Being profitable has always been a topic that is dear to me. One of the biggest undertakings owners have when growing their business online is trying to figure out the best plan and fastest path to profitability. It's confusing, in part, because, many times, people dive into into online marketing without having a real plan.
They know they want to have their own business. They have skills they want to offer, but the direction they need to convert their skill set to profit is confusing.. They may not have a clear sense of their offer, but, if they do, they may not realize how to develop a sales funnel that leads from one offer to the next.
Or, let's just say that the offer is crystal clear- then what's not fully formed is the marketing plan and means to get that sales funnel filled up.
So the first step is to recognize that you need an overall blueprint for your business- what you will sell, how you will deliver it, and how you will sell it. These three distinctive pieces often get mixed together.
Then what happens is the business owner is putting in lots of time, lots of hours, but is not making any money.
So let's take a closer look at each of these, one-by-one, and dig deeper.
The first part is what you will sell. What you can offer is your service or your product, both as separate items to offer or a combination of both items, for example offer your e-book and a few hours of consulting services..) Although direct coaching or consulting can be slow and tiresome, it is often the quickest way to sell anything, and doesn't need a lot more organiation than a basic web page, a means to accept payment, and then a way to deliver services, either in person or by phone.
The second component is how you will deliver what you sell. If you are offering coaching or consulting, you can offer this in person, by phone or videochat, or in some combination. How you deliver your services will often have impact on your pricing models and client availability. If you only deliver services in person, for example, you are limited by your immediate geographical region. If you only deliver services online, it might be difficult to command the highest fees, as, often, high fee ranges lead to an expectation that there will be direct in person contact with you.
The third component is how you will sell whatever you are selling. There are many ways to stimulate interest in your products and services- blogging, social media, joint ventures- are just a few. But even in this component, there is a fast path to profitability and a slower path. The longer path is blogging, social media, video marketing (most of the time) where the fast path is through direct networking and joint venture. The reason for this is that direct networking and joint ventures tend to lessen the barricade of hesitancy where people don't know you that well and therefore don't want to consult with you.
If you want to find the fastest path to profitability, it is found where you sell, how you deliver, and how you sell- you might call this the right offer to market watch..
Often times when I am consulting with owners about how to grow their business, it is often clear they are troubled because of a lack of offer to market match. They are, generally, adopting longer term marketing approaches, like blogging, when they really need cash flow right now. Many new online business owners spend a great deal of time with social networks and fail to recognize that social media should be considered as lead generation or a way to send people to free webinars or trainings, lower cost products, to develop an interest in your product or service as opposed to trying to sell..
As a business owner you must work towards your goal, and that should be to offer and market match as best as you can and advertise your offer in an efficient and cost-effective way.. An effective way to do this is to limit your marketing efforts to focus only on what's been most successful so far- with the thought that if it has worked before, it will work again.
Start and think backwards to the method that worked the best to bring you a client, or how you developed your technique to get people signed up for your recent program, and you will start to see where and how you might focus.
You must commit to those strategies once you determine where to focus and put all other things on hold. Work to become profitable, first, and then you can bring in all the other marketing tools and avenues you want or need after that.
To be successful you must find the fastest bath to profitability in your business and at the same time maintain a strong cash flow as the foundation building a successful and lasting business.
