Posts Tagged ‘business’

How Do You Know When It’s Time To Take Your Hobby Online?

You’ve been crafting most of your life. You absolutely love what you do, but you’ve gotten so good at it that you now have a house full of parts, a garage full of finished product and weekends that are filled with travel to local flea markets and craft fairs. The weekends that you’re not away doing a show or a fair you’re at home working out the latest modification or changes to your product.

There comes a time when your hobby becomes more than just a hobby. If you spend more than a couple of hours a day doing an activity it qualifies as more than a hobby. Isn’t it about time that you started earning something back for all of the time you’ve invested? Besides, when it’s something that you love to do, you don’t consider it work.

Therein lies one of the keys to success in business; make a living doing something that you have a passion for and you’ll feel like you never worked a day in your life. It may mean learning a new skill set in order to sell your goods more efficiently or to a wider audience. Your potential audience is what will determine the future of your business. If you restrict yourself to only those fairs and flea markets that you’ve always gone to, you’ll limit yourself as to how much money you can actually earn while you’re there.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with getting out into your community and meeting the public that makes up your clients or customers. It’s a great way to network with other entrepreneurial minded folks and seek out resources and relationships that are mutually beneficial.

Ideally, wouldn’t you love to have a constant flow of your product going OUT of your door? If you had a system set up to sell your doll clothes or whatever your particular craft or skill may be, it would free up your time. You’d then be able to use more of your free time to network with other WAHM‘s (work at home moms) and learn the business side of your “hobby”.

Sometimes all it takes is for just the right person to come across your website that is looking to fill the inventory of his stores with the exact item that you’ve been producing and “hoarding” all this time to make your life a true success story. But stories like this can never come true unless and until you make it possible in your life. Seek out opportunity. Network with like minded people. Work WITH your competition to mutual benefit, not AGAINST them (everyone suffers).

If you don’t already belong to on-line communities that focus on your hobby, niche or product, seek them out. Find out who’s making money doing what you’re doing and how they’re doing it.

Once you’ve made the decision to move (all or part of) your business on-line there are some things to consider. You can either “do-it-yourself” or seek out help. You have many options to consider. We’ll touch on those things in our next article.

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New Customers Need Proof

“We’re the best because our new [product or service here] is blah, blah, blah and does blah, blah, blah.”

That’s what most advertisements look like to prospects and customers.  Everybody says they’re “the best.”

They list all the cool features of their product or service.  The better ads may even offer up benefits for each feature.

But, to most people – it’s just “blah, blah, blah.”  It’s a bunch of evidence – but no proof.

When we’re building a case for our small  business, we often confuse evidence with proof.  We look at evidence as the thing that provides the proof that our product or service is tops.

Our prospects and customers, however, don’t see things quite the same way.  To them, our evidence is just a bunch of stuff that suggests our product or service might be good.  PROOF is what makes them CERTAIN a product or service IS good.  Evidence suggests… PROOF ensures.

If you’re not providing proof in your promotions, I can guarantee you’re not converting prospect into customers as often as you could be.

There are many ways to provide proof but I’ll break them down into three categories:

1. Direct proof
2. Indirect proof
3. Implied proof

Direct Proof

Direct proof happens when the prospect of customer has direct, first hand experience with your product or service and thereby gains certainty that it’s superior.  All of your current customers should already have direct proof so your promotions to them need only remind them of what they’ve already experienced.

But your prospects won’t yet have any experience with your product or service.  How do they get direct proof?  Give those people a test drive.  It’s work for car dealerships for years.  Software companies have also jumped on the “test drive” bandwagon.  Most allow a limited free trial of their product giving prospective buyers hands on experience and concrete proof that the product works.

Grocery stores and super markets now have tasting and demo stations where customers are invited to taste or try out new products.

New “scratch and sniff” technology gave fragrance companies a way to drop their fragrance onto a magazine page – providing direct, olfactory proof to each of the magazine’s subscribers.

Your freebies don’t always have to be the product or service your trying to sell.  A very effective strategy is to give away a lesser product or service – allowing prospects to get first hand experience with your business and become comfortable with how you handle customers.  Once you’ve “proven” yourself with the less significant (and usually less expensive) product, prospects and customers will be more open to purchasing other (more expensive) items from you.

If you can’t give anything away for free then offer an ironclad, risk-free, money back guarantee.  A well known mattress company uses this technique to sell their “sleep systems.”  They actually call it a “90-day risk-free trial” and it lets prospective buyers get the proof they need to complete the purchase.

Indirect Proof

With indirect proof prospects don’t experience your business first hand, but do so through others – most often other people that they know, think they know, or can identify with.  Indirect proof happens through testimonials, including:

• referrals from family, friends, co-workers and the like
• testimony from celebrities, popular athletes, community leaders, etc.   Your prospects don’t know these people but they’ve seen them so often they think do.
• testimony from people just like them.  Seniors giving testimonials to seniors, parents providing testimony to other parents, teens testifying to teens, and so on.  Whatever your market (or markets) find one or more of your satisfied customers with matching the demographics and have them provide a testimonial for you.

Implied Proof

Implied proof uses the psychological principle of “social proof.”

“…95% of the people are imitators and only 5% are initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer.”

Cavett Robert – Sales and Motivation Consultant

Implied or social proof has been used (and abused) for centuries.  You’ve likely been a victim of social proof in the form of:

• TV laugh tracks
• screaming, swooning teen girls at Beetles concerts
• bartenders, or night club singers, and street performers who “salt” tip jars with a few bills
• evangelical audiences seeded with “worshippers” who “spontaneously and enthusiastically” respond to the minister’s call to salvation
• beverage companies that pay attractive, outgoing men and women to spend evenings in bars drinking and promoting the company’s products
• the wave

Some of these are harmless – even amusing.  Some might be considered less than ethical.  But, they ALL WORK because implied or “social” proof isn’t just a concept.  It’s a fact.

When it comes to social proof in your business, a crowded restaurant or waiting room could be your best advertisement.  Hundreds – or even thousands – of friends in your business’ MySpace or FaceBook account makes attracting new  friends that much easier.  Comments on your blog entries proves to many readers that your blog is worth reading – simply because other people are doing it.

To build a case for your product or service, make sure sure every argument is summed up with:

• Direct proof – freebies, free trials, and no-risk guarantees
• Indirect proof – testimonials
• Implied proof – indicators that everyone else thinks you’re great

You’ll have to provide some evidence to prospects and customers, but you’ll never get the verdict you want without proof.

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Selling More in A Recession

Before starting out any new business strategies in a down turned economy, it’s always beneficial to bolster your position with preexisting clients and customers. Many times there is enough business to be found amongst your existing client base for you to then finance a “new idea” or strategy that you’ve wanted to implement.  Use these strategies to shore up your financial foundation and then go looking for “new” business.

Whether your primary business is offline or online the same principles apply. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling e-books or toothpaste, applied with the right amount of preparation and presentation, these ideas can make the difference between finishing your quarter in the red or in the black.

Try these tips:

• Begin calling your “inactive” customers.
  • Determine why they’ve gone inactive.
  • Ask for the opportunity to “make it good“.
  • “Would taking care of this immediately change your attitude toward us?”
  • Fix it immediately or task someone who will follow through to completion. (Whether it brings the client back immediately or not)
• Call 20 of your “active” customers/clients and ask them make an additional (wisely chosen) purchase.
  • Make them an OTO (one time offer).
  • Offer an upgrade.
  • Offer a “value added service“, something that improves your existing relationship with them.
• Call other businesses that offers complementary products or services to yours and ask for a trade of referrals. Don’t stop with one.
  • Offer to make it an ongoing relationship that’s mutually beneficial.
  • Over deliver! Offer more referrals than you receive. It will serve you well.

Since these principles apply to either an online or a brick and mortar business, they’re perfect strategies for the Offline Consultant to keep in mind when talking to or even prospecting for small business owners. These are the types of high value free advice that will in turn have those shop owners ready and willing  to do business with you.

In fact, the more giving you’re able to be, the more you’ll have people actually asking YOU to do business with them. It will quickly establish you as an authority  and as the person that everyone will want to be affiliated with.

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