Client Magnets Official Blog » Money Making Ideas

You’ve Got To Name it to Claim It!

Bernadette — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:00:03 +0000

How much money do you want to make this year?

If you’ve answered this question with a round number, like, $100,000, or $1,000,000, or an, “I don’t know,” you don’t have a goal, you have a wish. It’s imperative that you know your goal income numbers, specifically. You must know how much you have to net today, this week, and this month in order to land the yearly salary that will support the lifestyle that you desire.

Here are some get-specific Millionaire Mindset methods:

• What would you like to do in the next year? Move? Take your dream vacation? Send a child to college? Hire someone to manage all of that stuff for you? Or make it possible for your spouse to leave his or her job to come to work for you?

Don’t forget the smaller costs that go along with each large goal, like the cost of providing your newest employee with a company car and fringe benefits, travel costs, tuition, and your existing lifestyle costs. Don’t estimate. Make phone calls. Get current pricing on airfare, college tuition, health care, or whatever bills you’ll have to foot. Write it down…you’re going to need it.

• Now that you’ve done the addition, do the division. Break out the calculator and find out how much you’ll need to net in a month, a week, and a day. This will give you a manageable and reachable goal path.

Lots of people say they want to be millionaires. But if you ask them how much they need to make this afternoon to stay on track for that wish, you’ll likely be met with a dumbfounded look. Once this step is completed, you will be distinctly separate from those with a wishing frame of mind.

• Challenge yourself in the pursuit of your income goal. If that means working an extra 30 minutes to meet your daily income goal, do it. If that means negotiating on a deal, even if you’re not comfortable with negotiation, then do it.

When you know how much money you need to earn this week, in pursuit of the big goal, you’ll be encouraged to do the things that aren’t so desirable. Every time you challenge the boundaries of your comfort zone, those boundaries will soften, and your comfort zone will grow.

A goal like, “I want to make a million bucks this year,” will never incite you to rewrite an email or to hold firm on your retail price for an item. But if your goal is, “I need to clear another $50 today to stay on track,” you’ll push right through, because you will connect those little tasks with your big goals for yourself, your family, and your lifestyle.

• Successful business people always know their numbers. They rifle off their conversion rates, costs, costs of sale, and precise percentage profits. Businesspeople who don’t know are probably losing money.

• If the thought of calculating, relating to, or speaking about numbers frightens you, then hire a business manager to do it for you. Investing all of your energy in working in your business, without working on your business, will be detrimental to your income goal.

• The numbers might be simple now, but if your goal is to make a million dollars, or any other impressive number, you’ll have to expect the money flow, in both directions, to become more complicated. Adopt a know-your-numbers attitude now, rather than jumping into a sea of number soup when your chances of drowning are high.

In short, know how much money you need to make. Then know how much money you need to make this week in order to reach that goal. Name it, and then claim it!

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Should You Offer A Free Teleseminar?

Bernadette — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:00:27 +0000

Would you rather be paid for your teleseminar, or give it away for free? At first blush, your answer, of course, would be, “Get paid.” But I must admit, I’ve presented you with a bit of a trick question.

The truth is that whether you ask for money for participation in your teleseminar, or you offer spaces at no charge, you can still harness money-making power. A paid teleseminar will deliver up-front revenue, but free teleseminars also hold possibilities for making money: from the subsequent selling of transcripts, recordings, packages, articles, e-books, newsletters and print books.

A common misconception is that people will jump on a free teleseminar just because it’s free; that sending out an email announcing it is enough to get participants – Not True. If people view their time as more valuable than what you’re offering, they won’t set aside an hour to participate, even if it doesn’t cost them a penny. For this reason, it’s important to realize that filling the phone line for a free teleseminar takes just as much effort as filling the line for a paid one.

When you use the word “free,” it’s important to put specifications on that freedom. If a teleseminar is free to everyone, people might assume that it has little or no value. But, if you make it free to members of a certain group (newsletter subscribers, new clients, current clients, members of your club, etc.), those people will see that they have earned the right to partake in its value.

It’s important to assign a value to every teleseminar, whether there’s a price tag or not. Maybe participants are getting it at a discount, or maybe it’s free only to select people. Either way, let them know what they would have paid. This increases the call’s perceived value.

The free teleseminar has its advantages and its disadvantages. It’s up to you to allow its advantages to work for you. Here a few pros and cons that might help you to find that balance:

Free Teleseminar Pros

• As long as the topic is exactly what they’ve been hoping for, people will be more likely to “invest” in a free call.

• If the free call is marketed to members of a certain group, they will feel more inclined to partake in something they’ve earned.

• The law of reciprocity boosts your chances of selling post-teleseminar transcripts, recording, e-books, etc.

Free Teleseminar Cons

• If you don’t market the free teleseminar effectively, it could be dismissed as having little or no value, because it’s free.

• If you offer too many free teleseminars, you could find yourself being taken advantage of, for your free advice.

• Participants might not be serious about the topic, reducing your chances of post-teleseminar sales. They might say, “It’s free. I’ll take advantage of it,” and that will be the end of their commitment.

It’s also important to avoid making every teleseminar a paid-participation one. It won’t be long before your audience is protesting (silently or audibly) that they never get anything for free.

To avoid finding yourself at either extreme of the free/paid teleseminar spectrum, it’s a good idea to offer a mixture of both free and paid. This will prevent you from being taken advantage of, and it will keep your audience happy with occasional “free gems.”

Free isn’t a bad word. In fact, it’s the root of freedom…which is at the heart of financial freedom.

Shine From The Depths Of The Direct Mail Slush Pile

Bernadette — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 02:00:36 +0000

Looking for an opportunity to shine from the depths of the direct mail slush pile?

Though it might sound a bit cliché, everyone, even those of you who feel encumbered by a limited budget or a relatively small business volume, can do that. Whether you’re sending out 10 pieces of mail per week, or 1,000 pieces, you can not only entice people to open your mail, but you can keep their attention with a creative, lumpy insert.

Maybe you have, at times, felt intimidated by the “big boys” – the companies who have thousands or millions of dollars to spend on direct mailing. But, despite what you might have come to believe about these huge corporations, you actually have an advantage over them for creative direct mailing. If you have an inventive idea for lumpy mail, you don’t have to sit in countless meetings with marketing committees, pitching your idea, enduring criticism, and perhaps, ultimately, having your idea shot down. You are your final decision maker.

When you’re creative with your lump mail insert, you can spur your recipients to action. Here are few examples to stimulate your imagination:

• If you’re intent on helping companies and individuals to find their own hidden treasures, you might consider including an old-fashioned scrolled treasure map with your promotional letter.

• If you consider a message to be of the utmost importance, you might want to stuff it into a bottle before mailing it.

• If you’re hoping to entice inactive customers to fall back in love with your company, you might insert a boomerang with a message like, “Boomerangs always come back, don’t they?”

• If your company has a mascot, you can have a lovable likeness of him or her reproduced as a lump.

• If your company helps people to find resources, for instance, you might want to include an ornamental needle-in-a-haystack.

• A complete comprehensive service might be accompanied by a small, silver platter and the statement, “I’ll give you everything you need for start-up on a silver platter.”

• Fortune cookies can be purchased, complete with customized messages inside, that deal specifically with your purpose or promotion.

If you’re stumped for lump ideas, there are resources that can help. Two examples are www.LumpyMail.com and www.ImpactProductsMarketing.com. There, you’ll find lots of creative ideas for lumps. Maybe you want to announce a promotion, invite inactive customers back to the fold, broadcast an upcoming campaign, publicize a grand opening, or announce a new product or service.

Simply using bulk to create a piece of lumpy mail will, indeed, prompt people to open the envelope, but if you want to stay with them for longer than it takes to empty your promotional pen of ink, or to use that pad of custom sticky notes, you’ll want to put some innovative thought into your lumpy insert.

Make your mail memorable with creative lumps…because when your lump is specific to your purpose, and unlike any other lump, it deems you memorable, worthy of the call or the click, and the investment.

What Do You Really Want?

Bernadette — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:00:37 +0000

Are you setting your goals according to what you truly want or what you think you should get?

There’s a very big difference between those two. If you’re only setting your goals according to what you think you should get, you are probably missing out on so much potential for your business.

Here’s one way you can figure out if you’re setting your goals too low. If I were to sit down with you in a coaching session and ask, “Tell me how much money you want to make this year,” how would you respond?

If your answer is vague or your answer is more in the form of a question, your goals are more in line with what you think you should get rather than what you want to make.

When you set a vision for your business, get this kind of thinking completely out of your head. The potential for your business is so far greater than you could perceive if you’re only looking at it from what you think you can do or what you think you have to do.

One way to avoid getting caught up in this mess is to do projects that you want to do; not projects that you think you should do because they might be the right way to launch a program or sell something.

Doing business this way will afford you the life you think you should have – living in a moderate home, making good money while working 6 days a week, always thinking about but rarely going on a real vacation.

Your goals have to be based around what you truly want. When you truly want something, you have what is referred to in Think and Grow Rich as a burning desire. If you don’t have a burning desire to achieve your goals, it is not going to be enough.

Here’s why that burning desire is so important. When you’re setting after something that you haven’t had previously – something that is a big, daring goal for you – you’re going to hit challenges. You’re going to hit obstacles because anything you want and don’t have is outside of your comfort zone.

On your way to achieving the things that are outside of your comfort zone, you’re going to be stretched. That’s the moment when you will be most tempted to give up, unless you have a really strong burning desire.

This desire, that yearning for something more, is like your higher mind calling you to your true potential.

So, when you’re setting your goals – both revenue goals and lifestyle goals – consider what it is that you truly want.

The bigger house? The 3-day work-week? The 3-month dream vacation?

If these are the goals you truly want, set them. Once you name what you want to achieve, once you know what is your burning desire, we can figure out a way for you to achieve it.

Not Sure What Niche To Target?

Bernadette — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 02:55:50 +0000

It’s a lot easier to turn a ship that’s moving in the wrong direction than it is to turn a ship that’s not moving at all.

If you’ve been getting “analysis paralysis”, scratching your head and trying to figure out what your direction is, just pick a purpose and start heading toward it. If you’re off course, the market will correct you.

If you’re not heading in the right direction, the market will quickly give you feedback that will help you adjust. Just don’t get overly concerned that what you decide today is going to be cast in stone.

Don’t worry about picking the wrong area or niche at first. Don’t worry if you find that you’re being called an expert on something that you don’t want to be known as the expert on.

Areas of expertise can change. But you can only change your direction if you have already set out in one to begin with.

Bob Burg is the author of a book called “Endless Referrals.” He is now positioned as a referral expert and an expert on helping people to generate referrals for business.

When he first started out, his niche was memory experts. He noticed that people who took his memory courses wanted to improve their memory to remember the names of people they’d met at networking meetings and events. They wanted to improve their memory to achieve better business results.

As he spotted that connection, he started to focus more on being the referral expert. No one accused him of being a fraud because he was now a referral expert instead of a memory expert. The market let him know in which direction to steer his business.

When you set course in your chosen direction, look for niches and markets where it’s going to be easier for you to establish personal relationships and position yourself as an expert.

If the niche you do choose turns out to be an enormous amount of effort, you have to weigh whether or not it’s worth your while to continue down that road or take a different road to get business.

When Dan Kennedy, the marketing expert, was invited to submit a proposal to give a speech in Switzerland, he opted out. While plenty of other people would jump at the opportunity, and spend a day putting together a proposal to bid, that is not the way he wants to go after business. Perhaps it didn’t seem worthwhile to spend the time writing the proposal. The point is that you have to make the determination of how you want to do business.

Your niche will evolve with your business. It’s an actual evolution that happens in most any business. Look at my own situation. I started out as specializing, by trial and error, as a cold calling expert. But I didn’t stop at that. Today, I’m teaching people how to find new business and triple their income! The way in which I’m helping people and the types of people I’m helping is completely different from what I started out with.

But it’s turned out for the best for everyone!

How To Turn Your Event Into A BIG PAY DAY

Bernadette — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:00:19 +0000

Many people don’t use their business potential to the full. It is relatively easy to focus on your every-day business; the sales and marketing, the product or service; and forget that you can leverage your business to perform far more than simple day-to-day operations.

If you’re ready to turn your business into a serious money-making venture, it’s time to think about hosting a Big Pay Day live event. Hosting a live event and turning it into a Big Pay Day is a perfect way to boost your revenue, increase your income and turn your business acumen into big dollars!

How do you monetize your event, and how do you create the opportunity to service your clients better and increase your earning capacity? Let me share a few of my secrets with you …

1. Launch a new product or service. You can also use your event to launch a new product or service for your existing business. If you’re creating a new product line or have new services to offer your clients, launching them at your event is the perfect time to introduce the products and generate buzz.

2. Launch a high-end coaching program. Your Big Pay Day Event is the perfect time to launch a high-end coaching program. You’re hosting an event because you are an expert in your niche. You could be sharing your expertise about your business field, or sharing the keys to your personal success. Use your event to share your expertise, and then launch a high-end coaching program to help attendees achieve their own success. It’s a great way to monetize your knowledge.

3. Turn your event into a product. Don’t forget that you can turn your event itself into a product. Take video of your event and launch a series of DVDs, or take the written materials from event and turn it into a book. Be creative, and think of ways in which you can share your event in the form of a new product.

4. Build your reputation in the industry. Building your reputation in the industry gives you two benefits: you can boost your existing business, and you gain the leverage you need to launch new products and services. While building your reputation in the industry might not yield direct revenue, it can lead to the acquisition of new clients, as well as creating additional business with existing clients.

Decide How to Monetize YOUR Event
When you’re considering hosting an event, think about how you will monetize it. You can use any one of these strategies, or a combination of strategies, to yield revenue far beyond the registration fees you’re charging people to attend your event. Start with one of these strategies and build on it, depending on what you have to offer and the resources you can leverage while you’re planning the event. Think about your business plan and your business goals. Ensure your strategies are consistent with helping you achieve your goals and your BIG PAY DAY!

Realistic Expectations or Miracles – What Works BEST?

Bernadette — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 03:40:55 +0000

Do you dream about creating an amazingly successful business?

Do you have a plan mapped out inside your head?

Do you dream about creating an amazingly successful business?

Do you have a plan mapped out inside your head to get it started?

Or are you looking for miracles to make your dream a reality?

Whether your starting out with your business or planning for growth, both of these seemingly conflicting concepts
need to co-exist inside your head.

It is very important that you have realistic expectations.

If you don’t have a budget and you don’t have any spare time, can you really expect to make an extra £20,000 a month from your business? While it is certainly possible to earn that much money, you’re going to have to invest a certain amount of your time, effort, and money to make it happen.

But before you do anything at all, you need to have a plan. What I would like you to do right now is to take a moment, grab a sheet of paper, and draw a long line on it.

At the first end of that line, write the words “me today.” This represents where you are now. At the other end of the line, write down the words “1 year” and “revenue target.”

Write down whatever that number is that you want to reach in one year’s time. It could be £100,000, £250,000, £500,000, or even a million plus. When you have this goal clearly expressed on paper, then you can work out the steps you need to take to get there.

The first step toward reaching your revenue target is to take stock of your current assets. Think about your time, resources, and money.

If you find that you don’t have an abundance of all those assets, don’t panic. Consider the marketing concept that addresses the balance of money and time and creativity. If you’re short in one area, expect that you will need to put in more effort in the others.

So if you’re short on money, for instance, you will probably need to spend a lot more time to get your business going. If you’re short on time, then you’ll probably think about outsourcing from day one in order to maximize the hours you can devote to reaching your goal.

If you’re short on both, then you need to put your creative juices to work.

Don’t let any of these scenarios deter you. Building your online business and earning the income you desire is a very realistic and very attractive prospect for you. An online business has a very low in startup cost. The overheads are low. And, the percentage of profit that you get to keep is high. Keep your expectations and your evaluation of your assets realistic.

At the same time, it is also important to remember this other concept –

Believe in miracles.

In fact, plan on them. This may appear to contradict keeping your expectations realistic, but really, it doesn’t. It is harder to quantify, but there’s definitely a magic in just getting started. Doors are going to open that you can’t even imagine right now.

Until you get started down that road toward your goal, you have no idea where it is going to lead you. Once you actually take physical steps on that path, the universe will take 10 steps toward you.

Balancing your realistic expectations with your belief that miracles await you will tip the scales in your favor and assure you a very successful year ahead! Go ahead, set your expectations high, plan for the future AND always remember miracles await you.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT – Instant Profit Boosters

Bernadette — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:33:14 +0000

Meet Bernadette’s online business mentor Yanik Silver.

Instant Profit Boosters – one of the things Yanik is known for is squeezing out additional revenue and profits from absolutely zero additional marketing budget, visitors or customers.

Yanik will show you how to look at your website and business to identify immediate profit increases.

Don’t miss this call!

My Next MARKETING* MASTERMIND Call

Tuesday, 22nd June, 2010

8:00pm UK Time (3pm EASTERN, 12 noon PACIFIC)

TOPIC: Instant Profit Boosters

This call is FREE for my hundreds of Marketing Mastermind and Stepping UP! members. They also get the CD and transcript of this call at no extra charge, plus a tonne of other member benefits – such as access to our online members forum.

Not a member? Click here to join the Marketing Mastermind Group today so you can take advantage of this call and all the other member goodies each and every month.

I look forward to “meeting” you on our call.

Best Wishes,
Bernadette Doyle
www.clientmagnets.com

Invite Some Magic To Your Business by Outsourcing

Bernadette — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:00:43 +0000

Do you remember the story of the Elves and the Shoemaker? The Shoemaker and his wife were very poor, until a pair of elves began making beautiful shoes for them overnight. The Shoemaker was able to sell the shoes for a lot of money, and became rich and famous.

I sometimes feel like I’m in a similar situation to the Shoemaker.

I first experienced the power of this a couple of years ago when I sent an email that was copied to two people, one in India and one in Australia. In this email I gave instructions for a specific project, the first part of which had to be completed by one person before being handed over to the second person for completion.

And from that single email, while I was sleeping, the project that needed to be completed and the webpage that needed to be uploaded just happened. So when I woke up the following morning, it was really like the elves had been working overnight and doing the work for me.

And it’s so easy for you to invite the same kind magic into your business. All you need to do is start outsourcing routine tasks.

So where should you start with outsourcing? First of all, ask yourself where you have profitability blocks in your business. To work this out, answer the following question:

“My business would make more money if I could do more of _______.”

You already know what the answer is. You can spend more time marketing. You can spend more time developing products and programs. You can spend more time writing your web copy. You can spend more time developing a newsletter.

Then ask yourself this question:

“I currently spend most of my time on ________.”

The answer to this will help show where you are putting your time that you don’t need to. This will likely be one of the first areas where you’ll going to get a quick return on outsourcing.

For example, when I first started out, I found that I was spending more time updating my webpage than I wanted to. It wasn’t part of my vision for my business, and I wanted to use my time in a way that would generate more income. So I found people who do that for me for less than £10 an hour. It was a no-brainer to pay someone else to do that and win back that time which was put towards growing my business. Now, I’m in the position of knowing that while I’m asleep my website is being updated for me.

And today I have seven people around the world working on different parts of my business, which is something I would never have anticipated when I started outsourcing.

One unexpected benefit of outsourcing for me was that I hired someone who was also working for another person whose business was at a more developed stage than mine. This person was a tremendous resource because she had insight into a business that was 18 months further down the road from mine. That’s just one area where a virtual assistant can really start to add value, because they’re bringing in outside knowledge and they’re exposing you to ideas or suggestions that you wouldn’t have got on your own.

You need to think about what you’re ready to turn over right now. You need to be both physically ready and emotionally ready to outsource. If you’re someone who in the past has tried to outsource and has experienced a big disappointment or has been let down, then understandably you’re going to be cautious about outsourcing again. You’re going to want to ease back into it gently, to build your confidence back up.

What you need to do is write out an initial job description or scope for the work you want done. Be specific about what results you want. You want this to be outcome oriented. You want to think about what you want done and in what timeframe. Start to think about the skill sets this person is going to need, and whether it’s reasonable to find these skills in just one person or if you’re going to need a team.

And while I don’t know where you are with your particular business, I still say that it’s never too soon to start outsourcing.

And the fact is that you’re already outsourcing lots of things. You’re outsourcing the legal aspects of your job. You’re outsourcing your website hosting. So, to be correct, the question is really about how much more you should be outsourcing.

Don’t you want to be able to go to sleep knowing that the magic elves will come in during the night and take care of your work for you?

Go For The Lucrative Deals

Bernadette — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:00:28 +0000

In your quest for a million dollars, would you rather get:

A) get $10 from 100,000 clients,

B) $100,000 from 10 clients, or

C) $1,000,000 from 1 client?

If you’ve chosen option C, one single transaction, congratulations for having great business sense. But for the sake of practicality, let’s use the first two choices for a model of quantity versus quality.

You know that no single person can provide a service that’s perfect for every potential customer. To further that sentiment, I’d like to suggest that no person can serve 100,000 customers as well as they can serve 10 customers.

It’s simple math that results in the same $1,000,000 answer for both options A and B, but you, the business owner, benefit most from choice B.

It’s no secret that valuable time is squandered when you have to exhaust yourself chasing a large number of clients. Wouldn’t it be magnificent to be able to sit, give your attention to a few clients, and make the same, or more, money?

Consider the chain of benefits: More focus on individual clients leads to better results for those few clients; those clients will offer better testimonials; and those satisfaction ratings will attract more high paying, high quality clients. This a circular effect of good business.

Of course, your next question is, “How?”

Scoring those lucrative client relationships starts where all good business does – in the early planning stages, even before lead generation.

Think big before you attract clients. You can’t skip this step, because if you do, you’ll end up attracting small-fry clients, and when you present them with the top-quality, top-priced program, you’ll fall flat.

Here’s an example to explain: you’re selling a top-notch software program targeted at high-end, complicated tax processing. If you market to general accountants, you might be netting prospects that do anything from A-B-C accounting services to intricate, full time gigs with top corporations. There’s no doubt that you’ll strike out with the majority of your audience. Accountants that make their living on Joe Smith’s bread-and-butter will have no interest in a high-end product like yours. Instead, back up and find a creative way to market to only those accountants serving the best-of-the-best, super-corporations. They will be willing to pay what you’re asking. They’ve been around for long enough to see the value in it, and are successful enough to be able to pay for it.

When asking for the big bucks, keep these things in mind:

• Before you bring people to your website, before you send out your newsletter, consider the caliber of your product or service, and match it to the caliber of client that would be most likely to spend the kind of money you’re asking for. Do the research required to find these people, rather than spending time generating dead-end leads.

• Consider your prospects’ mindsets. Do they have cheeseburger budgets and milkshake level businesses? Or do they have filet mignon budgets and crème-brulee-level companies? Which would you rather have? Know that fast food customers won’t have the money, or the taste, for expensive steaks.

• Don’t make quality an afterthought, or you’ll have attracted prospects in vain. Aim high, and your prospects won’t bat an eye at your price revelations.

Don’t assume that high paying clients are high maintenance. Often, they’re more understanding and less demanding. They have the experience that it takes to understand the ins and outs of the business world. They understand your challenges, and are more likely to allow you the freedom to run with your expertise.

Low-paying clients are often new to the business world, and may either indirectly (or directly) look to you for advice beyond the scope of your work, or spend too much time highlighting insignificant details.

Don’t be intimidated by the lucrative account. Be drawn to it. Recognize it for the gold mine that it is – and for the quality that it can create for your business.