By SDB

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented a machine that allowed the rapid reproduction of pages. It was called the printing press.

A single printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday.

Hand copying a page could only produce about 6.

In this article we discuss the awesome power of automation, and why this mindset is absolutely essential for the success of your business.

Automation

Automation is the process of creating tools and systems that augment (usually dramatically) a person’s productivity.

Automating Your Business

As noted by the productivity increase experienced by Gutenberg, automation can do wonders to a business. Because of this, one of the most important mental filters you can and should apply to every step of your business is “How can I automate this?”

Usually the biggest opportunity for your business’s growth will be in areas you haven’t thought to automate yet.

Here are a few business life cycles. If you are familiar with them, think if there is an opportunity for you to automate your system:

Customer Life Cycle:
Capture Leads > Nurture Leads > Sell Product > Nurture Customer > Up Sell

Product Development Life Cycle:
Market Research > Product Ideation > Product Refinement > Final Product

And don’t forget any of the processes you use for your marketing, supply chain, operations, or any other business life cycle.

An equally important question you should be asking is this: “Has someone else automated this already?” It’s another way of saying: don’t reinvent the wheel. Automating a process can potentially be time consuming and expensive, and you can save yourself that time and expense by simply checking.

Balancing the Cost Ratio of Automation

There are occasions when it is not cost effective to automate a process. This is when you don’t expect to repeat a process more than a few times.

If this is the case, then don’t automate. Otherwise, find out if a tool already exists, or create your own.

Stay Tuned…

Automation is one of Start Doing Business’s 3 Keys to Success. A lot of our upcoming articles will discuss specific ways you can automate your business.

Was this article helpful to you? Questions?
Post your thoughts in the comments below!

The post Management The Power of Automation appeared first on StartDoingBusiness.com.

By SDB

Launch your Website Fast

The internet is the world’s new market place. How is your online presence?

In today’s fast paced and heavily targeted industry, competing online is becoming more and more critical.

The internet is also today’s landmine for amassing fortunes. Individuals, small companies, and large companies, all experience huge returns on investments due solely to their online presence.

More so than ever, it is important to create a strong online presence fast, and affordably.

In this article we showcase Elegant Themes, our choice for professional, quality, and very much affordable website templates.

Why You Should Use Elegant Themes

•  It’s WordPress – WordPress gives you content management for free, not to mention thousands of easy installation plugins.
• It’s Professional – as the name suggests, Elegant Themes makes a point of producing quality designed sites.
• They are the most affordable out there – This is where Elegant Themes really shines. There are plenty of other theme sites on the internet, all offering really nice and high quality themes, however Elegant Themes dominates the price for your dollar game. For the price of one quality theme ($40) you gain access to all of Elegant Themes’ 70 themes.

We really found that last point hard to compete against. However if you still aren’t able to find a theme that fits your needs, we recommend ThemeForest.net next. ThemeForest is the leading marketplace for website themes, including more than just wordpress.

If you still can’t find a theme you are looking for, your next best option is to hire a designer to build it for you. This will be the most expensive option. A good custom wordpress site sales for about $3k in today’s fair market. Even considering the time it would take to pay a designer minimum wage to produce a website as robust as just one of the Elegant Theme themes shows the amazing value offered by this company.

Launching Your Site

How would you like to have your wordpress theme set up, hosted, ready to go, with no hassle to you?

Here at Start Doing Business we have done this process dozens of times.

If you’d like us to do this for you, let us know.
Just use the Business Consulting form on the right.

Here is the link to Elegant Themes, we invite you to browse their collection of themes. Start Doing Business is an affiliate of Elegant Themes, so we will get paid on your purchase. We always recommend products that we personally use and we feel are good business decisions.

The post Launch a Website Fast and Affordably | Elegant Themes appeared first on StartDoingBusiness.com.

By SDB

You are likely familiar with King Midas from Greek mythology. According to the myth, Midas gained the ability to turn everything he touched into gold. He became extremely wealthy as a result, but also to the detriment of his friends and family. In this article, I will show you how you can adopt the Midas Touch Mentality and its role in building wealth, and also how to strike the correct balance in pursuing wealth and maintaining the important relationships with family and loved ones.

What Is The Midas Touch Mentality?

The Midas Touch Mentality is a term I created to describe the attitude of capitalizing on everything you do.

Another term I use to describe the same thing is “Monetize my life.”

The idea is to take inventory of all of your day to day activities and find ways to profit from doing them. Here are some examples:

If you are into cooking, keep track of all of your favorite recipes for 3 months. At the end of those 3 months, create a book called “My Favorite Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter Recipes” post this on your blog or Facebook. People will immediately begin to see you as influential even if you don’t initially sell anything. What’s important is that you now have a product that you could sell given the right opportunity.

Are you into fitness? Document your trips to the gym. If you have a weight loss goal document this as well. Before, during, and after pictures that include training and diet is very valuable information to people who have the same goal.

Do you read a lot of books? Start a blog where you give away your notes, summaries, and highlights of the books you read. Make sure you have a way for people to subscribe or to stay in touch through email. An immediate opportunity is to offer an affiliate link of the books you are reading. What’s important is that you have contact with your following so that you can offer a product or opportunity to them later on.

These are just a few examples of the Midas Touch Mentality, and there are many more. The key to successfully adopting the Midas Touch Mentality is to strive for excellence in everything that you do, while documenting it in a way that is presentable to others. Not only will this allow you to excel at everything you do, everything you do will be available and valuable to other people.

Supporting friends and family by adopting the Midas Touch Mentality.

Lastly, according to the myth, Midas tragically lost his loved ones by turning them into gold. Don’t let this happen to you.

If you’ve ever been approached by a friend who is experimenting with a business that makes its true profit through signing up individuals, such as certain MLM’s etc. you probably are aware of the distancing effect this has on relationships. No one likes to feel like another person is pretending to be their friend just to get money out of them. By avoiding businesses that don’t offer true value you avoid ever taking advantage of your friends.

The great thing about friends and family is their ability to be your safety net when life falls apart, and your ability to be theirs, free of charge. You would never want to damage this. The downside is many people who are starting out in business don’t know how to approach their friends and family with products that are no longer “free of charge.”

A great way to maintain the value of a friendship or family relationship while still being able to move forward in business is to offer discounts designed specifically for them. Friends and family discounts are very common and they protect the special relationship and are often a rewarding way to give back to your friends and family while still being able to run a profitable business.

Share Your Success Using The Midas Touch Mentality!

After you’ve applied the Midas Touch Mentality to one of your activities, we’d like to hear about!

Stop letting opportunities pass you by. You’d be surprised at what you can achieve simply by training yourself to adopt the Midas Touch Mentality.

Try it, then come back here and share your successes and results in the comments below!

The post The Midas Touch Mentality appeared first on StartDoingBusiness.com.

I get asked a lot of questions. But, one question is more predominant than most the rest.

How do I get myself OUT of my business so I can work on things that actually make me money. If you’re not asking yourself this question, “What’s the fastest way to ?”, quite frankly, you should be. getting outside your business

If you haven’t read the book,  The E-Myth  read it now! And, if you’ve ever read the book, “The E-Myth, ” you know exactly what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t, I highly recommend you read it (Note: When you buy this through my link, I earn a commission. It’s paltry, but I’m including the link for one main reason: I’m curious to see who likes my book recommendations).

The Key to Getting “Outside” Your Business

To illustrate, let’s use a simple example.  Suppose you own a lawn mowing company.  Every day, you mow lawns with your workers.  You make more money than them, but, you’re working just as hard.

Now, I’m not downplaying the significance of a lawn care business, but, I do think there are ways you can“outsource yourself” from your business.

For example, perhaps you could spend a month or so training a foreman to do the tasks you do yourself.  Then, when the time is right, you could still make the same amount of money, but, you wouldn’t even need to be working IN your business anymore.  You could then start another business, or, devote your time and energy into something that might make you even more money OUTSIDE your current business.

Now, this example is very simple, but, hopefully it gets you thinking about what you’re doing that you probably don’t need to be doing any longer.  It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, the sooner you learn how getting “outside” your business works, the more effective you’ll be.

Does that make sense?

Here’s a quick question I want to ask you:  “What is something you do every day more than once in your business?”

While you think for a minute, here’s a list of a few things I’ve come up with from my own business:

Answer a common, recurring customer question via email, Twitter, or Facebook.

• Bill a Customer
• cancel a Customer’s Subscription
• Conduct a 3-5 part email series newsletter.
• Assign a complex series of tasks to an employee or virtual assistant (VA).
• Answer a common, recurring customer question via email, Twitter, or Facebook.
• INSERT the thing you do most often, more than once, here…

Did you know that all of these things can be automated?

For nearly 2 years, I was also doing these same things countless times.

It became monotonous to answer the same types of emails over and over again.

It was painstaking to assign the same tasks to my employees day in and day out.

And, it wasn’t because I hated my business.  For me, for work to be rewarding, it needs to be engaging, it needs to inspire, and it needs to motivate.

Doing the same things over and over again wasn’t cutting it…

In April of 2012, while attending InfusionCon 2012, I learned a very powerful truism: “Whatever I do more than once can be automated.”

I had been with Infusionsoft for several years prior, but, I had never fully maximized Infusionsoft’s potential.

In fact, I now take that truism even one step further:  “Whatever I do more than once can be automated so that I NEVER have to do that thing again.”

So, the short answer to the question I get asked so often is actually very simple and I’ll put it very bluntly to you:  Stop WASTING your time doing the

same things more than once.

To start, switching over to Infusionsoft may be a bit of a monetary sacrifice for a month or two, but trust me, in the long run, you’ll save countless

hours (And, believe me, if you’re anything like me, you’re time is VERY valuable…I bill over $250 per hour for consulting).  This link will

even get you a free demo with one of Infusionsoft’s best customer sales representatives, Cory Bendixen.  Just let him know that I sent you 

Now, I have elaborate systems of emailing and follow-up with my clients and customers.  The emails are very personal (I wrote every one

of them).  But, they are all scheduled automatically.  In fact, based upon my clients’ reactions to those emails, they receive

the type of information they need to hear.

I have complex systems for measuring customer satisfaction (All done automatically), I have integrated Social Media such as Facebook and

Twitter, and, I have automated systems to turn my loyal customers and clients into raving fans and referral partners.

The amount of goodwill and professionalism these features have added to my companies and the businesses I consult for is easily

measurable and quantifiable.  I’m able to track everything and engage more personally and effectively with each of my valued

clients and customers.

And, let’s not forget the question most likely lingering on your mind:  YES, I have made A LOT more money than I did prior to

using Infusionsoft.  In fact, my business grew over 3,000% in the first year I made the switch!  In actual dollars, that was over

$700K USD.  Not bad if you ask me.

Although it took me a few weeks to get all of this set-up, and get outside of my business, the amount of time I originally invested has paid ample dividends over the

last few years.  If you put forth the efforts, such will be the case for you as well.

So, let me know what you think.

I told you my answer was very straightforward.  But, most times, the simplest answer rings the most true.

Such is the case when it comes to automating your business.

That’s why  I use CRM (Customer Relation Management) Software such as Infusionsoft.

I only recommend products and services I use in my own business.  Without a doubt, Infusionsoft is my most powerful weapon.  As a referral partner for Infusionsoft, I get commissions whenever someone I recommend joins their platform and the above review contains images and links that can be traced back to me.  I hope you’ll find as much satisfaction and monetary success as I have using the most powerful CRM on the planet, Infusionsoft!

It just takes a bit of work to get started, but, getting outside your business is simple.

Please share your thoughts, ask your questions, and state your opinion below in the comments section. 

I promise, I’ll answer EVERY question you have!

P.S. If this article is something you think would be valuable to others in your social circles, please Tweet, Share, “Like”, or +1.

The post Getting “Outside” Your Business appeared first on StartDoingBusiness.com.

By Zach

Some great site designs to keep in mind while building your own!

HybridWorks.jp

This site is very bold and very simple. They showcases their product very well. The take away: Make your products beautiful, then don’t be afraid to show them off.

The post 10 Site Designs to Spark Your Mind appeared first on StartDoingBusiness.com.

By SDB Team

Staying Motivated – Leveraging Past Successes
Recently I was talking to a fellow entrepreneur, who shared with me a very interesting statistic. You’ve probably heard that 80% of small businesses fail within 3 years, maybe you’ve had one or two fail, but have you ever wondered why? According to this study, the reason most start-ups fail has nothing to do with the business idea or the business model.Chances are, your idea IS good. Reality is, your model is JUST fine. The reason businesses fail is the entrepreneur doesn’t stay MOTIVATED. Deadlines aren’t met, projects are drawn out forever, and eventually the business crashes. So how do you stay motivated? What is this secret? You might have tried tricking yourself into staying motivated, just to find it doesn’t work. Here are some common “tricks” that I’ve found are NOT very effective.

Trick 1: Remembering what got you into business in the first place.

Though this might seem like a great way to motivate yourself, it’s actually terribly ineffective. When you first started your business you started because you believed you could do it. You had high expectations. However, now that you’ve started, your expectations hit the cold hard stone called reality. Things didn’t lay out in front of you the way you expected.   And now that it’s looking more difficult to achieve your dreams you start to slow down. Even if you try to believe in your dream again, it’s not the same. You can’t, because you have new information now. Real information.

Trick 2: Just do it.

“Just doing it” is essentially acting without having motivation. It’s essentially shutting off the part of your brain that bases decisions on past experience, then re-evaluating after the act. This is a two-sided coin, because if you get results, the technique worked. However, if you don’t, you are thrown into even deeper disappointment because now you took an irrational risk and it failed. “Just doing it” is often a last ditch effort, and can be an extremely frustrating experience if it doesn’t work. So what is the trick to staying motivated? And subsequently having success in your business as well? There is a trick. And it works extremely well. And it has worked amazingly well in my businesses.

Here it is:

The secret to staying motivated: Leverage past successes.

Leveraging success is to use your past victories to your advantage.

It’s a type of motivation based on real past experience. And it’s a motivation that happens naturally and is completely rational.

Compare it to the other two strategies:

Remembering what got you into business is based on dashed ideals. Leveraging success is based on real results.

“Just doing it” is a form of irrational hoping. Leveraging success is a form of rational knowing.

Let’s take a look at how it works.
There are two parts to this technique: having success, and leveraging it.

Obviously before you can leverage success, you need to HAVE success. However once you have it, leveraging success is a very powerful thing.

Consider the following:

How do you feel when you accomplish something. Don’t you feel good? Don’t you feel like you could take on the world? You could talk to anyone, do anything.

When you feel this way, do you feel like you could start a business? 100% yes, no problem.

This feeling of confidence is described as “the winner effect,” and has been the basis for many psychological studies. Whenever you win, your body releases testosterone into your body, which in turn increases your confidence. With increased confidence comes more successes, and the cycle repeats itself.

You might have noticed this in sports, where an athlete is just “on fire.”

Or you’ve probably noticed this in yourself, those days where you just feel on top of everything. And you win all the time.

This is a very good state to be in.

These are the effects of success, so what does it mean to leverage success?

Unfortunately, we don’t always experience success 100% of the time. We have failures, shortcomings, maybe at times even loads of failures. At times it seems like the entire world is against us and rooting for our downfall.

Fortunately for us, we have an incredible tool called empathy. When success isn’t staring us in the face, we have a back up plan, it’s called past successes.

Empathy is the ability to feel what other people are feeling. And it is the same ability that allows us to relive past experiences. Including past successes.

When we empathize, our bodies literally trigger the same emotions that we would experience if we were experiencing the situation in person.

When we relive our past failures, we feel sad. When we relive our past problems, we feel frustrated. And when we relive our past success we feel… you guessed it… “the winner effect.”

And that is how you stay motivated.

It’s easy to stay motivated when success is just happening. Anyone can do that.

The trick is to stay motivated in the rough times, and every business goes through them. And the trick to getting through them is to leverage past successes.

And once you’ve taken a moment to really relive your past successes, you’ll find that you are suddenly ready to take on your new challenges.

Barriers to leveraging past successes:

Hopefully you are now excited to start leveraging past successes and to keep yourself motivated like never before.

However, there are a few attitudes that can put a mental block on your ability to leverage success. Keep these in mind and avoid them.

“Been there, done that.” – This is literally when a person decides that a past success is no longer a success. This is illogical and a lie, a success is always a success. It is also a form of manipulation used to either extract consolation from other people (i.e. “My life is so terrible!” is another way of saying “none of my successes count!”) or to give the appearance of having a larger status than one actually has (i.e. “Meh, that was no big deal”) in which case they are in the process of nulling their ability to leverage that success ( pretty soon they will believe it WASN’T a big deal. )

Comparing – This is when a person compares their success with the results of someone else’s success, and determines that they should no longer leverage their success because of it. Again, this is a lie and an indication that the person isn’t being completely honest with themselves. A success is always a success. It’s akin to winning a game of basketball, receiving a trophy, then after the fact deciding that the game should have been played by the rules of soccer, which means everyone played terribly, and subsequently taking away your trophy. If you win by your set of rules, don’t cancel your win after the fact because someone else is playing a different game.

Now is more important than then – Similar to “Been there, done that.” This is the mental attitude that only present successes matter, and all past successes are irrelevant. If the person with this attitude is currently in a success dry spell, their motivation will be sucked away because they will have no past successes to leverage.

Then is more important than now – This is the opposite of the previous attitude. This is when a person gives complete credence to a past success, such that no future successes are allowed to feel exciting. Since they are shutting off their ability to empathize with the new, they tend to be isolated socially because no one will join them in admitted their random past success was the only thing worthwhile.

At this point, I hope I’ve given you plenty of ideas to think about, as well as plenty of tools to keep yourself motivated and leveraging your successes!

If this article has been game changing for you, share your thoughts in the comments below!

The post Staying Motivated – Leveraging Past Successes appeared first on StartDoingBusiness.com.

China has child labor.

As well as 12 hour work days, roughly $1.68/hour minimum wage, no health regulations, no health benefits, no pollution control (16 of the 20 worst polluted cities are in China). It even engages in prison labor where prisoners don’t eat unless they reach a product quota.

China makes products for cheap.

The U.S. has overtime, minimum wage of at least $7.25/hour, health codes, health benefits, zoning requirements, building codes, and pollution regulations.

It costs to maintain regulations. The U.S. can’t make products for cheap.

That’s why we are shipping all of our business to China, and countries similar to it.

But we didn’t start this way. In fact in many ways we were just like China. In 1900 working conditions under the monopolies of Carnagie, Rockafeller, and Bell were almost identical to what China is today. However, unlike China, people took action against the conditions and created legislation such as the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), Anti-monopoly laws, The Fair Labor Standards Act, and other legislations that helped us become what we are today.

So how come China isn’t passing legislation like we did?

They can’t. They are under communist rule. The people in China don’t pass laws, and they don’t vote.

So they are stuck in the conditions we were in in the 1900′s.

Every time we purchase products from China we are allowing those conditions to compete against all of the regulations we have built up for ourselves here in the U.S.

And that is also why we have massive unemployment here in the U.S.

We won’t let ourselves work for less than minimum wage, but we will let the Chinese work for us for less than minimum wage, as a result, who get’s the job? China!

We can’t even compete, LEGALLY we can’t compete. If our citizens want the jobs, they not only have to leave the U.S, they have to compete against prisoners who don’t eat if they don’t reach quotas. That’s what our competition is.

The only way to bring back our jobs to the U.S. is to either drop our standards to match China’s, or to raise our standards for any foreign products that we allow into the U.S.

Now consider the following: What would happen if any business that ships to the U.S. operated under our same regulations? That means our companies in China would be paying their employees $7.50/hour while next-door employees are being paid $1.68/hour for the same job. Where would a Chinese citizen want a job? The U.S. business of course! The U.S.A. suddenly becomes the best thing to ever happen to their country. If our quality of business standards are good enough for us, shouldn’t they be good enough for people in China?

I really see this as the next step for our country and the world. We need to create a standard of commerce that we the people of the United States require for all countries who participate.

If you agree, please comment below.

The post Chinese Labor and American Unemployment appeared first on StartDoingBusiness.com.