Tip #15: I Met Chef Bev Lee!

We call her Chef Bev for short who owns an interesting business, www.sensesrecreationalcookingschool.com. Talk about thinking outside of the box, she holds innovative team building training sessions for Fortune 500 Corporations. It is innovative; it is a way to train their staff on working together. She assesses the individuals into different vegetables categories and assigns characteristics according to the individuals in the team. So before you laugh, before you pass judgment on what the Fortune 500 companies are doing, I want you to take a good look at her business, and how she built the perfect business – with a competition free zone.

1. The business is Unique – Not the regular, outing where you leap off a pole and trust your team members to catch you.

2. Perfect Target Market – A group who is kinda quirky, spending other people’s money and willing to take a chance with a new experience

3. Creative experience – Instead of just a bunch of lectures that people hate …especially the team, she creates an experience that will be remembered for a lifetime. The other thing that is so great about Chef Bev is that she does have additional income streams. She teaches classes for “golf widows” and also for people who love to cook as much as she does, but was willing to get additional marketing education.

So during our meeting today, we talked about maximizing every opportunity. She told me that she is a featured Chef at the North Las Vegas Farmers Market. She told me that she enjoys this part of her business but can’t really see the opportunity.

Then, with my “Fresh Eyes” I told her about several other ways to make money there plus, get additional business.

Here are just a few of the ideas:

• She already gives away discounted classes, so I told her to keep the cards that were entered into the drawing to build her “herd” – these people have already raised their hands to say that they are interested in her cooking classes, then Market to them until they DIE!

• Video the demonstrations for her website and monthly newsletter.

• Use the list to get pre-orders for her cookbook.

• Sell her cookbook – (yes, the one that is sitting on the table and half done)

• Have a book signing at the Market – send to her email list.

• Offer a class at the Farmers Market for later in the day –from her “herd’ announcing that she will be there and available for classes and from people who come by the booth. Make it like Emeril Live with a big audience

• Allow everyone who entered the drawings to “win” second prize which would be a discount coupon off your services. Now, these are just a few of the ways to get the most out of a free opportunity. I talk about doing this for your business and I show you ways to do this at my monthly meeting. But what I want you to see is that, you can build your business, with low cost ideas.

Dan Kennedy says, If you can’t make money without money, THEN you probably can’t make money with money. Work on your business segment: List all of the places where you are presented with an opportunity – like the North Las Vegas Farmers Market for Chef Bev
Are you asked to speak to others?
Are you helping your kid’s soccer team, dance lessons, etc.?
Do you volunteer for a charity?

Tip #14: Why is Marketing so Hard?

When the phone does not ring like its supposed to, more business owners are blaming it on the economy but it may be because essential business basics are not the priority. Let’s start with the essentials. Marketing is not about being funny or clever, it is about testing to see what works. My favorite marketing guru – Dan Kennedy has really put it into a form that makes sense to me. He says, “If your marketing is not working, 99% of the time it is because you did not follow this simple formula”.

The Formula is a Equilateral triangle ( all 3 sides are equal length)

Side 1 – Market: figuring out the who first. Not deciding to market after the product is done. Figure out the who first and then how do you reach them. Most business owners do this backwards. They read traditional stuff that says – do what you love and the money will follow–but what I love to do is watch TV (as many of you know) and eat Mexican food. That job is taken by the Taco Bell Chihuahua and even he got fired.

Focus on who is going to buy your product or service. Think through this one. Even at the telephone company – everyone needs a telephone right? Well, I was crazy trying to reach everyone. I didn’t have enough money to fight with the existing telephone carrier, the 33 other small ones like me and then Cable entered the market and I was doomed. I have to find a niche a target.

Once I found a target, then, I could consistently talk directly to them for less money. I could effectively reach a certain group that made us famous!

Side 2 – Message: Getting your message right. It should be focused and laser sharp so that your target market after reading your ad, hearing your presentation, walking into your store, will say – this is for me. Hey, it seems like they are talking to me. Since my target market is credit challenged customers, they typically have other challenges. They tend to borrow money from relatives to get them out of a bind. My radio commercial was a girl calling her aunt asking to borrow money. My customers would come in and say – I did that last week. My mother hated the commercial said it was demeaning however, my customer did not have a problem. Even my offices, they were not fancy in a fancy building. They were in a strip mall, or one was inside of a pay day loan company for years.

Side 3 – Media: This should be the last decision you make. Choose the media after you have determined your market and message. My customers were not readers so I had to figure out another way to reach them. There weren’t any magazines or newspapers that they read. So I chose radio.

Tip #13: Why Aren’t You Getting Free Publicity?

The piece you’re missing in your press releases might shock you! The traditional way of getting free publicity all changed in 2005. The growth of the paparazzi , selling pictures of babies, the Britney effect. The world has now changed and so has news. Or what producers and editors believe is news.

The top 3 stories of February, 2007 based on internet searches, reported newspapers, television, radio…drum roll please… I bet you would not guess:

1. Great Britain withdraws from Iraq
2. Anna Nicole Smith Dies
3. Britney Spears Shaves her Head

For years, big companies have understood the use of celebrities for marketing. Small businesses have not taken advantage of this perfect way to get publicity. Look at the night clubs right here in Las Vegas. Each week, Extra, Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight report about celebrity sightings at the night clubs. Hallmark created a Paris Hilton Card that read—That’s Hot! They were later sued by Paris Hilton, but sold so many cards, it was worth it. They discontinued the card but it was better to use the tagline rather than paying Paris Hilton a hefty fee to use the line. The event was reported by over 15,000 media outlets getting Hallmark, free ads and more.

Now, that I have convinced you that adding celebrity to your business is essential, what are you going to do to add the celebrity to your business. Celebrity branding is the new way to insure a success. Attaching your business to a celebrity or making you or your customers celebrities, has a better effect on your bottom line than regular advertising.

Tip #12: Five Ways to Divide Your Customer Lists for Money

I received tons of questions about customer lists. They wanted to know, what information should be kept, what are they supposed to do with the list, and help getting their list together. List segmentation will save marketing dollars, help with determining where to invest additional dollars and how to make money quickly – when needed.
Here are the TOP 5 Ways you must divide your list to give you the best management reports for determining how to allocate your marketing dollars.
1. Last time customer/patient or client purchased from you
2. Money spent with you by year and lifetime
3. Number of products or services purchased by client/patient/customer
4. Customers who referred, how many times and the value of the new customer
5. Where each customer heard about your product or service
BONUS list you must keep – Inactive Customers – we talked about them a couple of weeks ago with the letter of apology. If you need the letter of apology, send me an email and I will forward the template I use.
Hope you learned and are implementing from these articles. Feel free to forward them to friends and enemies… Email me if you want me to answer specific questions

Tip #11: Three Steps to Recession Proof Your Business

The final step during is to focus on…

3. Referral – Focus on getting great referrals. My favorite is I run a referral contest and offer free activations to all of my clients family and friends. For each referral, my client is rewarded with a gift… $20 off their monthly invoice, free cell phone charger and if they refer 10 people, they receive a plasma television. The cost of the television is only $800 and I received over 230 new clients. The best, only one client actually reached the 10 referrals but many referred 3 – 5 and received gifts costing less than $10.

Step one….Retention
Step two…Reactivation
Step three…Referral

Three steps for a recession proof business!

Tip #10-2: Three Steps to Recession Proof Your Business

During a recession it is important to focus of the 3 R’s of your business. Last week Step #1 was Retention of your existing customers!

Step 2. Reactivation – Your easiest customer to sell is one that was a previous client. Reach out to your old customers and win their business again. I send out an “apology letter” to old clients to say – I am sorry for anything that went wrong. I would like to win your business back – tell me how! I continue to win back 17.3% of my previous customers.

Next Tuesday, the third R – can you guess what it is?

Add did you see last week’s Independence Day Video? Check it out and grab my book for free!

http://www.themilliondollarequation.com/

Tip #10: Three Steps to Recession Proof Your Business

During a recession it is important to focus of the 3 R’s of your business. Last week Step #1 was Retention of your existing customers!

Step 2. Reactivation – Your easiest customer to sell is one that was a previous client. Reach out to your old customers and win their business again. I send out an “apology letter” to old clients to say – I am sorry for anything that went wrong. I would like to win your business back – tell me how! I continue to win back 17.3% of my previous customers.

Next Tuesday, the third R – can you guess what it is?

Happy Independence Day!

FINALLY – I am sharing my million dollar business secrets with those outside of Las Vegas. Here’s my quick message – wait for the 48sec mark when my daughter Devyn tries to close the sliding glass door! And then is yelling MOMMY!!! Juggling never ends. ENJOY!  Remember to GRAB my FREE book on the right and get access to the additional videos!

Tip #6: The Ideal Niche Market

Question For Richelle : Based on your success, can you discuss how a startup business owner/entrepreneur determine how to establish a niche?
Richelle’s Answer – What is an ideal Niche Market? An ideal Niche market is a market that has these qualities:

1. Small enough for you to dominate – How will you reach the prospect? If you choose for example African American women. Well there are millions of them. How can you reach them through media? And if you have no money, you will not reach enough to make you any money

2. Big enough so that you can make money – Realize that you will only be able to penetrate and sell to about 20% of the market. If the market is only 1,000 – then that means you start with a capacity of 200 people that you can reach. YIKES – this is too small… An ideal niche market has at least 10,000 in it.

3. Is there available media to reach the prospect? Is there a magazine, television show, newspaper, a list to direct mail, radio, websites who are also selling to the prospect?

4. Does your niche have money to spend on your product or service?

5. Is your niche spending right now?

Run your business through this test to determine if you have a niche market. Good luck!

Tip #5: Business vs. Hobby

Richelle, What is the rule of thumb to determine if the service I want to offer is meeting a need that will make money, i.e business vs. hobby?

Richelle’s Answer:
Well I think the only question to ask is if is the hobby making money? If it makes money then, it is a business. There is no other test. BUT- I think the question you are asking is do I have a viable business?

First, I would focus on the first part of the Million Dollar Equation – which is what problem is your business solving?

Every successful business provides a solution for its customers. FedEx provides a way to get packages overnight. Dominoes Pizza provides a way to get fresh hot pizza within 30 minutes or less. My company, FreshStart Telephone provided a way for credit challenged customers to get phone service guaranteed without a deposit. My private client – Henderson OB/GYN provides women with a doctor who listens to their challenges and guarantees to spend at least 30 minutes per appointment.

As you can see – the solution is almost as important as whether there is a niche. I like to figure out who has the problem, first and then create the solution! Once you determine who has the problem, then, the next step is to run them through the Ideal Niche Market test

1. Small enough to make the big competitors say “never mind”
2. Big enough to make some money
3. Is there available media
4. Do they spend money?
5. Are they spending money right now?

Good luck to you! I wish you nothing but success!
Let me know what you think!