Knowledge
    or Skills     – The employee does not know how to perform the
    process correctly – lack of skills, knowledge, or abilities.
  • Process
    – The problem is not employee related, but is caused by working conditions,
    improper procedures, etc.
  • Resources
    – Lack of resources or technology.
  • Motivation
    or Culture     – The employee knows how to perform, but does so
    incorrectly.
  •              Watch your thoughts; they become words.
    • Watch your words; they become actions.
    • Watch your actions; they become habits.
    • Watch your habits; they become character.
    • Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
    • – Frank Outlaw

Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs

  • 8.
    Self-transcendence – a transegoic
  •  level that emphasizes visionary intuition, altruism, and unity
    consciousness.
  • 7.
    Self-actualization – know exactly who you
    are, where you are going, and what you want to accomplish. A state of
    well-being.
  • 6.
    Aesthetic – at peace, more
    curious about the inner workings of all things.
  • 5.
    Cognitive – learning for learning
    alone, contribute knowledge.
  • 4.
    Esteem – feeling of moving up
    in world, recognition, few doubts about self.
  • 3.
    Belongingness and love – belong to a group,
    close friends to confide with.
  • 2.
    Safety – feel free from
    immediate danger.
  1. 1.
    Physiological – food, water,
    shelter, sex.

 

Filed Under: Analysis, Strategies for Success

Why Most Ads Don’t Work

June 25, 2011 by

10 Essential Strategies to Ensure that your Advertising is a Success

1. If your Advertising isn’t working – STOP IT!
Let’s start with the simple stuff. If you are running advertising that is not working, please stop it!

I know it sounds obvious but here’s what often happens: People run advertising because they feel they ought to. They’re not really sure if it’s working but they are hesitant to stop it because it may be one of their main forms of marketing.

By the end of this report you will have enough information to ensure that you are never in that position again. You will either be running great ads that produce great results, or you will be spending your marketing money elsewhere.

2. Only use Direct Response Advertising
There are two types of advertising – direct response advertising and brand advertising.

Understanding the distinction between the two will immediately save you a fortune.

Brand advertising is used by companies like Coca Cola and the large car manufacturers to build and increase awareness of their brand. Unless you have huge amounts of money which you are happy to lose, you should avoid brand advertising at all costs. For a small business it is a complete waste of money.

The only type of advertising you ever want to consider is direct response advertising. The only purpose of direct response advertising is to produce a clear response.

The type of response may vary depending on the type of business you are in and your overall marketing strategy. You may want the response to be an immediate purchase. You may want the response to be for someone to contact you to ask for a brochure.

The great thing about direct response advertising is that you can instantly tell whether it is working (see the next point) It either produces a response or it doesn’t. One of the reasons that most small business advertising does not work is that it’s a combination of half hearted direct response and highly ineffective brand advertising.

Fortunately, you now know the difference. In the land of the small or medium business, direct response is King!

3. Testing and Measuring
It is absolutely essential that you test and measure all of your advertising.

If we are going to engage in direct response advertising we obviously need to be able to measure that response, otherwise we are not going to know if the ad is working.

At the very least we need to know how many people responded, how many of them were converted to a sale and what that is worth to you. Then you need to compare that figure to the cost of the ad and you can immediately work out how profitable the ad was, or whether you should stop running it.

So many businesses just allocate a certain mount of money to an advertising budget, spend the money every year…and they’ve only got a vague sense of whether the ads are working are not. This is crazy. If your ads are working, you want to roll them out on a larger scale. If they’re not, STOP and use the money on one of the dozens of other marketing strategies that can bring you a 100 or 200 or 300% return on your investments.

You will obviously need some sort of system for asking people who contact you for the first time where they heard about you. If you have a larger business, you may even want to set up a separate phone line with a number that only appears in your ad. If you’re directing people to a website, you may want to set up a special web page that also only appears in your ad. This will ensure that you can clearly identify when people are responding to your advertising.

4. Your Headline is the most important part of your Ad
In the ad itself the most important element is the headline. The headline is either the heading that goes at the top of the ad or if there’s no heading it’s the first words of the ad. The headline needs to grab peoples’ attention. One change in a headline can produce a 50-100% increase in response.

One of the biggest challenges that any advertiser faces is getting people to read their ad – let alone for the ad to produce a result. So the main purpose of the headline is not to sell your product – it’s just to get people to read your ad.

The headline should be about your readers – not about you. If your headline has the name of your business in it, you are probably losing out. Imagine you owned a company selling fire alarms. Which of these headlines do you think would be most likely to get the reader’s attention:

Simpson Fire Alarms – Your Guarantee of Safety

OR

Is your Family’s Life worth the price of a round of Drinks?

Be adventurous with your headlines. Test different versions to see what works best. There are no rules – except what works.

5. Remember AIDA
There’s a classic formula used by advertisers and it’s well worth remembering. The formula is AIDA. This stands for

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

If you follow this formula in every ad that you write, you will greatly increase your chances of success.

Attention – the first thing your ad needs to do is grab the reader’s attention. You achieve this with your headline.

Interest – once you’ve got their attention, you need to create an interest in your product or service.

Desire – There is a big difference between being interested in a product or service and desiring it. You need to convert the reader’s interest into a strong desire for what you are offering.

Action – Even if someone desires what you have, it is not enough until they take action. At the end of the ad you need a call to action. Tell people exactly what they need to do to follow through and make it easy for them to do so.

6. Benefits, Benefits, Benefits
One of the principles that should drive all of your marketing is communicating the benefits of your product or service.

The copy of your ad needs to be a personal communication to the individual reading it. And it needs to be about them. It needs to address their needs, desires and fears and it needs to constantly communicate the benefits of what you are offering.

Nobody will buy anything from you until they have explicitly understood how they will benefit from what you have to offer. So here’s a useful tip. When you’ve written your ad, imagine stepping into the shoes of your prospective customer. From this perspective does the add fully convey what those benefits are? If not go back and fine tune the ad until it feels right.

7. Don’t Advertise on a Left Hand Page
This one piece of knowledge can turn an unsuccessful ad campaign into a successful one. This has been tested again and again. When you read a publication, your eyes are drawn to the right hand page as you flick through so statistically, more people will see your ad if it’s on the right hand page.

If you look at the big national magazines and newspapers, you will see that most of the large advertisers are on the right hand pages. The few that appear on the left hand pages will be paying less because their advertising agencies know that less people will see the ad.

When you book your ad space, tell them you want it on a right hand page. Very few people in your position ask for this, so the publication will normally oblige. If they tell you they can’t guarantee it – tell them you’ll advertise in a future edition when they can guarantee it. You’ll soon discover how obliging they can be!

8. Never pay the full rate for advertising
Apart from knowing that you want your ad on a right hand page, the person selling you the advertising needs to know very early on that you have absolutely no intention of paying the full rate.

Most advertising rate cards are far too high and you can always negotiate. If you’re a small business remember that large companies who use ad agencies are buying based on the readership or audience levels rather than the rate card – so haggle and negotiate. If you can pay 20 or 30% less for your ads it can turn an unprofitable ad into a successful one.

Here’s another handy little trick to pay less for your advertising. The closer to the deadline you can book your ad, the better. Sales teams work towards targets and as the deadline approaches they get more desperate to fill the ad space. They become far more open to negotiation.

9. Don’t Follow the Competition
One of the biggest mistakes people make is advertising in publications just because their competitors are in them. Don’t for a minute think that all your competitors are there because their ads are producing great results. They’re more likely to be there because everyone else is and most of them wont have a clue whether their ads are working.

In fact, this is a well known sales trick used by the people selling ad space. If they can get one or two of your competitors to advertise, they can call you up and tell you how you’ll lose out if you don’t advertise too. What they fail to mention is that your competitors probably never test their advertising, often haven’t got a clue how to market and are only advertising because they think you will. This is a highly effective way to sustain the advertising industry. It’s not a great way for you to run your business.

12. Don’t buy into the myth that Advertising is essential for your Business Success
Now that I’ve shared some of the strategies for making your advertising work for you – I’ll let you into a secret. I’m not a huge fan of advertising for small businesses. If you can get it right it works brilliantly – but generally, advertising is one of the least effective ways to grow a business.

There seems to be a cultural myth that to run a successful business, you must advertise. Whoever came up with that one is the same person who said that if you get a university degree you’re guaranteed a great, fulfilling career.

Advertising is just one of many marketing options that you have. But you really shouldn’t be dependent on it. In fact, here’s a strategy I use with my clients which is really powerful:

When I work with a client, one of my goals is to get them to the point where they have so much great marketing going on it makes little difference to their business if they stop advertising.

Why do I do this? Because quite honestly I’ve seen more business owners pull their hair out through advertising problems than anything else. Ultimately, my work isn’t about marketing. It’s about Freedom. It’s about giving business owners the freedom that comes from having a successful and profitable business which is supported by multiple pillars of marketing.

It’s hard to be free when the future of your business involves trying to get a couple of ads to work in a crappy local newspaper.

So start to think out of the box. Ideally, you should be using a combination of up to at least ten other marketing strategies to grow you business. They include (but are not limited to).

  • Telephone Marketing
  • Direct Mail
  • Internet
  • Email marketing
  • Direct Sales
  • PR (Why spend money on advertising when PR gives you coverage for free)
  • Strategic Alliances
  • Lead Response Marketing
  • A multi-level Referral system

Have a look at this list. How many of these are you implementing in your business? More importantly, what would happen to your business if you could start to combine some of these extra marketing approaches? How would that effect your profits? What would that do to your financial freedom?

Here’s another thought. At least four of the items on this list will cost you either nothing or very little to implement. Why throw money at advertising when some of the best marketing is Free?

Thanks to Cris Cardell for his insights.

Filed Under: Marketing

Jane Applegate’s Management, Money & Time Quiz

June 25, 2011 by

Self-Help Quizzes and Do-It-Yourself diagnostics are popular features in women’s magazines, but rarely appear in business books.  Yet it’s worth taking a few minutes to think about how you are coping with the toughest job in America—running a small business.

Being an entrepreneur is incredibly stressful.  Despite computers, cellular phones, pagers, scanners, and e-mail, an entrepreneur’s life is not simple.  For most of us, it’s a chaotic juggling act.

So spend a few minutes with this quiz.  There are no right or wrong answers.  It’s meant to provoke thought—and action.

There are three sections: Management and Personnel, Money, and Time.

Management and Personnel

  1. Do you dread it when someone walks into your office to speak to you privately?
  2. When was the last time you had breakfast or lunch with your key employees?
  3. When was the last time you hosted an offsite staff meeting?
  4. Have you implemented any new ideas proposed by your staff since the beginning of the year?
  5. If you had a magic wand and could vaporize aggravating employees, who would be on your list?
  6. Do you spend an inordinate amount of time each day handling personnel conflicts?
  7. When was the last time you hired someone?
  8. Fired someone?
  9. Do you offer onsite training or tuition reimbursement?
  10. Do you have a mentor or colleague to call when things aren’t going well?

Based on your answers, you might want to make some personnel changes.  Life is too short to work with anyone who gives you a headache or a stomachache.  In a small business, every person counts.  And, since you’re the boss, you can choose who you work with every day.  If there is a “storm cloud” on your staff, think seriously about replacing that person.  Why pay someone money to make your life miserable?  On the positive side, take advantage of your staff’s bright ideas.  You are paying them to be smart and creative. Let them do their job.

Money

  1. When was the last time you spoke with your banker?
  2. Have you thought about next year’s tax return?
  3. Without opening your business checkbook, how much money is in your account?
  4. How many of your accounts are past due?
  5. How much money do you owe to vendors?
  6. Are sales higher or lower than last year’s at this point?
  7. Do you have enough money to buy the new equipment you need to boost productivity?
  8. Is your accountant doing everything legally possible to minimize your taxes?
  9. Is he or she up-to-date on the new tax laws and provisions?
  10. How many new clients or customers have you gained since January?  How many have you lost?

Too many business owners play ostrich when it comes to facing financial issues.  You need to monitor your cash flow every day, every week, and every month.  Slow-paying or no-paying customers are not worth having, and it may be time to fire them.  Be sure to communicate openly with your banker—bankers hate surprises.

Time

  1. How much time do you take for yourself every day?
  2. Do you feel exhausted before going to work?
  3. Are you working longer hours, but not accomplishing much?
  4. Is your to-do list longer than your shopping list?
  5. Do you have trouble keeping track of phone numbers and important notes and papers?
  6. Is your desk a mess and your to-read pile sky-high?
  7. Do your family and friends say you look tired?
  8. When was the last time you took two weeks off?
  9. How many times a day do you laugh? (It’s important!)
  10. Is your Palm Pilot or Visor overloaded with data?

No one is busier than a business owner.  But being busy does not necessarily mean being productive.  If you find you have little or no time for yourself every day, make some.  Try taking a short walk or afternoon nap rather than gulping coffee.  Ask a staffer to clip interesting newspaper and magazine articles and put them in a file.  Then tote them along to read while you are waiting in line for appointments.  Bring your calendar home at the beginning of the month and ask your family to book some time with you.  Put those dates in ink and don’t change them.  Taking care of yourself should be your first priority, because so many people depend on you.

Filed Under: Strategies for Success Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Ready, Fire, Aim…

June 25, 2011 by

Instead of “ready, fire, aim”, use these 10 questions to guide your business strategy.

  1. What benefit do you offer the consumer?
  2. Exactly who is your consumer? Be specific.
  3. What is your position relative to your competitors?
  4. What barriers exist to keep others from stealing your market share?
  5. How will you (personally) communicate with your customers?
  6. How will you measure the response of your promotions?
  7. Do you have sufficient inventory and manpower to deal with increased demand?
  8. Have you worked through the non-media tools to ensure that you’ve established the framework for a successful media campaign?
  9. What is your month-by-month media plan? Have you planned for enough frequency with your target market? Do you have enough money budgeted to support the plan even if initial sales are weak?
  10. Does your media meet your tactical and strategic goals, or is it just pretty?
Filed Under: Analysis, Strategies for Success

The Secret of Leveraging Your Business

June 24, 2011 by

The secret of leveraging your business is to find an organization or individual with established relationships to a customer base.  Pay that organization for access to the customers, and you both win.

For example, a database software maker could team up with the largest word processing software maker in Japan to sell his database software to Japanese company’s clients.  Or a long distance phone company could sell service to donors to the Leukemia Foundation.  The possibilities are limitless.  Here are seven places you can look for affinity partners:

1.  Nonprofit organizations

2.  Niche businesses with a similar audience

3.  Niche celebrities

4.  Sporting events and franchises

5.  Service providers (doctors or consultants or lawyers…)

6.  Retailers

7.  Leading manufacturers in foreign markets

 

Filed Under: Strategies for Success Tagged With: ,
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