Posted by: Troy White
March 18, 2008
Issue #376

Is this holding you back
from reaching your goals?

In this issue:

• 6 questions that may give you a breakthrough in the next week …

• The mastermind meeting unveiling of simple solutions …

• Uncovering the block that keeps you from moving forward …

• And Much More!

Fellow Business Builder,

1,542 e-mails in the past 7 days.

That doesn’t include any newsletters I subscribe to either.  That is strictly 95% spam, and the rest are legitimate business e-mails.

This past weekend, I was in a mastermind meeting for over 12 hours – and this e-mail problem kept popping up around the room. 

And it made the conversation turn to management of your various business functions.

As much as I love to talk about marketing and advertising strategies for small business, I also realize that there is more to business than just the growth side.

If you don’t have some serious management systems (and people) in place, all the marketing you are doing can just as easily go to waste.

One of the mastermind members runs a real estate investment type of company.

She has been doing this for many years, and her newest project she is selling has been her most trying.

But one thing became glaringly evident
while we grilled her about her business challenges …

… If you aren’t managing certain process along the way, you are spinning your wheels and unnecessarily duplicating the effort you really need to be putting in.

This lady had hired some writers in the past to put together her various pieces she had been using.  Some of the copy worked – some didn’t.

The problem?

Which was which?

She knew that she had generated a certain number of leads in two mailings to her database.  Some of those leads were converted into investors. Now she needs more investors – lots of them – in a short period of time.

So she came into this mastermind meeting thinking she was going to have to rewrite all of her materials, come up with new strategies, find new sources of leads, etc.

In essence, she was trying to reinvent the wheel while she had at her disposal a sports car ready to go full out without changing a thing (except adding a little fuel).

If you have ever felt completely frustrated
and wanted to move on, this is very important …

When we sat her down and made her think about all the steps that she went through …  the total number on her database, the total leads generated from the various mailings, and the conversion rate she got from those leads … we found a goldmine.

Rather than reinventing anything, we found her killer sales pieces in the funnel.  We found her greatest opportunity for immediate investment. 

We also found, by fluke, a person in the room with a 100% closing rate in face-to-face qualified meetings.  During our questioning, we found out the weak link in her sales cycle – and this closing machine was the answer.

So all we had to do was fine-tune her sales system, re-adjust which letters went out and when.  Reorganize the way leads were followed up on …

And we fully expect her to bring in a minimum of $1 million dollars in investment dollars in the next 60 days.

If she sticks to the plan we gave her, she will succeed.

Which brings me to today’s BIG QUESTION for you.

With the new feedback and format of The Total Package, it is incredibly easy for you to reply back with comments.

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST PROBLEM OR CHALLENGE
IN MANAGING THE INTERNAL PROCESSES OF YOUR COMPANY?

If you help us out here and share some of your issues, we can address those problems through this new blog format.

What drives you absolutely NUTS when trying to get things done in your business?

What one thing keeps coming back to haunt you again and again?

What big opportunity do you seem to keep missing time after time?

What systems do you see lacking in your business?

If you could start over and erase everything you have done so far, what would you do differently next time?

What do you think is holding you back from going to the next level in your business (from $100,000 to $1 million, from $1 million to $5 million, or from $5 million to $20 million?)

I would really appreciate your feedback and comments here. 

Many of us face similar problems, and you sharing those helps others see – you aren’t alone! 

We will address these problems and concerns throughout these blog posts over the next week or so, and next week I will also be putting together an article discussing the strategies needed to grow your business faster, but using more manageable systems.

The more you share, the easier it is for everyone to help you out.

Thanks for your feedback.

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE™

Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.

Looking for more of Troy’s articles? Check these out.

Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.

A Final Note:

If you have specific subjects you would like addressed, or have any comments on what you have seen here, please submit a comment below and I will see how I can help.

"Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”

–Napoleon Hill

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Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

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• The Fast Track System for Generating Breakthrough Marketing Ideas
• 300 Million in 10 Days … Year After Year. How Do They Do It?
• The Name Sucks – Everything Else Was Incredible
• Are they helping your business … or killing it?
• Five ways to grow (very) rich in tough economic times

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14 Comments »

1. Comment by MikeSeiler — March 18, 2008 @ 2:13 pm

   I’ll keep this short since I might get the first post.

   What drives me nuts? 2 things.

   1) The inconsistancy in my creative process.  When I’m on, I’m on.  And when I’m not, all the kings men can’t get me to come up with any good ideas and writing.  I’m not sure what to do to improve the consistancy and predictablity of my creative process.

   2) Knowing what to follow through on and DOING IT!  In hindsight, inconsistant follow through is the most distructive force in my life.   I’d love to have a system for us distracted and overwhelmed business owners to fix that.

2. Comment by David — March 18, 2008 @ 2:45 pm

   We promote hotel accomm, in the Caribbean to USA, Canada, UK and Europe mainly.  I notice that our American competitors in this island seem very boastful (”the world’s best beach”, ”the finest hotel” &c. with no evidence to back it up). As a Briton I would find that off-putting, but as 60% of our customers are American, should we  also boast (and back it up as far as possible with evidence).As the Canadian $ is now strong, we can expect more Canadian interest; how to they react to ads and website promotions, US style or British style? 

3. Comment by Angela — March 18, 2008 @ 4:06 pm

   Hi Troy,
   I have been receiving TheTotal Package and ETR and other support since Christmas.  This week I jumped in the deep end and picked my domain site but found it far, far more difficult to construct the site.  This is totally skimmed over in all the articles I’ve seen.  Fortunately my son put me on to Serif which is FREE and I am slowly working my way through it!  It is going to take me a week to get something decent set up but I’ll keep at it.
   Thanks again.  All good wishes to all struggling out there!
   Angela

4. Comment by Dean Mance — March 18, 2008 @ 4:37 pm

   G’day Troy,It’s making me real cranky that I’m at the stage in my business where I’m flat out (busy) all day and can’t get everything done, but I’m not making enough money yet to put on more staff.  But, if I did put on more staff I’d probably have time to concentrate on making more money.  Catch 22?
   Regards,  Dean 

5. Comment by Manny — March 18, 2008 @ 7:52 pm

   I am in process of buying an existing business.  But like every other entrepreneur, I get that feeling if the revenue will drop or dry up, or won’t increase when we take over. 

   I am very confident in myself but this is the first business I am buying, so sometimes it’s hard to translate all this training and reading into tangible dollars.

   - How do I look and trust in predictability of "law of large numbers"?

   It’s facsinating to me that how the revenue of this buisness or most business, revenue is so consistent or same as last year even though different types of customers, new customers come in…somehow all that add up to similar numbers year after year.  What do you call that?  What is behind this?

6. Comment by tom — March 18, 2008 @ 8:01 pm

   LEADS. What I feel is missing in my business is a way to get leads over the internet without spending a fortune on Adwords.

7. Comment by John Klein — March 18, 2008 @ 9:16 pm

   What’s the quickest way to learn how to put up and modify my own web site?  I’ve reasonably good computer skills, Word, Excel, etc. I’ve been putting off the web site build for months because I don’t want to farm it out and be at the mercy of someone else to do the changes and tweaks necessary. (I’m a control freak.) I’ve got a url and a good hosting company, but isn’t there another way to learn web / HTML  other than enrolling for 5 semesters at a local college?   - John

8. Comment by Scott — March 18, 2008 @ 10:28 pm

   NVU is a free WSYWIG html editor.  Not perfect, but fairly easy to use.  Or use a Word Press Blog.  Essentially installs itself on your server using "Fantastico".  It’s pretty user friendly, very scalable, and will manage your file structure.  Learning a little through trial and error just allows one to know some questions to ask and some requests to make.

9. Comment by Christopher John — March 18, 2008 @ 11:23 pm

   Trusting in the process,

   I have worked out a killer revinue sharing deal with my friends mortgage company. I bring in clients. I get paid. I want to run a direct mail campaign but find it cheaper to test with a full page ad first. I write and rewrite the ads about 10 different ones now. I need to pull the trigger already! I am using everything I’ve learned so far.

   There are so many different aproaches. I have tons of great ideas. I see myself starting to get better and confident.

   I asked some people there imput and it was all positive.

   PULL THE TRIGGER!!!!!!!!!!

   Napolean hill says:
   "you must burn the ships and cut off all means of retreat"

   I should hand the newspaper a check. That will make me finish.

   Much love.

10. Comment by Carolyn Permentier — March 19, 2008 @ 8:17 am

    Thanks for your post!

    As a freelance copywriter, my ‘idea’ is to take on just enough
    projects to allow me to live in my semi-retirement  state.

    But, with all of the competition out there, I need to write/syndicate more articles, be religious with my blog postings,
    post more on others’ blogs, SEO, PPC …

    and work on my clients’ business, who pay me
    real money to do the work I do for them!

    And, of course I need time to walk my dog, eat and exercise too.  

    So, I guess I’m going to have to farm out some work.  Since I refuse to get in the employee game, I must decide exactly what
    I want to outsource and then find the ‘who.’

    Carolyn gives a Who!   

    Isn’t it supposed to get easier; not harder, the longer we
    do something?

    But at the end of the day, I’m still very fortunate, indeed.  I
    get up when I want and work out of my home.   I’m truly blessed.

    The economy sucks, and I’m feeling a slow-down.  How
    bout you guys?

11. Comment by Sharon B. — March 19, 2008 @ 12:15 pm

    Hi Troy–
         Like Dean, I’m at a point in my business where I can’t handle all the work, but am not quite making enough to hire some help so I can make more money. Catch-22 indeed!
         How have others handled this? I’d welcome any input, as my busy season is fast approaching.–I HAVE thought of subcontracting as an option, but again it comes down to the money.
         My other challenge is keeping up with the paperwork. When I am going full out, I put it off until the end of the week, and that doesn’t do much for keeping things organized.–Thanks!

12. Comment by Sharon B. — March 19, 2008 @ 12:19 pm

    Hi Carol–
         I don’t know yet about the slowdown because my work hasn’t started yet. (I do Landscape Construction.) One good thing about my occupation is that there will always be weeds to pull.
         Maybe the slowdown will be a good thing because you will actually have the time to figure out how you want things to be.

13. Comment by Andy Iskandar — March 20, 2008 @ 8:28 am

    To John,

    I recommend you use a Wordpress blog too. As it so happens I am building up my website at the moment too and I have decided to go with just using a wordpress blog. Just choose any one of the free templates that are available and you are ready to go.<br><br>
    It’s best because you can just build pages quickly and the structure is the same as a normal website. You can add graphics and, if you want to work in html, it is also possible.
    

    Hope that helped…

    Andy

14. Comment by Allen — March 20, 2008 @ 1:33 pm

    Mine?

    Spending way, make that waaaaaay too much time putting out fires caused by people not in our company, but affect it.