The Get It Done Blog

As you’ve been growing your business, have you been continually laying a foundation for continued growth or is it a more hit and miss approach you’re using?

Does it feel like you’re barely keeping ahead? Or maybe you even feel like you’re always trying to catch up?

If that’s the case, are you really ready for that growth as it comes? If a big opportunity dropped in your lap, would you be able to handle it or would you have to watch it slip away? The truth is that opportunity usually comes when you least expect it.

So what do you need to be ready?

You need systems – they aren’t glamorous and they can be some work to set up initially but they’re necessary if you want to grow.

A while ago, I made a connection with a woman who was potentially going to be able to connect me to almost 250,000 women. That is no small number… in fact I felt a bit intimidated and overwhelmed in the beginning.

But then I realized it was going to work, because I had systems in place to enable me to jump on this opportunity. I had already set up my website from the backend to support a large community. I also realized that if I needed to bring on additional assistants I could. And all I would have to do is take all the systems I had documented and hand the information over to whoever would need it.

The things that any entrepreneur needs to run a company are the same whether it's a few people or many people. And it’s a pretty incredible feeling knowing that you’re ready to handle the business growth as you receive the wonderful people who show up. That’s what being set up in that bigger way does for you.

The key to being able to step up to any opportunity is documenting all your systems in an operations manual.

It was having the systems in place that gave me confidence to meet that new opportunity. I realized that the systems equaled the website equaled my vision. All of that was in alignment. It would have been so frustrating if I hadn’t had those systems in place and missed out on that opportunity.

Are you thinking: “I’m not big enough. I’m too new to start creating systems in my business. I don’t need that yet. I don’t have the time to document everything.”

Yes, you do. It doesn’t matter if you’re just one person.

Even if you’re just starting a company and don’t feel that you need to outsource or don’t have the disposal income to spend on it, you still need to document your systems for your own benefit. That’s how you’ll avoid procrastination, overwhelm, and getting stuck.

It doesn’t take as much time as you think. And once it’s done you’ll save tons of time and energy in the future not having to go back to reinvent the wheel. Make it part of your schedule to document one system per week. Take one thing you do and write each step down.

For example, when you answer the phone, what information do you want to capture, what questions do you need to ask, where do you file it, how do you follow it up. Document each step and then create a form that captures all that information in one place.

If you’d like to learn more about the amazing benefits of systems click here to watch a short video (the 4th in a series where I highlight each of my 5 steps to get ANY project done) and I’ll explain why having systems allows you to focus your energy on the things that fuel your business and your soul.

Being disorganized manifests itself in many different ways. Maybe you’ve seen offices where every surface is covered with teetering stacks of papers and books. A few entrepreneurs seem to be able to function in that kind of chaos. However, most of us would just be wasting precious hours trying to find lost items and information.

The Business Section of the ‘Wall Street Journal’ (December 8, 2002) reported: “The average U.S. executive wastes SIX WEEKS PER YEAR searching for missing information on messy desks and in files. Every lost piece of paper costs a business $120. In fact, fifteen percent of all paper handled in businesses is lost and thirty percent of all employees’ time is spent trying to find lost documents.”

Being disorganized can also be going on inside of your head. Entrepreneurs may have tons of ideas and projects that you’d like to pursue. But if you don’t have a plan on how to accomplish them, you’re going to end up with little accomplished and a great deal of frustration and cost from redoing mistakes.

Building your business is like building a house. You can’t build the roof first. There’s a prescribed order of what needs to be done first so that it’s ready and stable for the next step. If entrepreneurs aren’t following the proper steps for building your business, you may suffer a terrible collapse because you don’t have the systems you need in place.

Read More »

When entrepreneurs develop their websites, a lot of thought goes into making it an effective marketing tool. Not only will you want to clearly introduce yourself and what you have to offer, you’ll also want to make sure that you’ve included a key component – a well-crafted squeeze page.

If you haven’t heard that term, a squeeze page is a very effective marketing tool for capturing your audience right away. A squeeze page is a page with a very clear call to action. It includes an opt-in form that encourages the person to sign-up for the offer.

To see an example of a squeeze page that’s worked very effectively for me, click here.

So, how can YOU create a squeeze page that works?

Read More »

When you’re an entrepreneur you’ve probably ALREADY spent a lot of your resources developing your product or service. So I’m guessing your advertising budget isn’t large as let’s say…McDonald’s.   

McDonald’s spends a huge amount of money on constant ads. They make you remember that if you’re hungry, it’s fast and easy to eat a hamburger. Most entrepreneurs, however, don’t have that kind of financial resources to get the word out about your businesses.  

Read More »

Have you ever tried rushing up to a cat that has never seen you before?  How does it react?  Doesn’t it immediately flee, viewing you as a threat to its safety?  That’s a natural reaction. Consumers have that same protective reaction when it comes to being “sold to”.  

They work hard for their money and are protective of it because it represents a comfortable way of life for their family.  So “in your face marketing” doesn’t work for entrepreneurs today.            

Therefore, how can taming a cat help entrepreneurs successfully market to your ideal customer? 

Read More »

To run a successful business, an entrepreneur needs to have the workings behind the scenes go smoothly. This is especially true when you delegate to a team or work with a virtual assistant – she needs to know what to do and when to do it.

While it takes time and effort, it really pays off in business to document all the systems that you need so, if anything were to happen to any of you, someone new could come in and keep the ball rolling.

So what do I mean by system?

Read More »

What is an entrepreneur’s biggest time vampire that sucks the life right out of your business? I know for me it’s checking my emails a million times a day. God forbid I should miss something. It’s crazy. There’s absolutely no good that comes from me doing that and in truth it’s a distraction that can easily cost me time and money.

How do all those people get your email address? It’s because you subscribed to their newsletters. You see something interesting, enter your information, and beep, there are 50 new emails in your inbox that you’ve just got to open to make sure you’re not missing out on any great learning.

Read More »

As i coach entrepreneurs who want to launch something new in their business, I find the consistent problem they face is what direction to take. Generally it’s pretty easy to decide your overall field of business, whether it’s in the health industry, creative designs, fashion, or teaching your technical expertise, because it’s something you’re passionate about.

But the next steps of figuring out your specific niche and how you want to model your business aren’t as easy. A great deal of the problem is because you haven’t identified your ideal client. Who is it specifically that can benefit from your services that they’re going to want to buy from you? It’s only when you get that clarity that you can effectively market your offerings.

And here are two things you must know about your ideal client (target market):

First, WHAT do they want? (What problem are you going to solve that they will be willing to pay for?)

Second, HOW do they want to get it? (What’s the best way for them to access the solution? Is it via a product, a service, one-time information or continuous access to information?)

To help you understand this whole process of refining your ideal client and determining which business model you’re going to employ, let me give you a real life example. Hopefully, it will give you some ideas you can apply it to your own situation.

One of my clients came to me with the very clear intention that she wanted to set up her business model around a continuity program, which means somebody is paying monthly money to receive something of value to them.

She’d defined her ideal client as a mom who’s looking to be in business, but who has special needs children. So the first question that I asked her was, “Okay, what does a special needs mom really need on a monthly basis that she is going to pay for?” And the client couldn’t answer that question. We both acknowledged maybe she’d sign up for a month or two for some valuable content, but there really wasn’t anything my client was offering that would make her ideal customer stay very long.

As we began understanding more about who this client was, we realized she’s really someone who needs a lot of information - information on medical issues for her child, on how she can make money while she’s home, on nutritional things that might support her child. Now will she pay for that information? Not necessarily.

I just intuitively knew that rather than spend a lot of time and energy creating a continuity program; it would be a much better avenue for my client to become the great resource for women who need information about their kids.

To attract attention to her site, she’s going to need to create great content, do keyword research and search engine optimization, but once all those eyeballs are seeing her great content, advertisers are going to want to put ads there. So she’ll have the opportunity for advertising revenue, for AdSense revenue, and for affiliate product revenue.

Through our conversation she realized that there was no financial viability in the continuity model, but she could make money in her niche in other ways. She gained clarity when she finally asked herself, “Is this worth my time and effort? Is this going to manifest into bottom line revenue for my business?”

Those are tough questions every entrepreneur needs to ask before launching a new product, service, or membership site. If you’d like one-on-one coaching from me, check out my private coaching services so you too can find clarity about the business model that best suits you and you avoid costly mistakes.

I attended a great conference recently that got me thinking about how entrepreneurs should set up their businesses with multiple income streams. We know that we can’t have all our eggs in one basket when it comes to being in business. It’s just too risky. We need to diversify and generate business in different ways.

If you can visualize your business like a pie cut into wedges with each wedge representing different avenues of generating revenue, how many wedges are you using? And what percentage of your whole is each one occupying?

Read More »