October 2008

Oct 2008

8

Breaking news…”How to Recession-Proof Your Business”

by Lani and Allen

More full and formal details coming (read: press release), but since we let a few people know at the SCORE event Allen went to last night, and the MicroCredit-NH event Lani went to last night (divide and conquer!), we thought, “Hey, it’s only fair to keep you in the loop!”

If you’re looking for ways to cope with the current madhouse that is our national economy – and the challenges of your own business’ performance – check out this live, 3-part teleseminar series event you can attend from the comfort of your home, car, office, or favorite park bench!

How to Recession-Proof Your Business

A Live, 3-part Teleseminar Series Event for NH Solo Professionals, Small Biz Owners, and Micro-preneurs Determined to Survive (and Thrive!) In Tough Economic Times

Dates: Tuesdays, October 14th, 21st, and 28th

Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Cost: $47 for the complete series, PLUS…  “Cheat Sheets” and MP3 recordings of each call

Session 1 – Slaying Self-Sabotage: 17 Mindset Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make in a Downturn (and 5 Ways to Avoid Them All)

Session 2 – Desperate Times, Desperate Marketing?: 4 Bad Marketing Habits You Gotta Break Now, PLUS 4 Keys to Breaking Them

Session 3 – The New Rules of Shoestring Marketing: Free and Low-Cost Tips and Strategies to Get More Prospects, Clients, ‘n Dough ($$$) in the Door

Don’t miss out! Sign up now at: www.EpiphaniesInc.com/thrive.php

That link takes you straight through to the shopping cart to reserve your seat. And don’t forget – we’re recording the calls, so if you can’t join us live, you’ll get access to the digital MP3 version to download. Listen later on your computer, or burn it to CD with the likes of Windows Media Player or iTunes. Could it be any easier?  ;)

Oct 2008

3

Didn’t mean to leave you hanging on the Catch-22…

by Allen Voivod

After yesterday’s post, which ended in a frustrated Catch-22, my lovely wife and business partner Lani gave me a challenge.

(Side note: She was at the 6th Annual MicroCredit-NH Artist Exchange yesterday, connecting with artisans and checking out presentations by Nancy Clark of Glen Group, Jim Horne of Beacon Business Advantage, and Linda Faranas of Millenium Advertising.)

Here’s the refresher: If you don’t have the budget for marketing, and you don’t want to learn marketing because A) it’s not your specialty and B) you know as a business owner you should leave marketing to someone who knows how to do it, then you’re stuck.

So Lani challenged me to answer the question: How do you get unstuck?

Whether you go the Michael Gerber, E-Myth Revisited, employee-based model for your business, or you go the Timothy Ferriss, 4-Hour Workweek, totally-outsourced model, the answer is the same.

You have to start by doing it yourself. Period.

That means you have to do your own learning, purchase educational material, hire a coach/consultant, join a mastermind group, or some combination of these. You have to commit to this.

One of our mentors, Adam Urbanski, says (and I’m paraphrasing a bit) that if you’re a solo professional who sells a product, then, stop saying “You’re in the [product] business,” because it’s not that simple. The reality is that you’re in the business of marketing your product.

Gerber’s business planning acknowledges that, when you’re starting out, you’re doing everything. So he advises you create complete job descriptions and manuals for an employee’s duties. That means you have to know your own marketing cold, so when you get big enough to hire in-house marketing help, you can hand off the duties and know the person will be successful. Why? Because you already did it, and you know it works, and you documented it.

Ferriss lays out the process for building the outsourced model, but you have to do the research to find the product, you have to do the testing to make sure it’s viable, and you have to be able to give the proper direction and guidance to outsourcing firms or freelancers you hire to do the work down the road.

Bottom line: If you are a one-person shop, whether you’re selling a product or service, you have to learn how to market and sell your product or service. YOU. No one else.

And if that means you have to pay to learn, or pay to get coached, then get a budget together, set your expectations, put your money where your passion is, and take the leap. Because you’re not really “paying” – you’re investing with an expectation of return on your investment.

Take advertising as an analogy. Are you spending $100 on an ad, or are you investing $100 with the expectation of getting $500 in new business? That’s the only smart way to look at any marketing expenditure.

Sure, there aren’t any guarantees with marketing. There aren’t any guarantees with business, or with life. What is there, then? Numbers that can be tracked, and campaigns tested and tweaked, until you get the results you’re looking for.

Again: It’s you, and ONLY you.

Take the leap.

Oct 2008

2

DIY Marketing – can you afford NOT to?

by Allen Voivod

I’m a little surprised at how hard I’m taking this.

I talked with a micro-biz owner today who reached out to us after being referred by a networking contact. (Goooooo Networking!) He started off with a phrase we’ve heard quite often over the past couple of years…

“I need help with my marketing…”

Which is great, because that’s right up my alley. But because marketing means so many different things to people, and because people often include sales in their definition of marketing, I dug deeper to find out what he meant.

In this case, it was a mix of both marketing and sales – outright commission-paying sales help, plus building top of mind awareness with centers of influence in his field, plus creating marketing collateral.

Now for the Catch 22…

On the one hand, he’s good at what he’s good at, which is creating his product. He’s not interested in learning how to market his business. He knows that ultimately, as he grows his business, someone else should be doing the marketing for him, so he can focus on what he does best.

A fair point, indeed.

On the other hand, when it comes to resources, he has his time. As for money, there’s no budget established for marketing spending. Which means that, by default, he’s the only one who can do anything marketing-related for his business.

Which means he’s stuck. And I can’t help him.

Sure, I can throw a few ideas his way as part of a free consultation, but if he can’t get the help he needs to strategize and plan out the action steps, then it gets him nowhere, no matter how good the ideas may be.

He’s said that he needs to see a decent return within a year or he’s going to drop the business. But until and unless something changes, he intends to keep plugging away the way’s he’s been doing it, even though it’s not delivering him the results he wants.

Next time – if there is a next time – the consult will be billable. But without a budget, chances are he won’t ask for another consult. And besides, another consult just means that, even if he gets the strategy and the action steps and even the calendar to know when to take those steps, ultimately he’ll have to take those steps.

But he wants someone else to do it.

But there’s no budget for it.

But he can’t/won’t change the way he markets his business by improving his own skills.

Catch-22.

I sincerely hope the conversation we had sparks some action on his part that works wonders for him. But right now, I’m sitting here blogging about the conversation, and there’s no reason I should be so upset about this.

But I am. It’s been hours since we talked, and I still can’t let go of this absolutely unreasonable sadness.

I think I need to get outside for a while….

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