Sandra Martini's Success Strategies

Are you taking a bandaid approach to a terminal disease?

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In chatting with a new client recently, she described the great teleclass series she hosted last month and how much revenue she earned from it and the one she has coming next month.

When going over her monthly revenue for the year-to-date, she quickly realized that she'd been bandaiding a much more serious problem in her business: the lack of consistent, month-after-month revenue.

Whenever she needed cash, she'd host a teleclass series, put on a webinar, offer a sale, etc.

The above was great for short-term, immediate cash flow, but did nothing for the long term success of her business. In fact, it hurt her business as she noticed that each subsequent launch was bringing her less and less cash.

You see, in addition to earning less revenue, her friends and followers were able to feel the desperation behind each of her efforts.

This is what I refer to as taking a bandaid approach to a terminal disease.

Terminal that is, until you decide to do something about it. . .which we quickly did.

If you find yourself in the position of adding a quick series, service, product or program whenever you need revenue as opposed to having it consistently come in day after day, week after week, you're suffering from the Entrepreneurial Myth.

The Myth that you can whip out a few products, host a few calls and become an instant millionaire and that the *next* product will be *THE* product.

Fact is, building and growing a sustainable business takes time and consistent effort.

Make It Real – My Request to You

Chances are, you’ve spent thousands of dollars buying products and attending workshops looking for that *one thing*, that one big idea which will catapult your business into the next income level, only to find that after finishing the product or returning home from the event, very little changes.

So what are you to do?

1. Write a business plan – I’m not talking about a 40-page monstrosity, but rather a very simple 1-2 page document which outlines your business focus, mission and revenue goal
2. Plot the revenue – so you want to earn $300,000 this year in gross revenue? WHERE is it coming from? What percentage of your revenue will come from product sales? Coaching programs? Membership/continuity programs? Speaking/hosting teleseminars? You want to start with 2-3 income streams (don’t worry. . .you can add more once these are up and consistently producing)
3. Write a marketing action plan – now that you know the “what” and the “how much”, it’s time to determine the “from where”. . .where will your clients come from? What specific steps will you take to attract new clients?
4. Determine your Extreme Client Care™ plan – GREAT! You’ve got the clients, now how are you going to keep them and have them referring everyone to you?

Ultimately, my request to you is to stop bandaiding you business and start building a long term, sustainable business which will exceed all of your revenue expectations. Are you ready to go for it?

Another workshop or a focused attitude - which does your business need most?

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An online friend of mine – someone met at a workshop years ago and we’ve casually kept in touch – direct messaged me on Twitter the other day to ask which of two upcoming workshops she should attend as she “needs a boost this year”.

Business Systems – the real way to create a lifestyle business

Goodness knows systems may not sound like the sexiest thing in your business – after all, marketing usually wins that title.

Systems however, are what allow you to take time off without worrying what’s going on in the business and they ensure that all of your clients have the same experience – regardless of how busy you are – from start to finish.

To keep things simple, let’s take the creation of one system today – this is one that I use and will show you how valuable they can be.

New Client Process

1. Prospect inquires about services and chooses which is best for her after reading “Interview with Sandy” and reviewing different services offered.
2. Prospective client registers as a client either through information page (often called “sales page”) or by emailing assistant, depending on program.
3. Sandy sends personalized card welcoming client into X program/service.
4. New Client Information Packet (has Client Agreement, intake questionnaire, describes how we work together, may contain “Getting Started” or “Checklist” depending on program) is emailed and snail mailed within 24 business hours of registration.

What happens after that depends on the program – is it a “Done 4 You” service or is it a “Done With You” service?

Each program then has the appropriate process steps that go with it.

Make sense?

It’s set up this way so that if the team member who regularly handles this function is out of the office, any other member of the team can pick it up without delay AND without my constant involvement.

Make It Real -- My Request to You

Pick one thing. . .just one in your business to write a system for and start documenting it this week.

Do this each week until you’ve created systems for everything in your business – from how the phone is answered to how your new clients are greeted and your current clients leave.

And, if you take only one thing from today’s article, let it be that your business growth comes from your ability to get new clients (a.k.a. marketing, which has systems all its own), but your business lifestyle comes from your ability to create systems which don’t require your attention every minute of every day.

This is the real key to creating a lifestyle business. . .

Conversions What do they mean and why do they matter?

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We hear all the time that we need to "increase our conversions" or "get our numbers up". But what exactly does that mean and what else do we need to know?

"Conversion" is all about turning leads into paying clients and, when done well, more leads into more clients while doing it better, faster and with the least possible expense.

"Conversion" is also used to describe the result of desiring someone to take a step -- whichever step you want them to take -- whether signing up for a f'ree report, register for a strategy session, join a teleseminar or webinar, etc. -- the result is a desired action.

"Conversion Percentage" (sorry, just a little bit of math here) is defined as the "number of NEW sales" divided by the "number of leads" times 100.

And in the above case, "NEW sales" are people who are giving you money for the very first time (they're not repeat clients) and "leads" are people who have expressed, in some way, interest in what you're offering -- whether they visited your website, called your office, sent you an email, etc.

"New Client Cost" is defined as how much it costs for you to market to someone such that they give you money for the first time.

"Extreme Client Care(tm)" describes the process by which the better the care you provide to your clients, the less likely they'll be to switch to another vendor. (More on this in an upcoming series.)

Why do these terms matter?

Quite simply put, the better your conversion, the lower your new client cost AND the better your client care, the less new clients you'll need as existing clients won't leave your service and will refer others who cost almost nothing to market to (and therefore lower your new client cost even further).

You may want to read the above paragraph again to truly absorb the logic.

Make It Real -- My Request to You

Before we can even chat about increasing your conversions, you need to know where you stand today.

Ask your webmaster or assistant to get you signed up with a service such as Webstat if you don't already get statistics about the number of visitors to your site, blog, ezine sign-ups, etc.

After all, you need to know where you are in order to determine where you want to be. :-)

I should grow my business "geometrically"?

I'd written a #SmarTini tip for Twitter and Facebook the other day stating that we should grow our businesses "geometrically".

It raised a few eyebrows to say the least.  After all, what the heck does THAT mean?!?

Here's what I mean when stating that all business owners should grow their business geometrically:

Rather than focus all your time on creating new products and services to sell to new customers and clients, you want to:

1. Sell EXISTING products and services to NEW clients,

2. Sell EXISTING products and services to EXISTING clients,

3. Sell NEW products and services to NEW clients and

4. Sell NEW products and services to EXISTING clients.

By spreading your marketing and promotion across these four categories, you ensure that:

1. You never have "all your eggs in one basket" or, better said, "all your clients in one program",

2. You minimize your product development costs since you continue to offer existing products to new clients (and existing clients) and

3. You minimize your new client acquisition costs since you focus on offering new and existing products to existing clients.

This describes the concept of growing your business "geometrically".

Give it a try -- I promise you won't regret it!  :-)

Sometimes it pays to just "go away"

I've been traveling a lot more than usual this year -- to conferences, for business retreats, scouting locations for my next workshop, a whole myriad of things.

And just last week I was in Chicago for a leadership workshop (it's about constant learning and evolution) when I realized that I hadn't finished a project that's been on my list for longer than necessary.

I came home, ready to get the project done.  I'd set aside the time, got fresh flowers for my desk and went through my routine to get "in the zone".

5 minutes, 10, 30, and hour...zone never achieved.

So rather than work on other projects when I really wanted to get this one done, I called a girlfriend, booked a flight and am now writing to you from sunny Charleston, South Carolina -- with said project 90% done and plenty of time catching up on her farmer's porch.

As much as I adore my home and my home office, sometimes it pays to just "go away".

Take a few minutes to recognize what might be holding you back and whether a brief change of scenery may be just the thing you're needing.  :-)