Are you hoping and praying that your social media will work?

This article is an excerpt from Karen Skidmore’s new book “Shiny Shiny: How to stop being a social media magpie.”  If you are interested in getting one of the special launch copies, click here for more information.

Please help my tweets grow my business

Some of you will not have dabbled yet, I’m sure. The shiny toys won’t have tempted you. But, the lure of the shiny new world of marketing has captured many of you and I am pretty sure that many of you related to that story of Rebecca at the start of this book.

Facebook and Twitter have to win the prizes for being the two biggest knee-jerk social media sites out there. Because many of you probably started to use Facebook for true social sharing and signed up because your “real-life” friends and family were on there, it’s easy to start dabbling with a Facebook Page and try using it to promote your business.

Twitter, on the other hand, makes it so simple to set up a new account that it’s hard to believe that all you need is a name, email address and password and Bam! … you can tweet to the world.

However, when you do set up your Facebook Page or Twitter account, it’s easy to wonder what all the fuss is all about. It doesn’t become the holy marketing grail that you had hoped it would be. It hasn’t made a slightest bit of difference to your bottom line.

If you worked your way through the previous five steps outlined in this book, you will have probably worked out what you are doing wrong already and be deciding what actions to take to start getting it to work. But, if you’ve come straight to the back of this book and decided you wanted to skip through all the hard work of getting your website, blog and email marketing working first, here are the problems you will – and may be already – encountering.

Reasons why your social media marketing won’t work

No target audience. This is THE biggest mistake that small business owners make with all marketing activities. As I’ve explained throughout this book, it’s not just a social media mistake. If you don’t take the time to identify exactly who you want to reach out to, then you may as well stand on your local street corner and hand out leaflets to every passerby. One day, someone may be interested … but that’s an awful lot of leaflets.

No objectives. Again, not just a social media mistake, if you don’t know what you want to achieve, how will you know whether you have been successful or what actions need taking each and every week. If you haven’t taken the time to decide what results you want, don’t bother setting up a social networking profile in the first place. It will be a waste of your time.

Lack of content planning. There’s nothing worse than starting the week and avoiding your new shiny Facebook Page because you haven’t got a clue what to post on your wall. It is a drain on you, both financially and emotionally.

No personalisation. How personal you get does depend on your business brand. But hiding behind your corporate logo is just not going to work on social media for a business like yours. You don’t necessarily have to use a photo of you on your social networks (although I do recommend that you do) but you do have to be “you” when using social media.

Sharing really private stuff is not necessary either, but there will be some public private stuff that will make you human. See later in this step for more on this topic.

Chasing numbers and pleading for more fans. Numbers do make you feel good. It’s great to be loved by hundreds of people, isn’t it? But numbers don’t always guarantee success. It’s the engagement you get with those fans that will build trust with your brand and ultimately help turn them in to paying clients. And nothing looks more desperate than regular tweets and posts asking and asking and asking. Create great content and you naturally attract the right people to you.

It’s all about you. Even though you have to be “you” on your social networks, that doesn’t mean you become a business bore. Sharing stuff about your business and making special offers all the time is boring at best, spammy at worst. You’ve got to ask yourself “What’s in it for my network?” Share stuff that interests your fans – trade secrets, useful resources, funny videos, latest industry developments and sneak peeks of new products. Much more on this later.

Automated feeds. Automating one or two things to be posted on to your social updates is OK, but be careful of making all your status updates automated. Again, this topic is covered in more detail later in this chapter.

No marketing systems behind your social media activity. And the last, but quite possibly the most frequent mistake made, is if you don’t have the right marketing systems working for you – taking interested people from your social networks in to your website(s), on to your mailing lists and building relationships with them in your own home – then you run the risk of being a popular, but very poor person.

Make the take the time to go through each of the five steps outlined in this book. If you ensure you know who it is you want to engage with, have a website, blog and email marketing systems set up with the right free offer(s) available, this will rocket fuel your social media success.

Click here to find out how you can grab yourself a copy of Karen’s new book; hot off the press!

Rebecca is a coach. She wants to help women who have experienced bad relationship breakdowns. She’s got a basic website together, printed some business cards and a leaflet but she hasn’t a clue where to start finding her new clients.

She’s been along to a local networking event and met an approachable chap called Simon. Simon runs a coaching business too and is proudly tweeting and updating his Facebook profile at regular intervals during the meeting.

Rebecca has heard of Twitter and Facebook. Both seem to be in the newspaper headlines most weeks because of some footballer or Big Brother star that have got themselves in trouble with a tweet or two.

But how do you use Facebook and Twitter in business?

But she’s not really understood why anyone would use them in their business. Simon is full of enthusiasm. He tells her that he spends most of his day tweeting, commenting and liking and proudly explains that he’s up to 5,412 Twitter followers and it won’t be long before he has reached his maximum number of Facebook Friends.

Simon is “talking” to people all over the world and he’s always on the look out for the latest app that will help him reach out to more people. His Klout score is up, he’s listed on all the Twitter directories he can find and regularly checks (and tweets!) his influencer ratings on any website he can find that shows it.

Impressive Stats, Simon!

Rebecca is impressed and is very excited to get back to her office to sign up to all the websites Simon has recommended.

She spends the next couple of weeks sorting out her new accounts. She begins to realise that what seems simple to start is beginning to get more and more complicated. Rebecca decides she needs to learn as much as possible about this new social media world and reads every blog she can find.

So much to learn … and most of it for free

She starts signing up for all the dozens and dozens of free webinars and teleseminars that promise to show her the “quickest and fastest way to make money on social media”. She’s trying out a couple of websites that promise to give her 10,000 new followers in the next month … all automatically, without her having to do a thing except grant access to her account.

She begins downloading apps on to her phone to help manage her social media accounts so she can keep up with it all, even when she’s away from her desk. And she loves having an email come through alerting her to a new follower – after all, it’s only polite to check them out, reply to them and try to start a conversation every time.

Rebecca is beginning to feel like she knows what she is doing. She’s loving all this social media stuff and spends hours on it every day. She’s even been able to give other people advice on how to set up their profiles and has even written a few articles for her blog on how best to use social media to grow a new business.

But wait!

Wasn’t Rebecca a coach? A coach who wanted to focus on helping women who has experienced a relationship breakdown?

What has “how to use social media to grow your business” articles got to do with dealing with emotional rejection?

Why would you be impressed with social media influencer scores when all you care about is how to mend your breaking heart?

The reality is that Rebecca may have a few thousand Twitter followers, be chatting to friends on Facebook all over the world and got herself a 87% influencing rank according to one website, but her bank balance is looking rather small.

What’s happened to the income?

All this focus on the latest social media sites and the applications that are designed to improve your effectiveness and efficiency in building a business has only resulted in Rebecca feeling very, very poor.

Yes, a few clients have called up and arranged some 1-2-1 sessions. But these few clients are not going to allow Rebecca to feel her business could support her, let alone her family and partner’s expectations for her to contribute to the household budget.

Unfortunately, Rebecca has become victim to the virus that is infecting today’s entrepreneurs and small business owners …

… The Magpie Syndrome

This excerpt has been taken from Karen’s new book due out on the 1st February.  To find out more and how you could get your hands on a special VIP copy, go to www.ShinyShinyBook.com (If only to check out my Brownie picture from when I was 9!!)

As all our Facebook profiles have now defaulted over to the new timelines, you have probably noticed you have a huge space at the top of your profile for a cover photo.

I was having a play around with myFBcovers.com and was inspired by the photo college you could create with photos of your Facebook Friends. It got me thinking about which of my online friends have had big influence on me over the past year and decided to pick out and tag them.

So I thought what better way to kick off my blog in 2012 with a post dedicated to those who have inspired me over the past year.

Some names you will probably recognise and others you may not. But I highly recommend you check each and every one out and see how they may be able to help shape and influence 2012 for you, too.

Thank you to everyone listed below who has helped inspire, influence and shape my last year. 2012 is going to rock and I look forward to reading, listening, learning and growing more from you all over the next 12 months.

Here goes:

Carrie Wilkinson for her energy, inspiration and get-up-and-go attitude to running a business from home

Website: http://barefoot-executive.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/barefoot_exec

Fiona Humberstone for her candidness, friendship and ability to make me question myself and think bigger than I do.

Website: http://www.flourishstudios.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/fionahumberston

Alicia Cowan, Tracey Rissik and Wendy Chamier for being the resident tech experts over at the Web Tech Club and generously shared their time and expertise with all the members.

Alica Cowan
Website: http://www.aliciacowan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AbsoluteAlicia

Tracey Rissik
Website: http://thesimplewebcompany.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TraceyRissik

Wendy Chamier
Website: http://www.wendychamier.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/wendychamier

Vanessa Lanham-Day for her energy and drive in bringing together an awesome bunch of business owners and giving me a good kick up the bum to get things done.

Website: http://www.cproject.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/VanessaLanham

Lollie Garcez for being my EC Buddy and being that all-important “devil on my shoulder”.

Website: http://www.thespeedreadingcoach.com/

Graham Jones for being a font of all knowledge on anything internet.

Website: http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/grahamjones

Tom Evans for showing me the way and challenging me to get my book done and published (not long now!)

Website: http://www.thebookwright.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/thebookwright

Elizabeth Cairns for giving me the courage and space to commit to my book in the first instance.

Website: http://www.amovita.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElizabethCairns

Nicola Bird for being an inspiration and proving that hard work, persistent and mindset pays off!

Website: http://www.jigsawbox.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/nicolabird

Wendy Shand for her honesty, support and being an amazing advocate over the years.

Website: http://www.totstotravel.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/totstotravelmum

Carmen MacDougall for her persistence, ability to overcome incredible obstacles and being one of the strongest ladies I know.

Website: http://vact.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/vatrainingpro

Tone Tellefsen Hughes for becoming a top business buddy who constantly amazes me with her ability to take action and grow her practice.

Website: http://www.lucksyardclinic.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lucksyard

Lisa Turner for her enquiring mind, proving that you can have a hugely successful business without losing your spirituality and being able to make me laugh out loud with her wicked sense of humour.

Website: http://www.psycademy.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DrLisaTurner

I’ve listed each person’s website and Twitter profile and I urge you to reach out, sign up for their blogs or newsletters or follow their tweets.

And why not do the same. Come back, comment below and share a link to your list of 2011 influencers. It would be great to see who’s helped made the person you are today.

The secret to building a successful small business is in your mailing list. Communicating with a targeted list of potentially interested clients who may be prepared to spend money with you at some point in the future will ensure you have a constant and consistent flow of revenue 12 months of the year.

One sure fire way of encouraging more potential clients to trust you with their email address is to offer something for free in return.

Opt-in offers can create enormous opportunities to build your list … but the problem is that so many of you doing it wrong.

It’s easy to convince yourself that just because what you are offering is free, your potential clients give a damn.

They don’t!

Getting people to sign up for free stuff in today’s market place can be harder than actually selling your products and services. And anyone who has decided to follow the sheep and merrily stick a “subscribe to my newsletter” link on their home page will probably left scratching their heads wondering why no one is signing up.

People are more reluctant to share their email addresses because of the threat of being spammed with promos after promos. The offer of receiving a free email newsletter worked five years ago … but not now!

Yup, your opt-in offer needs thought, needs work and needs some careful planning.

Here are some key questions to help you come up with an opt-in offer that is going to have potential clients queuing up to hand over their email addresses.

1. What are your target clients’ BIG problems? There is no point guessing here. You have to know exactly what keeps them up at night because what you are going to offer needs to help solve at least one of them.

2. What quick fix solutions have you got? Trying to solve all their problems in one free CD/EBook/Video is just not going to work. You’ve got to give your potential client something that will enable them to see results immediately.  The more specific and focused the benefits are, the better. If they see results immediately, they are going to come back for more … and this time be more prepared to invest in what you are offering.

3. What name are you going to give your opt-in offer? It may be feel cheesy to call your offer “The 5 Deadly Secrets to XXX” but headlines sell! If you are after inspiration, get yourself copies of any of the women’s weekly mags. Those front pages sell and it’s because of those carefully crafted – if not incredibly cheesy – headlines. Use their formulas and see how you can apply it to your opt-in offer.

4. Will what you offer solve all their problems? Now don’t go too mad and give them all the answers too quickly! Give enough away to help them to stage one but offer the whole process and your potential clients won’t have a need to spend any money with you.

5. What format should your offer be in? A PDF report or ebook is by far the easiest and simplest product to create, but is that the best format for your potential clients? A five part video series or downloadable MP3 audio may be more useful.

And why not consider posting something they touch & hold? The cost of production, post and packaging may be worth the cost of getting that postal address, rather than just an email address.

6. What different offers can you make to different types of people? Having a one-size-fits-all offer may not work across all of your marketing. You will find that within your target audience, there will be smaller niche problems to address.

For example, a fitness instructor may have a 5 part video series on offer on their home page, but targeted marketing to pregnant women can be made more effective by directing them to special landing page where they can download a report on “The 6 mistakes most pregnant women make when exercising”.

7. What is your follow up going to be? It’s all very well collecting email addresses but if you don’t plan out how you are going to build a relationship with your new subscriber, they will just be a number on a database. What other valuable stuff can you send them? What offers are you going to make to them to give them an opportunity to spend money with you? How are you going to ask for referrals?

The money is in the list … but only if you communicate with the people who are on it!

Summing up …

Don’t opt for a blah blah offer. Forget about offering that dull and boring monthly newsletter. It will waste your time and any money you spend marketing your website.

Think, do some work on creating the right opt-in offer and plan out how you are going to direct the right people to your opt-in offer page.  It will make all the difference!

P.S. If you want to check out my latest carefully crafted opt-in offer, then head on over to my Facebook Page. Once you like my Page, you can choose to receive a rather fabulous interview on how to go about constructing your own Facebook Landing Pages.

Isn’t doing business with your competitors crazy?

However, did you know that one of the quickest ways of attracting new clients to your business is to use other business’ databases?

And that even includes using your direct competitors.

Now I am not suggesting in the slightest that you are to break in to their offices overnight and steal their client information! But what I am suggesting is that you collaborate and look at what joint ventures you can create.

Joint ventures are when two [or more] businesses join forces to create a more powerful force in the marketplace. Think of as two heads are better than one.

Or more importantly, two databases are better than one!

Let me give you an example.

Jenny is a fitness trainer. She works primarily with her clients on a 1-2-1 basis but is finding it hard going fitting enough sessions in to her day whilst still generating the income that she is aiming for.

She has decided to start offering group sessions and fitness training programmes as a way of working with more clients, increasing her cash flow yet reducing the number of hours she works. But the big problem is her database. It’s just not big enough to market her programmes to.

So rather than spend hundreds of pounds on advertising in the local newspaper or even more on buying a database, she decides to seek out other businesses who have the clients she is looking for.

She approaches her local gym.  Some may think this is a crazy idea as her local gym is a direct competitor of her business, but the manager of the gym is interested in talking. Although they have staff working there, they haven’t really got their act together in regards to personal training sessions and motivating their members.

You see, although they have a strong membership at present, very few people are coming in and using the gym. And they know when this happens, they start getting lots of cancellations.

By offering the gym members a discount on Jenny’s fitness programme, this gives the gym a great benefit to add to their membership subscription without it costing them a thing. It should also encourage the members to train more in the gym in between Jenny’s sessions because they are more motivated to train by themselves now they feel fitter, thus reducing the chance of cancellations.

OK, so this story is hypothetical.  This could be too crazy for a lot of gym managers who just wouldn’t entertain this idea and turn Jenny down flat.

But we are in a very interesting economy at the moment. Sticking with the norm and assuming that a particular business will not want to talk to you is, well frankly madness!

Many businesses are experiencing huge slowdowns and one of the advantages to you is that slowdowns cause problems. If you can solve the right problems, it’s good for your business. And of course, good for the other businesses, too.

More and more businesses are looking at joint ventures and building collaborative partnerships – even with direct competitors! So doing business with your competitors really isn’t such a crazy idea.

The trick is being able to create an offer that benefits both parties, plus their customers.

If you are struggling to attract the right clients to your business, joint ventures could be the quickest [and cheapest] way of moving your business forward right now.

Who could you start talking to and create a win-win situation for you both?

If you are not learning new stuff, you’re not moving your business forward.

It’s as simple as that!

Don’t give me that “I haven’t got time to pick up a book”.

If you are stuck in the endless cycle of answering emails, updating your Facebook Page, going to meetings and then rushing back to answer more emails, then yes, I can see you probably haven’t got time to pick up a book.

But … problems start if you never come up for air. You are so busy doing the doing, that if someone waved a better way of doing that doing, you’d probably not even notice.

And this why I believe 100% that reading (or audio if you prefer to listen) is absolutely good for business.

Even me … a self-confesses web tech geek who loves everything Apple and Google … loves the smell and feel of a new book (although I do have my eye on that new Kindle – will be asking Santa for one of those!).

If I look back over the past seven years I have been working for myself, the times that I have had those Eureka moments – when my business has shifted forward in a leap – have almost all been created because of a book I was reading.

So I thought it may be helpful to share some of the books that shifted great things for me in my business.

February 2005 – The Aladdin Factor by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

I was feeling pretty crappy at this stage. 6 months young and very little in the way of any business success, my new business coach recommended I read this book. I was downward spiralling and had no belief in my ability to create a successful business but this, albeit cheesy and super-American book, gave me bite-sized nuggets that I still use today. My favourite being “Some will, some won’t, so what, someone else is waiting”.

March 2005 – Multiple Streams of Coaching Income by Andrea J Lee

There are dozens of books on this topic today, but this was a very new concept back in 2005 (especially for UK based coaches). I still refer back to my original scribbles from time to time and Andrea opened my eyes to Pink Spoon taster offers.

October 2005 – E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

An oldie but a classic that absolutely should be read by anyone and everyone who wants to run a business, rather find themselves trapped in to a self-employed job. This book was like coming home after a long, long trip. The content just made total sense to me and it gave me a way forward to act big, whilst still being small.

April 2006 – Permission Based Marketing by Seth Godin

I had been committed to building my database via my newsletter for more than a year before I read this book. But this is my favourite of all Seth’s books. Practical, advice – perfect for the small business owner – on how to market to people who give you permission. So much more effective than thrusting unwanted spam in to their inboxes!

July 2007 – Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion by Goldstein, Marting and Cialdini

I struggled with the classic “Influence” by Cialdini which is a popular recommendation. But it was a little too scientific and heavy going for me so I was delighted to get my hands on this book. I soaked in the stories and this book has greatly influenced the way that I write today. If you are struggling to find a writing style that sells without being “in your face salesy”, then this is a top read.

October 2010 – UnMarketing – Stop Marketing Start Engaging by Scott Stratten

I read plenty of books in between but this was the next big book that stopped me in my tracks. Like Gerber’s E-Myth, this book just felt so right. Scott’s writing style is refreshingly honest and I loved the way he stuck two fingers up at the internet marketing guru way of making money – which to be honest I was having enough of too.

August 2011 – The Botty Rules by Nigel Botterill

This summer I needed a kick in the right direction and this book woke me up and booted me up the backside with just the right amount of force! Honest and practical, Nigel’s big mantra is focused around getting stuff done. There are plenty of Botty Rules but my favourite is Number One “As a business owner, you are 100% responsible for what happens in your business. It’s all your fault!”

There are many more books but these where the ones which jump out from my bookshelf. Some have been read on more than one occasion.

So which ones are you going to order and read?

And which books have transformed and change the way you do business?

I came out with this phrase during a client session last week.  Not sure why I was thinking about food (!) but I was on a rant about about creating value and stuff that stood out.

The problem with buffets, where you offer everything all at once, is that they can be over whelming.

I am sure you all love a good all-you-can-eat buffet at certain times.  It feels good to go up and cram as much as you can on to one plate.  But the problem is that you probably don’t want to go do it again very soon.

Buffets can look sad and tired very quickly.  Especially after several people have been up to pick before you!  They are often the cheap option when catering for large numbers of people.

It’s easy for buffets not to be very special 

We went to Antigua last Easter and stayed in a wonderful all inclusive beach resort.  The buffets were lovely.  But after a few nights, well … we ended up going to the a la carte restaurants.  Even though we had to pay an extra surplus for our meals, the buffet concept wore thin very quickly.

So why was I talking buffets with my client?  My client was launching a new programme and was offering a free webinar to promote it.  We got on to the topic of content for the free promotional webinar and she explained she was planning on offering a taster of the 3 modules of the programme.

No!  (I started my rant!!)  Don’t offer a bit of everything.

Where’s the value of that?

Far better to focus the time you have (in a promotional webinar you’ve only got 20 to 40 minutes) to make a real difference to your potential clients’ lives.  Cover one topic in detail.  Give them something useful.  Something practical. Something that they go away and do right there and then.

Because if you can give them something that works for them, they will want more.  And more is what you can give them with what ever programme you are offering.

If they don’t want more, that’s perfectly OK.  Not everyone will buy, of course not.  But these people will more likely go away and rave about what it is you offer to others.

Be laser focused with your promotional offer.  Cover one topic in detail and you will see better results than trying to lay out the whole programme as a buffet before them.

Last week I was blogging about 80% of your competitors are doing it wrong.  It pays to be different and stand out from the crowd.

On the day this blog went out, I got a tweet from someone I met at a conference a  year ago.  Janet Mohapi-Banks and I had a chat about her cup cake business and she picked my brains about how this sort of business could work.  She loved creating cakes and felt that the cup cake trend was something to focus on.

The tweet I got from Janet last week made me smile.  You see she had just blogged about how she had turned her back on this cup cake market and had decided to go premium!  Specialising now in luxury wedding cakes and sculptural pieces of cake art is her new direction. Way to go, Janet!

With Janet’s permission, here is her story.

From Janet’s Blog

I recently announced on Twitter that we would no longer be taking orders for cookies and cupcakes. All orders that are currently in discussion will of course be honoured.

I’ve been asked a few times to explain my decision so I thought I would tell you all.

My great pleasure and joy lies in creating wonderful works of edible art and although some of the cupcakes and cookies I’ve created have been good fun, it’s not really the area that I want my business to concentrate on. By not taking further bookings of cookies and cupcakes it means that we can concentrate our efforts in creating the large luxury cakes that we are best known for.

Why then, you might ask, did I offer cupcakes and cookies in the first place? Well the answer to that is simple; I thought I had to! With other cake companies starting to offer these products I felt that I should too otherwise I would be “missing out” somehow.

What I have come to realise though is that doing something just because somebody else is doing it, is completely the wrong reason to do it!

At the moment there is a big trend toward dessert tables offering cupcakes, miniature cupcakes, cake pops and cookies, and there are cake companies that have made them the focus of their business and they do it extremely well. Tempting Tables by Tempting Cakes are a prime example of beautiful dessert tables.

This is not where my heart lies though, and it is not where my business’s heart lies either. There are many sectors within the cake industry and as we don’t wish to be all things to everyone, we are limiting our products on offer to those we both enjoy and excel at. Our speciality is in creating large luxury wedding cakes and celebration cakes and tall, exquisitely iced miniature cakes. Therefore, along with our private parties, these will now be the only products we offer.

Talking of our private parties, please note that we shall soon be discontinuing the cookie and cupcake parties too and only offering parties in miniature cake and large cake decorating.

So there you have it. We’ve cut our product line in half, but the half we have left can never be beaten.

Click to check out some of Janet’s amazing creations

Wanted to share a BIG lesson I’ve learnt over the past couple of months.  Recently I’ve joined the Nigel Botterill’s Entrepreneurial Circle.  Love him or hate him, you can’t deny he’s been rather successful over recent years.  And it’s exactly that reason why I am loving the stuff he does.

But the BIG lesson I’ve learnt is a pretty obvious one really.  But with all obvious stuff, it only needs one person to flip something around and phrase it in a certain way to make total sense to you, doesn’t it?

Nigel claims (and I’m sure this is to be true!) that out of all business owners:

1% are super successful and very wealthy
4% are rich and doing very well
15% at getting there and making good money
60% are getting by
20% are struggling

It probably won’t surprise you that these figures reflect the infamous 80:20 rule.  And this is how I learnt my BIG lesson.

What these figures mean is that 80% of my competitors are doing it wrong!  And 80% of your competitors are doing wrong, too.

So stop copying what everyone around you is doing …. and start focusing your energies on doing something different to make you stand out from the crowd.

And that’s my BIG lesson.  Cool, hey?

Getting away from corporate life was great, wasn’t it?  You are your own boss now and you have the freedom to do whatever you want!

But what about the monthly pay check?

Do you miss that guaranteed money each and every month?

One of the biggest reasons that small businesses fail is cash flow.  If you haven’t got enough new clients coming through the door every month and paying your invoices, it’s easy to end up with just an expensive hobby.

And how many you honestly feel as if you are stuck with an expensive hobby?  

It comes down to the age old feast and famine trap.  You spend hours at networking events and following up on leads.  You rummage through your LinkedIn connections to try and get some meetings.  You get some clients – yeah!!

But then as you get busy with your new clients, your marketing starts to slip and slide.  You don’t mean to … but you just don’t have the time or energy to get out networking, make follow up phone calls and spend time connecting on LinkedIn.

Your pipeline dries up and there goes your cash flow again.

It’s tough.  It’s soul destroying.  And I know because I remember those months all too well.  I remember my supportive husband (and he was being genuinely supportive – just honest!) asking me if I was ever going to make any money now that I had decided to start up my own business.

Expensive hobby!!

This business model of going out to get new clients, servicing these new clients and then going back out again to find more is, well frankly, not going to work.

If you want to avoid failing because of cash flow – because if you are stuck in this feast and famine trap, it’s going to happen to you eventually! – you have to start thinking about how you can create a regular, steady income each and every month.

Ideas on how to create a regular pay check for your business

Subscription based newsletter:  This may sound daft in this day and age of free information, but if what you specialise in can give enough value, then there will be people who will gladly pay a monthly or annual subscription for the privilege of receiving it.  Yes, major newspapers such as The Times struggled to get their subscription going but news can be got for free everywhere.

Be a specialist and very focused on a small niche and this could be a great product that shares your inner most secrets that are only shared with those who subscribe.

Sockscriptions:  Wine clubs have been going for decades now.  But the concept of paying a monthly or quarterly direct debit to receive the “wines of the month” works really well for some customers.

And in fact, there is a great example how this concept has been applied to a sock retailer. Yes, really!! BlackSocks.com claim to have more than 50,000 customers in 75 countries that pay an annual subscription to receive 3 pairs of socks, 3 times a year.

How could you apply this to your business?

Taster Clubs:  These work really well for foodie businesses – restaurants and wine traders.  An annual or quarterly subscription gets you invited to wine and food tasting events throughout the year.  A top idea of rewarding the top customers as well as encouraging them to come back for more.

If you aren’t in the food industry, how could you create Taster Events on a regular and subscribed basis?

Gym Memberships:  I’m sure most of you have been sucked in to one of these at some point of your lives!  And probably find that you never use the darn thing after the first few months!!  But this concept can work really well for those who offer marketing, coaching or consulting services, for example.

Offer fixed number of hours of your time each month in exchange for a monthly direct debit … it can really be that simple.

Membership Sites:  I leave the best to last!  The concept of a Members Only website that contains useful and valuable information is nothing new.  However, so few businesses consider this to be a viable option.  Not only does a Members Only website give you the potential to create a regular and ongoing pay check, it also allows you to spend less time helping more people.

The tech that goes on behind the scenes of a membership site has improved massively over recent years.  And although can feel overwhelming to start with, it doesn’t have to cost you thousands of pounds to set up and create.  There are plenty of off-the-shelf packages to use and there is no need to build something from scratch.

This is exactly what I am covering in this month’s Web Tech Training Session so do check it out as I am sharing the secrets behind how I set up the Web Tech Club, including a whole load of recommended tools and resources to make it easier for you to set one up yourself.

Has that got your creative juices flowing?  There really are so many opportunities for you to take your business in to a regular pay check model.

Yes, it will take some thinking – especially in making sure the product that you create is something that your clients will desire (not need!! Never give your clients what they need – give them what they want.  There is a massive difference!)

But do something different and stand out from the crowd.

And create a regular income in the process.  It really is a lovely place to be!

P.S. If you are serious about setting up your own membership site, check out this month’s Web Tech Training Session where all be revealed