Saturday, May 13, 2006
Developing a Success Mindset
We often carry our employee mindset into business with us. That employee mindset, as I described last night, is that mindset where we trade a set amount of our time for a set amount of our employer's money.
That doesn't work when you start your own business. You see, nobody out there has agreed to reward you with a set amount of money for your time. You have to earn it by providing them with a different exchange. You have to provide something they need in return for their money.
That means you have to understand what your customers want and then provide it. And developing an entrepreneur mindset doesn't come naturally.
I saw an interesting example of this just this week. Fellow marketer Ryan Diess, one of the founders of Trafficology, is testing a new system he plans to market. He personally has used this system to start businesses that make $1000 dollars or more each month right from the very first month.
But before he markets this system, he wants to make sure that it's the system that does this and not just his own skill. He wants to make sure that even a complete newbie can succeed with this system.
To test it, he sought 10 people who had never made a cent online and offered to coach them, one-on-one for six weeks, in how to use this system. His goal was to have these ten people serve as living proof that his system could build businesses that could ensure immediate profitability.
For six weeks of one-on-one coaching, he asked $1997 and guaranteed that if the people he coached didn't earn back every penny of that in those six weeks, he would continue to coach them, one-on-one, until they had. In essence, he guaranteed that they would do no worse than break even on the first six weeks of their business and would complete the six weeks with a business that was already making over $1000 a month. That's a pretty good start!
Now, there were plenty of people who were rightly thrilled with this incredible offer of personal coaching from a marketer who has made millions. But he tells me that there were also dozens of nasty emails complaining that he was scamming people because he asked asked for $1997 for all the time he offered to devote to them.
These writers were so blinded by the fact that they would actually have to spend something more than just their time that they couldn't see that this coaching would repay them every penny -- guaranteed -- and leave them with a business that was many months, or even years, ahead of where it would be if they fumbled through the starting stages on their own.
That's an employee mindset. It's a mindset that expects to risk nothing and be guaranteed everything. I can almost guarantee you that none of those writers will still have their own business a couple of years from now -- unless they develop an entrepreneur mindset.
Well, I thought I'd wrap up this thread today, but I see there's still much to cover, so I'll pick it up again on Monday.
Jeff
We often carry our employee mindset into business with us. That employee mindset, as I described last night, is that mindset where we trade a set amount of our time for a set amount of our employer's money.
That doesn't work when you start your own business. You see, nobody out there has agreed to reward you with a set amount of money for your time. You have to earn it by providing them with a different exchange. You have to provide something they need in return for their money.
That means you have to understand what your customers want and then provide it. And developing an entrepreneur mindset doesn't come naturally.
I saw an interesting example of this just this week. Fellow marketer Ryan Diess, one of the founders of Trafficology, is testing a new system he plans to market. He personally has used this system to start businesses that make $1000 dollars or more each month right from the very first month.
But before he markets this system, he wants to make sure that it's the system that does this and not just his own skill. He wants to make sure that even a complete newbie can succeed with this system.
To test it, he sought 10 people who had never made a cent online and offered to coach them, one-on-one for six weeks, in how to use this system. His goal was to have these ten people serve as living proof that his system could build businesses that could ensure immediate profitability.
For six weeks of one-on-one coaching, he asked $1997 and guaranteed that if the people he coached didn't earn back every penny of that in those six weeks, he would continue to coach them, one-on-one, until they had. In essence, he guaranteed that they would do no worse than break even on the first six weeks of their business and would complete the six weeks with a business that was already making over $1000 a month. That's a pretty good start!
Now, there were plenty of people who were rightly thrilled with this incredible offer of personal coaching from a marketer who has made millions. But he tells me that there were also dozens of nasty emails complaining that he was scamming people because he asked asked for $1997 for all the time he offered to devote to them.
These writers were so blinded by the fact that they would actually have to spend something more than just their time that they couldn't see that this coaching would repay them every penny -- guaranteed -- and leave them with a business that was many months, or even years, ahead of where it would be if they fumbled through the starting stages on their own.
That's an employee mindset. It's a mindset that expects to risk nothing and be guaranteed everything. I can almost guarantee you that none of those writers will still have their own business a couple of years from now -- unless they develop an entrepreneur mindset.
Well, I thought I'd wrap up this thread today, but I see there's still much to cover, so I'll pick it up again on Monday.
Jeff
One Stop Web Support Newsletter #30 On Its Way
The latest issue of One Stop Web Support Newsletter is scheduled to arrive early Sunday morning, May 14. This newsletter contains:
Jeff
The latest issue of One Stop Web Support Newsletter is scheduled to arrive early Sunday morning, May 14. This newsletter contains:
- Featured article—Are You Connecting the Dots in Your Internet Marketing?
- Recommended website tools: SiteBuildIt! (with a special message for Mom), and Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet 2006
- Recommended auction tool: Auction Yen
- Special guest article by Chris Malta—The Wholesale Misconception
- Success quote by Les Brown
Jeff
Friday, May 12, 2006
Do You Have the Mindset to Succeed?
Last night I talked about marketers who are giving away amazing information for free. I warned you not to think that this -- giving stuff away -- was thus the "magic wand" that you can wave for easy millions.
I spoke of these marketers being able to do this successfully because of something they have that most new business owners never find. I'm talking about a success mindset.
Now, all of us go into our first business thinking we'll succeed. At least we go in hoping we'll succeed. But our mindset usually goes no farther than to hope.
You don't go from earning a couple thousand dollars a month as an employee to suddenly earning ten thousand dollars a month simply because you adopted a couple of simple marketing tricks. It takes a whole different way of thinking.
As an employee, I used to put in my scheduled hours and I received a predictable amount of pay in return. It was a simple cause and effect system. My employer assigned me what she wanted done, I did it, and I got paid. Everything was clearcut.
When you're your own boss, nobody tells you what to do and nobody pays you for doing what they assign.
You first have to figure out who your bosses (your customers) are.
Then you have to learn how to figure out what those bosses want.
And, if that isn't enough, you also have to figure out how to communicate with those bosses that you have what they're looking for.
You can't just lean back and pontificate, "I will sell X because I think X is cool and everyone will want to buy all their Xs from me because I am now a business owner!" Yeah, dream on.
That's the equivalent of saying to your boss, "I will do whatever I want and you will take whatever I give you and you will pay me more than you ever did before!" Try that in the business world and see how far it gets you!
No, it takes an entirely different mindset. It takes a mindset that is totally foreign to most of us when we first step out of the ranks of employees and make our first moves toward being self-employed. It takes a mindset that recognizes that the hours we spend will not be automatically rewarded with a predictable paycheck.
Ultimately, it takes a mindset that recognizes that our reward comes not from the number of hours we work. It comes instead from the productivity of those hours in identifying who our customers are, understanding and offering them what they seek, and leading them to recognize the value of what we offer them.
That's a big shift in thinking. But I'll cover more on changing that mindset tomorrow.
Jeff
Last night I talked about marketers who are giving away amazing information for free. I warned you not to think that this -- giving stuff away -- was thus the "magic wand" that you can wave for easy millions.
I spoke of these marketers being able to do this successfully because of something they have that most new business owners never find. I'm talking about a success mindset.
Now, all of us go into our first business thinking we'll succeed. At least we go in hoping we'll succeed. But our mindset usually goes no farther than to hope.
You don't go from earning a couple thousand dollars a month as an employee to suddenly earning ten thousand dollars a month simply because you adopted a couple of simple marketing tricks. It takes a whole different way of thinking.
As an employee, I used to put in my scheduled hours and I received a predictable amount of pay in return. It was a simple cause and effect system. My employer assigned me what she wanted done, I did it, and I got paid. Everything was clearcut.
When you're your own boss, nobody tells you what to do and nobody pays you for doing what they assign.
You first have to figure out who your bosses (your customers) are.
Then you have to learn how to figure out what those bosses want.
And, if that isn't enough, you also have to figure out how to communicate with those bosses that you have what they're looking for.
You can't just lean back and pontificate, "I will sell X because I think X is cool and everyone will want to buy all their Xs from me because I am now a business owner!" Yeah, dream on.
That's the equivalent of saying to your boss, "I will do whatever I want and you will take whatever I give you and you will pay me more than you ever did before!" Try that in the business world and see how far it gets you!
No, it takes an entirely different mindset. It takes a mindset that is totally foreign to most of us when we first step out of the ranks of employees and make our first moves toward being self-employed. It takes a mindset that recognizes that the hours we spend will not be automatically rewarded with a predictable paycheck.
Ultimately, it takes a mindset that recognizes that our reward comes not from the number of hours we work. It comes instead from the productivity of those hours in identifying who our customers are, understanding and offering them what they seek, and leading them to recognize the value of what we offer them.
That's a big shift in thinking. But I'll cover more on changing that mindset tomorrow.
Jeff
Thursday, May 11, 2006
The Value of Giving Stuff Away
It's been a pretty amazing couple of days. I subscribe to a lot of marketing newsletters. And lately, three of them have offered series of free teleseminars to share the strategies they've used to build seven-figure incomes online.
I'll admit, I was skeptical. I've signed up for a good number of free teleseminars before and most of them turned out to be thinly veiled pitch-fests for whatever fly-by-night products the presenter had thrown together.
But because these marketers were ones that I already had a lot of respect for, I decided to try them out. Boy, am I glad I did!
These teleseminars have been everything that was promised. They've delivered highly successful marketers sharing a wealth of experience on building multiple kinds of businesses.
So why are these marketers giving of their time like this? It's because they know the value of giving things away.
Hey, the only reason I decided to join these teleseminars is because I know from my contacts with those particular marketers that they're not the type to promise one thing and then spend the whole time trying to get me to buy what they promised to give for free. These are marketers who have earned my trust.
And that trust is far more valuable than any $29.95 ebook sale. If you can win your customer's trust with good, helpful information, you have them coming back to you again and again. And they come back to you with a willingness to trust what they tell you.
There are marketers I would never buy a thing from because they've been so clearly interested in nothing but making a quick buck. The ones I trust are the ones I spend my money with.
These guys know the value of that. Now, should you then run out and start giving away everything you have for free to gain people's trust? No, there's more to gaining trust than just a mechanical "I do this and you must reciprocate" approach.
Behind their generosity is something that most new business owners never find. But that's a subject for tomorrow's blog entry.
Jeff
It's been a pretty amazing couple of days. I subscribe to a lot of marketing newsletters. And lately, three of them have offered series of free teleseminars to share the strategies they've used to build seven-figure incomes online.
I'll admit, I was skeptical. I've signed up for a good number of free teleseminars before and most of them turned out to be thinly veiled pitch-fests for whatever fly-by-night products the presenter had thrown together.
But because these marketers were ones that I already had a lot of respect for, I decided to try them out. Boy, am I glad I did!
These teleseminars have been everything that was promised. They've delivered highly successful marketers sharing a wealth of experience on building multiple kinds of businesses.
So why are these marketers giving of their time like this? It's because they know the value of giving things away.
Hey, the only reason I decided to join these teleseminars is because I know from my contacts with those particular marketers that they're not the type to promise one thing and then spend the whole time trying to get me to buy what they promised to give for free. These are marketers who have earned my trust.
And that trust is far more valuable than any $29.95 ebook sale. If you can win your customer's trust with good, helpful information, you have them coming back to you again and again. And they come back to you with a willingness to trust what they tell you.
There are marketers I would never buy a thing from because they've been so clearly interested in nothing but making a quick buck. The ones I trust are the ones I spend my money with.
These guys know the value of that. Now, should you then run out and start giving away everything you have for free to gain people's trust? No, there's more to gaining trust than just a mechanical "I do this and you must reciprocate" approach.
Behind their generosity is something that most new business owners never find. But that's a subject for tomorrow's blog entry.
Jeff
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Are You Marketing Your Business to WIN-WIN or to WIN-LOSE?
There are two ways you can approach your business. You can approach it with a WIN-WIN mentality or a WIN-LOSE mentality. The difference in results is enormous.
With a WIN-LOSE mentality, your only interest is in what you get out of a sale. You get money. Hopefully, you get lots of money from the people who buy what you're selling. But the focus in a WIN-LOSE mentality is always on what you get. What your customers get is incidental to the sale.
Lots of people make a lot of money with a WIN-LOSE mentality -- for a short time. But they inevitably burn their bridges with their customers and have to start all over again with a new customer base.
And I'm not just talking about spammers and scammers. There are plenty of otherwise reputable business owners who simply refuse to see beyond what they get out of their sales.
They focus on "how do I get them to buy? What tricks can I use to bring people in and get them to give me their money?"
But when the focus is on tricks and tactics, something valuable gets lost -- the relationship with the customer. Your customers have more that is of value to you than just money. They have knowledge that can help you make the next sale -- to them or to people like them.
See, they know what they want. They know what they need. They know what will make them feel like what you have is worth the money you want for it.
If you neglect to nurture your customers, if you neglect to understand what they're looking for, your sales will never amount to much. Any transaction where your customers give you money in return for your product is an exchange of equal value. If you don't offer the kind of value they're looking for, they're off to find someone who will.
Successful business owners understand the WIN-WIN mentality. Both of you have to win in order for you to succeed. If your customers win, you'll ultimately win, too. If you focus only on making sure that you win, ultimately your lack of concern with them will put them in the position where they lose. And when your customers lose, you lose, too.
Jeff
There are two ways you can approach your business. You can approach it with a WIN-WIN mentality or a WIN-LOSE mentality. The difference in results is enormous.
With a WIN-LOSE mentality, your only interest is in what you get out of a sale. You get money. Hopefully, you get lots of money from the people who buy what you're selling. But the focus in a WIN-LOSE mentality is always on what you get. What your customers get is incidental to the sale.
Lots of people make a lot of money with a WIN-LOSE mentality -- for a short time. But they inevitably burn their bridges with their customers and have to start all over again with a new customer base.
And I'm not just talking about spammers and scammers. There are plenty of otherwise reputable business owners who simply refuse to see beyond what they get out of their sales.
They focus on "how do I get them to buy? What tricks can I use to bring people in and get them to give me their money?"
But when the focus is on tricks and tactics, something valuable gets lost -- the relationship with the customer. Your customers have more that is of value to you than just money. They have knowledge that can help you make the next sale -- to them or to people like them.
See, they know what they want. They know what they need. They know what will make them feel like what you have is worth the money you want for it.
If you neglect to nurture your customers, if you neglect to understand what they're looking for, your sales will never amount to much. Any transaction where your customers give you money in return for your product is an exchange of equal value. If you don't offer the kind of value they're looking for, they're off to find someone who will.
Successful business owners understand the WIN-WIN mentality. Both of you have to win in order for you to succeed. If your customers win, you'll ultimately win, too. If you focus only on making sure that you win, ultimately your lack of concern with them will put them in the position where they lose. And when your customers lose, you lose, too.
Jeff
© 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Jeff Baas, One Stop Web Support
