How to inspire – communicate the why, not the what
The Golden Circle – Why, How, What
Simon Sinek – Speaking about leadership at TED
How much time do you spend on marketing?
are you getting the message out there?
Last night I gave a presentation to a group of 17 people that are in the process of getting their business ideas off the ground. My talk was about using online media to grow your business.
One of the students asked, “how much time should we spend on marketing?” I think I shattered some dreams when I said about half of your time.
Unless you are a seasoned entrepreneur, most people get into business because
- they don’t want to work for someone else
- they have a product or service that they love and are passionate about it
- they want to make lots of money and
- they want time freedom and flexibility
The reality is, to start and build a business is more about getting your message to the right target market than it is producing a great product or delivering a great service. If you are starting a business where you are doing most of the work you have to be the CEO, the financial controller, the salesperson, the marketer, the customer service person as well as delivering the product or service.
If you don’t have the resources to employer or contract a dedicated marketing person then you are going to have to do it yourself and it will take up half of your time.
If you are offering a service then you have to consider
- employing someone else to provide all of part of that service
- charge a high enough hourly rate, that you can earn a full income from providing that service half the time
- add a product to your service to increase your income for your given output
If you are offering a product then you have to consider
- creating a production team to make the products for you
- outsourcing the production to another company, but make sure you still have lots of margin to make a product
If you really hate marketing or really don’t want to do it, then consider finding a business partner that is strong in marketing and loves doing it so you can spend the time doing what you love.
Finding Balance
I recently gave a talk to the Million Dolar Round Table in Brisbane about being your BEST to thrive in tough times. One of the points of my talk was about the need to have balance in your life. The term “work life balance” is thrown around and something that many of us are trying to strive, but I don’t believe that it can really existing.
For one it’s not just work and life we are trying to balance, it a multitude of pressures that our careers, families, friends, ambitions, goals and desires both external and placed upon ourselves that we are trying to balance.
I like to think of balance as the act of minimising the frequency and amplitude of the variations from where our ideal equilibrium of all the things that makes up what we want out of life. Think of it as a pendulum that not only swings left and right, but in fact forwards and backwards and in all directions. Our ideal life or our equilibrium point is when the pendulum is hanging straight down and not moving. This is when our life is totally aligned with our values. What happens however is that the pendulum gets bumped and pushed by trying to keep other people happy, the drive to earn an income and grow wealth, trying to live up to other peoples expectations and trying to live up to our own expectations.
When we feel like life is out of control, the pendulum is swing madly in all direction at great speed and amplitude. We feel like the world is against us, work is full on, there is friction in the family, our health is deteriorating and we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
When we feel that life is good, the pendulum has slow small variation from the equilibrium and this is happy balance. We might have to work extra hard for a few days or weeks, but then we get over the hump and get to take time out with the family or have a long weekend. We manage to fit in a morning walk or lunch time gym session. We feel clear, calm, creative and in control.
So what do you do when the pendulum is swinging like crazy.
- Learn to say “No” – If you feel like you are overloaded, you probably are. No matter how efficient you are at time management if there is more than is possible to complete in day, you are not going to get it done. Simplify your task list delete what is not very important to be done and don’t take on any new work until what is on your list is done. We tend to add a lot of stuff to our lists that we don’t really need to do. Simply as much as possible and get back to basics. Ask questions like ‘what is the one thing today will….. grow my business, improve my relations, improve my health. Then don nothing but that one thing.
- Enjoy Free Time – Schedule a period of time each week. Hopefully a whole weekend, but at least a single day or at the very least a half day, where you have absolutely nothing planned to do and then do what ever you feel like at the time, whether it’s sitting on the lounge watching TV, reading a paper at the café, going for a walk with your friends or partner or anything else that captures your imagination at the time.
- Have a realistic schedule – in our endeavour to be successful we try and pack as much as we can into any given time. Allow twice the amount of time you think it will take to do something so you don’t feel rushed and don’t feel like you’ve achieved less than you wanted to in a day. Give other people realistic expectations of when things will be completed so you don’t feel like you’re rolling from one deadline to another.
- Unclutter – We gather clutter in our lives from day to day. Periodically have a decluttering day, where you do nothing but store, file, shred, tidy, throw out anything that you haven’t used recently. The worst thing that might happen is you have to re buy something a some point in the distant future, but you will achieve is a liberation of feelings, thoughts and stress that is keeping you out of balance and taking your focus of the surprisingly few things that you actually have to do to achieve what you want.
- Don’t multi-task, Batch – multi-tasking is another form of clutter. The constant change in context confused your focus and all you really achieve is looking incredibly busy, feeling stress and not really getting anything done. Instead batch you work, by working on one task for a set period of time and being totally committed to that task, that when the time is up. Put it down and move onto the next task.
- Be present – be total present in what you are doing at the time. If you are working on that task be totally dedicated to it and not thinking about other things or trying to do other things at the same time. If you are talking with someone, be totally present with them. Give them your attention and actively listen to what they are saying. All to often we are watching tv, twittering and trying to have a conversation at the same time, which results in us not engaging with the person and a deterioration of relationships.
- Be Grateful – when you feel like things aren’t going your way, instead of thinking about you bad things are, take time to list the things that you can still be grateful for. Start with the people closest to you and work out from there. Being grateful is one of the best ways to feel love for those around you, to remove fear and stress and get the inner clarity you need to get back into balance.
Marketing – the saviour for small business
With tumbling shares, global economic uncertainty, a lame duck US president and Kochie doing doom and gloom specials on TV, you’d think the world was going to end. But how bad is it? Should we all go home and give up? Today’s economic uncertainty could be a business opportunity.
It’s pretty simple really. Take a good look at your business, reconnect with your customers, provide the very best products, services and prices – and market as hard as you can.
We’ve been working with clients in the internet marketing space for 10 years now and saw a similar cycle in 2001 when there was a global recession a Tech crash and the slowing effect from the introduction of GST.
Interesting enough the companies that floundered and faltered, cut back on all their spending to try and ride it out, while the ones that prospered and grew and are much more successful 7 years on are the ones that cut back on non essential expenses and reinvested heavily in marketing.
Don’t make survival your sole aim, make it growth.
I was having this discussion with Julian Campbell last week and he had a great analogy. Business is like a shrub or bush. It is constantly growing, but if you let it just grow naturally, it will go wild, it’s growth will slow down and when droughts and storms come, branches will break off and it will be uprooted and die. If you continually trim and prune the bush, the foliage gets thick and lush and the bush grows quickly and strongly. Even during drought and storm the bush may brown a bit but it stays solid and health.
It’s time for us to make sure our businesses are well pruned, that all the dead wood has been trimmed back and we start fertilising it with marketing.
Revisit your marketing goals and promotional strategies.
Marketing goals need to be specific, measurable and focussed on generating enquiries and sales. Brand building in prosperous times of growth is fantastic to the overall business, however short term sales objectives are often more relevant in harder times.
Thus the use of more short-term promotional strategies such as direct marketing, sales promotion or e-marketing may increase as a proportion of your marketing budget.
Customer value for money isn’t always measured in terms of the ’sale price’.
Beware the temptation to compete on price during economic turmoil. Customers will always want value. The concept of value needs to expand beyond just economic value. Value can be created through quality, benefits, information, extra services, customer satisfaction and relationship management.
Remove the risk
In times of worry, people will always be more risk adverse. If you can limit the risk to the customers or remove it altogether you will continue to sell strongly.
Go against the flow
An aggressive marketing strategy doesn’t have to be costly however it does need to be different, creative and stand out from the crowd.
It comes from truly understanding the needs of your clients. What is your competitive advantage and how can you effectively and efficiently communicate it potential clients?
Managing Multiple Locations
In the past, a team almost always resided in one location, and where the company was spread of multiple locations, each location tended to operate as an autonomous unit reporting into a head office. The reason is obvious: it wasn't easy to communicate and collaborate with people who were not in the same physical location. The communication has improved, and so can the management.
Now it's quite common to have team members that collaborate and work together every day that are physically located in many different places. In some cases, you may have team members that are working from home or from satellite offices. This is becoming a popular model as people are striving for work/life balance and moving away from a long commute to a central office.
All of this is more common today because of advances in technology and software. People can access your company's computer network remotely with almost the same speed as if they were in the office. Software is available to share documents and make updates available real-time to the rest of the team. The team can get together as needed using phone conferencing. You can even see each other if you like using teleconferencing or utilising video technology over the web. Free software like Skype (www.skype.com) has made the world a much smaller place.
That's all good news. The not-so-good news is that it is still easier to manage a team when the members are located together. There's no technology that can take the place of talking to them face-to-face. This is a challenge I have everyday, with both my team and customers being spread across Sydney and Newcastle offices.
These ideas can help you better manage a dispersed project team.
1. Attitude. Both manager and team members must be especially diligent and sensitive to collaboration and teamwork concerns when part of the team is remote. It's easy for a remote worker to feel isolated from what's going on with the rest of the team. People who're working remotely must be proactive communicators and must be especially good at working independently and meeting their deadlines.
2. Communication. The project manager needs to be proactive in communicating to ensure the team works well together. There should be regularly scheduled meetings where the remote workers attend in person (weekly, monthly or quarter depending on the distance). If this is difficult, try doing it by Video Conferencing or Conference Calls.
3. Technology. Make sure that your remote team members have the right hardware, software, and other equipment to get their work done. This will include, Intranet's, High Speed Connectivity, Mobile Connectivity, VPNs etc.
There is inherent risk associated with remote team members. This is increased due to physical difference away and time differences. It's hard to grow the same culture in satellite locations, especially if the team member is working alone. You have to work hard to make sure they feel part of the team and are not kept in the dark compared with people working out of the main office.
How to get started in your online business
If you want to create an online business then you are going to need help building it in the first place. Then you will need ongoing help in supporting and continuing to evolve it. This is why it’s important to find a company that you can build a long-term relationship with.
When looking for a company:
- Use a company that is passionate, but constructively critical, about your idea. If they don’t believe in your idea then they are not going to do a great job. But be careful if they blindly love your idea, because they may be faking enthusiasm to win the work.
- Use someone you feel comfortable with because you will want to build a long-term relationship with them. If you don’t feel at ease with them now, you won’t in the future.
- Ask to see examples of their work in similar fields and for projects of similar size and complexity.
- Speak to their clients and ask questions about how the initial project went. Was it on time and on budget? How was the project managed? What was the quality of the end product like? How was the support and follow up after the site was launched?
- Don’t choose the cheapest solution. We are talking about your online business here. You are better off delaying your plans and raising the extra funds than sacrificing quality and the success of your idea.
- Look for companies that have strong technical and marketing skills.
- Avoid sole traders and micro-businesses. Sole traders tend to be ‘flat out’ working on someone else’s project when you need them.
Your website is your business and you need your development resources to be available when you need them. Over the years we have taken over many websites that were started by a one-man-band but never finished.
Would you walk 100km for your dream?
In many ways getting an online business off the ground and to the point where it is creating a significant sustainable income is like doing a 100km walk. I came to this conclusion when competing in the Oxfam Trailwalker in Sydney last week. You have a lot of time to think when you walk 100km.
The Oxfam Trailwalker is an event where a team of four walks together to complete 100km over a 48 hour period. There are 8 checkpoints along the way and each team must enter and leave the checkpoint as a team of 4. At each checkpoint you are met by a support crew who can give you food, refill camel packs, change clothes and attend to injuries.
I was invited to join with a team of 3 other friends and colleagues and thought it sounded like a good challenge at the time. The reality of continuously walking 100km is quite different!
In the lead up to the event we met every couple of weeks to plan the event, what we would need to bring, who we would need to support us, what training we needed to do and how long we thought it would take us.
Three weeks before the event, we walked the second half of the course, and I'm glad we did. There was 2100m of incline and 2300m of decline, and it was a real wake up call to what we were going to be up for on the day.
Our team left Middle Head in Sydney at 7am on Friday 25th August and start walking towards the first of 9 checkpoints with a goal of 27 hours. It had been raining consistently for the last week in Sydney so the tracks were pretty muddy and at times required us to take off shoes to cross creeks. You couldn't get from one checkpoint to the next without getting your shoes wet, so we had to change socks at every checkpoint.
The toughest part of the course was coming into check point 7 (72km down, 28km to go) at 3.30am. We had walked 4 hours for the 13.5kms from checkpoint 6 in the dark with headlights on. There was a lot of mist, which made visibility very poor and the track was very rough. We had been walking for over 20 hours and fatigue was setting is, so there was a lot of slipping and tripping and we knew the hardest parts of the course were still to come. It was a mind game at this stage to keep going. Almost 600 of the 2000 competitors pulled out of trailwalker throughout the event and over 200 pulled out at checkpoint 7.
After an extended stop at checkpoint 7 of eating drinking and getting physio, our spirits were strong again as it started to get light and we set off to finish the 100kms.
We came into the finish line at 2.10pm on Saturday, 31 hours after we had started. We were tired, sore and had blistered feet, but were filled with an immense sense of accomplishment and success as we crossed the finish line at Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury.
So how is it like succeeding in an online business?
- The concept of it sounds really good, but the reality of doing it much harder than you could ever imagine.
- You have to do a lot of planning, training and preparation before you even start.
- Whilst you know the general path you are going to take, there are external conditions that you can't control that can make your journey a lot harder.
- It's much easier to do it as a team than go it alone.
- There are lots of ups and downs.
- You need a support crew to help you along the path that can raise your spirits, revitalise you and keep you on track.
- There are some very dark times on the path when you wonder why you got into it in the first place and you don't know how you are going to keep going.
- People are always dropping out. The majority of the people drop out when they have done all the hard work and they are only a short way from the finish line. If they had just have persisted that little bit longer, they would have gotten all the rewards.
- It almost always takes you longer than you thought it would.
- When you make it to the finish line there is an immense sense of accomplishment, gratitude and celebration
- If you get to the start line you are in a minority of the population, if you get to the finish line, you are in an elite group of people.
Write your marketing plan in pencil
Today I was emailed a quote from American Rock Star, Jon Bon Jovi – “Map out your future, but do it in pencil.” There have been some great quotes from musicians, but most of them are more humorous than something to live your life by. This quote however was one that I could relate to.
While this quote is about setting your life goals and the future of you as a person, I think it relates equally to your marketing plans and goals.
Many people create a marketing strategy for a one to three year period, create the action plan to implement it, then lock it in. They implement the plan, sometimes getting feedback to see if it's meeting the strategy, never stopping to check if the strategy itself is still sound.
View your marketing strategy as an evolving, living thing. What worked yesterday, probably doesn't work today and what works today, may not work tomorrow.
Every month ask yourself
- Is my marketing working?
- Is my message hitting the right market?
- Is that the market I still want to be in?
- What other markets could benefit from my products/services?
- What problem in my existing markets is not being met?
- Where can I increase my marketing budget to get better effect?
- Where can I decrease my marketing budget without loosing effect?
People are continually evolving. They are learning to filter out blatant advertising and appreciate a more sophisticated information based approach. They want to develop a relationship with you and learn to trust you before they do business with you.
Is your marketing strategy continually evolving to keep up?
The Need for Human Interaction in Online Business
No matter how hard you try or how good your website is many people still need to have a human interaction when purchasing online.
I'm a director of a business, www.stickytickets.com.au, that will be launched in early July. It's an online business that allows people to post their events online, market them and sell tickets to the event.
To gain some experience from our customer's point of view, we are organising an event this weekend to watch the FA Cup Soccer Final on the huge screen at the IMAX, and selling the tickets to this event online. The overall outcome is a success as we have sold out all the tickets….and learned a lot!
Despite having very clear instructions on the website and a FAQ page we literally got hundreds of phone calls an emails asking the same questions. We really weren't expecting or ready for this, and it drove our office mad for about 2 weeks and diverted us from our core business.
Why did so many people call and email?
It could be that the website wasn't as clear as we thought it was, or that the user wasn't actually reading the website, but I think it's a matter of trust.
People like to know who is behind what they are buying. They like to ask questions to real people, and judge the answers they get back as a measure of the legitimacy of what they are buying.
If you are selling anything online you need to have a way for people to contact you and communicate with a human. You also need to work out how you are going to deal with this from a resourcing point of view.
The key is to balance is to limit the disruption to your business while providing the highest level of customer experience.
Your Treasure Map for the Future
By Julian Campbell – Leadership Coach
If you haven't already done so, its time to consider planning your business growth. We have often linked building a successful business to setting sail to search for Hidden Treasure. You would not think of launching your ship, putting the lives of your crew and yourself at risk, or risking your costly ship and supplies, if you did not have a map; some idea of where you were going or how you would benefit. Yet, that is exactly the way most businesses operate. The Business Plan is your treasure map to success, but only about 10% of businesses have one. Do You!
In building your map, the first important point you need to know is “where is the treasure island and how much treasure is hidden there?” With your business you must decide on your vision, your mission statement, your business goals and identify the size and nature of your market. What changes are taking place in your market? How will they affect You?
To minimise the risk and reap the rewards, will require a significant amount of research to determine, who buys, how many buy, why they buy and how much they spend. Few business operators spend that essential planning time and consequently risk so much.
A considerable amount of information exists everywhere. The difficult task is to track it down, isolate what is relevant for you and collate it into a useful form. Your past records are a good starting point. Then there is the library where a lot of statistics can be found. Other sources include the Yellow Pages, newspapers, trade journals, government departments, the internet of course and even your competitors.
When you have the treasure island clearly identified, where it is and how big the treasure is, you have a focus. Now you can decide the best way of getting there. It will be important to identify likely obstacles you might meet along the way. In the case of your treasure map you need to know where the hidden rocks are, the location of other islands, the water currents and the wind behaviour. Also, you need to know the existence of other dangers such as pirates, sharks, or cannibals on the island. In other words, what are the possibilities of getting there and back alive with the treasure?
In business the story is no different, the market place is filled with obstacles and threats which could prevent you from being successful. Who is the competition, how will they react? They certainly won't make it an easy ride. Then there are the market influences, those trade winds to blow you of course and prevent you reaching your destination. All these potential elements must be considered in your marketing strategy.
So now you have your future map for the new millennium that shows you where you are now, where you are going how you are going to get there and the results you hope to achieve. Now you must use it! The Business Plan, like the map, is a tool, a reference document to be continually monitored and changed when you discover errors.
Happy digging in the coming year!
Better Business from Julian Campbell
