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I attended this fun and wacky business call with Havi (the hippie one) and Naomi (the hardcore, swearing one) yesterday and thought I’d jot down some of the bits that caught my attention…
Success doesn’t mean you’re done
Havi and Naomi have built successful1 businesses, but that doesn’t mean they’ve done everything perfectly or that they’ve done all that could be done to make their business successful. In fact, they both started the call by listing a variety of pretty important and basic business stuff they should be doing. Like:
- Having a friendly and helpful contact page. Make it easy for people to get in touch.2
- Having a organized shopping cart. What if someone wants to buy all of your products at once – can they? Can they even see all of your products in one place?
- Managing the sales funnel. Provide (non-pushy) opportunities for people to buy more or similar products from you. You know, “If you like ABC, you might also like DEF…”
Remember, spend time on the big issues but don’t forget to regularly go back and revisit some of these basics for your business and your website. Get some fresh eyes looking at these issues and you’ll probably be surprised at what you find.
Be kind and helpful
You might be surprised about how many people are just waiting to help you and your business — don’t piss them off. The blogger you just sent an obnoxious email to may have been in the middle of writing a glowing article about your product — are they still going to post it after receiving your message? Hmm… On the flip side, what are you doing to help other businesses? Are you writing those glowing reviews or recommending products to your friends or other businesses? We’re all in it together, people. Step it up!
Don’t forget being kind and helpful to yourself, either. If you “hate” sales, go out there and read some books about it and you just might learn that you don’t hate sales – maybe you just hate the high pressure, guilt driven, shadily manipulative sales that you’ve experienced in the past. Same goes for “marketing,” just check out one of Havi’s articles on that topic – she’s way funnier than me! Everyone has parts of their business that are tougher for them than others, so be patient with yourself when addressing these, but *do* address them.
Also, give yourself permission to spend time doing the things you need to do, regardless of what others may say. Feel free to refer to your staff of consultants (real or imaginary, paid or unpaid, doesn’t really matter.) For example, “My marketing consultants advised me to spend at least 30 minutes a day monitoring and participating on Twitter and Facebook to build my business.”3 Ok, this was actually one of my favorites and I’ve can’t wait to find out what my “consultants” suggest that I do next…
Think about the opportunity chain versus the opportunity cost
Example: Someone’s browsing around on your website, she’s a new (or relatively new) customer and she wants to buy your product, but {insert tragic technical/personal/act of God event here} happens and she can’t complete the sale. Will she come back and buy later? Maybe, but she’s going to have to make a significant effort to do so. What can you do to make it easier or more desireable for her to come back? Do you have a way for her to “hang out” with your business? A blog or newsletter or some way that you can contact her (in a non-spammy way) in the future? The lost sale cost you $50, but the lost opportunity of connecting with your customer was priceless.
Other random thoughts and quick tips
Don’t homogenize. Be your wonderfully unique *you* – the world’s a big place, you’ll find your audience. Besides, who wants to work with a “life coach” when you could work with a “habits educator (+ duck!).”
Answer the (obvious?) questions people are asking. For example, if you’re an acupunturist and the top Google questions about acupuncture are “Do I have to get naked?” and “Does it hurt?”, then maybe you should be answering those questions.
Make it simple. Keep it simple. Everytime you add a new choice for your customers, you decrease their likelihood of choosing anything.4
Sell the relationship, not the product. Example: You’re promoting a workshop at your local community college. Instead of pointing people to a static page about the class, direct them to an article (or send them an article) with the opportunity to “subscribe to more like this.” You can start a relationship and expand your audience. I may not be interested in class XYZ, but I might be willing to receive your newsletter and when you offer class VWX in the spring, I might be the first one to sign up.
Notes
1. I don’t know details, but they seem to be supporting themselves by running businesses that help others and are fun and interesting to run. Pretty good definition of success, I think.
2. A specific example was Amazon.com not having a phone number on their website to contact their customer support. And, while I agree with the premise that you should have an easy way for people to contact you, you should also emphasize contact in the way that’s most effective for you. I would hate to have people calling me directly – I hardly answer the phone anyway, so you’d probably just go to voicemail – but I can answer emails all day long, so having a big “contact me” phone number might not be the best option.
3. A statistic from Naomi — the ratio of “marketing” to “doing” your business should be 4 to 1. So, just refer to all of those hours on Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. as *important business marketing* efforts. Ok?
4. Check out the Getting Real book from 37signals for lots more on this idea.
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