Define Your Career or Business Clearly
Define Your Career or Business Clearly
By Brian Tracy
The first and most important question is: what business am I in? This question is not as simple as it seems. To identify your career or business goals, you must first learn to define your business in terms of what you do for your customer or for your company. Expand the definition of your business so that it is as broad as possible. Never stop with the first answer. Take the first answer to this question and find new applications, new markets, and new definitions for it.
Railroads
For example, at the beginning of the last century, those railroads that defined themselves strictly as railroads—providers of rail transport—failed to see that new technologies and methods of transport, such as trucks and airplanes, were a potential threat to their business. If they had defined themselves instead as movers of goods and people—providers of transportation—their response to the changes in technology might have been different. When you define your business, think in terms of how your products or services affect or interact with the lives and work of other people and organizations. Consider both existing customers, and those customers that you would like to acquire.
Target the Future
The next question to ask is: what business will I be in if things continue the way they are today? Think about your career or business two years from now, then in five years. If you do not change the way you define your work or your business, what kind of work will you be doing? Is it a sound and viable strategy to continue in your current way of working or doing business, or should be looking at changing in some way? Start by imagining what business you could be in. Where would a dramatic change in knowledge or skills, products or services, or industries and markets lead you? To express it another way, if you were willing to take stock of the environment for your career or business and commit to taking action, what business could you be in if you really wanted to be?
Analyze your Market
Take the analysis a step further and thing about what business you should be in. To do this, take a careful and comprehensive self-inventory. Examine your skills, your abilities, your ambitions, your energies, and especially your heart’s desires. Then analyze the market in which your career or business will be operating. Is there a fit? If not, either evaluate the changes you would personally need to make to create the career or business that would flourish in that market, or select a more appropriate market. These questions are among the most important of your life: What changes will you have to make to become the kind of person who can live the life and do the work you would really like to be doing in the future?
Action Exercise
What business are you in? What business could you be in? What business should you be in? What business should you not be in? What actions do you commit to take immediately as a result of insights gained in this blog post?
Do you want to gain absolute clarity over your business or career? Join us at the next Mini Eat That Frog Training Workshop and learn how to set and achieve your goals in the 5 key areas of your life. Call 1300 795 129 now to secure your seat.
The Heart of the Sale
What is selling? In its simplest terms, selling is the process of persuading a person that your product or service is of greater value to him than the price you are asking for it. Our market society is based on the principles of freedom of choice and mutual benefit. Each party enters into a transaction when he feels that he will be better off as a result of the transaction than he would be without it.
Convince the Customer
For the customer to buy your particular product or service, he or she must be convinced, not only that is it the best choice of product or service available, but also that there is no better way for him to spend the equivalent sum of money that it costs. Your job as a salesperson is to convince the customer that these conditions exist and then to elicit a commitment from him to take action on your offer.
The Critical Factor: Risk
The critical factor in selling today is risk. Because of the continuous change, rapid obsolescence, and an uncertain economy, the risk of buying the wrong product or service has become greater than ever before. There are four main factors that contribute to the perception of risk in the mind and hear of the customer.
The first factor that contributes to risk is the size of the sale. The larger the scale, the more money involved, the greater the risk. If a person is buying a package of Lifesavers, the risk of satisfaction or dissatisfaction is insignificant. But if a person is buying a computer system for their company, the risk factor is magnified by hundreds of thousands of times. Whenever you are selling a product that has a high price on it, you must be aware that risk enters into the buyer’s calculations immediately. People Affected by the Decision
The second factor contributing to the perception of risk is the number of people who will be affected by the buying decision. Almost every complex buying decision involves several people. There are people who must use the product or service. There are people who must pay for the product or service. There are people who are dependent of the results expected from the product or service. If a person is extremely sensitive to the opinions of others, this factor alone can cause him or her to put off a buying decision. Length of Life of the Product
The third factor contributing to the perception of risk is the length of life of the product. A product or service that, once installed, is meant to last for several years, generates the feeling of risk. The customer panics and thinks, "What if it doesn’t work and I’m stuck with it." Unfamiliarity
The fourth major risk factor is the customer’s unfamiliarity with you, your company, and your product or service. A first-time buyer, one who has not bought the product or service before, or who has not bought it from you, is often nervous and requires a lot of hand-holding. Anything new or different makes the average customer tense and uneasy. This is why a new product or service, or a new business relationship with your company, has to be presented as a natural extension of what the customer is already doing. Action Exercise
Identify the risks that a customer might find with your product or service. Once you had clearly defined those risks it will be easier to find solutions to them to ease nervous customers.
The Laws of Money
January 22, 2010
The Laws of Money
By Brian Tracy
One of your major goals in life should be financial independence. You must aim to reach the point where you have enough money so that you never have to worry about money again. The good news is that financial independence is easier to achieve today than it has ever been before.
The Law of Abundance
We live in an abundant universe in which there is sufficient money for all who really want it and are willing to obey the laws governing its acquisition. People become wealthy because they decide to become wealthy. People are poor because they have not yet decided to become rich.
The world is full of thousands of people who have had far more difficulties to overcome than you could ever imagine, and they’ve gone on to be successful anyway. So can you.
The Law of Exchange
Money is the medium through which people exchange their labor in the production of goods and services for the goods and services of others. The amount of money you earn is the measure of the value that others place on your contribution. To increase the amount of money you are getting out, you must increase the value of the work that you are putting in.
The Law of Capital
Your most valuable assets, in terms of cash flow, are your physical and mental capital—your earning ability. How much time you put in and how much of yourself you put into that time largely determine your earning ability. Time and money can be either spent or invested. If you invest your time or money in becoming more knowledgeable and better skilled, you can increase your value.
The Law of Time Perspective
The most successful people in any society are those who take the longest time period into consideration when making their day-to-day decisions. Your ability to practice self-mastery, self-control, and self-denial, to sacrifice in the short term so you can enjoy greater rewards in the long term, is the starting point of developing a long time perspective.
The Law of Saving
Financial freedom comes to people who save 10 percent or more of their income throughout their lifetime. Savings today are what guarantee the security and the possibilities of tomorrow.
The Law of Conservation
It’s not how much you make but how much you keep that determines your financial future. The true measure of how well you are really doing is how much you keep out of the amount that you earn.
The Law of Three
There are three legs to the stool of financial freedom: savings, insurance, and investment. One of your major responsibilities, to yourself and to the people who depend on you, is to build a financial fortress around yourself over the course of your working lifetime. To be fully protected against the unexpected, you require liquid savings equal to two to six months of normal expenses.
The Law of Investing
Investigate before you invest. This is one of the most important of all the laws of money. You should spend at least as much time studying a particular investment as you do earning the money to put into that particular investment. The only thing easy about money is losing it. If you think you can afford to lose a little, you’re going to end up losing a lot. Invest only with experts who have a proven track record of success with their own money.
The Law of Magnetism
The more money you save and accumulate, the more money you attract into your life. The Law of Magnetism has been written about for more than 5,000 years. It explains much about success and failure in every area of life, especially in the financial arena. The more positive emotion you associate with your money, the more opportunities you will attract to acquire even more.
Action Exercise
Take time every day, every week, and every month to reflect on your financial situation and look for ways to deploy your finances more intelligently. The more time you take to think intelligently about your finances, the better decisions you will make and the more money you will have to think about.
The Seven P Formula for Marketing Success
January 20, 2010
The Seven P Formula for Marketing Success
By Brian Tracy
Once you have developed your marketing strategy, there is a seven P formula you should continually use to evaluate and reevaluate your business activities. These seven are: product, price, promotion, place, packaging, positioning, and people. As products, markets, customers, and needs change rapidly, you must continually revisit these seven P’s to make sure you are on track and achieving the maximum results possible for you in today’s Market.
Product
To begin, develop the habit of looking at your product as though you were an outside marketing consultant having been brought in to help your company decide whether or not it is in the right business at this time. Ask critical questions such as: Is your current product or service, or mix of products or services appropriate and suitable for the market and the customers of today?
Prices Deserve Attention
The second P in the formula has to do with price. Develop the habit of continually examining and reexamining the prices of the products and services that you sell to make sure they are still appropriate to the realities of the current market. Sometimes you need to lower your prices. At other times, it may be appropriate to raise your prices. Many companies have found that the profitability of certain products or services does not justify the amount of effort and resources that go into producing them. By raising their prices, they may lose a percentage of their customers, but the remaining percentage generates a profit on every sale. Could this be appropriate for you?
Promotion
The third habit in marketing and sales is for you to develop the habit of thinking in terms of promotion all the time. Promotion includes all the ways you tell your customers about products or services and how you then market and sell to them. Small changes in the way you promote and sell your products can lead to dramatic changes in your results. Experienced copywriters can often increase the response rate from advertising by 500 percent by simply changing the headline on the advertisement.
Place
The fourth P in the marketing mix is the place where your product or service is actually sold. Develop the habit of reviewing and reflecting upon the exact location where the customer meets the salesperson. Sometimes a change in place can lead to a rapid increase in sales.
Packaging
The fifth element in the marketing mix is packaging. Develop the habit of standing back and looking at every visual element in the packaging of your product or service through the eyes of a critical prospect. Remember, people form their first impression about you within 30 seconds of seeing you or some element of your company. Small improvements in the packaging or external appearance of your product or service can often lead to completely different reactions from your customers.
Positioning
The next P is positioning. You should develop the habit of thinking continually about how you are positioned in the hearts and minds of your customers. How do people think about you and talk about you when you are not present? How do people think and talk about your company? What positioning do you have in your market, in terms of the specific words that people use when they describe you and your offerings to others?
People are Everything
The final P is people. Develop the habit of thinking in terms of the people inside and outside of your business who are responsible for every element of your sales and marketing strategy and activities. Your ability to select, recruit, hire, and retain the proper people, with the skills and abilities to do the job you need to have done, is more important than everything else put together.
Action Exercise
Position yourself in everything you say and do as the most credible and believable supplier of your product or service to your ideal customer.
Pump Up Your Profits In 2010!
There is a truism that 50 percent of advertising is wasted, but no one ever knows for sure which 50 percent it is. As a result, advertising budgets always seem higher than necessary. This problem persists in many areas of business today. Money is being wasted, but no one is exactly sure where and how it is happening.
Low Profits or No Profits
Many companies today are earning low profits or no profits because their costs of doing business are not coordinated with their sales. Many products and services are priced by people who are completely unaware of the real costs involved in bringing these products or services to the market. These mistakes in pricing are then buried in the overall operations and general revenues of the business.
Conduct a Profit Analysis on Every Product
One of the most important parts of the Turbo strategy process is for you to conduct a complete profit analysis on each product or service you sell. Very few companies have ever done this. But when you begin applying profit analysis in your company, you can often increase your profits dramatically.
High-Volume vs. High Profit Customers
As you examine these numbers, you will find that, in many cases, your biggest customers are not your most profitable customers, and your biggest selling products or services are not your most profitable ones either. You may find that your costs of doing business with some customers and with some products are so high that it is hardly worth the investment of people are resources. This can only be determined by taking a hard look at the numbers.
You need to be your own turnaround specialist all the time, and most especially when business slows for any reason. To pump up your profits, you do a complete profit analysis on your business and move immediately to focus the energies of the company on those areas that represent the very best sources of net cash. This process requires that you continually analyze your business so that you know exactly the profitability of every product or service you sell in comparison with every other product or service you sell, right down to the penny. From Most to Least Profitable
The fact is that with a little effort, every single product or service can be organized on a scale from the most profitable to the least profitable, both on a per item or per hour basis, and in net dollar amounts. There is always one that is more profitable than any other. Determine Profitability
You begin your profit analysis by determining the exact gross sales revenues that you receive from a product or service after all subtractions for defects, returns, breakage, loss, wastage, and bad debts. Take every single deduction so that your gross dollar amount is completely accurate, and you are crystal-clear about the exact amount you are netting from sales. Face the Bitter Truth
You will probably find that fully half of your product and service offerings are generating very little profit or even causing you to lose money with every sale. A turnaround specialist would immediately either raise the prices of the low-profit items or discontinue them altogether. You must do the same. Action Exercise
Do a complete profit analysis on every product and service you offer. Rank them from highest to lowest.
Become Everything You Are Capable of Becoming in 2010
The turning point in my life came when I discovered the law of cause and effect, the great law of the universe, and human destiny. I learned that everything happens for a reason. I discovered that success is not an accident. Failure is not an accident, either. I also discovered that people who are successful in any area usually are those who have learned the cause-and-effect relationship between what they want and how to get it.
Determine Your Personal Growth and Development Values
To realize your full potential for personal and professional growth and development, begin with your values as they apply to your own abilities. As you know, your values are expressed in your words and actions.
You can tell what your values are by looking at what you do and how you respond to the world around you. Your values are the root causes of your motivations and your behaviors.
Clarify Your Personal Growth and Development Vision
Create a long-term vision for yourself in the area of personal growth. Project forward five or ten years and imagine that you are developed fully in every important part of your life. Idealize and see yourself as outstanding in every respect. Refuse to compromise on your personal dreams.
Now take your vision and crystallize it into specific goals. Here is a good way to start. Take out a piece of paper and write down ten goals that you would like to achieve in the area of personal and professional development in the months and years ahead. Write in the present tense, exactly as if you were already the person you intend to be.
Determine exactly what you want to be able to do. Decide who you want to become. Describe exactly what you will look like when you become truly excellent in your field and in your personal life.
Upgrade Your Personal Knowledge and SkillsSet specific measures for each of your goals. If your goal is to excel in your field, determine how you will know when you have achieved it. Decide how you can measure your progress and evaluate your success.
Perhaps you can use as a measure the number of hours you study in your field each week. Perhaps you can measure the number of books you read or the number of audio programs you listen to. Perhaps you could measure your progress by the number of sales you make as the result of your growing skills.
Develop Winning Personal Growth and Development HabitsSelect the specific habits and behaviours you will need to practice every day to become the person you want to become. These could be the habits of clarity, planning, thoroughness, studiousness, hard work, determination, and persistence. Action Exercise
Decide today to develop yourself to the point where you can achieve every financial and personal goal you ever set and become everything you are capable of becoming. Write down your goals and make sure to look at them every day, then ponder ways you possibly achieve these goals.
