As a business owner looking for help with a business, you are probably aware that employing staff can be a double-edged sword.

On one hand, you need staff if you are serious about creating a business that successfully operates and creates a good profit without you needing to be there every day (a business that doesn’t make money unless you turn up isn’t a business… it’s a well-paid job).

On the other hand, staff can create stress and hassle rather than help with a business. Very few of your staff will work as hard as you do and they certainly won’t care as much about the business. Why should they? It belongs to you not them.

Employees help with a business by creating time and resources inside it. They also consume it. You have to invest a number of hours every week managing staff and ensuring they are doing what they should be. Just because you are taking someone on for 40 hours a week doesn’t mean you will gain 40 hours of productive time! And your team will not normally be able to do as much as you can do in an hour. They are unlikely to be as focused and productive as you.

If you have an ambitious business goal and want growth then you will need some external help with a business, especially if you are looking for an exit (and, at some point, you will have to exit your business, whether you close it, sell it or die!).

There is a way to increase the amount of resources in your business without taking on paid staff. And it’s a way that opens up a large amount of expertise. It’s called ‘outsourcing’: getting experts who work for themselves or run their own businesses to work on your business, in return for a fee.

Outsourcing has become significantly more popular over the past few years amongst those who need extra help with a business. The dire state of the economy has resulted in many talented people being pushed out of jobs. Many decided they would continue to do what they were good at but would work for themselves.

You can outsource virtually anything to get help with a business. It’s easy to find people to do your financial paperwork, answer your phones, carry out your marketing, organise your diary, act as a gatekeeper, do customer service, and look after IT.

I have one client who outsources virtually everything in his business, most importantly the creation and delivery of the product he sells. It works very well for my client. His is a multi-million pound business, and he no longer has the hassle of managing a bunch of employees. Together with a small management team, he works purely on growing the business using outsourced experts.

This is the true role of the business owner: working ON the business rather than IN it.

Outsourcing isn’t without its difficulties however. Get it wrong and it can be worse than having a bad employee.

Here are a number of rules you must adhere to if outsourcing is to provide help with a business:

Be very clear about what needs to be done and how you want it to be done

The beauty of outsourcing is that you are dealing with another business. That means you can be very, very specific about what needs to be done and exactly how you would like it to be done. My experience with outsourcers is that the clearer and more specific you are, the happier the relationship is and the better the quality of the work.

If the business cannot do what you want then you move on to another supplier. That’s not so easy to do with an employee.

It means that your risk is reduced and the outsourcing business or freelancer must work hard to keep your contract.

The clearer you are about what needs to be done and how, the easier it is to manage the work and ensure it is being done correctly.

Ask the same kind of questions you would ask an employee in a job interview

You must have excellent working relationships with your outsourced providers. And that means you need to ask plenty of questions before you hire them – just as you would ask a potential employee. You need to be comfortable that you can work with this business on a day-to-day basis. When a problem does occur – and there are always problems along the way – the better the relationship, the easier it will be to get the problem fixed.

I always hire suppliers and employees on attitude first, skills second. Someone with a great attitude can increase their skill-set, whereas it’s difficult to change someone’s attitude, even if they’re very good at a particular set of tasks.

Look for specific experience and skills and demand proof that they can do the work

Again, just as with hiring employees, you need proof that the outsourcer can do what they say they can. Ask them for samples of their work. Better still, ask to speak to existing clients. A business that’s confident about its abilities will happily put you in contact with other clients. They are likely to put you in touch with their very top client so assume everything you hear is ‘best case’ scenario.

Be very wary of new outsourcers, especially if they are freelancers who have just set up in business after being made redundant or leaving employment for some other reason. Why let your business be the guinea pig, when you can hire someone who has been doing it for a couple of years and has already figured out how to be a better service provider?

Test and measure

As with all marketing, test your new outsourcer with a small job before you hand everything over to them. You need to build a relationship of trust with them, and a couple of minor jobs to start with is a pretty sensible way to do it. Set clear targets and measure the progress. It will give you confidence that they are capable of doing more challenging work.

Never ever buy solely on price

The last reason you should pick an outsourcer is because they are the cheapest. Remember, ‘if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’. Any outsourcer with appropriate experience that does a good job providing help with a business will rightly be able to demand a reasonable fee. Beware any supplier that seems too cheap for what they offer. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.

Tie payments into milestones

Finding a good outsourcer and getting everything set up correctly is the first hurdle. The next is to ensure they continue to perform consistently. That’s why it makes sense to tie ongoing payments into specific milestones. Reward your supplier for performance to keep them on the ball. Don’t ever let them start to think that they will get paid month in, month out, regardless of the quality of the work done.

It’s also a good idea with ongoing outsourced work to schedule regular reviews, say every three or six months.

Always put everything into writing

Whatever you agree with your supplier, make sure it is laid out clearly and simply in writing. This is especially important with alterations to the original brief that occur along the way. You and your outsourcer should have a single document you can both refer to, which lays out exactly who does what and when.

Follow these rules with every new outsourcing supplier and you will have a happy, harmonious way to grow your business.

What’s your experience of outsourcing work? Has it provided help with a business? Feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear your story.

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• Highly enthusiastic and motivated employees are more productive, take less time off and are more      likely to stay with your company. They are your most powerful source of business support, but only if they are sufficiently engaged.
• Employers who genuinely value their employees have few customer complaints, higher quality productivity and revenue and lower worker turnover than those who don’t value their staff, according to Sirota Consulting, experts in attitude      research (and whose work includes conducting a survey of 1.2 million employees from 52 mostly Fortune 100 companies).
• That survey showed that far from motivating employees, most business owners unwittingly de-motivate them (and have usually done so within six months of the person joining the organisation). They do this by treating employees as if they are as disposable as paper clips. At the first sign that the company needs business support, employees – supposedly a company’s most important asset – become expendable, says David Sirota of Sirota Consulting.
• All too often, business owners (or managers) believe certain myths about their employees including:
• Employees will never be satisfied with their pay
• Employees object to the large difference between their earnings and those of senior management
• Complimenting employees on a job well done goes to their heads and increases their demands for more money
• A lean, mean company is more successful
• Most employees are lazy and need to be controlled
• Most employees resist change, whatever it is
• Unfortunately, most management policies are not geared towards the 95% of employees who are good workers but to the 5% who are ‘allergic to work’. In many organisations, management generalises the behaviour of the minority to just about every worker which makes the work environment oppressive for everyone and suppresses the natural enthusiasm most people bring to their jobs. Examples of poor management policies include: invoking disciplinary codes for minor offenses, policing 10-minute coffee breaks and generally behaving as though employees have to be made to work. Many managers (or business owners) fail to show appreciation and concern for their employees and the business support they provide.
• While many motivational programmes focus on providing incentives (often financial ones), they fail to provide what employees really want:
• Equity (to be treated fairly)
• Achievement – to be proud of one’s job and company
• Camaraderie – to have good productive relationships with fellow employees.
• Too many motivational programmes assume that every employee is the same and hope a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach will work and lead to an acceptable level of business support. However, individuals at different organisational levels with different earning power may have different motivational levels. What motivates employees at one level of the organisation may not motivate those at another level. While some employees are motivated by financial rewards, others might want recognition, promotion, or to be allowed to work flexible hours. To find out what motivates an employee, the best thing the business owner (or manager) can do is to ask.

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Studies tell us that only 3% of people in the UK set goals, and they are among the wealthiest people in the nation! Worldwide the percentage is probably less. Why so low? There are many reasons, but the one that concerns me the most is lack of knowledge. When we ask people why they don’t set goals they often say, “I don’t know how to.”

Isn’t that amazing? We send our children to school for 12 years before they leave with G.C.S.E. qualifications.  Many of them go on to jobs, or universities. We teach them many weighty subjects including history, economics, literature, science, and so forth, but we miss one critically imperative skill: goal setting. We award them their degrees, pat them on their backs, and send them into the world full of knowledge, but ill-prepared, almost always, to design and pursue the lives they really want and deserve.

And all that’s required to change this lack of knowledge is a single school term, even half a school term, devoted to teaching goal setting. It doesn’t seem likely that we’re going to change the U.K. educational system any time soon, or the world’s educational system, but that’s not going to stop me from teaching you how to set goals.

The conversations I have are social proof that our business goal setting programs work. I know that goal setting will help you change your life for the better, it will help you get what you really want from life. And when you do, that’s reason for all of us to celebrate! Whether you’re already a goal setter, you used to set goals and quit, or you’ve never set goals, this lesson will help you build a better life that you deserve.

Step 1. Dream! Let your imagination run wild as you fill up a blank sheet of paper with everything you want to be, do or have. Many adults have lost their ability to dream and that’s unfortunate. By dreaming you instil hope for your future, and with hope there’s possibility. So your task is to dream. During this next week devote at least two private sessions to dreaming. I want you to create a Dream List filled with ideas. Your list should include at least 25 dreams about what you want to be, do or have.

Step 2. After you complete your list, wait 24 to 48 hours and read each item on your list and answer the question: Why? If you can’t express in one sentence why you want to be, do or have this dream, then it’s not a dream and it won’t become a goal. Cross it off your list.

Step 3: Ask the following five questions of every dream on the Dream List you created last week.

1. Is it really MY goal?
2.  Is it morally right and fair to everyone concerned?
3.  Can I emotionally commit myself to finish this goal?
4.  Is it consistent with my other goals?
5. Can I “visualise” myself reaching this goal?

You must answer “yes” to all five questions for each goal, or cross that goal off your list.

Here are some points to ponder: Is it really MY goal or is it a goal someone else wants me to pursue? Is it the right thing to do? Will reaching this goal distract from achieving other goals? Goals are often difficult to achieve. Are you sure you can make the commitment to pursue this goal and see it through? If you can’t “visualise” yourself reaching this goal, you probably won’t.

Reserve time during this week to think about the questions above and answer them. Once you’re finished, your Dream List will probably be much reduced from when you started out. That’s okay because you’re now closer to identifying the goals that you really will pursue and can achieve.

Step 4:  Ask the following seven questions of every dream that remains on your Dream List (or goals list).

Will reaching this goal . . .
1. make me happier.

2. make me more prosperous?
3. make me healthier?
4. give me peace of mind?
5. win me more friends?
6. improve my relationships with others?
7. make me more secure?

If you can’t answer “Yes” to at least one of these questions for each goal, get rid of that goal from your list. Be sure to consider your family when you answer these questions. And do not confuse pleasure with happiness!

Here we go with Step 5:  After asking the questions posted in Step 4 you will have reduced your goal list. Those you have eliminated were in fact not goals, just thoughts or desires at this point, so you’re better off without them.

Separate your remaining list of goals into one of three categories: Short-range (one month or less to achieve this goal), Intermediate (one month to one year to achieve this goal), or Long-range (one year or more to achieve this goal).

This step will help you quickly realise whether or not you have a balanced perception between what needs to be done now, versus your dreams for the future.

Remember: Some goals must be BIG to make you stretch and grow to your full potential. Some goals must be long-range to keep you on track and greatly reduce the possibility of short-range frustrations. Some business growth goals must be small and daily to keep you disciplined. Some goals must be ongoing. Some goals (i.e., weight loss, business success, education, etc.) may require scrutiny and consultation to determine where you are before you can set the goals. Most goals should be specific. A “nice home” is not as good as a “3,000 square-foot, modern- style home with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and two living spaces.”

Here we go with the final step:  After specifically identifying your goals, write them down in detail!  It is essential that you have a written list of your specific goals and include a time frame for completion on each one.  Then you will begin to do the daily, weekly action steps that will take you closer to achieving that goal.  Be selective, do not try to complete too much at one time. In fact select one simpler goal to get you into the process and when you are successful feel how good it is. Then move onto the next goal.

Once you have identified your goals and plotted the activities that you intend to do to fulfil your goals, pat yourself on the back! You have just spent more time planning your future than most of your friends, relatives or associates will ever invest! Good for you.

The basic goal-reaching principle is to understand that you go as far as you can see, and when you get there you will always be able to see.       ~Alan Balmer

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• 1. Use Social Networks to Build Your Brand

During my business mentoring sessions I encourage my clients to investigate modern social networks. If you have a brand that people like, chances are they will want to be your friend on these various different social networks that are out there. These days there are more and more Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles based around businesses, podcasts and important people on the Web. Many business mentoring programmes increasingly emphasise the important of these platforms, so I strongly advise you to investigate them.

2. Make New QUALITY Friends

Find like-minded people and friends and add them to your lists via the different social networks out there. This way you are building a little network of people who are just like you and probably will enjoy anything you write or post about. Don’t just go adding a million random people just for the sake of adding people. Find people that you think would have an interest in what you have to say.

3. Share a Lot

Use the message posting and sharing services they provide to your advantage. Facebook has the “Share a Link” function. Post teaser links (giving a little ‘bit of information’) and a link to go back to your own website.

4. Take Advantage of Gadgets

Some of the RSS gadgets out there can be added to spread the word about yourself. One option is FeedBurner’s headline animator. Another is SpringWidgets where you can put a flash powered RSS reader right on your profile.

5. Add a Link to your Forum Signature

Forums were social networking tools before social networking had a name (and can be a powerful business mentoring tool). Adding a few links to your signature (if allowed via the forum rules) is a good way to get some links coming back into your website too.

6. Add Your RSS Feed to Facebook

On Facebook you can plug your RSS feed right into your profile. Just edit your “Notes” section and include that they should be importing from your RSS feed of choice. Word of warning: if you post 20 messages a day, you could be getting yourself into trouble.

7. Stumble Yourself on StumbleUpon (and get others to stumble you too!)

Make sure you get your most popular content and websites listed on StumbleUpon in one way or another. This is a prime source for a boat load of traffic, if your content is good. Business mentoring can help you devise high-quality content for this purpose.

8. Include a URL on Your Profile Picture

Create a profile icon or picture for the services you sign up for that has your URL on it. This might sound like a cheap form of advertisements – but the more often you can get people to see that URL, the more likely they’ll give it a visit or at least have it stuck in the back of their head to use at a later time and date.

9. Add a Link Back to All of Your Various Projects

More likely than not, all of these services allow you to list at least one link back to your website or project. Take advantage of that. Make sure you include your links and give them descriptions as well so that people know what they are clicking to.

10. Don’t Forget Your Subscription Links

When you include your link to your website on one of the social networks out there, make sure that you include your RSS feed as well. You might put that little orange icon next to each link so people know how to subscribe to your content. You might also include the “Add to Google” or “Add to My Yahoo” type subscription buttons as well to make it easier for people who look at your link to subscribe via their subscription method of choice.

Interested in more business mentoring advice? Feel free to contact me!

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1. Establish measurable lead-generation goals

Your lead-generation goals must be measurable. Business owners who aren’t working with business coaches often set vague targets such as ‘more opportunities’ or ‘more sales activity’, which are impossible to measure and ultimately unattainable. So work with business coaches to set specific goals, such as ‘three meetings per week’ or ‘five leads from our landing page’ – these are easy to grasp, measure, and support. Track your progress weekly and discuss it with your business coaches.

2. Offer content that delivers value to buyers

Business owners are often surprised when their business coaches explain that people love buying but hate to be sold. They are suspicious of anything that seems like a sales pitch. What they’re looking for is credible sources that will help them to make an informed decision. They want to learn and most sales pitches don’t achieve this. So rather than telling prospects about how great your product or service is and offering them brochures and data sheets, you can help buyers get educated by enlisting the help of more credible third-party sources, such as industry experts and analysts.

3. Your most convincing ‘salespeople’ are your customers

The most obvious and credible source you can use to convince prospects about the value of your service or product is your existing customers. Customer success stories are always effective, but some are more powerful than others. Make sure their story describes the problem that the customer is solving with your solution. Give lots of detail. Make the customer the focus of the story rather than your product or service.

4. Share your customers’ success stories

Once you have written a customer success story, send it to publications within your industry or market. Trade magazines and industry newsletters are usually in need of quality content. An independent publication will carry more credibility in the eyes of your prospects. Business coaches can often recommend publications to approach.

5. Deliver an outstanding service or product so that customers want to recommend you to others

When customers recommend your product to other people, thank them for the recommendation – people like acknowledgement. It doesn’t have to be an extravagant gesture: a simple phone call or a personal note to acknowledge what they have done will have an enormous impact. If you have the budget for bigger rewards then offer something more.

6. Follow-up leads within the first 24 hours

Many good lead-generation efforts go to waste due to poor follow-up (which business coaches despair of!). Some studies show that response rates to a follow-up call can diminish by 50% if you wait just 48 hours, and as much as 90% if you wait a whole week.

7. Move prospects to take action

Business coaches insist that every piece of lead-generating material should contain a call to action. For example: ‘Call this freephone number NOW to receive a free copy of our buyer’s guide and latest price list.’ Or ‘For your copy of our brochure, fill out the enclosed reply card and send it FREEPOST.’ Tell prospects what to do, how to contact you (providing a phone number, e-mail address, website address and fax number), and explain what will happen when they do make contact. The ‘what happens next’ can be a brochure or any materials you’ll send as a gift or any service they will receive.

8. Increase the quantity of your leads

Offer your catalogue, brochure, or other literature for free. Don’t make prospects answer lots of information about themselves – people are wary about disclosing too much information, and they’re worried they’re going to be bombarded by calls from salespeople. Make it as easy and cost-effective as possible for prospects to respond—for instance, by mailing them a stamped reply card or providing a freephone number.

9. Motivate prospects to respond

If you want a large volume of leads, you must provide prospects with a compelling reason to take action. The offer of a sales presentation is not very enticing – actually, it’s more likely to repel prospects (just ask any number of business coaches). Prospects want information, solutions, help, advice, samples, ideas, designs, savings, quality, service, support, assurances, or guarantees. When you make your offer enticing, more prospects will take action.

10. Remove the sales pressure

If you will not follow up the lead, say, ‘No salesperson will call.’ If you will follow up the lead by phone but not in person, say, ‘No salesperson will visit.’

Is there an area of marketing you’d like to know more about? Feel free to contact me!

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Networking events provide a great opportunity to make new contacts and start to build relationships and to promote your business but to get the most possible business help out of them you need to plan carefully. Here are 10 key ways to profit from any networking event you attend and get some powerful business help.

1. Decide why you are attending.

Just because it says ‘networking event’ in the title doesn’t mean you have to be there. What exactly do you plan to achieve? All too often, I see people leaving an event (especially an exhibition) laden down with business cards and literature but frustrated by how little business help achieved. We always get that which we focus on and if we don’t have a focus… guess what we will get? Measure your results against your plan.

2. Will your contacts be attending and do they know you will be there too?

Tell people in your address book you plan to attend. Email your customers, your prospects and potential strategic partners and let them know you plan to be there. Include a link in your email so they know how to get more information (some will appreciate you thinking of them). Send a message on Twitter and suggest a meet up before, after or during the event. If you feel you are going to get something from the event, it figures that someone else will. So help promote the event.

3. What do you want to achieve?

Who do you want to meet? Potential buyers, introducers, or strategic partners or perhaps you just want to maintain contact with existing or potential customers. Think about what sort of business help you’re after and talk to the people who can provide it.

4. Who is exhibiting?

If the event involves an exhibition, who will be exhibiting? Is there anyone from the list who could be a good strategic partner for you (or even a customer)? Let those you believe have potential know in advance that you have noticed they are exhibiting and would like to stop by.

5. What will you take?

Do you have enough business cards and product information, as well as a name tag, a note book or recorder, a pen and a camera? You are likely to meet many people and you won’t remember all their details and won’t get any business help from them.

6. Plan ahead.

Put all your business cards in one place and have a specific place to put those you collect from other people. Consider how you will remember your conversations and what you promised to do (follow-up, send information, arrange a meeting, etc.). That’s why a recorder and a camera are so useful. Certainly, a pen and notebook will help you to keep all your notes in one place.

7. How can I help you?

Most people attending networking events and exhibitions are there to get business help in some way. Good practice is to listen first, speak second. Apart from actually asking,“Who are you looking to meet today?” a good question at the appropriate moment is always “How can I help you?” or “How will I recognise a good client for you?” Make sure you know the answer if they ask you the same question. If their answer (or your answer) is “Anybody” or “Everybody”, they haven’t given the question enough thought… and neither have you. Be very specific about what you want and you are likely to get it. ‘Anybody’ or ‘everybody’ is, in reality, nobody (too general).

Remember that people are not really interested in what you do. They are only interested in what they are left with, after you have done what you do. So understand what people are left with, after you have done what you do. Don’t simply focus on what you do.

8. Follow-up is critical so you may as well PLAN IT NOW.

If you don’t review the information you receive during the event and translate it into actual business help, your attendance will have been wasted. What time have you allowed to follow-up and when will you do it? If you collect 25 cards at the event, how will you get that information into your database system? You do have a database system, don’t you?

Have your organised a time and method to follow up? Will it be by email (personalised, of course), postcard (most effective), or phone call (brilliant)? What will the purpose of the communication be: to stay in touch, to arrange a meeting, or to send your stuff?

Most people don’t follow up because they don’t plan the time to do it. If you happen to be exhibiting, you need to allow at least a day to get that done and to arrange follow up – or get someone to do it for you.

9. Don’t send unsolicited material.

Meeting people at an event does not mean you have permission to send them material, no matter how much you think they want or need it. If you want to avoid being labelled ‘too pushy’ or a ‘junk mailer’, ask people for their permission to send them material.

10. What next?

Face the fact that you are unlikely to turn business cards into business help on the day (98% people don’t buy from strangers). However, if you make a good impression AND you follow up, you will have the start of a potentially fruitful relationship that will either result in future business help or an introduction to someone who will want to buy your product or service. Plus, you will be doing what almost none of your competitors are doing.

Have fun and enjoy the experience!

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A business coach’s purpose is to help you focus on your goals. And when you market, your goal is to make an impact on prospective consumers your unique brand. Your brand distinguishes you in the marketplace and expresses your commitment to providing the highest quality/service. Your brand identity is comprised of the name of your company and whatever graphic image you have chosen for your logo. One of the most important things I do as a business coach is therefore to help my clients establish a stronger brand.

Let’s start with the name game…

What’s In A Name?

If you don’t get a good feeling looking at the corporate identity on your business card, your customers aren’t, either. It might be time for you to update your identity or create a stronger, more powerful one. Sometimes you need to go back to the drawing board and start over with your business coach.

So what makes a good name? There are five main characteristics:

1. It’s easy to remember and spell
2. It requires no explanation
3. It describes your business category
4. It describes your benefit
5. It describes your difference

Examples of great company names that adhere to these principles:

• PayPal
• Best Buy
• QuickBooks

Creating Your Company Name

Choosing a name is a process. Occasionally a great name will just fall in your lap, but more often the perfect name will evolve over time. Your business coach is sure to make time for naming.

You can work solo, with your business coach, or in a brainstorming group with three to four people who meet regularly until they have found your name. Expect it to take eight to 10 sessions of one hour each. It will be painful, but it will be worth it.

Make the most of your time with these tools:

• Thesaurus
• Dictionary
• Pads of paper and pens (because some people are more creative “on paper” than on a computer)
• Spreadsheet
• A laptop with access to the web to check if the URL is available

Identify a “secretary” to keep everything organised. This should be someone who types fast and records the words in Excel columns.

Be patient! Don’t try to find your name right away. Instead, try to find your words one at a time. Chances are your brand will be two words, and finding those two best words is the real challenge, although a business coach can speed up the process.

So break the problem down and brainstorm for individual words in the following buckets:

• Words that describe your product category
• Words that describe the differences between you and your competitor
• Words that describe the benefits of using your product

No Guesswork

If you invest enough time and energy into this process, you will know a good name when you hear it. If it satisfies all of your constraints you will almost certainly have a great name. How will you know if your name is a winner with consumers? You can’t guess. You must test.

Make some phone calls, run a survey, post the name on a forum and see what people think. Whatever you do, get some feedback from target customers.

Consistency of Use

Building your company image requires two items: the identity itself and consistency of its use. Once you’re happy with your corporate identity – business name and logo ─ make sure you use it everywhere! Not just on your business cards, stationery, envelopes, invoices, product packaging and other printed materials, but on ALL your marketing vehicles. Never miss an opportunity to promote your identity.

Salespeople have an expression; “ABC – Always Be Closing.” Marketers think a little differently; “ABS – Always Be Self-Promoting.” As a business coach I’d strongly advise you to focus on the second one.

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When meeting a client for their first business coaching session, I immediately establish who exactly their customers are. Unfortunately, this is an area in which many small businesses are lacking and are therefore in need of some business coaching. They simply do not know who their customers are. Or, if they do, they have no easy way to contact them. So to start, check your customer database to make sure that, for all current and previous customers, you have their:

• Name
• Address
• Phone number(s)
• Email address(es)
• Purchasing history

You also may want to record the following:

• The reason the customer contacted you in the first place
• Ads or marketing promotions that the customer has responded to
• Any other comments the customer has made.

Collecting Your Customers’ Contact Information

Of the information listed above, your customers’ contact information—especially their email addresses—are among the most important. Why? Because you can’t follow up with both current and former customers unless you have a way to reach them. And you can’t reach them if you do not possess accurate contact information for them, including information for low-cost contact methods like email.

Fortunately, even if you haven’t started collecting the names and contact information for customers, you can begin doing so right away—using techniques that require little or no cash outlay. These techniques include:

Just asking them.

One of the fastest ways to accumulate customer names and to user them to generate quick, no-cost sales is to simply ask for their name and email address — either at the time or purchase or when they call in — and then send them pre-written special offers via email that same day. If this makes you nervous, business coaching can show you different ways of doing this.

Requiring it.

Many customers will not want to provide their email address because they do not want to receive still more unsolicited email than they already do. You may be able to overcome this objection by stating that your service or billing policies require an email address and then given an honest reason, such as to alert them to account or policy changes or to inform them of special sales or offers.

Providing something of value that costs nothing to produce.

Another way to collect email addresses (one popular in business coaching circles due to its effectiveness) is to provide value to the customer in exchange for this information. For instance, as suggested above, let customers know that you will be supplying them with monthly coupons or new product announcements. Not only will your customers appreciate these reminders and savings, but you will probably generate many more sales as a result.

Offering something of value that only a few customers can receive.

Contests and promotions are a great way of collecting email addresses and other contact information because everyone likes to win a prize. However, if you take this approach, make sure you follow your state’s contest and sweepstakes rules.

Offering something free that costs nothing to deliver.

For certain groups of potential customers (particularly, professional-service customers), you can capture email addresses and other contact information by offering things of value that may take time or money to produce, but that cost nothing to deliver. Examples of such items are free reports or market analyses, free evaluations, or free consultations.

Be sure to stay tuned for more expert business coaching tips!

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What is business coaching? Nothing more than helping you set and achieve personal goals for your business. For example, your business coach would encourage you to ask yourself questions like the following. The answers will require some research.

• How well can this media target my market with my message?
• Which media will give me the highest response rate?
• Which media can extend my message to the most people per marketing pound?
• How easy will this media allow my market to respond to a request for free reports?
• What is the cost per thousand (CPM)?

The question about CPM is an important one because it determines how much it’s costing you to deliver your marketing message to a specific number of people. Unless the message “pays for itself” by delivering pre-qualified prospects that are being converted to buyers, it’s not worth the money you’re spending on it.

Profitability Equation

There is a pair of simple equations that you can use to figure out your CPM:

Cost (divided by) number of listeners = cost per listener 

Cost per listener times 1,000 = CPM

Still confused?  To illustrate this point, I’ll use a radio buy as my example.  Let’s say your airtime for running a radio spot commands a fee of £5000, and the radio station’s data shows 50,000 people matching the age of your target market audience are listening during the time period that you are considering.

To determine whether this is a good buy for you, the first step is to compute CPM as follows:

£5000 for 50,000 targeted listeners = 10-pence per pair of ears = a CPM of £100

That’s just £100 to reach 1,000 highly targeted prospects.  It’s much less than you’d spend for any kind of printed marketing outreach where the expense would include printing and postage.

You can’t give your thumbs up or thumbs down to a media buy simply because it offers a low CPM. It needs to return a high rate of return – enough qualified prospects that become buyers – that the profits you generate from the ad offset its expense… no matter how minimal.

The CPM calculation is the best mathematical equation you can learn. With it, you can do the same profitability calculation for any media. This will help you answer the question, “Which media can extend my message to the most people per marketing pound?”

However, it still doesn’t answer the question of how effective it will be to meet your objectives.

For example, if your objective is to distribute free reports as a lead-generating tool, then newspapers are a good choice because you can show a picture of the free report and the phone number is right there. This is much easier for a prospect than trying to memorise your number from a radio ad while driving to work.

I hope the question of what is business coaching is now not such a mystery. Feel free to contact me with any questions about this or any other topics related to your business goals.

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As a business owner looking for help with a business, you are probably aware that employing staff can be a double-edged sword.

On one hand, you need staff if you are serious about creating a business that successfully operates and creates a good profit without you needing to be there every day (a business that doesn’t make money unless you turn up isn’t a business… it’s a well-paid job).

On the other hand, staff can create stress and hassle rather than help with a business. Very few of your staff will work as hard as you do and they certainly won’t care as much about the business. Why should they? It belongs to you not them.

Employees help with a business by creating time and resources inside it. They also consume it. You have to invest a number of hours every week managing staff and ensuring they are doing what they should be. Just because you are taking someone on for 40 hours a week doesn’t mean you will gain 40 hours of productive time! And your team will not normally be able to do as much as you can do in an hour. They are unlikely to be as focused and productive as you.

If you have an ambitious business goal and want growth then you will need some external help with a business, especially if you are looking for an exit (and, at some point, you will have to exit your business, whether you close it, sell it or die!).

There is a way to increase the amount of resources in your business without taking on paid staff. And it’s a way that opens up a large amount of expertise. It’s called ‘outsourcing’: getting experts who work for themselves or run their own businesses to work on your business, in return for a fee.

Outsourcing has become significantly more popular over the past few years amongst those who need extra help with a business. The dire state of the economy has resulted in many talented people being pushed out of jobs. Many decided they would continue to do what they were good at but would work for themselves.

You can outsource virtually anything to get help with a business. It’s easy to find people to do your financial paperwork, answer your phones, carry out your marketing, organise your diary, act as a gatekeeper, do customer service, and look after IT.

I have one client who outsources virtually everything in his business, most importantly the creation and delivery of the product he sells. It works very well for my client. His is a multi-million pound business, and he no longer has the hassle of managing a bunch of employees. Together with a small management team, he works purely on growing the business using outsourced experts.

This is the true role of the business owner: working ON the business rather than IN it.

Outsourcing isn’t without its difficulties however. Get it wrong and it can be worse than having a bad employee.

Here are a number of rules you must adhere to if outsourcing is to provide help with a business:

Be very clear about what needs to be done and how you want it to be done

The beauty of outsourcing is that you are dealing with another business. That means you can be very, very specific about what needs to be done and exactly how you would like it to be done. My experience with outsourcers is that the clearer and more specific you are, the happier the relationship is and the better the quality of the work.

If the business cannot do what you want then you move on to another supplier. That’s not so easy to do with an employee.

It means that your risk is reduced and the outsourcing business or freelancer must work hard to keep your contract.

The clearer you are about what needs to be done and how, the easier it is to manage the work and ensure it is being done correctly.

Ask the same kind of questions you would ask an employee in a job interview

You must have excellent working relationships with your outsourced providers. And that means you need to ask plenty of questions before you hire them – just as you would ask a potential employee. You need to be comfortable that you can work with this business on a day-to-day basis. When a problem does occur – and there are always problems along the way – the better the relationship, the easier it will be to get the problem fixed.

I always hire suppliers and employees on attitude first, skills second. Someone with a great attitude can increase their skill-set, whereas it’s difficult to change someone’s attitude, even if they’re very good at a particular set of tasks.

Look for specific experience and skills and demand proof that they can do the work

Again, just as with hiring employees, you need proof that the outsourcer can do what they say they can. Ask them for samples of their work. Better still, ask to speak to existing clients. A business that’s confident about its abilities will happily put you in contact with other clients. They are likely to put you in touch with their very top client so assume everything you hear is ‘best case’ scenario.

Be very wary of new outsourcers, especially if they are freelancers who have just set up in business after being made redundant or leaving employment for some other reason. Why let your business be the guinea pig, when you can hire someone who has been doing it for a couple of years and has already figured out how to be a better service provider?

Test and measure

As with all marketing, test your new outsourcer with a small job before you hand everything over to them. You need to build a relationship of trust with them, and a couple of minor jobs to start with is a pretty sensible way to do it. Set clear targets and measure the progress. It will give you confidence that they are capable of doing more challenging work.

Never ever buy solely on price

The last reason you should pick an outsourcer is because they are the cheapest. Remember, ‘if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’. Any outsourcer with appropriate experience that does a good job providing help with a business will rightly be able to demand a reasonable fee. Beware any supplier that seems too cheap for what they offer. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.

Tie payments into milestones

Finding a good outsourcer and getting everything set up correctly is the first hurdle. The next is to ensure they continue to perform consistently. That’s why it makes sense to tie ongoing payments into specific milestones. Reward your supplier for performance to keep them on the ball. Don’t ever let them start to think that they will get paid month in, month out, regardless of the quality of the work done.

It’s also a good idea with ongoing outsourced work to schedule regular reviews, say every three or six months.

Always put everything into writing

Whatever you agree with your supplier, make sure it is laid out clearly and simply in writing. This is especially important with alterations to the original brief that occur along the way. You and your outsourcer should have a single document you can both refer to, which lays out exactly who does what and when.

Follow these rules with every new outsourcing supplier and you will have a happy, harmonious way to grow your business.

What’s your experience of outsourcing work? Has it provided help with a business? Feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear your story!

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