Mike Michalowicz's Blog, page 75

Business Applications for Facebook On The Rise

You know all about how companies have been using mobile applications to help boost their bottom line. Now, get ready for Facebook applications to be the next big thing! Development of Facebook applications is on an uptick and you will want to get in on it from the start. If you have been avoiding getting involved in Facebook, now is the time to set your differences aside and write an app (or three)!

Those businesses that have not yet plugged in to all that is the Facebook phenomenon, may be wondering what all the hoopla is about. Fair enough! But once you get the low down on what is going on , it just makes sense to get your business connected and start reaping the rewards.

Facebook has over half a billion people that actively use the site. And on any given day, half of those people log into their accounts. The numbers get even more convincing when you look at the way people use applications on the site. The users on the site collectively install 20 million applications each day!

Now that you know the audience is there, you will need to consider the types of applications. The great thing is that you don’t even need to develop (or hire someone to develop) your own application, you can use what is already out there to get started. Just do a Google search for “Facebook Applications” and you will find hundreds, if not thousands to choose from.

Right now there is a variety of ready, out-of-the-box, applications that can help your business sales. Here’s what you can take advantage of:

– Videos, notes, testimonials, and conference calls.

– Complete shopping carts abilities, with checkout and payment systems linked to Paypal. Using features like this, there are even businesses that are setting up pop-up stores for limited periods of time and cashing in!

– Slide shares, business cards, and the ability to link to other social media sites.

– Blog promotion, polls, file management, fan pages, networks, storefronts, carpooling, groups, event notifications, and invitations.

– Plus, so much more!

There are so many different ways for you to bridge the gap between your business and your customers by using a Facebook application. If you can dream up a way to reach customers through the web, there is likely a Facebook application that can help you reach that goa.

The good news is that using Facebook applications are quite cost effective. The biggest thing you may put into trying them out is some time. Many of the applications are free or low cost. Just do a search for applications, and you will find a variety of them to meet your every business need!

Here’s the dealio – there is a good chance that with half a billion people being on Facebook that a lot of your potential customers are there as well. So that means you want to be there. And if you are going to be there, you may as well find ways to make your presence more effective. Applications are the way to do just that. Master the use of the Facebook applications, and you will have a low-cost marketing tool on your hand that can be used to reach the masses!

If your company is not yet on Facebook, consider signing up. Whether you are there already or you will just be setting up a page, make the most of it by tapping into the resources that are available to you in the form of applications. You just never know where they may take you!

Episode 56: Task Management and Virtual Outsourcing with Chris Ducker

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Show Summary

Bestselling Author and Entrepreneur Chris Ducker joins Mike Michalowicz, Chris Curran and Kristina Bolduc for Episode 56 of the Profit First Podcast! Chris talks about the benefits of bringing your business virtual.

 

Our Guest 

Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker and author of the bestseller, “Virtual Freedom”. Originally from the UK, Chris has lived in the Philippines for 15-years, where he hosts the annual Tropical Think Tank mastermind event and has founded several businesses, which combined house over 300 full-time employees. He is also a popular business blogger and podcaster at ChrisDucker.com and founder of Youpreneur.com, an exclusive entrepreneurial mastermind community. Follow Chris on Twitter @chrisducker.

 

Show Quotes 

A good goal for business owners is to try to become as removed from your business as possible. Hire people to run the show and stick to the tasks that you do best rather than having to do everything. This will lighten up your schedule and let you enjoy your business. Delegation is important, but you have to make the transition slowly… this is not a quick fix.

Write up your “Three List to Freedom”

1. Create 3 columns on a piece of paper. List the daily/weekly tasks that you hate doing.

2. List the things you are struggling to do or cannot do. We believe we are our own superhero and can do everything… but we need to take a step back and break it down.

3. This is the GAME CHANGER step: List the things you (as the business owner) feel you should not be doing – keep in mind you may love doing them, bust ask yourself “can my time be more useful elsewhere in higher level activities?”

Training is a broad term when you’re talking about staff. On boarding people properly is more important – because if you don’t do it properly they will never know what you like and how you expect things to be done. Hire for the role and not for the task. Don’t hire 1 person and expect them to do 5 different jobs.

You can’t start working more virtually until you determine what tasks you can outsource (by using the three list to freedom method above). Working with someone virtually is not much different from working in the office other than the potential time-zone adjustments and not being there physically.

To dip your toe in the virtual water, consider using a virtual accountant or bookkeeper! Perhaps at www.profitfirstprofessionals.com 

Change Someone Else In These 6 Ways

You know those movies where the guy says, “I could tell ya, but if I told ya, I’d have to kill ya.”? My second company, the one that did computer crime investigation, had that sort of atmosphere. The problem was, I had a fantastic employee, who was great, except he was a loud talker. In a company where total security matters, loud talkers aren’t good to have around talking about your confidential cases. They talk and ya gotta….get them to change.

The bad news is, it’s nearly impossible to change yourself, so good luck ever changing someone else, especially an employee.

However, the good news is, with the right approach you can change people’s motivations and habits, which result in their changing those habits you don’t like.

Here are six simple ways you can change others, or help them change themselves:

1. Blame the Habit – It’s not you. It’s the habit. Don’t make it personal. Blame the habit: “Darn cigarettes wouldn’t be so hard to give up if the tobacco companies didn’t make them so addictive.” Recognize the problem you are trying to fix is not the person themselves, but their habit. Show them that you’re on the same team and talk with them about how you can tackle changes together.

2. One Person At A Time – You save your company the way you save the world—one person at a time. If you want to change the way multiple people are behaving, talk to them one at a time, starting with the person who has the most influence among the group. When you change the leader you tap into their influence with the group, making the whole process a lot easier on you.

3. One Problem At A Time – We know “multi-tasking,” like answering your email and talking to a client at the same time, don’t work. So, solve one problem at a time. Even small changes can be overwhelming if you try to change too much at once. Start with the easiest change. Then go to the next easiest. Build momentum for the major changes.

4. Apply peer pressure – I don’t mean bullying. Try a teamwork approach. Invite the employee to come up with ideas on how their colleagues can help them by enforcing sanctions that encourage change. Make the motivation method fit the employee. They’ve got to want it. Whatever you come up with, reward the person for doing the right thing rather than punish them for doing the wrong thing.

5. Remove The Cause To Kill The Symptom – The thing you want to change is typically a symptom of a deeper habit. Rewind and determine what causes the symptom. Fix the cause and the symptom goes away. Until you fix the cause, you’ll just be swapping out symptoms and the change won’t really take hold. If you’ve got an employee who is always late, find out why and find a solution rather than punishing them for the symptom—tardiness.

6. Start a Dollar Jar – Ever notice how everyone around you can see the food on your shirt and tie but you? The obvious things are often not obvious to the person who needs to see them. First point out what an employee is doing that you want them to stop. Then, make sure they’re in agreement with stopping. Once you have their buy-in to changing, devise a system where their subconscious habit becomes a conscious thing. It could be a dollar jar (where they put a dollar in the jar every time a habit occurs that needs to stop), or you could create a checklist they must use so you bypass the subconscious and create new habits. Making the habit conscious is more important than the mechanism you use.

If all that sounds like a lot of work, consider how much more work it’s causing you to not make the changes! The other thing is, when you hit on the right approach, it’s not as much work as you’d think. My loud talker took much less effort than I thought. I used a penny jar. After a mere 48 cents, we had positive change.

You’re Not An Entrepreneur

If you work your ass to the bone, you’re not an entrepreneur. You own a business that enslaves you.

If you’re constantly attracting different types of clients, you’re not an entrepreneur. You are a yes-man.

If you have to hire people who come with skills they’ve gained elsewhere because you don’t have a system or structure that easily gives it to them, you’re definitely not an entrepreneur. Those people simply control you.

An entrepreneur discovers solutions for problems and then masters every stinkin’ step of solving that same problem over and over again. The output is consistent and predictable. Entrepreneurs avoid the need for people with pre-learned skills, they just require people with the right attitude, energy and intelligence.

Being an entrepreneur is hard not because you need to work crazy hours (you don’t), or because the customer is always right (their not), or because you need to hire Einstein’s (you shouldn’t). Entrepreneurship is hard because it requires tremendous amounts of thought to build a system that avoids all those obstacles.

Less Is More

Could you imagine a fruit stand that just sold bananas? Kinda lame, don’t you think? Customers want variety. Where’s the blueberries? The apples? The mangoes? Where’s all the options?

The problem is it’s hard to scale a business that depends on customers with varying desires and wants. Today they want plump sweet blueberries. Tomorrow ripe un-spotted bananas. The next day’s demand is for kiwis with a sweet and tart pop to them. It’s hard because you have to master all of the steps to achieve perfection in all those things.

But what if you just did bananas? What if you mastered all the steps for growing bananas, transporting bananas, preserving bananas, improving bananas?

Maybe going all in on bananas is a little bit… well you know… but that is exactly what Chiquita Brands did. A company doing $3.1B on mostly (and for the longest time, exclusively) bananas. Show me a farm stand that does $3.1B and I have a Brooklyn Bridge you should consider buying.

Episode 55: Digital Marketing and Profitability with Stephen Christopher

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Show Summary

Entrepreneur Stephen Christopher joins Mike Michalowicz, Chris Curran and Kristina Bolduc for Episode 55 of the Profit First Podcast! Stephen shares his experience with implementing Profit First on his business.

 

Our Guest 

Stephen Christopher is the founder of Seequs Marketing Technologies, a web marketing firm designed to help business owners achieve results they never thought possible.  Before starting Seequs, Stephen founded and guided several other businesses to great success, but it was his mortgage company that ultimately changed the course of his entrepreneurial journey. With the crash of the mortgage industry in 2008, Stephen learned what it’s like to go from profitable to over $100,000 in debt…literally overnight. This failure imparted more wisdom about business than any school or program could ever teach him. Since then, Stephen has evolved into a devoted student of personal and business development. He finds the most joy in helping business owners learn how to create happiness in their life and wealth in their companies.  Stephen is becoming an influential public speaker in the personal development community, launching a podcast for business owners (Business Revolution) in December of 2015, and continuing to create an amazing culture and results for clients at Seequs.

 

Show Quotes 

Revenue doesn’t matter, Profit does!

Set up your bank accounts and your percentages… it’s that simple to get profit first started. The first month or two may be a transition period, but once you see your profit in your account you really start to believe in the concept. If you find something is not working, keep changing it until you find what works best for you.

Consider setting up a company wide personal development account – put away the money to cover your company events and travel! Also consider setting up a technology account… what if someone’s computer dies? Now you have the money set aside to replace it. This creates a safety net.

You will notice yourself starting to cut down spending on the things you don’t really need, because you’d much rather have that money in a profit account.

When it comes to your website, don’t waste your money on trying to get more traffic to your site (for example, SEO). Your goal is to make your website the most relevant website and the best resource possible for your field. Make sure you’re consistent online and keep your content updated. That will get your business more recognized.

 

Show Links

Website: www.seequs.com – our website

www.seequs.com/free – free website marketing evaluation to see how your site performs online

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/stephen.christopher1

Twitter: @bizrevo

 

Corporate Partners

Nextiva – VOIP phone providers for small businesses.

Fundera – Single source online funding for entrepreneurs. Also offers an adviser program for CPAs, bookkeepers and business coaches.

TSheets – The #1 customer rated time tracking solution!

Fundbox –  the simplest and fastest way to fix your cash flow by advancing payments for your outstanding invoices.

Don’t Call Profit The Bottom Line

Let’s say for a second that you have decided to exercise more. There’s more than a tire around your waist, after all, you have tires everywhere. To fix your fitness, you plan to hit the gym. You have two options:

1. The second you wake up, put on your gym clothes and head to the gym.

2. At the end of the day, right before you go to sleep, head over to the gym.

Which one do you think will be more successful?

The answer is obvious. Putting your workouts at the very start of the day will stage you for success. When you workout first, the obstacles of the day can’t get in the way. Also, you have the energy and availability to do it. Plus, as a bonus, a great workout in the morning positions you to have great energy for the rest of the day. You have no excuse not to work out when the work out comes first, so you do.

Conversely, working out right before nigh-nigh time is a recipe for disaster. You’re already tired from the day. Commitments and distractions abound. Plus, the workout becomes the one thing standing in the way of a good night sleep. When your work out comes last you have every excuse not to do it, so you don’t.

Now let’s talk about profit. Profit historically comes last. It’s the “bottom line” after all. So, you likely check your profitability at the end of the year. Or maybe at the end of the quarter or month. You, and most entrepreneurs, treat profit like a nighttime workout. No wonder so few companies are ever profitable.

Let me suggest something much more fiscally intelligent: Take your profit first. Take a predetermined percentage of profit from every single on of your deposits, every single time. Make your profit the equivalent of the morning workout. When profit comes first, you will have no excuse not to be profitable.

If you want a financially healthy business (and life), realize that profit is not the bottom line. It’s the first line. Profit first, always.

Small Step Prospecting

Don’t send me an email telling me to “click here in the next five seconds” or I will forever lose the deal of a lifetime.

Don’t call me asking me to donate money to your charity, when I have never heard of you before.

Don’t assume the sale. Don’t give me an ultimatum. Don’t tell me how you can fix my problems. I have no idea who you are, yet.

I want to do business with people who I know, like and trust. First.

If you want to market to me, take small steps. Let’s just say hi and learn about each other. That’s it. Don’t sell me. I will sell myself.

And if you haven’t figured it out yet, me is everyone. It your entire market.

One Accountable, Many Responsible

If there is one thing that is absolutely guaranteed when working with a team, if multiple people are made accountable to an outcome it is unlikely to happen. It is the ultimate game of passing the buck, which usually ends with a triumphant finger pointing.

Whenever a specific outcome is needed, make one person (and only one person) accountable to the outcome. If it doesn’t happen, they are the one to face the consequences. If they succeed, they receive the recognition.

Of course, one person may be not be the adequate staffing to complete the goal at hand. The other people are responsible. They all must get their roles, and report to the one who is accountable. So while many can be responsible for a project, only ever make one accountable.

Small Plate Money Management

The American (and global) waistline continues to grow. The State of Obesity reports that nearly 40% of American adults between the ages of 40 to 59 are obese. That means either you are one of the folks you regularly are in contact with (a friend, relative, colleague, etc.) is obese.

The symptoms of this epidemic vary. Not enough exercise. Too much junk and processed food. Medical conditions. Not enough natural foods.  And while the symptoms vary the cause weight gain is always the same, the body retains more calories than it burns.

The solution to obesity is simple, at least in concept. Doing it is the hard part.  Consume less calories than you burn and you will lose weight.  You can continue to each hamburgers and twinkies, just a lot less, and you will lose weight. You can skip exercise, as long as you still burn more calories than you consume and you will lose weight.

Understanding this simple formula of consuming less calories than you burn, applying a solution is radically simple: use smaller plates. By limiting the space available for your food portions, you will take in less calories, yet still be able to follow you normal pattern of filling up the plate and cleaning off the plate.  You don’t have to change you habits (fill up the plate and eat all that is on the plate), you just need to establish “guardrails” that limit the intake.

Money can (and should) be managed the same way. Our normal behavior is to consume all that is made available to us.  We have one big “plate”, our checking account, and always find a way to spend it all.