Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Be a successful business in 2020

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How to Be a successful business in 2020 · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff, Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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  Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
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  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Emerson.
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  Hi.
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  This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, and I'm so excited to be with you today to talk
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  about how you can be a successful business in 2020.
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  Now this is really, really important because it at the end of the day, it comes down to how are
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  you using technology?
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  How is your team Do you know who your customer is and how is the money working in your
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  business?
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  But I'm gonna break this down way more specifically, but It really comes down to those
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  4 or 5 things.
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  And I really want you to think about this because it's your time to shine.
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  You've you've the top of the year it's time to get busy.
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  You wanna be able to relax in December unless, of course, you're a retail or e commerce
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  business.
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  So if you plan your business right from the beginning, it will help you all year long.
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  So what I wanna talk to you about today is 6 specific steps.
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  First of all, I want you to identify your customer.
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  I want you to get as specific as you possibly can about who your customer is.
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  And then I want you to figure out where that customer spends time online because At the end
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  of the day, your your relationship starts online, and then you get on the phone, or then
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  you get them, you know, on your email list and start nurturing that relationship.
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  But it starts with Who are they?
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  You've gotta be really, really clear about the customer that you serve.
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  Then I want you to get visible to that customer demonstrating your expertise.
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  So the, you know, step 2 is visibility.
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  Really, really, really, really important.
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  I want you to demonstrate your expertise.
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  Well, how are you gonna do that?
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  Are you gonna write blog posts?
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  Are you gonna do videos?
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  Are you gonna create a podcast?
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  What are you going to do to make sure that your customer knows who you are relies on you and is
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  able to know that you are their best solution.
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  How are you gonna demonstrate that?
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  I mean, let's face it guys.
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  Video is converting better than anything else.
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  But if you're gonna do video, keep it short.
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  I mean, national companies sell things to you in 30 seconds.
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  Why do you need 10 minutes?
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  You wanna make sure that if you are gonna be doing video, 2 minutes or less, guys, you know,
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  hit it and quit it.
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  One minute, if you're really good, but you wanna be able to entertain, enlighten, and
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  expose.
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  And draw your customer to you.
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  You don't wanna be selling.
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  You wanna be educating and so that they come to you for more information and that they become
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  somebody who's dying to work with you.
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  So you don't want to leave money on the table because you start trying to sell.
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  What you wanna do educate and inform and draw that customer to you and have them try to
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  figure out how can I do business with you?
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  What can you sell me?
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  That's what you that's the conversation you wanna have.
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  And when you do that over and over again and you do that in multiple spaces, you build
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  credibility.
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  Right?
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  So it's identify the customer, get visible to that customer, and then build credibility with
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  that customer.
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  Well, How do you build credibility small business lady?
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  Well, I will tell you.
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  You build credibility by showing up consistently with quality content.
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  And there's no two ways about it.
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  You can't just connect to people.
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  You have to communicate, and you have to create an emotional connection by having them know
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  that you empathize with them, that you know what they're going through, that you understand
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  where they are, what their struggles are, And the other thing you've gotta do is figure out
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  your value proposition and and and then and what you're gonna communicate about your
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  expertise.
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  And that is how you sort of like add value.
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  And and these days, it's all about ROI.
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  And if you can't show the ROI for them working with you, you're probably not gonna be able to
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  justify the budget to work with you.
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  So it is really, really, really, really important that you get focused on your value
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  proposition and your ROI because they are different.
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  Right?
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  Your value is what are you doing above and beyond the basic stuff?
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  But your ROI is ultimately what are they gonna get out of it?
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  Are they gonna get sales?
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  Are they gonna get a customer list?
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  Are they gonna, you know, stop the rash that's on their foot?
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  Whatever it is, You've gotta figure out how you're going to add value and then what their
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  ROI is gonna be for picking you as their partner.
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  You don't want them to hire you.
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  You want them to partner with you, and you only do that if you position yourself the right way
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  to build that kind of relationship.
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  So now you've identified your customer.
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  You've gotten invisible to that customer.
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  You've built credibility because now you've demonstrated your your value proposition, your
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  ROI.
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  Now it's time for your sales process.
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  How does your sales process formally pick up from social media or your your initial
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  contract?
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  What is your sales process?
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  Do you have a sales process.
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  If you don't, listen, that's the thing you gotta work on because sales is the gas that
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  runs your business.
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  It is what you put in the tank so you can go.
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  And so you wanna make sure that you have an organized sales process and that you have time
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  set aside in your schedule to work on sales every day or at least 1 day a week all day.
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  That's all you do.
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  So either you do an hour or 2 a day or you pick 1 day and you work it hard for 8 hours.
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  I don't care what you do, but you have got to work on sales every day.
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  Every every week, at least.
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  And you've gotta figure out how you're gonna make time for it.
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  You need 8 to 10 hours a week to do it.
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  So you gotta figure out.
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  Is it 2 hours a day?
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  Is it 1 day a week?
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  What is it?
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  How are you gonna do that?
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  And then how are you gonna drive leads and then how are you gonna follow-up on those leads and,
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  you know, qualify them and get them down to, you know, are you gonna use webinars to attract
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  leads?
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  Then what's gonna be your follow-up after your webinar?
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  Are you gonna make an offer during your webinar?
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  How are you gonna follow-up for the people that maybe register for your webinar but didn't
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  come?
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  All that kind of stuff.
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  How are you going to build your sales process?
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  Extremely important.
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  And then after you make a sale, How are you gonna follow-up?
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  Who owns the relationship after you make a sale?
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  After you make a delivery, are you sending out an email to get a you know, within 7 days of a
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  sale to find out how you did.
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  If they liked it, would they recommend you?
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  Are you asking them to give you a review?
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  All of these things are really important because you wanna turn your happy customers
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  into an unpaid Salesforce for your business.
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  And the only way to do that is to ask for their help.
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  You know, if they liked it, they'll tell you.
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  And if they didn't like it, they'll tell you.
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  Either way, you need to use customer seed feedback as honestly as a report card for your
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  business.
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  So you wanna make sure that you're touching your customer because somebody who's already
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  done business with with you is far more likely to do business with you.
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  Again, if they had a good experience or if they had a bad experience and you made a good form
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  after the fact, They'll tell people about it.
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  But if you don't follow-up with customers, you let somebody have a bad experience and walk
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  away.
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  You don't know Then the next time you find out, you got egg on your face.
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  You don't want that.
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  So you wanna make sure that you're getting cost of feedback that you're making calls.
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  You're sending emails to follow-up You wanna make sure that you know what your customer
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  needs and that you know how your customer feels about you.
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  Because if you know that, you can fix it.
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  Right?
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  Things that get measured.
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  Can get, you know, improved.
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  And that's what you want.
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  So you really need to take the time to think through your sales process, specifically how
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  you're gonna get leads how you're gonna qualify leads and how you're gonna follow-up on sales
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  after they they, you know, become a sale.
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  And so within your sales process, You've gotta figure out how are you gonna track and measure
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  conversions.
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  It's not just, you know, how many people can you get on your email many people can you get
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  in your sales funnel?
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  How many people you're closing?
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  Do you know your close ratios?
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  Right?
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  So this is really about what you're looking at, what you're measuring in your business.
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  All these things are important.
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  And then you've gotta think about other things you can do to attract sales leads.
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  And that's that's optimization.
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  That's searching to optimization.
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  That's making sure your profile pages on social media are optimized for people to to hire you.
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  You wanna make sure that you're using the right words to talk about your products and services
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  You wanna make sure that you're doing everything you can so that traffic's coming to
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  you while you're sleeping.
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  You wanna make sure that you know, people are finding you when they're searching for stuff.
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  So you just wanna make sure that everything that you're doing is optimized.
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  So when you're reaching out to customers, when you are trying to get visible to customers,
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  what keywords are you using, what hashtags are you using, How are you following conversations
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  that other people are having?
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  What are you doing to make sure that you are optimizing all of the things you're doing?
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  So that you can maximize your results.
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  If you can figure this out, you will win in 2020.
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  I promise you that.
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  The other thing you wanna do is make sure you're on top of your technology.
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  What is it that you can stop doing that you can leverage an app for?
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  You know, make sure as your business owner that you're tracking all of your core activities so
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  that you can look at what it is you can stop doing leverage some software outsource so that
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  you can focus on your most high valued activities.
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  And ladies and gentlemen, high valued activities are sales act activities because you
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  can generate a sale to pay for everything else that goes on in your business.
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  So you wanna make sure that you are focusing on what you shouldn't be doing as much as your
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  focus on what you should be doing so that you can outsource it Find an app for it, automate
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  it.
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  A lot of marketing can be automated.
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  A lot of invoicing and following up with collection kind of stuff That can be automated
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  too.
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  You just wanna make sure that you are taking care of your core things so that you, you know,
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  you should not be entering your own data in QuickBooks.
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  That is something you can pay for, especially if your time is billable at $200 an hour, why
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  would you be spending it doing $30 an hour work?
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  That doesn't make sense.
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  So you wanna make sure that you're leveraging technology.
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  So who's your customer, how to get visible to that customer, how to build credibility, how to
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  clean up your sales process, Make sure you have a sales process.
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  Start to finish.
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  Make sure your sales process includes tracking conversions.
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  Really, really important.
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  And the most important thing is optimize optimize optimize.
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  Make sure everything you're doing is using the right words, using the same words so that you
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  can track how you are engaging people on all levels and that you're pulling people to you.
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  That's what search engine optimization is all about.
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  It's about using the right words consistently at the right time to drive traffic to you.
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  If you can drive the traffic to you, all you gotta do is close them, but closing them is not
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  a small thing either.
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  So make sure that you're thinking through all of the ways that you are engaging and touching
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  customers, following up with customers, how are you leveraging email, What is your website
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  doing?
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  Is your website ready for company?
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  Does it load faster on mobile device?
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  These are all things that you wanna think about because We live in a mobile first world, and
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  that is only gonna become more the case this year in 2020.
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  So you wanna make sure that you are ready to do business, that you your customers can find you.
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  And when they do, You have a great offer for them, and they know what you have to offer.
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  So with that, I'm gonna leave you with my takeaways.
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  So number 1, identify your customer.
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  Number 2, get visible to that customer with great content.
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  Number 3, build your credibility by positioning your yourself as a resource, knowing what your
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  value proposition and your ROI is, making sure you communicate that, Number 4, clean up your
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  sales process.
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  Make sure you have lead gen, lead follow-up, make the sale, follow-up after the sale.
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  Make sure you have all those things organized in your business.
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  And conversion conversion conversion.
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  It's really important.
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  It's not enough to have great traffic.
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  If your traffic isn't buying, make sure you have enough triggers to convert people to
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  customers.
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  And don't forget search engine optimization.
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  It is important.
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  You need to make sure you're using the right words on all your social profiles and on your
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  static web pages so that people can find you.
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  And when they do, make sure they find the offer that they need.
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  Alright.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
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  Happy New Year, everybody.
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  Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.