The 30 Second Business Story

For any business to stay afloat, it needs customers. What do customers need? Concise and clear information about your product or service. How do you successfully send that message? Answer the following four questions:

1) What is my service, product, company or cause?
2) What problem do I solve?
3) How am I different?
4) Why should you care?

The impression you make on the potential customers tells the difference between making a sale or being abandoned for your competition. It takes about 2 seconds for us to make lasting impressions of someone, according to research. That's why it's so important to develop the skill and art of making a short and exciting statement about your business. A personal example is this; In a separate business, I may say that I offer financial hope and opportunities to people who need it most as opposed to saying I'm a marketter. If I were to ask someone to be a marketter, more than likely I'll be met with objection and will lose in the end. I call it "speaking in English". You have to "say it in English" and be practical. People must understand you.
Getting back to the 4 questions, the first one is simple: (I'll relate them all to this blog.)
I seek, find and pool business resources for small business people and try to simplify wherever possible or necessary.
The second: I shorten the distance between small business problems and their solutions.
The third: I do not spit huge prices upfront and "hold prospects to ransom" to generate business and I omit hidden agendas and schemes.
The fourth: Because professional business help is usually too costly for small startups and even if your outfit is established, it is always an advantage to save money at any opportunity.
SIMPLE. SHORT AND SWEET.
That actually took less than 30 seconds to share but you get the point. That's how easy it is to craft a compelling pitch about your business. For a complete story on "Mastering the 30 second pitch", you may search businessweek's website.

One important point I wish to highlight is the way I've also incorporated "Google AdSense" into my website because it expands my reach by offering even more links to the information I post about. So if I post about public speaking for example, Google displays links to public speaking help resources and so on. So half of my job is done by Google. For info you may use the search box at the top of this page and search for "Google Adsense" so that you too can place "targetted ads" on your website. THIS IS ALSO A GREAT WAY TO GENERATE ADDITIONAL INCOME FROM YOUR WEBSITE.
Once again thanks for reading.

Fears That Can Oppose Business Growth

The smartest businessman on earth has fears. It's human nature. Fears are pre-programmed into our psyche to protect us from getting hurt. It manifests itself especially in people who do not take risks in life. It keeps us frozen in one frame in the timeline of our lives where we never venture "outside of the box" to accomplish things. This is about to change as I outline a list of the seven common fears that hinder business people's progress from time to time. This list was created by author/speaker/business coachCJ Hayden.
The seven fears she outlined were;

Fear of Rejection
Fear of Ridicule
Fear of Embarassment
Fear of the Unknown
Fear of Failure
Fear Success
Fear of Disapproval

Fear of Rejection is quite common to say the least. You can have a nice product or service to share with prospects but this is easily overshadowed by the fear of rejection. "Oh my gosh, suppose they don't like my product" or "What if he doesn't like this? What if what if what if?" This can happen to anyone.
Fear of Ridicule is evident where you may experience what's known as the "impostor syndrome" where you're scared that someone might look at you and ask,"Does he/she belong here?"
Fear of Embarassment usually surfaces just before a public speaking event. Your mind may be telling you,"Suppose I make a mistake or suppose I forget something important in the speech" and the list goes on.
Fear of the Unknown is extremely widespread not only in business but in our everyday lives. Most people are afraid to get involved in "new" things. They are somewhat unfamiliar to them and the result can be sketchy. It reminds me of a post I made few weeks ago outlining why "known hells are prefferred to unknown heavens".
Fear of Failure is common as well. Some people think that life is about winning on the first try. What many people do not realise is that most success stories were not written only in the positive. Failure is usually a normal part of success.There's a great article at businessweek's website dated June 22, 2005. Or you can do a search for Nicholas Hall.
Fear of Success is evident when we don't think that we deserve the "winnings" that can be ours, especially if we are accustomed to a certain standard of living that can be greatly improved if we succeed in our endeavours. Our state of conciousness does not have the capacity to "see" the success and we disassociate it from ourselves and sabotage our own success. Of course I have a link to help in that arena as well.
Fear of Disapproval is illustrated in a case where we wonder,"Oh what will Grandma think?" "What will my coworkers say if I do this?"
Every fear is just an ANT. Automatic Negative Thought. We all have ANTS at some point in our lives. Dealing with them is the real issue. ANTS help us to sabotage our own success and we hardly ever notice when this happens. What we must understand is that fears can be dealt with very successfully with the appropriate training. The number one mistake made is dealing with fears is denying that they exist. NEVER LIE TO YOURSELF. You need to make fear your best friend if you wish to deal with it. Admit that you have it and face it head on. Overcoming of fears is not my specialty so I won't try to go too deeply into it. The above link takes you directly to a "specialist" in that area.
Remember: Courage is not the absense of fear. It is taking action in the presence of fear.
Thanks for reading.