Author: Alden Porter III

All Small Business Owners Want More Clients and More Revenue

Posted on by Alden Porter III

What does it take to produce more clients?

First, you MUST generate leads… and then you MUST convert those leads into clients.

By breaking down the end result into the vital components required to generate them, you can now put together a specific strategy and plan of action to attain that end result.

 

What does it take to produce more revenue?

Once you generate leads and convert those leads into clients, those clients will be paying you a specific value for what you sell. The sale value is the first component in the revenue equation.

You have expenses to pay and those expenses come directly out of that revenue, so the next revenue component to consider is your margin.

 

What if you could compel your clients to increase the number of transactions they complete with you each year?

There are five critical steps that every small business owner MUST  address in order to attract new clients and generate more revenue…

  • Leads
  • Conversions
  • Average Sale Value
  • Number of Transactions
  • Profit Margins

In order to double your profits and create exponential growth, you have to start with a baseline.

You have to know your current numbers in each of these critical areas.

First, work out exactly where your numbers are right now.

Once you have them, you can work out what you need to do to double those profits.

The 3 Best Places to Put Your Money in 2023

Posted on by Alden Porter III

Many or all of the products here are from our partners that pay us a commission. It’s how we make money. But our editorial integrity ensures our experts’ opinions aren’t influenced by compensation. Terms may apply to offers listed on this page. Take advantage of these different but important accounts. Key points It’s important to make the most of the money you don’t need for bills and expenses. Here are some accounts to consider for 2023, each of which serves a distinct purpose.

Many consumers struggled to keep up with bills in 2022, and as such, had little money left over month after month. But the hope is that things will be different in 2023, and that you’ll have money at your disposal beyond what you need to cover your bills. At that point, you’ll want to find the right home for your money. And here are three accounts worth considering.

1. A savings account The events of the past few years have taught us the hard way that having savings is important. In 2020, many people lost their jobs when the COVID-19 outbreak erupted. And in 2021 and 2022, many consumers had a hard time coping with higher living costs fueled by inflation, especially once government aid ran out. That’s why it’s so important to have a solid emergency fund — money to cover things like periods of unemployment or unplanned bills. And the best place for your emergency cash reserves is none other than a savings account, where your principal deposits are nice and protected.

How much emergency savings should you aim for? The old convention was to save enough cash to cover three to six months’ worth of bills. In the wake of the pandemic, some experts are now calling for eight to 12 months’ worth of expenses in the bank. Think about the threshold that gives you peace of mind and aim to fill your savings account with enough cash to meet it.

2. An IRA Ideally, you’ll have some money at your disposal this year beyond what you need for emergencies. At that point, it’s a good idea to invest that money for the future. And if you want to reap some tax benefits along the way, then putting money into an IRA, or individual retirement account, is a good idea. When you fund a traditional IRA, your contributions go in tax-free. So if, for example, you put $3,000 into a traditional IRA this year, that’s $3,000 of earnings you won’t pay taxes on. Plus, once your money is in your IRA, you’ll have the option to invest it as you see fit. You can choose to invest in individual stocks, or invest in different funds (like ETFs) that make it easier to build a nice, diverse portfolio.

3. A brokerage account IRAs differ from brokerage accounts in that they’re earmarked specifically for retirement, and they offer tax breaks that brokerage accounts don’t. But brokerage accounts are far more flexible. With an IRA, you’re generally required to leave your money alone until age 59 ½. If you take an earlier withdrawal than that, you’ll face a 10% penalty that won’t come into play with a brokerage account. Meanwhile, like IRAs, brokerage accounts give you lots of options for putting your money to work. And many brokerage accounts these days allow you to invest on a fractional basis. That means you can purchase partial shares of stock to build a portfolio instead of having to commit to whole shares, which can, in some cases, be very expensive.

Where should you put your money? Completing your emergency fund should be your first priority in 2023. But from there, it pays to branch out into investing. As such, you may find that it makes sense to put your money into a savings account, an IRA, and a brokerage account this year so you get the best of all worlds.

4 Steps to Start Investing in 2023

Posted on by Alden Porter III

Many or all of the products here are from our partners that pay us a commission. It’s how we make money. But our editorial integrity ensures our experts’ opinions aren’t influenced by compensation. Terms may apply to offers listed on this page. Here’s how to start putting your money to work. Key points Investing your money can help you grow it into a larger sum over time. It’s a good idea to figure out how much you can invest and what account to take advantage of.

Evaluate your risk tolerance as well, to ensure you’re putting your money in the right places based on your age and investing goals. Will 2023 be the year you start investing? If you’ve yet to dabble in investing, the sooner you’re able to get started, the better. When you invest money, you get a chance to grow it into a larger sum over time. And investing could be your ticket to meeting big goals, like being able to retire on time and in a comfortable manner.

If you’re not sure how to start investing but want to kick off your efforts in the new year, here are some key steps to take.

1. Put yourself on a budget Once you get on a budget, you’ll have a realistic idea of how much money you have available to invest with. So map out your monthly expenses, from your rent or mortgage payment to your transportation costs to your grocery bills, and see how much you can afford to invest. You don’t want to put so much money into investments that you struggle to pay your essential bills.

2. Decide how you’ll split your money between a brokerage account and retirement plan Investing in a dedicated retirement plan like a 401(k) or IRA could help you grow your money in a tax-advantaged manner. But these plans are also restrictive in that you’re required to keep your money untouched until age 59 ½ or otherwise risk penalties. Meanwhile, with a regular brokerage account, you can access your funds at any point in time without penalty, but you won’t get any tax breaks in the course of investing. Think about where you want to invest your money so you’ll know which type of account(s) to open. Dividing your money between a retirement account and a regular brokerage account isn’t a bad idea if you want some tax benefits, but also want some of your assets held in a less-restrictive account.

3. Commit to investing a preset amount of money each month It’s a good idea to commit to investing a certain amount of money each month based on what your budget allows for — and to put the process on autopilot. Many brokerages and IRAs will allow you to set up automatic transfers so you can stay on track. And if you decide to invest in a 401(k) plan through your job, your contributions will be deducted from your paychecks automatically.

4. Assess your risk tolerance Before you can start buying assets for your retirement plan or brokerage account, you’ll need to see how much risk you’re willing to take on. If you’re saving for retirement and you’re only in your 20s or 30s, it pays to push yourself to take some added risk because you have time to ride out market downturns. And often, taking on some risk means reaping greater rewards. But also, you don’t want to take on risk to the point where it causes you to lose sleep. So you’ll need to balance your desire to score high returns with your near-term mental well-being.

If you don’t need to spend your entire paycheck on living expenses, then it pays to invest some of your money — even if it’s a small amount at first. And the sooner you start putting your money to work, the more wealth you’re likely to accumulate in the course of your investing career.

Kick Start Your Marketing

Posted on by Alden Porter III

Today I’d like to teach you about the three most important start up marketing tools you need to get and keep new customers.

  1. In person: It’s essential you meet with customers/clients in person whenever possible. This shows you respect them and take the time to work with your clients to give personal attention to each of them.
  2. Follow up letter: Always take a moment to send a follow up letter about what you talked about, new agreements or partnerships made and to thank them for taking the time to meet with you. Likewise, you should always send thank you letters or small gifts to partners you find success with.
  3. Phone call: Use a telephone call to follow up with them to talk again about the matters you talked about in your meeting and offer any assistance you can to help their business run smoothly and more successfully.

None of these will work if you don’t have a quality product/service to back you up!

Here are the key steps for putting together your start-up marketing tools:

  1. Research potential customers, buyers, competitors and their preferred methods of distribution.
  2. Talk to potential customers. Take a hard look at your product from a customer’s perspective and see what it needs to be successful.
  3. Follow up with your 3-step process from above.
  4. Develop systems for contact follow through, quality control standards and customer service.
  5. Develop post-sale follow up system to keep lines of communication open is customers and build on your current relationship which increases future purchases.

“Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs” Peter Drucker, management consultant

Here’s another one I love from an icon:

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company

This lesson has offered you the tools to put together a start-up marketing plan that can be used over and over again to help your customer base and business grow in a manageable way.

Stop Wasting Your Resources!

Posted on by Alden Porter III
Today you’re going to learn how to find a target market of potential customers so you aren’t wasting precious resources on blitz marketing. So, the two questions you have to ask yourself are:
  • What do people really want to buy from me?
  • What related products are they already buying?
Once you figure this out you will know who is more predisposed to purchase your products/services. Then, you find other businesses with the same customer base who you can customer share with. Come up with an incentive and great arrangement to encourage both of your customer bases to shop at both of your stores. The basic concept is this: You want to find existing businesses who have the customer profile that you are looking for to market your products/services to. Then strike up a relationship with those business owners to work out an incentive for customers to purchase from both businesses. As a result, you have an audience to market to and they generate an added value from their current base. So, how do you figure this out? There is a great formula from Jay Abraham you can follow with great success. LV = (P x F) x N – MC Here’s what it all means:
  • LV is the life time value of a customer
  • P is the average profit margin from each sale
  • F is the number of times a customer buys each year
  • N is the number of years customers stay with you
  • MC is the marketing cost per customer (total costs/number of customers)
Once you know how much you need to spend to attract a new customer, you will know how much of an incentive you can offer to a business to help attract new customers. So, here’s your step-by-step process:
  1. Find companies who already have the customer base you are looking for.
  2. Negotiate an incentive for them to share that customer base with you.
  3. Focus your marketing resources to this group of predisposed customers.
If you need help working through this process, please contact us and we’ll set you up with the most comprehensive system of marketing tools and resources.

Educate Your Customers

Posted on by Alden Porter III

Educate them about what, you may be thinking. Well, consider this, many businesses focus solely on attracting new customers, but you NEED to spend a good chunk of your time retaining current and former customers. These are people you already know to be a good sales potential…they’ve already bought from you!

Take the time to market and sell new products to your old customers and less time trying to sell old products to new customers and you will see a drastic change in your sales, customer quality and branding position.

Here are a couple of key elements to use to retain your current customers:

  1. Stay in contact: This means by phone, email, e-newsletter, in person-by pigeon if you have too!
  2. Post-Purchase Assurance: This means you need to follow up with customers. Your customers need to feel like they are being supported for their purchase and with the item they purchased. How many times have you purchased a product, then felt completely abandoned? Something as simple as a Thank You note with your contact or customer service information can go along way in retaining a great customer.
  3. Deals & Guarantees: Always offer your current customers the best deals and guarantees you have. Show them you appreciate their business or even come up with a club specifically to reward loyal customers. You can also do this with a preferred pricing option.
  4. Integrity: Using good business practices and simply upholding integrity, dignity and honesty go along way with customers. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of swindling and crap out there and the safer and more confident you make your customers feel, the more they will trust you and that makes for an amazingly supportive and loyal customer.

There are three cornerstone ideas to a successful business:

  • Quality product/service
  • Offering useful products/services that solve a problem for or enhance the life of a customer
  • Offer subjects your customers find interesting

Use this approach of educating your customers and offering them real information and insight and you will be rewarded with loyalty and success.

Stop wasting all your time on new prospects while your current customers fall by the wayside!

As Jay Abraham says, “Your best prospects are your existing customers. If you’ve been putting all your marketing efforts into acquiring new customers, stop and diverts some of your resources into reselling, upselling, cross-selling to those same customers. In every ways possible – through package inserts, regular mailings, special offers – stay in touch with those customers and get them used to buying from you.”

So, there it is! Remember, we can help you put together the resources and tools to do exactly that. We can help you educate your customers and you can watch the benefits pay offer many-fold.

Lessons I Learned from Paris Hilton

Posted on by Alden Porter III

Today we’ll talk about shameless self-promotion. That’s right, I said it! Shameless! After all, we are learning from Paris Hilton here.

It’s all about self-promotion! Self-promotion comes in many forms and you can use different tactics to get your name out there. Look at politicians! Talk about self-promotion and in some not so discreet ways, at that. But, seriously, consider some of the major superstars we all know. Madonna, Donald Trump, Howard Stern and Bill Clinton, just to name a few.

We all self promote. Did you raise your hand in class to show the teacher you knew the answer? Of course! That’s self-promotion. This is the kind of self-promotion we are talking about. With dignity, class and the knowledge to back it up. If you self-promote only to prove you don’t really know what you’re talking about, you’re going to lose business.

Natural self-promoters are the former and I want to tell you about the three major traits they have and use to build themselves and their businesses.

  1. The first is position. You need to position yourself around people who can make a difference in your life. You need to do this frequently. You need to wake up every morning and ask yourself “Who can I meet today who will make a difference in my success?” In fact, go a step further, write it in big, bold letters and tape it on your bathroom mirror.

Also consider:

Who can help me meet my goals?

Is it a prospective customer/client? A colleague with contacts? An association with key members who may become prospects?

Don’t settle into interacting with the people who are the easiest to access. You need to reach outside your comfort zone and there you will find a wealth of new connections that will bring you great success.

  1. Now, let’s talk about Style. No, this doesn’t mean you need an Armani suit to bring in more business (though, let’s be honest-it wouldn’t hurt) ☺ What this really means is how are you different from your competitors and others in your industry. What makes you memorable with customers?

If you are meeting a lot of people and they don’t remember you once you leave the room, you have a serious problem! This means you have an opportunity to present yourself in a more memorable way.

There are lots of little subtle changes you can make. Reassess your:

  • Business cards
  • Company message
  • Your picture
  • Your wording

Maybe even, your hairstyle (of course, now we’re back to the expensive suit, but it really works!)

You get the idea. There are lots of little ways you can work on making your image and business more successful. Also, consider how you sound on the phone and how you great people at meetings or other events. Think about your 30-sec elevator speech.

  1. The third trait of natural promoters is repetition. You can’t say it once and leave it at that. Successful self-promoters say it as many times as they need until they get a response. Would you remember a commercial for Coca-Cola if you only saw it once, no! You see it over and over and eventually you head out to the store.

You, also, have to make multiple impressions on those you are networking with in order to build brand awareness. Repetition is in direct connection with positioning. Once you find people to network with, reach out and find hundreds more who can help in your success as well.