Small Business Growing

Archive for the 'Business Building Tools' Category

Books and Business: The Difference Between Success and Failure?

To survive and prosper, small business owners need a sharp sense of what correlates with success and failure for their own business.

Some success and failure factors are nearly universal, while others may be particular to your industry’s product or service.

Here is one factor that I’d nominate for the universal category:  a mindset of continual learning.

An obvious but overlooked business success factor: your personal learning.

Have you met many successful business owners who are able to survive the ups and down of cycles, that are not serious learners?  I have not.

People learn in different ways.  Whatever your preferred mode of learning, the key is to be in a state of constant learning.  Being more skilled in this state of mind and way of being will change your business life in a big way.  And it will add a deeper level of survivability and prosperity to your bottom line.

Here is a simple way to enhance this learning mindset:  Read at least one book per month.  When I say “read” I don’t necessarily mean cover to cover.  Just pull out the author’s main idea.  Get the core concept out, and let it be part of your ongoing repertoire of tools and ideas.

If this is not currently part of your business discipline, you may be amazed at how valuable this practice can be.  By the way, those Amazon book reviews can be valuable sources of insight on the quality and content of business books.  They will help you select books that others have found useful.  Some of these reviews are sufficiently thorough that you may feel you don’t need to order the book because the reviewer has provided such a good summary of the key ideas.

If some form of structured learning is not currently part of your business life, give this “one book a month” practice a shot.

Getting habitual exposure to high quality business thinking will add immeasurably to your growth potential.

Where to start?  A book I am currently enjoying, that is brimming with insights on how great strategy is formulated, is “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy” by Richard p, Rumelt.  This is a terrific explanation of how good – and bad  -  strategy is formulated by an author who speaks from many years of practical experience.

[Fran O'Neal provides consultation and installation of a simple, low cost, easy to use marketing and business retention system that helps small business owners get and keep more customers.  Email Fran with questions or for more information on this resource.]

Building Repeat and Referral Business: Events!

One of the most under-utilized strategies for building repeat and referral business is “events.”

By “events” I am referring to special gatherings that show appreciation and attention to your past, present, and prospective customers/clients.

In the current resource-constrained environment, many small business owners are either unable or reluctant to invest in events, but when it is possible for you to make the investment in putting on an event, the rewards can be significant.

Every year during the early part of December we do a holiday event to show appreciation for clients of one of our enterprises, our real estate business.  We do this because we sincerely want to show appreciation and respect for the people who have and will support our business.  The event gives us opportunity to renew relationships, build or sustain emotional connections, and demonstrate how much we value our clients as people.

Here is my point in sharing this aspect of one of our businesses:  if you do not have one customer “reconnection and appreciation” type event in your business now, consider incorporating this into your strategy.

You don’t have to spend a fortune.  You can find creative ways to stage some kind of event whose primary purpose is to express appreciation and reconnect.  As best you can, of course, you want to offer something that provides an incentive for folks to attend the event.  Some have found that doing something fun for kids is a nice way to bring in customers with children in their life.  Obviously it depends on the demographics of your customer base and area.

Here are a few critical points to keep in mind as you think about orchestrating an event.

• Your first event is a learning process. But once  you get a process established, you can repeat it with much greater ease.

•  Customers and clients must feel appreciated if they are to return and tell others about us.  The event will help achieve this goal.

• When done well, events create buzz among your customer base, and they will be anticipated and attended by many of the same people each time.

• Events are effective way to sustain any emotional connection you made previously with past customers. They will help keep people in your orbit.

There are lots of other good reasons to do events.  Of course, the big concern businesses have is financial costs and time in preparing and executing the event.  If you can start small and test the effectiveness of an event, you can better judge the usefulness for your business.

One thing is for sure.  To build sustainable, repeat and referral business we must have methods to keep our relationships with customers alive and well.  Events are one way to do this.  Let me know if you would like to know more about what we do and how it works for us.

[Fran O'Neal provides consultation and installation of a simple, low cost, easy to use marketing and business retention system that helps small business owners get and keep more customers.  Email Fran with questions or for more information on this resource.]

Small Business Brand: Crafting the Authentic Story

Your small business has a story.

But you may not be taking advantage of just how powerful your story can be in building your business.

This is a very short reflection on something that deserves a good deal more time.  But in future posts here at SmallBusinessGrowing.com we will return to this question of how Story fits into your overall brand.

Right now I’d like to offer just three points.

The first is basic:  “What is ‘Story”?

The answer can fill a book, but in essence, Story is the core narrative on how your business came into existence, what it is about, and where it is headed.  As you work on “extracting” the key truths in answer to these questions, you go on a little journey of discovery that helps to bring forth the human and motivational aspects of how your story has and is unfolding.

Second, we do have to work on mining the uniqueness and the truths contained in our own story. One simple place to start is with this question:

• What were the key events that lead up to my starting the business?

Inside of this question there is a gold mine of insight on what your business is about, and why you were motivated to go down this road.

Third, mining the rich insights from our own story is one critical way to inject humanity and drama into the business. Doing so gives our customers and prospects a human view of what we are about.  People are hungry for and responsive to businesses that are REAL….businesses that are deeply committed to their customers and are able to succinctly communicate their commitments and vision.

Story helps to do this.  But it starts with unearthing the events, motivations, and values that are from your heart and soul.

More to come on Story.

In the meantime  we invite you to check out a marketing tool we discovered a year ago and use constantly as an easy, extremely inexpensive, and highly effective way to build repeat and referral business.  You also have a standing invitation to receive out free E-Letter along with a copy of our E-Booklet “The Road to Repeat and Referral Business.”

Success and Failure in Network Marketing: What You Must Know About Prospecting (3)

Success in network marketing is all about applying a set of principles with discipline and persistence.

These principles are “open secrets” that, given time and persistence, will help you to reach your network marketing goals.

One of those “secrets” is simple, but it can trip you up in practice.  It is this:  if you meet and talk with enough people, and learn how to do this over a significant period of time, you can build your business and achieve success.

This point is simple and straightforward, but also illusive if not fully accepted and practiced with persistence.

It is called “Networking Marketing” for a reason.  It absolutely requires relentless networking.  But don’t let that scare you.  If you are motivated to succeed you can do this!  The three “must do” points I will offer are all entirely doable.  They just require determination.

Some people “get” this quickly and go great guns from the start.  Others fade after they work through contacting people in their current  network.  But whatever your situation, it is a discipline that can be learned, and you can improve your ability with time and practice.

How can you do this successfully?  I’d like to suggest that there are at least three “must do” things to keep firmly in mind as you consider or continue your network marketing activities.   Each of these three deserve a longer  discussion.  We’ll come back and revisit them in more detail, but for now I’d like to get them identified, and I hope they will be of some immediate help.  As I mentioned , they are pretty obvious, but not staying aware of them causes a lot of people to drop out of the game before they have a shot at reaching a tipping point where their business can really start to grow.

First, be a networking machine.
If you are not a networker by nature or past experience, you won’t become this “machine” in one fell swoop.  It is a learned art and you definitely improve with learning, practice, and discipline.

The familiar pattern in the network marketing world is the quick splash of activity followed by an equally quick drop out.  And a lot of disappointment along with it. But if you go into your business with reality as your baseline, you can deal with the challenges.  And one of the biggest realities is that you must find ways to be in contact with other people on a regular basis, so that you can authentically and ethically share your enterprise, and then do whatever the response requires.

This is a basic phenomenon impacting most business ventures.  Not everyone wants our product.  In fact, most folks will initially react by saying “no thanks” or “not now.”  This simple, basic truth ends a lot of networking careers. After 25 people saying, “Looks interesting, but no thanks for now”  we can get worn down and doubtful.  It happens all the time.

But whether it is the 3rd, 26th, or 50th, eventually somebody says “Yes!”  If you talk to enough people, and if you are in a state of consistent learning, you will start to find success.  There is a very real sense in which it is a numbers game.

Here is the point:  if you can find creative ways to engage a lot of people over a significant period of time, you have the ground work for success.  Don’t misunderstand.  There is a lot more to it than volume of people.  For example, we must learn the other dimensions of presentation which involve understanding how we come across to people.  There is always lots to learn for someone who seeks to advance their professional skills.  But if you talk to enough people and keep on learning, you are likely to get breakthroughs along your journey, and you will succeed.

Talking to lots of people will get you customers, and it will also get you lots of people who, as just discussed, will say “No thanks.”   That is why the second point is equally critical.

Second, continue to get better at emotional self-management.
Most of those you network with will not become product/service users or business builders.  This is a simple truth.  There is nothing inherently discouraging about this fact.  But after a large number of prospects saying “No thanks” it is entirely human to experience discouragement.  And if you have an extended “dry spell” it can become all the more challenging.  The truth is, there are any number off factors that can get you in a negative state of mind..  If it were a snap, everyone would be a high earning super successful network marketer.  The good news is that if you can learn…and I use the word “learn” very carefully…to manage your own emotions you can keep trucking along.

The other part of the “good news” is that statistics are on your side, if you can manage to be in contact and share your product/service and opportunity with a steady stream of people.  Here is the really good news:  discipline, a learning mindset, and an ethical and authentic caring for others will win the day for you, if you can stay in contact with enough people, while learning to manage your own emotions.

Third, become a dedicated learner.
Success in nearly any field of endeavor requires constant adjustment and self-change.

The folks who become successful in network marketing are on a learning journey.  The ones that keep getting better are always engaged in learning.

If you can continue to improve your capacity to self-assess and self-correct, you can gradually and systematically correct the things that need change and sharpen the things that you are naturally good at doing.

This does not come easily for everyone.  Action oriented people often find if challenging to slow things down long enough to engage in deliberate learning.  But if you can incorporate several learning disciplines into your network marketing practices, and put your learning into play, you will be on the road to success.  More about this as we continue this series, but I do want to mention that one of your greatest learning sources is a trusted individual whose level of experience in business, and overall demeanor, inspire your confidence.  If you know such a person, tap into their wisdom.

If you would like to not miss any of the articles in this series, subscribe to our free E-Newsletter by filling in the “Sign Up” box in the right hand column.   We will continue to go through the principles and strategies that contribute to network marketing success, and we’d love for you to have them all.  Also, if you have a network marketing business that is off and running, or if you own or work in a small business, we’d love for you to have our free E-Booklet on building repeat and referral business.