I was always intrigued by the theory of working to improve your weaknesses instead of spending that time and effort to get your strengths to even higher level. Does not make more sense to become better in something you are already good instead of becoming average in something you are really bad? It does for me, and majority of ultra-performers in each area of life from sports, music, movie, science, etc. Even Michael Jordan figured that out after his golf episode and came back to basketball.

Let’s see how we can translate this to business. Each small business owner has to carry multiple hats, from particular technical knowledge to general areas each business has such as sales, marketing, accounting, logistics, purchasing, etc. The understanding of your strengths can make you a lot of money, if you delegate tasks in your weak area to other people.

Let’s say for example that you are shy and private person, so naturally sales is not something you like to do. But you excel in delivery of your product/service. You will do big favor to you and your profit line if you hire good salesman and you focus on delivering what was sold. You will be happier, and your wallet will be fuller.

I like Einstein’s quote: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

There are plenty of tools which can help you figure out what are your strengths, I found free one for you, Strengths Finder Test. It consists of 170 questions, and as result you will get your top 3 strengths, which can help you run your business more efficiently.

Alan Borcic

Profit Maker

How well do you know your customers? 

I touched base this topic a little bit in my previous post, Target market, where I discussed importance of knowing your market for proper direct mail marketing. Importance of knowing your market is mandatory skills in any business segment, not only marketing. Customers are people, with their problems, frustration, good and bad moments. It is extremely important to show them that you see them as human beings not walking wallets.

Making personal interest in your customers will increase your customers' satisfaction, increase your customers' referral, and as result increase your profit.

Another good way of knowing your customers is to simple ask them. Create survey with questions you would like to know which can improve your business. Questions like what is their hobby, what kind of car they drive, what kind of job they have, what their kids like, what their spouses like, what association they belong to. You will be surprised how many useful information you will learn. Not to mention potential business opportunities.

Six degrees of separation theory tells us that every human being on this planet is on average approximately six steps away, or six persons away, from any other person on Earth. Therefore you can get connected to every person on this planet by contacting six people. Hence success of social networks like Linkedin which is similar to Facebook but for business users.

Alan Borcic

Profit Maker

I still have to see someone fishing in a puddle yet a lot of small business owners are doing exactly the same. This is particularly case for direct mail which I wrote about earlier.

When you want to go fishing, and if you want to actually catch any fish, you go where fish might be. Beside docks, rocks, logs, are good places since they provide protection from enemies as well as hiding place to catch prey better. You won't fish in shallow water two feet from a land since it will have the same success as fishing in a puddle.

If you are really avid fisherman, you would know what are the best fishing spots in river/lake, what type of day is the best for your fish, what is the best bait for your target fish. You would go to one of those places few days before and start feeding fish with the best bait for type of fish you want to catch. So when you come for actual fishing few days later, a fish is used to finding food there and know where to come to eat. And you will be waiting there, with identical bait as one you used to feed them. Not different one since that would be useless. What do you think, how successful your fishing trip would be after all these strategic preparations?

Now if we implement the same strategic thinking to your marketing, we would come to interesting conclusion. Spraying flyers to everyone in a neighborhood is equivalent to fishing in a puddle or fishing since not everyone is your customer. Trying to sell Ferrari to people who work for minimum wage is useless task, and waste of time, money and effort. It is also called spray and pray type of marketing.

The idea is to know as much as possible about your "fish". Where they are, what they like, what they don't like, what they do in their free time, what do they do for living, what kind of car they drive, what kind of hobby they have, you got a drift. The more you know, the better marketing message you will be able to craft, and the better response you will get. With better response comes better ROI, and ultimately better profit which is what we want, right?

 

Alan Borcic

Profit Maker

Hey guys,

if you are interested in running daily deals with sites like Groupon, Living Social, DealFind, WagJag, and few dozen of others, you will find article I wrote recently very usefull. In this article you will find 7 rules to make money with daily deals sites.

A lot of small business owners have negative experience with those daily deals sites, do not be one of them. Daily deals is wonderful marketing system to bring you new customers without need to spend money for marketing ahead of time, since you are paying ONLY when customers purchase your product/service. But there are certain rules for creating and executing those daily deals campaigns properly, and this article will teach you how do to it properly, and what is even more important, profitably. 

Let me know what you think, here is full link, Daily Deals Sites (Groupon, Living Social) - 7 Rules For Making Money With Them 

 

Alan

Profit Maker

Remember the time when your mailbox was overflowing from all flyers and direct mail? These days, you barely got few pieces in. Isn't it wonderful when your competition is much smaller than it used to be? Yes, you got it right, I am telling you that you should start using direct mail as one of marketing channels to get more business if you are not using it already.

But remember the main three rules of marketing, right message at the right time using the right media. If only one of those three are not met, your direct mail campaign will not be so successful.

In order to be able find right medium, right message and right time, you need to understand your customer. The more details you know about them, the better you will be able to craft your marketing message to get better response.

In example of direct mail, that means that you will carefully select list of prospects/customers based on your knowledge of your customers. For example, if your typical customer like golf, you will find the list of subscribers to golf magazine and send them direct mail. By properly targeting your potential market, you will get much better ROI and more success with your direct mail campaign.

Alan Borcic

Profit Maker

If not, what are you waiting for?

Check out some statistics, you will be surprised. 

 

Alan Borcic

Profit Maker

Hey guys,

here is second video about Twitter Basics, enjoy

Alan

Hi guys,

here is quick video how to use Twitter from creating account, finding friends, making tweets, etc. Enjoy

 

Alan

Excellent article explains in details new changes Facebook implemented recently for their Fan Pages

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-new-facebook-page-changes-what-you-need-to-know/

Alan