by Dr. George | Entrepreneur 2.0, Marketing & Sales, Uncategorized
From today until the new year, will be inundated with sales and special offers from retailers. It’s very easy to get caught up in the excitement of all the different deals.
When it comes to your business, it can be easy to rationalize purchases that you have either deferred or, perhaps, not even considered before. The problem is, you can end up with things that don’t serve your needs, because you didn’t put a lot of thought into the purchase.
Throughout the year, especially now, I use a decision-making matrix that I applied to business-related purchases, especially large ones.
Here’s how it works. I first ask myself the following questions:
Will this purchase…
- Directly increase revenue and profitability?
- Decrease expenses?
- Directly enhance productivity?
- Improve safety/avoid injury?
- Enhance professional satisfaction?
Now criteria #5 is a “soft” one; if this is the only criterion that my contemplated purchase meets, but I don’t make the purchase. But if the purchase needs one or more of the preceding four criteria, then the purchase gets a “green light.”
I found these criteria to be very helpful for keeping me from making an impulsive purchase and wasting a lot of time and money in the process.
You may have other criteria by which you make your purchases and investments in your business. I’d like to hear some of those; please leave them in your comments below.
In the meantime, if you apply the simple criteria to purchases you make today and moving forward, they’ll help to keep your business in the black.
by Dr. George | Client Attraction and Conversion, Entrepreneur 2.0, Freedompreneur Mindset, Marketing & Sales, Uncategorized
Last week, I wrote about what I think are practical skills that any entrepreneur needs to develop, acquire, or hire into their business. I wrote about the first four, which are listed below in Practical Entrepreneurship, Part 1, and provided recommended resources. I’ve since refined that list and added one more: Turnkey Systemization.
1. Time and Productivity Management
2. Storytelling
3. Marketing
4. Selling
5. Business Financial Management, including interpreting financial statements
6. Verbal Presentation Skills
7. Written Presentation Skills
8. Visual Presentations Skills
9. Lifelong Learning and Application Skills
10. Team-Building, Collaboration, and Network Development Skills
11. Turnkey Systemization
Today, I’m going to describe the next four critical skillsets:
- Business Financial Management, including interpreting financial statements
- Verbal Presentation Skills
- Written Presentation Skills
- Visual Presentations Skills
Business Financial Management, Including How to Read Financial Statements
If you’re going to run any business, ultimately you have to become profitable. That means you have to learn how to manage business finances. A great place to start is by learning how to read business financial statements.
When I started out in the business world, I had no idea what a P&L was or to do with a Balance Sheet. My accountant and other professionals tossed these terms around as if I should have been born knowing this stuff already. It took me a while to figure out that a “P&L” or “Profit and Loss Statement” was the same thing as an “Income Statement.” And it’s one thing to understand the “lingo,” but another completely different thing to figure out what the numbers are telling you.
Once I set out to understand the “lingo” and how to interpret financial statement, I ran into further frustration: Many of the books on the subject were either poorly written, assuming the reader understood “financial street talk” or skipped fundamental steps, or they contained frank errors in their explanations!
Out of my own frustration with this experience, I created a plain English training on the basics of understanding financial statements. I’ll dust it off, if there’s enough interest. Just enter your email address here to let me know you’re interested.
Pricing Based on Value
I’ve written a lot about pricing over the past few months. Whether it’s a product or service, most entrepreneurs don’t understand how to set their prices and fees. The key to pricing starts with clarifying the value – the specific outcomes, improvements, results, and experiences – that you provide through your services and products. Then flip that around and ask yourself, “What are the outcomes, improvements, results, and experiences that people won’t get if they don’t use your products and services?”
Read more about pricing based on value here.
Verbal Presentation Skills
If you want to inspire support and enthusiasm for your vision, you’ll need to be effective at persuading people in seeing what you see. If you study the great leaders of the world, regardless of personality and style, have mastered the ability to motivate using their words. Just do an internet search for Martin Luther King (“I Have a Dream”) or Ronald Reagan (“Challenger Disaster Address”).
I know that a lot of people join Toastmasters to learn how to present. While I don’t have direct experience with this organization, I’ve heard good things about them.
But there’s so much more to being effective in your speaking, whether it’s one-on-one or one-to-millions. Singers and stage performers call this “stage presence.”
From a practical standpoint, most entrepreneurs aren’t going to study acting or singing in order to become more effective in their speaking. So you know where a great place to learn verbal presentation skills? From a radio talk show host. Really.
You see in radio, you don’t see people’s faces. So when you’re on the air, you have to be really tuned into the nuance of your voice – tone, volume, inflection, delivery cadence, pauses, breathing, and even body posture and gestures.
If you’re interested, I happen to know a great radio talk show host, Wayne Kelly. Wayne co-hosts the Wayne and Jayne Show in British Columbia. It’s not listed on his website, but if you contact him through http://www.onairpublicity.com/, he can help you develop a powerful “on-air” presence that will serve you in any and all conversations and presentations.
Written Presentation Skills
Most writers are not born that way. At least in my career, I haven’t seen a single newborn baby who could write. So get over it, if you are saying to yourself, “But I’m not a very good writer.” Writing clearly and in a way that compels the reader is a skill that can be developed. Now there are different types of writing, but here, I’m talking about writing compelling marketing copy and education-based marketing material.
Writing well means telling a story that engages the reader and pulls them along. Joe Sugarman, the mail order maverick from the 70’s and 80’s, was an early pioneer and master of marketing by telling stories. Here are a couple of great places to start: Triggers: 30 Sales Tools you can use to Control the Mind of your Prospect to Motivate, Influence and Persuade
and
Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs
Visual Presentation Skills
I used to think that all you needed to be successful was good verbal and writing skills. But the advent of high-speed internet becoming more ubiquitous has made it important to be able to communicate your vision through online presentations, video, and slide-sharing.
When it comes to a resource that lays out the essentials of what you need to know, I recommend Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte.
Next time, I’ll write about the remaining practical skills that every entrepreneur needs to have:
- Lifelong Learning and Application Skills
- Team-Building, Collaboration, and Network Development Skills
- Turnkey Systemization
Until then, let’s hear from you. What other practical skills do you think are critical to the success of an entrepreneur?
by Dr. George | Entrepreneur 2.0, Freedompreneur Mindset, Marketing & Sales, Productivity, Structure, Systems & Strategy: The Anatomy of the Freedom-Driven Business
As the job market has shriveled up, more people have become “unplanned entrepreneurs.” You may be one of them. I think this is a good thing. And also a bad thing.
The good thing is that people aren’t waiting around for our governments to provide solutions to problems that are multifactorial and complex in nature. Personally, I’m counting on the entrepreneurs of the world, not our governments, to see us through and beyond our current circumstances of financial, social, and political chaos.
The bad thing is that most entrepreneurs, planned or not, don’t really understand what they are getting into. They think to themselves, “I’ve got an idea for a product or service that’s going to change the face of the planet; let’s start a business!”
The other night, I was speaking with a couple of students from my alma mater, Brown University. They are part of the Brown University Entrepreneurs Program. With the preceding observations in mind, we discussed ideas on how to better support students who are either interested in learning about entrepreneurship or already have an idea that they want to bring to market.
A number of support programs for entrepreneurs have sprung up across the United States.
I took a look at the course descriptions and curricula for some of the programs offered at Brown. And while the material is interesting, my overriding concern was that a great deal of the material wasn’t immediately practical. This reminded of being in medical school again: One of my professors was either arrogant or ignorant enough to say “We know that half of what we’re teaching you is totally irrelevant information; we just don’t know which half that is.” I mean, come on, does knowing the total cross-sectional area of capillaries in the human body make me a better surgeon? I guarantee it doesn’t. But it was on one of my exams that I passed.
So here’s my gripe: I figure if you’re going to invest time, money, and energy in learning, wouldn’t you want to invest wisely? Wouldn’t you want to invest in gaining practical knowledge that you can apply to produce results?
If you’re a “yes” to these two questions, I’ve put together a short list of fundamental, yet critical skills that any successful entrepreneur needs to develop, acquire, or hire for (listed in no particular order):
- Time and Productivity Management
- Storytelling
- Marketing
- Selling
- Interpreting Financial Statements
- Verbal Presentation Skills
- Written Presentation Skills
- Visual Presentations Skills
- Lifelong Learning and Application Skills
- Team-Building, Collaboration, and Network Development Skills
This week, I’ll address the first four skills; next week, I’ll address some more.
Time and Productivity Management
I don’t make any claims to being a master of time and productivity management. But I have have studied this area extensively and have a lot to say about it. I’ve studied the bestseller by David Allen, “Getting Things Done” and “18 Minutes” by Peter Bregman. I’ve even hired various personal organizers to physically descend on my office space. I’ve tried Stephen Covey’s time management software. And I’ve read lots of different books specifically on getting organized. But all the reading in the world hasn’t made a single bit of difference for me. And it won’t for you, either.
The problem most entrepreneurs have is that they don’t have a system, a true repeatable process, for identifying what to focus on what matters most and how to process and organize “stuff” that comes at you every day.
Personally, I’ve developed a workflow that I’ve synthesized from a variety of different resources. Perhaps one day, I’ll create a comprehensive training on this, but in the meantime, here’s are some resources from my friend and colleague, Elizabeth Hagen, that I’ve found extremely useful and practical: http://elizabethhagen.com/home-office-organization-products (men, just ignore all the pink in her material)
Storytelling
No I’m not talking about “Mary Had a Little Lamb” stories. I’m taking about story frameworks. Storytelling predates the written language by thousands of years. So the human mind has been wired to tune into stories. Effective storytelling has the power to influence people and shape the world. Think Martin Luther King, Jr. (I Have a Dream speech) and John F. Kennedy (Man on the Moon address). Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story
Marketing & Selling
Marketing and selling are two distinct skill sets that use different parts of your brain. Marketing is simply educating others, promoting your platform, your beliefs, your vision. The goal of good marketing is to attract potential buyers who are looking for what you have to offer and are ready to buy now. Now there are a ton of resources on marketing. You just need one to get you organized and pointed in the right direction. If you’re in the service-based business, I recommend The Fast Track Marketing Club for Independent Professionals http://actionplan.com/fasttrack
Created by my good friend and colleague, Robert Middleton, this program gives you a comprehensive, yet practical approach to marketing. This is the very content that helped me to overcome my own allergy to marketing and selling, years ago.
In contrast, selling is simply helping your potential buyer clarify their needs, wants, and desires and then guiding them through the decision-making process to arrive at solid plan of action. Of all the resources out there, I highly recommend SNAP Selling, written by my friend and colleague, Jill Konrath. SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers
I’ve attempted to give you a primer on some of the key skills I believe are important to your entrepreneurial success. No doubt, there are lots of other skills to develop. Next week, in Practical Entrepreneurship, Part 2, I’ll address the following skills:
- Interpreting Financial Statements
- Verbal Presentation Skills
- Written Presentation Skills
- Visual Presentations Skills
And I’d love to see your comments on other entrepreneurial skills that you think are important.
by Dr. George | Entrepreneur 2.0, Freedompreneur Mindset
As we get closer to the end of the year and you’re looking forward to your new year’s goals for your business, ask yourself this question: How is your business working for you?
Like most of us, there are things you like and things you don’t like. There are things you wanted to accomplish – and did. And there are things you wanted to accomplish and didn’t. Then of course, there are the unintended outcomes, some good, some not so.
Let’s get back to the original question: “How is your business working for you?” How you answer this question depends in great part on your underlying beliefs. Said differently, the way you see your business and the world around you are directly connected to your own beliefs.
Your Beliefs affect your Thoughts. And your Thoughts affect your Feelings. Your Feelings affect your Decisions that you make and your Decisions affect the Action you take and the Habits you form.
If you want different results in your outer world and in your business, you’ll need to shift the elements in this cascade.
If you change your belief about something, you can ultimately alter your habits and what you do. But sometimes changing a belief is much harder than just saying it. Sometimes it’s better modify your actions, even if you don’t believe it’ll matter, at least not right away. In time, repetitive action will then affect your decisions, then your feelings about something, then your thoughts and ultimately help you change your belief. So working in either direction works: First change your beliefs or first change your actions.
Here’s a more important question for you….
Could you change when change matters most?
Most of us do believe this. But the fact is, most people will NOT change when change matters most. The book, Change or Die by Alan Deutschman, goes through the psychology of why people won’t change EVEN when change matters most. He describes about a study on people who had heart bypass surgery. Two years after their surgery, 90% of those people did not change their lifestyle. They were still smoking, still drinking, still overeating, still not exercising, and still not getting rest they need.
And these are the people who knew if they didn’t change their beliefs and habits they could die.
In Change or Die, Deutschman presents 3 keys to change
- Relate- form new emotional relationships that inspires hope and sustains hope
- Repeat- the desired actions-it helps you to learn, practice and master the skills that you need to change
- Reframe- these relationships give you new ways of thinking about your situation and your life
So ask yourself this question now: What would you like to happen in your business in the next 6 months or so?
After you answer this question, go through the three keys to change:
- Who can you form healthy, supportive relationships with to support you?
- What are the critical actions you need to take to produce your intended outcomes at the end of six months?
- How can you surround yourself with unconditionally supportive people and networks to a) hold you accountable for moving forward and b) remind you of your dreams, hopes, and aspirations, even if you forget them when the going gets tough?
Remember, you do have the power to change and you do have the power to make a difference. Now take these three keys to the kingdom and go get it done!
