Key Business Partners, LLC

The beginning of a new year creates a realm of emotions from excitement to anxiety to fear. As business owners and entrepreneurs (especially in this crazy ever changing worldly environment) now is the time to take note and focus on your target market and be sure to address their needs.

Give a Survey- Remind them of your service offers and ask them for honest and constructive feedback about your business. Your job will be to take in the feedback and update your services to match the changing needs of your target market.

Research your statistics and reports – Go back through your Google Analytics or in your cPanel and see where you are receiving the most exposure. You may not realize you have a potential target market really wanting more information on your services and offerings. Or perhaps, you could find you are focusing on a target market not responding well and you need to find new ways to gain back their attention.

Pump up the Creative – Find the positive (and not pushy or aggressive) ways to entice your target market to use your services again, such as a redeemable voucher. Or you could do a first time customer discount to encourage some new clients.

Go and Network- If you are new to your area or have not done any local networking, do some internet research on Free Networking International, orMeetups to connect with some great networking groups in your area. **And if you don’t find a networking group you like, you can always, create or start a local networking group yourself to cater to your ideal client aka your target market.

Check Internal Processes – You can take a few previous clients and some networking or mastermind buddies and ask them each to go through your processes (on your website, newsletter and documents) and give feedback. Sometimes just a little tweaking of wording or tightening of steps will take a potential client to customer.

Being part of the rejuvenation of a new year can stir up a bucket full of different emotions. Remember to focus on your target market by researching your statistics, checking your internal processes and being creative and you will be heading in the right direction for the new year and beyond.

I was in Lynn Terry’s weekly online chat and someone had brought up the question about how do you know where your target market hangs out?

Once you know who your target market is–you need to find out the habits of your target market. I have given you a few ways to find the answer to this question in my Tuesday Minute Tip this week.

Also, you can receive my Analyze your Ideal Client Profile Sheet, which can help you find out your target market, when you join my newsletter.

 

 Do you know the habits of your clients?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last month, I attended a Law of Attraction Intensive Seminar hosted by Kim Emerson and Jenn Givler.

Now, this is the 2nd time I attended their seminars and you may wish to know why. I will tell you. The reason I attend is because each time I go, I learn something VALUABLE to use with my business and once I incorporate even one technique or method….I see success in my life and my business.

At this session at the LOA Intensive Seminar the main focus was about being deliberate and bringing on focus. You may say to yourself, “Geez, Teresa that is easier said then done.” Well, I may agree with you normally, HOWEVER, I have to tell you that by taking ONE, just ONE thing they told me to do, it has changed my business for the better. No kidding.

Register NOW: The 3rd LOA Intensive Seminar on November 28th.

Here is the one thing that I took away from the seminar (and this is ONLY one of the subjects they talked about).

Jenn and Kim were talking about not getting wrapped up in the mindset of being stuck and why is this happening to me or why don’t I have more clients or why isn’t such and such a person calling me or emailing me back? Jenn called it “the white-knuckled grip” on our business. Some business owners or entrepreneurs focus on what is NOT happening and either continue to focus on that or just stop dead in the middle of their business path.
She used an example of setting the goal of receiving 5 clients each week (I swear she was reading my mind!) Well, instead of concentrating on the why they don’t call or email…it is best to concentrate on positive ways to bring them to you. By sending positive energy and being deliberate in your actions by doing and focusing on them becoming your client any second or day then you are placing POSITIVE and celebratory energy.

Jenn said she combats the “white knuckle” feeling by journaling every morning and writes down her intentions for the day.

That statement got my attention. At first I was thinking about writing a to-do list HOWEVER, then I replayed the statement in my mind. What she said was WRITE DOWN MY INTENTIONS for the day. She didn’t say write down ALL the things I WISH I could get done in one day. But WRITE DOWN MY INTENTIONS for the day.
I really liked that statement of writing my intentions for the day.
Well, then I thought, that I can and WILL do.
So the next day, that is what I did first thing. I sat down at my computer and while it was starting up for the day, I wrote down my intention for that day (work on promoting and marketing my services). Then I thought to myself…ok, that is good. Now, I am going to write down “all” the things I need to do in order to get those clients I want. WAIT!! STOP!! That is not what I heard the night before and all that was going to do was to frustrate me because at the end of the day I wasn’t going to be able to do ALL the things there was to do in order to promote and market myself to get more clients.

Promotion and marketing in any business is a continuous action, so thinking these tasks only have to be done one time or every once in awhile, you would be mistaken.

So for me to think that I was going to hit every site and person I could spread the news about my business in one day…well, that is plain silly. And on top of that. It wouldn’t be effective either.

Then I decided to write down 5, yes, just 5 tasks that I really wished to accomplish in my day. I also decided that if I completed those tasks before I was done with my day, I could then continue and write down one or two more items to complete.

Here is the outcome – Since I have started to write down each day just 5 things and been deliberate in completing them, I have accomplished ALL of them AND completed more. By doing this, there isn’t any more feelings of disappointment or frustration.
Each day I feel successful and fulfilled because I COMPLETED my intentions for the day.

Now, being deliberate in my actions…let me explain how I did this too. One thing I may have on my list is to call a bill or setting up an appointment. Before I would have put this task off because in my mind I would be thinking, “That is only going to take me 2 minutes so I can do that later”. HOWEVER, by the end of the day, this wouldn’t get done and then I would have to remember to do it again and it will have to be written on my next day’s list of things to do.
And where did that lead….GUILT, FRUSTRATION, DISAPPOINTMENT.
Now, I put it on my list and I DO IT. Right then…and it is DONE. It doesn’t have to appear on my list again.

That is taking deliberate action.

Of course now, being a part of the seminar doesn’t mean you the business owner or entrepreneur do not have to do anything. YOU do need to DO the action and MAKE the steps to GET to where you want to go.

So, as Kim might say…if you would like to “retrain your brain” and I am adding, “and not strain your brain”

Sign up to be a part of this 90 minute seminar
Believe me, you will NOT regret it!

Do you recognize this scenario?

Friend/Business Acquintance/Fellow Entrepreneur: Hi! Teresa, thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.

You: Sure, I was glad to take the time to help you. So, how am I able to help you?

Friend/Business Acquintance/Fellow Entrepreneur: Well, you see, Teresa, what I really need help is with my <task> but I don’t have any money to pay you right now. However I am willing to barter my services for yours.

OK…hold the presses! This is where things can be a bit tricky. Especially if you don’t have the money to pay the other person for their services either.

And that is where this very important, often neglected, phrase comes into play–> you can barter ONLY if there is a WIN-WIN situation for BOTH parties involved.

Because if you go into expecting something to happen after you have done some work and then you don’t receive anything in return…that is not a good place to be in. The business relationship becomes strained and then neither of you are happy.

Here are a few rules to use so you don’t waste your time with EMPTY opportunities:

1) If this situation comes about–make sure there are NOT any empty opportunities for either party.

2) Have the conditions in writing, either by email or contract.

3) This way everyone is aware of their tasks and expectations are in writing so there are no surprises.

4) Just be sure that you don’t sacrifice too much of your time for this barter and be sure to record your time so when the barter is done, it is done.

Now, I know we all wish to help each other out with their businesses and we have probably done this more than once ourselves when we first started out, however, don’t let this get out of control, where you are not receiving equal or fair return on your barter.

This topic of trust and control of business tasks has been discussed lately amongst my business associates and friends and it started me thinking…how much is trust or control keeping business owners from getting to the next level of their business?

For instance, let’s say you are needing to get a certain task done, such as a client database or organizing your email. However, you are too nervous to trust someone else to take over this task so you continuously do it yourself. But you are also increasingly frustrated because of the amount of time your spend doing these tasks and just wish you could get someone else to do them for you. Or how about your email? Don’t you wish that you could find someone just to organize it for you….even just by deleting all the junk email and sorting the important inquiries for work and the possible partnerships…that could probably FREE up an hour …perhaps even more time each day! What could you be doing in that time EACH day that would help your business move forward?

Find a way for you to feel comfortable to delegate these types of tasks to someone else in order for you to let them go and free up that time to another money generating activity for your business.

Now is prime time to you could be chatting with a potential business partner or joint venture on a book. Or perhaps this time could be used to be interviewed on a local radio program…

And then there is the issue of control—I know that you may be wanting a task to be done a certain way and you are “scared” that by giving up control of a certain task, that it won’t be done the right way, HOWEVER, why not give it a shot to see what may happen. For instance, for me, my clients get to have 1 free hour from me because I want them to feel comfortable with me. This also allows them time to trust me and know that I will be here to listen to how they would like things to be done.

So, next time you are wondering whether or not you should outsource these tasks due to trust or control…ask yourself…what else could I be doing right now that could be generating more money for my business?