As I take on more and more projects and customers, naturally the amount of email I get is constantly increasing.  My website freepressreleases and company smARTebusiness has a constant stream of emails.  I get so much email that I go and write a blog post whilst outlook is downloading in the morning.
In fact I get so much email that using the default settings in outlook was actually liked getting hit with constant requests for my time.  So what’s the solution? A blackberry so I can check my email on the go, late at night etc.  No absolutely not!
The best way to deal with lots of email is to put yourself back in control.  Switch off the automatic send and receive and then deal with each email.  I use the ‘Getting Things Done’ approach to email and put inbox emails into folders and assign myself tasks as per the email if things need to be done.  I can then move the email from my inbox into the folder knowing that I am on top of it.  This way I know I am in control and the only things in my inbox are new emails and things I am doing right now.  If the email coming in creates a task that I can do in less than 5 minutes I just do it and get it done, if not then I plan when I can do the task.
If you do not do the two things listed above, i.e. switch off auto send and receive and maintain and empty your inbox then there is a limit to how much you can cope with as it is all in your head.
Just try it, it is very liberating.

For a business a good set of products that recur monthly are the key to a healthy cash flow and a profitable business.  Monthly income in the form of subscriptions is also one of the items that can make your business worth a lot more when it is sold.

With monthly programs the best way to get people on the service is to give them a free trial which automatically rolls over to a paid subscription after the free period.  Usually you get a large percentage of people who chose to do nothing and keep the service.  If you have to get people to opt in after the free period then you have to sell and you will get a lower response.
So you need to get the payment details of the customer when they sign up for the free trial so that the paid subscription can just start.  How can you do this?  If you other something like a paid for newsletter then you can take a very small amount during the free period and say this is for postage.  This small amount means that people will often say yes and you have the payment details to move to the paid option without any further fuss.
So if you can think of a small peppercorn charge to make at the beginning of the free period then all the better.

An ebook customer asked me to look at her website and I thought I would do it on the blog so others could learn too.  The website is www.winaresort.com and it is a charity venture for the YouMeSupport foundation.

I have a few points that I think will make this site convert a whole lot more.  Firstly people on the internet are the most sceptical of any buyers and therefore we have to try very hard to make sure people know this is the REAL DEAL.  Therefore with this website we need to bring more of the team behind the project onto the website.  I would like to see a story from the founder of this idea telling in passionate words why they set this up and what they are trying to achieve.  Perhaps a picture of the team who are putting all this together.

Also when you hit the home page the best thing that you could have would be a video from an organiser talking about the resort and the prize and whats up for grabs.  This will make the viewer see that this is real.

I run many online competitions for my clients and the best thing you can do to increase future entry is show a past winners page.  So if you have run any competitions before have a list of past competition winners with pictures of them enjoying the prizes.

You should also think of setting up some kind of marketing funnel that gets people’s details without making them stump up the bigger entry amount straight away.  If you have their details you can then start an autoresponder series telling them why they should enter the main draw.  Remember to include countdowns in terms of time to make them feel the urgency.

To capture details you could do a smaller competition that they can enter for free and then put this competition on all the competition portal sites.  I have written another post on this blog with all these sites on.

Hope this helps

Thanks

Mark Hammersley

This method is something that I see many of my clients forgetting to do consistently even though it can add thousands of pounds to their bottom line.  It is something I notice that all the big players in any industry do as standard and it is something you should incorporate into your business.
Many customers when they have decided to buy are at their least price resistant and this can be the time to up sell.  So for every service you offer such as hosting you should have two options.  A standard option and a deluxe option.  The standard option should have everything they need for them to do what they require BUT the deluxe option should include what they actually WANT.
For example with a service product the deluxe version could include transcripts of all the consulting meetings.  This would be a valuable resource to someone who does not take it all in when you are consulting in a meeting.

I have run businesses for many years and knew all about the USP (unique selling point) all the time but found this such a hard question to answer that I ignored it.  I now believe that a USP is essential as it shows that a business is structured and organised to service a group of customers.  Not only this but there is a clear reason by these customers to choose to do business with you over anyone else.

Many business’s make the mistake of putting some woolly tie line next to their business and thinking they have a USP.  These woolly tie lines probably mean little to their target customers and sometimes little to the business that created them.  Often I see clients with statements like
‘We create bespoke web applications for small businesses’
This is pretty lame as it has no focus and does not allow any type of customer to say that’s me.
We all need to move our businesses to the point where we can have a clear value proposition for our customers.  Look at Dominoes Pizza which was built on ‘Fresh pizza delivered to you in 30mins or your money back’.
How far away from being this clear are you with your customers?

Do you sometimes wonder why some businesses just seem to get everything right, how they are able to charge more than everyone else and still have the majority of the customers?  Well chances are they have moved from selling products and services to selling an experience.

Rather than just plonking you product or service onto your customer’s lap think about how you can turn everything into an experience.

Here is an example. When we bought a yacht the dealer managed make sure that each step of the sale was an enjoyable one.  From choosing the right boat for us he explained in great detail what certain boats were suitable for and told us about all the trips we could take around our chosen harbour.  Also we got food and drinks on each viewing and made sure that we had time to sit and see ourselves as the owner on each boat.  When we bought the boat he put a CD in the audio system with a personal message from him telling us all about our new boat, where we could go and the where he had put the champagne to help us celebrate our new purchase.

He is a very busy dealer.
 

By adding the extra 10% to your marketing and making your message the little bit better gives you 100% more.  Why?  Because by being that little bit better than everything else it singles you out and gets you the business.

This is also the case in many other areas of life.  Look at Google, a second page search listing will give you only a small percentage of the daily searches but a front page listing will bring in massive amount of customers.  In terms of effort it takes a a lot to get on the second page but not as much effort again to move onto the front page.

The same is true for copy writing.  There is bad copy, average copy and excellent copy.  Bad copy brings in no sales at all, average copy gives you a trickle of insignificant sales but excellent copy adds zeros to your income.  Going that little bit extra and taking the time to learn how to write good copy will mean you have a license to print money.

Mark Hammersley

The secret to Innocent’s success?  Working smarter, harder, faster and cuter than anyone else.

Last night I met Richard Reed one of the founders of innocent drinks.  He was at the Oxford Entrepreneurs meeting in the Said business school giving a talk about the Innocent Company and launching their new grad scheme.

To international readers of this blog you may not know who Innocent is, so let me fill you in.  Innocent was started 8 years ago by three friends who were looking to start their own business.  They started producing natural smoothies and managed to get them in the major UK supermarkets.  Their progressive has been nothing short of amazing and there growth curve shoots up and up.

What we entrepreneurs in the audience wants to know was how they took a new brand with little budget and made it massive.  Richard said that 95% of the marketing came from the product and from this he means ‘product’ in the wider sense.  It is not just the carton of fruit juice that made the company successful but everything in the ethos behind the product.  The product is the company and vice versa, meaning that the brand values are carried through from the farmers producing the fruit to the way the copy is written on the product. 

Without major marketing budgets they relied on having a story that people could get behind and tell others about.  Thinking Big they all have something to focus on for a long time which is to be ‘The Earth’s favourite little food company’.  The brand values came from what the three friends all care about.

Like Google, The Beetles and Harry Potter Innocent was turned down by potential investors many times over before they found someone mad enough to back three friends who wanted to sell a very expensive fruit drink, with a short shelf life to a Joe public who had turned down similar offerings in the past.

If it was my time again and I was applying for a grad programme then I would definitely apply. 

Thanks Mark Hammersley 

Many small businesses that sell services are continually caught in the continuous cycle of peak and trough’s in their business.  This is because when they are working they are no prospecting and when they are prospecting they are not working.  When you are in this cycle it seems hopeless.  This type of business also tends to lead to the over reliance on one or two big customers who provide most of the revenue. 

This is a very stressful way to live and is probably one of the reasons that most new business’s last less than five years.

So what’s the solution?

Well there are several aspects that you must build into your business and these include.

i) Create products that can be sold to customers without the need for you to be there delivering.  An example of this is a recorded seminar or training course that you package up into a distance learning programme.  Or a set of video tutorials explaining how to use some software that your industry uses.  Consider these products to be up sells on your website but also you can give a brochure out at the end of your normal service work.

ii) Do at least one marketing activity each day.  This is just a habit to get into and it easy to start doing but difficult to keep up.  However with the power of the internet this type of marketing is getting easier.  Spend just half an hour every morning writing a blog post or an article.  Find popular blogs and comment on their posts.  Just find something that builds your profile and sets yourself apart as an expert.  By doing this you continuously build little bread crumb trails that lead to your business services.

iii) Create monthly income products that bring in guaranteed income each month.  This could be a printed newsletter giving insider tips to your customers.  Or a support contract.

iv) Build a good solid email list of your target demographic and then create some good content to deliver to this list.  Once you have built up a good report with this list you can then do deals with other providers in your industry and do joint venture promotions.

Today I want to look at Jamie Oliver’s business model and see how this could relate to other business owners.  Many of us who own business tend to fall into the trap of receiving payment for hours worked.  We pitch win the business and then do it and charge an hourly rate.  This kind of model is never going to get you rich.  So let’s see how Jamie Oliver does it.

Firstly he is constantly creating products around his brand that can sell many times without him being there.  Such as:

Books: his books once written can continually bring in commission checks from the publishers for many years to come and the more books he writes the more he benefits from the long tail of titles that he has.

Cookery Programmes:  Again records once play many times.  Also these can be sold in many countries over and over.  Each time they repeat I would bet that the publisher gets a royalty.

Podcasting: He also does a podcast that is great online content that people can keep on discovering many months after he has first created them.  Although he does not make money from the podcast directly it does promote his recipes and further creates pull for his other products.

Brand Association:  The Jamie Oliver brand can now be seen on many different brands.  From cookery products to food ranges in Sainsbury’s.  Again all this type of revenue does not require him to be sitting at a desk earning money per hour.  He is simply earning money in his sleep all year round.

Ok so you may think well he is ‘Famous’ but there are many things most people can do in business to take advantage of this business model.  You do not have to become a household name you just want to be famous in your industry. 

So if you start doing the things famous people do like writing books, recording seminars then you can start to earn money in your sleep.  This backs up a previous article I wrote about branding yourself as an expert, just do it!