Copyright (c) 2007 Audrey Burton
Many small business owners think time management is a problem because they have to do everything. In the start-up years, unless you have a large start-up budget, you will probably be doing a lot of your own administrative work and spending a lot of time on marketing. This is very normal.
Where it becomes problematic is when you are spending a lot of time on these tasks and not getting enough clients to hire someone to help. At that point in time, people tell me they need help with their �time management'. I do not always agree.
The problem is actually much deeper, yet easier to solve. To start, every business owner needs to know the following:
- annual and monthly financial goals
- how many sales are required to achieve the goals
- how much marketing is required to get each sale
I'm sure you were with me for the first two, but the third one? That is a little trickier. I will walk you through it.
The first step is to determine where your most desirable clients come from. One way to do this is to list all your clients from the last 1-2 years, how much revenue they brought you and where they came from in a spreadsheet. Sort the list numerically by the revenues.
Study this list. Toward the bottom of the list you will find a natural break where you can draw a line, below which you don't want any more of those types of clients. Analyze those people � where did you find them? What do they have in common? How can you avoid them?!
Next, look at those clients toward the top of the list. Draw another line separating the excellent from the good. Analyze the excellent - where did you find them? What do they have in common? How can you get more of them!?
This exercise may give you the opportunity to cut out some of your marketing activities that are fruitless. You are already on your way to becoming more efficient. Once you have determined which marketing strategies bring you the most money, do more of that.
Next, examine how many sales meetings it takes to get a client, and how many people you have to meet to get a sales meeting. Once you have figured this out, you can calculate how many people you need to meet in order to meet your financial goals.
After doing the math and the customer analysis, you can do more of what works, stop doing what doesn't work, and you will know how much marketing you must do to meet your goals!
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Audrey Burton, Small Business Coach, is �The Tigress�. Get her FREE Special Report, �Closing the Sale is Not Complicated!� and her FREE monthly email newsletter at http://www.TigressCoaching.com .
Multi Level Marketing?..... Does it work?
For some people, this is the way to go. I have met a few people over the years that swear by it. I know a few people who make over $100k a year working their multi level marketing program. The unfortunate part about it is that they were the only one making money. No one on their team was duplicating the efforts they were doing. Weather they were selling vitamins, travel, a gas saver product, lotions, potions, pills, candles or juice beverage products, I have tried it all and it was a difficult task for me. Once I ran out of my friends and family to bug about my new business, once I had two or three home parties, I ran out of leads, so I started buying leads in hopes to try to convert some people into my business. That is so much harder than it sounds. Sure I made sales, but by the time I was getting to the next profit level, the people who I brought in 2-3 months ago were dropping like flies. This is why I could never make it to the next big payout level of the commission plan. For some reason, I would always fall short of the next bonus payout or car bonus. Usually, I would fall short of personal volume or group volume or I would have enough on my left side, but not enough on my right side, so I would miss out on the big payouts, month after month.
This got to be the same old stuff you hear about why MLM doesn’t work for most people and the only people making money were the people at the top of the pyramid. People with huge downlines and people that have been in the business a long time and lists of hundreds of thousands of people to market to. For any newbie joining, good luck. I once watched a stay at home mom put $13,000 into a business to quit within a year. Most of us are smarter than that and would have quit after a few months and maybe only lost $1000 down the drain, but this person was persistent and did not want to fail. So she kept plugging away until they had no money left and when gas prices went to $3.50, the father of the family couldn’t afford to put gas in the car. So much for helping out.
The only thing we have found on the internet to work for most people is a direct sales company that pays you 100% of the sale. Companies that have a price point of less than $1000 to start. This is the only way you have a chance to succeed. Beware of the $1500 to $5000 programs, the start up company and program jumpers. The truth about start ups is that they have no track record. You have no idea if they will be in business two years later. Watch out for people who jump ship every time a new program comes out on the internet. Most importantly, be careful of the program that costs more than $1000.00. They are hard to sell, no matter how good it sounds.
I hope this helps your research in determining a company that you can be proud to represent. If you would like to see the company that works for me please visit my site http://www.GetRichWithDan.com for more information. Also, if you liked what you read, please subscribe to my blog at http://www.LiveFreeWithCash.com and watch for future articles
Why Streaming Videos Can Increase Your Sales
There's no doubt about it, Streaming Video is the future
of the Internet.
Today the Internet is the fastest growing marketplace and
video is the most effective form of communication on the
information super highway.
In the United States alone $2 billion was being spent on
streaming media technologies and that this is projected
to grow to $12 billion per annum over the next few years.
Some people have started to include pictures and images
to help convey the meaning and to add impact, but that
still doesn't solve the problem!
This is because we are used to 'face to face' communication,
where the message is interpreted not only from the spoken
word but also the non-verbal communication. 55% of a
messages meaning is derived from facial expression and 38%
is derived from gestures, body language etc.
So what is the solution? People online need fully
integrated video streaming facilities for their online
communication and this technology is available now,
ranging from Video Email, Video Instant Messaging and
even live Webcasting and Streaming Web TV. Streaming
Video is the online future, and now is the time to
place ones self at the forefront of this next
communication revolution.
You no longer have to limit your web site to just
text with pictures, but now you can amaze people with
video on your website. From marketing tools, to movie
clips, from online infomercials to streaming TV and
live webcasting, like it or not, we will all have to
embrace this technology or else our sites will become
extinct and our communication lost in the wilderness
One can help to fill this void and earn whilst doing
so, either by having an advanced web site that uses
streaming video over the Internet to gain people's
attention and increasing the likelihood that the
message will be acted upon and remembered; or by
supplying access to the products and technologies
that everyone will want to use.
For an Internet Marketer, Streaming Video is an
extremely powerful selling Tool. Having video on
your web site creates a personal connection with
your customers that appeals to all their senses,
as a result converting more visitors to customers
And Savvy affiliate marketers are already out there
creating strategic videos for their chosen affiliate
programs... and reaping big cash rewards for doing so!
Video is already booming online. People are getting
used to watching videos more and more and Videos are
proving to converting well for many marketers.
YouTube, MySpace and FaceBook What is it these sites
have in common? ...INTERACTIVITY!!
Chances are you're a member of these sites, and have
visited them often. Any idea why YouTube is so much
more popular than Google Video (and ultimately why
Google bought it over)? Because YouTube allows users
to participate and interact with the content and each
other, just as MySpace and now FaceBook does.
This user generated content is what makes people come
back to these sites over and over again, they just
can't get enough of them!
A touch of live video will motivate your customers to
take action now rather than skim through all the text
and eventually click away to another web site.
It provides an easy way for your visitors to quickly
appreciate what you offer without going through the
rigorous effort of doing a lot of reading.
All you have to do is record a short powerful “Live”
sales message via webcam and put it on your website
within just a few minutes to increase your conversion
rates.
The possibilities are just endless. Plus, you do not
need any multimedia, web design or programming experience
to accomplish this and a lot more. In short, you can
transform your website into a cash magnet easily through
making just small changes with no trouble at all in very
little time. Streaming video is the online future and,
at the present moment, provides an opportunity to anyone
who wants to be ahead of the game.
I'm quite sure tons of people are going to jump on this
video business model which is why I recommend that you
take advantage of this chance and go watch the Video
via the link below, and be sure and go to the page
it redirects to for further information.
To Your Success
Affiliate Sales Videos :
http://go2-url.com/sales_videos
