How to create a facebook fanpage

I have just created another facebook fanpage, this one with a video! 

I’d appreciate if you’d check out the page via the link below and let me have your comments – and of course click on the ‘like’ button.  https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Power-to-change/161399377287232?sk=app_200019613358161

If you have any difficulty viewing it, please check your brower settings – the video is created using www.animoto.com and is therefore ‘safe’ to view. You can also view the video by clicking on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC1q_7JimrQ

How to create an effective Elevator Pitch

Today I just wanted to share a couple of tips on how to prepare a good elevator pitch which you can use to sell yourself either when job hunting or as a small business owner on meeting new clients.  The reason behind this is to build a bridge between my small business clients and career coaching clients.  I have given away a lot of information recently directed at small businesses however a lot of the information is also relevant for people who are looking to change career or are looking for their first job – in fact it is relevant to anyone who wants to ‘be inspired to re-think their working week!‘  An elevator pitch is a prime example of this.

An elevator pitch can be used by anyone to describe succinctly who they are and what they do, whether or not they are in business. The idea is to be able to communicate all this information in 15-30 seconds.

The key to a good elevator pitch can be broken down into 4 steps:

1. state who you are
2. state what it is you do or what kind of job you are looking for
3. state what your unique selling point is
4. state your call to action

Taking the time to develope your pitch gets you to think about how either your business communications should be positioned or how you see your career progressing. Brochures, websites and sales pitches should all focus on the customer’s ‘hurts’, how you can sort it out for them and how they will benefit.  And this is exactly the sort of information you should be including in your elevator pitch.

It is important that within your pitch you detail the type of people you work with, or want to work with, and the problems that you solve for them before giving an example of the solution you can provide and the benefits that your solution brings. This is the same whether you are in business or looking for a new job.

When someone new asks you about yourself and what you do, it is all to easy to feel put on the spot and mumble the first thing that comes into your head and then spend the rest of the day criticising yourself for what you said and for not being succinct and to the point.  That is why I encourage all my clients both business and career coaching clients, to prepare an Elevator Pitch when developing their personal brand so that they always feel in control when introducing themselves.

Over the next few weeks the focus of my blog posts will be slanted towards those who are just setting foot on the career ladder but that doesn’t mean that they won’t contain information that will be useful for those considering a career change or looking to develop their business so I recommend that you sign up so as not to miss out on all this great free information!

And in the meantime, if you need any help preparing your elevator pitch please drop me an email, anne@power-to-change.eu

7 Secrets to Successful Marketing

In the final article for this particular mini series of blog posts I had to bring you the latest edition of  my Inspirational Toolkit, issue 13 – 7 secrets to succesful marketing.  The whole idea behind my Inspirational Toolkit was to bring you seven quick tips each month which would be easy for you to implement and work on during the month and this month, more than others, I have really struggled to keep it to seven.

You will have noticed that I haven’t mentioned social media very much in this particular mini series. That’s not because it doesn’t play an important role in business and marketing success but that it is just one of many tools that can be used to connect and build relationships with potential clients. In fact social media is so big now it deserves a whole mini series in itself and that’s what I will be working on so that very soon I will be able to bring you lots of really useful information on social media taken from my  new coaching program entitled ‘Online Marketing Strategies’ which will be officially launched as soon as my new website is up and running.  In the meantime, if you would like to hear more about it, please drop me an email, anne@power-to-change.eu

Next week the focus will be on ‘careers’ and as always, please don’t forget to leave your comments!

 

 

Why is my business not the success I want?

You have been putting in the hours and working really hard but still you find yourself asking, “why is my business not the success I want?”, “how much harder do I have to work to reach my goals?” and “why can I never take any time off and if I do, I always feel guilty that I am not working?”

Today the sun is shining and as that is a very rare occurrence here, I have decided to make the most of it without feeling guilty that I am not busy with clients or looking for ways to build my business, or reading up on the latest craze to hit social media.

In previous blogs where I have written about goal setting, I have stressed the importance of rewarding yourself every time you achieve one of your milestones that takes you that step closer to reaching your goal.  I have been very busy networking over the last few days and made some very important connections which has resulted in me more than achieving some of the targets I set myself so today I can feel good about spending a few hours outside appreciating both the sun and what I have achieved.

I recommend that you take the time to do the same; take time to appreciate what you have achieved over the last few days instead of worry about the items that are still sitting on your ‘to do’ list; take some time out to stop worrying about how you are going to get more clients or why your advertising and marketing aren’t working the way you hoped; and most importantly take time to look around you and appreciate what you have however small.  Then come back feeling refreshed and take a fresh look at my last few blog posts and re-define your brand, come up with some new ideas for your marketing strategy, try one new thing to help you get more clients, re-think who you could form a strategic alliance with and make that call, take another look at your profit margins and come up with a new way of increasing your margins.  And don’t forget, I am here to help, just drop me an email.  

Sometimes as a small business owner, we feel we should be working 25 hours a day but all that that really achieves is stress and burn out.  Go and do something you enjoy and let your subconscious mind do the work for you – just make sure that you have a pen and paper to hand because I can guarantee that by doing thistaking time out you will free up space in your head and ideas and inspiration will start to flow. 

Next week I will be ending this particular mini-series by issuing the latest edition of my Inspiration Toolkit where I will be sharing my top 7 marketing secrets with you. And in the meantime, don’t forget to share your success stories that have resulted from taking some time out.

Does Advertising work?

There is a lot of mixed evidence and advice over advertising and how effective a marketing strategy it is.

My view is that it plays a very important role if you have a product to sell.  The reason is that a product is tangible so you can see it, feel it and in some cases taste it.  Usually with a product, you know what it is for and what it will or won’t do.  A service on the other hand is intangible and so in some way they have to be demonstrated so that prospective clients can understand the benefits and this means that many methods of advertising will be far less effective – a dentist or a plumber etc are exceptions when a print advert can be very effective at bringing in clients when they have an emergency and grab for the yellow pages!

For me, the biggest disadvantage of advertising is that it doesn’t allow potential clients to get to know you on a personal basis which makes it harder to build up the trust I mentioned in previous blogs which is required before a potential client will buy from you.

One form of advertising that I advocate every small business should have is a website because when accompanied with good search engine optimisation, this can be an effective advertising tool.  This is particularly true when you have your website listed on relevant web directories and when monitored carefully, pay-per-click advertising can also produce results.

When considering advertising as a marketing strategy, I would recommend that you begin by looking at your competitors to see where and how they are advertising and given the high cost of advertising, be sure that you take the time to evaluate the potential return on your advertising investment.  For example, how many clients do you need to get from a particular advert before it pays for itself? And is there a more effective way you could spend that money?

Then, whether you choose to advertise online, or in a newspaper or magazine, make sure that you include the following:

• An attention grabbing headline
• The problem that your potential clients have
• The results that your product/service will produce i.e. how your product/service will solve the problem
• A guarantee
• A call to action

I’d be very interested in hearing your advertising successes (or disasters) and if you’d like to share then please add them as a comment. 

I have experience in writing adverts that work and if I can help you with writing your advertising copy please drop me an email, anne@power-to-change.eu

What is a brand?

I read an article on branding for small businesses recently which I thought contained a lot of relevant information.  You can read it for yourself my clicking the link, http://www.businessballs.com/market.htm#Advertisingandpromotion

I would be interested in hearing your comments.  The article states that, “Branding refers to naming a business or product or service”.  I think branding goes much deeper than that and for many small businesses I think it missed a key point and that is that branding is more than just what you do or the name of your company or product – it is about what is uniquely you and what sets you apart from everyone else.

What I also find is that many small businesses struggle with this.  Yes, they can come up with a great product or service and even pay a lot of money to have a designer create a great company name and logo but when asked “what is uniquely you and what sets you apart from everyone else?” many struggle to come up with an answer.

There is a solution to this if you are prepared to take time to really consider your answers to some soul searching questions, the key ones being:-

• What really motivates you to do what you do?
• What are the specific problems you want to solve and for whom and what results you want to see?
• What is your purpose?
• What are your strengths?
• What makes you memorable?

This is not a five minute job.  You really need to take time to consider and write down your answers to these questions, as a minimum, and get someone who really knows you well to help particularly with the last two questions. 

The great thing about this exercise is that not only will it help you create a great brand, it will also give you drive and focus which are essential for any successful small business.

Creating your own brand takes time.  Once you think have created your brand, ask yourself the last question from the linked article, “… does it truly fit with what I’m trying to do in my business?”

If you need help in creating your brand (and even if you have no intention of ever starting your own business, a strong personal brand is just as essential for success in interviews) then drop me an email to see how I can help or come to one of the workshops that I co-host at  http://www.twomotivatingminds.com/?page_id=109

 

How to get more clients

I am always looking at ways to grow my business and that includes looking at how to get more clients.  I thought that if I could come up with the answer then not only would that benefit my business but it would also benefit many of my clients. 

There is so much information out there that this whole marketing and selling thing must be huge – no wonder so many people hate selling! In fact, a number of years ago,  when I first started doing my research I became a bit daunted by the volume of information available.  Are there really so many ways to market your business sucessfully and if so it’s no wonder that so many small businesses struggle – where would they find the time to go through it all and figure out what works and what doesn’t?

Over the past few years I have read numerous books on marketing and selling strategies and the simple truth of it is that marketing and selling doesn’t have to be that big dark hole that you persistently fear and avoid.  And more importantly for the small business owner, it doesn’t have to involve spending a large amount of money on advertising – click here for 7 tips for getting more clients

And if you have any more tips for getting clients please add them as a comment! 

 

How to increase your profit

So, you’d like to increase your profit margin and who wouldn’t?

Firstly, I’d recommend that you double check that you really know your numbers:

• What is your profit goal and please be realistic?
• What are your costs, both direct and indirect?
• What is your breakeven point?
• What are your current sales figures?
• What is your profit margin? (margin is a % of your selling price)

It is extremely important for all small business owners to know these numbers.

What is interesting is that because profit is the result of other variables you cannot directly get more of it but there are things that you can do to improve the variables that contribute to the profitability of your business.

Think of it as follows, if profit = revenue x margins and

revenue = no. of customers x no. of transactions x average price

then the simplest way to increase profit is to increase your average price and once you have reviewed all your numbers above, you will be able to determine a more accurate average price.

The next step is to look at ways of getting more leads and improving your conversion rate which together will result in more customers and finally you need to look at ways of improving the number of transactions that each customer makes.  Improve these and you will improve your profit.

The following example highlights how a 10% increase in just one of the revenue elements can have a significant increase on profit:

If Customers x no. of transactions x average price = revenue

e.g. 1000 x 2 x 100 = 200000 and

Revenue x margins = profit

e.g. 200000 x 25% = 50000

Just by increasing the number of customers by 10% (i.e. from 1000 to 1100) produces the following result:

1100 x 2 x 100 = 220000

220000 x 25% = 55000 i.e. an increase in profit of 5000

And just think of the impact if you were to increase more than one of the factors by 10%!

So begin by breaking your profit goal down into smaller pieces.  Then, as with all goals, it becomes much more manageable and easier to achieve!

Here are just a couple of quick tips to help you get started.

Firstly, take another close look at your costs. Do they include your own wages/salary?  If the answer is no (and I know for certain that this is the case for many small business owners) and your pricing structure is based on costs then straight away you are under charging which immediately has an impact on your profit.

Secondly, take a look at the timing of your purchases compared with your sales and when you are actually paid for those sales.  This can have a big impact on your profit levels and the timings can actually distort the numbers.  In your accounts, try and accrue for income from sales when you know there will be a time lag before receiving the actual payment. This will give you a more accurate profit figure month on month. And don’t forget to allow for stock in hand and depreciation of any equipment as these can also affect both your pricing and your profit.

I hope this gets you re-thinking how to increase your profit. And always, I appreciate getting your comments – please just add them below.

How to develop your business skills via strategic alliance

As a small business owner you need to be able to develop your business skills fast. In fact,  your range of skills needs to develop faster than your business in order for your business to be profitable.  You are already struggling to find enough hours in the day so how can you develop your business when you don’t have time to learn the skills you need.

The obvious answer of course is to outsource the work that you don’t feel qualified to do but as a small business owner, can you afford to do this? Probably not.

This is where partnerships, or strategic alliances, can play a major role in making use of your skills and talents while getting around your weaknesses.  So what is a strategic alliance?  Well, according to Wikipedia

“A Strategic Alliance is a relationship between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon goals or to meet a critical business need while remaining independent organizations.

Partners may provide the strategic alliance with resources such as products, distribution channels, manufacturing capability, project funding, capital equipment, knowledge, expertise, or intellectual property. The alliance is a cooperation or collaboration which aims for a synergy where each partner hopes that the benefits from the alliance will be greater than those from individual efforts”.

The best way to explain this is by example and what better example than my own.

You all know from my website and the information contained in the ‘about me’ page on my blog that I am a qualified and experienced career coach and small business consultant and despite the fact that I am constantly looking to improve my skills, I know that I have my weaknesses and areas of work that I am not so keen to do (all those things that are constantly being put to the bottom of my to-do list in favour of the tasks I enjoy doing!).  This is why Jane Stephenson and I work so closely together.  We both have our own businesses yet we help each other out at no financial cost – basically we utilize each other’s strengths with the end result being 1+1=3!

And that’s exactly when you should look to form an alliance with someone outside your business, when the answer to 1+1 is greater than 3.

Jane and I are now developing our strategic alliance by creating a new venture, ‘Two Motivating Minds’, because we know that by working together we can build something bigger than we can alone.

Developing a strategic alliance can also be a great way reduce your marketing costs and yet still get access to more potential clients perhaps by way of a referral system (a great tool to use if marketing is not your strong point!).  For example, an independent sports masseur might develop a strategic alliance with a fitness coach where both parties would promote the services of the other.

So instead of stressing out over how to develop your business skills and feeling that you have to do everything  in your business by yourself, start looking for people with whom you could develop a strategic alliance – and so long as the end result is 1+1=3, you will both benefit from it.

And don’t forget to send me your strategic alliance success stories.

Can we control our destiny?

Over the last 4 weeks I have blogged about a number of business related issues and I promise that this mini-series will continue next week however, having just returned from a two week holiday I wanted to share something with you that is important for everyone whether or not you have your own business.

While back in Scotland, we had great plans to climb several Munros (mountains over 3000 ft (914.4 m).  Unfortunately the part of Scotland we were in had almost twice its annual rainfall for the whole month of August in the week we were there! The weather was pretty bad so hill walking to these sort of heights would have been no fun at all  – just too wet and cold and we probably wouldn’t have seen any of the fantastic views from the top given all the low cloud and mist.

We still had a great time and managed to do some hill walking at a lower level in between rain showers!

On the ferry on the way back to Holland we watched a movie called The Adjustment Bureau.  Have you seen it?  Going by the name, it didn’t seem to be a film that I would normally go and see but going to the cinema on the boat is a great way to pass the time and I was surprised to find that I enjoyed it.

It is about a man who glimpses the future that Fate has planned for him and realizes he wants something else. Without giving too much away, he finds out that he is up against the agents of Fate itself – the men of The Adjustment Bureau – who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent him having the future he wants. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let the future he wants go and accept a predetermined path…or risk everything to defy Fate, which of course he does!

What I believe this film shows is that if you want something badly enough then with a lot of work and effort on your part, it can be achieved so long as you are 100% committed to achieving it.

So what do you think, do we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us?

If you feel that Fate (or the agents of the Adjustment Bureau) is preventing you from reaching your goals then contact me at anne@power-to-change to see how I can help.