1. Create what you want, regardless of what people in your audience wants.
2. Create what you think the people in your target audience wants.
3. Create what the people in your target audience tells you they want.

Well, the first option doesn’t work?

That should be clear. If you just create the offers you want and don’t really think about your audience wants, it’s pretty likely they’re not going to buy what you offer.

The second option can work.

And that’s because guessing does work from time to time. Some times you’ll guess right and people will buy your offers. But maybe just as often, or more, you’ll guess wrong and be disappointed in the results.

The third option works every time.

This only makes sense. Just stop and think for a second. If someone tells you what they want and you create what they want doesn’t it only make sense that they’ll buy what you create?

Yet as clear as the answer to this question is, few small business owners actually positioned their business this way. Most small businesses first figure out what they do. Then they go about marketing what they can do for the people in their target market in hopes that they’ll buy.

This certainly is one way to go. And sometimes you can get lucky in communicating what you do to just the right people in just the right way that your business finds some success.

But the less trodden, yet more successful path is to find out what your target audience knows they need. Notice, I said ‘knows’ they need. Not what they need. But what they know they need. This is an important distinction because people will most often only respond to what they know they need.

For instance, let’s say you found a way to produce the best curry powder in the world. It was grown in the perfect climate, with the right nutrients. It was organically and biodynamically grown and was dried and powered better than any other.

Well, you could broadcast your new curry powder up and down the hillsides of the world and you’ll get some response. Yet you’ll spend a lot of time, effort and money talking in the direction of whole bunch of people who have no need for a better curry powder.

But what if you targeted a specific need inside your market? An example might be chefs at fine restaurants. They would have a need and desire to find ingredients that would make their food that much better. They’d also need less convincing other than taste. Or maybe, since your curry powder was grown biodynamically, you market it to people who eat mostly organic foods. They’d appreciate the specialness of your curry powder.

Either way, you can put your efforts into specific markets where people are looking for a better a better curry powder or healthier foods rather than broadcasting your message to a mass of people, most of which don’t regularly cook.

The point here is that you want to talk to the people who are actively looking to solve a need. Identify who they are and then market your solution directly to them. If others buy, no worry. If you miss you target market but gain business from other group, no worry. The key, though, is to select a target group that identifies that they have a problem to be solved. To do this, simply:

• Know, clearly, who you are and what you do. The clearer you are, the easier it is for others to be clear about it too – including your target audience.
• Know your market – Who are the people that make up your target market?
• Know their need – What do the people in your target market need. Again, not what you think they need, but what they know they need. How do you find out…ask.
• Create a message that solves their problem – If you know what you do and understand the need of the people you do it for, all you have to do is clearly communicate the two to the people who need what you do. It’s really that simple.
• Keep asking, keep learning – Once your message is out there, track the responses. Do so with statistics, surveys and by speaking to people directly. Tracking is vital to success.
• Reposition – Take what you learn and adjust your offering and your message to better meet your audience’s need.

Really, this is how you grow a business. It’s how the big boys do it. And this is how almost all successful little folks do it. So what’s holding you back?

You know, I tell my clients all the time that if you don’t like your website, you won’t use it. But I never thought that it applied to me.

Yet, I stopped liking my old dmiracle.com design a long time ago. I found it clunky and difficult to use. I found it not very fun or interesting to look at. I was teaching things to clients that my site wasn’t doing on my own site. And while I was preaching how important the mobile web is I had a site that wasn’t supporting mobile devices.

The result – I stopped using my site. I stopped blogging. I stopped engaging my commenters. I stopped promoting events and programs on it. I stopped using it as much to show clients examples of how to approach things on their sites. Really, I let it just sit there and bring me little trickles of clients. What used to be the hub of my business had eroded into a liability in a lot of ways.

So I had to make a change.

Now don’t get me wrong. the old version of dmiracle.com was still a very nice site – to other people. But I launched it in 2007 and it hadn’t changed much since.

I’ve worked on new designs off and on over the past couple of years but nothing really grabbed me. Then about 4 months ago I came up with a design I love. But I just couldn’t get around to finishing it. There was client work, or the kids got sick, or a hard drive crashed (lost my client hard drive last fall), or … . Whatever the reason/excuse, I couldn’t get it finished. So, in turn I wasn’t using my website even though I was ready to again.

So I couldn’t wait anymore. I decided that rather than waiting on myself to finish my design I would put up something temporary.

So why the need for a temporary site? Why not just wait and finish what I’d been working on?

Really, there’s many reasons. Partly, my site should take advantage of the most modern features of WordPress – the old one didn’t. I also wanted to simplify my site to make it clearer to you how I can help you – the old was too complex. And with nearly 20% off all my visitors coming through an iPad, iPhone or Android device I wanted a site that looked good on mobile devises – the old one didn’t.

And I really wanted to use the Genesis Framework from my friends at StudioPress. As a matter of fact for months Brian Gardner has been bugging me about when I was finally moving to Genesis – (today, Brian, today!). So I picked the Minimum Child Theme, modified it to my needs and launched this temporary website.

No more waiting. No more excuses. I’m finally on Genesis, I’m finally able to use the most modern WordPress features and I’m stoked. And now I feel like the pressure is off. I have a more modern website – even if it’s temporary. And I can finish my new design as I have time for it (yes, I still have to make the time). Here’s the funny catch – this is the 121st site I’ve built on Genesis. Took me that long.

So you’re probably wondering, ‘what’s the big deal?’ What’s so special about this Genesis Framework thing that I just had change my site? Why was it that I couldn’t wait a few more months – especially if my site was working for me? Well…

1. The StudioPress advantage
   Brian Gardner has done an excellent job developing and growing StudioPress into one of the best WordPress theme developers out there. The Genesis Framework is the standard for WordPress theme design. Their excellent designs, top-notch support, and massive community make them the go-to solution for WordPress designs. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re part of the Copyblogger Media family.
2. Responsive design
   Many are predicting that 2013 will be the year that the number of mobile web users will pass the number of computer web users. As a business owner, it’s time to stop ignoring mobile and have a website that’s mobile ‘responsive.’ Mobile responsive means that your website’s design will respond to different devices by changing its layout. So one website can look great on all devices…and you can keep your branding. Genesis is mobile responsive. Mobile is a big reason I had to update my own website. Is your site mobile-ready?
3. Nearly limitless customization options
   Brian and his team have made Genesis incredibly versatile. For the basic user theme setup is pretty simple and straightforward. I wouldn’t say that any WordPress theme is for the novice business owner – most require some setup to get things working as you like. And for the developer there’s a whole of tools and code snippets that speeds up development and allows massive customization. Really, Genesis is the solution for anyone needing a business website.
4. Update your site without disturbing your visual design
   Most WordPress themes are difficult to update. This is because the code that interacts with WordPress and the visual design of your website are intermingled. In this way, updating your theme (which is necessary from time-to-time) can be difficult if you’ve customized your theme in any way. A theme frameworks, like Genesis, keeps your website’s core functions separate from your visual design. With all your visual design elements in a child theme, you can update Genesis without disturbing your visual website in any way. And keeping everything up-t0-date is important to making your website secure and problem-free.
5. An excellent set of custom widgets
   Widgets add features and content to your website without having to mess with code. Widgets make it possible to add, remove and change large parts of your website easily. Genesis comes with some excellent custom widgets that add features like slideshows, featured content areas, social media links, and latest tweets to your website. And the Genesis community has created many very useful widgets specifically for Genesis. This makes development, updating, and customization even easier.
6. Multiple page layout options
   One cool feature of Genesis (and other theme frameworks) is having multiple layouts. You’re no longer limited to one layout for the pages of your site. Decide that you want your sidebar on the left instead of the right, change it – yourself – with  a click. Want to create a few pages without a sidebar – you can do that too. Multiple page layouts give you added flexibility built right into Genesis.
7. State of the art security
   Your WordPress website can be vulnerable to people who want to take your site down or exploit it for malicious reasons. Having your site hacked is an expensive, time-consuming hassle, it feels like crap, and it can really damage your reputation. Trust me, I’ve been through it myself and I’ve helped a couple dozen people now clean up and secure their sites after a hack. Genesis has been thoroughly audited by the same person responsible for security on the WordPress core. Using Genesis adds another layer of protect from hackers.
8. Genesis is search engine optimized
   Everyone asks about SEO. And Genesis makes it easier. With state of the art code, smart design architecture, and easy Google Authorship identification Genesis makes it simple for search engines to see what your content and rank you well. Genesis will help your blog rank higher in the search engines. They even have some tutorials that can help you achieve even better search engine placement results.
9. Beautiful, professional WordPress themes
   These days my business ranges from building totally custom websites to doing customization on existing themes to just setting up Genesis and a child theme for my clients. So for and my clients it’s lovely to have such beautiful theme options as those in the StudioPress stable. Even in my case with trying to finish my new, custom design. I haven’t been able too so I picked this beautiful theme StudioPress to use temporarily.

To illustrate what I’ve said above, here’s a video introduction to the Genesis Framework:

There’s so much more to say about Genesis and why I switched. The bottom line for me is not only having a website that can meet today’s online business needs easily but also a website that will evolve as WordPress and the web evolves. And the best part is that now that I’ve made the jump to Genesis, building and installing my new, custom child theme – whenever I get it done – will be even easier.

So, what questions do you have about Genesis? About WordPress? About your website?

Your business website should effectively represent your brand while providing ways for your leads to easily engage you. All roads in your business should lead back to your website, making it the pivot point for all your marketing. And you want to treat your website that way.

Furthermore, having a website opens the possibility to not just market to your leads, but to create a powerful touch point for engaging your audience in conversation and building relationships with your prospects and clients.

So if you want a successful business, and I believe you do, it only make sense to create a website that fuels the growth of your business.

Yet, as a small business owner, it can be easy – or tempting – to get in the way of your own marketing. You may take shortcuts with your business website. These shortcuts can become mistakes that undermine your business goals and turn your website from golden egg to fried omelet.

The sad thing is that you may not know your making these mistakes and undermining your business website.

So let’s look at 8 common, and often critical, mistakes I see everyday with small business websites:

Mistake #1: No Clear Objectives for Your Business Website

The very first thing you should do when you plan your business website is define its purpose. What objectives do you want your website to achieve? In other words, what do you want our visitors to see, to read and to do. To do is the most important set of objectives so you want your website objectives to be action oriented. Do you want them to sign up on your list, get your RSS feed, buy a product or take a survey? Any of these can be objectives. Just make sure your objectives are clearly defined.

One more thing on objectives: if you have more than one objective for your website, you want to put them in order of importance. Then, make sure you primary objective is the most visible and easy to find on your site. Your secondary objective should take its appropriate place behind the primary…and so on.

Mistake #2: No Strategies For Reaching Your Business Objectives

Once you know the objectives of your website you want to create strategies around how you’re going to accomplish these objectives. Strategy gets into how you’re going to do what you’re setting out to do with our business website. The more thought out and researched your strategies, the more likely your marketing and your website, overall, will be successful. From a strategy comes our plan of action, which gets us into tactics.

Mistake #3: No Tactics to Achieve Your Business Objectives

If you’re like most people, you’re pretty good at thinking about what you want to do with your business website. Often, where the trouble begins is when you have go from thought to action. That’s where tactics come in.

Tactics are the actionable steps you’ll be taking to achieve your business objectives. Your tactics are, flat out, a task list of what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it. Think of your tactics as being the implementation of your strategy. It’s how you’re going to do what you think.

Mistake #4: No Targeted Metrics to Measure Your Progress

One great thing about the internet is that if it happens on your business website, you can measure it. Which means, you can find out amazing detail about how your visitors as seeing, reading and using your website. So the only question is are you recording that information?

What’s sad is that I see so many small business owners who aren’t even looking at their most basic website statistics. Yet, it’s so much easier to know how effectively your building your list, for instance, if you know how much traffic you’re getting. And from knowing that, you can make a plan for increasing you list signups.

There’s no way else to put it, it’s a mistake if you’re not recording your website statistics and looking at them with some regularity (not daily). And it’s a further mistake if you don’t take the time to learn how to interpret your website statistics because they will tell you what’s working and what’s not working on your website.

Yet, it’s important to go one step beyond just your basic traffic stats. You want to also consider how you’re going to measure the effectiveness of your strategy and tactics so you can see how well you’re achieving your objectives. In other words, you want a solid system of metrics – even a simple one – so you can evaluate your marketing and make it work better.

Mistake #5: No Integrated Marketing Plan

So often I see small business owners thinking of their website as one part of their marketing and their offline marketing as being another part. Don’t make this mistake. Integrate the two. Communicate your offline promotions online. And even more effective, use your offline marketing to drive people to your business website. This works great when you can make an offer on your website that your offline audience wants. As I said above, your business website should be the hub of you marketing – not just online, but all your marketing.

Mistake #6: No Focus on the Value of Your Offer

I’m asked to evaluate a lot of websites for whether they’re business ready. One of the most common mistakes I see is small business owners not focusing on or effectively communicating the value of their service. Too often, the focus is on either the cost of service or the ‘unique approach we use that makes us different than everyone else.’ Yet, this just confuses the prospect because either they don’t care about the approach or they have to consider what they’re getting for the cost. In other words, they have to figure out the value themselves.

Don’t make your prospects figure out for themselves the value of the services you provide. Tell them about it. Show them what they get, what they can expect and how you will help them solve their problems. And offer testimonials of people who you’ve helped so that they can see the social proof in your offer.

Mistake #7: No Action Plan for Your Visitors

We said earlier that your website should have clearly defined objectives. Once you’ve identified what your objectives are, it’s likely they require an action by your visitors for you to achieve. So tell them to take the action. Make it exceptionally clear that if they’ve gotten this far in your website, that ‘this is the action step you want to take next.’ Could be a list signup, a free report, a set of articles – doesn’t matter (as long as it’s toward your business objectives). Just be sure you’re hyper-clear about what action steps you want your visitors to take.

Mistake #8: No Balance Between Design & Marketing Message

Having been a website designer for well over a decade, I’ve dealt with this one a lot. Often, business owners become too concerned over the visual look of their website and it gets out of balance with the purpose of their site – which is a marketing tool to promote and sell their products and services.

That’s not to say that a website shouldn’t be visually appealing – it should. For instance, I’ve had dozens of people contact me just to let me know how much they like the design of my site. Yet your website design shouldn’t get in the way of your marketing message and business objectives. It should provide a professional, attractive frame for your all-important content.

Ideally, your design will be something people see initially and get a good impression of you from. Then, as they begin to read your copy, it should fade into the background. So think of your website design not as a paramount piece of the marketing puzzle but as a frame for your marketing message. And remember, that you want to consider your business objectives in any website design.

So these are the 8 most critical mistake I see everyday in working with clients on growing their business and on developing their web presence. There are more, of course. But I’ve found these to be the biggest and most important 8 to correct.

Does your website make any of these mistakes? If so, which ones? And what will you do about it?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from iampeas on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Just the idea of it makes your stomach turn a bit. It seems dishonest and dirty. And you’ve convinced yourself that it’s pretty much unnecessary to sell. Somehow you can get more clients and customers without having to deal with all that selling stuff.

But how? How do you encourage more clients and customers to buy your products and services without selling to them? How can you grow your practice, increase your revenue and grow your small business and be apprehensive to selling what you produce and offer in your small business?

Perhaps you don’t have to be apprehensive to selling. After all, you’re selling all the time.

That’s right. You’re selling all the time. As a matter of fact selling is second nature to you. How do I know this? Because you’re a person. You’re a person with ideas, thoughts and opinions. And this is what you sell all the time without even realizing it.

Think about it. Why do you share your knowledge? Why do you offer your opinions? Isn’t it because you have something to share or add to a situation or conversation? And when you do so you’re selling. You’re selling your ideas, your opinions, your perspectives. And you’re doing it all the time. I’m doing it right now.

So if that’s the case, why do you think it’s so easy to sell your ideas in a conversation while it’s difficult to sell your offerings to your prospects?

I think it has to do with money. Often, when you’re engaged in a conversation and you’re sharing your perspective on a topic there’s no money involved. Now there may be other currencies such as what people think of you, but something changes when money is involved. Why do you think that is?

So do you think selling would be easier if money wasn’t a part of it?

If so, I say, then, don’t make it a part of how you engage with your prospects. Make the conversations about them – their problems and how you can help them solve them. Make money the just part of the agreement if they’re a good fit for you.

In other words, take the pressure off to feel as though you need to justify what you charge for your offer. The price only really matters if you’ve illustrated to them that your products and services can help them. Otherwise, price is moot.

Don’t you think?

How do you feel about selling in your business? What have you done to overcome it?

And what else do you think stops the natural flow of selling other than money?

I’d love to hear about it.

(note: image from Lorna87 on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Marketing your business is a really good idea, don’t get me wrong. However you choose to do it, marketing is a vital part of your business. As a matter of fact, marketing your services is something I teach my clients to do more effectively every day.

Yet I find that there’s a hole in the thinking that “all you need to do is effectively market your business.”

You also need to sell!

Now I know that for some marketing covers selling just as it covers distribution and delivery. Yet I so often see marketing gurus focusing all their time on the preliminary aspects of marketing – clarity of message, target audience, demographics, psychographics, methodology, etc. Seldom do I see marketing coaches get into the specifics of selling.

But more importantly, so seldom does the average business owner see selling as a part of marketing. More often than not, they believe that if they communicate their offer effectively that people will just buy their service. For instance, the majority of the service providers I’ve run into – either as prospects and clients or through a large network of friends, associates and partners I offer help or advice too – see the importance in communicating their offer. And they understand what systems they want in place once the prospects enters their funnel.

But what they seldom focus on is the conversion process – when the prospective client becomes an actual, paying client. That’s where selling comes in.

What many don’t consider is that while there’s a process for marketing, there’s also a process for converting; for selling. And while there’s numerous, effective processes and methods for both marketing and for sales, neither make a successful business on their own. It’s hard to sell your services if you don’t draw prospective clients in through your marketing. Just as you’re not guaranteed a large number of prospects converting to clients without clearly knowing how you sell to them.

To drive the point home consider if I told you, “An effective marketing campaign should lead to increased sales and more clients.” Without a hitch, you’d agree, right? I mean, that’s the whole point, isn’t it – the better your marketing the more you sell and the more clients you have.

Well, effective marketing is like having a bus drop off thirsty people in your driveway. They’ve searched, they’ve found you and they’ve journeyed to your home because they trust you can satisfy their thirst. But just because they’re standing in your driveway doesn’t mean they’ll get to drink. Some will, sure. But many will just stand there waiting for some guidance. Selling is guiding those thirsty people to the well in your backyard, hoisting the bucket from the well, pouring them a cup of fresh water and handing to them to drink.

In other words, selling is a process as well. It’s the process of guiding the people your marketing brings to your business into becoming clients. So how you sell your business, how you convert your prospects, is something you need to consider in order to get more client, increase your business and generate more money.

So, how does your marketing process differ from your sales process? Does it? And if you’re getting people to engage your business, how could you more effectively sell to them?

Let’s hear your thoughts!

(note: image from Ward_ on Flickr, some rights reserved)

As a Life Coach, a Business Coach, or a Holistic Healer you probably have been feeling the affects of the slow economy in the U.S. (and globally) since way back in 2008. Hopefully you’ve found a way to kick-start your life coaching practice and climb out of your own sluggish economy.

But maybe not. I’ve spoken and worked with dozens of Life Coaches and Business Coaches the past few years who are struggling to find clients. They’ve seen a downturn in their business just like the one we’re seeing in whole economy.

Many of these Life Coaches have worked really hard just to find enough clients to say in business. Others, well, they haven’t stayed in business. One of my favorite clients over the past few years said it was ‘all just too overwhelming and stressful’ to keep her business coaching practice open. So she went back into the corporate sector – for less pay. Even with my help she just didn’t have the stamina to rebuild her business.

As sad as that is there’s still tons of Life Coaches and Business Coaches – maybe like you – who are out there trying to work their own economic stimulus.

Well, you can create your own, 4-step economic stimulus plan. And it doesn’t have to be difficult, complex or cost you a bunch:

1. Stop & Think
2. Plan Your Work
3. Work Your Plan
4. Make Sure Your Plan Is Working

Each step is really important.

First, stop what you’re doing and think. Think about where you are and where you want to get to. Be honest with yourself about the current state of your business. If you don’t have enough life coaching clients, be honest. If you have no idea how to get more clients – get help.

Second, plan your work. Doesn’t have to be a big, complex plan. Keep it simple. Highway maps are usually pretty simple. And they let you see the route to take to travel from where you are to where you want to go. Your plan should do the same thing. And it should include actionable steps along the way. Just remember, without a map you’re probably going to get lost.

Third, work your plan. Now that you have your map, use it. Begin traveling. You can’t drive from Chicago to Denver without doing some things. You have to fuel your car, get in, turn it on and drive. Same with your business. Do the items that you plan to do. And just like with traveling, expect construction and detours and slow downs along the way. Just keep working your plan.

Finally, make sure your plan is working. How do you know it’s working? Measure! Pull out your map and our itinerary and see how you’re doing. Are you as far as you thought you’d get? Are you doing some things that aren’t helping you get to where you want to go? What’s working? What’s not? And then do the obvious – more of what’s working…less of what’s not.

And so there you go. You can keep it really simple and build your life coaching business. Just don’t take too many detours along the way. And if you’re stuck, again, get help.

You can be successful as a life coach or business coach. There’s nothing stopping you from having all the clients you need. You just need your map to get you going.

(note: image from Cayusa on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Is your business feeling the crunch of a slow economy?

Last week a client of mine, Kim (name changed to protect the innocent) told me that her business had slowed almost 40% over the past 18 months. As we talked, she explained that she’s doing nothing different with her advertising and marketing – “what worked 18 months ago just isn’t working as well now,” she said.

The reason, Kim felt, is that people have less money to spend.

That certainly makes sense. All our living expenses are on the rise. Groceries cost more, utility bills have increased – in some places dramatically – and the price of a gallon of gas is through the roof. So it only makes sense that consumers have less to spend on what they may perceive as ‘non-essential’ services.

When I asked Kim what she was going to do about it she said, “Well, I’m going to have to cut back on my business expenses.”

“What’s the first place you’re considering cutting back,” I asked?

“My advertising and marketing is my biggest expense. I just don’t think I can continue to pay for print ads in local magazines. And I should probably look at how much I’m spending on Google Adwords. And maybe I need to look at sharing my office space with someone else.”

Interesting strategy I thought. Kim’s ideas were to cut the things that were costing her business the most money. Yet cutting her marketing budget would also affect her ability to reach new clients. She seemed stuck.

Trimming fat from your business is smart in lean times. But it can also send your business into a downward spiral which leads to going out of business. When revenues are low, you cut back on marketing – which brings less clients, which, in turn decreases revenue further leading to more cutbacks. You can see, a few cycles of this and you’ll be out of business.

What small business owners seldom think of in lean times is growth. But look at the example of big business and wealthy people. They’re often the most active when the economy is slow. Investors often buy in when times are lean. And they all make a killing in the long run.

The small business owner, if they want to stay in business, needs to take a similar approach. In lean times, sure, cut back on unnecessary expenses. Readjust your books so you can loosen up some cash. But even more importantly, get active. In other words – sell.

Seems like a simple solution, right? Times are tough…sell more. But seldom do small businesses in slight downturns think of this. Or if they think about it, they don’t actually follow through on it.

Yet the key to coming out of a difficult financial period –   be it your own business cycle or that of a slow economy – is to focus on growing your business. Utilize all the selling techniques you know about to stir your way out of stagnation.

Remember that marketing is most effective when you’re solving problems for your clients and customers. Refine your marketing to meet potential customers where they’re facing problems. It might be that you have a perfect solution for their needs.

So how is your business in this economy? Do you have a growth strategy for slow times – whether you face them now or not? What would it be?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Pulpolux !!! on Flickr, some rights reserved)

But there’s a third question that I see rarely answered. That question…how! How do you actually do what and why?

For instance, if you have a business, you need to market your business. Perhaps you learn what types of marketing would work best for your business. You even learn why those types of marketing can help you be successful.

But when you get to the most important part – how – often it’s not as clear. Yet how is about implementation. How are the detailed steps you take to put into action, measure, assess and refine your efforts. So how is about getting it done – it’s about actually accomplishing in your business what you set out to do. It’s about taking your vision, your dream, your ideas and making them into reality.

So why is so little spent these days on how?

If you could ask Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Andy Sernovitz, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan (insert any name you consider an expert) any one question – wouldn’t it be ‘how? Wouldn’t that one question be – ‘how do I do…(whatever)?’

So what are the questions you’d ask about how to implement some piece of advice in your business or on you blog? Perhaps we can find some answers together.

(note: image from TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³on Flickr)

Yet if you run a small, independent business, the economy has far less impact on your business than you think. So you’re likely not facing the doomsday that’s being talked about with every newscast and editorial.

Unless you believe you are. But remember, as a service provider, you have much more opportunity in these times than corporations do.

You see, all this talk about financial meltdowns, depressions, and layoffs are mostly affecting corporations – at least at this point. Sure, job losses and home foreclosures are bad things. I, for one, don’t want to see my friends and their families suffer. But there are millions of us out out here who aren’t working for corporations. And most of us aren’t serving corporations either. Our clients are other small business owners, other service providers and the like.

What this means is that you’re much less affected by what you’re hearing about on the news than the guy working for Ford or GM. As an independent business owner, your job is secure if you make it that way. Even if you’re, say, a corporate coach who’s working with large companies, you can still have a great deal of control over how successful your business is – and especially in troubled economic times like these.

The key is to first not get scared. Turn off the TV, stop listening to analysis on the radio and just pass by those articles in the newspaper. In other words – stop buying into all the titillating stories about how we’re heading for a depression worse than the 30′s. We may be – and I’m not saying don’t pay attention to what’s happening. Just stop listening to all the scare tactics that keep you from focusing on the growth of your business.

Everyone with half a business sense knows that it’s during an economic downturn that you have great potential to increase revenue and grow your business. But you have to have a strategy for doing so. And the strategy often means looking at your business, your customers and clients and your revenue model with fresh eyes. See the changing market for its benefits. For instance, there’s less money being loaned right now by banks – so don’t rely on borrowed money. And remember that a good portion of your competition does. Tighten your own belt a bit to stay out of debt – but don’t tighten your spending to the point of loosing business.

I ranting now, I know. But the thing to realize is that during a repressed economy like the one we’re facing now there are tons of opportunities – if you choose to see them. Be bold in looking for them. Be bold in taking them on. And be bold in knowing that you have a chance to grow your business while many others are shrinking.

Just be smart. This is not a time to overextend your business. And it’s not a time to take risks that bet the farm like you may have in the past when a loan could bail you out. Be smart – meaning evaluate everything you’re doing in your business. Look for places your can be more productive and more efficient. Look at your costs and make sure you’re getting a return on what you’re spending.

And more than anything, evaluate your market. Not only yours, but others as well. Begin thinking of your business from the point of view of your audience. What are they likely dealing with in these times? How can your business help them get through? Look for opportunities inside the problems people are facing. And attach your business solutions to those problems. Then get out there and let people know that you can help them solve the problems they face.

In other words…define and refine your niche market and how you’re positioned to the people in your niche market. Be bold, yet be smart. Find the new opportunities and be bold in claiming them. Yet be smart in how you go about it. Think it, plan it, do it and measure your results. Then do it again. And you’ll find your business growing – while others fade.

How are you dealing with this economic crisis? What will you do if it gets worse? Are you positioning your business to take advantage of the downturn? How?

Let’s talk about it…

And if you need help clarifying your niche, positioning yourself effectively, or figuring out how to grow your business right now, then you’re welcome to a free consultation with me where we can talk about how to solve the problems you’re facing in your business.

(note:  image from  fabiogis50 AWAY TILL 2/11 on  Flickr,   some rights reserved)

Let’s talk about it

So many people I know sit down at their desks and mess around for an hour or two – reading news or catching up on email. Others grab a cup of joe and jump right into the project they left on Friday.

If you’re in business for yourself, mornings are often crucial to your workday. A well-spent morning can often mean the difference between a productive workday and not.

But what about Mondays?

Over the years I’ve tried lots of ways to get the most out of Mondays. I’ve tried to do first things first or focused on getting done that one thing that’s most important. I’ve taken a relaxed approach to Monday and have jumped right into working. I’ve even used techniques like visualization or meditation to try to set the tone for my week.

Many of the things I tried were helpful. Sometimes I’d jump right into the most important project of the week and try to get as much done as I could. This would be great because it would set up the week for me to make lots of headway on a project.

But nothing I tried was really setting me up for success – either for Mondays or for my week. So I sat down one Monday morning and forgot about getting things done. Instead, I decided to focus on how I wanted my days and my weeks to look. How did I want to manage my client’s needs, their projects, their communications with my needs to continue to develop and grow my business?

I looked in many directions. What I realized was that I’m most effective when I’m clear about what I need to get done. I keep a pretty good log of where I am on each project and where my client’s are in their process so that’s seldom been a problem.

What was a problem was decerning when to do what.

So I decide that every Monday morning I would take the first 60-90 minutes of the day and lay out my week. I started by looking at deadlines and comparing the progress on each client’s work I was doing. Then I started placing what needed to get done for the week into which days I needed or wanted to accomplish the next pieces for my clients. Then I leave those project parts attached to those days – and move on (I organize the day for 15-30 minutes each morning).

After I have a rough roadmap of my week, I then turn to Monday in general. Monday’s I seldom schedule calls with clients. I use Mondays to do various task that are important to my business – like accounting. I also use Mondays to working directly on my own business – where my business is my client. While I do work on my business throughout the week, I often don’t have as much time to work in blocks as I make on Mondays. This way, I make time for my business to grow and develop.

So for me, Monday mornings are all about setting some organization for the week. This has been so effective for me that I’m wasting less time and getting more done each week – which means more client work getting done – which overall means generating more revenue.

So how do you make your Monday mornings most effective?

(note: image from Teo on Flickr)

There are so many ways that coaches and holistic healers can get a website today.

You can go the ‘old fashioned’ route and have a website designer build a pages in HTML. You can use some of the pre-made services you’ll find on any number of hosts (though most of the designs look like they’re 10 years old). Or you can have your website created on one of the myriad of publishing platforms available today.

Of course my favorite publishing platform for coaches, healers and the other service providers I work with is WordPress. There’s others, of course. But having use other platforms I find WordPress to be the right combination of ease-of-use, expandability and power for my clients with their coaching and healing practices.

And since I’m constantly getting asked why I like WordPress so much as a platform and content management system for coaches and healers, let me offer a bunch of my reasons:

1. WordPress is free!
   That’s right, WordPress itself costs nothing. It’s open source code and protected under GPL licensing so that no one can directly sell WordPress (keep that in mind when you speak with your website designer). Now that doesn’t mean your designer shouldn’t get paid for their time – they should. And it should be clear that what you’re paying for isn’t WordPress, but the skills, time and support from your website designer.
2. Easy Editing
   Adding and editing your content in WordPress is a snap. Click a single button and WordPress creates a new page or blog post for your site. And the editor works in very similar way to Microsoft Word – take a look at this video. So with your coaching website on WordPress there’s no need to pay your web designer to do simple updates to you copy or even add new pages to your site. Huge time and cost savings.
3. Easily Add Audio/Video
   So many coaches and healers I work with today are using video and audio to promote their businesses. Well, WordPress makes incredibly easy to add either (or both) to your website. No more sweating through code trying to get that YouTube video on your site (if you even dare).
4. Easily Change Your Navigation Bar
   Your navigation bar is one of the most important parts of your website. Being able to add new links, change their names or reorder them has long time been reserved to coders. But with the most recent versions of WordPress you – the coach, healer or service professional – can have complete control over your navigation bar with a simple drag-and-drop feature. This is yet another way to that you have control over your site and can save tons of money in updating your site.
5. Small Learning Curve
   I keep talking about how easy using WordPress is to use. One of the reasons is because the learning curve is so small. Now I’m not talking about using all of WordPress. I’m simply speaking as a publishing platform and content management system. I usually teach my coaching clients how to create, publish and edit their first page in about 10 minutes. Pretty small learning curve for a huge capability.
6. Integrated website and Blog
   As I write this I keep watching myself want to write ‘the most important thing’ about WordPress. But you can’t really have more than one ‘most important’ thing. That said, having your website and your blog on the same domain name is vital. Not only does WordPress allow you to do so, it allows you to completely manage both the pages and the blog posts of your coaching website from one place.
7. No Limits on Size of Your Website
   Your coaching website on WordPress can be as small or large as you need it. There’s no limit to the number of pages or to blog posts. This site, for instance, has more than 500 posts and over 130 pages – and I haven’t written that much in the past couple of years. So your coaching website on WordPress can scale to handle whatever size site you need.
8. Integrates Easily with Social Media Sites
   People offering a service build their business on relationships. Nowhere on the web are relationships more accessible than social media. There are so many ways to get WordPress to work well with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +1 and a whole slew of social media sites that it would take many posts to explain even a bit of what the possibilities are. Just assume that your WordPress website will be able to do anything you’ve seen done already on the web – often very easily.
9. Plugins
   Plugins are add-ons to WordPress that give it expanded functionality. While at this moment I don’t know how many plugins there are, there must be thousands. Think of anything you want to do on your website – anything to better promote your coaching or healing practice – and there’s a really good chance there’s a plugin (or ten) already created to do it. Nearly all are plugins are free as well.
10. Themes
    Themes are basically designs in WordPress (though they can do more). The great news is there are thousands of free and paid themes available from a massive source of designers. Want something custom? That can be done too. Basically, if you see a design you like it can be built as a WordPress theme. As a matter of fact, I often rebuild existing coaching and healing websites as WordPress themes.
11. Security
    No system on the internet is hack proof. And WordPress has gone through some growing pains when it comes to security. Yet security in WordPress is excellent. You can even go the extra mile and make it even more secure through specific plugins and coding. I have a package I call the WordPress Security Protocol which  you’re welcome to ask me about.
12. Google Loves WordPress
    Google loves content and WordPress allows you easily publish what you want when you want it. Combine that with the clean code, a number of SEO features both built in and through plugins, and easy content submission through sitemaps and RSS and you have a powerful system for getting your coaching website found in search results.
13. Forever Expandable
    The same way there’s no limit to how many pages and posts your site can have, WordPress makes expanding your site incredibly easy. Want to add a membership or shopping cart to your coaching site? No need to a full redesign or even another ‘part’ to your website. WordPress, with a bit of coding and some choice plugins, can grow to whatever you need your site to do.
14. Lots and Lots of People Are Using WordPress
    If your coaching or healing site isn’t on WordPress chance are you know quite a few people whose are. Not only can they tell you about how great and easy WordPress is to use, but they can also show you around a little bit. And because WordPress is so widely used now, there’s very little chance of it ever going away.
15. Support
    Of course I support all my clients through one-on-one training and access to my large catalog of short, topic-specific video tutorials. But beyond me there’s tens of thousands of active WordPress users that you can likely find an answer to just about any question you have around your WordPress website.
16. BONUS: WordPress.tv
    This is a great site that has all sorts of professionally recorded video relating to WordPress. There’s even a great ‘How-to’ section that covers a number of topics.
17. BONUS #2: Autonomy
    Before I ever became a WordPress fanatic I had two question – how much control can I give non-techie users over their sites and how easy would it be to learn? Well, WordPress is so easy to use I often teach my clients how to blog, add and edit pages, change what’s in their sidebar and change their navigation bar in as little as 20 minutes. Seems odd, but my goal is to make myself unnecessary to my clients. And WordPress does a great job at that.

Oh yeah, and let me clear one more thing out of the way – your WordPress website DOES NOT need to look like a blog. As I said above, anything that can be done in web design can be done on a WordPress website.

WordPress rocks! It really does. And here’s my bottom line statement on how it can serve you: If you can’t currently edit your own website’s content, then you should move your website to WordPress. There are many options for doing so – each of which we can discuss in a short, no-pressure phone call. Remember, in moving your site to WordPress you can:

• Keep your existing design the way it is – we just make it a WordPress theme and show you how to use it.
• Keep part of your existing design and make those updates you’ve been wanting to make as we turn your site into a WordPress theme.
• Get a completely different website design with features and functions you never had before.
• Any other combination you can think of.

Just get in touch with me to talk about how WordPress can help you specifically. I take calls from people everyday who pick my brain and get their questions answered. As I said, no pressure – just help, advice and guidance.

The list of why you should be using WordPress for your coaching, holistic healing or professional service website could go on. But WordPress only matters if you’re using it. So find out how you – and your business – can benefit from this amazing publishing platform.

And if you’re using WordPress already for your site, tell me what you love (and don’t love) in the comment box.

(note:  image from  Lincolnian (Brian) on  Flickr,   some rights reserved)

Really, that’s it.

Why?

It’s the most important question to ask yourself about your business. It’s also the most important question to answer.

Why?

Simple – you have to know the reasons…the motivations…the rationelle for everything you do.

Nothing you do, say, create, experience, generate, design, produce, promote, develop or decide upon should go without you asking, “why!

So…why are you in business? Why do you market to the people you do? Why is your business not as successful as you want?

And…the next most important question…

What? What are you going to do about it?

Do you ask…and how do you answer these questions about your business?

(note: image from Yves* on Flickr)

Are you ready? Okay…

No matter how well developed your business is; no matter how many years you’ve been doing it, how many customers you’ve served, how much money you’re making – your business will forever be a work in progress.

I heard this years ago from a colleague and fluffed it off with the usual, “yeah, of course!” But I was missing the juice of it. Only recently have I gotten a clear understanding of what it means. And only recently have I taken a close look at how having an unfinished business is the secret to success.

Thomas J Watson, the one-time President of IBM, once said, “Whenever an individual or business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.” In other words, progress is necessary for a business to attain success.

And what does progress mean? According to The New Oxford Dictionary progress is the, “advancement or development toward a better, more complete condition.”

From these ideas, it’s easy to see that successful business are always in progress. And how could they not be?

If you run a business, you likely know more today about who you are, what you do, who you serve and how you serve them then you did when you began. Hopefully, you’ve taken what you’ve learned and applied it to your business – changing what doesn’t work, or what’s incomplete, for methods that are.

You see, a business will always be in progress because everything always is. It’s simple, really. So the real question isn’t whether your business is in progress – because it is. The real question is whether you are honoring the progress in your business. Are you making changes and adjustments as you learn more? If not, why not?

Is your business a work in progress? How?

What’s one thing, today, you can do to advance your business toward a better, more complete condition?

How do you define success in your business? It’s a question I ask every client – and most of the prospects I ever speak with.

The interesting thing for me is how often the people I speak with don’t have a specific answer. Sure, we can come up with just about anything on the fly. Yet it’s not difficult to tell the difference between established, well-thought-through business goals and those that we sort of find when we need to talk about such things.

Having a way to measure the success of your business, however, is one of the most vital parts of running a business.

It doesn’t matter whether your business is selling products, providing services or selling ad space on your blog – it does you good to have a clear idea of your goals. And, hence, a clear definition of what success looks like for your business.

All my clients use the web in some form these days. So often I hear success measured in visits to their website or page rank in Google. Sure, those are measurable results. But I, as a business advisor, would never consider those to be metrics used to define success of your business.

Let’s think about it for a minute…

You can have a page rank of 6 in Google and get 1000 unique visitors a day to your website or blog. That’s good, right? And most of us would be happy with numbers like this, right? Heck, the way Google’s playing around with page rank these days, I’d be happy to get back to a 6.

Yet, your page rank doesn’t equal income. Nor do any of those visitors guarantee a dime of revenue. Sure, if your website is selling ad space, you might get bits of cash for impressions. And you may be able to get a little higher ad rates with traffic and page rank higher. But you’re certainly not going to make a living on that alone.

And so these aren’t very solid metrics to use for defining your business success. Don’t believe me, ask around and see. Personally, I know more than a dozen bloggers who have highly successful blogs – more successful than mine in terms of traffic, page rank, back links and Technorati rating – who aren’t making enough money to cover their monthly expenses, let alone turn a profit. A couple are good friends that I’m trying to help out.

The point is you want to define the success of your business based on what you’ve set it up to do – make money. That doesn’t mean that you only measure by your bank statement at month’s end or by your bottom line accounts receivable versus accounts payable. There’s more to it than that.

For instance, take whatever you’re doing currently to market your business and track responses from your marketing efforts. Let’s say that one of your goals is to spend some time commenting in forums to drive targeted traffic back to your site that you can convert into leads. It’s a clear goal and something that can be easily measured using basic website statistics. Measuring your success might look something like this:

You posted 50 times in the forum last month. From those posts, you got 41 referring links from the forum to your website. From those visitors 11 commented on a blog post (leaving their email address with you), 6 subscribed to your newsletter and 1 contacted you directly with a question. You can then decide whether those 50 forum posts were worth the effort (I’d say yes, depending on what the commenters and newsletter subscribers do over the next few months).

You see, the idea here is that you set metrics that relate to your business goals. The month of forum posts may or may not directly result in revenue that month. But it’s not always about revenue. To make money you need leads and so the work you did in the forum could have been about generating leads – which you did. Now you just have to create the next metric for converting those leads into paying clients.

Measuring your success isn’t difficult. It just takes a little strategy, planning and forethought. And on the web, tracking results is incredibly easy. You just have to know what you’re tracking – and why. Then you can adjust your efforts for the next round of lead generating activities. That’s how successful business owners use the web.

How are you measuring your business success on the web? Are you at all? If not, why not? Would it change if you had someone to help you (I know someone, personally)?

All-in-all, how do you know if you’re successful with your marketing efforts?

(note:  image from  victor_nuno on  Flickr,   some rights reserved)

I’ve always been a do-it-yourselfer. I’ve taught myself a great many things by taking this attitude.

When I bought my first house, I completely gutted it – down to the timbers in most rooms. In other places, we removed and moved walls. For instance, I created a large, walk-in closet in our huge bedroom where there was once a little coat room.

When it came to moving plumbing, rerouting and adding electrical, drywall, replacing subfloor, moving my toilets and bathtub drains – I basically did it all. And in most cases, I took to each project never having done it before.

But at some point, you have to live in   your house. And that means it has to get done – as my wife might say, “be livable.”

For us that time came as we neared the birth of our first child. As the first trimester of my wife’s pregnancy led to the second, we had to make some choices. We’d remodel the kitchen later, for instance.

Well, two kids and four years later, the kitchen hadn’t been finished. Yet we wanted to redo the kitchen. It had been one of the main reasons we moved in the house – a huge dinning room adjacent to a tiny kitchen. The remodel was a no-brainer. So, as my wife was pregnant with our third, we made a strict timeline and went ahead with the remodel.

This time, the do-it-yourself Dawud gave way to the asking for help. I called in favors when it came to moving the plumbing and installing the cabinets and countertops. And I hired a contractor to do the electrical and new lighting. The demo (remove a wall, tear out old kitchen), drywall, flooring and painting I’d do myself. And in less than 8 weeks, we completed our kitchen – for the most part (there’s some odds and ends left to do).

What I learned in the process was something that I’ve seen many small business owners struggle with in their business – they don’t ask for help. They don’t seek people to help them with tasks in their business. Rather, they try to do everything themselves. This usually means one of a number of things happens: They either don’t grow very fast because they can only do so much work or their business goes backward because – well – they can’t do so much work.

But when you outsource tasks in your business, it supports your business in a number of ways. One, it frees up some of your time so that you can focus on the tasks in your business that need your specific attention – such as referral marketing or creating new products and services to sell. Two, it creates space for you to take on new projects because you have more time on your hands. Three, it allows you time to clean up the things that have gotten neglected in your business. Four, it starts the process of handing off even more tasks because once you can trust one person with managing a part of your business, you can trust others. And five, outsourcing lets you share your success with another person – helping them become more successful.

If you’re stuggling with the idea, or if it seems that it’ll cost too much, don’t let that stop you. You can manage how someone else completes tasks in your business. And managing takes far less time than doing. And consider the costs not on what you’re paying out versus your revenues. Rather, consider the costs in relation to how much more productive you can be in creating more revenues streams in your business. Paying someone $20 an hour to manage your email, for instance, is nothing when you can generate $50 or $80, $350 or more with that same hour.

Outsourcing is one of the keys to growing your business. So allow yourself a chance to ask for help. There are plenty of virtual assistants out there, for instance, that do all sorts of things – from general office work to executive resources to web and graphic design to marketing. Just find the one that best fits your needs.

And be sure you know when to ask for help.

As a small business owner, are you outsourcing in your business? If so, how’s it working out. And if not, why not…what stops you from asking for help?

Let’s talk about it.

(note:  image from  jen_maiser on  Flickr,   some rights reserved)

I’m not just talking about time. Of course you’re investing time, right? If you’re not, then you’re likely not very successful.

But what about money? Are you investing money into your business?

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with hundreds of small and medium-size business owners. Some have been startups with funding while others have had large marketing and PR budgets.

But I’m not talking about those businesses. I’m talking about small business owners. I’m talking about corporate trainers, business and marketing coaches, personal development experts and other service providers. I’m talking about clients whose businesses are generating less than $150,000 per year. In other words – small businesses.

It’s been amazing to me how often small business clients aren’t willing to invest in their own business. Sure, they might buy productivity or marketing products or hire out projects like website design. But they seldom have a longer-term plan beyond the project scope. And seldom do they consider an ongoing marketing or promotion budget for the growth of their business.

What gives? How can you grow a business if you’re unwilling to promote it? How can you increase your revenue if you don’t invest some dollars into marketing? I’m not talking about thousands upon thousands of dollars each month. I’m talking a few hundred or thousand or whatever fits your budget.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this – if you’re unwilling to invest in your own business, then why should anyone else? In other words, if you don’t spend money to promote your products or services, why should anyone spend money on them – if they can find you?

So, are you investing in your business? How? What’s your budget and how are you using it? And if you’re not, why not. Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from sash / slash on Flickr)

I was reading from Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching last night when I ran across an interesting quote:

He who knows others is wise;
He who knows himself is enlightened.

The passage made me stop and contemplate my own life. How well do I know myself? I went down that path for a bit of time; looking at my aspects and considering what I might be blind about.

Naturally, I soon turned to business. I thought about how much of marketing is focused on the consumer or the client. I wondered what I might learn about my business if I applied Lao-tzu’s words to marketing. So I rewrote the passage to say:

He who knows his customer is wise;
But he who knows his business is enlightened.

Then I started thinking about my clients, my colleagues, my friends, etc. How many of them really know what they do? I don’t mean can they explain their business in some marketing lingo that drives sales. I’m talking about do they understand what they REALLY do for their clients? What impact do they make?

For instance, I’m a web developer, a marketing coach, a business advisor and a strategist. I help my clients understand how to use the internet to reach their business goals. Pretty simple.

But if I think about the client’s I’ve worked with over the past year, it’s evident that I have a much broader and deeper impact on my client’s life than I first think about. While I certainly help them build their website, clarify their marketing message or build a campaign, I also help them create space in their lives for their business. As well, I help them overcome their fears and uncertainties about using the web, and I educate them in how to measure their success. What’s more, I teach them anything they really need or want to know about using the web to grow their business.

But it doesn’t stop there. Most of my clients and I also develop a strong bond; a working relationship that seems to increase their trust in themselves. They know, for instance, they’re not doing this alone in their process. I also freely share my idea, concepts, vision and excitement about their business – something that often motivates them to get the next bit of work done.

When I think about it, I do far more than just develop web-based businesses. I have an impact on my client’s lives. And I need to remember that in my business. Perhaps even explore that more and understand how I can express more of what I offer my clients. And maybe, just maybe, I can find more of the light in my business.

So what about you? How well do you know what you do? How much do you understand the impact you have on your clients or customers? How enlightened are you in your business?

The question: How do I know it’s time to redesign my website?

There’s many, many answers to this question. Yet, I’m going to share with you five of the biggies. And as you listen to this short audio clip (~8 minutes) see if your website has any of these symptoms.

So, does your website have some of (or many all of) these symptoms? If so, let’s do something about it. As I said in the recording I don’t use hard selling methods. What I do is tell you exactly what to do to solve your website and online business problems. If after that you want me to be the guy implements the solutions, I’m happy to talk about it. But what you’ll find with me is no hard selling techniques. So contact me right now and let’s setup a time to chat about how you can have a website that really can grow your business.

Or, you can check out my Group Web Design and Business Coaching Program (click now)

One note, I only work with people whose business is providing a service. I seldom work with bloggers who sell advertising or retailers who want an online store. My focus is helping coaches, consultants, alternative healers and such get more clients. So if you’re not in that category I may or may not be able to help you. 

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note: image from Esther Gibbons on Flickr,  some rights reserved)