October 2, 2012 by

Marketing Messages for Business Success

Business SuccesHave you seen the so called “Business Success Tips” from people marketing their service?

“The Three Secret Steps to … whatever you need.”

“Easy ways to make millions…now.”

“The Fast Way to do… whatever you want to do.”

Are these types of lines seriously enticing enough for you to want to engage someone or their business and hear more or read more? Or would you rather someone be straight up with you and tell it like it is.

“Ready to End The Year With Success?”

“What You Do In These Next Sixty ( 60 ) Days Will Either Close Your Year Strongly And Set You Up For A Soaring Start Next Year”

OR

“Same Old, Same Old, Keep Doing The Same Thing, Expecting Different Results.”

Which style is the one which interests you more? Me personally, it is tiring seeing the same style of ‘grabbing’ headlines that lead you into a maze of no real value words or audios that have only one sole intent that is separate you from your money.

The second set of headlines gets my attention. There is a statement and a promise of something we want. There is a defined timeline which gives me comfort that this is when there will be results, if not sooner. Now there is real interest from me for you to show me what you are speaking about. How do you feel about this?

When we are promised that there is a fast way to success or an easy way to achieve ridiculous amounts of money, don’t we intuitively know this is a bunch of nonsense? Who is it that is falling victim to this type of marketing? Not for me to judge on either side of this one. Don’t we just want to know, in a few sentences, why what someone is offering is special? Why working with someone or their company and utilizing their service or learning from them will be of value to me and my business?

The result of asking questions to the expert marketers is ‘well, hype headlines and wording works’. Then a handful of case studies are presented to prove their point. There are two sides to this marketing equation. There is what type of marketing interests you to explore a person or business further to see if what they are offering is of value to you and your business. Then there is the marketing that you and your business conducts in order to attract new clients and customers. These may not result in the same answer.

You and your company may not be your ideal client. This means the type of marketing you conduct may not appeal to your specific style or taste as it would not be designed to attract you. This being said, the marketing campaign you conduct does need to stay within your value system.

Are you ready to explore the right marketing methods to grow your business? Contact Mitch Tublin today, www.easysmallbusinesssolutions.com or call 877-907-8223.

Filed Under: Business Strategy, Coach Mentor Tagged With: , , , , , ,
September 4, 2012 by

Ways to Run a Successful Business All Year Long

Successful BusinessDo the seasons impact how you work or how your business functions?

Many businesses are impacted by seasonality in terms of the products they provide for sale. There are ways to even out seasonality for your business in the products for sale business, and the service provider business model.

If your business is a product for sale business you might consider one or all of these three options to even out your sales throughout the year:

1. If your specific product or product line is for a specific season, who are the customers who purchase your product? With this knowledge, what product would this same customer profile be interested in purchasing from you in the other seasons?

You should have your customer email addresses and possibly their mailing addresses. If you are not certain about their interests you might create an easy to respond to survey, to find out.

2. During the season when your typical product is not in demand, you might create a few unique marketing campaigns with incentives to create ‘off season’ purchases. Bundling your product with other products or packages during the off season would add even more interest to your marketing efforts.

3. Host a workshop or an event around your product line during the off season to assist your customers with learning more or adding value to them which would be in line with what you have for sale.

If you are in a service based business which is impacted by seasonality, for example a CPA firm comes to mind where tax preparation at certain times of the year is the crunch time and other times of the year are much slower, you might consider one or all of these three options to level out your business throughout the year:

1. Spend the time and effort to have all of your clients email address and mailing address. With their permission send a value added newsletter at least once a month to your clients. Create offers in your newsletter where your clients may be able to gain information from you on a regular basis in your area of expertise.

2.  Structure events or workshops with other service providers who your ideal client would have an interest in hearing from. These should always be scheduled during the slower time of the year for your service based business.

3.  Create an off season special, which you creatively market, that will begin the work with your clients, which will lessen the time constrained work during a busier time of the year.

These options listed are given to you not as a be all, know all, answer. It is to get you thinking how might this work for your business? You will likely find other options or add to these suggestions as best suits your specific situation.

Do you want one-on-one guidance on how to create a successful year round business? Contact Mitch Tublin today. Email info@mitchtublin.com or call 877-907-8223.

Filed Under: Business Strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
August 28, 2012 by

Time to be a Success in Business and Life

How do you and time get along with each other? The meaning of this question is do you schedule your day around the projects, phone calls and appointments with time limits? Or do you just let your day run on its own?

When you have a meeting with someone, or you are attending a networking event or function, are you the one who arrives early, on time, a bit late, or you completely forget about the meeting or event until the next day? These are real categories based upon actual admissions from new clients. Which category do you most often fit?

In the process of planning and striving to grow a business built for success, do you set a time and date as a deadline for you and your team to aim for in order to complete a project?  You may have heard me previously ask you to examine  larger companies and organizations to learn from them. Learn from their positive methods and their mistakes.

Some years ago when IBM began their consulting practice arm of their business, do you think they just decided, “Okay, let’s just try this consulting stuff and see how it goes?” Or do you think IBM determined where they were going to achieve consulting business and then set time and date parameters in order to be able to measure their progress? Today, years later, the consulting side of IBM is their highest revenue producing part of the company.

In your business the setting of a time and a date are critical to getting anything done. This is the way to build one project completion with another project starting, which is dependent upon the first one being completed. The ability for your team and you to be able to point to a date and a time is the way to energize people to put in the effort, implement, test, and complete what work is necessary to achieve the completion on time.

Time is a tool. Time will keep on going. Time is a constant. Time utilized correctly adds accountability and the ability to measure to the equation. In the bigger picture and the larger vision, the element of time will excite and inspire people. Which statement would interest you more?

“We will become the premier provider of…in the next 12 months!”

OR

“Someday we will become the top provider of…maybe even in five years or so.”

Spend the time to create a relationship with time. Time should become your friend. Do this right now. Calendar in the following and confirm these appointments –

1.  If you are married, schedule a date and a time for a night out, one night each week, in the next four weeks just the two of you. No business calls or checking email. If you are not married, substitute with your girlfriend or boyfriend.

2. If you have parents, schedule a date and a time to visit with them. One day they will be gone and you will wish you did this more often.

3. If you have children, whatever age they are, schedule a date and a time to speak with them on the phone or meet with them if they are nearby, or to play with them if they are younger and at home. No business, no phone calls. This time is for just you and your child, without any distractions.

4. Get into the habit of doing 1, 2, and 3 more often. Now run your business the same way.

Ready to incorporate time into your success plan for your business and your life, contact Mitch Tublin today. Email info@mitchtublin.com or call 877-907-8223.

 

Filed Under: Business Structure, Life Balance Tagged With: , , , , , ,
August 21, 2012 by

The Rest You Need for Business Success

Business SuccessIn the month of August a large portion of the workforce in Europe is on holiday. All month. It is almost impossible to get anyone, at any level, on the phone or to respond to an email. For the majority or the workforce in the US a worker is fortunate to be handed two weeks of vacation, and often is not even able to take their vacation time off.

Largely due to the review process or peer pressure at work, or their own fear of losing their job, people will not even take one full week off from work. Often this way of thinking takes its effect on the entrepreneurial mindset and these individuals feel they may never be unplugged from their business; always on the phone or answering emails while they are on vacation.

Let’s take a step back for a moment. If you analyze your belief system of your work ethic you might agree you want to consistently give 100%. You feel that you always want to be your best.

Is this quest realistic? Don’t you become like the flashlight which had the batteries inside for too long? The light from the flashlight with the batteries in it for too long is a dim light. A complete shutdown for a week, ten days or two weeks would fully rejuvenate and re-energize you. This period would be without a cell phone, email or other means of communication with the business. Think this is not possible? My challenge to you and your organization is, “how is it not part of your culture, your system and your plan?”

There are comparisons where people who are performing at their highest levels are intentionally shut down in order to be able to perform optimally again. Consider the pitcher in the game of baseball. The pitch count has become part of the method to manage a pitcher to keep them able to continue to perform optimally. Each manager and pitcher is unique. Often a starting pitcher who reaches 90 pitches in a game is replaced with another pitcher near that point in the game. This will help to prevent injury and allow a pitcher to recover in order to start their next game. Typically baseball teams operate on a four or five starting pitcher rotation. This permits each pitcher the appropriate rest in between starts.

For anyone who is thinking, “Okay, but this has nothing to do with me, this is about an athlete and resting their muscles and their body.” Really? Really? And your brain is what? A machine?

We agree you intend to work 100 percent. You will deliver your best always. This means you are actively working your mind, your brain and the supporting bodily areas and functions which permit this to take place. The scheduled and complete rest must take place for continued high performance.

If you and your organization are ready to perform at your highest levels contact Mitch Tublin today to set up an appointment.  Email info@mitchtublin.com or call 877-907-8223.

Filed Under: Business Strategy, Life Balance Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
August 14, 2012 by

Must You Run a Gold Medal Business to Run a Business Built for Success

The International, four year love fest, The Olympic Games concluded Sunday. The major broadcaster online and on USA TV was NBC. Virtually everything was on tape delay. My son called it ‘fake’ drama as we knew the results already for almost every event, yet we still wanted to watch the event in the evening when we had the time to enjoy it. We skipped the final grand finale as we felt abused by the tape delay forcing us to watch a program, although commercial free, that we had no interest in to then see folks play music at midnight.

For the athletes who were still present for the closing ceremony, (there seemed to be many who remained in London to enjoy it) do you think they all felt proud to be a participant, to be an Olympic Athlete? Or just the Gold medal winners felt that way? The TV coverage really spends most of their time speaking about the medal winners and the rest of the field is really not part of the story line.

Do you recall the day when you started your business? The idea stage, the formulation, your first client or sale – Consider where you are now with your business, company or organization. Are you and your team striving to be the absolute best in your field? Or are you instead spending your time and effort providing the best product or service for your clients and customers?

You might not recognize the two do not necessarily go hand in hand. The point here is, what is the driving mission and vision for you and your company? Is this a topic which is discussed often enough to where it is part of the culture of your business? Where everyone understands and fully buys into the mission and vision of the organization?

In order to clarify and avoid any confusion – your business might be providing a service which is provided on a national level by a much larger organization. This national organization is considered the best in the business and annually wins awards which say they are. However, on a local and regional level your business may provide the best customer and client service and interaction and your loyal following would never dream of working with the large national organization. This same story line would work for a retail or sale of a product type of business.

Your business mission and vision statement may never include any interest or intention of growing to become a large national organization. This does not mean in any way, shape, or form you are not running a very successful business! Focus on what matters most to these and you will achieve the desired outcome.

The development of your business built for success sits squarely on you and your dreams and desires for your company.

Are you ready to build out your successful mission and vision statements for your company and bring these out to your team? Contact Mitch Tublin today – info@easysmallbusinesssolutions.com.

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , ,
July 24, 2012 by

A Fly in Your Business Success Ointment?

During my morning work yesterday there were persistent and consistent flies buzzing around me. Some landing on me and others just buzzing by without permission, like the fly-by without permission by Tom Cruise in his Navy F-14 Fighter Jet in the 1986 classic movie Top Gun.

No fly and companion flies were going to take me off my course toward business success. Not today. Not ever.

There was work to be done and my planned schedule for the morning was not going to be put at risk. Once the situation was resolved, calm was restored and my planned action items were acted upon. For a moment, a thought crossed my mind.

A fly in the ointment.

The use of the portion of the phrase – ‘that is the fly in the ointment’ – From Wikipedia online –

“In English, the phrase fly in the ointment is an idiomatic expression for a drawback, especially one that was not at first apparent, e.g.

We had a cookstove, beans, and plates; the fly in the ointment was the lack of a can opener.

The likely source is a phrase in the King James Bible.”

What are the daily distractions which are the flies in your ointment?

Do you permit these to take you off course, or are you able to either immediately remove the flies from distracting you, or remove yourself to another environment in order to effectively continue in your productive work?

Are there specific tools or resources which you lack that actually cause a breakdown in your system or product?

Are there tools which would create a better workflow or assist your team into operating more efficiently?

Possibly these are flies in your ointment?

Consider examining your work habits and calendar with your coach. You are seeking to locate areas of distraction which are preventing you from being your best at what you do. Your specific system or product is created and delivered by what methods? Explore with your business strategist your methods in place compared to other potential solutions. You are seeking a consistent method which may be built upon easily without the need to recreate the wheel.

Speak with your team along with your consultant and determine where certain tools properly utilized may increase the efficiency of your operations. Listen for areas where time is the enemy and systems may provide the solution.

Need the assistance of an expert business strategist, consultant or coach to work with you, or you and your team, to remove the distractions, create efficiencies and effective work flows and increase the productivity? Contact Mitch Tublin right now. Email info@mitchtublin.com or call 877-907-8223.

Filed Under: Business Strategy Tagged With: , , , , ,
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