There are 3 important ideas I’d like to share with you, so that you and your business avoid some very costly mistakes.
Let’s get started!
Sowing and reaping
There’s a field full of wheat, just around the corner from me. The wheat is still green and clearly not ready to be harvested yet, but in the coming weeks, it will turn golden. It’s at that point, that the farmer will be able to reap the rewards for her hard work. Literally.
Business owners often try and reap their harvest too soon. They try and force things to happen too fast. As a result, they miss out on what could have been a golden harvest.
Here are 3 common examples of mistakes, which business owners make by trying to harvest too soon.
1. Some business owners buy lists rather than build them
A common example of this is email marketing. Rather than build a list, they buy one. It takes time to build a list, but what you end up with is a massively valuable marketing asset: A list of people who want to hear from you.
Instead, they buy a list, which contains the names of people whose email addresses are being sold every day to marketers.
The business owners buying these so called opt-in lists, then wonder why they get such poor results. It seems they are unaware that each time they email that list, theirs is just one of maybe 50 or 100 spam emails the victim is plagued with that day.
Build a list of prospective clients or customers. There’s a huge difference between building a permission marketing asset, and sending people emails they never asked for.
2. Some business owners bypass relationships
Business is all about people. As a result, the way people feel about you is always a key factor in your success. Even so, many business owners try and dehumanize their business, by randomly making selfish requests from strangers.
I see this all the time. I get daily requests from around 30 total strangers, who email me and ask if I will write a blog post about their new product, service or an announcement they have. Rather than build a relationship with me, they say ‘hi’ then hit me with a selfish request.
Begging looks cute when a dog does it. For business owners, it’s not such a great look.
- Build the relationship.
- Make the effort.
- Treat people with respect.
- Keep it human.
Earn. Then ask.
3. Some business owners refuse to make the investment
These people expect a result, without being prepared to invest the time, energy or money required.
- They want more business from their website, yet it’s poorly designed and gets no traffic, because they refused to invest in a professional site.
- They want more business from their customers, yet fail to invest the time required to learn what their customers need.
- They want more followers on social networking sites, yet fail to invest the time required to do anything worth following.
- They want to make more high quality sales, yet refuse to invest in professional marketing.
The law of cause and effect assures us that to get what we want, we FIRST have to do what’s required. You can waste a lot of time and money trying to ignore this.
What this means to you
You work hard. Your hard work deserves to be rewarded. Whatever you want to achieve with your business is possible. However, you need to avoid the costly detours outlined in this post. That’s why I took time out from my business, to share this with you today.
IMPORTANT: If you want to make more sales, boost your profits and grow an amazing business, this will help you!