1. Consider what you are doing that isn’t effective. Do you make many mistakes? Does it tire you out? Would you rather go to the dentist for a root canal than complete the task? Get real with yourself and stop doing these tasks. Find someone else to do them faster, better or cheaper than you can.

2.  Stop learning how to do things that aren’t high ROI (Return on Investment). I always tell people that I make it a point NOT to learn how to update my website. If I don’t know how then I won’t be tempted to try to figure it out. It’s a waste of my time and money to do it myself and I know better. There are very good website development businesses out there who could give you a cost-effective alternative.

3.  Become ruthless. It can be a lot of little seemingly insignificant things that add up to big time wasters. If you were determined to create more time for what’s important then what would you cease doing immediately? Buying office supplies? Figuring out whom to do your product distribution? Doing all those social marketing posts?

4.  Create an exit strategy. For the bigger roles that you are more integrated into (like project managing or handling the operations) you may need to follow the steps of many successful CEOs and create an exit plan from these tasks – what can you do over the next 6 months to replace yourself in that role?

5.  Change your mind about what’s important. If you are a control freak or regularly find yourself holding on to something because no one can do it as well as you, then it may be time for a reality check. I guarantee that in one Coaching Session I’d be able to find at least 10 tasks or roles that you could get off your plate. So start being realistic about what you can really accomplish and remove yourself from the rest of it.

Be willing to clear the decks of everything that is getting in your way of the most important things. When you look around at the people who really do enjoy a lifestyle business, who make consistent income in the high 6, 7 or 8 figures and are enjoying some level of sanity in the process, you’ll see that they never try to do everything and often they do very little. Sir Richard Branson said in an interview once that it is easier for him to run his multiple billion dollar companies today than it ever was to run a small company.

Something tells me he figured out how to remove himself from a lot of tasks! This analogy is important in realising that there is more to business than just doing it all yourself. You may actually start enjoying being in business again. Remember that with the right information and expectations communicated to others the tasks can be done just as well or even better than you. Try thinking outside the square and think of virtual assistants that can help with on- and offline tasks or even get interns to help out when certain tasks need to be performed, usually at no extra cost to you as these people need the experience.

However, the savvy entrepreneur knows there’s still plenty of business growth opportunities and cash floating around; you just have to toss out your net and catch some of it for yourself!

Following are 7 simple business growth strategies you can focus on to build your and income and business in 2009:

1) Focus

As entrepreneurs, we’re creative, and we always have many ideas floating around our heads.  The problem is we may tend to become unfocused relatively easily.

Make sure you focus on ‘top priority’ activities every single day that will increase and generate income.  Follow the 80/20 rule and spend at least 80% of your time working on income-generating activities.

Use the other 20% of the time doing less important tasks when your creative energy naturally wanes during the day.

Quick Tip: Everyday write down three activities you will focus on to increase your income each day.  Spend 80% of your work time doing these tasks. Employ a business coach so that he can keep you focused on what is important to achieve in business.

2) Improve your website

Your website is your business’ entryway to the world.  People visit your website because they are seeking a solution to a problem they are having.  Your website needs to provide valuable information and resources to visitors to help them solve their problems, and not just be a pretty online brochure.

Your website needs:

1.      Attention-getting headline that grabs visitors

2.      A few paragraphs about how you can help them

3.      Leads them to the steps you want them to take

4.      Great photo of you (establishes a personal connection)

5.      Opt-in box in upper right-hand corner

Quick Tip: Think about what is your ‘Most Wanted Response’ from a visitor to your website.  Is your website clear in directing a person to take this desired action?

3) Expand your online marketing

There are many FREE ways you can do online marketing and drive visitors to your website.  Using a multi-faceted strategy to get them there is best.  Ways to do this are:

* Publish and distribute articles online

* Set up pages on Facebook, Twitter, My Space,

* Submitting online press releases

* Blogging

* Make a video and post it on YouTube and on your site

Quick Tip: Pick three activities you want to use to drive traffic to your website.  Do these activities every week.

4) Build an online subscriber list

Have a sign up form on your website and send regular e-newsletters to your subscribers with valuable information.  When you’re networking or speaking to a group, ask everyone to sign up for your list, as well.  This gives you an opportunity to market to them and build a value-added relationship that establish trust and increase your sales.

5) Do smart networking

Many people network all wrong and waste a lot of valuable time.  Network where you know your target client is already hanging out.  You can also meet others who already have a relationship with your target client.

Quick Tip: Build a business referral partner list.  Identify 10 occupational categories of people who are already doing business with your target client.

Identify 10 people you know or want to get to know in these 10 occupational categories (this equals 100 referral partners!).  Develop relationships and keep in touch, and watch referrals begin to flood to your door!

6) Build relationships through giveaways

To entice someone to sign up for your list, as well as give them a taste of your services, create a FREE giveaway item you can give to them.  The key with a giveaway is it has to be very valuable to the person receiving it, and has to help them solve a problem they may be experiencing.

This item can be a FREE special report, e-book, teleseminar, CD, simple workbook, case study, checklist, and video.

Quick Tip: Make a list of 3 free giveaways you can offer people to entice them to get on your list of warm prospects.  Look at the intellectual property or products you already have.  Can you condense some of it into free content for your giveaway?

7) Hire an Administrative Person

The administrative details that need taking care of in your business will eat up your income-generating opportunities and profits.

Quick Tip: Identify those routine administrative tasks that someone else can do.  Outsource them!

These 7 simple tips will help you build and increase the income in your business.  Be diligent about applying them, as well as tracking and testing your results.  Modify your activities, as you need to keep the momentum going and your income growing!

For more help on these and other business challenges please give Tibor a call.

If your products, programs, and/or services are not selling as well as you thought they would it could be there’s a mismatch between what your market wants and what you’re providing them with.  In other words, are you providing the solutions based on what YOU think the problems are rather than what your target market wants?  And how do you find out?

The answer is simple… market research!

When you think ‘market research’ it conjures up all sorts of images of telephone surveys, sending out questionnaires, and standing in the street accosting people to ask them questions (yes – I used to do this type of market research too ), and as a business owner it is crucial that you do your own ‘market research’ to find out what makes your target market tick, what keeps them awake at night, and what they’re really struggling with.

This process needs to be done on a continual basis – never stop asking your target market what they want – so that you can constantly provide the solutions to their problems.

Today, I’d like to share with you three simple strategies for conducting your own market research (that doesn’t involve standing around in the street!), and how you can put these strategies onto autopilot so that you’re constantly gathering information from your market.  All of these have worked very well over the past few years!

1. Ask via your sign-up page.  When someone signs up to your list, don’t just get their name and email address, ask them what their biggest challenge is too.  A specific question that asks:  What is YOUR biggest business headache?  Feel free to adapt this question for your own needs, i.e. what is your biggest [fill in the blank] when it comes to [fill in the blank].
2. Follow-up with an auto responder.  Once someone has signed up to your list, create an auto responder that goes out a few days later and asks the same question again.  Very often people may not have answered the question when they signed up to your list, and sending them an email a few days later will elicit a reply from them.
3. Create an annual or semi annual survey.  At least once a year it’s a good idea to survey your readers and ask them several more in-depth questions.  You’ll want to find out what their biggest problems are, what it is they want to learn more about, plus how they want to learn, or how they want their problem solved.  For example, you might find your readers prefer home study courses to teleclasses, or would like more interactive programs from you.  Putting together a survey is really simple, especially if you use a service such as Survey Monkey.  They do the analysis for you, so you get really valuable data.

However, for the data you get through steps 1 and 2 above, analysis isn’t as automatic.  Simply gather together all of your data and go through it periodically (at least twice a year) to see what your reader’s problems are.  You don’t even need to be a statistician to figure it all out.  Just print off all the responses and read through them, noting any common themes as you go along.

By combining all of this data, and implementing your market research strategy so that it runs on autopilot, you can then use this information to put your products and services together so that you’re providing solutions to your target market’s problems in the way that they want and need.

Remember, you are providing your market with what they want and need, not what you think they want and need.

One of the best time-saving strategies I’ve implemented is my client conversion system.  You know the drill; a potential client comes along and emails/calls you asking about your services.  You spend time responding, maybe even putting a detailed proposal together, and then you never hear from them again!  Not even a thank you for your email!

This is one area that’s a huge time drain for service professionals, but one that is so important – you need paying clients so you have to spend time responding to them.

What if there was a way you could respond to clients yet at the same time not waste hours of your precious time on this activity only for it to result in never hearing from said client again?

Well, there is! And I’m going to share it with you in this article by giving you my three steps on how to create your own client conversion system.

Step One – Capture Their Name/Email Address

If a client comes along and they’re not quite ready to work with you, you need to have a way of capturing their details on your website so that you don’t lose touch with them – that way they’ll get to know more about you and your services, and when they are ready to work with you, you’ll be right there!

You do this by giving away a free taste of what it is you do.  This could be a report, audio, mini e-course, or some other type of freebie that is given away automatically in exchange for them giving you their name and email address.  This is known as building your list.  Once you have your list in place stay in touch with them regularly through publishing an e-zine.

Step Two – Have a Defined Process for Working with New Clients

Look at what you currently do when you receive an email/phone call from a new client.  Write down all the steps in that process, and come up with ways as to how it can be systemized.

For example:

Do you find that potential clients are asking the same questions again and again?  If so, set up a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website that answers all of these questions.  (Hint:  this could also be your free taste that the client will sign up for.)

Do you require that all new clients have a telephone consultation with you beforehand to ensure that you are a good fit for one another?  How can this process be streamlined?

Or, do you require a potential client to fill in a questionnaire prior to speaking with you on the phone?

List everything that you currently do and come up with a system for streamlining the whole process.  You could also include elements that you would like to do but haven’t yet implemented.

Step Three – Put Your Client Conversion System in Place

Now that you have documented the process for handling enquiries you need to put your system in place that will allow you to handle client enquiries in the most time-efficient manner.

This is the system I use and recommend, and one that will filter those enquiries for you:

On your website tell clients what your process is for working with new clients, i.e. contact me to schedule your complimentary client consultation.

Have a contact form on your website that client’s can fill in when they’re ready to schedule a complimentary call with you.

Create an email template to respond to those clients who would like to schedule a complimentary consultation.  You can also use this template for those email enquiries you get, or as a script for a phone enquiry.

If you have a series of questions that you would like answers to before your call with your client put these together into a Pre-Consultation Questionnaire which you can send to your potential client ahead of your call.  (This again is a good way to filter the serious from the not-so-serious clients – the not-so-serious clients will not want to spend their time filling in a questionnaire prior to your phone call.)

Create a document/email template for your questionnaire – put it in a format that is easy for the client to email back to you.

When they respond to you to schedule their call attach your questionnaire, confirm the appointment, tell them when they need to return the questionnaire by (24 hours before the call is a good timeframe) and tell them what number to call you on.

Having a process like this in place will filter the serious from the not-so-serious clients, saving you a huge amount of your time and streamlining the whole client conversion process.

Remember: You are the expert at what you do.  Your clients are coming to you for your expertise, so lead them with your systems.  Tell them what your processes are.  Let them work to your systems.

For further help in selling your products or services please call Tibor.

You want to attract more clients, increase your sales and maximise your profits. And you want to do it in less time.

What’s getting in your way?

Working harder isn’t the answer! After many years of helping struggling small business owners be more successful, I’ve seen the same three issues emerge in every case. I see them with business people looking to make their first $100,000 as well as to those trying to make their next five million.

What are they? What are the three things that you need to do to be more successful?

To be truly successful in any business you need to have a vision that’s big enough, have the knowledge of what to do, and most importantly, you need to delegate responsibility.

1. Envision Success Not Just A Stepping Stone
When someone calls me to talk about my one-on-one coaching services, one of the first questions I ask them is what their goals are. Typically, they want to increase their income or sales by 10 or 15%.

99% of the time these business owners are running businesses that have much more profit potential than that. Too many of them think in terms that limit how well they’ll do; their vision is too small.

Plan to grow by 10% and that’s all you’ll do. Plan to grow by 200% and you can achieve that!

You can go to the grocery store hoping to find a few ingredients to make a sandwich, or you can go determined to find everything you need to cook a delicious 3-course feast. Create a vision and goals that will help you get there instead of ones that are getting in your way.

If you’re going to go to all the effort to grow your business, why not make at least 250,000 or if you’re already making five million why not aim for seven million?

Do this right now, before you read any further. Write a paragraph describing your success and make a list of your goals for the rest of this year.

2. Get And Apply The Knowledge You Need
I’m continually amazed at the number of otherwise savvy business owners who want to become masters of marketing and keep trying to do so by copying other’s failed marketing techniques. You need to know what to do and how to do it in order to grow your business.

Start by answering the following questions.

What knowledge and skills are required?
Do you need to discover how to attract more clients, close more sales or finally turn your website into a profit centre?

What do you need to do to reach each of your goals?

• A faster way of generating leads?
• A system for growing your business?
• To close more sales?
• A web site that converts visitors to buyers?

What kind of advice do you need?
Do you need someone to help you organise your marketing and show you how to focus your efforts? Use this link

3. Delegate Your Way to the Top
There are only so many hours in a day; no matter how many of them you spend at work, you’ll never be able to do everything on your own. The third key to success is delegating administrative and operational tasks.

If you’re spending your day processing orders or setting up jobs for customers, you’ll never have time to focus on your primary job, growing your business. The sooner you stop trying to do everything yourself and start managing others, the sooner you’ll see your business grow in leaps and bounds.

Think big. Envision your success, get the knowledge you need to succeed and then delegate everything with the exception of your growth strategy. You’ll be amazed at how much more successful you’ll be!

To your success,

Tibor Mackor

Do New Zealanders lack the skills needed to run their businesses well?

By our rate of business ownership, Kiwis are the most entrepreneurial people in the world, but this doesn’t mean we’re always well-prepared for the daily challenges of running a business. This is as true for those focusing on domestic markets as it is for companies going global. Indeed, we think improving the management skills of our exporters is central to improving our international competitiveness.

How can a mentor help my business?

Mentors have experience in operating and developing a business. They can be a sounding board for problems, help you look at the big picture and offer guidance to tackle some of the challenges growth creates. Mentors also have business networks you can tap into.

What skills or services do mentors offer?

Experience. They may share some of their mistakes so you don’t fall into similar traps. They can help focus your business goals and offer advice on strategies to achieve them. Remember, though, that a mentor is a business coach and doesn’t replace the need to get specialist advice from lawyers, accountants or bank managers.

Better Business Strategies can help in attaining your goals and having a business to sell upon exit.

Call us now if you think that mentoring would help you.

Original article: Top tips: Mentors give helping hand