One of the things I arranged is to have a few tables in the break-out area for all the attendees to put their networking material. Business cards, flyers, gifts, JV advertisements etc. A lot of events don’t allow attendees to promote their businesses and give out promotional material so if you find an organiser who is happy for you to do this, or even better, actively support you to do this, then make the most of it.

Live events is one of the best places to build your business through relationships but I find most people don’t know how to do this. So I made this short video for you while I was at The Grace.

Find out why live events are so important and the 4 types of relationships you can make at events, and how to prepare.

Hope you can join us at The 4th Dimension Mastery Workshop. If you’ve been leaving it to the last minute to grab the final 8 places don’t delay. The payment plan option closed on July 31st at midnight.

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Slow down and take a little time to research. As well as looking at numbers, such as how many people are searching on your topic in Google, you want to try and get inside your customer’s head. You want to know what they think about and talk about on your topic. What are their biggest frustrations?

Here is a 3 minute video I have made for you to show you a really quick way to find your target market and eaves drop on their conversations.

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

If you could learn the rope of how to work smart by creating and using
systems in your business from 8 of today’s most successful female entrepreneurs for FREE, would you be interested?

Yes? Well then this project that I have to tell you about is really going to get your heart
started! I have joined 7 other women online entrepreneurs in an amazing collaboration where we share tips, techniques and advice on how to work smarter in your business. We’Ave joined forces and we are on a mission to help women entrepreneurs get more time, more life and more money by creating and using systems. It’s our intention to share the message, and of course a little “secret or two” about how you can work smarter to create the business of your dreams!

Check Out This Great Launch Here

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Keywords are King

Both Google and Youtube use keywords as the basis for rankings. The keywords you use in the description, title and tags of your videos are what both search engines (yes YouTube is a search engine too) use to give results when people are searching for information.

What Keywords to Target

Here is a quick way to choose keywords.

1. Brainstorm possible keywords first for your niche
2. Search on YouTube for videos on those topics
3. Look at the tags the most popular videos in that niche have used. This will give you even more ideas
4. Go to Google Keywords tool and check out how many people search on these keywords and what the competition is.
5. Choose the most promising and use this to list your video.

Pam commented that she finds it easier to get rankings for a keywords that already has some competition than try and get ranked for keywords that aren’t already used yet. (surprising eh?)

What to Do With The Keywords

When you add your video to YouTube, add your keywords to the following:

1. The title of your video
2. The description of the video
3. The tags of the video.

How To Piggy Back on Someone Else’s Success

Pam shared a technique that is a bit like getting links from other high ranking sites back to your site, except in YouTube Land.
Link your videos to other high ranking videos on YouTube that use your chosen keyword.
Here’s how you do it:

1. Find other videos on Youtube that have ranked well using your keywords.
2. Make sure your video does not directly compete (on subject matter) with the high ranking video you have found
3. Make a video comment on this high ranking video
4. To do this, click in the comments box below the video, then click on the link to the right of the comment box that says “attach video”
5. Then choose to either make a new video, upload one, or bets, just attach one of your existing ones you are hoping to rank highly for that keyword.
6. Done!
7. Now when people are looking for videos on their search term they will find your video directly under the high ranking video and hopefully click through to see yours.
8. Clever eh?

These are just a few of the tips Pam shared. Do you have other tips that work? Love you to share them below here.

You can hear the entire interview with Pam when you join Wonderful Web Women as a gold member. In fact you’ll get access to every interview I have done for Wonderful Web Women. That’s an incredible resource library!

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Hey, if you’re thinking “I’ll wait until I’ve achieved something huge first” then please know…I (and my followers) are inspired by people who have taken any action, no matter how small you see it. So let me hold you up high now, not later

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

But I love working closely with people and seeing them go from frustrated to clear on their direction, taking action and making money. I hate turning people back and so have the challenge of creating a system that allows me to help more people in a more leveraged way.

As with everything I do, I hope by sharing my research and thoughts it will help you make decisions in your business too.

You may have a similar situation or you will have in the future. If your business is to grow you need to find as many ways to help as many people as possible…with as little of your resources as possible. There are many models that work and are used by many people though I can’t help but wonder if the effectiveness of some models is decreasing. It is too easy to look at others and think “well it works for them, I’ll use the same model” when your target market may be looking for something slightly different. My question to you is..are there better ways?

Some Models & Who They Suit

Group Teleseminar  and / or video coaching programs

These are great for both parties (you and the client) and really allow you to leverage yourself. These seem best if you are teaching a step-by-step system with a definite end.

The disadvantage, is people may not move at the same pace as the program. If they get stuck on one step they may get left behind.

A thought? Is this an effective way to learn for you and as the business owner, do you like this model?

Business in a box

This can even be a way you leverage the recordings of your group teleseminars. Every thing is prepared step-by-step and is delivered to the customer to work through at their own pace.

The disadvantage is again, if people get stuck and have no-one to talk to they may not take action.

A thought? Is this an effective way to learn for you and as the business owner, do you like this model?

Year long group coaching

This is often the basis of a “Platinum” program. The customer has a weekly or monthly class, another Q and A call and you move at a slower pace. Often these are supplemented with a physical workshop or retreat.

The advantage is people know they have you for a longer period of time

but if they are an action taker, the pace may be too slow for them. You are also tied into a program for a longer period.

A thought? Is this an effective way to learn for you and as the business owner, do you like this model?

“Platinum Groups”

Often this is combined with the year long tele-class support. People also get to come along to 3 or 4 weekend workshops, perhaps with an extra day for hotseats and brainstorming.

This has the advantage that customers can form relationships with others in the group and help each other.

Disadvantage: It is a greater time commitment for you and for the customer and usually more expensive.

A thought? Is this an effective way to learn for you and as the business owner, do you like this model?

Mastermind groups

We already help our customers form peer mastermind groups and they are incredibly effective. Another way to help a lot of people is to have guided mastermind groups. These could be via phone or actually meet in person. For these to be effective the groups need to be small (I would not want more than 15 in a room to do this). On the phone 6 to 10.

Advantages: Collective wisdom and people get feedback on their ideas

Disadvantages: Open structure means people still need support to action what they get inspired to do. Smaller groups means the price is higher per participant to make it worth your while.

A thought? Is this an effective way to learn for you and as the business owner, do you like this model?

New Ideas

The more I have been thinking about models that work the more I wonder if new models are needed. For example:

Step-by-step courses with assessment tests at each stage so you can’t move forward until you’ve completed a step.

The bare basics - do this and trust me it will work, with detailed stuff you can go to if you want to (for those who never read the novel at school, instead bought the study guide)

Week long retreats with pampering for your soul as well as business building strategies

Collective projects so you learn while creating joint products

Twitter mentoring - all questions answered via twitter or perhaps through facebook groups

Weekly classes sent direct to your iphone or sms with an action for the week

Accountability and mindset coaches to keep you on track when you stray.

What Works For You?

I’m curious about models you have experienced, what you liked about them and what you didn’t like. Have you experimented with different models as a business owner? If we share our ideas here we can all benefit from hearing what works for everyone else and hopefully create some innovative ideas.

After all you don’t want your customers to be comparing apples with apples. You need to be an orange to stand out, while building on top of what already works for the apples.

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Illustration by Michael Vittitow

Last night I submitted my application for the Telstra Business Women’s Awards with 9 minutes to spare. OK so I was nominated by the gorgeous Lenore Miller weeks ago but “diamonds are made under pressure” you know! As the dust settled from my screeching dash over the finish line I thought about why I left it to the last minute and the lessons I can share with you from this.

Entering Awards Challenges Your Self  Belief

What goes through your mind at the thought of entering an award? Especially a business award?

In theory you see it as an opportunity and you consciously visualise yourself walking up the stage on presentation night and accepting your winner’s trophy. There is an aura of success around you………….

Reality Check

Self doubt raises it’s ugly head. There are so many amazing people out there, how could you possibly win? You really should wait until next year or the year after or in 5 years time when you are sure you will be so much more competitive.

Admit it. Why bother?

Another Reality Check

The reality is, you will always be aiming for something more. It’s the nature of entrepreneurs to always see what is possible. I was nominated a few years ago for this same award and thought “I’ll wait until my business reaches 6 figures”. The following year I was nominated again and thought “I’ll wait until my business is mid six figures”. This year I thought “I’ll wait until my business reaches 7 figures”.

When is enough good enough? Do you postpone opportunities until you get things perfect?

The Ultimate Reality Check

Opportunities will not wait for you to take action. They’ll be taken by the person who believes in themselves enough to act.

That’s why I submitted my application with 9 minutes to spare.

That’s also why I entered the MCEI Women in Business awards last year, and sent in my application at the very, very last minute. I knew there were some amazing people entering but also knew that if I didn’t demonstrate belief in myself, then how can I expect others to believe in me too?

I won the MCEI award and then to my absolute shock, went on to win the overall prize of Australian Marketer of The Year!

My Challenge To You

I want you to be brutally honest with yourself. What opportunities are you ignoring because you have not achieved what you think  you MUST achieve before you can hold your head high?

Now write a list of all the achievements you have made, no matter how small they seem. Keep that list close by so you can refer back to it in times of self-doubt. To get you thinking, here’s an exercise my family and I do at the end of each year and hang in our living room to remind us.

Celebrate those achievements. You can see a clever way to make sure you celebrate in this short video I shared a while ago.

Ready? Now go get ‘em!

Janet

P.S. Over the rest of the week I’ll share some of the questions and answers from my application to give you an idea of what is involved and also what makes me tick. If you join my rss feed (top right) you’ll get notified when I add any new posts here.

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Janet & Douglas, Photo by Anya Klay

This week I got a great email from one of our members that made me laugh, and then think seriously. Cath Resnick has booked to join us at The 4th Dimension Workshop in Sydney on 6th to 8th of August. In her email Cath said “I still have to get the final OK from hubby – but he seems pretty OK about it BECAUSE IT IS YOU! (Is convincing hubby the 5th Dimension?).

I laughed out loud at her 5th Dimension joke but you know what? Whether you are male or female and whether your life partner is male or female, we all have the same problem. How do you get the support, or the “buy in” from your significant other?

Getting your partner’s support could be for coming to our workshop (or any workshop for that matter), buying an education program, starting a business, spending the money on your first domain name or getting that new pair of shoes.

It doesn’t even have to involve spending money as time is just as important.

How do you convince your partner that the late nights you spend learning how to set up your online business are a good investment of your time, and their loss of your attention?

I often am told “You are so lucky to have the support of your husband” and I know I am. But you know what?

Like anything, getting support for your dreams is just like making a sale. You need to know how to make the sale and how to keep the sale. This counts for every thing in your life.

So, If getting support from your partner for your goals is just like a sale, let’s look at the tried and tested formula for a sales letter, sales audio and videos. Like any genuine sale, it is not manipulation or deception. A genuine sale provides all the information a person needs to be able to decide if they want to “buy in” and the environment to make the decision without stress.

7 Steps To Sell Your Partner On Your Dreams

Welcome the viewer: In the case of talking to your partner about something as important as their support of your dreams, create a welcoming environment. Don’t try and discuss this in the middle of getting dinner ready. Grab a cuppa / bubbles and sit down.

Establish Credibility: In this case you will be establishing how serious you are about your dream or goal. This will show them this is not just another fad that is not worth spending time on.

Use a hook or cliff hanger: This keeps the viewer wanting to stay to the end. Everyone, yep even people who love you, will be thinking deep down “What’s in it for me?”. Let them know that you’ll tell them at the end, something that will make it all worth while for them.

Share Your Story: In sales, this is so people can relate to you. This is because people like to do business with people they like and relate to.  Hopefully, with your partner, you have a bit of that groundwork covered. This is the place to share your passions. Why you are so passionate about this and go into a bit more depth on what ground work you have already done.

Paint the Problem: Remember, this is a sale so we’re not talking about YOUR frustrations and problems. We’re talking about them. So this may be they are living with someone who is frustrated, or they are tied to a nine-to-five job and would love to have more freedom. You may have children one of you wants to be home with. Think about why YOU have this dream and it may also be a similar motive for your partner.

Provide The Solution: In a sales letter, audio, video this is the main body. So it works similar for your sales pitch here. This is where you want to lay down some facts and case studies. Examples of what has worked for others and why you think it may work for you.

This is also the place to deliver  on your promise you alluded to in your hook.

To know what promise will work best (equivalent to your offer in a sales pitch) you need to know what their biggest fears are and the biggest benefit. You need to think long term and short term here. So long term it may be lifestyle freedom but in the short term, you will need some other offers.

For example, if their biggest fear is the time it will take you, I suggest you negotiate the amount of time you will spend on your venture, balanced with time with them and family (this is a good discipline for yourself as well).

If their fear is money, you can assign a budget together. You can point them to the number of free resources you can access to learn how to build your business.

If their concern is time AND money, then you can present information on mentors that will save you both time and money in the long run.

HINT: You can also have some fun here. I’ll leave it to your imagination

Call To Action: You don’t want to spend all this time and action, moving towards a sale and not close the deal. In sales it is “fill in your email” or “click here to buy”. With your partner it may be:

• Let’s work out a time table together of times I will devote to my new venture, and time balancing my life with yours, or
• Let’s agree now if I have your support to book a workshop, invest in a program, take a sabbatical from my work, or
• Lets agree now that you will not undermine me with doubting language (if this has been a problem) and instead you will re-frame your language to be one of support.

A Word of Warning on Crafting Your Message

I made this mistake myself and I have seen many people (both men and women) make exactly the same mistake.

You cannot expect your partner to have the same dreams as you. In your ideal world, you and your partner will be inspired by the same passion and both strive towards the same goal. They too, will want to be at the same events, working late at night to learn how to master Internet marketing and be fascinated by SEO and Opt-in rates.

Don’t aim for this. It is unfair to expect your partner to get sucked into your jet-stream just because you want them to. The sale you are after is their support. You want them to encourage you, not undermine you.

Anything that comes later, is a true bonus and you know that it comes from genuine personal interest rather than just kindness. In many cases, your partner can get involved doing things that you do not have a natural ability for, and they have the satisfaction of doing something practical to help you achieve your dream.

After all, in my books, a great relationship is one that helps each partner be the best they can be. It works both ways. Your partner may have hidden dreams as well and will appreciate your support. You may be surprised at the common ground your different dreams may have after you work through this process.

I’d love to know what you think. I’m sure for some people, the thought of approaching their partner in this way is horrifying. For others, I know it can change your life. Love to know what you think.

Cheers

Janet

P.S. If you are coming to The 4th Dimension Mastery Workshop you will have the chance to meet Douglas The Wonderful Web Man. He works full-time as an ecologist, because his passion is conservation, but as you’ll see, he is also very much a part of the success of  our company, Niche Partners.

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Caring By Evelyn, Age 6. From www.52Virtues.com . Our "Giving Back" project

Now your customers and potential customers actively interact with each other on-line. They expect to interact with you and your brand as part of a community or tribe.
It started a few years ago with blogs. People could leave comments and start to have a say on the Internet, rather than just be passive readers of information. Then it was forums which meant they could start their own conversations.

Then came Facebook, My Space, Twitter, You Tube, Linked In……..there has been an explosion of ways people interact on the Internet and the old ways (last year) of doing business on the Internet are out the door.

It is a fundamental human need to belong. To find a group, a community/ a tribe to interact with and this is happening at a rapid pace on line. People are making buying decisions online based on peer recommendation and what they hear via social networks. Do you like what they are saying about you?

Here are 7 tips to help you tap into the Tribal Age of The Internet

This is just a taste of what you will learn if you join me in The 4th Dimension Workshop.

1. Listen To The Song in Your Heart

Social media allows your customers to get to know you on a much more personal level that in the past. They can tell if you do not truly and passionately believe in what you do and say. Spend the time to clarify for yourself first..What do you really value?
2. Know what a business really is

At it’s most basic, a business exists because you solve people’s problems. If you can provide solutions to these problems that people are willing to pay for, then you have a business. It really is that simple, yet so many people can’t tell you what problems they solve. What problems do you solve?
3. Understand whose problems you solve 

Don’t rush this. You need to really understand how your ideal customer thinks, who they are and what their problems are. Take the time to get inside their head. Before I started Wonderful Web Women I spent months talking with my target market. And where did I find them? In the queue in the Women’s Loos at Internet marketing Events! Now you can do it easier. You can find them on Facebook groups, blogs and forums.
4. Get to Know Who Already Solves Your Customers’ Problems

I grew my business very fast through the power of Joint Ventures. At it’s simplest, this means finding people who already solve problems your ideal client has. So think. What other problems does my customer have and who is already successful at helping them? I specialize in helping my closest clients form Jont Ventures with experts.

5. Create a Tribal Platform

To really harness the power of The Tribe they need a place to communicate with you and with others in your community. Importantly, you need a place to call home so you can invite them back to your place, after you’ve met in places such as Facebook, Twitter etc. The Hub of your platform is your blog. This is how they get to know what you really think. Even if you don’t have a business yet, start a blog and start writing what you think. At least it will help you define the very first step I mentioned “Listen to the song in your heart”
6. Challenge Your Customers

We are in the Tribal Age of the Internet and people need opportunities to demonstrate they are part of a tribe. A fun and simple way to do this is to provide opportunities for your customers to take actions to reach their goals, with a challenge to do it publicly. Sort of like a double-dare-you to do this. At it’s simplest, ask your friends on Facebook to define their biggest goals / ideal customer / submit a photo or video. They have a time limit and it must be “all about them”.
7. Plan To Change Lives

 If you are creating a business around your passions you have the capacity to change lives. Even one person at a time. So ask yourself this question in every marketing step you take. Can I change this slightly so that people can benefit simply by being exposed to the way I do business? I teach a test I call the 4th Win Test. It is very simple but incredibly powerful and is based on that one question.

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

This is a simple exercise you can do but also very powerful. This is something I have done in my own business and can vouch for how focused it helps you be.

Ready?

The first step is to write down 2 things:

1. Your income goals per year (and break it down then to month and week)

2. Your lifestyle goal (work from home, network, have an office, work one-on-one for eg?)

Now for the 2nd step:

List your sources of income. For example, do you sell memberships at $40 per month or work with clients at $200 per hour, sell e-books for $20 each, exchange service for money at $40 per hour.

The final step:

Now work out how many of your product or service you need to sell per week or month to achieve your income goals.

Reality Check

Now it’s time to assess if this is possible.

Here’s an example:

If you have a goal to earn $300,000 per year and your only product is a membership site earning $50 per month, you will need to sell at least 500 memberships. Now take into account costs, taxes etc you’re probably looking closer to 800 members every month. Can you do this?

If you have no list of customers yet can you sell (and retain) 800 memberships or will you need to supplement your income with other products and services first?

Can you see how powerful this is?

Assess Where Your Business is Now

Debbie has a great free tool you can use to assess how well your business suits your goals. It only takes a few minutes to do and is quite insightful.

You can do it here. I’d love you to come back and share what your results are and what insights it gives you.

To get the ball rolling, I’ll share with my results with you.

I scored a 79% for how well my business suited me. The feedback I got was there are only a few tweaks / changes I should make to get it over the magical 81% which means it fits me like a glove. Interestingly, I’ve been identifying areas of growth in my business the last month and have already started to make changes to move me close to my goals.

How about you? Can you see a need for a total makeover or changes in how your business meets your lifestyle as well as financial goals?

Debbie has also made a very generous offer for my community (that includes you). After you have done the free Online Business Assessment you can apply to have a strategy session with Debbie. She only allocates a few per month so hope you get in.

And if you’d like to listen to the interview, it is available for 72 hours, when you register for free here. (gold members of Wonderful Web Women have lifetime access).

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Get a bonus copy of
"Take the Guesswork Out of Your Business
Download Now

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites