Why You Don't Need A Business Plan
For a truly micro-business, or being self-employed, a business plan is a recipe for disaster.
A formal business plan can be over 100 pages, full of all kinds of strange things like ‘competitive market analysis’ and ‘financial forecasting.’ Ugh.
You know who reads business plans? Banks and funders. You know who writes business plans? Businesses who are looking for significant capital funding.
Not you. So, relax, forget about the business plan. Instead, read this article.
Is Your Answer to "What Do You Do?" Missing Two Critical Words?
In the United States, the Boy Scouts of America have a reputation for helping little old ladies across the street. Isn’t that nice?
You would think so, but what if these strapping young men in blue uniforms were grabbing unsuspecting elderly women, and slinging them over their shoulders? Imagine thousands of our honored elders being bodily forced across streets, with cries of “Put me down, you big brute!”
Doesn’t seem so nice, does it?
Yet, many people in business are flinging their resistant customers across streets every time they answer the question, “What do you do?”
They are missing two words.
Which two words will prevent you from hurting the person you are talking to? Read this article.
How to Use Systems Without Turning Into a Zombie
A zombie is a corpse, re-animated by evil powers. So often when we encounter larger corporations, we encounter their systems, and we feel as if zombies have been sent to attack us. It’s no wonder we hang up on telemarketers.
And yet, if your business is going to be vital, healthy, and thriving, it will need systems to be able to stand up on its own.
How can you use systems without creating customer-chasing zombies? Read this article.
Coming Up with Article Titles for Your Business
Coming up with article titles for your business. It’s not fair: newspapers come up with tens of thousands of words every day, and yet you’re left staring at a blank screen wondering what to write.
Writing articles, workbooks, even a book, is one of the best things you can do to promote your business, and build trust with your current customers. So where do you get the inspiration to just keep writing more and more and more?
Maybe the newspapers have something to tell us. Read this article.
Why You Don't Want Michelangelo Working On Your Website
Everyone wants to live surrounded by beauty. Beauty soothes the soul, and lifts the spirit. It inspires us and keeps us healthy. We all want beauty.
Unfortunately, this desire to have beauty means that you can spend a great deal of time creating a ‘unique and beautiful’ web design that people actually avoid.
How can you spend so much time on beauty, sacrifice so much money with a designer, and still end up with a mess? Read this article.
What In the Heck Does Go On Your Business’ Home Page?
Every website has a home page- but does yours welcome people in, or shut people out?
The art of making someone feel welcome at a party is skill, for sure. We’ve all been to parties where the ambience is a little frosty, or awkward. People chat idly for a little while, drink your sparkling water, and leave.
You don’t want that happening on your website.
So, what do you put your home page?
Why and How to Create an Information Product
Have you put off, or given up entirely, the idea of writing that book, or creating a CD or DVD, for your business?
Maybe you’ve let that idea slip away because you thought your business wasn’t suited to it. I mean, what you do is so individual and personal, or too complicated to explain, or so intuitive in nature, that it can’t be captured in a product.
Or maybe you already sell a product, and you can’t imagine what a book or CD would possibly do for your business.
These kinds of products- books, CDs, DVDs and their digital downloadable equivalents: pdfs, mp3s, mpegs – are called information products, ‘info products’ for short.
And, if you are putting off creating one, you are doing a disservice to all the people who are waiting for you.
Email Signatures That Really Hold Water
You know that thing-a-ma-jig that dangles on the end of your emails?
That’s right, your email signature. Does it really deliver? Do people really click through your link to your website?
Here’s another question; do you click through other people’s signatures? And if you don’t, why does your signature read just like the ones that you don’t click through, either?
The Healing Power of Marketing
I was waiting for the tapioca pudding. In the same way many of us wait for customers. We were having a great conversation with some friends over for dinner, but I have to admit, I was a little distracted, thinking about the tapioca pudding we were going to be having for dessert. If this happens […]
Is Your Answer to "What Do You Do?' Acting Like a Crazed Boy Scout?
In the United States, the Boy Scouts of America have a reputation for helping little old ladies across the street. Isn’t that nice? You would think so, but what if these strapping young men in blue uniforms were grabbing unsuspecting elderly women, and slinging them over their shoulders? Imagine thousands of our honored elders being […]