Marketing Is Not Selling

Changing Your Business One Customer at a Time

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The Tony Robbins Business Mastery Experience

It’s 4:30am and I’m sitting in the Las Vegas airport, ready to board the plane that will take me back home. I’ve been here in Vegas for a full week and it’s been one of the best weeks of my life.
I made the decision to attend Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery week-long workshop so I can figure out how to serve my clients better and increase my profits.
See, part of the issue in the past isn’t that I didn’t have enough clients. The bigger issue was that I was taking on anyone instead of saying No.
I know I can help anyone. The bigger question is why should I?
The brutal fact is that I can’t serve everyone. And I’m tired of working with business owners that don’t value my time/ideas, what I’m trying to help them create or even their own selves. I was working with pseudo-owners.
Basically, whiny 4 year-old owners that wanted to see the cash without putting in the work. They wanted everything right now.
The fact is, you have to build the foundation first in order to make the business grow by leaps and bounds. For many of us that don’t start out with tons of venture capital, we have to build sweat equity. Then we reinvest cash in the business as we can.
One of the biggest mistakes is that we fail to pay ourselves first and that helps to contribute to our burnout and the ultimate demise of the business.
But I digress. That will be continued in another post.
This is about the Business Mastery experience. I can’t simply call it a workshop, because it is sooooo much more than that.
And it’s very hard to describe exactly the experience I had.  I once heard someone describe it to me as trying to drink out of a firehose.
It’s exactly that.
So much information covering so many different areas in business that it literally makes your head spin. Add to that the small amounts of time to talk with others, the very little sleep, the constant up and down out of our chairs, the very little break time to eat and by day 2 you’re completely exhausted, especially if you truly go all in to experience everything.
Now, I’ve followed Tony for about 10 years, but I had never been to any of his workshops. I had always wanted to go, but I found other excuses not to. So November 2016, I bit the bullet and signed up for the Business Mastery course.
I had heard about Date with Destiny and his other workshops, but I thought that I would start here.
And what an experience!!! It wasn’t another boring workshop. It truly was an experience.
I’m still stunned at what I learned.  I was happy to see that I already knew a lot of what was presented, but it still made me think way outside the box. Because it went into depths I couldn’t see.
And I know that I’ve only scratched the surface. There is so much more for me to learn and to achieve that reaches far beyond money. Yes, Business Mastery is about expanding your businesses and becoming a Business Owner and not a employee (Operator) in your business.
But it’s also about thinking in new ways. Connecting with people that have been through the exact same problems and issues you’ve been through. There are participants from all over the world, with all sorts of income levels, number of employees, revenues, etc.
But the one thing they have in common? They’re all driven to succeed. They’re hungry. They’re sharp. They’re interested in helping one another. They’re interested in doing more for people and for the greater good.
I’m running on 2 hours of sleep since I had to catch a super-early morning flight and even though I can give you the basics, frankly, I cannot even begin to accurately describe my experience. There are no words at the moment.
That’s going to have to be another story. And I can’t wait to find the words to describe it.

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Motivational Monday – April 10

So last week’s Motivational Monday was about changing your plans if they aren’t working for you, but keeping the goal.

This week we’re talking about Spring Cleaning.

You see, this time of year, in April, is when we start thinking about all the cleaning needs to be done. This can be and not on their personal lives but also in our businesses as well.

In spring cleaning often brings stress as well. And a lot of it.

So for today’s Motivational Monday, and bringing you a reminder to take a step back, go outside, take a deep breath and relax a little bit.

There is always going to be stuff that has to be done, no matter where you are, where you live, or who you work for. But one of the lessons that each of us must learn, is to take a break and relax in order to quiet our minds and to be more productive when we are focused on our work and on our families.

And when we take a little bit of time to relax, it makes it easier for us to get work done. If you learn how to take breaks, even the most insurmountable task can be viewed in a new light and accomplished much faster.

 

Action item for this week: instead of skipping your lunch break, take 15 minutes and go walk around outside. Enjoy the sun, enjoy getting away from your desk, enjoy getting away from your coworkers, and just enjoy the outdoors. Even 15 minutes can make a significant improvement in your productivity and in your happiness.

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Motivational Monday – April 3

Change the Plan, but Never the Goal.

Wow. Strong words. And good ones too. What’s your goal? How are you going to reach it?

Finding these words at just the right moment in time is very ironic. I’m coming up on the two year mark since I created Marketing Is Not Selling.

And I’ve scrapped my plans. Twice!

Literally started over. Scrapped the website. Scrapped the course. Scrapped a lot of things.

But it’s all been worth it.

Because I get to see the faces of my clients when 3, 6, 9 months later, their business has grown to the point where they need employees. Or a bigger office. Bigger filing cabinets. Better production facilities. And more.

How did I do it? By cutting back. Not putting up with second best. Not putting up with crap in general. People don’t work well together? If either one can’t put aside their differences and work toward the goal, then fine. Don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out. Don’t need that sort of stress when you’re trying to build something big.

Plans have to be flexible. You have to keep that end goal in sight. Want 100 new customers? Then don’t settle on FB ads if they’re not working for you.

Want more time off? Raise your prices and attract the kind of customer who’s willing to pay higher prices.

Don’t be stuck in one groove – that’s how businesses die.

That almost happened to Apple. Don’t be Apple in the 90’s before the iPod and iPhone came out. Be Apple when they came roaring back.

If your plans are inflexible, your business will die. It’s inevitable, like death and taxes. And taxes can be negotiated!

Today’s action item: Look at your goals. Cut out the ones that no longer serve you. Then look at your plans to reach those goals. Come up with several paths to reach that goal so you can switch gears when you need to.

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The ULTIMATE Guide to Small Biz Accounting Systems

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This guide isn’t wordy, forcing you to read for hours. This guide is a giant comparison chart of features, compared side-by-side for your convenience.

It Covers:

  • Customer Invoices & Billing
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Motivational Monday – March 27

 

This is an issue that I’ve seen quite a bit of lately. People mean well and many of them know a lot about a particular subject, but they don’t know it inside in out.

That’s why you can view all sorts of videos about why it takes at least 10,000 hours to master something.

And even then, you’re still a student. You’re just at a higher platform.

The person that claims they know everything is truly ignorant. And if they can’t tell you how something works, or why it works that way, then they aren’t a master of that subject.

That’s where the real test comes in. Learn all you want, but if you aren’t putting that knowledge to practical use, then all that knowledge and learning is utterly useless.

So think about ol’ Albert up there. Think about how you’re sending your passion and message into the world.

Do they understand WHAT you’re selling or offering?

Do they understand WHY you do what you do?

Do people understand YOU?

If you aren’t getting the clients you want, or the quantity you want, then you need to think about how you’re conveying your message.

Case in point. Last week I was trying to get some more information on a subject that I have some experience with, but not a ton. And this person was seriously qualified. Licensed, degreed, credentials… the whole nine yards.

But as I probed deeper with what they said, they only got angrier and angrier that I was questioning them. To the point of practically yelling at me.

What’s the point in that?

You have someone that is asking you questions so they can learn, grow and apply it to their own lives/jobs/businesses, and you’re yelling at them because they asked questions?

I never once questioned the credentials. I only questioned the process and definitions so I could better understand it. Because the better I understood, the easier it would be for my projects to help them grow their business because I have a better time understanding where they’re coming from and what I need to do to take them to that level.

And no one needs the stress of someone yelling at them. That’s completely unprofessional and counter-productive. So learn from my experience and don’t do it.

So today’s action item: Try explaining your services or products to a middle school or high school kid that isn’t your own or one of their friends. If they can understand what you do and why/how you do it, then you have a better chance of explaining it to the world.