How Bad Do You Want It?
How many people do you know who long to be in their own business? They have lots of great ideas and yearn to “be my own boss.” They put a lot of energy in dreaming and wondering if this will be their ticket to financial freedom. I had the opportunity (I use this word lightly) to meet one of these dreamers the other day. They had that great idea that was going to do it for them. We shared a conversation over coffee. Essentially it was a web-based business, lots of coding etc. I said I’d investigate and can back with a price for this dream of theirs.
(You probably know where this is going)
When I submitted the fee, the instant reply I got was… “If I had that amount of money, I’d buy a car.”
I’d buy a car. How perfectly telling. No – they wouldn’t finance their dream – invest in themselves – they would buy a car! I guess they figured this would cost very close to nothing. It showed just how valuable their dreams are. I believe you see this all the time with start-ups. They have lots of cash for office equipment and decorating – things that make them “0″ amount of income. Weeks before launch, with their budgets very nearly depleted, they then see “what’s left” to put towards marketing. The very thing that “makes them money.” The sad fact is that in many cases, decorating is fun. It’s dressing up the dream. Marketing somehow feels and looks like air.
The smart ones get it and realize their dream. The rest – well, they’re out buying cars!
If they don’t have faith in themselves, how can they ever expect to succeed? That person I was dealing with, should have considered the fee and found a way to finance the dream just like all of us. Sometimes that financing is time, sometimes its money, and sometimes its perseverance. Whatever it takes. When I started, I put up my house, everything to realize my dream.
How bad do you want it?
Barriers to Branding Success
Everything that touches your brand affects it. How you market it, is the voice of your brand. Positioning is the stand you take. Community involvement is the heart of your brand. Brand perception is reality to your audience. How stake holders describe and talk about you has some impact on your brand standing and the perception factor. With all these influencers (and more that I haven’t mentioned) there are any number of barriers that affect your brand’s success.
Your job ( and a mighty big one) is to minimize any negative impact these influencers may have. Some of these are external and internal barriers. External barriers are situations like compliance issues and not keeping current with technology – this impacts productivity, dragging you down. Uninspired marketing addresses nothing and flies under the radar of your audience. Lousy service and union problems are massive barriers to your brand’s success.
Every day in business something pops up that challenges your brand. How you react to them or not, impacts the brand. Couple the stress of this with personal barriers. One would be your alertness. Depending on how you tackle everything, fatigue has a huge impact on your efforts. Family responsibilities are another influencer. Whether you have a positive or negative point of view is a barrier. Have you noticed that when you dwell on the negative, it seems to attract more negative things to you? Lack of education – upgrading is another barrier.
Barriers are a fact of life. How you plan for them and how you overcome them are the bench marks of a truly great brand. Don’t allow barriers to overwhelm you, and view their challenges as just another way to improve your overall performance. As I hurdle each one, I take pride in knowing I am in control. Surrendering to barriers is just the top of the spiral down.
A good exercise is to list your own external and internal barriers and develop a strategy to overcome and build on them.
Are You (Gulp!) Scared?
My wife has been declaring to the world via Twitter and Facebook each time she tackles tasks that are outside her comfort zone. As any good spouse does, I listen to her talk herself through those fears – OK maybe sometimes I do zone out a little. I’ll admit, I don’t really understand some of her worries because she’s great at what she does and others are hard for me to identify because I don’t struggle with the same things.
But, I can tell you, those fears are very real for her. Today, I see she’s challenging herself again by publicly proclaiming she’s going to do something new that is outside of the norm for her. I’m proud of her.
Truth is, I too have my own fears. As a matter of fact, almost anyone who’s ever run a business fears something in varying degrees at one point or another.
Scared about some new strategy we have not tried, worried about upsetting customers over product changes, losing sleep over legal issues that have not materialized, nervous over the new product you are launching, quaking in your boots over the upcoming seminar you’ll be speaking at or an interview with the media. The list goes on.
The question is, will you rise over it? Face it and move forward or bail out and put a choke hold on your business? You can’t move forward if you bail out. But if you take them head on and do it afraid, next time, it won’t be that scary anymore and you’ll find yourself on the next upward rung of the ladder.
Some resources that you might be interested in concerning fear.
Photo by Bob SmithBusiness Research Reports Free Now, $399 Later
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Note: This post contains affiliate links. For full disclosure, view our policy.
How Do You Outsource When You Don’t Know What You Want?
Because our business does not employ full time employees (yet), some articles in business magazines don’t apply. Yes, we outsource and there are many parallels, though not always applicable. But while reading one an article by Jason Fried (co-founder of 37 signals and co-author of Rework) recently I was drawn to the many helpful points he raised. One of which really stood out for me because that’s what I’ve been sharing for a while too.
In the article, Fried says that they generally, prefer to find out how to do a job before they start hiring someone to do it. The reason he says, “If you haven’t done the job, you don’t really understand the job. Without that fundamental understanding, it is hard to judge what constitutes a job well done“.
We totally subscribe to that thinking here. It is always frustrating when I hear of gurus or guru wannabes telling people, many who are new, inexperienced business owners that they can do this. Whatever this may be. The theme is always recurring. That you don’t have to know a single thing about the business or the market. Just bark out orders to some lowly paid worker and Voila! Instant website, e book, product, fill-in-the-blanks. While that may be true, it is also very misleading.
- If you have no clue how to do something, how do you know the person you hire (or outsource to) is not asking you to pay top dollar for skills they haven’t developed yet and are still learning to master?
- If you have no idea what their day to day job pertains, how would you even know that you really need this job or position? Hiring someone just because you’ve been told you need such a position and aren’t quite ready for it yet is a waste of money.
- If you have no idea how to do a job, how do you know what orders or direction to give? There will always be smaller tasks you can get someone to do without needing to know the details for example, you don’t need to know how to transcribe an audio before you hire it out. But there are also other tasks that need a little more direction and knowledge from you. If you depend on the hire or contractor for direction, then you’ll likely end up paying more and spending more time on a job due to additional communication.
Let’s be clear. I am not saying everyone who encourages you to outsource is wrong. But when someone says they don’t know how to build a website and yet make a gazillion bucks off their online division, the truth is, they have a go between manager who knows how to do the job to manage a hire for them.
What am I saying, do it all yourself? No. Not for the long term. But is definitely a good idea to do the work once, twice, maybe a couple of times before you decide if the job is something you really need to do, whether someone else in the organization is already equipped and capable of handling the job. After that, you decide the is a job worth hiring out for, now you know how to weed out the good people.
What To Do When People Keep Leaving
One of the most frustrating areas of my business in the last 2 years has certainly been the hiring and keeping of contractors. Before you get the wrong idea, I am not difficult to work for 
. The reasons for leaving are very typical for independent contractors/freelancers. Family issues, health and moving on to other things are the biggest reasons. Sometimes, there’s plain irresponsibility. People just fall off the face of the earth. Sadly, it happens way too often and in my case, they leave while a project is mid way.
Every time this happens, I have to start from the beginning. Explaining the objectives, the details of a project, the goals, where we are, where I want to go from here. They have questions. Stuff that you have perhaps gone over before in different threads of conversation and will have to dig up from your email archives or elsewhere. Getting someone up to speed is extremely time consuming. Time you could better spend on marketing and other income producing tasks.
People say when you outsource, you train once and have others do the job over and over. It is harder the first time and just think. You’ll never have to do the job again after the initial training. That is true, if they stay with you. When they leave, you’ll have to do the training again. And again. You trade a set of problems for another.
How do businesses in high turnover industries do it? They use a combination of trainers and systems. You get someone else who has already created the training to train your assistants for you. Since the material is ready at hand, you do not need to take time off your own schedule. If questions abound, the trainers will help them through it. If they leave, send your new assistant to complete the training.
You also make sure you have systems set in place so all people need to do after coming back from training is to implement the systems using their new skills. When they stay with you, send them to more training to update or upgrade their skills. Like hiring employees, this boosts the chances of a freelancer staying with you.
Not all projects require full training. Sometimes like in my example above, all I needed was a good system – which I’ve since collected and sorted out. So if you find someone who can train as well as provide system frameworks for you and your assistants that would be so much sweeter.
That is the goal we are working towards at TechBasedTraining. We began with a strong focus on bite-sized, technical training that can be quickly implemented. As time went by we also realized the importance of providing basic systems. Many of the training and packages are created with that idea in mind. In the Pro members’ area, there are also checklists for smaller tasks that fall inside a system. This way, a the business owner can focus on the what to do’s even when their contractor or staff leaves for greener pastures.
photo credit: julianlimjl
Create Loyalty & Confidence With Your Website
Customer confidence is imperative for small business owners. The more confidence your customer has in you and your business, the more loyal they become. Confident customers make repeat purchases and repeat visits.
Confident customers also tell others about your website products or services.
They spread the word.
Here’s how to generate customer confidence into your website.
Quality Content
One of the best ways to communicate your strength in your industry and give your customers confidence is to write quality content. Quality content positions you as a credible and trusted source of information.
It won’t come up until your customer is ready to make a purchase however a secure transaction with an SSL certificate is important. It shows customers you value their business and respect their privacy and security.
Testimonials
Customer testimonials are social proof. They tell your visitors that you have followed through on your claims and promises. Post testimonials on your landing page and where appropriate throughout your website.
Certifications and Associations
Any certifications or associations you belong to will also ad credibility to you and your website. They help increase customer confidence when they know you belong to other business organizations. For example, a BBB, Better Business Bureau, certification can be the difference between a purchase and a click away.
Contact Information
Including your name, address, email and phone number helps people feel reassured that you’re not only a real business, they can get a hold of you if they need to. Place the information on your home page, in the footer is fine. And consider including a “contact” button or page to make your information easy to find.
Use your About page to tell people who you are and help your visitors get to know you. As a small business owner, who you are is often your strongest asset. Tell them your story.
How long have you been in this business?
What made you get into it?
Why do you enjoy it?
People like to buy from real people.
What is your experience?
FAQ/Customer Service
Make sure you have an easy to use customer service system including a FAQ page. When people have questions, they tend to trust those who present the answers up front or make it really easy to find the answers.
Policies and procedures. In this day and age transparency is essential. Make sure all of your policies and procedures are 100% communicated and up front. This can be communicated with autoresponders when people sign up for your list or buy your product. However, you can also make sure to communicate on your website itself.
For example, if you have a subscription form, you can have a link in that form to your privacy policy.
Establishing customer confidence on your website is an important strategy.
Take a look at your website from your visitor’s perspective.
Are you doing everything you can to ensure they have confidence and trust in you?
