Buyer Beware: Know Your Rights (and Vote With Your Wallet)

Watch this space on Mondays, where I’ll share Buyer Beware Tips.

It’s important to invest in professional quality marketing materials for your business. This is not the place to cut costs by doing it yourself, unless you happen to be a kick-butt graphic designer, photographer and writer.

Deciding who to choose can be tricky especially if they may as well be speaking in another language. Interviewing someone and reviewing their portfolio is absolutely critical. Look for examples of their work that show depth and ideally, knowledge of your business sector. Hiring a one-size fits all graphic artist to develop your brand identity, or a web designer who does real estate, dog grooming services, the local florist shop and feed store is generally not a good idea.

Spend some time researching  who’s out there and most importantly, ask other business owners who they have used if you particularly like their examples. There are enough professional services out there that you can find someone who specializes or takes the time to really understand the needs and nuances of your business.

But the point I want to drill home today is what happens next: the fine print. It is vitally important that you protect your investment and watch out for these red flags before you sign the dotted line or exchange money. I know this goes on, because I hear it regularly from business owners who have been sucked in, mainly because they felt they didn’t know enough and took the person’s word for it. Take back your power, people! Vote with your feet, and your wallet.

An ethical, professional service provider will NOT do this:

Develop your logo but refuse to provide the files to you.

Make sure you will receive all formats of the artwork designed. Some designers will take advantage of your lack of knowledge and only provide a .jpg file, which is useless if you needed to get a large or high quality piece printed. The ploy here is to force you to come back to your designer for all future work. It stinks. Don’t do business with someone who does business this way.

Develop your WordPress site, but only give you partial access.

A sneaky trick that has become popular is to sell you on a WordPress site, with the allure that you will be able to maintain the site and make changes and create posts yourself. But, you are only given limited access to the dashboard. So if the time comes that you want to make changes to the appearance or menu items, you can’t do so. The ploy? Same as above. Even stinkier because you probably thought all your website problems were solved!

(Side note: it’s really the best idea to purchase your domain name and host your site yourself. It is not complicated, and your web designer should be willing to install the site for you with the host of your choice.The key is that you retain ownership and control, and have the passwords and account information you need if you have a technical problem or later, you want to change your site.)

Take your photo but retain ownership of the images.

Likewise.

I think by now you get the point. There are many variations on this theme. Make sure you ask all questions up front, check out the person’s credentials (look for longevity and testimonials  from people you can check out for yourself – any first name only or initials are a bad, bad sign).

Any tips you’d like to share? Horror stories you’d like to pass on to save others from making your mistake? Please comment below.

How to Grow Your Business Through Collaboration aka Grow Your Business, Not Your Workload

When I first started my business, all I wanted was to earn at least as much as I had in my job, and to be able to call my time my own. I didn’t want to hire employees, subcontract work out, or deal with too many clients at a time. In essence, my intention was to keep it simple.

I have since found from speaking with hundreds of recovering employees that this is a common theme. Perhaps it’s the remnants of too many unproductive meetings, working by committee, and supervising staff that causes us to want to go it alone.

Fortunately, I was smart enough to realize early on in my business that running solo would soon put me on a plateau, money wise, and energy wise. As a mentor from the horse world likes to say, “You’re never going to get rich with your own two hands.” Whether your financial goals are basic, or you have multiple zeros in mind, the fundamental principle is the same. In addition to getting help and making sure you’re not spending time doing what someone else can do better, faster or cheaper, the quickest path to a sustainable business for most of us is collaboration.

My philosophy on collaboration in business is summed up brilliantly by Henry Ford, who said:
“Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success. “

This is a hard pill to swallow for many corporate fugitives who cut their professional teeth in a competitive mindset world. But actively seeking out alliances, passing on work that doesn’t fit you to a “competitor” and opening yourself up to new ideas and brainstorming with others is exactly what will propel your business forward.

Joint ventures are one of the best ways to ensure a constant stream of business via lead generation because they multiply results but divide the effort. They are arrangements where two or more businesses join together for the purpose of creating a specific product or service and sharing the expenses, profits and workload, or where complementary businesses interested in the same market agree to cross-promote each others’ services. This can be done with or without a direct financial compensation.

• For joint venture partners with an online focus (i.e. who have the infrastructure to promote services online and who use email marketing), it is often more effective to seek several “smaller players” than to attempt to build relationships with those who are more prominent. Generally this is because businesses with smaller email databases tend to have more flexibility in their promotional calendar.
• Team up with other businesses that serve the same market by providing services that are either complementary, e.g. others who serve this market or who serve your ideal client at a different point (look for trigger events as clues). Ideal joint venture partners are not in direct competition with you, provide complementary services to the same market, and share the same goals and values. You don’t need many joint venture partners to have dramatic results. Start locally in the community to get local leads, and connect with potential joint venture contacts online via social media and connection.
• There are many simple ways to work with joint venture partners, here are some:
  • Agreeing to feature each other as a recommended resource
  • Exchanging testimonials (provided you have actually used each others’ services)
  • Packaging a product or service together as a special promotion
  • Recommending each others’ ezines
  • Recommending each others’ teleseminars or events
  • Putting on a teleseminar or workshop together, or interviewing each other and sending the article or audio to each others’ clients
  • Providing products to each other to include as free bonuses
  • Participating in each others’ affiliate or referral programs
  • Co-sponsoring events
  • Purchasing shared advertisements
  • And endless other possibilities!

Remember: make it simple and easy for your joint venture partners to promote you by having material to supply to them including pre-written information and templates in multiple formats (for example, letters, short descriptions that can be included in a ezine, samples of Facebook updates and tweets, logos and banners that can be used, and easy to follow instructions and calendar with suggested timelines).

And most importantly? Devote regular time to developing joint venture relationships. Treat this list of people as you would your client list.  Your network is what will keep business coming to you in the years to come. Nurturing it in the early years will help you grow a meaningful, rewarding and sustainable business.

Want to use this article? You can as long as you include this footer: Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success SystemTM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and live outside of the ordinary. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful and extraordinary business. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for information and step-by-step resources to take you from overwhelmed employee to extraordinary entrepreneur.

How to Alter Space and Time to Earn Money Multiple Ways

Have you ever wished you could clone yourself, or live and work in parallel time zones? As a small business owner, time is money. I like to add that the real reason most of quit high paying jobs to start businesses: because money buys you time.  The more efficiency you create, the more profitable you are… but even more than that, the more flexibility you gain. Streamlining in business improves the quality of your life, and that is the bottom line many of us care about the most.

There are many ways to systemize what you do in your business. If you can’t do this, I have news for you: you’ve created a job for yourself. If you can’t find a way to leverage your time or knowledge, and your business requires you to do the work yourself in order to get paid, you don’t have a system, you have a job. Which is terrific, if that’s what you intended, but for most of my readers, our number one value is freedom through flexibility.

I’m sure this isn’t revolutionary, and you’ve probably heard this before, but to add revenue and buy time, the formula is simple. You can have someone else perform the work,  or you can find ways to take what you’ve already done, and repurpose or adapt it to sell to more people. Not so complicated, is it?

I listened to an interview recently with Harv Eker, the man behind the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. While I am not associated with his business model or personally endorse his trainings, he’s definitely found a way to resell his message in multitudes of ways and he has some excellent content. One of the things that struck me in this particular interview was his take on creating multiple streams of income. What he added was so simple – it’s not about creating multiple streams of income at all. To get the personal and financial freedom, the secret is creating multiple streams of passive income.

Passive simply means you make money when it works without you.  Multiple streams of income that require you to do more work, will make you more money, but drive you crazy. You’ve missed the mark if you’re still required to do it all yourself, and this is the part that many of us forget.

Not all of us want to create businesses with employees and the more traditional ways to build more revenue, but there are many ways that service-based small businesses like coaches, marketing professionals, accountants, etc. can add passive income streams. Even though they may not all be 100 per cent hands-off, you can work toward this. It’s a matter of redefining your paradigm of passive income. Many of us have severely limited this definition to information products. Passive income can also look like this:

• Partner up with other service providers to deliver a value-added service to your clients (my personal favourite – collaboration is beautiful and everyone wins, if you can team up with the right people who you can work with at the speed of trust). Deliver services together, with your company as the lead (or, whatever makes sense; the key here is that you are actually working together, delivering the service or product to the same client and you only have to touch a small part of the work yet still bring in new business). Bonus: you get to do what you do extremely well, and leave the rest to other people who ideally are doing the same.
• Team up with complementary businesses who have the same target market as you and you promote each other’s services. Or you create packages of services. They work very well to provide your existing customers with more choice – which they value – and they also bring you new customers you did not have to market to and find. The marketing effort is divided. Another benefit is that your new leads are coming to you pre-qualified – because you already know they have a history of being interested in this type of service, and they have a track record of being willing to spend money. Passive in this case, means you didn’t have to do anything extra to bring the business in.
• Package up your content in new ways to reach more people – for example, teach classes, write books, sell products, deliver training (and use all of this content to create materials in a variety of media that you can offer your clients, without you being there in person). Master the simple marketing strategies to promote this and familiarize yourself with the tools that make it possible (some of them mentioned below) or hire a virtual assistant to help you. It is far less complicated and not as expensive as you may think.
• Create sources of affiliate and referral income – as a service-based business, you want to protect your contact and client list, but if you have recommendations of complementary tools or products you can vouch for, your recommendation is valuable, and you can add a stream of income if some of the services you use provide a commission or credits for recommending them. Can you offer a product that you can buy at a reduced price to allow a small margin for yourself? Or, if the product is sold online, consider participating in an affiliate program. Just be sure you are clear with your clients that you may in some cases earn an affiliate fee or be compensated in some way for your recommendation. This is the law in the USA to protect consumers from misleading online advertising.
• Systemize and automate what you’re already doing to make it work for you – for example, use appointment based software like TimeTrade (formerly called Timedriver) to eliminate email and phone tag when setting up appointments, shopping cart and autoresponder services to keep in touch with your prospects and clients, and provide registration and payment services for classes and products (there are many choices, free ones like MailChimp or more complex paid plans like 1Shopping Cart or Marketers Choice (a reseller version of 1Shopping Cart and the one I use), and audio publishing and broadcasting programs like AudioAcrobat, that let you do a variety of things – record conversations and meetings with clients, create audio broadcasts that you can send out by email or publish on your website, and even give your customers a call-in number where they can voice record a testimonial or give you feedback. Pretty robust for $20 a month (I earn affiliate income for some of these products, in the spirit of full disclosure. However I only recommend products I have used myself. I recommend you do the same if you want to protect your integrity and your word).

These are just a handful of examples to get you started. Remember, time is money, and money buys you time. This simple mindset shift can lead to wonderful opportunities to earn more and have more fun doing it. If you’re like most business owners, you probably have several of these hidden assets just waiting to be brought out to the world. Get creative, they’re right there under your nose!

Want to use this article? You can as long as you include this footer: Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success SystemTM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and live outside of the ordinary. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful and extraordinary business. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for information and step-by-step resources to take you from overwhelmed employee to extraordinary entrepreneur.

Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made – and Does It Matter?

Popular media and pollsters are finally catching up to what some of us instinctively or experientially have realized for a while: there is a new breed of entrepreneur.

Many people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are choosing to leave their careers to start their own businesses. Some walk away grinning from high paying, secure positions. Some are downsized or have faced a major life change. Whatever the reason, they choose self employment.

But this entrepreneur isn’t interested in just any sure way to make money. This entrepreneur wants to have balance, passion and flexibility. There is much debate in traditional business circles if this is a pie-in-the-sky view (it’s not, at least among my friends and associates).

So the question that arises before, after and during this transition, is: Do you have what it takes to be successful? Many people believe that business ability is practically genetic, and that it requires special wiring to seek this path. Others believe that practice makes perfect, and that anyone can be successful in business if he or she is persistent enough. It’s not uncommon for my clients to show nervousness while having certain discussions or working through exercises. It’s as if they are waiting for me to give them a pass or fail, and the test is whether or not they’re going to make it.

I don’t know if there is an answer and on a pragmatic level, I don’t think it matters much. The only way to find out and remove all doubt is to act.

It’s my observation that we each have our own doubt threshold. Some need more reassurance than others, and some don’t experience these feelings until much later (I fell into the second group). In these cases, I often quote a successful business owner I know who has been making it on her own for 19 years now. When she told me “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this” she meant it, in that nanosecond. We all have those days!

Whether you believe an entrepreneur is born or made is your opinion. There is no test that will predict your success or tell you if you’d be better off staying in your job. Like anything else in life, all you can do is make your best choice at the time, commit to it, and consistently take the actions that are needed to improve your chance of success. There is no short cut to building a successful business, although there are many people who will try to sell you one.

Once you make the choice, you can expect the real work to begin. Passion for what you choose to do in a business isn’t a mandatory ingredient for every entrepreneur, but for the kinds of clients I work with, it is the secret sauce of your own trademark dish. And it is completely possible to build a business around your passion, as long as you also have a solid business model and a plan on how to turn that passion into a viable service or product.

So, if you really want to know if you’ll succeed, start where you are. Look at the assets you have in your favour, and also the areas you’ll need to improve.

Here are the assets I believe mature employees have when starting businesses:

• Established professional reputation
• Known and proven technical skills
• An extensive professional and personal network (often the inside track longtime business owners would give their eye teeth for)
• Transferable time and project management skills
• Perspective on their industry gained through their employment experience
• Insight into the other side of the table (especially when their new business is selling services to that side)
• Professionalism and organizational skills

 Here are the skills I believe they often need to learn:

• What they need to get started in business
• How to create products and services that are profitable and fun to deliver
• How to sell their services
• How to leverage their existing knowledge, network and skills in new ways
• How to reframe their attitude and beliefs on work
• How to think and act like a business owner vs. an employee
• How to accept risk
• How to define succeed and failure (not closing a sale, not knowing how to do certain things associated with marketing or running a business, not being an instant success – are not failures!)
• How to be a beginner again

 The best thing about this? You are starting out with amazing assets, and the others things can be learned. Investing in your own personal and professional growth is something you have the skills and ability to do, or you wouldn’t have made it this far in your career. Get help where you need it, surround yourself with people who inspire and uplift you, and don’t waste energy debating if your success is predetermined.