Why A Solopreneur Can Offer Less But Make More
March 28, 2010
One of the most surprising things for solo professionals to find out is that their prospects (potential customers) actually will more often make a purchase when they have less choice about what they can buy. It seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? I’ve seen more than one solopreneur run herself ragged, trying to finish many different “product lines” because she believed it was the way to make more money. In other words, if you have 3 e-books to sell, 12 e-books is better because there are four times as many chances that you will make a sale. Or, if you have bookkeeping services to offer, and you also add personal concierge services and web design, you will surely sell more over a year’s time.
Guess what? Neither neuroscience or marketing research backs this up! I remember one of the first things I heard from Ali Brown a few years ago, and I’ve now heard it repeated by several other top Internet marketers. “The confused mind doesn’t buy.” Ali applies this to several situations. She’ll say, for instance, that if your prospect isn’t crystal clear about exactly what next to do to place an order on your website, you will lose the sale. But she also means it when she works with you in creating what you offer. “Don’t make it too complicated, keep it simple and streamlined,” she’ll say. “The confused mind doesn’t buy.”
Sometimes this is tough to take for a solopreneur who is good at many things. Those types of people tend to fight narrowing down their target market like tigers fighting over the last piece of carrion. But the truth is, if you say you are good at everything, you do make people wonder what, indeed, you are best at. It’s wise to narrowly focus, knowing something very well and sticking to offering products and services around that thing. Later on, when you’ve met your market and built credibility, you can add another target or create another offer.
Professor Sheena Iyengar, who teaches at Columbia Business School, has been studying the science of decision for years. If you want to pick her brain on this topic, get a copy of her newest book, The Art of Choosing. She first discovered that children were happier when they were given only one toy to play with rather than a wide choice. Over time, she came to understand that what matters to us is the number of options we have when we make a decision, not just the options themselves.
Another researcher, a professor at Princeton, discovered that after about five to nine items our ability to choose becomes too complicated. This is one reason I teach my business clients to limit packages to three offers for their customers. We can easily wrap our minds around three. If you are a wedding planner, for instance, and you offer a bridge and groom 3 main types of packages, they will choose one and go happily on, perhaps asking you to customize one of the packages a little bit for them. But if you offer that same couple 27 packages, it becomes too complicated and overwhelming. They may well walk away, trying to decide. And BAM! Someone comes along with a simplified version of what you offered, they sigh in relief, and pick one – from the smarter wedding planner.
Here’s my best advice to solopreneurs who are wondering about how to showcase what they offer.
- Keep your offers very simple and clear. If you have several different categories of products and services, label them very differently.
- Offer no more than 3 options of any one category. You can always charge more for customizing one package if that is requested.
- Keep your payment plans simple. Depending on the price point of what you offer, provide options for a single payment and perhaps a two-pay or three-pay installment over one or two months. Keep in mind that you want to collect your money before your product or service is entirely consumed, however.
- Use a matrix (a chart) to show what options are included in each package. People can then see at a quick glance what they are purchasing, and what is not included. It makes choosing easier.
Keeping your selections simple also goes for how you offer your products and services, but that’s a topic for another day. Don’t overwhelm your potential customers, and don’t overwhelm yourself, either. You will make more money in less time, and you will also have more satisfied customers. It’s a win-win all the way around! Less choice = more sales. Strange, isn’t it?
(c) Sue Painter
Five Ways To Use LinkedIn To Build Your Visibility
March 26, 2010
I consider LinkedIn to be one of the “big four” of social media (the others are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube). But after I read a few recent articles about LinkedIn, I realized I was not using my profile in a very business-savvy way. Here are 3 ways to update your LinkedIn profile that will increase your visibility and help build recognition for your expertise.
1. Change what you have in the fields for first and last name. Instead of using Sue Painter, for example, I kept my first name (Sue) but changed the last name field to read Painter, Owner, The Confident Marketer. This puts your business name front and center and leaves you the next field free for key terms about who you are and what you do.
2. Change the next field (the headline). Most people put the name of their business in this field. But your business name often doesn’t tell people exactly what you do or what you are expert in. And, you now already have your business name above, in the “last name” field. Since LinkedIn is keyword searchable (and is indexed by Google) this is a great place to use your keywords. For example, I used the terms SoloPreneur Marketing Stategist, Mindset Shift Expert, Neuromarketing, Coach, Speaker, Internet Marketing Expert. So now, right at the top of my profile I have much more information about myself and what I do than just my name and my business’s name. Here is the before and after of the very top of my profile.
Before: Sue Painter
Owner, The Confident Marketer
After: Sue (Hawkins) Painter, Owner, The Confident Marketer
SoloPreneur Marketing Stategist, Mindset Shift Expert, Neuromarketing, Coach, Speaker, Internet Marketing Expert
Can you see how much more information that offers someone viewing my profile? And, the keyword terms are searchable within LinkedIn, so if someone is looking for a mindshift expert for solo business owners, I’ll be found more easily.
3. As you build your profile, weave the keyword terms you have used into “Summary” field. It’s your chance to give a fuller explanation of what you do and how you work. Be sure to use your keyword terms again at the very bottom of the Summary field, where LinkedIn asks for “Specialties.”
4. If you are a blogger (and as a solo professional, you should be!) click on the “More” tab at the top of the Linked In page, above your profile, and then click on “Applications.” You’ll see several applications there, the important one links your blog poastings to to LinkEd automatically. You can also add Twitter accounts if you wish.
5. Be sure to hit LinkedIn a few times a week to see what’s new with your connections and to provide an update about what you are up to, as well. Share information about upcoming products, events, and offers.
Personalizing your LinkedIn page will lead those you don’t know toward the “know/like/trust factor, which is very important to building your business.
(c) Sue Painter
How To Fail As An Entrepreneur
March 24, 2010
One of the things that catches up the entrepreneurs I work with is perfectionism. I see this almost every day, an unwillingness to 
launch a product, produce a video, do a live event, publish a book, launch a website unless it is perfectly done. The fear of failure is often immense. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, and I know that it is a peculiarity of American culture much more than in other cultures. We seek to be entrepreneurs who always shine, don’t make mistakes, and look perfectly in control.
The problem is, holding perfectionism as your goal means that you are always chasing your tail. Just like a puppy who goes round and round until exhausted, you chase after yourself. You go round and round, when what you want to do is move forward. I’ve had clients who take months to write perfect copy for a website launch, losing tons of time in building their list. I’ve had more than one mompreneur resolutely stay exactly where she is in her business, because every single time she will chose to service her family rather than her business, indulging in a fantasy of being the perfect mom.
It’s my job to help entrepreneurs lose that habit of chasing perfection. Replace perfection with curiosity. You give yourself much more opportunity for growth. You quit using perfection as your excuse.
- Consider launching your website with the copy you have right now. As the weeks go by, see how it draws people (or not) and change the copy if you need to. Websites are, in fact, never done. It doesn’t matter if your website isn’t perfect. It does matter if your website isn’t launched.
- Consider baking one less set of brownies for your child’s homeroom, or missing one out of hundreds of sports events. Instead, take that hour to complete and launch a new product or service offer, and consider that being a financially successful mompreneur might be just as important a model for your child than the memory of an extra set of brownies. Which serves you and your child more?
In Stephen Mitchell’s The Second Book of the Tao is a verse I often read:
“The mature person is like a good archer;
When he misses the bull’s-eye,
he turns around and seeks
the reason for his failure in himself.”
We have total responsibility for what we do. When we get stuck in seeking perfection, we use it to hide, to keep ourselves from being responsible. Instead of the problem being within us, we look for an outside person or event to blame. It’s much easier to say “I’m just not sure if the web copy says what I want it to say” than it is to to say “I’m scared to move forward.” It’s much easier to say “Oh, I have to cancel our meeting, I have a soccer practice to attend” than it is to say “I’m going to get this done now, it is equally or more important for me and my child.”
If you want to fail as an entrepreneur, practice perfectionism. If you want to make money, practice shooting the archer’s bow, and keep practicing until it hits the mark. Learning from what doesn’t work is just as important as hitting the bull’s eye first time out.
(c) Sue Painter
Will You Get Gyped By A Coach?
March 20, 2010
One of the conversations that came up at a retreat I recently attended was a fear of getting ripped off after investing in an expensive coaching program. Of course, “expensive” is in the eyes of the beholder…..but here are my thoughts about this fear and what is behind it, in this video.
7 Ways To Get More Clients To Attend Your Events
March 11, 2010
One of of my clients who lives overseas is in the midst of marketing his year-long high level Mastermind group. We’ve been through setting up the sales copy for his website, and he’s pulled together some introductory workshops to give his potential clients a taste of what he does and how he works. Still, he wants to do all he can to maximize enrollment, so he asked if I had more suggestions for him. Sure do! Here are 7 ways to fill your events:
- Be clear about how many people you want. What size does the group need to be to function well, let connections and bonding take place, but still remain manageable? Share this number with your potential members, and spend a little time actually envisioning the group in your meeting place. See the faces as you look around the room. Clarity and visualization are two ways to manifest what you want.
- Leave yourself enough lead time to schedule more than one “preview” workshop for something that is as big as a year-long higher priced offering. Choose a different location. It’s rare to attract all the people you have potential with for just the one single day you have planned.
- Schedule at least one teleseminar, and preferably 3. Use these hour-long open and free calls to provide valuable, useful content to your listeners. Have them sign up to gain access to your call through your website, so that you gain their name and e-mail address in return for sharing a sneak preview of your content. Talk about the what, but not so much the how. Take a break before the end of your call to spend a full 5 minutes making your offer for the big event. Talk about the benefits, not what you plan to do. Talk about the pain points you feel your listeners have and what can happen when these pain points are eliminated from a person’s life or work.
- Review the stories of the people who have already signed up for the big event, and ask yourself why they opened their wallets for you. These early adopters can tell you a lot about what other people are feeling, too. Change your sales talk and copy slightly if you need to, in order to cover and emphasis these benefits since you already know that they are strong selling points for you.
- Consider offering a half-price ticket to the spouse or business partner or assistant of someone who has already paid full ticket price for a seat. This can be a very effective way to fill your seats. Essentially, you are upselling the already-registered client. It’s a great benefit to them to bring someone along, and a great benefit to you to have another person at the event. (Be sure, however, that you are covering your costs with this 50% person.)
- Be wise in the use of experiential work in your one-day workshop previews. People buy on emotion, not logic. So bring the emotion up at these workshops and when it is high, make your offer.
- Make sure that your offer is time limited. You can offer the half-price “second person” ticket for a limited time. You can offer an early-bird discount for a very brief time. You can offer a bonus but only if the person registers for your big event within the next 24 hours.
Filling the seats at your events and longer-term programs takes persistence and the use of multiple marketing strategies. Using these can help you gain visibility and build excitement for your big event. Let me know how it goes!
(c) Sue Painter
Entrepreneurial Passion, Problems, & Desires
March 8, 2010
Here’s a really short video I did for you today, just before starting 3 1/2 days with Ali Brown, James Roche, and my fellow Millionaire Protegee Club members in Marina Del Ray. Think about this for YOUR biz!
Do You Have The Courage Of An Entrepreneur?
March 4, 2010
Years ago, I heard the statement “the fastest way to personal growth is to open your own business.” Thirteen years after opening my first business, I can promise that statement is true. Like many people who are self-employed, I came out of the corporate world, where I was used to having support staff, creative people around me to bounce ideas off of, and the big bosses over me to handle the heat. I also had janitorial staff to clean the office and technical support staff to handle an errant computer. When I left all that to open my own business, I soon discovered that my support staff, creative people, big bosses, janitorial staff and technical staff was the person I saw when I stared into my mirror.
My business was brand new and very small, one room in an office building. I had to handle everything, whether I was “trained” to handle it or not. I had to discover what I did well, what I enjoyed the most, what I hated to do, when I could afford to hire help, and what help I needed to hire first. I had to stretch and grow quickly. Fortunately, because I had solid experience in growing a business, the Touch Therapy Center (a massage clinic I own to this day) built itself quickly. Within the year, I could hire help for cleaning and laundry service. Next came a bookkeeper. Now, 13 years later, I manage the business while other staff do most of the therapeutic massage, I’m in a medical office building with multiple treatment rooms, and I have a practice manager to handle the front desk, errands, and most adminstrative tasks.
What I want to point out is the rocky path of personal growth it takes to get from year one to year thirteen, turning a profit the whole way. Here are some of the things I had to learn or consider:
- Watch my operating costs and bottom line – I had to remain profitable even if I was spending more money on getting help with cleaning, laundry service, and so forth. Watching my weekly financial statements was critical, or I could have worked myself crazy and not made a dime.
- Know myself well enough to figure out what I liked to do and was good at versus what I am not so good at and am not fond of doing. One of these in the massage business is laundry. I didn’t enjoy dragging home loads of sheets and spending my evenings sorting, washing, drying, and folding them. And I wasn’t particularly great at it, either. On the other hand, I’m very practiced and skillful at attracting clients. I didn’t need or want to pay anyone to handle marketing for me, other than getting help with a design for my business card. It was easy for me and saved me money to develop my own brochures and press releases.
- I had to find out about my willingness to take risk and how to handle the good and bad that came from that risk. Should I move into larger office space and increase my rent? If so, how much more business would I need to generate to remain at my same level of profit? Could I get larger space, spend more money, and at the same time make even more money? Could I negotiate new lease terms that were favorable to me?
Before long, I had a very busy practice and was ready to hire other staff. Now, I could draw on my past experience as an Executive Director and use my past hiring skills. This time, if I made a bad decision, it was mind and mine alone to deal with, for better or for worse.
And, after about 8 years, I had to make a decision about opening my second business, The Confident Marketer. Other entrepreneurs had been asking me for serveral years how I’d built my business, how I knew what to do when, how I got profitable. I found that I absolutely loved helping other self-employed people be successful. So, about 5 years ago, The Confident Marketer was born. And with it, a whole new level of personal growth and challenge was necessary. It’s one reason I keep myself always working with top coaches who can help me face up to the personal growth and new business skills I need to keep my business successful and innovative.
The point to my story is that it takes courage to be an entrepreneur. You have to be willing to find out what you don’t know, get help with those things you don’t do well, and become expert at a few things that are yours and yours alone. You have to be willing to step up to intimately knowing and watching your financials (something I find many new entrepreneurs don’t want to do). You have to make decisions using both the facts and figures AND your gut feelings — your intuitive skills. And when there is a problem, you have to be willing to meet it and work it through, taking time to consider whether and how much it affects your customer service and your bottom line.
All this takes a great deal of courage and a willingness to grow both personally and professionally. A great business takes three things – a solid biz plan, a creative and well-thought-out marketing plan, and a willingness to do engage in personal growth. And behind those three vital things is courage. Step right up, and see how quickly your business becomes unstoppable!
(c) Sue Painter