Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Master the Concept of Leverage to Get What You Want in Business and Life

Do you want to achieve more sales, close more deals and take more control in your life? Of course you do. You’re in luck because there is an everyday word that has the unique ability to dramatically change the outcome of nearly any daily situation -- particularly those in business. If you can learn how to properly identify and control this concept, your life is sure to never be the same.

So, here’s the word, the trick, the magic wand -- it’s called leverage. Yep, leverage. Leverage comes in many different forms and plays a particularly important role in the financial world -- which is another article entirely so we’re not going to cover it here. Instead, we’ll look at leverage as applicable to our daily lives in business.

What is it?

Simply put, leverage is the advantage that exists when a person or entity has the upper hand. They may have achieved this position from a variety of means including a greater knowledge or experience base, exclusivity in a particular market, lower product pricing, better service options or even superior personal relationships -- with special emphasis on the word "personal."

For example: Ever tried to get your kids to quiet down in a restaurant by handing them a video game? That’s leverage. You have something that they want and the result of this transaction is that they act how you want them to. Your leverage is gone the second those batteries run out.

Understand where you sit.

It’s critically important that you have a clear understanding as to where you do and do not have leverage. Assess your position to determine which party has the greater need or want and which provides more value in certain areas. If your opposing party is in need of something that only you possess, you can use leverage to push for better pricing.

If you don’t have that exclusivity, you’re likely missing the leverage required to achieve your elevated price -- unless you’ve created additional value that elevates your negotiating position, and therefore your leverage. Now, there are surely situations where that may not be so clear, but it’s important that you constantly assess your position of leverage and adjust accordingly.

Here’s a safe assumption: If you’re unsure whether you have the leverage in a particular situation, you don’t. It’s always better to know that you lack leverage than to be unsure as to where you stand, as at least then you can make informed decisions as to your next best move.

Find what they want or need.

If you don’t have proper leverage in your given circumstance, go and find it. Start with understanding the motivations of the person you’re working with and build additional value by solving their problems or exceeding their needs.

If you’re selling a product, your value -- or what the consumer feels they are getting in exchange for the price -- acts just like leverage. The better the value, the more the consumers desire your product and, therefore, the more leverage you have. As your leverage increases, you are better able to affect a positive outcome that is to your advantage -- which in this example is likely additional revenue and increased margins.

Leverage is all about understanding what another party desires and figuring out what you need to fulfill it, then using your position to gain an outcome in your favor. It is important to note, however, that leverage can be used both for good and for bad. Bad leverage results in one person winning and the others losing -- typically a consequence of working with bad people -- whereas in good leverage situations, all parties can benefit from the outcome of the transaction or deal.

Most smart people tend to avoid doing business with those that overuse their leverage -- you know, the bad people. Instead, be a good person and use your leverage responsibly while creating win-win situations.

Yours - www.v4all.org

Entrepreneurs Need to Stop Doing These 10 Things, Right Now

Being an entrepreneur is hard. It's really hard. There isn't a playbook, instructional manual, video or biography that can possibly provide you with enough information to make it easy.

While the difficulty is just part of the deal, there are a number of things that founders often find themselves entangled in that, without question, make it harder. Let’s take a look at a list of the things that you, as a founder, need to stop doing -- right now.

1. Lying to yourself or others about your traction

It’s awesome if you’ve had 70,000 downloads for your new app in the first three months or that you generated over $1 million last year in revenue. It’s not awesome if you only have 2,000 monthly active users or actually lost $2 million overall. These are numbers that you are hiding behind, lying both to yourself and everyone else as you shout them from the mountaintop. At some point, you’ll begin to believe them -- then you’re in serious trouble.

2. Focusing on too many things at once

Guess what? You only have 100 percent of your time to split up between your professional activities. If you do too many different things simultaneously, you’re just splitting up your 100 percent into pieces that ultimately resemble slivers of poor performance. Instead, spend 100 percent of your time and focus on becoming excellent at one thing.

3. Working yourself to death

The concept that you need to work grueling hours to be an entrepreneur is not a rule, it’s a choice. Technology has advanced to the point where you can get inexpensive help with literally anything. If you’ve chosen not to learn to use the wealth of outsourcing and automation opportunities that would allow you to have a life and a normal night of sleep, that’s your fault and nobody else’s.

4. Following shiny objects

There’s no quicker way to drown your new enterprise than chasing too many opportunities. Yes, it’s in our nature as entrepreneurs to notice new opportunities and look for solutions to them, but you must remain focused on the task at hand. The best entrepreneurs in the world remain unshakably focused, and you must too.

5. Building terrible "lean" products

The "minimum viable product" (MVP) concept has a lot of value, in theory, but doesn’t always translate to production-level quality. So stop using the lean startup methodology as an excuse to put out crappy, underdeveloped products. You’re only wasting your own time.

6. Using the word "I"

Humility is important, particularly when your company begins to grow and bring on outside team members. There is no better way to disenfranchise them than to take credit for everything that comes out of the door. Stop being arrogant and replace “I” with “we.”

7. Building companies with no revenue

If I hear one more pitch where the entrepreneur says, “we’re not worrying about revenue until X happens,” I’m going to poke my eyes out. You’re starting a business, not a hobby, and the likelihood of you building the next Snapchat is fantastically low. Instead, create something that provides users with this magical thing called “value.” If you’re lucky (or smart) people will be willing to pay for it.

8. Asking investors to sign non-disclosure agreements

If you’re doing this, you’re screaming, “I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing”, which doesn’t typically bode well for potential investment. Here’s the thing, investors are investing, not stealing ideas and building companies. On top of that, it can take quite a long time to build your brand and networks as an investor and I can assure you that if they were indeed stealing ideas, it would fly through the startup community like wildfire.

If you’ve found the secret to creating nuclear fusion and are truly worried about it, be sure to work only with known and respected investors.

9. Thinking that you're the only company in your space

When you claim to not have competition, you’re either being dishonest or ignorant. Here’s the problem: competitors aren’t always direct replicas of your business -- think Walgreens and CVS -- but can be other larger companies with potential interest in your space -- Apple or Google -- that have huge amounts of cash to throw at the problem you’re trying to solve.

10. Building photo sharing and mobile dating apps

Sorry to break your heart, but those ships have sailed. You need to stop building companies that are incrementally, or 10 percent, better than what already exists. Instead, be creative and build your business around new innovations, ideas and even industries.

urs

www.v4all.org

5 Tips for Getting the Most Important Things Done Every Day

5 Tips for Getting the Most Important Things Done Every Day.

Getting the right things done is a daily struggle for most entrepreneurs. The battle cry of an entrepreneur’s struggle is “boy am I busy!” Are youreally that busy or does it just make you feel good to say that?

When I ask entrepreneurs or business executives “why are you so busy?” I get a “to-do” list recitation. But what are you really getting done? Are you tackling the right items on your list? Are those things yielding the results your business needs to thrive?

As a “busy” entrepreneur, maybe you mistakenly measure success by the length of your “to-do” list or the number of hours you work. Bottom line, you have to break down the wall you have built around yourself and find the freedom from your current daily routine.

You can start to tear down this wall by answering the following questions:

Do you find that you waste time and money and miss opportunities?
Do you find yourself involved in a fair amount of “fire-fighting” and feel like you are moving from crisis to crisis?
Do you run from task to task without seeing any measurable progress?
Are you pulled in multiple directions at once with little or no time for you?

Entrepreneurs always have things to get done, but there’s usually an equal amount of “to-do” items that can best be described as “distractions.” You know, the “stuff” that gets in the way and pulls us every which way other than the right one.

More times than not you will get “seduced” by shiny objects, which are things that seem more important than they actually are. The challenge for entrepreneurs is not only finding a way to fight distractions, but conditioning yourself not to be tempted in the first place, all in order to get the right things done.

Here are the five simple steps to help you to get the right things done:

1. Ask.

Start each day with this question: What is the one thing that I can/should do today that will get me closer to my goal or desired result? Work on that first and complete the task. You must first have specific and clear goals. Without them there is no way you can determine the most important tasks.

2. Priorities.

Create a daily list of things to do: Work on the high value tasks first. High value tasks are those that increase important business factors like revenue and profitability. High value tasks are also those that help you achieve your goals. As such, you have to define “high value” as it relates to you and your organization.

3. The 4 D's.

When the “right thing” isn’t clear, apply what I refer to as “The 4 D Rule” – every task that you are faced with must “fit” into one of these four categories:

Do it. You are the best person to handle this task.

Delegate it. Though this is something you could probably do, it’s not the best use of your time or skills. Delegate it to someone who is better suited to handle it.

Defer it. Not everything has to be done at the same time; set priorities to stay focused on the right things for the given time period.

Dump it. This is a task that doesn’t have to be done at all; it represents “busy” work and no value will result from it being done.

4. Pause to consider.

Take small breaks during the course of the day to evaluate your current situation. Give yourself the opportunity to validate that you are working on the right things.

5. Focus.

This last step is very important: Stop multi-tasking! While you can probably do more than one or two things at the same time, you are not Superman, and it’s impossible to actually focus on more than one thing at the same time. Continue multi-tasking, and your results will begin to reflect your lack of focus.

Yours Happily

www.v4all.org

Sunday, March 1, 2015

'Focus on Your Passion. Nothing Else Matters.'

www.v4all.org

As founder and chief shoe giver at TOMS, a retail company with a mission of social entrepreneurship -- Blake Mycoskie launched his company eight years ago intent on giving back. The premise of TOMS was simple: For every purchased pair of shoes another pair would be donated to children in need in 60 countries all over the world.

The spirit of this trademarked "One for One" philosophy has informed how TOMS has grown, as the company added eyewear to their repertoire and moved into other ventures.

Last year, TOMS Marketplace was launched -- a digital hub that calls attention to similarly socially-minded companies and gives customers an opportunity to shop with a cause in mind.

And this spring, TOMS got into the coffee business, directly trading with the farmers that grow their beans and giving a week of clean water to the communities that need it most for every bag sold.

We caught up with Mycoskie, an award-winning serial entrepreneur, former Amazing Race competitor and the bestselling author of Start Something That Matters, to talk about always putting the customer first and the importance of following your passion, wherever it takes you.

Q: Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently when you were first starting up?
A: I would have never decided to enter a business where only a handful of companies or customers can determine your fate.

Q: What do you think would have happened if you had had this knowledge then?
A: I wouldn't have tried to start a cable network [Reality Central in 2003]. I tried to start a reality TV cable network and ultimately failed, because we could not get necessary distribution on the big cable operator platforms.

Q: How do you think young entrepreneurs might benefit from this insight?
A: Even if you have the best idea in the world and tons of customers that want it, if there is a platform, channel, retailer that will get in between you and your customers, you could have a problem. If they love what you are doing, that's great, but if they don't, you have to figure out a way to get directly to the end user with your product and service.

Q: Besides inventing a time machine, how would you have realized this wisdom sooner?
A: I would have read more business biographies. The most successful entrepreneurs who write them are transparent about the mistakes they have made and what you can learn from them.

Q: What are you glad you didn’t know then that you know now? Why?
A: How hard it is to start a shoe business. How hard it is to build a business when you are committed to giving something away every time you sell something in a one-for-one manner, and lastly, how many red eye flights you would have to take to save money on hotel rooms!

Q: What is your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
A: Focus on your passion. Nothing else matters.

Friday, February 27, 2015

How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

When a 60-foot rogue wave crashed into the ship, everyone on board thought they were going to die.

This week on The School of Greatness, Adam Braun, the founder of Pencils of Promise, shares the story of how this near-death experience inspired him to make his mark on the world.

Pencils of Promise was born then and has gone on to build 200 schools and positively impacted 200,000 lives. In this interview we talk about what it takes to be an ordinary person, have an idea and turn it into something extraordinary.

How does the world’s top investor, at 84 years old, wake up every day and face the world with boundless energy?

“I’m one quarter Coca-Cola,” Warren Buffett says.

When he told me this in a phone call yesterday (we were talking about the death of his friend, former Coca-Cola president Don Keough), I assumed he was talking about his stock portfolio.

No, Buffett explained, “If I eat 2,700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I drink at least five 12-ounce servings. I do it everyday.”

Perhaps only a man who owns $16 billion in Coca-Cola stock -- 9% of Coke, through his company, Berkshire Hathaway -- would maintain such an odd daily diet. One 12-ounce can of Coke contains 140 calories. Typically, Buffett says, “I have three Cokes during the day and two at night.”

When he’s at his desk at Berkshire Hathaway headquarters in Omaha, he drinks regular Coke; at home, he treats himself to Cherry Coke.

“I’ll have one at breakfast,” he explains, noting that he loves to drink Coke with potato sticks. What brand of potato sticks? “I have a can right here,” he says. “U-T-Z” Utz is a Hanover, Pennsylvania-based snack maker. Buffett says that he’s talked to Utz management about potentially buying the company.

Investors in Berkshire Hathaway may feel relieved that the CEO isn’t addicted to Utz Potato Stix at every breakfast. “This morning, I had a bowl of chocolate chip ice cream,” Buffett says.

Asked to explain the high-sugar, high-salt diet that has somehow enabled him to remain seemingly healthy, Buffett replies: “I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among six-year-olds. So I decided to eat like a six-year-old.” The octogenarian adds, “It’s the safest course I can take.”

How to Effectively Use Testimonials

Adding this single element to your website can multiply your profits--and get your customers selling your products for you.

What do people who've actually purchased and used your product or service think about it?

Answering that question is one of the most fundamental tasks your website needs to accomplish--and it's as simple to do as it is important.

By using testimonials (reviews and comments from your satisfied customers) in text, audio or video format on your website, you not only answer the question, you also transform your sales pitch into a credible, unbiased recommendation for your product.

Overcome Buyer Skepticism
Adding testimonials is probably one of the easiest ways to improve your website, and a good one can generate more selling power than some of the best sales copy out there.

So why are testimonials so effective?

Testimonials build trust. Whether your customers are raving about what your product has done for them or about the great service you gave, they're telling your visitors first and foremost that they had a positive experience with your products and company.
Testimonials aren't "salesy." Because testimonials aren't written in your "voice," they stand out in your copy as candid and unbiased accounts of how well your product works.
Testimonials overcome skepticism. A good testimonial has the power to convince even your "tough sell" visitors that your product or service really made a difference in your customer's life--and can help them, too.

How to Choose the Right Testimonial
When you're choosing testimonials, there are a few key ingredients to look for that make the difference between an ineffective testimonial and one that sells. Here's an example of a glowing, but ultimately ineffective testimonial:

"I love this product! I can't get enough! I'm so glad I bought your stuff and I'll definitely be back to get more!"

What could be wrong with that? It sounds like you have a happy customer on your hands!

But what does this testimonial really tell your visitors? Does it prove the product works, or explain exactly how your customer benefited from using it? While the feedback is definitely positive, the testimonial doesn't provide enough detail to have any real impact on your visitors.

Here's an example of the kind of effective, benefits-driven testimonial that'll turn a visitor into a customer:

"I used the methods you told me to use, and for three days my phone's been ringing! I sold over $3,500 in goods and services in three days! It's the first time in five months that anyone had really purchased anything."

What makes this testimonial so powerful? Let's break down the elements of an effective testimonial in more detail:

A good testimonial is filled with benefits. A comment like, "This product is great!" is nice to hear, but it doesn't tell visitors what your product can actually do for them.
You want the benefits of what you offer to be front and center in every testimonial: "This product doubled our profits in a month!" or "This product made the pain in my back disappear completely--and did it fast!" or "We've never seen any product that could get the rust off our car without damaging the paint--until now."
A good testimonial substantiates your claims. If you say your product can do something, your testimonials should back up your promises, complete with actual facts and figures. How much money did your customers save by using your product? How much time did they save by using your service? How did it solve their problems or improve their lives?
A good testimonial is from someone your audience can relate to.You want your visitors to see that your product helped someone just like them. Make sure your testimonials come from someone with whom your target market can identify.
If you sell primarily to seniors, for example, ask your customers if you can include their age along with the testimonial. If you're selling to moms with children, ask if you can mention how many kids they have or include a photo of their family.
A good testimonial is credible. Accompany each testimonial with the first name, last name and hometown of each testimonial-giver to show that your endorsements come from real people. Always try to include a photo as well.
And if you can, take it to the next level by including audio or video testimonials for maximum effect. Do anything you can to help your visitors connect with your testimonial-givers on a personal level.
A good testimonial endorses the key benefits of your product. It's fun to hear that your super-duper floor cleaner smells nice or that the bottle doesn't drip--both things that matter to people who would consider using your product. But have you established that it cleans their floors well?
A good testimonial is comparative. Did your customers try another product that didn't work before they found yours? You want your visitors to know what your product can do that other products can't. Choose testimonials that set your product apart from your competition.

Now that you know what you're looking for in a testimonial, how do you actually gather the reviews you need from your customers?

How to Effectively Use Testimonials

Getting Great Testimonials--Even if You Haven't Sold Anything Yet
If your customers have given you positive feedback on your product already, then you may already have some great testimonials to add to your site. However, if your customer response is a little scarce--or if you're just starting out--getting testimonials from your buyers might take a little more effort.

So how do you collect the testimonials you need and keep them coming as you grow your business?

One easy way to collect testimonials is to include a link on your site with a form that allows your customers to give you their vote of confidence: "Tell us how this product changed your life!" or "Click here to let us know what you think!" Put this link next to some testimonials that you've already gathered to give customers an example of the kind of feedback you're looking for.

A more effective method is to create an autoresponder that contacts your buyers after they've purchased your product to ask how they're enjoying the product, as well as giving them a chance to offer feedback on their experience with your business.

And, of course, anytime you receive a great letter or e-mail from a customer, ask them if you can use their comments on your website to recommend your product to others. If they were happy enough to let you know, they're bound to want to spread the word.

If you haven't yet begun selling your product and have no feedback yet, offer your product or service for free to a select group of customers in exchange for their thoughts on the product or some details on their experience with your site. The impact that testimonial will have on your bottom line will be well worth the initial expense.

Strategies For Using Your Testimonials Effectively
Once you've got some testimonials to share with your visitors, you need to make sure you're putting them to the best possible use on your site. Always make sure that you:

Include your best testimonials front and center on your homepage, like in your sidebars, or even above your headline.
Place some testimonials right in the middle of your homepage sales copy to keep your readers focused on your credibility as you outline the features and benefits of your product.
Set up a whole page dedicated to your glowing testimonials, as well as including snippets of their comments throughout your site. Be sure to put a link to your testimonial page next to each of those snippets.
Include testimonials on each and every page of your website. No matter where your visitors click, you want them to find a positive customer review of your product or service.

Now let's look at a few mistakes to avoid when using testimonials on your website:

Don't edit your testimonials to exclude a comment or add information you want to hear! If you can't post a comment "as is" and feel comfortable with it, it shouldn't go up.
Never use a customer testimonial without permission.
Never, ever invent testimonials! This is fraud, plain and simple, and lying never results in a positive impact on your business.

Final Thoughts
If you're not using testimonials on your website, you're missing out on one of the most powerful, easy-to-use and cheap marketing tools available to you.

Most of us would rather act on a referral from a friend than make a purchase based on a sales pitch alone. We want to know that the product actually works before we take the leap to buy, and we're bound to put more trust in someone who has already used the product successfully than the person trying to convince us to buy it. Using glowing, fact-filled testimonials on your website will let your visitors know that you're worthy of their trust.
urs - www.v4all.org