Welcome to Business Consultant Weekly

Vol. 2 Issue # 18 May 3, 1999

In this issue:

1) Tip of the Week

2) FEATURE ARTICLE: "Honor, Courage, Commitment...Test Yourself!" by Captain (select) Mark D. Petersen-Overton, USN

3) CLASSIFIEDS

4) FREE Resources

5) TIME SAVING TIP

6) MARKETING MINUTE: How to Reverse a "Slump" in Business--FAST by Bob Leduc

If you'd like to read previously ran tips and features, go to http://netcheckspayroll.com/newsletter.html

Today's feature article asks us some hard questions about our business practices and our commitment to persevere toward our goals. Here's an idea for making our goals a bit more concrete:

Set a date. When you set goals for your business, it's important to connect them with dates. Many of us find it difficult to set dates when we're attempting something totally new (which is what you're going to be doing almost every day in your small or home business). Setting dates for accomplishing goals helps make them real, and the deadline can help motivate you. Try a time line that connects each written goals to a date of completion. Break the goal into daily or weekly tasks and commit to doing them. Be as specific as you can so you can see each accomplishment as you go.

"Honor, Courage, Commitment...Test Yourself!" by Captain (select) Mark D. Petersen-Overton, USN

These three words represent the U.S. Navy's publicly declared "core values" and, of course, as an active duty Naval Officer, these words are pretty darn important to me. These "core values" can apply to internet businesses as well. Let's take them one by one:

Honor may be defined as honesty or integrity in one's beliefs and actions. Pretty straight forward in business, right? If you want to stay in business, you'll be honest. Crooks may win the short skirmish but will never win the war. Reputation is a powerful thing...even in this electronic environment. In fact without personal contact, electronic reputation is even MORE important. It can make or break your Internet business. Get a reputation for being less than customer service oriented and you'll struggle to overcome it.

So here's an internet business honor test (it's not good if you answer YES to any of these):

1. Do you remove subscribers only after they ask several times and pound on you? 2. Are you a spammer? 3. Do you fail to provide your customers what they paid for? 4. Do use hype and inflated income representations as a marketing tool? 5. Are you in it just for the money? Are dollars more important than relationships? 6. Do you really think that today's credit cards are works of art?

Courage may be defined as the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. with firmness and without fear; bravery. Imagine those days when you are publishing your ezine and get 50 removes, no sales and one technical problem after another. 15 nasty e-mails arrive, using language that would even make me (a sailor) blush...THAT is EXACTLY when you MUST have the courage to press on. That is when you MUST do the boring, painful, dreary things that ensure your ultimate success.

So here's an internet business courage test (it's not good if you answer NO to any of these):

1. Do you cheerfully acknowledge that a failed sales campaign or offer is not YOUR fault but the fault of the offer? 2. Do you work your business every day, every chance you get? Especially when you don't want to? 3. Do you approach your internet business as a professional person, taking the good with the bad, but never losing the ultimate focus of your business: Providing quality products at a fair price and keeping the customer satisfied no matter how annoying they he/she might be. 4. Do you answer every e-mail with decorum and professional courtesy? Even the morons who curse at you through three pages of foul language accusing you of all sorts of evil things. Are you still courteous under those conditions?

Commitment may be defined as a pledge or promise, obligation.

Commitment to yourself, your family, your aspirations--your internet business; these are all commitments that are important.

So here's an internet business commitment test (it's not good if you answer NO to any of these):

1. Do you keep trying...never giving up? 2. Do you see every set back as just another stone along the path to your ultimate success? 3. Do you see every "no" as a natural thing, something you HAVE to have in order to take one step closer to the inevitable "yes?" 4. Have you allocated your business adequate resources (money, time, imagination) to support it's growth?

Final words: Not much has changed, really. These are no big surprising revelations here. Nothing fancy. Bad guys lose; good guys win in the end.

Internet businesses are not that complicated. Here's what you need to make YOUR business succeed:

1. Something of value to sell. 2. Someone who believes in that value enough to be willing to give you money for it. 3. Repeat sales.

Do that in enough numbers and you'll be OK. Of course it sounds pretty simple...but most internet businesses are missing one or more of these...many are missing them all. Why...because it's hard and they don't know what to do! That's where I can help. I have a blueprint to internet success, which spells these out in more detail, which I'll be happy to provide you (free). Just mailto:webmaster@profitstation.com?subject=blueprint

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Captain (select) Mark Petersen-Overton, USN mailto:webmaster@profitstation.com is an active duty Naval Officer with 22 years military experience. Mark is also a part time author, Internet marketer and entrepreneur who specializes in assisting businesses expand their market into the Internet. Mark particularly enjoys working with current and former members of the military services all over the world. His web site, ProfitStation (http://www.profitstation.com) hosts over 45,000 hits per month.

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"Clone Lions, not Sheep!"

Science seems to have made great strides with the cloning of sheep. Business won't work well using the same tactics. What you want to clone are leaders.

This will save you an immense amount of time, in addition to making you more money.

When you're working solo, this simply means finding someone who is already successful at what you want to accomplish and following their model for success. An old idea, but one worth implementing.

The part of this idea that is often ignored is the old 80/20 rule. When you find the person that you want to imitate, ask some extra questions. Find out what specific things they do that bring them the bulk of their profitable results, and then concentrate on those areas.

Do the same when training employees. Concentrate on the actions that bring you the bulk of your results, and teach the new staff how to follow that system effectively. (This will force you to pay attention to exactly what it is that produces most of your results.)

Don't be surprised if you quickly become more effective than the person you're modeling. Or if your new employee becomes more effective than you.

Reprinted from TalkBiz News. To subscribe (It's free), send any email to mailto:Newsletter@TalkBiz.com

HOW TO REVERSE A "SLUMP" IN BUSINESS -- FAST Copyright 1998 By Bob Leduc

Every business experiences cycles of heavy sales volume and light sales volume. Periods of light sales volume are called business "Slumps".

Some business slumps are predictable. Every landscaping service expects a slump in landscaping jobs during winter months. Their usual strategy to maintain a flow of business in the winter is to promote a different service such as snow removal. For most businesses, however, slumps occur without warning and for no apparent reason.

Some slumps occur when you're spending the most time, money and effort on promoting business. When that happens, it's easy to panic and start replacing proven methods of promoting business with speculative ideas. This reaction is especially hazardous for a small business struggling to grow. I know a business owner who almost lost her business when she panicked and reacted to a slump in business by suddenly changing all of her proven advertising messages.

I've experienced many business slumps over the years. Eventually I developed a simple procedure I can implement quickly to replace the business lost during a slump. You can copy this same procedure to reverse your business slumps when they occur.

The first thing to do when a slump occurs is to accept it as part of a normal business pattern. It isn't signaling the end of your business. Don't panic. But don't be complacent either. Give the problem your immediate attention. Begin by taking the following steps.

TRY TO IDENTIFY A CAUSE FOR THE SLUMP

Determine if you can identify something specific likely to be causing the slump. For example:

** A recent change in your advertising or promotional activity.

** A direct competitor recently rolled out a huge new advertising campaign.

** A major news event had a negative impact on your industry... such as the announcement of a government investigation of business practices in your industry.

You can develop a strategy to reverse the effects of a slump when you can identify a specific cause for it. Usually you won't be able to identify a specific cause. That's because there is none. Most slumps are temporary and will eventually reverse themselves. However, don't ignore the problem and wait for it to go away. It may take a long time and you can lose a lot of business while you're waiting.

WHEN THERE IS NO OBVIOUS CAUSE FOR THE SLUMP

When a slump doesn't have an obvious cause, it's what I call a "normal" business slump. I've found the best way to overcome a normal business slump is to take immediate action to develop additional business fast. The additional business supplements the current light flow of business and eliminates the impact of the slump.

Here are 4 actions I take immediately when I realize I'm in a slump. You can implement these same 4 actions in your business to reverse the effects of a business slump.

1. Develop a special offer for existing customers/clients. Use a short deadline so they must take immediate action or forfeit the special offer. Advise them of the special offer using a fast but inexpensive method of communication such as email, faxes, postcards or even phone calls.

2. Advise your recent prospects who did not take buying action of the same special offer. Use the same fast, inexpensive methods of communication listed above.

3. Call your best customers and ask for their help. Explain that business is slow and you want to use the time to approach some potential new customers/clients. Ask them for referrals.

4. Temporarily increase advertising in media where it is seen immediately (or almost immediately). For example, website and ezine ads, newspaper ads, First Class direct mail or postcards, radio spots, etc.

Business slumps can be beneficial. Sometimes a temporary action you take to reverse a slump is so effective you decide to continue it after recovering from the slump. The result is a permanent increase in your volume of business.

Bob Leduc retired from a 30 year career of recruiting sales personnel and developing sales leads. He is now a Sales Consultant. Bob recently wrote a manual for small business owners titled "How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards" and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more information... Email: BobLeduc@aol.com Subject: "Postcards". Phone: (702) 658-1707 (After 10 AM Pacific time) Or write: Bob Leduc, PO Box 33628, Las Vegas, NV 89133

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