12 steps to making a lot of money as a public speaker (even if you are petrified of it!)
Here our Founder Mandie Holgate shares some of the strategies from her very popular Public speaking course – this has many 5 star reviews from business owners who have used this virtual course to grow their business through paid speaking gigs and a better quality of public speaking. We know public speaking can be scary so let us know how you get on and of course post to the INsiders (Our confidential mastermind group) to get support and ideas to ensure these strategies work for you too.
“Communication is one of the fundamental skills every human needs.
From birth we learn that if we make a noise we can get what we want, so how do so many humans lose that power as they grow up?
Follow this 12 step process (I will keep it short) and you will be able to make a lot of money from talking.
I was petrified of public speaking in my 30’s and worked with some of the best speakers globally to learn how to speak powerfully anywhere — from the stage, to college, office to home, let me share some of what I’ve learnt…
- Your purpose for speaking
Before you do anything know why you are speaking. What outcome do you want? What do you want your audience to do? To feel? To learn? Write it down so that you can check the quality of your speech against these key performance indicators.
2. Building communication confidence
I could write you the most amazing speech that will get your audience doing whatever you want them to, however if you lack confidence the rest of this process is going to be less powerful and you won’t get the results you want. So build your confidence first — click here to boost your confidence in 24 hours.
3. Your natural style of communicating and why it’s essential to know
I used to be petrified of public speaking and hated it so I know first hand how tough it can be to overcome (I’m now an international speaker) a big mistake I made in the early years was trying to be a speaker like everyone else. It would always be doomed because your audience can spot a fake even if they can’t tell you why. Acting like someone else may help you feel more confident but only take it so far. Learn what style is yours and even if you make a mistake your audience will still love you.
4. How to overcome your public speaking fear
Taking from my best selling books Fight the Fear and Taking Control Of Your mind is an example of my negative spiral strategy. For this explore what you are thinking, feeling or doing when asked to speak and write it down. Now from that you will have a choice of Feelings. Emotions. Actions or Results. Explore what happens and write it in it’s own box. This is a short version. To really know what is going wrong go deeper and deeper. You will find that it’s likely to be a number of things — the fear of what people think of you, the fear of looking stupid, the fear of making a mistake or the fear of looking arrogant. Which is it? You can then draw a positive spiral and follow my strategy to work out how to reverse what’s happening. Most readers (and clients) can make positive changes very fast.
5. How to think
Connected to your reason to speak is what you should be thinking. Challenge the quality of your thoughts. What are they saying to you? Are they saying “let’s do this, they are going to love this!” or are they saying “Why are you up on that stage, you’re no one special” one will empower, one will floor you.
6. How to act and stand.
Try this out in front of a mirror. Act sad — notice how your shoulders around, your eye contact goes lower, your chin drops. Now act Powerful (like a god or super hero) what’s different? You can use your body to……….
To read the full story, click here.
What would you like an article about? Email or message us any subjects you would like to see covered and we will ask our affiliates to write something especially for you.
Got a blog you want promoting? Did you know that all Insiders can be published on our site for free – it’s just £10 a month to be an Insider! Sign up here.
13 steps to making money out of blogging
You may not know that we are owned by international best selling Author Mandie Holgate who is also a multi award winning business coach who grew her first business to over £1,000,000 in the 1990’s in a recession!
Over on Mandie’s blog there is an article that quite frankly we felt we ought to nick!
So here’s an abridged version of how to make money out of blogging*
Whether you own your own business, work for a charity, have a passion for K-Pop or Women’s football you can make money from blogging.
You can get your passion for any subject out there and help others benefit too.
- But what do you write?
- And what’s the magic formula that ensures people read and action what you say?
- And what if you’ve written a blog but like your social media it falls flat and achieves nothing?
And best of all check out step 11 where I share some of the amazing ways it can make you money!
Join me for the fastest 13 steps to a making your blog a money maker!
1. Time on your side
Make time — when I’m coaching someone on growing a business or earning more money I end every session by finding out when will the actions we set be completed by. If you can’t find 20% of your time to work on this, how will it happen?
2. Your reason why?
What is the purpose of writing your blog? And if the answer is “To make lots of money!” or “To find lots of customers” Then think again.
Do you want to inspire? Empower? Educate? Stir up passion for a cause?
Yes, behind that reason is the desire to make money from blogging but foremostly consider how you are going to make a difference in the world. Customers buy when they are ready to from those that they trust. A blog helps you build awareness, trust and respect so that when they want something, it’s you they remember!
3. Who are you writing for?
I was training a room full of business owners on blogging for business and when I asked this question someone said (and I’m not sure they were joking) “Anyone that has skin!” They’d been told that to sell their skin products they could sell them to anyone. I pointed out that my husband had skin and only used moisturizer if I bought it for him at Christmas, and even then 1 bottle could last a year!
Just like marketing is a lot easier when you really know your perfect customers (want more on that click here) blogging is a lot easier when you are talking to the right people. So take the time to describe in detail your perfect readers.
4. What do you write about?
A big mistake bloggers make is that they write what they want to talk about and not what readers want to read. You may know that what they need to know is questions they’ve not even considered asking, so how could they know they need to know something they don’t know they need to know?!? (Confusing right?)…
To read the full story and the other 9 steps to making money from blogging click here.
- Over on the Insiders, our confidential mastermind group and virtual networking platform we are focusing on how to create side businesses and new income streams. We appreciate how challenging this Autumn/Winter is going to be for many so there will still be no charge for our networking events (Just £10 a month to be a member and get all those benefits, discounts and competitions).
- You can also buy Mandie’s courses with a 50% discount as a member – including her Blogging for Business course – blogging led to Mandie’s first best selling book Fight the fear so we know this course is exceptionally good. Learn more here.
- AND as an Insider you can sell Mandie’s courses and keep 50% of the profit – another way to bring some extra money in this winter – that or get BP shares 2 years ago in your time machine?
Marketing follow up – the fine line between powerful follow up and breaking the law!
All members of our mastermind group and networking events can write for our blog free of charge. Here Robyn Banks from Adavista Data Protection talks about “MARKETING FOLLOW UPS – BE CAREFUL!
Whilst it is very important – as Mandie keeps quite rightly reminding us – to follow up on approaches to prospective clients, you need to be mindful of certain “rules” in place.
Why am I writing about this? Because there is a very fine line between what is OK and what the recipient may interpret as harassment.
You should always remember that you don’t know what sort of a day your “recipient” is having – you could just be that last phone call/email that pushes the “now I’m really irritated and just had enough” button!
So – if you have had a preliminary “conversation” – by phone or email but its been a two way exchange – then you can legitimately contact them to follow up on this.
EXAMPLE – I have been contacted by two Insiders recently (you know who you are!) with a view to having a chat around my field of expertise. In both cases we have struggled to find a mutually convenient time – but I can legitimately contact both to try again!
BUT if I have received something out of the blue from someone that I don’t know, I have not responded in any way, and they send me a follow-up email which starts “just checking to see if you got my email”… or “I sent you an email last week”…Oh dear! Because I have not responded, these follow up emails are illegal as my lack of response should be regarded as withdrawal of consent to contact me.
I did tell you there is a fine line between doing this legally or illegally – probably not what you want to hear.
If all I have done is cause confusion, I apologise because that was not my intention. I want to ensure you get this right and avoid costly mistakes. If you want to discuss this further, then we can discuss this further at a BWN networking and business growth event, straight away on The Insiders confidential mastermind group or contact me here – As an Insider, we already “know” each other so its fine to get in touch. Thanks BWN for the opportunity to share my expertise with our members and women in business.”
If this has made you nervous of what you can and can’t do, don’t stop marketing your small business, talk to us. There are lots of ways we can help ensure your marketing communicates to the right people and leads to new business. Our Founder Mandie Holgate has been helping businesses to thrive through pandemics, recessions, global changes and more for over 25 years an is an active member of our mastermind group so you can ask her anything!
Follow up when done effectively will help your business grow and gain new opportunities.
Simple ways that you can improve morale at your business
We all know how important our employees have been to our businesses since March 2020. Of course, we would never get anywhere without them, but we have had to rely on our staff in so many new and unexpected ways during the course of the pandemic. It has been an incredibly turbulent period of time with tremendous uncertainty, and we have needed to count on them for their resilience, flexibility, and trust as we have navigated a course through this storm.
It has also been a period in which we have had to support them in ways we may not have previously expected. As we head into the autumn, we still need to make sure that we are there for them, and we could all use a little morale boost as we head into the shorter, darker days with the prospect of tax hikes to come. Here are a few tips to help you boost morale.
Give Them Opportunities To Grow
One of the most difficult things to deal with during the pandemic was this sense of being stuck. Lockdown didn’t help, of course, as all the usual things we’d do to get away were closed off from us, but it was also hard to demonstrate growth in our businesses when we were working so hard to simply stay afloat. As we head into the autumn and we look for ways to bounce back, it’s important to remind your staff that they have a future in your business. Give them the opportunity to learn about emerging technology and promote from within where you can. Give them more responsibility and you will be rewarded.
Make Them A Part Of Your Plan To Give Back
Given that we are all looking for ways that we can give back to organisations and charities that need us right now, you might be thinking about how you can start making charitable donations through your business.
One of the simplest ways that you can do this is by making your employees part of the journey and setting up donations through payroll. This way, they can pick the charity of their choice and know that, by making charitable donations through an employer, they are contributing in the most tax-efficient way for the charity. Find out more about the benefits of payroll donations and how you can get it set up at your business by talking to PayCaptain.
Keep Showing Them You Have Got Their Back
Throughout the pandemic, we all had to learn to be flexible when it came to supporting our employees. Working from home made that easier in a lot of ways, as people could set up their own flexible hours to make sure they could look after other commitments such as home-schooling or caring for elderly relatives. It also made some things harder, such as looking after the mental health of our employees.
We’ve all read so much about the impact of the pandemic on mental health, and as we head into autumn and winter, we need to make sure that our team knows that we still have their back. Continue to offer support where you can and remember that they will reward you for it.
Winning in business – celebrating your success!
We love your good news so when we heard that Isobel Chaplin who set up her business 18 months ago had won her first award on top of having a record breaking profits year we were over the moon to share her article about her growing business and her first award.
Winning awards is a great way to understand your business, how it is percieved and get some free press to celebrate your business and stand you a part from your competitors. Don’t just put your award on your social media and hope it will bring in customers, it won’t!
Isobel works with our Founder Mandie Holgate as her coach and here Isobel shares how it feels to win that first award for her new business;
“My coach reminded me that I should be shouting from the rooftops about my SME News UK Enterprise Award. It’s not something I feel comfortable doing so Mandie Holgate sat and interviewed me because we really should celebrate our wins, shouldn’t we?
As small business owners we work so hard and I’m not sure enough of us take time to celebrate, so thanks to Mandie, here I will share my win. Let me know what you think.
Q: What made you enter the awards?The entry came as a complete surprise. I received an email from SME News to inform me that IJC Finance had been nominated as the Best Emerging SME Accountancy Practice for Essex AND for a Distinction Award for Customer Service Excellence, and I was shocked to be honest. In a good way, of course! I had seen the awards advertised but hadn’t dreamt of entering because of the business being quite young and I wasn’t sure we’d been seen to have enough experience. I think it’s great they have awards for all types of businesses, no matter whether in their infancy or if well established.
Q: How did you feel when you realised you were a finalist?I was told we’d been shortlisted but didn’t expect any more to come of it. This was a typical “Isobel” thought process at the time – I’m quite humble and didn’t think any more of it!
Q: In true Oscars or Miss World style “What does winning mean to you?”It’s given me a real boost in confidence. I think all business owners have moments where they think “can I really do this?”, no matter how long they’ve been in the game, and receiving the nomination and then the award has cemented my self-belief. It’s given me the push to enter more awards of my own volition. You have to be in it to win it so they say, and if anything it’s given me an opportunity to explore the business’ strengths and weaknesses in more depth.
Q: How do you feel this reflects on your business ambitions?My mission has always been to offer a personable and reliable service to small businesses so they feel valued and not just a number (that’s almost a tagline now). Being presented with an award as the Best Emerging SME Accountancy Practice of our region is a fantastic achievement for us, given that we had only been properly up and running for 18 months when the award came through. Also triumphing with a Distinction Award for Client Service Excellence shows me that we are surpassing the standards we set for customer care, which is one of our focuses for continual improvement, and the award helps us to stand out compared to our competitors.
Q: What do you feel it does for your clients?I like to think that our clients are cheering with us about this award. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback and congratulations, and the recognition has helped showcase our standing in the local accounting community as well. Showing potential clients that we have what it takes to meet their needs, and that we were even nominated let alone won the award, is also great for advertising. I think it gives our clients the reassurance that they are in safe hands.
Q: What would you say to someone thinking of entering an award for their business? What should they consider?Do it! Since winning the award we have entered more national and local awards, not necessarily with the expectation of winning, but in just writing our entries it has provided moments when have sat and thought about all the wonderful things we do that we are proud of. That’s something that business owners’ don’t normally do; we are often very critical of ourselves, so doing an exercise on shouting about how great we are has so many positives!”
We are so excited for Isobel who is an active member of our networking events and our mastermind group. If you would like support to grow your business as an Insider and member you can also share your good news, insights, advice and ideas in our blog for free!
Isobel is such a valued member of our mastermind group the Insiders Isobel will be speaking for us at our July event. We look forward to welcoming you too.
And for more essential reading to look after your money, Isobel has some great articles for you to benefit from. Head to her site for the full story;
Getting things right from the off
So, you’re new to running your business. Or perhaps you’ve been doing it a while and you’re not happy with the way you’ve been dealing with (or perhaps, not dealing with, as the case may be) the business’ finances. I think it’s important to start off any business ventures well organised and having thought through how you’re going to keep track of everything you’re doing in a monetary sense. It sounds obvious, I know, but so many business owners are perhaps a little afraid to face the finances as it all seems a bit daunting. By making sure you have set yourself a few rules to get going, it doesn’t have to be too complicated or time consuming. Step 1 Make sure you have a separate business bank account set up for all your business transactions. For limited companies it’s a mandatory requirement, so it’s one of the first things you should do once you’ve got your business registered with Companies House. Some formation companies even tag on the bank account as part of the process. Although it’s not a deal-breaking requirement for sole traders, it’s something I’d strongly recommend. If thinking about your tax return is a daunting prospect, then having all your transactions on one place makes….
Sole Trader or Limited Company?
I often get asked by business owners whether they should trade as a sole trader or under a limited company. It’s a decision that’s sometimes simple to make, but there are pros and cons to be considered and you may find that after some thought one style suits your business better. I will explain more on the key differences below and offer some food for thought…
Networking doesn’t work!
How can one person walk out of an event and think “That was awesome and so good for business!”
And another walk out and think “What a waste of 2 hours, that did nothing for my business!”
How is that possible?
Who is right?
The BWN has hosted thousands of events across the East of England (and are now in London and Warwickshire too and we never thought we would say this but thanks to Covid 19 we are now seeing business owners from often 7 counties and 3 countries attending our events – recently we had guests from Ireland, Dubai, America, Sri Lanka, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgshire, Lincolnshire, Hertfordshire, London, Warwickshire and Kent!) Our events for women in business around networking and business growth and are now in our 12th year and yet we still hear comments from both extremes. (Mostly we hasten to add exceptionally positive ones with women saying it’s the one thing in the month they will never miss.)
So what makes networking powerful and how can you ensure it wasn’t a waste of two hours?
No one bought anything from me!
If no one is buying from you it is not the fault of the networking organisation, it’s your fault. (Sorry to be blunt) We actually heard someone say “The people in this group don’t spend money” and the very next conversation our coordinator had that day was with a woman in business who told us that she realised that in a year and half she had made just over £50k of sales from our network alone. (She is not alone in results like that we have members making over £100k of sales every year with us! Someone was definitely spending money!)
So how could it be so different for these 2 business women in the same room of people?
A number of things impact on your networking success for sales;
- You have to be comfortable with your price. If your prices are too low then you will
make people nervous that what you sell “isn’t very good”. Interestingly if you are comfortable with your price we rarely hear of a price that is too high, because if you know you offer an exceptional experience, care deeply about your customers, deliver exceptional standards and results, then people will pay. So yes, get comfortable with your price. (Interestingly it is often a conversation we see on the Insiders “I’m scared to put my prices up!” So if you are an Insider you can do some market research and test your pricing there confidentially.) If you aren’t comfortable with your prices, your potential customers won’t be either! Learn more about the Insiders click here. - You have to be comfortable with your product. Another reason that you aren’t selling (or people aren’t buying – depending on your viewpoint) is because you aren’t comfortable with what you offer. (Again the Insiders is somewhere we see people hone their offerings to get this just right.) If you are trying to sell something that no one wants then it’s going to be tough. On the other hand if you use your networking to carry out some market research with the people that you have grown to know, like and trust then you can hone your offerings to sell more. If you are comfortable with your products (and love them!) the passion will rub off on your network.
- You are there to build relationships not empires. Okay so we are more than happy to help you build
your empire (as big as you like!) but before you can build empires you need to build a network. And if you speak to the most powerful and successful women in the world they will tell you there biggest mistake they have made in their careers was that they thought they could stop networking. Networking builds relationships. It nurtures your reputation. It ensure people know who you are, what you do and why you do it. They are people you want to enable to see they can trust you and if you don’t turn up every month to every event, that can’t happen. As our Founder Mandie Holgate often says networking is a marathon not a sprint. (There are things you can do to speed up results, but you will need to turn up regularly to achieve great sales results and create new opportunities for your business.) - Control your brand. We hear people say “It’s so frustrating that people don’t get what we can do for them” it’s not other peoples job to understand what you do, it is your job to help people to appreciate how you can help. An elevator pitch is a great opportunity to break down the barriers to what people think about your business and your products. Again you need to do this every month to ensure that after each elevator pitch you can find out what people thought. Did they understand what you do? What didn’t they understand? What did they think it was all about? On the Insiders Facebook page you will find a great worksheet to help you ensure your sales pitch in the elevator pitch section is spot on and our Founders course on elevator ptiches – “Supercharge your 60 seconds – how to sell well in 60 seconds” has been proven time and time again to work. One business woman said she had only done half the course and was already selling more at networking events – Learn more and buy here.
- If you are not in the room, you can’t control the conversation around your business. We c
an not stand gossip. However we’ve heard conversations in the room like these “I hear they aren’t trading any more” “I hear they don’t do that any more” “I don’t think they work with people like you anymore” If you aren’t in the room, you can’t control the conversation. Gossip does happen so if you want your brand to be positively represented you need to be visible. Great networking enables you to visible. (Even if you aren’t talking a great deal!) And as a side note, as a good networker we have fed back to the business that wasn’t in the room the incorrect gossip that was being spread. It was most definitely not an easy thing to do however as a great networker you want to help your network achieve great things and you should want to protect their businesses too. We also don’t tolerate gossip or clickiness at our events and our coordinators are taught how to ensure our events remain inclusive for all. Some conversations are not easy in business, it does not mean you shy away from them. (Again it’s a great chance to build your reputation and credibility as business women appreciate how much you will stand up for and protect their business, their brand and their reputations.) - Listening. The business women that we see do really well are often the ones that don’t speak a lot about their needs or business. They are the ones that are actively listening. They are likely to be thinking “How can I help this person?”
“Who would it be good for this person to know?” “I will follow up with this person like this”To get the best out of networking know in the back of your mind what you want out of that networking event and then side step that to be on every other businesses agenda. - Follow up. Those that do well out of networking, follow up just the way they said they would. Building relationships is the most important thing you can do to grow your business and your network. The bigger the network, the more opportunities, the more potential clients, the more knowledge, etc, etc. Build your reputation as someone that can be trusted by doing what you said you would do. Create a clear follow up strategy that you stick to – our BWN success manual can really help with this. You can buy your copy here
- New. The business women that benefit the greatest from networking know that it is not just about sales, reputation and building strong relationships in a strong network. It is also about learning new skills and knowing what is going on in the business world. When we are busy and profitable as a business we can take the decision to drop the networking. However you can get as much benefit out of the free flowing conversations after the structured content as you can out of the masterclass because other business women will know what’s happening in the US (If it’s over there, it will be over here soon and you can be ahead of the wave!). You can find out about latest legislation that may have slipped by your offices attention. You can even find that another business woman faces exactly the same issues as you and have ideas on how to fix it. Stay in the office and yes the to do list shrinks, but you don’t get the opportunities that aren’t so clearly definable. And we’ve seen this first hand be the case for literally hundreds and hundreds of business women. As one business woman said to us, “Yes the BWN helps me makes sales, but it also keeps me sane and stops me from living and working in a bubble!” We love how we saw 2 Tropic Ambassadors in a virtual networking event give advice to a new Tropic Ambassador on how to sell more – all in the same company, should be considered as competition, all working together – that’s powerful networking!
- In it to win it. It will always make us a little sad to see someone attend for 3 months
(a whole 7.5 hours of their 90 (ish) days) and get to know people and then they don’t make it one month, no big deal right? Except that is the month that the person you’ve had a general chit chat with has decided they are ready to buy and you aren’t there! The FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is real on this occasion! We’ve seen so many business owners miss out from VA’s, Accountants and printers, to cosmetics companies, web designers to residual income opportunities. It’s shocking how easy it happens and depressing how easy it is to fix. If you are going to network, network every month and don’t let anything move it. It is as important as any other aspect of your business. You wouldn’t miss seeing the dentist, would you? Why because you want to look after your teeth all of the time.
So can a network be good for one and not another? We think there is enough space for all of the networks and that ensures every business owner can network in a style that suits them. We also think that some business women don’t appreciate the full value of networking to grow a successful business and alas as the saying goes “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” And for us, our careers have rocketed since we networked regularly at The BWN and yet we never miss the events we say we will attend. We know the true value of networking and how to maximise the benefits for you too. We are happy to have a chat about that anytime so you can get maximum benefit too.
If you are struggling we have the following additional learning to help your business;
Course – How to find your target audience and get them buying
Course – How to rocket your confidence
Course – Highly effective ways to rocket sales with no cost / low cost marketing strategies.
Course – Supercharge your 60 seconds.
Course – How to be a powerful successful public speaker – anywhere!
Course – Foundation blocks to a highly successful business.
Book – Your Daily Dose of Business Woman’s Confident And Success
Book – Fight the fear – how to beat your negative mindset and win in life.
Book – The BWN Networking Success Manual – the genius book to get the most out of networking.
Book – Taking Control of your mind – lifehacks to resilience, confidence and success.
You can learn more and buy the courses here.
And you can buy the books here.
This article was written by Mandie Holgate, Founder of The Business Womans Network, International speaker and author, her books are highly acclaimed by business leaders, leading authors, a good few celebrities and business owners around the world. Fight the fear (the book that looks at the top 12 fears that impact on success) and Taking Control Of Your Mind are just 2 of the must read books that make business and success easier. You can meet Mandie at the Colchester and Braintree events and she pops into as many events across our network as she can each month now delivering an hour free of coaching and mentoring for all of our guests. Mandie is happy to connect with all women in business so feel free to do this via her website – www.mandieholgate.co.uk
Bench Mark Graph – Mandie Holgate
When I work with a client the first thing I like to do is measure where we are starting from. While I appreciate that clients just want to “get on with it and fix things” as your coach it is imperative to me that we actually know what results we are getting and monitoring what is working, what is not and what needs to change and what needs to be celebrated to keep the results coming.
As a famous professor once said “If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it” and while I don’t completely agree with this statement if you are spending money on achieving more, overcoming fears and obstacles it is essential that we check you are getting an awesome ROI (Return on your investment).
This tool works easily to help you understand where you are right now. You can use it on one area of your business life, across your company, on your personal life or even your ambitions or bucket list!
Here are some examples of what you could fill your graph with;
Central circle – Am I happy? – (Smaller circles) work, partner, family, home, finance, holidays, hobbies, health
Central circle – Business – (Smaller circles) profit, sales, work/life balance, fun, training, customers,
Central circle – New product – (Smaller circles) Brand awareness, profit, sales, reselling, new customers, data base, interaction.
Benchmark graph worksheet download your copy here – please remember this is for the use of The Insiders only and is not to replicated for anything other than your own personal use. Thank you.
5 reasons why you will make 2018 suck too!
Founder of The Business Womans Network Mandie Holgate shares her top 5 tips to make 2018 better than 2017…ignore them at your peril!
“Running your own business I don’t think I’ve ever seen a year that’s not been described as “really tough” or “unprecedently difficult environment for business” From Brexit to interest rates, wars to weather, there’s always a reason why this year is the toughest year yet, however why and how is it that some seem to thrive regardless? Creating new products and services and more importantly selling them in their thousands to adoring customers while other struggle to make ends meet and seem to fight for every sale?
What can you do to ensure the same old story doesn’t impact on your success in 2018?
Fail to learn.
Don’t berate yourself if this year saw you make the same mistakes or very similar ones to the previous year. Consider what the reasons are for this? Seriously, take a moment to look at the things that impacted on your success this year that was the same or similar to the year before. What are you scared of? What is becoming glaringly obvious as an obstacle to success. (You don’t have to tackle it (yet!) but you do need to know what it is!
Don’t go it alone.
It is a sad fact that November and December are my busiest times of the year because people struggle on through the Autumn thinking “I can do it,” and the very real realisation hits in at the end of the year that you are going to face another year of disappointment unless you do something different and fast! It’s sad because I know that if people had come to see me for coaching earlier in the year we could have dealt with the obstacles, increased sales and most importantly helped them have the business they wanted. Don’t go it alone, get some professional help. Why do we always assume we have to be master of everything in our businesses? Which leads me on to top tip Number 3.
Learn new things.
Learning new things can be scary, especially if we aren’t keen on technology, or speaking to crowds of people. Therefore, accept that to achieve more and not let 2018 suck as bad as this year, you are going to have to go for it and learn the things you hate, that or go for Top Tip Number 4.
Outsource.
Getting help is not a sign of weakness it’s a sign of sense. I asked the Insiders the other day if they could work just 3 quarters of their working week and still maintain their clients, productivity and current profit margin. The point being that if they couldn’t how are you going to grow your business? Learn what you can outsource to others so that you can get on with the money making jobs. (Which leads me nicely into…)
Is it a money maker?
I’ve lost track of the clients in 2017 that I’ve worked with who have discovered within the first half hour of our session that their business model is destined to fail. When you take the time to do the maths and actually work out your earning potential, as your coach I’m public enemy number one when I showcase the limitations that a clients current pricing structure, business model and strategy are creating. The realisation that no matter how hard you work it’s going to fail to produce the results you would really like is disheartening, however, I’d rather get a client to know the numbers and create a powerful business model charging the right prices before we start filling your diary with tons of clients. (There’s nothing more soul destroying to discover you are working so hard and won’t get the riches of business success!) If you have failed to make a great profit this year and you’ve worked so hard you feel you need a holiday it could be time to look at what you charge, who you work with, what hours you work and how your business model is (or is not!) working for you. If not you could be agreeing to another over worked year with little benefits for all your hard work, take half a day of 2017 to work out what really needs to change, and ask yourself “What can I expect to get more of in 2018 if I don’t take action right now?”
Don’t be a busy overworked fool, make the changes now to see the benefits in 2018.
Want more help? Check out Mandie’s courses on increasing sales, writing your first book, rocketing confidence, powerful elevator pitches and more. Ranging in price from £7 to £24! Perfect present for every busy business woman!
How do I get my blog out of Never Read Land?
You’ve written your first blog and now you need to work out how to get it read. Here are some ideas to help you do just that. And bear in mind I actually feel very confident to say that I know what I’m talking about here. It’s led to me being asked to write a book for the UK’s leading non-fiction publisher, being asked to be a featured blogger for 2 international publications and lots of clients for my coaching, courses and books. So I know this works, you just have to actually do what I suggest.
So how do you ensure that people actually find your blog?
Firstly ideally it will be on your website for a variety of reasons but the most obvious one is that it brings new fresh relevant information to your website – and trust me that’s good for your SEO and ranking.
If you can’t get it on your website relying on WordPress or Blogger, etc is better than not having one. And they are free and pretty easy to set up and use.
LinkedIn also has a useful feature that enables you to blog within your profile. Even if you feel your business is business to consumer and not to the business owner or professional remember a well-worded article will get read by professionals. They still have lives outside of business that could need what you offer!
So you have an interesting relevant useful blog now its time to get it seen;
Talk about it on social media – Youtube, Linkedin, Facebook Instagram and Twitter are the main ones. But don’t just do endless links to your blog – you have to build up interest and get to know people first. If anyone in their very first tweet to me says “Hey check out my website, blog, FB page- I’m instantly turned off. They have never met me and they are already assuming that I need what they have. If they took the time to build a relationship with me I would be more than happy to “check out their blog” etc. So build relationships first and you do that exactly the same way as you would face to face;
Be interested in others, share useful tit bits (this works really well, commenting on other peoples discussions on Linkedin etc (so ensure you join the right groups too) allows you to get to know other people’s opinions and then share yours. If you have had a great conversation with someone then you can say “Funny enough I wrote this about this very subject…” but only after being interested, considerate and getting to know others.
If you have a mailing list (Please tell me you have one of those!) whatever effective ways you have to stay in touch with your client base (Please tell me you are doing that!) share your blog ideas there too. Don’t share the whole thing, just put something like “A client had the issue ………. so I shared this great solution and so I thought I would share it with you too. To read more…….”
Remember in this fast paced world everyone wants instant answers so sharing little useful titbits makes you a very useful golden nugget to keep in touch with – what’s that going to do to your sales and business growth?
If you publicly speak (and where ever you go NEVER turn down the opportunity, you never know who is in the audience and who they know!) finish with something like “There are a ton of free ideas on …………on my blog, so help yourself.”
Tell people about it in every form of your marketing in a useful relevant informative way ALL OF THE TIME. People make the mistake of assuming you can tell someone once on Twitter and that will get you a thousand hits – it won’t! You need to be consistent.
You have to tell people over and over again in a useful, relevant informative way (Hope I’m getting that across – ha ha!) in short succinct chunks. It’s the drip drip drip approach. That if you keep telling people they will get the message and want to know more and keep in touch and what does that do for your business success? Thus you always need to consider what is it that you want to be known for? Keep this at the forefront of your mind when writing to ensure you stay bang on subject.
These ideas will work, I have a ton more to share but get this right for starters, be consistent and you will see positive results and a great impact on your business.
I will also share a webinar on this subject of what to write, how to write it and how to get it seen on The Insiders too. If you have personalised questions you wish to ask, just say.
Is your business making you sacks of cash?
It’s a serious questions every business woman reading this should be prepared to ask themselves. Because if your business is not making sacks of cash, it’s not a business it’s a hobby, and let’s be honest most hobbies are rather expensive. And businesses are supposed to generate money not consume it!
So if you feel like your being a consumer rather than a generator here’s a wham bam Thank you Mam, quick tip guide to checking you’re on the right track to sacks of cash;
1. Ask the question “Is My business making sacks of cash?”
To do this you will need to know your accounts inside out, and every accountant on the planet will tell you how important that is. It will highlight good weeks/months, bad ones, opportunities, weaknesses and help you look out for tell tale patterns to be aware of. Assessing where you are allows you to move forward – forget this at your peril! So become best friend with your numbers.
2. Next ask yourself “What am I going to Do about it?”
Note the capital D on Do. You see procrastination is highly likely to attack your business progress if you don’t have an action plan. Remember Procrastination is destroyed by action! So what action do you intend to take? Ask yourself what has worked in the past, what has not worked in the past. And a word of caution here – if it didn’t work in the past, will it miraculously work this time, unless you make changes?
3. Say good bye to Ron
Have you met Ron? He lurks in every business woman’s psyche – “I will do it Lateron” “This is more important, I will have to leave that to lateron” Ron just loves to hear you say this. So take action on Ron. Knowing what action you intend to take is nothing without working out WHEN you are going to do it. You have probably heard the saying “working ON your business and not IN it” Every successful business needs the space to implement the new ways to ensure success.
4. Get out there!
It’s a biggy! And a pet hate of mine to hear that a wonderful business is relying on business cards and a website and maybe a spot of networking to ensure a wonderful stream of new enquiries, leads, contacts and most of all new happy customers. Even if you are mega busy you still need a multi level approach to your marketing. If you can’t list off at least 8 different things you are doing to engage with customers right now – then somewhere down the line you are going to have trouble – and highly likely to not have sacks of cash!
Okay so there are a ton of other things I could be telling you about right now, including your current customers, up-selling, side selling, multi sales, dangers of special offers, underpricing nightmares, confidence issues, your relationship with money, wrong products, wrong customers, Wow! This list truly could be endless, but you see right now nail these 4 and you WILL see results, you WILL see more of what you want in your business and less of what you don’t. So no more reading, chuck Ron out and take action!