My reference to ice cream relates to Andrea J Lee’s version of multiple streams of income.

By creating your business around products you can give yourself the most profitable and time efficient way of building a business.

And especially building a business from home – from your dining room table or spare bedroom.

Let me start at the beginning.

Andrea J Lee is an American Coach. I discovered her when I first started up in business in 2005 when she was offering a membership site for service based professionals – the Multiple Streams of Coaching Income.

Andrea has a great way of talking in stories. Explaining her take on business around every day life.  One of her best known “stories” is the Pink Spoon Marketing technique.  It goes a little like this.

Imagine yourself on a hot and sunny day. You walk pass an ice cream shop offering free tasters. You can’t resist a little spoonful of that double chocolate.

The person behind the counter offers you one of those little pink ice cream spoons and you dip in. The double chocolate tastes great but then you spy the strawberries and cream.

You want a taste of that too.

Before you know it, you are making a decision between buying a one scoop double chocolate and a one scoop strawberries and cream.

You leave a happy customer. And you also leave behind a happy ice cream seller, who may not have made a sale without their little pink spoon tasters.

You walk off down the road, enjoying your ice cream. In fact you enjoy your ice cream so much that you promise yourself that you will stop off the next time you pass and treat yourself to a carton to take home for Friday night.

After all, there’s nothing like a double chocolate carton of ice cream to consume in front of the TV on a Friday night!

You become a regular. You stop off every week for a carton of your choice. And then the ice cream seller tempts you with a monthly special offer.

For a fixed monthly direct debit, that ice cream seller will deliver your choice of ice cream to your house every Friday night.

Bingo – you are hooked. You are now a regular, committed customer and both you and the ice cream seller are very happy.

So what can you learn from this story?

The first thing that I learnt was that by offering a free taster of some kind to passing trade (that will be the internet surfers then!) I can build up a database of potential customers who I will look to gain their trust and respect. Enough trust and respect to ultimately buy something that I can offer.

The second thing that I learnt was to productise my business.

Put what I offer in terms of programmes, specific workshops, downloadable products.

I know that a lot of you reading this blog are service based business owners.  And many service based businesses obviously sell their time on a one-to-one basis. But where many of them struggle is that this is all that they offer “for sale”.

Getting a client to go from stranger and never experiencing you and what you can do for them and then expecting them to go for a personalised one-to- one service (which to be honest is going to be your most expensive offering, isn’t it?) can be a bloody hard job.

It certainly was a bloody hard job when I tried to do it – which is why I started to think in product terms.

And thinking in terms of what my pink spoon should be.

So, over to you.

What are your thoughts on this?

How can you think about what you offer as a pink spoon and how can you create a product which someone immediately feels is of value, within their budget and can make a simple, quick decision to buy it from you?

No, I don’t want answers on a postcard  but you I would love to read your comments below.

However, my favourite character on TV – the meerkat – has the right idea.  Marketing is Simples!  And there are only 3 rules to follow to make sure you are able to attract more clients.

1.  Marketing is Fun

Many small business owners seem to speak about marketing their business with a grimace on their face.  They often associate the word “marketing” with “cold-calling” and “leaflet dropping”.

If these were the only ways to attract clients I think I would have given up a long time ago.

There are many, many ways to market yourself.  Just think about the dozens of ways you communicate with people on a week by week basis.  From phone calls to meeting people face-to-face.  From emails to popping a postcard in the letter box.

Why do the things that fill you with dread when you can choose between having a cup of coffee with someone to writing an article for your local newspaper.

Think about what you enjoy doing.  Do you like standing up and speaking in front of audience?  Do you enjoy writing articles or developing workshop programmes?  Do you prefer using the phone or like getting out and meeting people?

If you are not focusing on what you enjoy doing then marketing can be horrid.

Focus on what you love to do and that way marketing becomes fun; something that you look forward to doing.

2.  Marketing happens each and every day

Marketing is about communicating with potential customers and building relationships with them so that, at some point in the future, they purchase from you (preferably several times) and go on and tell others about what you do.

Marketing is not something that you have a blast at for a couple of days one week and then don’t bother for the rest of the month.

Marketing needs to – and should – happen each and every day of your working life.  Every time you send an email think about what you are communicating about.  Can you include a link to one of your products or programmes at the bottom of your email signature?

Every time you meet someone think about how you follow up. Can you send them something in the post that may be useful to them and help them remember you and what you do?

Marketing happens every time you speak about your business, email someone about your business and write about your business.

3.  Marketing is doing more of less

One of the biggest reasons that most small business owners end up hating marketing is that they flit from one thing to the next.

Too many people end up placing an advert in their local newspaper, submit a few articles online, turn up to a dozen or so networking events, make 20 cold calls and send out a direct mailing to a database they just bought.

And after 3 weeks then declare none of it works!

If it far more effective and far easier to pick just two or three marketing activities to do each and every day for several months AND then always measure the results.

The repeated actions also help make marketing part of the way you communicate so that the process becomes a subconscious one.  The marketing process can be so natural that neither you nor your prospect client actually thinks of it as marketing.  It just helps build that relationship.  When this happens, it is time to start with the next one and then the next.

So remember:  Less is more if it is done each and every day with a smile on your face.

Tom needs looking after as his mum has to work and you have agreed to help out for a couple of hours after school.

Now, Tom is a typical 5 year old boy. He wants to play football.  He wants to go to the park and climb up trees.  He has been at school all day and yet as enough energy to keep Greater London in power for the month of July.

You, on the other hand, are tired from a hard day of endless phone calls and email bashing.  You would just love to sit down and watch the latest kids DVD together.  After all it looks like rain and you don’t fancy getting wet.

What do you do?  Do you spend the next ten minutes explaining that the wind is picking up and the way that the cumulus nimbus clouds that are forming means that they is a definite probability of heavy precipitation?

Or do you start selling the DVD option?

Whether you have children of your own or not, common sense tells you that when communicating with a 5 year old you need to use simple language and be very clear in your requests.

And this is why I like to compare communicating with potential clients with communicating with children.

If a 5 year old can not grasp the concept of what your business is all about, then there is every chance that your potential client, who knows nothing about you and your business, will not either.

Here are my top tips for treating your clients like children.

1.  Avoid all jargon. There is a big danger that when we live and breathe our businesses, we tend to adopt the language and abbreviations of that business.  This is especially so for technically based businesses and NLP practitioners, for example.

Would you know what web-based CRM interface actually is, let alone know how it could benefit your business?  And how on earth does the average person on the street know how to define neuro-linguistic programming? Or life coaching for that matter?

A quick note on abbreviations – it is just plain rude to assume that your potential customers know what TLA’s are. (answer at the bottom of the article to find out what it means!!)

2.  Use simple language. Using the best part of a Thesaurus on your website home page can look exceptionally pretentious, at the best of times. At worst, if your reader has to pick up a dictionary to understand what you have written, no relationship is going to be built, is it?

3.  Never patronise. Go too simple with your language and your potential customer may take offence to be treated as someone who is one sandwich short of a picnic.  Coming back to Tom – he would certainly take offence to being talked down to and may reward you with a kick in the shins for be treated like a baby!

4.  Avoid using negative language. Tom is carrying a glass of milk across the room and you say to him “Don’t drop the glass”.  What do you think will happen?  Yes, there is every chance that Tom will drop the glass.  Our brains can’t process negatives so we just leave them out.

Think of commonly used phrases such as “Don’t Delay.  Don’t miss out on this special offer”.  Yes, that’s right.  There is a higher chance that your potential client will delay. Far better to use “Book Now.  Reserve your copy today.”

5.  Be very clear in your requests. You would never take Tom to a busy road and just leave him to cross by himself.  You couldn’t afford to take the risk of assuming that he may be street savvy enough to look for cars before crossing.

So, when communicating with your potential customers, whether it is a personal email, an advert or a direct mailing, always be specific with your call to action.

“Call me on 001 234 5678 before Friday at 12 noon if you would like to benefit from this 20% discount”

“Email offer@product.com by the end of the day to reserve your place.”

Never assume your potential customer is going to know what to do.  Be specific and clear and your customer will thank you for making it so easy for them.

5.  Reward with lots of praise and sweets. OK, Tom may be motivated by Smarties and your potential clients may not be.  But use the same principles.  Reward your customers with a simple “Thank you” or “I really appreciate your business” is just as valuable to building relations as continuing discount vouchers and referral rewards.

P.S.  TLA’s is short for Three Letter Acronyms.  Um, annoying isn’t it :0)

Some advertising is useful and informative.  Some advertising has even become part of our culture and language – think of the Heineken “Refreshing The Parts” campaign and Martini “Anywhere, Anytime, Any Place” (apologies for showing my age!).

But on the whole most advertising is useless and a complete waste of time and money for most of you reading this article.

Many business owners get confused with the terms “advertising” and “marketing”.  It is easy to believe that spending money on advertising is marketing your business.

I still remember the Business Link advisor who asked me the question “so, how are going to advertise your business?”

The question should have been “How are going to market your business?” as advertising is only one small part of an enormous marketing mix that you can choose from.

You will often hear me say that I don’t believe advertising works for the majority of small businesses. But as many of you see your competitors advertising, it is eaasy to feel you must be seen alongside them in the local newspaper or business directory.

I know I break the mould when I say “Don’t advertise.  Leave advertising to the likes of Coca-Cola and Persil Automatic. Spend your money on other marketing activities.”

And this not because I am anti-advertising.  It is because most adverts that many of you use just don’t work.

Poor copy writing, no call to action and bad designs are all reasons for an advert to fail.  As well as poor positioning and bad choice of publication.

So, if you are certain that advertising is a course of action you want to take then I would like to share with you my secret to successful advertising.

That secret is to advertise your free give away.

“You What?” I hear you cry.

Yes, advertise your free give away!

And this is especially so if you are selling a service such as interior design, beauty treatments, life coaching, nutritional therapy or corporate training.

A customer making a purchase cold from a single advert is highly unlikely.

People buy from people they like, trust and feel comfortable with – and this is why a bulk standard “buy me” advert fails time and time again.

Why does advertising your free give away work?

1. People like getting something for nothing so are more likely to contact you
2. Getting someone to contact you is the most valuable first step to building a relationship with this person
3. You are always asking for the person’s contact details for example email address to send them the report, address to send them the discount voucher, phone number to arrange that consultation

Building your own database is the foundation to your business success.  And far better to advertise a quality, free give away to encourage potential customers to contact you and give you their contact details, then try and sell them something when they know nothing about you.

The next step is to build a relationship with your potential customers and the rest is easy ;o)

Quick Tip: depending on your give-away, you may attract a percentage of “freebie-hunters”.  Make sure you automate this give-away by using web based opt-in forms and autoresponders where ever you can and this will take up less of your time to deliver what it is you are offering.

And this is why most service-based businesses fail.  The life coach who is trying hard to sell coaching sessions for working mothers gives up after 3 months of networking.

The photographer who is desperately trying to sell wedding photography at every wedding fair he goes to begins to wonder whether he made the right choice leaving his corporate job.

The website designer who offers a bargain basement offer for building a 5 page website starts to discount her fees even further as she panics about next month’s cashflow.

What do all these small business owners have in common?  They are trying to sell what it is that they do.  A common, yet costly mistake to make.

What your clients buy are the end results.  They buy the benefits and rewards to the product or service you deliver.

People don’t buy coaching – they buy the business idea or new career path they get from going through the coaching process.

People don’t buy photos – they buy a gorgeous collection of memories, beautifully presented in leather-bound book that they just know the children they plan to have together will cherish sometime in the future.

People don’t buy websites – they want to found on Page One of Google and have email enquiries flooding in to their inboxes.

It was Heather Gillam of FitBizTraining who inspired this article and it was her that I give credit to one of the best names given to a fitness programme I have come across.

10 days ago I was feeling rather desperate. My mummy tummy muffin-roll had gone beyond cute and cuddly as even my “fat” jeans where uncomfortably tight and the thought of getting in to a bikini on my summer hols was filling me with dread.

Then in popped an email in to my inbox from Heather Gillam.  “Would you be interested in a joining my “guaranteed drop-a-clothes-size-in-a-month bootcamp” starting in 2 weeks?”

What me – be able to guarantee to drop a dress size in a month? Absolutely yes!!

Now, let’s go back to the context of this article.  What response do you think I would have had if Heather sent me an email on that same day and asked if I fancied joining her on a fitness programe?  I probably would have gone away and considered it.  But by packaging up her progamme as a “guaranteed drop-a-dress-size-in-a-month” programme, there was absolutely no room for any doubt on whether I should do this or not.  I even re-scheduled client appointments so I can make the twice weekly sessions.

So, how does this relate to you and your business?  Take a long hard look at what it is you are selling (and coaches – you are the worst culprits in this!).  Are you selling your service and products?  Or you are selling a dream?  A feeling?  A guaranteed result?

Because if you are not selling a dream, a feeling or a guaranteed result, then you need to re-proposition your offer right now.

Give your clients the results they want – and not what it is that you do!

When you run your own business and work for yourself, spending time on your business can be hard to do.  After all, you are so busy trying to market yourself and then working on the clients you generate, spending time “on” your business can be hard to proritise.

Are you really able to increase the number of hours that you have in a day?

No, of course not.  Time management is such an awful phrase, isn’t it!  Of course you can’t manage time. Time just keeps ticking away the same way that it has been for millions of years.

What you can manage is yourself.  How you manage yourself in the hours that you have available is what counts.

And making sure you spend some of these precious hours working “on” your business and not “in” your business, is critical to your long term success (as well as your personal sanity!)

So how do you create the time for your business?

This topic comes up time and time again within my coaching and mentoring sessions (especially in regards to creating social media strategies!) and these were some of the strategies that we use to help create the time.

Use your diary. Whether you prefer electronic or good old fashioned paper, your diary can be used for more than just your client appointments and networking meetings.  Why not schedule in a “Meeting with Me” (and never re-schedule!).

Time commit your deadlines. Planning this month’s marketing is all very well, but if this planning session just doesn’t make it to the top of pile of things to do, it is never going to happen.  And all that means is another month of not setting up your LinkedIn profile or planning out your speaking strategy!  Set a deadline to projects.  Commit to a time, day and month – and stick to it.

Block out key days in your schedule. Whether you can work full time on your business or part time, you can’t work “in” your business all the time.  The magic formula that works for me is 3/5 working “in” the business, 1/5 on writing, setting up systems and general admin and 1/5 “on” the business for my business & marketing planning, including reviewing activity reports and statistics.

Learn and build your skills. It may be that it is your confidence or a lack of understanding that is stopping you from taking the time to plan out your business or marketing strategy.  Build up your confidence by going out to learn how to do plan a business, set goals and review your finances.  Don’t just stick your head in the sand and complain that you don’t have enough time.  That’s a poor excuse.

Little and often. Far better to spend one hour a week thinking, planning and reviewing your business every week, than leaving it until you run out of clients and start panicking about the lack of cashflow.  The business planning process becomes much more daunting then.

Take off and disappear. It is amazing how a change of scenary can allow us to be more creative with our business.  Sit and stare, let your mind think without your phone ringing or your inbox bleeping at you.  You may just come back to your business refreshed and renewed.

And finally, stop wilfing. A great term which stands for “What Was I Looking For?”  For those of you who spend hours being “busy” in front of your PC, searching for websites and reading articles, you may be better off pulling the plug and give those hours back to planning and developing new programmes.

What other ideas do you use to create more time for you in your business?

OK, I could have done this.  But I was actually in a bit of a rush and wanted to speak to a human being and do an order over the phone.

The second florist on the list was completely different.  Explaining again that I was looking for flowers for my sister-in-law who had just had a baby girl, rather than direct me to her website as the last business had done, she began to ask me questions.

“What’s your budget?”  “Did you have any particular flowers in mind?”  And then she started making suggestions.  She used terms such as “vivid pinks that clash beautifullly with lime green” and “scented without being over powering, which may be a bit much for a new mum”.  She created such a great picture of what it was I wanted that she had a sale from me, right there and then.

Using the 5 senses in your marketing is what makes the difference between a customer going away to make a decision (and probably never coming back) and being drawn in and stopping them in the tracks to make a purchase.  Here’s how to include some or all of the 5 senses in your marketing right now:

Sight – a picture is worth a thousand words so getting the right image to represent your product is essential. Don’t waste this opportunity with poor product photography or downloading an image that has been used a hundred times before.

Sound – using video in websites has been around for a couple of years now, but it’s becoming simpler and cheaper to include a well produced video to engage with your audience.  Jing is a great little piece of kit to get started with – use it to record yourself demonstrating a product or website online.

Taste and Smell – OK so perhaps technology is a little way off yet to give your clients smellivision, but tastes and smells can all be described.  If you sell a product or service that uses these senses, make sure you include a description of them in your sales pages.

Feel – as many businesses choose to market themselves on line via emails and websites, this important sense doesn’t get much of a look in.  Remember your leaflets and business cards – quality, thick card does make a difference!  Direct mailing may be more expensive but don’t ignore it because of the cost.  Your target client may well be more engaged with a glossy brochure or sample product coming through the post.

True.  Every business, big or small, should have some sort of web presence.  The internet is part of every day life and, as you don’t need thousands of pounds to get a business online now, there really is little excuse for a business not to a have a website created at some point.

But my question to you today is whether your website is a help or a hindrance?

Just because you’re online, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s doing anything for you.  And worse case scenario is that your website could actually be working against you.

Let’s look at how the average person uses the web.  Did you know that the average time it takes for someone to “read” a website is 3 seconds?

Think back to the last time you used Google to find something.  You may have been looking for the best place to buy toner cartridges for your printer. It could have been that you were trying to find a villa or cottage to rent for your holiday this summer.

Do you remember how long you took to make the decision to hit that back button and go on to the next website on the search results listings?  I am pretty sure it took you less than that average of 3 seconds on the websites that didn’t grab you.

How long would it take for a visitor landing on your home page to make a decision to stay or go?  1 minute?  10 seconds?  Or less than the average 3 seconds?

And imagine if they were on hold to their bank at the time.  Or waiting for a file to download on to their laptop, whilst they click through to your website.  How is your website grabbing their attention?

It could be that your website is being more of a hindrance, than a help!

Here are some of the common “hindrances” that I see every day on websites that don’t generate any leads or new clients for a business.

1. A website that talks about the company and not the potential customer. Look at your home page and for every “We”, “I” and your company name, exchange it for the words “You”, “You” and “You”.  People are only interested in themselves when they are looking for someone to help them. In a previous copy writing article, you can see why it’s all very well explaining you are the market leaders in what you do, but how is that going to benefit your clients?

2. A website that is so obviously “home-made”. You may have gone on a HTML programming course to save yourself a few pennies.  You may have even used your next door neighbour’s son who is studying IT at Uni.  But saving money on your website to end up with a site that doesn’t work in a particular browser or doesn’t display on a mobile phone will only push clients away.  There is really little excuse not to have a nicely designed website. Using blog platforms such as wordpress.org, for example, mean that you can have a simple, professional looking site that works, set up for as little as £500.

3. A website that has a fussy design, clashing colours and is more concerned with how pretty or trendy it looks.  Internet users want to find their information quickly, rather than hunt for it in cleverly worded menus or images.  Flash introductions just annoy – remember the 3 second time limit.  Unless your clients expect to watch a dancing cartoon or slideshow, they will be gone before it’s finished playing!

4.  A website with no obvious purpose. Static brochure style websites just don’t “do” anything.  They may look pretty and give lots of information, but what is that website visitor meant to do?  Picking up the phone and making an enquiry may just be too big a leap to make.  They will more than likely leave and move on to the next site on their search lists.

This last point has to be the one that I rant about the most.  A website with no obvious purpose is a waste of time.  It just floats around in hyperspace, gathering pixel dust and being ignored by by anyone who happens to stumble upon it.

For the majority of small businesses, the most effective purpose to give your website is to help build a database of potential customers.

The competition to be found through search engines is so fierce, you can’t afford to trust that your website visitors will bookmark your site and come back another day.  They will have found what they are looking for by then and you’ll have lost a client.

Having a website whose primary purpose is to invite visitors to leave their name and email address has been proved to be one of the most successful online marketing strategies to have for the majority of small businesses.

It creates the opportunity for you to build a relationship with that visitor so, over time, they trust you enough to become a paying customer.

How do you do this?  Capturing names and email addresses by offering something in return is something so simple and yet so many small business owners don’t do this.  And the easiest way of offering something in return is to offer a free newsletter, a free e-course or free report.  The options available to you are limitless.

You may be keen to start your own email newsletter but feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information out there.  I know I get enough emails asking me about them so if you haven’t started one or in the early stages of creating a database, then do check out my “How To Do Email Newsletters” programme starting this month.

In the meanwhile, start by checking out your website right now.  Ask yourself – is yours a help or a hindrance?

And what are you going to do about it?

So why is it that so many small business owners adopt this same approach to their social media?

The vuvuzela social media strategy comes in a couple of forms.

1. Broadcast mode – visit someone’s twitter stream and all you see is automatic RSS updates.  Great if you are a publishing or news business, such as http://twitter.com/mashsocialmedia who have thousands of followers who follow because they want to receive the latest article posts.  But for most small business owners who adopt this approach, automatic broadcasting creates noise.  There is no engagement & although people may still “follow” you, they don’t really “listen” – you go on mute!
2. Multiple postings – Yes, I know it’s easy to automate your updates so that the same update can be posted on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace and any other social networking profile you have.  But just because it’s easy, doesn’t mean it works.  LinkedIn is used very differently to Twitter, so 20 daily tweets on Twitter is perfectly acceptable whereas 20 status updates on LinkedIn is noisy and clutters up your newsfeed.  People may still stay connected with you but they will hide your updates in their news feed – you go on mute!

The vuvuzela social media strategy is easy to set up but use it at your peril.  I love using automotive tools in business and simple set-ups such as adding your blog feed in to your social networking updates so that your new blog posts get automatically fed out is essential.  You just wouldn’t have time to post your blog post each and every day on all your profiles.

But go on automatic pilot for everything, all of the time and you will end up just like a World Cup football match:  followed but put on mute.

“What if people don’t like what I write?”

“What if people disagree with what I write?”

Those gremlins in your head are very good at asking cutting questions like these just as you start to bare your soul and sit down to write your next newsletter.

But it doesn’t have to be this scary.  Writing your newsletter article needn’t be tough at all.

The secret to creating content is in the very word “creating”.  Where most small business owners go wrong is they think they have to “write” new content all the time.

The pressure of having to come up with something that is witty, insightful or even just plain practical can be just too much.  So stop thinking about “writing” articles and start thinking in terms of “creating” them.

Here are my 5 top tips:

• Interview an expert in your field – rather than putting all the pressure on yourself, why not go out and find someone to interview.  The fact that you are the one sending the information to your subscribers, will still make you the person or business that they turn to when they need help.

• Check out your sent folder - go through all your sent emails over the past week and look for one that you wrote for a client or customer.  Did you answer a question for them or provide them with a few top tips?  If one client asked you for this info, then your subscribers would probably be interested too.  Turn this email in to a useful article for others to read.

• Review a book or product – your subscribers may be interested in one of the latest tools or gadgets.  Showcase your expertise and give your opinion.  If you are a photographer, can you recommend some photo sharing sites?  If you are an image consultant, are there some new books out on Amazon?  If you are a business coach, can you review some training courses or programmes?

• Create a recommended list of resources – a great way of giving value to your subscribers is to put together a list of recommended websites or resources.  Give your reasons why and show your subscribers why you are an expert in what you do.

• Link it to your promotion – if you are running a special promotion this month or offering a new workshop, write around one of the challenges that you know your clients have before using that product or service. Not only will it provide interesting and useful reading, it will help your subscribers take action on what it is you are offering.

So there you have it.  Don’t try and sit there in front of a blank screen again.  Your email newsletter article won’t get written by itself and you certainly don’t want to lose out on an opportunity of getting in front of your potential clients.

And if all else fails, outsource the writing to someone else.  There are plenty of bloggers and writers out there who offer to write up articles for small business owners just like you.