Home Wealth Project
Extensive Research On How To Build Wealth From The Comfort Of Your Own Home.
Is It Time to Fire That Client?
Feb 8th
There’s a natural lifecycle for any freelancer’s business. When you’re just starting out, you indiscriminately look to attract as many clients as you can to build your business. But inevitably, some clients won’t be the right fit.
Whether it’s an overly-demanding client who’s prone to instant message you any time of day (or night), an indecisive client who’s sole feedback usually entails “that’s not quite it,” or the client who’s perennially slow to pay, some clients just aren’t worth the business. An extension of the Pareto Principle says that 20% of your customers probably account for the majority of your time and trouble.
Most of us strive to avoid conflict and stick with the mantra that clients are good for business. However, staying too long in negative client situations can take a significant toll on your job satisfaction, emotional wellbeing, and business.
If your attempts to actively manage the negative aspects in a client relationship ended up hitting a brick wall, it’s time to cut the cord. Firing someone may not come as easily to you as Donald Trump, but here are some ways to make the process as pain-free and professional as possible:
Take emotion out of the equation: When deciding to fire a client, don’t act rashly from frustration or a bruised ego. Take a few days to consider the situation before acting. Although, if you find yourself going through this process multiple times in a month or year, it’s time to listen to your gut.
Review the contract: Before approaching the client, go through every line of your contract and check for loose ends. If you don’t have a contract, gather any documents you have (including initial emails) that define the project scope and expectations. Make sure you have completely lived up to your obligations. If a client has already paid for certain parts of the project, make sure you have delivered on them. If you’re concerned the client may fail to pay what they owe, consider how to minimize the damage. This could mean waiting until they have paid before telling them your intentions.
Meet face-to-face: As tempting as it may be, firing a client doesn’t mean you just stop answering their emails or calls. Meet your contact face-to-face (or over a phone call if you’re a web-based contractor).
Keep it brief: No doubt you have a billion reasons why you don’t want to continue working with this client, but you only need to offer one. And it can be as simple as, “I no longer think my services are meeting your needs.” The more details you provide, the more you open the door to an argument.
Give sufficient notice: If a client relies on you for regular work, give them time to find a new contractor or vendor. This could be 30 days, the end of a major deliverable, or whatever works in the context of your relationship.
Offer alternatives: Unless the client was disrespectful or a major problem, help them find a new solution by referring a colleague who could meet their needs. If you don’t have a specific person in mind, you can still offer guidance on the type of provider who might be a better fit such as, “Your needs have grown, you may need to consider a full-size agency.” Or, “Why don’t you look for someone who specializes in x.”
At the end of the day, firing a client is never easy. Yet the difficult conversation will be over soon enough and you can move on to more restful nights and bigger and better things.
Fired Photo via Shutterstock
Is It Time to Fire That Client?
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Real Time Status for Your Business with GeckoBoard
Feb 6th
Ever felt like you’d like the 911 status on your business, in one view, one place? All the vitals so you can see, at a glance, what’s going on in the different areas of your company? If you have wanted to combine your web analytics, CRM, project management, sales pipeline, customer support requests, to name just a few, then this review of GeckoBoard is for you.
The first thing to understand about GeckoBoard is that it aggregates the stuff, the information, you need or want to see in one dashboard view. That dashboard might be on your iPhone or laptop or it might be an HD television hanging in your office lobby or manufacturing floor. Each device or monitor counts as one connection and, depending on your account, you are allowed a certain number of simultaneous connections.
For small business owners who are already managing too much information, GeckoBoard provides a way to streamline and simplify the information flow across your desk.
After you sign up for a free trial, I’ll admit it can be a little intimidating to figure out. However, it doesn’t take long to get it working. They are creating a new category of web-based application — a tool that pulls all of your disparate software and applications into one view. The company calls it a “real time status board.” I can live with that. The app comes with some basic parts installed so you can view samples. By clicking “Add Widget” you quickly see how many apps are already easy to connect to, such as:
- Highrise for CRM
- Gmail and Mailchimp for email
- FourSquare for location updates
- Basecamp or Github for project management
- Salesforce, Twitter, Freshbooks, Google Analytics, to name a few more and the then you have tools to create custom widgets linking into datasets that are just your own. The custom widget button helps you build from scratch.
Frankly, it is a bit mind-boggling. And that’s my only real wish for the GeckoBoard platform — that they do a bit more work on explaining what it all means for you as a small business owner. For some, it is a big “aha” and quite intuitive; for others, it’s a rabbit hole of “what does this do, really?”
Here is a sample dashboard I created in less than five minutes; after I got up the courage to hook into different data sets of my own. I set up a search on Twitter for “makers” and “inventors”; then hooked into my Gmail account (I had just emptied my inbox to look organized). I also hooked into one of my websites Google Analytics account and it was all point and click and authorize. Here’s a quick screenshot below. I left the three default sample widgets that are right on top.
If you find yourself jumping from application to application to keep up with your inbox, your tasks, your social media, you could use GeckoBoard to put it all on one screen. More so, if you have information that you want to share on a big screen with your team or your customers as they come into your company offices, you could use it that way, too. It is fairly easy to use and offers a lot of potential for those trying to see a lot in one glance. Plans start at $9/month and scale up based on connections. No credit card to sign up for a free 30-day trial (which is what I used to test it out).
Learn more about GeckoBoard.
Real Time Status for Your Business with GeckoBoard
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Spending Too Much Time on Twitter
Jan 31st
Many of us love engaging with our customers, industry folks and like-minded individuals on Twitter. Some of us also believe that time spent on Twitter translates to more awareness for our brand, and thus more customers. But how do we measure if it’s working? Or how much time is too much time?
Here are some of the things that have worked for me:
Measure Your Chatter
About six months ago, I came across a tool called Buffer. It basically allowed me to store tweets that I thought were worth sharing, and shoot them out at pre-determined times. This allowed me to catch up on news for 15 minutes in the morning, and share my thoughts and other links over the next 8-10 hours without having to go to Twitter.
The real value in Buffer is the analytics feature. When I logged into Buffer at the end of the day, after the tweets had been sent, it showed me how many people had clicked on them and who retweeted them. This allowed me to learn what was appreciated by my audience and what times of the day got the most clicks.
Do Not Chase Followers
A higher number of followers translate into having a larger audience for your words and thoughts – agreed. But you will grow a much more meaningful base of followers – if folks follow you for your tweets, as opposed to a reciprocal follow. In other words, stick to organic content that can benefit people in some way, instead of following people by the hundreds and expecting a follow back.
There are two good tools that can help you clean the clutter and follow relevant folks aligned with your interests:
1. Manage Flitter allows you to see who in your follow list is not following you back, and who is not an active user. You can use this tool every couple weeks to assess what kind of news feed you want to receive.
2. Twellow is a proactive tool that allows you to search for people by interests, industries and professions. You can get lists of people with their Twitter descriptions and can add them if you like.
Don’t Annoy People
Too many Tweets might not be a good thing. Imagine if you were following someone who was hogging your feed all hours of the day. You might lose more followers with excessive, irrelevant posts.
Here are three little tricks that you can use to have more weight with your followers:
1. Five Tweet rule: If you have a several article links or other data to share, stick to around five tweets a day (at three hour intervals using Buffer). Your followers will not be overwhelmed and might look forward to your links on an ongoing basis. You can answer questions and engage in conversations in addition to these five tweets.
2. Ask a question: This is a genuine way of engaging with real people rather than throwing information at them. If you have the right follower base, asking questions is the best way of introducing yourself and vetting out who wishes to remain engaged with you – this might give you a few pointers as to who you should write to about your next product update.
3. Personal Critique: Whether it’s a person or a brand, posting negative tweets on a consistent basis might alienate your followers. You might have a valid reason but don’t get too personal with your attacks. Keep it professional and polite.
There is some charm in moderation. I know it’s easy to fire off seven words and hit enter, but try to resist it – until you have something meaningful to say.
Social Media Exhaustion Photo via Shutterstock
Spending Too Much Time on Twitter
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Building a Business is Worth the Time
Jan 19th
Make no mistake. Creating your own small business is hard work. But as you’ll see, there are rewards. Here are some tips, tools and trends to think about while taking the time you need to build your small business.
Small Biz Success
It takes time to build a business! Rachel Strella can attest to that. Over the last 18 months, she admits to spending many 60 hour days building her social media marketing firm based in Camp Hill, PA, but she often finds that people still ask her, What do you do all day? Strella Social Media
Living the dream after layoffs. Some people might think of a layoff as the ultimate bad news, but for Carolyn Higgins it was the first step on the path to helping small businesses think and market the way larger companies do. What can Carolyn teach you about marketing your business today? BizSugar Blog
Tips & Trends
Even celebrities want to be entrepreneurs. Nowadays becoming a small business owner is so popular, even the stars want to get into the act. Take Jessica Alba, star of TV’s “Dark Angel” and The Fantastic Four movies, who recently announced a new e-commerce biz selling eco-friendly products. CNN Small Business
Elections worth their weight in gold. It’s election season again and the dredging up of numerous public issues can mean good opportunities for PR if your business happens to touch upon any of these. Here are nine top ideas to get you started. Understanding Marketing
Self-improvement
Don’t over-organize. It’s official! A clean desk may indeed be the sign of a sick mind. One expert says you aren’t doing yourself any favors with endless organizational chores. It’s something to remember in small business and in life. Inc.com
Marketing
How do you showcase your expertise? Promoting your knowledge and experience in the area where you have expertise is a huge part of building your brand. And though many Web tools, particularly social media sites, have been created to make this easier, there are basic techniques you must observe. Search Engine People
Transforming Leads Into Sales. It can be a tricky thing to turn leads or prospects into paying customers, but e-mail can be an important tool in this effort, if used correctly. How are you using your e-mail efforts to nurture potential prospects and transform them into customers in the future? HubSpot Blog
Startup
Guide to an “enchanting” business plan. Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment, gives this brief overview that may have you looking at business plans a bit differently in the future. There are also some downloads to help you get started. How to Change the World
7 Tips for Startup Companies. Though the following suggestions are made by a research scientist and clearly aimed more at the tech startup, the fact is that these tips can apply to almost any business you can think of. Do they apply to your idea? On Startups
Infographics
Infographics for your small business. They’re everywhere and super-popular, and if you don’t yet use infographics as a marketing tool for your business, maybe you should. Here are some basic examples of what the medium can do to transmit your message. Small Business Trends
Building a Business is Worth the Time
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
A Bed Time Story Venture Capitalists Tell Their Children
Jan 17th
Once upon a time, back in the days of yore, when entrepreneurs went by names like “Jeff Bezos”, Internet retailers were the investment rage, and Harvard still printed a face book of its students on paper, there was a ritual that many venture capital backed participated in. It was called the “initial public offering.”
Now, many of you are young and can’t remember the 1990s, so let me tell you about this ritual. The founders of companies would sell shares of those businesses to the public and the businesses would be listed on the stock exchange.
This ritual, my children, is rarely used anymore. Like other ancient tools like the typewriter and the phonograph, the IPO-as-exit-vehicle has been replaced by a more modern tool: the acquisition.
Dow Jones VentureSource recently released its counts of the number of venture capital-backed companies that exited in 2011, and the numbers tell the story of the lost IPO-as-exit-vehicle. The data show a slight rise in the number of acquisitions of VC-backed companies to nearly record levels (there were 6 more acquisitions in 2004 than there were last year) and a slight decline (by one) in the number of initial public offerings of venture-capital funded businesses last year. Moreover, as the chart below shows, last year the number of exits by acquisitions exceeded the number of exits by IPO by the largest amount since 1992, when Dow Jones VentureSource first began to produce exit data.
For those of you interested in ancient history, this pattern is far different than in 1992, which saw 69 more IPOs of venture capital-backed companies than acquisitions of those businesses.
Source: Created from data from Dow Jones VentureSource
A Bed Time Story Venture Capitalists Tell Their Children
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Take The Time To Grow Your Business
Jan 12th
Got big dreams for your business? Eager to succeed? Fantastic! Now sit down and figure out how you are going to make that happen. You can’t cut to the front of the line or skip steps. Use your excitement to keep focused on your plan. Don’t use it to jump ahead and try to short circuit the process.
Every day I see small business owners jump ahead in a couple of areas in their business. From marketing to networking to pricing you can do real damage to your future if you go to fast.
1. Marketing
Before you sign up to advertise in a magazine, pay for Google ads, or buy air time, ask yourself some key questions:
- Who is your audience?
- Where is your audience?
- What is the best way to transmit your message?
Taking the time to answer these questions will help you avoid spending money in the wrong places. Think about it this way. If you sell to businesses, does it make sense to put an ad in a consumer magazine or neighborhood paper? Not really. Sure, you can tell yourself that your target market will be reading that document. However, they won’t be reading it with an eye for what you are offering. Your message will be lost on them. That is not the best way to spend your marketing dollars.
Don’t allow yourself to be swayed by the salesperson or your associates. You must do your due diligence before signing on the dotted line.
Example: I have two friends who started an organization called Positive Thinkers Network. After it had been in operation for about a year they decided to launch The Positive Times, a periodical that goes into homes and has only good news stories in it. When the salesperson reached out to me about advertising in it my first reaction was to sign up. After all, I like the owners and wanted to support them if I could. My heart said ‘do it.’ When I took a moment to consider this I realized that it just wasn’t the place for me to advertise because I sell to businesses, not consumers. As much as I wanted to support my friends, this was not a good marketing decision. So I respectfully declined.
2. Networking
There are tons of opportunities to network, on and off line. You could be doing it all day and night, every day. However, that would not be the best use of your time. Once again you have to ask yourself some questions starting with what do you hope to accomplish. It is my opinion that networking is building relationships with people who may or may not need what you have to sell.
At the same time, since time is precious, you want to meet the people who can introduce you to your target. Visiting various events and groups to get a sense of them can be a very valuable exercise. Just pay attention while you are there.
Example: I have a client whose target market is CPAs and attorneys. I have another client whose target market is busy professionals and salespeople who like to thank their clients. Where they will network will be different. The first client should be around business owners as they are the people most likely to have CPAs and attorneys. The second client would do well with business owners but would also do well in a group of salespeople.
3. Pricing
This is an interesting place where time really matters. Sometimes new business owners decide to low-ball their pricing just to get the business. They are afraid if they price where they want, prospects won’t bite. There are a couple of issues with this thought process. When you do this you are telling your prospects how YOU value your product or service. Once you go low, it’s hard to raise your prices. You get locked into a belief system that can stick with you for a long time.
The other issue with this is the kind of clients you’ll attract. You’re going to get the clients who don’t want to pay for things; the kind who won’t value what you offer. There is the risk that they will demand a lot of your time and energy without reasonable compensation. Is that really who you want to work with?
Other times, business owners set a high price right out of the gate. They say, “I’m talented and worth this much.” The problem with this can be that they are so new they haven’t proven themselves yet. They know their history and capabilities. However, they haven’t given the marketplace time to trust them. When they start high they can be sending the wrong message. Once again, their target market won’t buy. Now what do they do?
The best thing you can do is set what you think is a fair price. Be realistic; be fair. Consider where you are in your business life and set a path for proving yourself. Don’t go too low or too high. Take the time to really consider what you should be charging. Take a look at what your competitors are asking for similar products or services. Consider what the market will bear.
I’ve watched brand new businesses charge really high fees for basic services. A year later those business owners are looking for jobs. Why? Because they hadn’t taken the time to prove themselves and earn those rates. Don’t be one of those people.
As you can see, taking the time to think about your decisions before you make them can save you a lot of money and heartache. You owe it to yourself and your business to ask the right questions and think unemotionally about your business. Then you’ll make decisions that will have staying power; and your business will grow nicely.
Growth Photo via Shutterstock
Take The Time To Grow Your Business
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Realms Of Joy – Time Of Light.
Jan 5th
How You Can Master Holographic Time To Gain Extreme Wealth And Peace.
Realms Of Joy – Time Of Light.
The artificiality of time
Jan 1st
Until the transcontinental railroad, there were no time zones. Each village kept its own time, based on its own steeple and its own high noon. And why not? There was no good reason to go through the pain of coordinating the clocks.
Factory work forced us all to know exactly what time it was. The shift couldn’t start until the foreman and the workers were ready to go. Synchronicity paid big dividends, so we embraced it.
This notion of lockstep started to inform all elements of our culture. Not just what time rush hour was (what a bizarre concept) but how old you should be to go to college and to get a job and to get married and to have kids and to retire.
The web is asynchronous. Time frames have accelerated (started/funded/built/sold!) at the same time they have slowed down. It’s up to you to decide how long your time horizon is–perhaps you’re willing to invest five years into building a solid reputation on a web platform. The decision to work at a different rate than others can be a significant competitive advantage.
Celebrate New Year’s when you want to, and as often as you choose. They’re your resolutions, not ours.
View full post on Seth’s Blog
On buying something for the first time
Dec 16th
There are only three kinds of sales:
- Buying a refill, another unit of a service or product you’ve already purchased before
- Switching to a new model/brand/style
- Buying something for the first time
Here’s an overlooked truth: until quite recently, buying something for the first time was a very rare and almost revolutionary act. In fact, more than a billion people on Earth don’t do this as a matter of course. The standard is to only purchase the seeds, fuel or shelter that your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents did. That’s the way it’s always been.
Take a minute to think about what it means for someone in poverty (which until recently was almost everyone) to buy something for the first time. The combination of risk and initiative can be paralyzing. One of the little-known transitions of the industrial revolution was the notion that companies and individuals could set out to discover and buy stuff that they didn’t know about until just recently.
You see a box or a store window or a product on the web and you start imagining how cool it would be to open the box, own the product, use it, engage with it and benefit from it. A product you’ve never purchased before. That’s new behavior. Until a hundred years ago, that sort of imagining was rare indeed, just about anywhere in the world.
If you are trying to grow your coaching practice or b2b saas business or widget shop, understand that you are almost certainly pushing against a significant barrier: most people hesitate before buying something for the first time. If you’re trying to develop trade in the underprivileged world, understand that teaching people to buy anything for the first time is a revolutionary concept.
Campbell’s soup is almost never bought for the first time. It is a replacement purchase. No one switches to Campbell’s either. They buy it because their mom did.
The first iPhone, on the other hand, was a first time product for just about everyone who bought it… most of the people on line that first day were buying their first smartphone. Worth noting that a few years later, many millions have made the switch–we don’t make first-time purchases lightly.
And most of what gets sold to us each day at work or at home are switching products. “Ours is just like the one you already use, but cheaper/better/faster/cooler.”
The potent mix of fear of loss, desire for gain and curiousity fuel the appeal of buying for the first time. But it’s magic, it’s not science, and it doesn’t often happen on schedule.
Here’s a six-minute video presentation I did on this for the Acumen Fund. Sorry about the video glitch near the beginning–part of the magic of being on stage is that I wasn’t even aware of being projected upon…
View full post on Seth’s Blog
One Time Offer Package
Dec 2nd
Sell Your Customers Their Own One Time Offer Page. This Is The Perfect Backend Sales Offer, Follow Up Product, Or Oto To Sell To Your Current Customers To Make You Even More Money.
One Time Offer Package
