Everything you thought you knew about business survival is

WRONG

During this eye-opening program, we’re going to show you how to accomplish the following:

• Double your current lead flow month over month • Double your current sales volume • Simple easy-to-implement, no-cost strategies that instantly

add cash flow • How to effectively market on the internet • How to get your website 10X more traffic • How to harness your database to maximize repeat business • How to set up joint venture partners that promote your

business for you

Virtual Focus group workbook

Goals and Time management

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One of the most basic and fundamental reasons why so many businesses fail is because the owners do not write down their goals for the business. Whether it be in the form of a structured business plan or a simple wish list of targets and objectives, it is absolutely critical to formulate a plan. This way you can articulate the long-term vision for your business.

Far too often, business owners make comments such as "I haven't needed a plan so far so why do I need one now?" or "I don't need to write down my goals because I've got them in my head!"

There have been countless studies over the years proving the immense power of writing your goals down on paper. The physical act of putting pen to paper and constant referral to these goals actually strengthens certain neural pathways within the brain. This will help you subconsciously to move toward your goals.

Setting weekly and monthly goals is not only a very important habit for you to develop, but also one you should encourage your staff to embrace. Recent studies have revealed that approximately 10% of the population seeks higher learning. The other 90% have to be forced or encouraged to learn new skills. Simply asking your staff to set some goals for themselves probably won't work, and more than likely you will have to start this process for them yourself.

It has been proven that providing targets and quotas for each staff member can have a dramatic impact on

their results and productivity. In this program, each section allows you to rate the relevancy to your business

as well as your proficiency in the topic. It also allows you to set some goals , and may well be the most

important in the program.

NOTES:

Fundamentals of marketing

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Over the years, many studies have been conducted on what determines a successful marketing campaign. While the obvious answer is in how many extra products or services are sold, in today’s marketplace it’s not as easy as that. Many marketing campaigns are designed to do more than increase sales. Some are designed to increase consumer awareness of a brand, to implement damage control, or one of several other reasons. One thing is for sure: whether you’re a big business or a small business, it’s easy to get it wrong, and MOST businesses do get it wrong! Here are the fundamentals of marketing that every business owner MUST know and follow:

First, have something good to say. You do that by creating a market-dominating position (be unique). Being unique will make you 10 times more money than being “better” ever will.

Second, you must say it well. We suggest following a formula that we call the “Conversion Equation”: Interrupt, Engage, Educate and Offer. Interrupt with a headline that defines the problem your prospect has and doesn’t want. Engage with a sub-headline that promises to deliver to them the result they want but cannot find. Educate by highlighting in SPECIFICS what it is you do or provide that is different from your competition (your market-dominating position). Show them that you are the best. Then create a compelling offer that gives the prospect true value – something they really want!

Third, you must say it often. Keep reminding them that you are the best. Repetition is the key to successful marketing. Prospects today are SATURATED with marketing messages – 3,000+ per day. Repetition allows you to cut through the clutter – especially when you follow the formula above.

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Marketing & Advertising Secrets

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One of the most effective means of generating leads is through a “squeeze page—a web landing page that is designed to convince a prospect to provide their contact information. It typically asks for an email address, but it could also ask for a mailing address.

A squeeze page is designed so that there is only one action for a prospect to take—to either leave their contact information or leave the page. Content on the page should be kept to a minimum; you don’t want to distract the prospect from the offer.

It must be a convincing offer. It needs to cover all four parts of the conversion equation. The offer needs to be something that is sent to them, and not something they just download. (The prospect might ask, why would I need to provide an email address just to download a file or watch a video?) Some examples of a reasonable offer would be an email course, an e-book, a white paper, or a template of some sort.

For example, a cosmetic surgeon used a Facebook PPC ad that sent prospects to a nice, attractive web page. This generated about 35 leads per month. The surgeon added a squeeze page that used the conversion equation, and directed prospects to that page instead, which generated, on average, 400 leads per month, an 1,140% increase.

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Drip Campaign

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Better conversion strategies can boost your business dramatically for little or no extra cost. But too many businesses are already generating all the leads and prospects they need, but are unwittingly losing up to 95% of their sales opportunities, and pouring thousands of dollars down the drain. In these circumstances you may not actually NEED additional leads or prospects at all; instead you need better strategies for converting a larger portion of your prospects into clients.

On average, less than 1 percent of prospects are “now buyers.” Ninety-nine percent are not ready to purchase that day, but many of them will buy sometime in the future IF you continue to nurture them by staying in touch on an ongoing basis. Unfortunately, the vast majority of small business owners rarely, if ever, follow up with their prospects after their initial contact with them. Eighty percent-plus of all sales occur between the 5th and 12th point of contact between the business and prospect. This is where you need to implement a “drip campaign.”

A drip campaign automatically delivers a form of communication to customers or prospects on a predetermined and scheduled basis. When you receive repetitive postcards in the mail for oil changes or HVAC services, those are targeted and coordinated drip campaigns. They can often double or triple conversion rates.

A child psychologist with whom we worked was getting 36 clients per year from a typical all-things-to-all-

people website. After switching to a squeeze page, he doubled his number of clients, and the drip campaign

that he used after he got the prospects email address resulted in over 150 new clients per year.

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Downsell

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Downselling is nothing more than offering a prospect an alternative at a lower price when they decline your original offer. The goal is to turn the prospect into a client so you not only realize some short-term financial benefit, but you gain the opportunity to do business with them again in the future.

For example, local health clubs always try to sell new members a full one-year membership. If that fails, they will try to downsell them by offering a 90-day “health makeover” membership. If that fails, they may go to a 30-day or possibly a one-week “trial” membership. They know if they can just get them to buy something, the odds of them staying with them long term goes up exponentially.

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Joint Ventures

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Word-of-mouth referrals are one of the best sources of new customers for a business. Unfortunately, these are very inconsistent. An agreement with other businesses to send each other customers is a great way to make that referral process more consistent.

A Joint Venture (JV) is a marketing partnership in which two businesses share markets and endorse each others product or service to their customer base, typically under a revenue sharing arrangement.

In other words, you send customers to the JV partner, and you get a percentage of that sale. And your JV partner sends a prospect to you, and you get a brand new sale and customer, one that you would not likely have had if you didn’t have the JV partnership.

The keys to creating a successful joint venture is it identify potential partners who service the same customer base as you, and to create a REALLY compelling offer so that the JV partner WANTS to send you prospects.

An example of a JV partnership would be a landscaper who doesn’t just cut grass and kill weeds, but rather makes a client’s lawn and home into a showcase. To complete that showcase, homeowner may also need the service of a deck builder, a stonemason, or a swimming pool installer.

The landscaper is in position to make professional recommendations, and many homeowners will go with those recommendations. The landscaper could negotiate an affiliate fee, from each of various service providers, greatly increasing revenue. Each JV, in turn, can send business to the landscaper.

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Upsell and cross-sell

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Increasing transactions with your prospects involves getting them to buy from you more frequently than they do now. Are you familiar with upselling and cross-selling? When you go to McDonald’s and the cashier behind the counter asks if you would like your meal “super-sized,” that’s upselling. When that same cashier then asks if you would like an apple pie to go with your super-sized meal, that’s cross-selling.

Upselling means offering a higher grade or quality or size of the item that the customer may be interested in at the point when the customer is ready to buy. Cross-selling means offering other products or services which complement the item the customer is interested in, at the point when the customer is ready to buy.

A restaurant analyzed their profit margins and determined that appetizers, wine and desserts were their most profitable items they sold. So they implemented an cross-sell strategy, by having their wait staff bring an appetizer and wine cart to each table before the customer ordered, and offered a free taste of several of the offerings. They repeated the process at the end of the meal with a dessert cart, again offering a free taste. This simple process DOUBLED their sales of each of these items.

They also implemented an upsell strategy by training their wait staff to describe a few of the more expensive entrée’s on the menu and to give patrons their personal recommendation. Many customers took those recommendations, increasing their total entrée revenue by 15%

Most business owners don’t realize that 34 percent of prospects will buy additional products or services at the time for their original purchase IF they’re asked to do so. Most business owners NEVER ask, and they lose out on this lucrative opportunity to dramatically increase their revenue. Start asking!

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bundling

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A common practice with nearly all small businesses is a strategy of discounting—lowering the price of a product or service in the attempt to attract customers.

This discounting suggests to the buyer that you don’t believe in the value of your product, and the buyer will be inclined not to believe in it as well. They will come to expect future discounts. And, discounting destroys your profit margin.

Let’s say you sell a widget for $100 and decide to discount that price 10% to $90. And lets say that you have a profit margin of 30%, which means that for every $100 you sell, your cost is $70, leaving you with a profit of $30. Most people will say that you’ve lost 10%. But actually, you’ve just decreased your profit by 50%, be-cause you are now making only $20 per widget instead of $30. You’ve also got to sell 50% more product just to break even! Research has suggested that discounts don’t actually impact a prospect’s purchasing decision unless the discount is 40% or more. No wonder so many businesses are struggling to stay in business!

A better option is bundling—a complimentary grouping of products or services to create a unique package. This eliminates price competition because the package being sold is a one-of-a-kind product.

An example is a sunroom company that provides a free bundled package of furniture with the sunroom. Instead of a $2000 discount, the company spent $1600 on a bonus package of furniture that had a retail value of $6200. The bundled package was a much more compelling offer than the discount, and set the sunroom company completely apart from their competitors.

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Raise prices

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There are two major ways to increase your overall profitability - increase revenue or decrease your costs of doing business. A really simple strategy of increasing revenues is by just raising prices.

Most small businesses have NEVER raised their prices. That’s because they don’t know the facts when it comes to increasing their pricing. They’re scared to death that ANY price increase, no matter how small, will lead to a mass exodus of all their customers. But is that really true?

Let’s say you sell a widget for $100 and decide to increase that price 10% to $110. Will that small increase REALLY lead to a loss of customers? Honestly, a few will leave, but they are most likely your biggest price shoppers that show NO loyalty or patronage to your business anyway. They will beat you down pricewise every chance they get, and the moment you begin to make a decent profit, they will leave you in a heartbeat for the next business willing to accept a financial beatdown. But even though there will be some customer attrition, to what extent? Let’s look at the numbers.

The business selling this widget is now making an additional $10, ALL of which is pure profit. Right there, that’s a 33% profit increase. For this business to make $1,000 in profit selling their widgets at $100 each, they would need to sell 33.3 widgets. But by increasing their price 10%, they only need to sell 25 widgets. That means that just to BREAK EVEN, this business would have to LOSE 25% of its customers over a measly 10% price increase, and that simply ISN’T going to happen!!! There simply is no FASTER or EASIER way to generate additional revenue.

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Cutting costs

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Virtually every business has been affected by the coronavirus. Many businesses are closed for walk-in customers, and some have completely closed down. Even those still open have seen drastic sales reductions.

At the same time, the rent or mortgage and other overhead costs haven’t gone away. Before you make plans on how you can grow your business, you’ll need to determine how you can survive:

Collect outstanding bills that are due. Encourage prompt payments with some followup letters, the first being friendly reminders, but becoming more forceful the more you need to send. Offer incentives for early payments. But long-term, assess any possible lax internal operational standards in your systems – the possible lack of communication with those making sales, or processes that delay billing and payments.

Get customers to pay faster by asking for deposits or up-front payments, particularly for those with a history of drawn-out payments. Reduce payment terms, (i.e. from 30 days to 10 days.) Consider preselling products.

Try negotiating better terms with vendors. Create a list of alternative vendors, and be ready to move your business if current vendors won’t negotiate. Look for possible loan rate re-financing. Take advantage of the government emergency programs for extra sources of cash. Be careful about using credit cards for cash.

Look for ways to reduce inventory, possibly trading in or returning for credit. Offer special sales for excess or obsolete items.

Look closely at where you can cut unnecessary costs. Review your credit card statements line-by-line to see if there are expenses that aren’t really needed. Do the same with your bank statement.

This won’t go on forever, so spend some time developing a risk management plan that can help you weather something like this better the next time. Remember, cash flow is NOT profit. Have your accountant prepare monthly cash flow statements, and review them each month. Prepare a cash gap plan – how you will lower that gap once life returns to normal. Develop a long-term “rainy day” savings fund plan—a cash reserve for emergency repairs, seasonal slumps, or taking advantage of special marketing promotions.

This time is extremely stressful for business owners. It is important to take care of yourself. Use relaxation strategies that work well for yourself. Exercise within the confines of your personal risk. “Quiet your soul” in whatever way works for you, (looking at photos, reading, listen to music you love, walking in the woods, etc.) If you are so inclined, use prayer to help ease your stress.

The same holds true for your family. You’ve likely got the time; spend some of it with them. Investigate and take a virtual vacation.

And remember, we’re all in this together. Reach out to your neighbors. It may have to be virtual, but show some kindness, empathy, love and concern to others. Listen to those in your life – truly listen, and hear and validate their concerns.

I give my clients a way to find economic freedom and with that, the peace of mind to live their lives as they want.

My services are focused toward those small business that make up the vast majority of local commerce across our country; those businesses that allow our local communities to function as a community; those businesses that our country is built upon. With the “school of hard knocks” experience of owning or managing: a canoe livery, a paint/ framing retail store, a campground, and a coaching business, I have a deep understanding and empathy for small business owners; their challenges, their frustrations, and their satisfactions. I focus on the reality, rather than the theory, of business planning, marketing and management. I also have over 12 years’ experience of coaching and training small business owners, along with a whole career’s worth of training in working with business people to help them realize their dreams.

My objective is straightforward – to help entrepreneurs transform their business. I do this by coaching them to out-think and out-market their competition, and turn their business into a market-dominating powerhouse by:

• Identifying market opportunities.

• Discovering their unique competitive edge that will cause clients to think of no-one else with which to do business.

• Developing compelling offers that allows for market domination.

• Creating competition-crushing marketing that causes revenues and profits to soar.

• Setting a roadmap for long-term financial success and personal satisfaction.