Last time we wrote about achieving long lasting prosperity we had a lot of good feedback. This month we did a call on this topic for our inner Circle Members and they also loved the subject!
So, I decided to share with you that call because I believe it can transform your business and help you grow.
Would love to hear your comments!
Listen to Achieving Long Lasting Prosperity Now
Achieving long lasting prosperity in business is easier than you might think.
Sales and profit need to happen constantly, hopefully without you having to do all the work.
You need some form of automated continuity income, you need systems in place to create structure, to show you where gaps might be and to allow other people to do the work.
You need to keep money and spend less than you get.
Still businesses that seem to have these things in place disappear every day. They followed these steps, some were prosperous for some time but eventually faded away.
Why is that?
Today in order to achieve long lasting prosperity in business you need to understand consumer’s wants, needs and behavior and need to pay attention to 3 very important elements.
We call these 3 elements the PAT model.
P stands for Positioning. Your business not only needs to be well positioned in the market, it needs to be aligned to what the market wants. Strong positioning is crucial in this new economy. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs tend to spend a lot more time thinking about tools and channels they can use to promote their business and not how they should position their business in the market. They don’t think enough about the purpose of their business and most of the time just try to follow the perceived leader in that category which is, to say the least, foolish. The consumer already has framed who the leader in that segment and will not change this story in their mind just because you want to. A wiser action would be to position your business in a piece of the segment where there is no perceived leader.
A stands for Attention. Most entrepreneurs using channels like social media or even traditional advertising are really fighting for visibility. As good as visibility can be, without the attention from the consumer, nothing happens. What is the use of 1 million followers on Twitter if no one is paying attention to what you are saying.
In order to get attention from your market you need to create an irresistible business. This also has a lot to do with positioning.
You need to have a higher purpose for your business. One thing the recession made very clearly to all of us is that we don’t need stuff and we don’t need businesses that are about nothing.
Attention has a lot to do with you understanding the story already in the mind of the consumer and placing your business in a frame that can be part of that story. You will not change the story in the consumer’s mind, you will frame your services or products to be part of that story.
T stands for Traction. We make money when people take action. So, we need to get traction with our market to motivate them to take action not only once but several times during a period of time. The first two steps we talked about need to be in place in order to get traction. No strong positioning, no attention from the market equals no traction or action.
You need to have systems in place where you can constantly communicate with your market, motivate them, keep them interested in what you do and keep them buying over and over from you. It is your job to keep them buying, it is not about hoping, it is about systems and channels to keep them motivated and don’t forget to innovate every now and then.
You need to innovate in order to keep attention and traction.
Add a hint of entertainment and you have a wonderful combination.
Here are a few questions you need to answer to see if you have this PAT model in place in your business?
What is the higher purpose of your business?
What business are you really in?
What is the end result or what do they become by working with you?
What is the story you are telling? Even more important: Are you telling a story? We all need to become good business storytellers. There is a good reason traditional advertising is not working.
Do you have follow-up systems in place?
Do you have continuity income?
Are you irresistible to your market? We have a lot of blog posts only on this very important point.
If you don’t have good answers to most of these questions, it is time to take action and work on these 3 points. Action is the keyword here. Not the kind of thing you can keep waiting to work on later.
You probably know we like to go geocaching. Geocaching is a modern treasure hunt where you use GPS to find hidden cans. When you find one you sign a log. Sounds weird but it is fun. Right now we are doing a challenge where you have to find a cache in each page of the Utah DeLorme Atlas. At this moment we are 3/4s done. This week we had a specially difficult adventure and it dawned on me how much our attitude affects the outcome and how similar they are to the behavior we have in business and while marketing our businesses.
During 2 days we did 10 pages, 780 miles, crossed a desert, two forests and ended having snow up to our waist.
For the first time we had 2 pages that defeated us. We don’t like to be defeated, but had to accept that when we faced some roads closed, lack of planning and ice. We learned from our first weekend when we got lost in a desert for 4 hours that there are no McDonald’s in the middle of any desert, so we planned a little better and brought with us water and food. We also have some tools and snake antidote. Still we could plan a little better for the kind of terrain we planned to cover. When we met the snow we were wearing t-shirts, and we didn’t check prior to see which and if roads would be closed. We assumed there would be no problems since it was already Spring.
We faced a tough decision when we met a patch of ice on the road and had to quit, but when we were getting buried in snow with all the equipment in the car 1/2 a mile away we pushed the boundaries and almost got in trouble. I had a bad feeling about this one since the beginning but Nash was excited so I went along. Guess that was the closest I got from having a heart attack. Called myself stupid so many times I lost count. In fact, we learned a lot while we were in Vernal about dinosaurs and the different periods like Cretaceous, Paleozoic etc. I decided I belong to the “Stupidus” era.
All ended well but can we really count on luck in life and in business?
Since we had to cross a piece of Wyoming in order to get to another page in Utah, we decided to grab some caches along the way. Just in case we ever do the Wyoming challenge. Sounds clever, but we spent hours on a task that at the moment was irrelevant, and that really could have been used to fulfill our main objective, our goal instead.
Here are a few things I learned about business and marketing from Geocaching:
1. We need to plan for the best and worst outcome. Planning might not be fun but it is really necessary.
2. Be prepared.
3. Entrepreneurs need to run calculated risks not jump without knowing anything about what lies ahead. That is not being smart, that is being stupid. Note the word calculated before the word risk.
4. Know when to quit.Yes, there are times when we need to quit.
5.Define and have a specific goal.
6. Keep your eyes on your goal and don’t go after shiny things.
7. Know your strengths and weaknesses.
8. Use common sense when in doubt.
9. Be ruthless when necessary
10. Learn to accept defeat.
11. Get out of your comfort zone every now and then.
12. Try new things.
13. Incorporate new experiences to your story.
14. Change your worldview. It is healthy.
A while ago I decided to learn how to knit. At first I thought it would be boring because projects take forever to be completed but many many months after that decision, here I am still knitting.
When I decided to learn I went after a store that would give classes. I found this one where every Tuesday they offer an open class where people can work in different projects. I started to attend this class thinking I would meet only old grandmothers with nothing to do. I know, I know. Sometimes I’m full of BS.
To my surprise, the large group had people from all ages and genders. It is a vibrant group where talking and sharing never ends. Every week you end up looking forward to meet again those people.
Here are 2 big business lessons: Create a community around you, let them share experiences and create a bond. This is what builds a tribe. You will also using the same time slot to help a lot of people instead of one at a time.
The owner goes from person to person helping them in their different challenges. She checks what they are doing, what tools they are using and every now an then she introduces them to a new tool that they cannot live without. 9 out of 10 they purchase the tool.
I’m always paying a lot of attention on how she does this because she sells without being pushy and people are always willing to buy. She sells like few people I know.
Business lesson 2- Always be upselling to existing customers
Almost every week she brings pieces that she made during the weekend. This week she brought a gorgeous skirt for little girls. Silver background with black witches and trees. Everybody was amazed by how pretty it was and started asking how they could get one. She announced she would be selling kits. You had to get on a waiting list because however many kits she put together were already gone.
People ran downstairs to put their orders in. Some even bought more than one. The kit was selling for $50. Not a cheap item. Everyone was happy.
Business lesson 3: Innovate every now and them, bring elements of surprise, create some sense of urgency and scarcity.
Every now and then I hear marketers say there is no money in crafts. I say, that every time people have an irrational passion about something they will spend money over and over.
Add the components I mentioned above and you have a perfect storm.
I suggest some marketers go take a knitting class with my teacher.
She makes money like a ballerina would dance.
Have you ever considered marketing to non- English speaking countries?
We’ve been playing with that for a while and I have some friends doing extremely well marketing to countries like Poland and France.
Usually these markets as not as crowded by experts as in the US and although cultures and buying styles vary, they can be very interesting.
Let me tell you about our experience today.
We did our first live streaming to a non-English speaking country. We had a small list of about 100 names. We shot 1 e-mail and over a week got close to 300 registered people. About half attended.
Remember we sent only 1 e-mail in one week and a reminder on the day.
Interaction was amazing, lots of questions. We didn’t know if our sales process would work well there.
We sold really well.
We ended having viewers in 3 different countries.
We were really excited with the results. We put very little effort promoting. A drop in a water bucket if compared to what we do here to promote a teleseminar, we had more interaction and sales.
We can see a lot of possibilities here and we saw that results will come fast.
Have you ever considered marketing to other countries?
Consider the fact that most are not going through a tough recession.
Just saying.
I know a lot of people talk about finding your niche. It is very important, but have you ever questioned who are you for as a business?
What type of people, what kind of personality would be attracted to you? Would resonate with your message?
In my opinion, this answer should come before you decide on a niche.
I saw this on the Harvard Business Review today and thought I’d share it with you. It makes me smile because far too often folks don’t realize the importance of quick follow-up! 🙂
Online leads grow cold quickly: Companies that try to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving queries are nearly 7 times as likely to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers as firms that try to contact prospects even an hour later. Yet only 37% of companies respond to queries within an hour, according to a study of 2,241 U.S. firms led by James B. Oldroyd of Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea.
http://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads/ar/1#
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This video talks about a cool service where you can outsource content writing. This can be a huge time saver although writing yourself is always a better option.
Here is an interview with Adela Rubio, the JV queen, where she shares some precious strategies on Joint ventures.
This is one you cannot skip: Listen to Adela Rubio right now!
