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WILL YOU BE A MILLIONAIRE?

1. Are you addressing worldwide markets?
2. Do you have unique, timely products?
3. Are your products highly leveraged?
4. Does your business have residual income?
5. Do you have systems in all areas?
6. Is your business dependent on one person?
7. Do you have great customer service?
8. Are you building a powerful brand?
9. Are you a market leader?
10. Are you attracting the best and brightest people?
11. Do you reward well and base this on performance not longevity/time?
12. Do you have high gross margins i.e. > 60%?
13. Do you have few competitors?
14. Do you keep innovating and reinventing?
I5. Do you have investor entry and exit strategies?
16. Do you have a large customer database?
17. Do you have great marketing?
18. Do you anticipate customers' needs?
19. Do you always add value to your customers' experience?
20. Do you educate before you sell?
21. Do you have burning desire to succeed from an early age?
22. Do you learn and study from the best?
23. Do you never stop learning?
24. Do you have a willingness to change quickly?
25. Do you make decisions quickly?
26. Are you passionate, excited and full of energy?
27. Have you learned to see opportunity everywhere?
28. Do you see the world as your laboratory and playground?
29. Do you have a great vision?
30. Do you dream big?
31. Do you take calculated risks?
32. Have you rented/bought credibility?
33. Are you customer/market focused?
34. Are you supremely confident?
35. Are you creative, wanting to build and make a difference?
36. Do you listen and look for clues all the time?
37. Do others consider you a great leader?
38. Are you cool under pressure?
39. Do you empower people around you?
40. Are you always on the look out for the best people?
41. Do you know when to get out of the way?
42. Do you fully utilise your human and other assets?
43. Can you inspire people to become the best they can?
44. Do you have courage?
45. Do you anticipate rough spots?
46. Do you keep selling your dream at every opportunity?
47. Do you believe in yourself when no one else does?
48. Do you remain humble?
49. Do you praise in public and criticise in private?
50. Do you recognise others' achievements?
51. Do you know when it's time to exit?
52. Do you know your weaknesses?
53. Do you expect more of yourself or have higher standards than others?
54. Are you a great communicator?
55. Do you take responsibility when things go wrong?
56. Do you work smart, play hard?
57. Do you earn respect rather than demand it?
58. Do you value your time and knowledge?
59. Do you have role models and mentors?
60. Do you have an abundance mentality?
61. Do you feel fear yet do things anyway?
62. Are you single-minded and focused?

EXPAND YOUR DREAM

You will have good people and great systems ...
(which, by the way, should have been developed by your people).

This frees you up to put new plans in place, which will add even more blue sky to your business.

Remember, it is the blue sky that generates the excitement and captures people's imagination, making them want to join you and invest money in your business.
It adds massive value to your business.

You should never work 'in' your business but, work 'on' your business.

What's the distinction between these two?
The person working in their business is doing things they could be paying others to do, such as answering phones, processing orders, arranging couriers or keeping the books. All of these are important functions and a business cannot run without them.

However, these are tasks you can pay others to do at a relatively low cost. Doing this frees up your time to focus on two critical things for the future and fast growth of your business:

• generating revenue
• creating and refining your systems.

Working on generating revenues and developing your systems are the only two things you should ever be working on.

Why? Because this will maximise your time leverage, and it is time leverage that creates value in your business.

Why do work that will cost you $10-15 per hour for others to perform, when you could be doing work that pays your business $100, $200 or $1000 per hour? $1000 an hour is what you will earn by selling boxes, as opposed to time, and why it is so important that you sell boxes and not time.

ALWAYS EDUCATE BEFORE YOU SELL, THEN EDUCATE SOME MORE

Your customers are under attack.

Full-scale attack !

Sounds dramatic? The truth is it's not dramatic at all. Every day your customers are being bombarded with thousands of advertising messages. Why? Because every business on earth is trying to get their attention.

Customers are exposed to 1200-1400 advertising messages per day.

This is extraordinary, but entirely possible if you stop and think about it. From the minute we wake up in the morning until we go to bed at night we are hit with messages everywhere - newspaper, TV, radio, letterboxes, Internet, email, T-shirts, bus stops, buses, taxis, lifts, toilets, baseball caps, and so on. Advertisers are continually looking for new ways to get our attention.

How to make your customers feel safe?
So how do you combat this?

How do you succeed amongst this competition and advertising frenzy? You cannot stop the noise being created by all these ignorant advertisers, who literally waste millions of dollars each day, continuing with their insane practices.
Customers are not only more confused than they used to be but they also perceive there is more risk than ever before.

Warranties and 100 per cent money-back guarantees used to help customers feel secure about dealing with you and give you a competitive edge.

(Today, however, these have become standard. Just offering them no longer works the way it used to.)

If you want to get your customers' attention and keep it for a long time you need to employ a technique I call edu-marketing. So what is it?

Edu-marketing

is a term I have coined that means educating your customers before, during and after you sell to them. How you do this may vary, but if you do not do it you will have nowhere near the success you deserve or could attain.

So, here's the million-dollar tip: don't sell - educate.

Customers are confused.
This confusion leads them to perceive their lives have more risk and they trust less.

If you take my approach and educate your customers before you sell, you won't have to sell. That's right, you won't have to sell.

EMPLOY THE BEST PEOPLE THROUGHOUT THE BUSINESS

How?

I know a trick to attract the best that no one seems to do - just scan the job ads to see what I mean.

Write outstanding adverts that say nothing about the job.

That's correct, say nothing about the job!

When doing this ask yourself a basic question that very few people ask: What do employees want?

And it's not too hard to figure out. It's the same things you want. I don't think there is a single person looking for a job who does not want fun, good conditions, fast growth, opportunity for promotion, travel, variety and so on.

This is where many employers go wrong and end up with second-rate employees . .. they try to skimp on the advert cost by making it as small as possible, then word it incorrectly.

You must be prepared to spend more on your advert than every other employer advertising a similar job (including bigger companies) and your wording needs to be fun, inspiring and never say anything about the job.

No matter what position is being advertised - even middle and senior management - the advert needs to talk about the company, the fun environment, the exciting growth possibilities, the customers, and so on. In other words, you need to sell the company, the working conditions and the opportunity.

Top-gun salesperson required for fast-growing, dynamic company. Fun, exciting working environment, opportunity for promotion, earn up to S100K, no cold calling, prestigious Sydney offices, only the best need apply...

The Ten Commandments of MARKETING

Never break these rules, or it will cost you a fortune!

1. If you are not skilled at marketing, employ someone who is - fast!

2. Never advertise your brand. Advertising sales people will try to convince you to buy advertising to increase the awareness of your brand with customers. This is complete rubbish. If you can't make accountable sales from your advertising - don't do it.

3. Always buy advertising at a discount, but never buy discounted advertising. If you do decide to advertise don't do it because you get a call from an ad sales person with a 'bargain'. Instead decide where you want to advertise and then negotiate the best deal you can to get it discounted, especially if it is your first time in that magazine or journal. Haggle.

4. Always know how much to spend on advertising. Many people overspend or underspend. You should only advertise where the cost of getting a new customer is less than the value of that customer to you on the first and subsequent purchases.

5. Always have a back-end sale (a sale in addition to the product you initially sold the customer). If you are going to spend money to attract a customer you must have something else to sell them.

6. Always know the lifetime value of your customer. At first this will be hard, but as time goes on you should know what a new customer is worth to your business over their expected period of buying from you.

7. Always know your cost of customer acquisition. If you advertise to attract new customers you must divide the cost of your advertising by the number of resulting new customers to arrive at your cost of acquisition per customer.

8. Always have a database. If you don't keep your customers' details on a database, how do you know who they are?

9. Always look for no-cost or low-cost promotions. There are many opportunities to get advertising for free or at low cost - look at these first before you spend money on adverts.

10. ALWAYS, ALWAYS have a USP-a unique selling promise.

Empathy

Walk in his shoes:

When "fixing" a business, be aware of the time, effort and enthusiam the owner once had. Even if now it looks like a grotty run down place, emphasise the positives and build on that.


You're much more likely to get the owner on side than if you immediately say "wow, you've run this place to the ground".

DONT QUIT NOW !

Thinking of a researching a product that a customer has to continue to buy - at least for a few weeks - until they get maximum benefit from it .
Along the lines of a 'over-the-counter' diet product, or 'Nicorette' style of patch/gum ...
Something thats a consumable and requires people to keep going to get the most benefit from it.

Like a Virgin..

Like a Virgin!

Virgin Airlines is launching a Pitch TV show - free for budding businessmen to pitch their ideas to other travellers.
See below for details:



As part of it's 25th Anniversary celebrations, Virgin Atlantic has launched a new show, PitchTV, which is airing onboard and is also available online here on virgin.com.

We're inviting entrepreneurs in search of investment and exposure for their business ideas to upload short video pitches.

The community here will vote for their favourite video pitches and each month, the winning videos will feature as part of Virgin Atlantic's PitchTV show which will air on their inflight entertainment system - gaining exposure to the hundreds of business professionals who regularly fly Virgin Atlantic. Anyone interested in hearing more about the most popular entrepreneurs' business ideas will then be able to get in contact and maybe help take their ideas further.

If you're a budding entrepreneur, we're giving you the unique opportunity of getting your ideas by top business professionals from around the world on board Virgin Atlantic planes as well online here.

Who knows - among the viewers might be someone with the power to bring your idea to life.

All you have to do is film yourself delivering the very best pitch possible, but make sure it's no longer than 2 minutes. Then simply follow the instructions here.

So get your 2 minute pitches together and may the best ones get the exposure they deserve!

FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT

Meet in expensive hotels if you can't afford nice offices - they can be a great way to create a good impression.

Even if a cup of coffee in these hotels costs $5 each, ordinarily this may seem expensive, but work it out: that's only $10 per hour rent-a real bargain when you think about it.

Buy an expensive suit, dress well and look super-successful - even if you haven't got there yet.

BE DIFFERENT, NO MATTER WHAT

You can and must be different to your competitors.
You must be unique in some way or another that clearly defines you from your competitors.
This is called having a USP (unique selling promise) and unfortunately I still don't see 99 per cent of businesses doing this in any way.

The world's most dynamic business people almost disregard their competitors, and continue to lead the way. They are bold, take risks and benchmark themselves not against their competition, but against the best companies in the world, no matter what industry they are in. They will look at the best businesses in all or any industry, take ideas and concepts, and then translate these into their own company.

The best businesses will purposely not follow their competitors. They look for ways to be unique and different by using their imagination and some clever strategic thinking.

The End is Near !

When you start a business you should start identifying and targeting companies likely to want to buy you out a year from now.

The reason for considering exit options at this early stage is that if you know which direction you will be taking with regard to your exit strategy, this will help you tailor your business more closely to reach the outcome you want. You should be building your systems, team and products, and getting your business organised from day one to be able to operate without you. You will have many goals but this is your major goal - a business that will eventually run without you. If your business cannot work without you in the medium to long term, you are either building it wrong or are in the wrong business.

There are five basic exit strategies:
• selling to a strategic buyer
• selling to a financial buyer
• going public
To go public you must usually have three years of audited financial accounts, whereas no audits are required for a private sale. If you intend to go public you can offer employees share options, which are worthless if you remain private.
• selling to your employees
• liquidating your assets.

If you do not design this into your business right now - if you make the mistake of building your business around you - you are making a fatal error that has cost those before you millions of dollars.

So, from day one you need to have this firmly in mind and build systems into your business for everything:

• marketing systems,
• sales systems,
• production systems,
• customer service systems,
• telephone answering systems,
• hiring and firing systems,
• induction systems,
• administration systems,
• reporting systems,
• reward and recognition systems,
• systems for handling complaints and so on.

In addition, make sure you are in a business that only makes your products once and leave it to the system to make it over and over again.

Piggyback

Piggybacking

Sort of a variation on a previous theme but piggybacking advertising and promotion etc not only saves money but you can also rely on the credibility of the other organisation to promote yours.

For instance, in my community consultations , instead of driving 4 hour round trips and hoping that the residents would come and talk to me - I piggybacked on the Shire Council's Community consultation sessions. Sure, I had to sit through some roads, rates and rubbish, but the community was glad of one less "meeting", I got a free ride, and lots of ppl who were really there for the RRR.




In a few weeks, I will be launching a new bus service, but again, will use the Council to promote it. The Council writing a press release has a bit more weight than just mine alone. Yet I get to talk about it, so my project wins.

Stuck in the middle with you

This step is critical in your path towards success and making money out of thin air.

So many times I have seen business owners writing their own adverts or marketing material, because they do not know where to find someone to do this, or do not want to spend the money.
This is fool's gold, as they end up paying far more in wasted advertising and lost customer opportunities than they would if they had employed an expert in marketing.

I often put this in perspective by asking such people if they would go to court without a lawyer if they ran into legal trouble. Mostly the answer is no - yet they try to get away with not employing experts in other areas.

Again, you do not have to offer cash to the best people if you don't have it. You can offer equity - if your business is exciting enough.

The names BOND, Jim BOND.

It's the old story: how do you get credibility if you don't have some?

The answer lies in following a strategy I have used successfully many times and which you can use easily, too - and that is to go out there and don't ask for anything, but be prepared to give something away. In otherwords, trade credibility for equity. Plainly speaking, find someone who can give your business or idea credibility, and offer them some part of your business or equity to allow you to use their name.This may be an individual or company and may even take the form of a joint venture, which allows you to leverage off another company's name or brand. Do not underestimate the enormous value this can bring to you -but you must be prepared to give something away for this.

It is worth it.

Credibility opens doors.

Find the most credible person you can, sell them your dream with energy and passion

-backed by a good plan -

and offer them equity to be associated with your business.

Go for it!

Advice from Paul Graham:

This is a good plan for life in general. If you have two choices, choose the harder. If you’re trying to decide whether to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go running. Probably the reason this trick works so well is that when you have two choices and one is harder, the only reason you’re even considering the other is laziness. You know in the back of your mind what’s the right thing to do, and this trick merely forces you to acknowledge it.



And some more advice..
Another classic way to make something people want is to take a luxury and make it into a commmodity. People must want something if they pay a lot for it. And it is a very rare product that can't be made dramatically cheaper if you try.

This was Henry Ford's plan. He made cars, which had been a luxury item, into a commodity. But the idea is much older than Henry Ford. Water mills transformed mechanical power from a luxury into a commodity, and they were used in the Roman empire. Arguably pastoralism transformed a luxury into a commodity.

When you make something cheaper you can sell more of them. But if you make something dramatically cheaper you often get qualitative changes, because people start to use it in different ways. For example, once computers get so cheap that most people can have one of their own, you can use them as communication devices.

Often to make something dramatically cheaper you have to redefine the problem. The Model T didn't have all the features previous cars did. It only came in black, for example. But it solved the problem people cared most about, which was getting from place to place.


- While the idea of selling large ticket items like cars is fairly unrealistic for us, consider other things that have been made a "commodity" - computers for instance! Telephones, tvs, .. Ok so manufacturing isnt something we would consider? What about piggy backing onto another manufacturer?

your Money , or your Life !

How to get start-up cash
There are five ways for you to get the cash you need to start your business:

1. borrow against assets
2. get a personal loan

3. angel finance
4. venture capital

http://www.avcal.com.au/

5. joint ventures.
The companies you should look for to JV with are companies that would directly benefit from being involved with you.
It may be that your business offers new customer acquisition opportunities for them.
Or it perhaps offers incremental profit opportunities, which will add directly to their bottom line.
Public companies with high price/earnings ratios have a great incentive to JV with a small profitable or potentially profitable company, as this will add millions to their share price.

ONLY LOOK AT GROWTH MARKETS

Right now, amongst the fastest-growing markets are these five sectors:

• health
• wealth
• education
• the environment, and
• security-related products.

Even if you are
not going into an identified growth market,
there must be enough of a market for you to build a growing business.
A product that only appeals to very few people
isn't going to make you rich!

Dont worry , Be HiPPY !

It is well recognized that 90 per cent of what we worry about never happens, so we waste 90 per cent of our mental energy on what is essentially trivia.

( DOOH !)