One is Better than NONE, How to Leverage it to Grow Your Business!
Content, content, content. Days are spent creating content and sharing it on social media.
Frustration after all the time spent creating content and sharing it to no avail is normal.
All the effort is supposed to lead to more business and revenue. Yet nothing happens.
The Normal Social Media Experience
?No one is noticing you or your content on social media.
?You share videos, that get no views.
Posts are ignored.
No likes or comments, yet alone a DM asking for more info.
?Your killer content is missed…. nothing but crickets.
Keep at it. ?
The results of content being created and shared on social media take time.
Keep things in perspective.
Remember ONE is Better than None! One like, follow, comment or DM is progress.
Your Social Media Plan
Keep creating content
Be consistent
Getting active on social media
Comment
Follow
Follow Back
Like
DM
ONE will lead to TWO… Two will lead to one thousand (literally just peeped our YouTube channel that is a few weeks old, and we have a video with over 1K views).
One comment, like and DM at a time and build and grow your bursiness.
Visit our video library of tips and best practices to grow your business as well as webcasts with industry leading entrepreneurs and small business owners. Check out our video webcasts for great video content like this here.
Ergoteknix Incorporated provides business development consulting to small businesses so they can scale from 6-7 and 7-8 figures in annual sales.
Number One Reason Money Grows, Consistent Effort, Be Consistent and Grow Your Business Today.
This is one of the Secrets to Making More Money! ? ? ?
Money grows with consistent effort.
It is like a plant.
☀️ Sun
? Water
?Daily
Yields a GREAT plant and even better harvest.
Working on your business. Setting goals and developing a plan to reach those goals. Consistently working on your plan and measuring progress is like the sun and water to a plant in terms of growing your money and business.
Consistently executing and working on your business and it will grow. ??
Nothing new. Certainly not earth shaking.
There is one caveat, and this is where business owners struggle. You must work ON the business. To do so requires an escape from always working in the business.
There has to be time scheduled to step back and work on the business.
Real growth can only be realized with consistent effort functioning like a business owner and not like and employee. Business owners consistently work on their business.
Simple to say. Much harder to do.
Money grows with consistent effort. Make time to consistently work on the business and your money and business will grow.
Ergoteknix Incorporated provides business development consulting to small businesses so they can scale from 6-7 and 7-8 figures in annual sales.
Top Mistake Business Owners Make Costs Sales Revenue and How to Fix it Today! ?
? You are in the business of business… and revenue, or MONEY is the oxygen to keep your business alive. Without incoming revenue your business will suffocate and die.
The Law of 7 states that a consumer needs to see your message on average 7 times before they buy. This means you have to be disciplined and follow up.
Unfortunately, business owners get hung up on following up. There is this feeling in the gut that they are going to upset people. That people won’t be their friends. Someone might get bad.
Business is about busines not making friends.
You must follow up and ask for the sale.
? You can be nice.
? You can make friends.
? You can do this while asking for the sale.
? You have to be willing to ASK And Follow Up and ASK again for the sale!
The goal is to grow your business… making friends is a bonus.
You must be top of mind when your customer realizes they have the problem that you offer the solution to.
There is nothing wrong with following back up!
Keep in mind this must be systemized part of business operations. Systemizing the follow up means it can be automated and most importantly easily taught to staff.
People run the systems and systems run the business.
Some people will never be a customer.
That is ok.
Others might get upset with your follow up.
That too is OK.
For those that want to make everyone happy get into the ice cream business.
If you are not in the ice cream business systemize the follow up and drive recurring revenue.
? 4 Steps to Grab the EASY money to GROW your business…Grab the Low Hanging Fruit! Make sure you take time to grab that low hanging fruit… and be sure to pick up the fruit you may be stepping over. It is EASY Money. ???
It is easy to get caught in the daily routine business operations. Some time spent on marketing sales.
But what about the easy money?
This is the low hanging fruit and the easy money.
4 Steps to Grab the EASY money to GROW your business…Grab the Low Hanging Fruit!
1). Systemize the follow up with current and former customers. This means play the long game. Strive to earn a customer and keep them long term.
2). Over Deliver Value and Maintain Lines of Communication. Want to keep customers long term and turn them into walking billboards marketing your business? Of course, you do, then overdeliver!
3). Make sure website, Phone, Email and Social Media Deliver a CURRENT Message…location, contact info, hours of operation etc. Plus make sure that phone voice mail message is current, not we are closed from a holiday six months ago. Keep your company info current. Have a system and plan to do it. Leverage your calendar if you have to, i.e., Wednesday before Thanksgiving set voice mail to out of office and close for holiday. Monday after, reset voice mail.
4). Manage Your Receivables and Confirm Receipt of Payment, if you are NOT Getting Paid have a System to Collect Missed Payments! Call, email, and snail mail to follow up on delinquent payments. If payment is not made after 45-60 days send the customer to collection.
Small Business to Grow is by Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs. Learn best practices from Industry leading entrepreneurs and executives see link below.
Start with how you look at things. You can see every problem as just that a problem. Worse, as a disaster.
Or, you can choose to see things differently.
Choose to see the problem or the opportunity. Seek the opportunity in everything. It is a matter of how you choose to perceive things.
Garth Brooks shared a great story. He said his dad always told him problems are like your hand… on one side the problem. The other side, the opportunity.
Turn lemons to lemonade. Flip the problem and see the opportunity.
6 Simple Strategies to Get Everything You Can Out of Social Media Today
Social media, there is a platform for every business. Social media offers the opportunity for low or no cost ability to reach your target market. The opportunity to grow and scale a business on the social media is within reach of every business if the right strategy is employed.
Fail to spend time on the front end, and social media can cost significant money and time. Like everything in business time has to be invested planning on the front end. Social media is NO Different.
We spent over $70K marketing on social… looking back the 6 simple strategies would have saved a money and time.
1 Define Who Your Customer Is
You must understand who your customer is and what problem you solve for them. Most businesses can benefit from spending time building out a customer avatar. This information is useful for more than social media.
2 Understand Where they Spend Time Digitally
Demographics exist for all of the social media platforms. Once you understand your customer see step 1 above, you will know things like they age and gender. Look up CURRENT demographics on social platforms. Which platform is your customer on. That is the first social platform to start using.
3 Be Consistent
Once you have identified the social platform your customer is on it is time to get going. Start posting. Keep in mind you must be consistent. If time only allows one post per day, great start there. If it is every other day, great start there. Just be consistent!
4 Don’t Try and Be on EVERY Platform, but be on the RIGHT Platform for Your Biz
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is trying to be on every platform. Stop. This is not necessary. Look at the demographic data…. Your customers likely spend most of their time on 2-3 platforms. Pick the one they are on the most and get consistent sharing and participating there first.
Trying to be on every platform makes little sense and will only serve to frustrate and convince you social media is just not worth the time.
5 Create Content List, Generate 2-3 Weeks of Content, Video, Text, Blogs, etc.
Create a content list. Leverage Google and YouTube search and see what you customers are searching for. Type some phrases your customer likely search for in the search bar on both and see what popular search terms show up.
Make a list of topics. Start generating content around each. We like to start with 21 topics and corresponding pieces of content. This provides 3 weeks of one post per day content. Content can be video or text and even better a mix of both.
6 Engage with others on the platform
Social media is called social for a reason. You must be present and active on the platforms. Each of the platform’s algorithm will reward you for doing so. Social media does not work if you are not engaging and participating. Don’t let cold feet or fear of how you will be perceived stop you from participating.
BONUS:
7 Once Consistently posting on one platform… start to post more often and expand to the next platform.
Once you have been at it for a while start posting on the second most used platform by your customer. Same things follow steps 1-6 above. Save time by repurposing that content you already created in step 5.
Get Ready to Lose Your Biggest Customer… and When you Do How to Keep the Doors Open! business has those one or two customers… the ones that represent most of your revenue… money… sales.
Every business does not have a plan for when those customers leave.
It happens.
Customers close, they get sold and sometimes go bankrupt and stiff you with MILLIONS in receivables you will never collect.
When this happens to your business, you better have a plan.
One of the best plans is to actively fill the sales pipeline with new leads. Filling the pipeline with leads and prospects must be systemized and this system needs to be run daily. This is both a hedge against the loss of business and a powerful tool to grow and scale business.
The next step is to cultivate leads into paying customers. The process of converting leads to customers is mission critical to the long term survival and growth of a business.
Be wary of having a single customer become so big that if they left your business would be decimated. This happens too often in many industries and can lead to making poor business decisions like reducing price for fear this customer might leave.
For the small business this is ONE of the reasons it is SO important to work ON the business…. You know the classic work on and not in the business.
Work on the business, systemize filling the pipeline with leads, convert leads to customers and be willing to say NO to customers when it can be devastating to your business.
Sales is easy. It is nothing more than connecting people with the solution to their problems. Who does not like to help others resolve their problems?
There is often a disconnect. The customer has a problem and the salesperson the solution. The salesperson presents the solution and then drops the ball and does not ask the customer to buy.
For any number of reasons, the right solution is presented but timing is off. Maybe there is a cash flow crunch, capital is allocated elsewhere, or key customer staff will be on vacation. There must be a system to follow up.
1) Ask for the Sale. Most people just won’t. ? So ASK! ?. Deliver a great sales presentation and then ask for the sale. Present solutions to the potential customer. Just asking for the sale is part of the process.
2) Turn No’s into Not Today’s and follow up. Some suggest it can take 7, YES SEVEN impressions before a customer buys. You must keep showing up and be there when the customer is ready to buy.
Technology makes the latter easy… leverage technology to systemize and automate the process. ?
Always ask for the sale and systemize the follow up.
Half of all businesses fail in the first 5 years. If you are a business owner or entrepreneur that should SCARE you! ?
There are two reasons for this time and capital.
1). Time… you have to be patient. Things do not happen overnight. You are going to have to be consistently work on and in your business for more than a few weeks.
Few businesses are overnight successes. They are a 5–10-year overnight success. Years are spent struggling day in and day out. One day, seemingly overnight they make it.
Little attention is paid to the years of struggle. Pop culture and the media make this worse.
Take the MTV Cribs show from years back. The artist, the mansion, cars and overall high life are all covered. Absent is the back story of what it took the artist to make that happen.
In sports look at Michael Jordan. He was cut from his varsity high school basketball team; he made the JV team. There is a tremendous story in this part of his basketball career, yet most attention is on the wins and championships.
It takes time and the willingness to keep going regardless of how many times you are knock down to be successful in business.
2). Being Undercapitalized. Not having enough money to run your operation will prevent you from being nimble and capitalizing on great opportunities.
Being undercapitalized means making decisions based on capital and NOT on what is BEST for the business.
Capital is the oxygen of the business.
Capital can be liquid in the form of cash parked in an account OR access to borrowed money in the form of a loan or line of credit.
Bottom line is without capital the business will die.
It is BEST for the business to have money in the bank well in advance of needing it. Having a line of credit set up before you need it is also BEST.
Authors Note: When I had my brick-and-mortar business for 12 years I maintained a line of credit. My commercial banker would ask every time it was up for renewal why I was keeping it if I did not need it. My answer “because if I come to you when I really need it, it will be much harder to get it on my terms.”
Spend the TIME working, hustling, and grinding in and on your business.
Be a GREAT steward of capital. Have cash in the bank and have access to financing.
Do these two things and your business will defy the odds and be open after 5 years.
