A week or so ago, I used the example of choosing an accountant to do your taxes to demonstrate the advantages of focusing on a specific target market that has predictable and expensive problems. Let’s look at that again. Pretend that you met two accountants who could help you file your taxes. One was the…
I was listening in as a client of mine conducted an initial phone call with someone who was interested in her services. The call was going well and the prospect came out with, This all sounds really great, how do we get started working on this together? To hear that sentence from a prospect is…
There’s no doubt that he’s stuck. We got on the phone and he told me about his business challenges. So I ask him about his target audience and what he offers. What’s different about his agency? What does his team know more about than the agency down the street? Brad, it’s our creative! Don’t you…
If you’ve been on this list for any length of time you’ve heard a few messages from me over and over; You need to do less. Serve fewer audiences. Offer fewer services. Find one thing that you can do again and again and again until you get really really good at it. You need to…
I’m in the midst of building a brand new arm to my business: mastermind groups for business owners. I’m in the middle of a beta test for these groups and have spoken to colleagues, past clients, prospects, and anyone who might have an interest in hearing about it. (One of my core business growth tenets…
“I always say, “Be so good that they can’t ignore you.” If someone’s thinking, “How can I be really good?” people are going to come to you…” ~ Steve Martin Last week I told you the story of my client who tripled her business and only added five employees, by focusing on a specialty and…
Did you know that tomorrow is “Bosses Day”? I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t — it’s a pretty ridiculous holiday. Don’t get me started on the idea that employees should buy bosses gifts (they shouldn’t) and the ones they do buy are mostly lame (who wants balloons, or a card), the whole thing is…
This week we talked about how the “market rate” for your services is irrelevant — your specific qualities and capabilities will attract different prospects than others in your market. Those qualities impact the price you can charge more than the market does. We also talked about we can identify ONE critical feature or benefit that…
About a year ago, I started experiencing some foot pain. One of the doctor’s recommendations was to try some different shoes with wider toe boxes and better insoles. I tried a bunch of things with varying success until I broke down and tried a pair of Birkenstocks. Why did it take me so long to…
In my recent survey of over 100 business owners, I asked them to agree or disagree with the following statement. We are priced significantly higher than our competitors. The results showed an almost perfect “bell curve,” with a slight tilt toward agreeing. Which brings up the question, “How do we know what our competitors are charging?…