Category: Run a Home Business

    What Is The Biggest Obstacle You Face When Starting A Home Business?

    So you want to start a home business?

    When you look at starting a home business as a new entrepreneur, you look at all the things you need to do to get started.

    Website

    Sales Pages

    Traffic

    Product creation

    Design graphics

    Social media

    Funnels – what are funnels?!

    All the other requirements like taxes, books, government regulations and so on ..

    All you want to do is find the customers who need your solution to their problem or what they desire…..

    All the equipment or technology you need to create a functioning business can seem like the biggest obstacle to starting a home business but it is not the biggest obstacle.

    The biggest obstacle to starting a home business is YOU!

    Paralysis

    Your brain will get overwhelmed by all the “things” you have to do in your business.

    Your Mind is powerful and it is great at collecting knowledge from here, there and everywhere.

    But that can be overwhelming and cause “Paralysis Analysis.”  You will become overwhelmed by all the information and get STUCK. What should I do next?!

    Well… take a deep breath ..and make a step by step checklist of what you need to do and cross it off as you do it.

    Perfectionism

    Don’t try to be Perfect.

    Perfectionism can also cause paralysis in terms of “waiting” till I get this done and it takes longer than you thought and suddenly, it has been three months of you trying to perfect a sales page.

    Imperfect Action is better than no Action.

    Perfect is unattainable so don’t even try for Perfect. Just Perfect Enough to get moving!

    The Next Best Thing

    There is no quick way to make money with a home business. It is about building a business that has systems in it to keep the cash flowing. So always following the newest idea on how to make the cash flow will get you into chasing the quick money instead of a business. It is called the “Bright Shiny Object” syndrome and the promise of the “NEW” has always moved people to buy but you don’t want to move “off your path” chasing rainbows, you want to be focused on a path to your business such that you can see how it works.

    The Business of At Home Business Membership

    As an entrepreneur working in home business, I have (and still know) known the challenges of being in home business so I have developed a Membership to help others get their home business started quicker and easier.

    Check it out at  The Business of At Home Business here.

    Categories: Be Your Own Boss, Knowledge, Mindset, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: , , , , ,

    7 ways to get the time to start a home business?

    Are you stuck in overwhelm wondering how to start your own home business?

    Do you find that your days are filled with your job, commuting and family chores that you don’t know how you can find the time to think about starting a home business let alone actually having the time to do it!

    Ask yourself just how committed are you to starting a business that can improve your life?

    You can find the time if you REALLY want to have your own business.

    Here are 7 ways to find the time to start your own home business

    1. Stop watching T.V.

    Television is such a time waste when you think of what you could be doing in that hour to take action in your business. If you “have to be social” with the family then at least bring out the laptop or phone to work on your business while you are there.

    2. Get up one hour earlier every day

    If you were to get up at 5 a.m instead of 6 a.m. just think of the action you could take planning your business in the quiet of the morning. Staying up late to work isn’t recommended as you aren’t getting the sleep your body needs to work during the day.

    3. Take 15 minutes a day for you

    Fifteen minutes for 30 days is equal to 450 minutes or over 7 hours you have spent to move your business forward. I use a small book to write in my ideas and next action steps.

    4. Take the time while commuting or waiting at appointments

    Just think of the minutes and hours you spend just travelling or waiting in life that you could do something productive towards planning and taking action to start your business. I like writing down ideas and next steps in my Moleskine notebook because I like the visceral feel of the book and paper but you can just write on your phone or record your thoughts.

    5. Get a Mentor

    Find someone who already has a business and ask if you could ask questions of him or her about starting a home business by email or on the phone. A mentor can help you save time by preventing you from making common mistakes and helping you take action.

    6. Allow yourself to take baby steps of action.

    You have to celebrate whatever small action you may take every day to move forward. If you celebrate rather than counting the number of things you need to do that will help with overwhelm.

     

    7. Read a book about business instead of a novel at bedtime

    If you don’t know someone successful in business, you can read about entrepreneurs and starting a home business to absorb the lessons they have learned whether it is “The Reluctant Entrepreneur” by Michael Masterson or “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.

     

    If you want to learn about starting, running or growing a home business all in one place, you should join “The Business of At Home Business” membership where you can learn and implement about what it takes to start an online or offline home business all in one place!

    Categories: Be Your Own Boss, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: , , ,

    Guerilla Marketing to Grow Your Business

    It’s about growing your own home business by using some offline tactics to do your marketing that are traditional but have been working for ever. So for those of you who have never tried to grow your home business, there are three point six billion people online. So remember to get your Web site up there like I mentioned on Thursday so that you connect with those people.

    If you want at first start connecting with your local community. Believe it or not,  yes, Yellow Pages is a great way to start. Get your advertising info into Yellow Pages and that does cost money but that will last you a lifetime in order of “word of mouth.” Once people start to get to know that you’re in the Yellow Pages in the directory, they can look you up easily and get your phone number and your address also maybe depending on the Yellow Pages. And of course, it is put up in the Yellow Pages on the Internet. And once they have your web site, you have a Web site up and an address. You can put that Web site and your phone number and e-mail and your mobile phone on business cards. On your Web site, have a contact form to “contact us” form as they say on your Web site that they could fill in and contact you for more information about your business.

    You can actually pay for the domain and pay for the hosting for a web site and it is certainly less than a hundred dollars You could easily learn WordPress. I know you don’t want to but obviously you could and that would be also free. Once you have that, you could put up a few blog posts and you have a Web site or you could hire someone to do that or get a free Web site as long as they allow you to attach a email auto-responder that will make a list of the people who contact you. Once they get onto your e-mail address list then you are in business with possible customers because that’s a very simple way for you to start your business growing is by getting on the Internet.

    But anyway, for those of you who are local businesses, you have to do some marketing for your business. There are still direct mailers out there depending on your community they could be reasonable. Send out a press release saying that you’re in town and available or you could do some ads in your local paper.

    You could also network out there in your community. There’s a lot of business networking groups. I’m not sure if they’re free to join in your community. The Chamber of Commerce in our community you pay a yearly fee but you have a lot of free networking by being in the chamber. Go out and volunteer in your community at a local food bank or any local business entrepreneurial type group. Go to a Meetup networking event. Meetups are free and create your own Meetup where you provide information and people can come and learn about your business or service depending on what you actually do and you could actually be there and meet up with others who are in business. Those are just a few of the ways that you have to be able to get out into the community so people get to know about you as you have to network.

    You have to market your business. So obviously you could also do a press release send it to your local newspapers saying that you’re in business. They’re always interested in profiling new businesses this community. Those are some of the traditional ways that Jay Levinson of the Guerilla Marketing book series has for you and let me just get his Web site because of course everybody has a Web site now and you can go and get some more guerilla marketing hacks for your local business that you don’t have to cost too much money to spend to get them.

    Gmarketing.com or his book “Guerrilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson.

    But anyway , so guerrilla marketing is a great way to save money in order to grow your business when you’re offline. Obviously there is some cost to be an offline business in people finding you in your local community. Tell all your family and friends that’s an inexpensive way. Hand out cards to your family and friends note cards to anyone you know. So for our offline business it’s now of course you can get online and get more business from the Internet. That’s why you need a web site. So as I mentioned get your Web site up there. Then you’re going to have to go and participate in social media.It doesn’t cost money to get on to social media and just chat and add your social media pages.  So that’s another hack is to get your Web site up and then get connected on some of the social media that might be of interest to you.

    So we’ll be talking about some of them that we’ve talked about in season one like Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest  and  Twitter .  Then you can see that it is possible even if you have a shipping company to be successful on his Instagram or even of course company like Ikea it can be very successful on Facebook. So hopefully you’ve got a few ideas today and I’ll give you some more when I get Guerrilla marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson out!

    Categories: Networking, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: , , , , ,

    Your Website Is Your Online Hub

    I’d like to talk about running your own business and some of the systems that you need to put in in order to have a home business whether it’s offline or on. I wanted to emphasize the importance of having a Web site for your business. So today I wanted to talk about your ONLINE HUB.

    I like to call it the ONLINE HUB which is your Web site on the Internet. It will have its own unique address. You will have it on your business cards for people to go to whether you’re offline or online.  Visitors can click on and go to your business there and your web site will be important in your business for running it. It will be the place where you can actually talk to them about your business by talking about your product or service on your blog. And if you don’t know what a blog is we’ll be talking about that later. And then also it will be the place where you can get them to subscribe. Any of your visitors who come to your Web site, they will be interested in your business and maybe they want to get a newsletter from you. You should have a place called a lead page where they can sign up for either your newsletter or your emails that you send out weekly or monthly depending on your business As well your web site can be the online hub for where you can sell to them if you wish.

    So ,for example, you can have a page on your Web site which talks about your product or your service and it gives all these details about it even if they are interested in learning more than they can read about it.

    Obviously you could put your phone number on the page or you could also give them a button to click and sign up by e-mail to contact you with information about your product or service. You can even have a sales page which you can link up to a payment button service that will actually sell to any visitors that come to your business website.

    So, the ONLINE HUB  is what I like to call the and that is your Web site has a unique location on the internet. Whether you’re an off line or an online business, you should have a Web site that is easy to navigate easy to read and simple enough that they can figure out where to go when they have a question. Also, have a place where they can search and find information if they need to have your phone number, your contact e-mail and you have a place where they can sign up for their e-mail newsletter if they wish. It could be right on your front page of your website or it could be on a separate page that you will send them to if they click on or gotten that kind of thing.

    So your ONLINE HUB is your Web site. It’s important to have in your running of your business because it can be the place that you send visitors whether it’s from a business card or from on the Internet. You send them through social media to check out your product or service on your website. It is an important part of your business and it should be running efficiently quickly and be an easy place for them to contact you for them to buy. Of course, also, to get on a list to learn more about your business and get information from you.

    So if you haven’t thought of- your offline business should have a Web site and it should be running efficiently.

    So we’ll be talking a bit more about your Web site in the next episode in some of the ways that you can make it easier for them to find you and to connect to you and to buy from you.

    Get your Web site up!

     It’s a great place now for people to check you out.

    Mobile Responsive

    A lot of people now are using their mobile phone to search for products or services. So it’s time to get your web site to be mobile responsive. You know where to find out if your Web site is mobile or responsive. All you have to do is get a phone out and find the browser that you’re going to use and use it to search for your search for your own business if you haven’t done that yet. See how it looks on mobile in order to be a mobile responsive web site.

    For mobile responsive , the look of your web site changes so that it has a navigation which is easy to use with buttons to push and to go and to sign up etc.. It actually looks a bit different from your actual Web site on the desktop.

    For a non-mobile responsive website on your phone will have all the text, all the buttons, all the pages, all menus small and very hard to access. So you need to be able to get a mobile responsive web site. At some point, we’ll be talking about how you should make sure you have the priority of having a mobile responsive web site.

    But for now, let’s just go next week have a look at some of the things you should have on your Web site that are important to your visitors, your leads and who will become your customers.

    Yes, you better get your website up there on the internet even if you are an offline business!

    Join “The Business of At Home Business” to learn more!

     

    Categories: Run a Home Business, Website Tags: Tags: , , ,

    What Is Your Solution For Your Customer

     

    It is all about selling and your customers. And as I mentioned previously in the other episode we’re going to start at the very basics of looking at who is your customer. Before we even talk about selling because if you haven’t defined who your customer is then you won’t be able to find them in order to sell to them.

    Because not everyone is your customer.

    Not everyone wants your gadget.

    No everyone wants your information

    Not everyone wants your newest Plumbing apparatus.

    So you have to decide. what are you selling.

    That’s the first step.

    What is the outcome that your customers will get from buying your solution?

    Is it something they desire?

    Is it the newest golf club?

    Is it something that is a solution to their problem?

    What is your solution?

    So first of all, you should really actually define what your outcome is as a result of using your product or service.

    If someone was to actually use your product or service, what is their outcome and how will it improve their life? 

    What is the end results?

    Will they have more money at the end of using your solution or are you just solving one little problem in their life?Maybe it’s time to define that little problem as to how small it is and decide if you can help by adding a few more other solutions to get it into a bigger solution and bigger results.

    So first off, you’ve got to decide what you’re going to be selling as a solution.

    What is that solution and what is the end results of that solution?

    Next question.

    Who would want that solution?

    So you’d be surprised who wants your solution. At one point, I thought the coaches would want my solution for someone who is thinking of starting a home business in general. But actually I’ve found that for one of my products, I could actually have real estate agents who would be more interested in my solution. So that’s from doing the research and finding out that there aren’t that demand and the audience.

    For example, I’ve found out on Facebook that the majority of people there in my audience are from 45 to 65. There are a lot of people out there at 45 to 65 who are starting another business in their life because they want to have the freedom and control of their own life in terms of having a business, so that was a big surprise. I thought it was just teenagers and young people who are on Facebook.

    But then I’m not usually on Facebook. 

    So, what I’m trying to say is first you got to figure out what your solution is and what is the end result for that solution.

    What is the outcome for anyone who might happen to use that solution?

    And then go and do research on your social media in trade publications in your industry go out and talk to people in your industry about what kind of problems they have and see if they actually NEED YOUR solution. They may not need it because they already have a quicker way to solve what they want so that you’re going to have to find a way to have a solution that is a different, unique way of solving that problem.

    So really before you can even start selling or even defining who your customers are, you have to decide what your solution is and what is the end result.

    What is the process that you go through to use your solution and get a better outcome?

    They always want to buy something for a better outcome, quicker outcome or a more fun outcome of all kinds of outcomes that are positive.

    So before you can start even defining your customers, which we will do next time, are you even selling to the right customers. You have to know what your solution is that you have that your product or service solves in terms of what the problems might be or what do they desire.

    So, start with the basics and decide what it is that is the outcome for your product or service. And then go and research with a few examples on customers and what they need and who they are and finding out who they are.

    Now I’ll tell you bluntly, with our structural engineering firm, we didn’t have to do any of this research because basically people when you want to build and renovate a house and they need an engineer then we are the solution. Obviously, the only thing that is really required in terms of our solution is how we could be quicker; how we can be more responsive; on how we can be on call; for your client and get a good reputation. So we didn’t have to do too much research on what the market was because we have a pretty large market. So the competition was not too fierce in our area.

    So just so you know I’m talking right now about online.

    But of course we’ll also define offline research but before we can do any of that out, figure out what your solution is whether it’s a product or service that you want to sell.

    What is it solving?

    What is the end result for your client?

    why would they want to buy it?

    So have a look at that this week and see what you think about your solution for your business. Maybe look at what you’re going to be doing and see what is the end result of your solution.

    That’s a very important task.

    And then the next phase, very important, is defining your customer and who they are and where they are. So we’ll do that next week.

     

    Categories: Run a Home Business, Sales, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: , , ,

    Do You Want To Start A Home Business In Your Community

     

    Today we’re going to be talking about some of the things you have to think about when you’re before you start your business. And some of the actual research you have to do before you start your business. So first off we’ll be talking about starting a home business and picking a business. And today it’s all about offline. So we’re going to be talking about local business and working out if your home office and there are many ways you can do that.

    There are some restrictions obviously to what you can do from your own home office. You can check with your local authority on what kind of businesses are allowed as a home business in your community. For example we don’t really have hairdressers. We don’t have car shops. We don’t have you know auto body shops. We don’t have various other ones basically things that make noise and smells because of course you have to think about your neighbors which we’ll talk about another time when it comes to offline.

    But in terms of home businesses and what one you might be interested in, one of the recommendations I would say is that try to do something that you already know about and that’s something you’ve been working in. Whether it’s the food industry (that would be a concern in terms of doing it at home) or if you were to had an internship as a bookkeeper or you were working in marketing or your writing business and you were writing for business or you were an office administrator for business. These are skills that you could do from your home in terms of a local home business.

    You just have to decide if there’s a market out there for you. So you have to decide how to figure out if there’s a local market for your business. So they see the first things that we would do, which we did a long time ago in the 1990s, was have a look and see who else was out there in the local community who was doing the same business.

    I think there was only one Engineer near us at the time so we had not too much competition in our local area and then of course we had to look at the kind of work that’s out there for us in terms of being able to have a steady flow of business. So you want to research at what is selling in your community whether it’s a product or service.

    How many people or how many businesses are out there? 

    For example, if there are five to 10 home cleaning businesses in your community and your community is only 5000 then you might want to consider a different business.

    But one of the things I want you to think about if there are other businesses out there doing the same service then most likely there is a demand for that business especially if they are in the business for at least five years or more than they have enough clients to keep them busy. So you’ll probably find enough clients to keep you busy. And of course there’s always people moving into your community and it is always growing. Assuming your population will grow enough to support five or six of what you do as your product or service then you might want to consider putting some tentative idea out there that you’re in business. See if you get some interest in people wanting to know what your business is and whether or not they could use your business.

    If you have no idea, my first recommendation would be to decide on a business.

    Don’t forget that you pick the wrong business just pick something and then get an internship or part time job in that type of business to see what it’s like to see if there’s certain skills or knowledge that you don’t have for that you might need in order to do that same business. Then you’ll need some experience to learn about it and see how the business sells its products because that’s one of the important things to learn if you want to sell your products. So be in the market similar to your business product or service and then you have to allocate a few five to 10 hours on learning about your type of business part time outside your day job in order to get some of the skills you need to be in business.

    We’ll talk about that on Thursday when we’re talking about running your own business and some of the skills that you need as an entrepreneur. Then once you have a primary a pretty solid understanding of what the business entails and what kind of requirements are needed. You can certainly have a tentative look at maybe starting selling a bit of what you’re doing part time.

    Now I forgot to mention that there are a lot of good government Web sites which have information on starting your own business and how to do it and some other requirements that are required for by the government So go and just do a search for starting a home business and add your country and you’ll probably find a great many places on Google where you can learn more about what their requirements are for starting a business.

    Say you’d like to start so what you need to do is to do research and maybe gain a bit of knowledge about your business that you want to be and is probably recommending that you already know something about the business that you want to go into and then make some kind of decision on what you think you could do day to day and be useful in your business.

    For example I think I mentioned yesterday that I don’t think even though I have the skills to be a bookkeeper I would be happier as a bookkeeper. So I’m not going to have a bookkeeping business. Whereas I love being an artist and I’d love to have an artist business and that would keep me going day to day even though the sales might be less than in a bookkeeping business.

    So it’s something for you to think about is are you willing to challenge yourself to do that you have the passion to do that you want to know the things that you need to know to do the business. Don’t go into something that people are just saying “go into it because it’ll make you rich.” It won’t make you rich because you don’t have the passion for it.

    So we’re going to be talking about some of the practical ideas next time where you can do your research for offline and starting your local business. Obviously, anyone can go get their computer out and start an online business from their home office without really any requirements from the local authority.So we will talk about online research next week and it will be for offline and online.

    So let’s hope the you got some information out of that and we’ll go out and research your local community and see what’s out there and whether they need another dog walking service or whether they need another cleaning service or whether they need another bookkeeper or another accountant or another.

    You know there’s lots of business that you can do out of your home that are not required to go out and be in a rental office in your hometown. ‘

    So go out and have a look and see if you have enough passion in order to do business.

     

    Categories: Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: , ,

    To Run a Home Business

    This is Thursday so we’re going to be talking about running a business. Today is the first one so we’re going to be just talking briefly about some of the things that we’ll be talking about in terms of running your home business. I know that you may be just starting a home business but you may also be running a home business and later we will talk about growing your home business. I think I should talk to you about running your home business just so that you know in case you’re new at this, some of the challenges ,and of course, some of the pleasures of being able to run your home business.

    So I’m Jane Gardner and as I mentioned before, we have a structural engineering firm that we have had for 20 years out of our home and our home office. We’ve earned a certain reputation and I would expect in our local community as an offline home business and ,to be honest, most people don’t know that we’re here in business because usually they only find us when they need us. But that’s what’s called “word of mouth”. So if you can develop word of mouth in your community about your home business then you don’t have to pay anything for advertising. We do have our ad obviously in the Yellow Pages. We keep that in there for those who are interested in just finding a local engineer. We do have a Web site and that now is being used more often by people to find us. We have a lot of local referrals from business people who do business with us before.

    So I think we can say that in running a business, one of the most important things for you is your reputation and we will certainly be talking about that.

    I usually do the organization and productivity for home business so I keep all the files and government taxes and keep the deadlines for our insurance and and all these other things so we’ll be talking about how to organize your home business so you don’t get overwhelmed by all that. All the paperwork and the work that you have to do that isn’t even part of your actual business but is actually something you need to do to run your home business. We’ll be talking about maybe some tips on organizing your business so that it’s much easier to do. Also that you will be able to be more productive so that you’re out there promoting or selling your home business or getting more clients instead of having to always be running around doing your bookkeeping or doing your filing etc.. So of course that means also we will be talking about outsourcing and hopefully at one point be able to afford to hire a few employees.

    We’ll be talking about that and we’ll be talking about cash flow. Cash flow is one of the most important things in your business in terms of making your business successful and how you can try to keep the cash flow going. Even though you of course you’re having to do all these different things in your business like your filing, your organizing and you’re selling it and actually producing whatever it is you’re selling. We’ll also talk about some of the skills that you need as a solopreneur or maybe some of the mindset you might need to do every day in some of the meditation or the calming influences or the time you need for your health as well as some of the technical skills you’ll need in a home business. Unfortunately whether you like it or not as a solopreneur, you have to at least be aware of certain technology and certain skills so that you can be quicker and produce things much easier and not be stuck by either not knowing how to do something maybe on your Web site or at least having a web developer who is slow and slowing you down because they’re not getting something done for you. Well you should learn how to do it yourself. So there’s always I think we talked about a lot of that is being Jack Jill or jack of all trades.

    We talked about that in our season one, we went over some of the skills you might need running your home business. We’ll be talking a lot about how to make your home business more productive, more organized, save you time and save you money so that you can go out there and sell more and not have to be working in your business. But in terms of actually producing whatever it is you’re selling in your business or just getting more clients whatever it is you have to be able to be organized enough to be getting that going and running your whole business in the most efficient way for you. With of course the Internet there’s lots of plenty of ways that you can save time and money. So I’ll be going over some of those and maybe some of the technology that might be worth you getting especially if it’s free in order to help you and your business.
    So we will be talking about the nitty gritty and the down and dirty as we like to say on running your own business on Thursdays.

    Hopefully you’ll find this very useful. Every week, I will try to make sure that I have at least three tips for you on that you can take away. Three questions for you to think about every week about how to organize your produce or make your business run more efficiently.
    But for today I just wanted to mention that there’s a few things and we’ve talked about quite a few ways to make your business more efficient, run better and easier and save you time and money because saving you time will make it possible for you to go out there and either make more sales or maybe have more time for your family whichever is more important to you. =
    So we’ll do that next week. We’ll start talking about some of the things that we can do to make you a jill or jack of all trades so that you aren’t always having to wait for others instead of you can take control of your own business.
    . I just thought I’d introduce the ideas and go or some of the ideas that I’ve had and helped in my business as well.
    [7:17.3]

    Categories: Run a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: ,

    Selling Sales You and Your Customer

    Well today is Wednesday and it’s all going to be about selling sales and your customers.

    Today, I wanted to start off by talking about how you don’t have to be salesy in order to sell as a human being.

    You sell yourself all the time and you sell ideas that you have all the time.

    When you were a baby, you would always try to persuade your mother or father that you wanted a certain food or that you would could see that either doing a tantrum or you would smile and be happy and you could make them understand that you wanted something. As you got older we were always putting our “best face forward” as they call it to people in your school. You wanted to have friends so you always either went with the crowd or you persuaded others you were someone to meet. You’re always persuading other people to do what you were interested in.
    So, it comes to reason that “To Sell is Human.”

    Of course, there’s a book called “To Sell is Human” by Daniel Pink that I’ll go into it further another time but I just want to say you don’t have to be intimidated by the idea of selling because you’re doing it every day;

    1. you’re giving a first impression to someone new that you meet;
    2. you’re showing people you’re interested in what they have to say or you’re ordering people around
    3. always whatever you’re always selling and always having a certain face that you put forward to other people.

    So, what we’re going to be talking about is first how we’re always selling anyway so it shouldn’t be foreign to you and to not be intimidated by the idea of selling but I’m going to be talking sort of backwards in terms of we’ll be talking about because we are talking about the customer first because really “it’s not what you’re selling as much as what your customers want.”

    Of course, first you have to define who you think your customers are and what they want before you can approach them.
    Give them a solution to what they want to buy and what their pain is or what they desire to have.
    So we’re really actually not going to be talking about selling so much as trying to understand who your customer is and what they want what they want to experience with you and what they enjoy and all those kind of things. So, first of all, we’ll probably be talking about the actual process of selling itself and we will be talking about how you can give a good impression to others in terms of selling and how you can be more human in your selling and use your human skills as you are.
    Now you don’t have to become that enthusiastic loud salesmen of the old days because with (of course) podcasting as we have now and being on video, you can still be human and connect with others and be engaged by these type of media.

    So, in Season 1, I talked about first defining who your customer is and how you can do that as well as researching what they want and where they hang out so that you can find out where they hang out and connect with them there and obviously figuring out what they actually want rather than what you think they want and then selling them the solution to what they want.
    Then after that develop the relationship such that you can also then give them what they need in terms of what they want as well.
    So as long as you can learn how to define what they want and give them that solution then you will be able to sell very easily to them in terms of having a transaction of money for what the solution is that they want to have from you.
    Of course, we’ll be talking about my business and with my husband as well as other businesses and how they work and how they sell and how they market and also offline as well as online. A lot of offline businesses can go online and become more internationally known so that’s awesome. We’ll be talking a lot about how to market yourself and probably growing your business because we’ll be talking more about the internet. But today I just wanted to mention to you that first.

    •  It’s about your potential customers and do you know what they really want.
    •  You don’t have to sell or be salesy.
    • You can just be human and use the way you are.

    We’ll be talking about that further in a later episode. Use the way that your personality is and you can then match it or change it to match your customers personalities such that they feel that you’re an old friend and that it’s not a matter of selling.
    It’s just a matter of being human to human and realizing that you have the solution to what they want.

    So I know that sounds all very confusing but I certainly thought I would start out with an introduction to selling and then we’ll be going on to understanding that selling is not about you, it’s about your customers of course.
    First you have to figure out who your customers are.
    So we’ll see you next week and will be starting on finding out who your customer is and what do they want.
    So ask your questions or ask yourself that question over the next week and maybe you’ll find out that the people that you thought were your customers aren’t actually and other people and others who actually want your solution that you hadn’t thought about selling to ..so see you next week.  Subscribe on Itunes.
    [7:12.2]

    Categories: Run a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: , , , ,

    Mindset of the Entrepreneur

    Welcome. I’m Jane Gardner. And today on Mindset Monday, we’re going to talk about being an entrepreneur and what a mindset of an entrepreneur is and whether you are capable of being an entrepreneur due to your mindset. Over the next few weeks we’ll be talking about some of the ways you can be challenged as an entrepreneur in terms of your mindset and how you can conquer those challenges. You do not have to be born an entrepreneur and you can actually learn to be an entrepreneur. You can also train your mind to have the mindset of an entrepreneur.

    Unlike what some people say that you have to come from an entrepreneurial family, over 50 percent of successful business owners come from the middle class and 35 percent were either poor or working class. So you don’t have to be a family member of an entrepreneur.

    You can change your mind in order to be an entrepreneur. So don’t let that stop you. The idea that you don’t know what it is to be an entrepreneur should not stop you because we can talk about changing your mindset as we go along.

    Ask yourself these questions because I believe that you shouldn’t quit your day job as I mentioned in order to be an entrepreneur that you should be at least thoughtful about your process etc.

    So let’s ask these questions of yourself.

    How many of you would you agree that.

    “I don’t like to risk my money.” Not at all.

    “I would never think of quitting my job and risking my life savings.

    “I like the idea of being my own boss. I’m not sure I would be good at it.

    “I’m willing to take responsibility for my actions but I still don’t want anyone to find out about my mistakes.

    I sometimes have good ideas but often have no idea of what to do.

    Well, if you agree with any of those statements you are a reluctant entrepreneur at heart.I invite you to join our ranks because you don’t have to be a risk taker in order to be an entrepreneur.

    As I mentioned yesterday, one of the books I highly recommend is “The Reluctant Entrepreneur” by Michael Masterson and read through that and start learning how to train your brain to be the successful entrepreneur.

    So for today I want you to think about who you think is a successful entrepreneur. Next time, we’ll be talking about some of the entrepreneurs you may not know of who have conquered their inability or their fears. Being an entrepreneur and becoming a successful entrepreneur is regardless of being a risk taker or trying something without even thinking beforehand because you or anyone else can be an entrepreneur. All you have to do is try to have a positive, committed attitude and have a natural love of a challenge and the ability to manage a lot of stress and work at a high level and the willingness to take responsibility.

    These are some of the ideas of having the mindset of the entrepreneur and if you don’t have them now you can certainly learn how to train your brain in order to be challenged as an entrepreneur.

    My husband and I have been entrepreneurs for 20 years we work on our own. Every day is a challenge and every day is a pleasure. Every day is a day where we don’t know what the next day will bring, what work will come but we accept that work will come and we continue on. We will also have a huge pile of work for the day and know that there’s a huge pile the next day and we have to get through it.

    So , you have to have a few traits of the entrepreneur to succeed. In season one, I talked to you about some of the traits of an entrepreneur. I’ll go into more detail in the second season on what the traits of the entrepreneur is and some of the ways you yourself can learn some of these traits and train your brain to have the mindset of the entrepreneur.

    So I hope you’ll come along with me on the challenge and the triumph of being an entrepreneur on Mindset Monday. We’ll see you next week.

    Just have a think about “are you an entrepreneur now” or “do you want to be an entrepreneur in the future.

    Do you want to take action and get control of your life or at least make some extra money too as a business person so that you can have a more successful life and that you can have the things that you want and you can help your family and you can help yourself and you can control your life. So we’ll see you next week. Subscribe to the podcast on Itunes.

    Categories: Run a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: , , , ,

    Season 2 of Solopreneur Success Strategies is coming!

    Season Two of Solopreneur Success Strategies is arrived over on iTunes or Soundcloud or iHeartRadio.

    Jane Gardner will be talking about Home Business Startup.

    We’re going to be talking about starting, running and growing your own home business whether online or offline. Monday is all about mindset, of course!

    Tuesday is all about starting a home based business,

    Wednesday is all about selling, sales and your customer.

    Thursday is all about running a home business,

    Friday will be all about growing your home business,

    Saturday is all about putting systems in your business and

    Sunday is all about strategy.

    So  you’ll be able to listen to this daily podcast to help you get in motion and implement ideas to start run and grow your own homebiz

    Subscribe on Itunes

     

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