Step 1 Do less

This may seem counterintuitive since running a small business requires constant attention and being on the go, however, confusion and multitasking can lead to serious error. While it is possible to do roughly three to four things at the same time, do not exceed this limit. Your ultimate goal is not to cause chaos in your workplace or among your suppliers. The main objective of having a small business is to work towards the original vision you established so that it is profitable and even worthy of sale. To do so, you need a clear head, not one full of details at every moment of the day.

Step 2 Streamline

Streamlining a business is not necessarily the same as outsourcing (step 3). Streamlining means examining the provesses that make your small business work. For example, how many people handle your accounting procedures? If more than three, your small business accounting unit is not streamlined. Did you know that you can use XBRL GL, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s version to do all of your financial reporting and taxation. In addition, the software itemizes all expenses by department and even by subfunction. This means that your marketing dept can be a function just like technical services. By streamlining you eliminate unecessary functions, such as bookkeeping, which saves you money.

Step 3 Outsource

What really makes your small business run? For example, if you need to market or advertise you do not need an in house staff to do so. You can get a small company to do this for very little money. Try elance.com or guru.com.

Step 4 Form an alliance

Did you know you can consider expanding your business or reduce the amount of overhead by sharing resources with another firm that produces similar products? Try strategicalliance.org to find other companies that are willing to partner with you.

Step 5 Organize yourself

You need to be organized and ensure your staff is organized. By doing so, your small business will run much more efficiently.

Remember, your small business is your flagship to greater opportunities. Please visit stepsto.com for more great business advice.

Simply put, the money is in the back end.

All the webinars you’ve lined up…and the gigs you’ve arranged are vital but the real action happens at events where the big ticket items are offered.

You must focus every resource in creating the ultimate experience for the customer to get them to buy coaching programs.

Here’s a few hints to maximize your back end…

Step 1 Positioning – In every event we hold, we always have coaches there to help us close sales. Now, notice I didn’t say “sales reps” or “order takers” as they are often referred to. We bring in higher level entrepreneurs or students to work the back of the room. Here’s the kicker…we will start the seminar with a high intensity intro and before our first break we bring our coaches on stage and sell the audience on meeting with them to take their businesses to the next level. We will typically let the audience know that these coaches charge upwards of $500 per hour, so it’s a real treat to be able to talk with them during the event. Pretty ninja, huh? It gets better…

Step 2 “Strategery” (as George Bush would say)– I remember running an event where we had 16 speakers in 4 short days. It was a straight up MEGA Sell-A-Thon! Nowadays, your audience would shoot you if you did this. So we’ve evolved to having maybe 1 or 2 outside speakers (for building relationships). The focus now is selling high ticket coaching programs ($10,000+). At first I was amazed to learn that folks would invest this kind of money and more. There’s even a few Gurus that sell a $35K – $60K coaching program. As you can tell it doesn’t take many of these sales to make some serious money. Heck, now I charge $10,000 for a single day to work with me to a killer presentation!

Step 3 Time To Eat – Remember the “coaches?” One of our advanced strategies, is to “sell the audience” on signing up with our coaches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Rule of thumb is no more than 5 folks to one coach. During these times, coaches are able to build rapport and discover what the students need to get to the next level. So be sure to schedule plenty of time for these breaks because this when the sales happen. The best part: we get the students to pay for the coaches meals!

Since a bulk of income is generated at events with backend programs, I recommend taking an uninterrupted day to mastermind strategies for your next boot camp. If not, you’re leaving some serious money on the table. Seriously.

Listen up affiliate managers, “connectors” and the people that really make things happen in this business

There’s only one word you need to know if you want to make a boat load of money doing what you do.

Want to know?

“Relationships.”

You saw that one coming, right? It’s really quite obvious, however if you’re looking to ‘stuff your sleeves’ with a few tricks, keep reading.

Here’s are my top three “Ninja Strategies” for building rapport with any Guru and crafting a solid relationship…

Step 1. Take A Picture – When I was first getting into this business (and knew no-one), I would snap a picture with the Guru when I saw them at an event. Then I would print, frame and mail it to them. Who’s going to throw away a picture frame? Seriously. I did this with Lou Brown and he once told me that I look at him every day. When he saw that puzzled look in my face, he reminded me that I had sent him a picture of us from an event over a year ago.

Step 2. Always Send Something Afterwards – When I moved from affiliate manager into becoming a Guru, I always sent Edible Arrangement or a Personalized Giant Hershey Chocolate Bar after I spoke, even if it wasn’t cost effective. Remember the key is the relationship, so do whatever it takes to create an awesome connection…even if it means coming out of pocket. If anything, send a handwritten thank you note.

Step 3. Hook Them Up – Gurus loved to be hooked up with webinars and… more so, stages. If there is any way you can do that, you’ll get mad brownie points. Talk to other affiliate managers to find out if there was a last minute cancellation on a stage. It happens more often than you’d think. It’s May, and I’ve already received 3 phone calls looking for “last minute speakers.” Just envision how that Guru will feel when you call him/her with the” good news.”

Step 4. BONUS Strategy: Create An Offline Newsletter – In order to get people to promote me as a Guru and to connect with affiliates, I created Dirty Talk. And for most of you that know me, I’m not edgy at all. However, since most speakers have ADD, I knew I had to get their attention. I simply talk about what’s working in the business and who’s up to what. I also include pictures with other folks, so people tear it open to see if they made this month’s issue. When I first started this, I paid out of pocket for all the costs…now I charge for advertising so it costs me nothing. I would easily keep paying for it, as it has generated over $100,000 in revenue to my business.

Now that you are armed with these “Ninja Strategies,” get out there and start building lasting relationships!

Gurus and mavens have used attention-getting secrets to position themselves as experts in their marketplace.

Using the same attention-getting secrets, gurus keep elevating and solidifying their expert status to preempt and dominate their market niche.

7 Ways to Immediately Get Your Customers’ Attention:

1. Use their name
2. Give them something truly new or innovative
3. Show there is something odd unusual or intriguing that stimulates their curiosity
4. Relate a tragic event and show examples of heroism, courage or other lessons to be learned.
5. Put on a funny skit
6. Create or show a powerful, suspenseful drama
7. Involve them in a nail-biting game

The 5 Key Attention-Getting Events or Devices:

1. A surprise
2. An irony
3. A new twist
4. A shock
5. A crisis

6 Common Elements That Will Always Get Attention If Done Well:

1. Script (story)
2. Character(s)
3. The plot
4. There is conflict
5. Crisis
6. Resolution

The WOW Factor – The Critical Element of Attention-Getting:

You must have an event, product or service, or a story that has a WOW Factor.

The WOW Factor That Works in Packaged Goods Can Be Used In Getting Attention On the Internet

When I was in the food business, we spent months on packaging. We knew we had a fraction of a second to get the customer’s attention. We had to WOW them to pick our package off the shelf versus the well financed competitors. We knew our package was our sales person.

You Have the Same Split Second on The Internet To Get or Keep Your Customer’s Attention. You can learn the WOW Factor from our experience.

How To Get Attention and WOW Your Customers:

Make Sure Each Element of Your Design and Packaging Supports Your USP or Unique Selling Proposition. You Should Look At Your Packaging and Your Materials. It All Counts:

a. The shape
b. The color
c. The product
d. The logo
e. The wording or copy
f. The type
g. The ingredients or the elements that make up your product or service
h. The overall sense or gestalt

Using the above analysis, we created four different packaging lines and three brand separate brands. We were a very small company competing against giants. Yet, we never had a package or a design fail. Consumers loved our designs and products. With zero advertising, we got on the shelves of the largest retailers in the United States including a co-brand with Wal-Mart.

Critical Insight:

Internet Marketers Do Not Realize the Attention-Getting Merits of Great Design Critical Observation. The same elements that are used to create successful retail packages can be applied to Internet Marketing and specifically the marketing of information products and services.

Critical, Critical Observation:

In Internet Marketing, the Guru or Maven is the Packaged Good.

To Achieve the WOW Factor In Your Business and Become a Guru or Maven Use the Same Techniques that Create Attention In the Packaged Goods:

In packaged goods, typically the product, e.g. a drink or a sauce, is the hero. In information products, this hero is the guru, expert or maven. The maven, expert or guru attracts your attention with some incredible offer, e.g., a free eBook, which is presented or highlighted by the sales copy. The guru wraps his incredible offer in an attention getting story that says “I know your pain, frustration.” The guru or maven shows a path to get you closer to your core desire want or dream. The maven is a character or performer like Brando, Seinfeld, Nicholson, Streep, Blanchett. Following a script – maybe with some ad lib – the maven performs. The customer either tunes in or tunes out the guru’s or maven’s performance.

Mavens, like packaged goods, are really a strategic arrangement of scripts, stories and characters designed to capture their customer’s attention and drive them impulsively to purchase “them” from among the other competitive goods on the “shelves” or their sites or blogs.

You, as the information marketers, need to have a script, a performer or character and a performance that separates you from the other stories, characters and performances in your space.

Mavens realize that being different gets even more mileage with customers than having the best product (note: I believe you should have a remarkable product or service first, then present it differently than others).

How to Package Yourself like a Guru or Maven and Get Attention:

You need to tune into yourself first. If you truly know who you are and what you want, then it is much easier to know what customers you want to attract and how to attract them. Why? Customers attract to people that represent and articulate their struggles frustration, pain, suffering and dreams.

Study great story tellers; great performers; great events; great packaging. Examine line by line the presentations of your market’s gurus or mavens. Gurus have their creation stories – how they struggled to get there. They show what they discovered. They show how they can get you to where you want to go faster. They have their own quirks and identifiable language to make them human unique and memorable.
Notice as I have outlined that gurus use the same fundamental elements of other mavens and gurus then add their own unique style. This is true of virtually all top achievers.

Write down a list of every trait or strength or talent that would make you a unique performer. Imagine you are watching yourself perform. Imagine your products or services are being offered in a store or on TV or on radio or on a website.

Ask yourself and ask others how quickly they would tune in or tune out you and your products or services and switch channels or walk away. Ask yourself would your presentation or performance wow you? If not, it will most likely not wow your customers. Ask yourself what can I do – what story, what offer – can I make that would be irresistible?

Go to http://www.stepsto.com/home to learn how to start up your business, grow your business, make money and live the life you want! We have advised and evaluated thousands of companies from start-ups to Fortune 500 Companies. Steps To combines this knowledge with 25 years of research on the right steps the Greatest Minds in History took to achieve extraordinary success.