Archive for Solopreneur
Energize Your Business in the New Year
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It’s now 2012 and I’m sure that creating a plan for energizing sales in your business is in the forefront of your mind. Energizing your sales isn’t a one-step solution; instead it’s a full scale approach. Each area of your sales and marketing strategy can be used to energize your sales.
Your Email List. Create energy with your email list. Offer a free online learning series. Give away free downloads that offer value. Integrate promos, offers, and discount coupons in your email series.
Launch a New Product. One truly spectacular way to energize your sales is to launch a new product. Information products are often the easiest to create and they can offer the most value. If you’re “not a writer” and don’t want to write an eBook, consider recording a series of expert interviews or create a workbook. Announce the new product to your email list. Advertise it. Share the good news on your social networking pages.
Affiliates and Referrals. If you don’t already have an affiliate program or a referral program, create one. Put others to work making sales for you. If you do have an affiliate program, reinvigorate interest by creating a competition. Offer your affiliates additional content and promotional materials so they can make more sales.
Build Your List. Create a new promotion or update your existing promotion to boost your email subscribers. Consider partnering with others and promote each other’s giveaways.
Tweak Your Sales Copy. Make small changes, or big ones, to your existing sales copy and track the results. Often a small change can make a big difference in conversions. Tweak your ad copy too.
Upsells and Back End Offers. If you don’t currently have a process to upsell or make back end offers to your customers, create one. Often the best time to make a sale is right after someone has made the decision to buy. For example, have you ever been in the store and ready to go to the register with your purchases when a sales person identifies a product that compliments the product you’ve already decided to buy? You’ve already committed to spending money and it’s easier to spend a little more for a complimentary product. Embrace that buying trigger and motivate more sales.
Content Commitment. Take a look at your content strategy. How can you amplify it for the next thirty to sixty days? What about a blog series? Can you go big and publish a case study or short report? What about article marketing or press releases? There are many ways you can go big with your content. Consider using guest writers to create excitement.
Inexpensive Ways to Promote the Solopreneur
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Getting new clients doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor. The old axiom of “it takes money to make money” just doesn’t have to be the case when it comes to small business marketing.
If you want to give your business an infusion of clients without over spending, read these ideas carefully. Here are several different ways you can promote your small business – all with little to no cash investment.
Networking
Networking is one of the most effective strategies to both build and grow a business. Meeting the right people can practically ensure long term success. Additionally, networking helps you learn and grow personally too. However, finding business networking groups online or off can sometimes be a challenge. Here’s how to go about it.
Search online. This probably seems like an apparent step and perhaps it’s one you’ve already taken. Simply type your industry and the words “organization” or “association” into your search bar and see what comes up. Often, you’ll hit the jackpot with dozens of top level organizations to research.
Look at business networking directories. Yes, there are directories for just about everything under the sun and there are business networking directories you can search through too. For example, the Chamber of Commerce has a directory of other Chambers you can join (www.chamberofcommerce.com/).
Social media. Connect with other people in your industry and ask about networking groups they belong to or recommend. You can find great, like-minded people, this way.
Offer to Write for Publications
If you’re an expert on internet marketing, why not start writing a column for your local newspaper’s business section?
Or perhaps you might want to see if you can get a recurring writing assignment in a small internet business related magazine.
Being invited to write a column isn’t as hard as you might imagine. If you have the qualifications, editors are always on the lookout for more content. Because the better the content, the better their publication.
Finally, try also approaching bloggers to do guest blog posts. Make sure you state your qualifications upfront so they know you know your stuff, and make sure to suggest a few potential post topics in your introductory email.
Speak in Public
Public speaking is one of the most powerful and least competitive marketing methods around. Why? Because almost everyone is terrified of speaking in public.
Speaking in public requires honing your presentation skills. It involves mastering your fear of looking bad. It involves quite a bit of personal and professional development.
It’s a lot of hard work to become a great speaker. However, once you do become a great speaker, marketing will likely become a non-issue for your business.
Speaking in front of groups generates so much curiosity and credibility that if you do it on a regular basis, your business is more or less set up for success.
Promoting a small business doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. If money is your main reason for not promoting your business, let it stop you no more. Instead of using your money to promote your business, use your smarts, wit and determination to do the job.
“KISS” Your Website
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You remember the saying “KISS” (keep it simple silly)? If there is one place in business where this is true, it is in your approach to your website. Here are a few tips to help you give your website a quick little KISS.
#1 – Simple is best. When it comes to selling information you don’t want to use a full content-rich site. The best approach is often a sales-letter type website where you answer all the concerns of the reader and show them exactly why they need your product.
Stick to a simple sales page without many graphics or clutter. Keep the reader focused in a congruent order – reading down the page – until they get to the order button.
#2 – Build trust and credibility. It’s no longer enough to simply have a long sales page saying how great your product is. Reader’s today want to know that there is a real person behind the website they can trust. You can build this trust and credibility by including a few important pages on your website. They are:
FAQ – A frequently asked questions page is great because although it is directly answering the reader’s concerns, it’s also emphasizing your sales message. Include this page on your information product sales page website for great results. Make sure you include an order button within your FAQ page.
About Us – People buy from people they like and trust. Include an “about us” section so that your potential customer can learn more about the person behind the website. Include business information as well as a little personal information about the business. This is a great way to connect with your customers and build trust.
Contact Us – Including your contact information on your website is really important. No one wants to buy from an anonymous source. Remember you’re asking these people to trust you with their money, so you need to give them a reason to do so. Include clear contact information including an address, email option as well as telephone number.
Customer Feedback – While you don’t want to give exact testimonials or sales figures to remain compliant with the FTC, you can include positive comments your customers have sent you. This can be information about how your product has helped them or even about your customer service. Positive comments can go a long way towards building trust and credibility.
#3 – Make it clear. The final component to include in your website structure is a clear call to action. Make it easy for customers to order your product. Include links to your order page and reinforce the order in a summary. Let them know what they’re getting for how much and how the item will be delivered.
All of this information not only makes it easy for your customer to understand what they’re getting from you, it’s also a simplistic formula to follow.
The Business Plan: Why You Need One
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Do you have a new business? Are you revamping your existing business? Whether your business is old or new, you can greatly benefit from a proper business plan. Many people think that a business plan is only beneficial if you are trying to raise money for your company and while this is one reason to write a business plan, it is certainly not the only one.
Creating and writing a business plan for your company is a great idea to ensure the success of your business. Your business plan will greatly increase your chances of being organized and successful with your business. When you have a plan with set goals, it is easier to achieve those goals. This is a much better business practice than leaving things to chance or being so unorganized that you can not track your progress.
What is included in a business plan?
So what does your business plan need to include in order for it to be sure it is successful and complete? You will need to have a description of your business, details of what it is and how it will operate, some information regarding ownership, a start up summary as well as market research and target market information.
You want to walk through the business and the function of your business from the beginning all the way through. What is the purpose of your company? Do you sell a product? Do you provide a service? What are you offering to customers? How much experience do you have and how are you qualified to perform the job duties? Ask the same questions of your employees or business partners.
Why Create your Business Plan?
So why is it worth your time to write and create a great business plan? There are different reasons, as we mentioned before. One popular reason why people choose to create a business plan is to try to convince potential investors and lenders to fund money to your business.
Most of all a good business plan will help you determine whether or not your business has a good chance of producing profit. If results show that you will not make a good profit, you might need to adjust your business plans and goals somewhat. It can also serve as a great way to estimate your start up costs and needed investments to start or continue the business.
Do you want to spruce up your business plan or create a simple, easy to use plan for your business in 2012? Join me for the Business Planning Work Day on Monday, January 2nd. Find out more information by going to:
How to Get Started on Facebook
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You would like to get in on the social networking scene, but maybe you aren’t quite sure where to start. Whether you are interested in promoting your business through social networking or just want to catch up with friends, it can be intimidating if you aren’t sure how it works. Facebook is a good place to start for social networking. To start using this popular networking site, here are some ideas that tips that can help you take the first steps to getting on the networking scene.
What Is Facebook?
You can think of Facebook as a way for people to stay connected. You update your status and read the status updates of other people, and you can search for people whom you know and who know you. You “friend” people and accept friend requests from others. You can join and start groups, and invite others to join. Facebook allows you to share sites, pages, and information that you like.
1. First, log on to Facebook.com and follow the on-screen directions for setting up an account. It’s quite user friendly, and you can change the information you put in your profile at any time.
2. Your profile should say pertinent things about you, whether it’s your business or your personal account. You do need to decide whether or not you are going to go at this from a business or personal perspective, because the general opinion is that personal and business communications on Facebook should be separate.
3. Once you set up your account, you can search for friends using the Search feature. Facebook allows you to search groups, or search for people according to a certain demographic (people who share your graduation year, for example, or your home town). Once you have a few friends, you can search for friends of friends – those mutual friendships you share. Then your friend list will start growing.
4. Privacy settings can be adjusted according to your preferences. Check into the guidelines and make sure you have the settings where you want them. You are in control of who sees your profile and updates. You can also block people you don’t want to contact you on Facebook.
5. You can communicate with your friends in various ways. If you “write on their wall” then you are posting something others can see. The friend whose wall you wrote on would have his or her own privacy settings, and your friend decides who sees what’s on his or her wall. So just beware that the wall is considered “public.”
You can also send messages to individuals. If you hover your mouse pointer over a person’s picture, the option to send a message comes up. Messages sent this way are not readable by others.
6. Groups are a nice feature of Facebook. Take some time to participate in groups within your specific niche.
If you would like more strategies for using Facebook for business, I suggest taking a look at Facebook 4 Biz…a new session is starting on Monday, January 9th. Get more information about the class and sign up today at:
