Tag: selling

    What is #1 Priority when starting a home business?

    The #1 Priority for any business whether home based or brick and mortar is Cash Flow!

    The biggest concern with any business is cash flow.
    At all times you have to be marketing, selling and
    fulfilling the service of your home business.

    You need a minimum cash flow every month just to cover your business
    expenses and living expenses.
    You can start by looking at your own bank account and
    see what are your expenses to live every month.
    Then do an analysis of the expenses needed in order to do your business
    (by doing a business plan).
    Add all the expenses together and that will be the income minimum
    you need to make just to cover your expenses.

    In most businesses you don’t make a profit which is income above
    what you need for expenses for a few months or more.
    So, you need to have some startup funding (whether savings or family support etc.) in the first year.

    At all times, it is cash flow which can make a business profitable or a loss.
    At all times as an owner you have to have three hats on:

    The Marketer Cat

    Cat wearing felt hat with feather

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Marketer Hat where you go out and make people aware of your business. Okay, yes, I am not a cat but doesn’t he look like a marketer cat! 🙂

     

    The Seller Cat

    Portrait of cat wearing straw hat

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Seller Hat where you close the sale when you have someone asking about your business. This is where you are serious and know what you want to say just like the Seller Cat.

     

    The Business Cat

    Cat wearing red hat

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Business Hat where you fulfill the promise of the sale that you made
    whether to fulfill a service or produce a product. The Business Cat is professional at all times in fullfilling the promise!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    My husband and I have had a home based business for 20 years.
    Just like any business, we have to have cash flow.
    In one day, you can be meeting a potential client to fulfill a service
    by a deadline while fulfilling another promised service
    in the 8 hour time period
    and responding to enquires with quotes over the internet.
    At all times, you have to be a marketer, salesperson and service provider.
    That is common to any business, homebased or otherwise,
    if you don’t have the cashflow needed for your business,
    you will get into serious trouble.

    #1 Priority for Any Business is Creating the Cash Flow!
    For more go to http://boahb.com on how to start run and grow a home business!

    Categories: Run a Home Business 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: , , ,

    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: , , , ,

    Fast-Track Method to Selling Info Products Online

    If you are looking for a way to earn an income online while working from home, creating and selling info-products is an excellent way to get started.

    What sort of info-products should you create?

    Choosing a niche to create your product in can be one of the most difficult steps. Most information on this subject will tell you to follow your passions, your desires, and your hobbies. Just write about what you love. However, this doesn’t always work.

    Just because you are passionate about a subject, doesn’t mean there will be flocks of buyers, ready to throw money at you to access the information you provide. It has happened many times before. Product creators have been known to put in massive amounts of time and effort creating a resource on something they enjoy, blindly thinking that there will be a huge demand for this, only to be disappointed with meager sales.

    If you want to earn an income with this model, you’ll need to treat this work as a business and not a hobby. There is no point in creating a product if you are not 100% certain that there are buyers out there, looking for what you are offering. Not only that, but there needs to be *enough* buyers to ensure continued sales.

    The best way forward is to find a niche that already has “hungry” buyers. Tap into this market, build a reputation for yourself, and eventually, you’ll create a loyal customer base ready to consume whatever you create for them.

    To find this golden goose, research the most on-demand topics at the moment. The current trends, the most talked about subjects and evergreen categories. Look at Google trends, best sellers on Amazon, social media and current news to find this.

    From this list of ideas, you’ll be sure to find a subject that you’ll find enjoyable to write about.

    Topics to write about

    The fastest way of finding subjects to write about within a certain niche is to find popular guides and books that are already selling well. Study these and note what they are teaching. Certain ideas will pop out and you, and you can focus on these ideas and expand upon them. This does not mean plagiarizing and copying, it means taking concepts from other successful sellers, re-thinking, re-purposing and improving these ideas, then producing it as a solution to buyers problems.

    Keep company with people within your target market. Socialize with the crowd of people you would like to do business with. Listen and take note of the way they talk, the things they complain about, the things they wish for and desire solutions for. By doing this, you can find out how to create a perfect product, providing answers for the problems you heard about.

    Creating the product

    The type of product you produce will entirely depend on how much content you want to provide, the medium you want to provide it on, and your price point.

    It is far beyond the scope of this text to advise on exactly what to do in this area. However, remember that as long as you deliver on your promises, the meat of the product can be delivered on a simple written PDF document. Your buyers are looking for information and answers to their problems. It doesn’t always matter about the way it is delivered. Your product can range from being a half an hour long recorded audio file, to a six-month drip fed membership.

    Getting your first sales

    Your product will, need a sales page. This acts as a platform and branding effort to build anticipation for your product, and drive desire for the visitor to click the buy button. After your sales page is created and tweaked, it’s just a matter of sending potential buyers to your offer.

    Visitors to your sales page and website is known as “traffic.” To create the best chance of making a sale, you need to ensure that this traffic is targeted to your offer. Targeted traffic would be people who are already interested in the type of thing you have to offer.

    The most targeted, easy to convert traffic will be people that have purchased similar items before. An excellent way to find this type of traffic would be to partner with another vendor in the same niche.

    You can offer a percentage of each sale to someone who is willing to promote for you. This is known as affiliate marketing. You can’t depend entirely on this model of promotion, but is an excellent way to get started. Success (no matter how small) is the best form of motivation. Your first few sales will provide this.

    To get somebody to promote for you, you need to focus on building relationships. It is almost guaranteed that there are already dominant players in the niche you have chosen who have built up a good following. Your job would be to connect with these people, and offer an excellent deal for their customer base.

    For this, use this basic rule: always give before you receive, or at least offer before you ask. Think about this number one question: what’s in it for them? What benefit would the vendor get for promoting for you? If you can provide the answer to this, you’ll be successful. Build healthy relationships with several affiliate marketers, and each time you create a new product, you will be able to earn a nice lump sum when they promote for you.

    Once you have become more established, affiliates will happily promote for each new product release, as they know the quality of your material. Other avenues to explore for further sales would include paid traffic, joint ventures, list building and more.

    Categories: Start a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    How to Make an Intangible Product or Service Feel Real and Relevant

    It can seem very challenging to sell products and services that are not something that can be held in someone’s hand. But, they exist in droves today, so it’s getting easier to help someone conceptualize the intangible.

    Some examples of intangible products and services are:

    * Digital content – Websites, online games, and even social media are all intangible goods.

    * Content delivered online – Downloadable music, movies and anything delivered online today can be considered an intangible.

    * Patents and copyrights – Given by the government when applied for, you get a certificate but it’s not something you can really hold on to.

    * Education – While you do get a certificate at the end, the product itself is not something you can touch.

    Describe Them Fully

    The issues involved with selling intangible goods and services are that people have a hard time understanding them and therefore trusting that it really is real and relevant. This is one reason so many people are confused by the idea that using images, music, and property of others that they found online is illegal. But, you can make it easier by using imagery to depict the intangible goods or service.

    Make Them a Guarantee

    If you want people to purchase your products and services, you have to ensure that you develop enough trust with the audience that they are open to making the purchase. You can do this by offering a guarantee of some kind. Since they cannot touch the item before buying, eliminating issues can go far in helping people make a purchase.

    Focus on Benefits

    Any good marketing always focuses on benefits over features. This is even more important for selling intangibles because they cannot actually touch and feel the product. If you’re a virtual assistant, are you selling customer service or are you selling more time to your clients? How can you best explain this to them?

    Show Success Stories

    Collect testimonials from satisfied customers and put them on your sales page, in your marketing literature, and commit them to memory for talking about in one-on-one calls and events. Knowing other people had success will calm their fears and make them more apt to try.

    Green Is the New Black

    Explaining that intangible products and services are better on the environment can go far in helping your customer better visualize what they’re receiving. For example, hiring a virtual assistant can mean that they don’t add to the environment’s degradation by requiring anyone to drive to and from work. Or, if you sell software, downloading it means the cost is lower because there is no longer a need for manufacturing like there is with CDs and DVDs.

    Connect with the Person in Charge

    Knowing who is in charge of the purse strings makes a huge difference in your success of making any sale. Only spend time talking to the person who can make the decisions, so that you don’t have to end up giving your sales pitch to multiple people only for no one to be able to make a decision.

    Selling an intangible requires that you are a good communicator and are willing to take the time to educate the audience. You can educate them with an email autoresponder series, videos, blog posts, webinars and even in-person live events at trade shows. Today, the sky is the limit when it comes to promoting your intangible products or services.

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

    Is it possible to have a craft business?

    PHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiIHNyYz0iaHR0cDovL2pnYXJkbmVyLmV2c3VpdGUuY29tL3BsYXllci9TRzkzTFhSdkxWTjBZWEowTFdFdFEzSmhablF0UW5WemFXNWxjM011YlhBMC8/Y29udGFpbmVyPWV2cC1BV1AzNzNFMkxZIj48L3NjcmlwdD48ZGl2IGlkPSJldnAtQVdQMzczRTJMWSIgZGF0YS1yb2xlPSJldnAtdmlkZW8iIGRhdGEtZXZwLWlkPSJTRzkzTFhSdkxWTjBZWEowTFdFdFEzSmhablF0UW5WemFXNWxjM011YlhBMCI+PC9kaXY+

     

    For those who are love audio, I have the audio recording of the post below:  🙂
    [s3audio url=”http://jgardner.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Untitled.mp3″ /]
    Can I make a living with a craft business?  Is it just a hobby or can I make it into a business I can do from home?  I love to do my crafts but can I make a living with it as the business? According to the Craft and Hobby Association press release in 2011, that 56% of U.S households crafted at least once during 2010 contributing to the 29.2 billion U.S. craft and hobby industry.  There are people out there doing crafts and selling their crafts. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average median pay in 2012 for a craft or fine artist is $44,380 a year or $21.34 an hour. There were 51,400 craft and fine artist in 2012 in the U.S.  who were self employed. It is possible to make a living as a crafter. But how? 

    Heather

    Heather was a grandmother who loved making wreaths for Christmas and her family wedding celebrations.  However, her grandchildren came first when spending money on them she would not buy supplies for her crafting.  As her living costs went up, she thought she would have to sell off her crafting supplies.  Before she decided to do that, she would splurge on making table wreaths for her granddaughter’s wedding.  Well, ladies came up to her saying how amazing her wreaths were and could you make some for my daughter’s wedding. How much would they cost, her friend said. She took her name and she said would phone with the cost in a week. Well, she went home all in a tizzy wondering what were her costs and could this be a potential craft business to make more money!  More about Heather next time. 

    Icraftopia.com has done this wonderful infographic detailing the potential of the craft market either selling crafts below. Can you see the potential?  For more information on the potential of a craft or artist career, check out the Bureau of Labour Statistics facts on artists.

    2012 State of the Craft Industry
    Courtesy of: iCraftopia.com

     

    Categories: Inventory, cash investment Tags: Tags: , , , ,