Saturday, January 31, 2009

Are You A S.A.D Business Owner?

Yesterday's post talked about the all-too-common problem that we business owners share..

Not enough TIME:

* Not enough time to implement all the things we KNOW we should be doing

* Not enough time to learn what new stuff we COULD be implementing

* Not enough time to even enjoy the fruits of our labor.

We get caught up in the daily grind of our businesses and often end up feeling like we have a J.O.B. in our own companies. And here's something that will make you depressed - You know all those endless hours you're spending feeling like you're rolling a boulder uphill day in and day out? Studies show that only about 2.5 of those hours are actually used for *productive work*.

The rest of our extra-long work days are spent with trifling distractions - a million tiny little things that seem like they constantly need our attention, and they need it NOW!

Today I want to talk to you about what you can do to start TAKING BACK those lost hours, getting MORE DONE in LESS TIME, freeing you up to spend *your* time the way *you* want to. Maybe that's having more time to get back to being the visionary you need to be to grow your company. Maybe that's spending more time with your family or taking extra vacation time. It doesn't matter.

----- You need to get S.A.D. -----

Systematize, Automate, and Delegate. That's how I personally escaped the grinding, boring parts of working in my business. And now you can too!

SYSTEMATIZE: First, we need to systematize some of the more repetitive tasks you do. Start by making a list of everything you do day by day. Get granular - break your list down into discrete tasks. Be as detailed as possible, and do this over the course of a week or so.

Then when you have your huge lists (and they will be huge, when I did this for one week I had 35 pages), you want to go through them and look for patterns. Look for the things you seem to do over and over, every day. That's what you want to target first. Your role in your business should be the innovator - find new ways to make more money. Find new stuff that WORKS in your business. If you find yourself doing a particular task over and over, guess what. It's WORKING. So it's time to get set up to hand that task off.

Next thing is we're going to repeat the same list process we just did, but now we're going to go microscopic. Break that one task down into every individual step that is required to complete it. Make the list as complete as possible. One thing I've done before is actually use a webcam or screen capture software and actually record myself doing the task and narrating each step out loud. The goal here is to create a set of instructions - a step-by- step guide to completing this task. Often you'll find that the routine tasks you do every day are ones that require no creative or input from you. They're just busy work, and that's NOT the best use of YOUR time.

Now it's time to decide if you can AUTOMATE.

AUTOMATE: This is where technology is your best friend. There are a TON of gadgets and software solutions out there designed to help small businesses like ours. Look at the task you've just systematized and consider if it's a task that could be completely automated. You might be surprised at how much stuff you find yourself doing every day could be eliminated by using an automated solution. I'll give you a personal example. Now, I do a LOT of video - you may have seen some... In this last campaign, I had tons of different videos, in a ton of different file formats and I needed to get them into a single unified format so I could assess the content easily. I used to load them all up into an application by hand, and wait for them to export, then do it again and again. That's a *lot* of work to do one at a time. It turns out that the latest version of Adobe Premier CS4 has the kind of batch encoding that I could finally use. The CS4 Media Encoder bactched them all overnight. AND when the encoding was done, it popped the shiny new files right into a project. DOUBLE Savings!

So decide if you can Automate your task. But you know, sometimes it's not possible. Sometimes you need a little human intervention and software or gizmos won't do the trick. If that's the case, we STILL might be able to get it off your plate.

DELEGATE: If the task requires a decision, does it have to be YOUR decision? Is it the kind of thing some else could evaluate and make a call on? If so, now it's time for the "D" in S.A.D.: Delegate. Hand that task off to someone else. It's possible some of you folks reading this might not even have any employees. Guess what? If you have more than 5 of these repetitive tasks in your day that you could delegate... It's time to hire some help or outsource your tasks. With the time you will save by eliminating your wasted hours, you could THEN focus on the things you would rather be doing - the things you SHOULD be doing. For me, that was getting back to being the "big picture" guy in my business. It was focusing my attention on the stuff that I could do to market better, get more traffic, make more sales, etc. It freed me up to GROW my business so much more quickly that the cost of the hiring I had to do was negligible. I was making WAY more profit and I had WAY more time. And that's what I got into business for in the first place. How about you? :)

So now that I've told you my story about how I was able to get

out of having a "job" in my own business, I want you to check out Scott.

Click Here To Meet Scott

Scott spent 10 YEARS working on the part of his business that wasn't pulling in the sales. When he spent time focusing on really GROWING his business, he was able to escape. Now that he's freed up to spend all his time working ON his business and not IN it, he's going to add SIX FIGURES to his bottom line in 2009.

Check out Scotts story right here.

You don't have enough time. No one has enough time. Ask ANY

business owner - they'll sing the same chorus.

Our FormulaFIVE business growth program is helping other business owners like Darrin work more quickly and efficiently than ever before. In fact, the Fifth Module in FormulaFIVE, "Turbo Thruster", is designed specifically for business owners who struggle to find the time they want and need.

* Activate the 9-Step Strategy that can turn the most complex tasks into a paint-by-numbers process.

* Apply a Business Optimization Strategy to whisk away all but the most powerful profit generating activities in your day.

* Work so Smartly and Efficiently, you'll finish your day with time to spare - time for you, time for your family, time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

* Derail the 80/20 rule that easily distracts people with the mindset that you can do everything because it only requires 20% of your effort. How does that usually turn out?

* Systematize ANY process, even if it's for a highly technical or complex activity, freeing you from being a slave to any vendor, employee or service.

FormulaFIVE clients have gained anywhere from 5% to 50% increase in NET profits by implementing JUST ONE of these action blocks - how big an impact could it have for you?

There's a ton more info about FormulaFIVE right here.

Hope that helps! Till next time!

Friday, January 30, 2009

This Should Have Been YOU!!

Check out Scott Voelker -

we did a video case study with Scott just the other day so we could share it with you.

See Video Here

Due to his application of our FREE video tutorials, he was able to increase profits on a new product he had developed and pocket $5100 dollars in PURE PROFIT in just a few days.

Now he's got the ability to focus on the next step in his business - focus on REALLY building up his profits from his existing customer base. After all, he's been in business for a decade - that's a lot of leads he ALREADY HAS! When he rolls out the membership site idea he's working on, he'll be rolling in CASH, too!

Click Here

Check out his video to see how his life has been improved just by making this small change in focus, and how he'll grow more in the next YEAR than he has in the past TEN.

That membership site that Scott's developing is just ONE of the many techniques to get a bigger share of your current customer's wallet that are included in the FormulaFIVE Sales Stackers module.

Sales Stackers will give you a vast array of detailed techniques that you can use to sell your customers MORE products - without any blow-back. In fact, they'll practically BEG you to sell them more.

"Sales Stackers" Action Blocks will show you how to: Apply 11 Seductive Techniques to dramatically increase Customer Loyalty.

Create monster back-ends using 5 different methods, any one of which could easily double your total business revenue and every one of which could exceed your front-end revenue.

Never again upset a customer by offering them the wrong up-sell, cross-sell, post-sell, back-end, or loyalty (yes, loyalty) offer.

Deploy an advanced "Recurring Revenue Coverage" model that causes Pure-Profit Transactions to occur.

Pay 3-5 times the amount your competitors pay to acquire a new customer and STILL generate more profit than your competitors. Scott, all the other F5 members, and heck - anyone else who wants to join us now...

Get ready to make more money than you EVER thought possible WITHOUT having to chase down new customers. FormulaFIVE clients have gained anywhere from 5% to 50% increase in NET profits by implementing JUST ONE of these action blocks - how big an impact could it have for you?

There's a ton [more info about FormulaFIVE right here]

10 Simple Steps to *Freeze* Your Business

Here's a handy little checklist you can use to run your business:

1. Wake up and check emails.

2. Answer ordering questions.

3. Check support emails.

4. Check on fulfillment to make sure orders are shipping.

5. Check on Quality Control based on a customer complaint.

6. Check with vendors

7. Check with suppliers

8. Etc. Etc.

9. IF you have ANY time left, work on "business development"

10. Call it a day, go to bed, start again tomorrow.

If you're like 80% of small business owners today, that's what your day is like.

Stuck. Frozen. Unable to move forward.

If you don't change your operations TODAY, you're going to kill your business slowly (and drive yourself crazy), by doing the same thing everyone else does.

Click Here For Video

===== What You're Doing Wrong =====

From the time you start work until the time you quit for the day, you spend most of your time on fulfillment - making sure you meet your initial obligations to your first-time customers. Whether it's making sure your packages are shipping or following up on QC or support, most of your "work" time is spent on tiny, nitty gritty details of your business. By the time you're done, you have almost no energy or braincells left.

If you've got a small amount of time left over, you're doing what you THINK makes sense for growing your business. Your whole business development "plan" (if you could call it that) is all about finding NEW customers.

After all, NEW customers = more business, right? That's true. It does. But if you're like 80% of other small businesses, you're stuck in a vicious cycle just like this. You get NEW customers, spend almost all your time fulfilling their orders, and then you get more new customers, and spend almost all your time fulfilling their orders, and then you get... See what I mean? The more customers you get, the less time you have to work on getting more - eventually you hit a FREEZE point...

You just can't seem to grow your business, and you don't seem to have ANY time to even think about why. Well we're going to fix that right now. Tattoo this on your arm (or at least commit it to memory).

===== A NEW customer is the HARDEST kind to sell to. =====

Well, DUH! Sure, everyone in business who knows anything knows that. In fact, I'd say that almost every person suffering through the above scenario "knows" that fact too. But it doesn't do them one bit of good because they are in the FREEZE - they don't have time to do anything different. I even just heard some of you say it: "That's great and all, but I don't have time!" Here's how to break the vicious cycle.

You have to make your customers feel like they are SMART to buy from you, and that their purchase was a SAFE transaction. Well that can be an uphill battle. But once you've won that victory, you can (and SHOULD) continue to trade on that "warm fuzzy" feeling you've created for your customer. Unless you DON'T want to make as much money from as little work as possible... But like we stated before, most business owners are way to preoccupied with focusing on fulfillment of their initial sale. They never even get around to developing a portfolio of offers that they can make sequentially to the customers who already know, like, and trust them. They're easier to market to than new customers, too. You've already got their contact information, and you know what they've already bought. And best of all, they're easier to FULFILL than new customers. They're already in your system, you've already ironed out any issues they may have had with their first order. Hopefully, they're well satisfied, feeling SMART, SAFE and happy, too!

So the next time you get a spare minute to work on business development, try to come up with the SIMPLEST, FASTEST additional offer you can make. Upsell, Cross-sell, Bundle, whatever - just get ONE more item that you can sell to the folks who have already bought from you.

The key is SIMPLE and FAST. I'm not saying you need to lower the bar when it comes to quality, but you don't have to try nearly so hard to keep them happy with your subsequent offerings. They're no longer a skeptic, and they've lowered their defenses. You're no longer one of "them" - you're on the inside of their circle. So by shifting your focus onto your EXISTING customer base and selling more to them (even just a tiny bit), you will actually REDUCE the amount of time you have to spend focusing on fulfillment yourself. And considering how easy it is to automate the process of marketing new offers to your existing customers, you'll be making even MORE MONEY at the same time.

My suggestion for what to do next? Use some of that extra cash to HIRE HELP to handle ALL the fulfillment day-to-day hassle. Get yourself out of that J.O.B. at your own business and get a little taste of FREEDOM. What you do with it is up to you, of course. You can just slack off with that free time and extra cash, OR... You can reinvest your time on MORE "big-picture" activities that will REALLY grow your business and your bottom line.

Once you're maximizing your income from every customer you have, THEN it's time to focus on getting new customers. You'll simply have way more resources to work with - more time to spend and more cash to invest in marketing, lead generation, and everything else.

How can this plan work for you? Just like this: Check out Scott Voelker - we did a video case study with Scott just the other day so we could share it with you.

Click Here

Due to his application of our FREE video tutorials, he was able to increase profits on a new product he had developed and pocket $5100 dollars in PURE PROFIT in just a few days.

Now he's got the ability to focus on the next step in his business - focus on REALLY building up his profits from his existing customer base. After all, he's been in business for a decade - that's a lot of leads he ALREADY HAS! When he rolls out the membership site idea he's working on, he'll be rolling in CASH, too!

See Video Here

Check out this video to see how his life has been improved just by making this small change in focus, and how he'll grow more in the next YEAR than he has in the past TEN.\

Monday, January 26, 2009

People Are Visual Animals

Whether you like it or not, a new kind of internet is here.

A "videoized" internet.

Ten years ago, video was not common on the internet. But today, video is becoming a standard for websites.

(Want proof? Google bought YouTube, the online video sharing site, for $1.65 billion in stock!)

What does this mean for YOU? You must ask yourself if you are going to keep up with the new "video" standard or not.

Because if you do, you are going to make EASY PROFITS.

You see, your customers are READY for online video right now.

They've been exposed to the idea already through sites like YouTube and other video sharing sites. And they like it. Don't you?

All you have to do now is start using online video. Because, you see, when visitors land on your website, they don't just think it's "cool" if you have video on your site. These days, they actually EXPECT your site to have video.

People want to be entertained. They want to be entertained on television, at the movies and on the internet. And they even expect their advertisements to be entertaining.
A simple banner advertisement has no chance against a good video advertisement. Particularly if it is both informative and has a bit of humor. Not only will the person
watch the video, they will share it with others. They will place it on their own websites and blogs and even e-mail it to friends.

Why not start profiting with this "online video revolution"?
Because you can - easily!

Click Here To Fnd Out More

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