Years ago my Aunt Betty was helping me with one of my investment houses. She said, "Every time that you finish a task, give yourself a break, even if it's only for a minute." I thought it was good advice, and amplified that a little bit. Using breaks to become more effective and productive
If you want to increase your productivity, set miniature tasks, and reward yourself after each task. When you do that, there is nothing that you will do that is too hard, or too long, because you have broken the task down into small, bite sized chunks and you are just going to do a little bit more until...break time!
At some point, if you are a professional, you will be asked to give a speech. Don't freak out. Unless you are incredibly stupid it is possible for you to learn how to give an effective speech. Politicians do it every day, surely you can too.
Here is how to do it:
1) Find out the details: When will the speech be given? How long will it be? What is the topic? Who is my audience? Why does the audience care? (If the audience is given to people that are passionate about the topic, it is going to be a lot more fun that if people really don't want to listen to you.)
2) Write out your speech. Yes, a lot of people just "wing it" and don't worry about preparing at all. Those people are the ones that are so full of themselves that they don't care if they are prepared, and they bore everyone that hears them. They are the people that usually give speeches, and are hated. A good speech is prepared, written out, and practiced several times before it is actually performed. It is a communication, and, like most performances, is better when thought is actually put into it.
a) Who is going to be there? (This will determine the topic and the tone of your speech? A speech given to third graders will be a lot different than a speech given to educated professionals).
b) What is the topic? This is the reason why they are there. They want to hear you speak about ______. What is it? Why should they care? If they don't hear your information, what will they lose? If they do hear your information, how do they gain? How is it relevant to THEIR life? If you can't articulate that, don't go.
3) Lose your fear. The entire audience; the ENTIRE audience is terrified that you are going to be boring. They WANT you to be funny. They will laugh at anything that is remotely funny coming out of your mouth. They are rooting for you, because they have heard too many bad speeches and they desperately want you to be good. They aren't expecting it, but they want it.
4) Don't give a speech. NEVER, EVER, EVER give a speech. Tell stories. Nobody wants to hear a speech, but everyone wants to hear a story that they will remember, especially if it is funny. If you can ask questions (even rhetorical questions) of the audience, it keeps their interest high. Don't make statements, ask questions.
5) Keep it simple. A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. So, make it simple. If you have a complicated concept, break it down into simple processes that they can understand on a cellular level. If you have numbers, toss them out. Tell a story about how those numbers affect a person. If you want to do a quantitative analysis, throw that out and replace that with the story of two people, and how it affects their lives. Keep it simple, keep it in a story, and personalize it. 6) When you introduce yourself, relate to people. If you are talking to a bunch of parents; YOU are a parent, or you know a parent. If you are talking to people from a small farming area; YOU are from a small farming area, or you know someone that is from a small farming area. People like people that are like themselves, be like them. 7) Don't be stuffy. Don't speak over the heads of your audience. acknowledge three or four people in the audience that you met with earlier, and thank them for allowing you to share your stories. (Never say the word, "speech".) 8) The mike is your friend. Choose the hand that will be holding the mike. With your other hand, extend your thumb, as if you are giving a "thumbs up". The distance from your nose to the microphone should be distance from the tip of your thumb to the back of your hand. With your mike hand, practice keeping the same distance each and every time. Plant your elbow against your chest and practice keeping the microphone at the same distance from your mouth each and every time that you move. You can use your non-mike hand to wave and gesture, but always keep your mike in the same relative position. This will keep the volume steady. 9) Don't keep the volume steady. When you talk to a friend, you raise and lower the level and pitch of your voice. Do not be robotic, practice varying the intensity and volume of your voice. 10) A speech is a performance, so perform. Be interesting. Be demonstrative. Mention people in the audience, ask them to stand up, acknowledge them and include them into your stories, if possible. 11) "Tell people what you are going to say, tell them, then tell them what you said" is the ancient advice for speeches. Here is a modification. Tell people how what you are going to say is RELEVANT to them. If it's not relevant, they don't care. When you include them in the process, and it's about THEM, they will listen all day long.
There is a HUGE injustice in this country. Young black males have a 46% unemployment rate...and it's not getting better anytime soon. Before we start protesting, let's examine how to reduce that unemployment statistic by at least one person...YOU.
If you are young, black, and male, your chances of being hired are very small. How can we change that? First, let's realize that a boss DOES NOT have to hire you. He will hire you IF and ONLY IF you make money for his company in excess of your costs. If you have potential liabilities that would cost him money, he would rather poke himself in the eye first.
So, what can you do?
Let's examine your assets, and your liabilities, and let's readjust them so that your liabilities are now assets. Can we do that?
Your anger: Anger is nothing more than badly focused energy. What makes you angry? Is it being poor? Ok, then let's make some money. Your anger, or energy, needs to be focused on things that put money into your pocket.
The easiest job to get is the one that nobody wants...sales. If you can sell, you can make as much money as you deserve. It is not about your hours, but about your production.
How can you increase your sales production?
1) Don't scare your customers. If you are going to talk to people on the phone, you have to be articulate, eloquent, and prepared. That means that if you have a heavy street accent, it might be time to take elocution and diction lessons so that you don't sound like a gangbanger. What are the best resources? Look to SNIROL.com for more information on our guaranteed speech performance tools to make you sound great.
2) Don't scare your customers. If you are going to meet people, you have to be dressed professionally. Baggy pants are out. Khakis are in.
3) Don't scare your customers. If you are going to meet people, you must be well groomed. Cover up your tattoos. Shave off your facial hair. (10% of all customers will be afraid of people with facial hair. 10% of people will be afraid of people with tattoos. 10% of people will be afraid of people that are bald. 10% of people will be afraid of people with gold teeth. 10% of people will be afraid of people with a thick accent. 10% of people will be afraid of people that make fast movements and use their hands in an aggressive manner. If 60% of the potential customers are afraid of you, you are working too hard. You have to ask yourself, what do you care about more? Looking like a gangster? Or making money.
Lose the flash, Grab the cash.
How else can you make money? Time management is an essential part of any entrepreneur/success process. Your goal is to be focused, without distractions, and plan your time so that when you are selling, you aren't losing sales. (All it takes to lose a sale is to have someone ask a question that you don't know the answer...and you don't know how to respond. By the way, the best way to handle that situation is to answer, "That's a great question! I don't hear that every day. In fact, it's the first time that anyone has asked that question. I compliment you on asking such an intelligent question. Let me research that and get back to you...in the meantime, are there any other questions that would stop you from going forward on this today? You know, why don't we move forward, for all of the obvious reasons. Please sign here."
Incremental Revenue...aka "vacation money"
by Reed Sawyer
+1 Demo: Async load
When I was growing up, we had an RV park. During the winter time, we had more campers than sites, so we would allow them to park around our house for the few months that we were overflowing. Since our house was on the golf course, it was a very desirable site.
I hated it. I hated looking out my window and seeing people staring in at me. I kept the curtains shut, and I complained to my Aunt Betty about it. (She was one of the partners in the RV park business). "Why do we have to have those stupid campers outside of my windows? I hate it."
My Aunt Betty was wise, and she said, "Reed, you're looking at it all wrong. All of the fixed costs of the park have already been paid for, we didn't have to spend any more money developing those lots. The ONLY cost that we have is for water and electricity, and those are minimal. This is VACATION MONEY."
Once she articulated it like that, I loved it. I wanted us to get more campers around our houses.
Let's examine what incremental revenue is: Incremental revenue is revenue that comes in addition to your regular revenue, but without additional variable costs (or very minimal costs). The fixed costs have already been paid, your variable costs are low, and the incremental revenue is almost pure profit. It is "VACATION MONEY".
Is there any way that your business can develop additional incremental revenue? What processes, space, advantages does your business have that it isn't using all the time that people need? Can you create some incremental revenue streams from unused capacity?
If you are a bar/restaurant owner: Do you have a slow night of the week that is underutilized? Can you contact insurance companies, car dealerships, any sales organization and offer to let them use a meeting room, FOR FREE, on that night? (What will they do? They will probably all eat a meal, have a few drinks, and you might even have them start thinking of the restaurant as "their place" and start coming back more frequently.) What is your cost? Nothing. You already had that room available. What is your possible incremental revenue? Possibly an average of $10 per head, minimum. If you have 20 extra customers per week, on your slowest night, will that give you more "heat" and bring in more customers?
Can you sell advertising space on your menu? Can you talk to every business in a one mile radius and see if you can deliver sandwiches daily? Weekly? Can you give the business owners a 20% discount on their morning coffee and pastry? Can you arrange with the business owners to have celebratory dinners at your restaurant, on slow nights, at a discount?
If you are a commercial dry cleaner: Do you have large washers and dryers? Can you do napkins and tablecloths for restaurants? Can you do shirt laundry for a car dealership/body shop? If you have excess time in the day where your machines are not running, can you find a company that needs to have their uniforms washed daily? What should you charge? Whatever you can get, but your fixed costs and variable costs are already paid, this is pure profit.
Can you offer an expedited service, for a premium? If someone wants a garment cleaned in an hour, can you do it? (If your boilers are still on and you have your crew available?) Can you offer premium service, for a little bit extra?
Can you wash welcome mats for businesses? (Most welcome mats are too big for a normal washing machine, you have a unique advantage over the small machines.) What is your cost of doing them? (Remember that you don't have to press or dry the mats.) Can you use that as an intro to doing uniform laundry?
If you have public restrooms with lots of traffic: Can you do advertisements in your bathroom over the urinals? (What is your cost for a small advertising display case? If you charged $20 a month, would you recoup your costs in the first month?)
If you have lots of foot traffic, and excess space: Can you offer storage lockers? How quickly would you recoup your money? When the people come back to your store, can you upsell them into another purchase?
Can you have a soda cooler next to the cash registers? People will pay premium for convenience items made on impulse. Can you have high impulse items there as well?
If you have a service business: Can you offer seasonal checkups (air conditioners, water heaters, appliances, etc...) for a nominal fee? (If they need repairs, you are almost guaranteed to get the work.)
If you have enough "incremental revenue" sources, would that help your business? Would that "vacation money" make your business more profitable, and make it easier to sell when you are ready to sell?
Can you brainstorm and find a dozen different incremental revenue sources that are untapped, and make those available? When you let your customers know that you have "off the menu" choices and services available, and let them know that you are there to help them with ANY of their needs, you might just pick up additional ideas, and additional revenue.
Keep your core business healthy, but utilize excess capacity, space, resources for incremental revenue, and watch your profits soar.
Friday, February 8, 2013
How to increase your business revenue, profits, and value.
by Reed Sawyer +1 Demo: Async load
Nikon Coolpix L810 16MP 26X Optical Zoom Black Digital Camera (Google Affiliate Ad)
One of the best ways to increase your business volume is to have an event. When I was a mortgage broker out in Colorado, we would do an event every month. We would offer free hot dogs or pizza, a bouncy tent for the kids, and we would offer great rates for a refinance. The amount of business that we would get from those events would be two thirds of our revenue for the month.
A friend of mine has a barbecue place in Apopka. Every Thursday night he has a biker night with live music, hot waitresses, and the best barbecue in the city. It draws hundreds of people, and it brings in new customers, that he then converts into repeat customers.
I was the director of Marketing for a Sewing and Vacuum shop. We had a seminar for a Stabilizer company (The fabric that embroidery is sewn on so that it doesn't bunch up after washing). We pushed it hard, and had three classes, bringing in people that had never heard of our business before, and doing a huge volume.
What exactly is an event?
An event is something that draws new people to your store/business, and gets them to spend money that they would not ordinarily spend.
What are examples of an "event".
1) Do a promotion with a radio show to offer a special sale.
2) Do a promotion with outside food and beverage (if you are not a restaurant). An example would be a car dealership offering free hot dogs and sodas to people on a Saturday.
3) Do a seminar. It doesn't even have to be something that you are giving, you could find a business that needs to promote their business, and you have the space, chairs, or tables to provide a seminar space. In that event, you can promote the event, without a lot of cost, and bring people in to your business that might not ever visit your store.
4) Have a musician play at your location. (This works best for bars and restaurants, but I have also seen it for retail stores.)
5) Have complimentary businesses, do a co-op event with you. Each of the businesses markets to your own customers/clients, and bring people to the event.
6) Have a promotional model come in (Pretty girls are the best), Do give-aways, coupons, and discounts and make it fun.
How do you attract new customers to your business?
The best way is to reach them through your current customers. Do a fishbowl, gather email addresses and tell people the BIG NEWS about your upcoming promotion. What's in it for them? Why would they want to come?
The next best way to do this is to advertise. I would suggest a co-op marketing campaign where you find neighboring businesses (non-competitive) that would like to have more business, and do a co-op advertising campaign to keep the cost of advertising per business low.
Another way to bring in customers is through a newsletter/blog/facebook/social media outlet. If you are skilled in creating exciting and interesting posts, invite people to come to your event, and give them a coupon or gift for attending.
Do's and Don'ts for an event:
1) Do know your costs. For advertising, speaker fees, premiums, everything that you will be spending money on, you must know the costs ahead of time, or you could grow your business into bankruptcy. If you have a 10% profit margin, you must get at least 10 dollars in new revenue for every dollar that you spend.
2) Do have a REASON for the promotion. Why would anyone want to come? If it is not compelling enough, make it compelling, or don't do it.
3) Do have a way to track attendance, sales, and profits, so that you can decide if you want to do it again. If you are not tracking your advertising dollars, you are wasting your money. Every person that comes into the store should be asked, nicely, "By the way, how did you hear of us?" That response should be noted, and put into a spreadsheet. List the source of the lead, the amount purchased, and the quality of the customer. (How often do they come in? How much do they typically buy? Are they a good customer?)Olympus Tg320 14Mp Digital Camera (Google Affiliate Ad)
