Many people fail at business because they try an age-old business killer called “trying to sell to everyone”. If you are starting your first business, or any type of small business it makes more sense to identify a niche and to make sales to them. Selling to a niche has the potential to earn you big money. If it’s a well-defined niche hungry for whatever you’re selling. With a niche, you increase the probability you will capture the hearts, minds, and wallets of your target market. Trying to sell to everyone will almost always fail in a new business because the masses tend to spend their money with known companies. Few people want to gamble on a new, unknown company. To increase the possibility you make money, identify a niche and be certain you take the steps to appeal to them. Review the five steps for developing a niche that will be drooling to buy your product:

STEPS FOR FINDING YOUR NICHE

1. First, you must define a market you would like to target. Your goal should be to become a big fish in a little pond rather than a little fish in a big pond, where you are ignored. Understand the needs of the market you have chosen, then capitalize on those needs.

2. You must decide three things. First, whether your product is useful or not. If it is, who would get the greatest utility from its use? Second, if you’re able to answer the first question, you must decide how you will differentiate it from what’s offered by competitors. Third and finally, you must determine how you will most efficiently get the word out to your target market.

3. You want to establish yourself as the go-to company for whatever it is, you’re selling. Many alleged business specialists suggest establishing yourself as an expert. I almost agree. But realistically, becoming an expert in a world full of them is unlikely. Your goal should be to become an expert over time. Thus, you don’t have to try to establish yourself as the leading expert. You don’t have to beat other experts initially, aim to join them.

4. Create a specific message or a group of them, that speak to the niche you plan to target. Business is conducted on an emotional level. Once you identify the niche you plan to target, seek to build a community around the product or service, for which you are trying to capture their interest. Communicate with them often and be certain to appeal to their emotions and the benefits they will derive from use of your offering.

5. Be certain you remember you have three limiters in trying to reach your niche. Your objective, your budget and the most effective means of delivering your message. When you’re a new start-up, typically your budget is small. But, your objective would always remain to make the members of your niche aware you’re available. Both initially and over the long run, you would look for inexpensive or free methods to get the word out. To the extent possible attempt to get your company or your offering listed everywhere you can. Online you should both join and create groups. Offline, be certain to be an ambassador for your company along with anyone else you can get to toot your horn. When you’re starting out use flyers, brochures, and business cards. All of which can be put together for a little money. As you begin to earn profits, you might establish business pages on social networks. No matter what you’re selling, there are probably people looking for it on Facebook. Facebook remains the king of the hill for social network marketing. But don’t overlook Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn, Pinterest and any of the big social networks. When you begin to make money, you can buy paid advertising in the future, to the extent your profits exceed its cost.

Unless you’re a Seasonal or Retail based business, it’s no secret that business will slow down around the holiday season. Right around October is where you can see a big drop in sales. These Holiday months can be rough on small businesses, so How do you continue your company’s growth into the holidays? If you agree that there might not be any customers to sell to during this time, what do you do with the extra time?

It’s crucial to not become idle and complacent during this Holiday season. As a business owner, there’s always things to be improved on and not hustling through the Holiday season can allow competitors to close in on your market. No matter what industry you’re in, there’s always challenges that need to be addressed. The harsh reality is – businesses fall victim to the Holiday slow season and end up closing doors.

Hustle-Work-Holidays

Stay ahead of competition and prepare for the Holidays. While others slow down and sit around, get the edge with these 4 tips.

Follow up on overdue Invoices

If you’re a small business, there’s a high chance that there’s outstanding invoices that haven’t been paid. With the additional downtime, make an effort to cash in on these invoices. Sometimes it’s as easy as invoices that you forgot about. Other times, it’s more difficult cases that need to be sent to collections – either way, you shouldn’t leave money on the table. Any money coming in is helpful to your books.

Make sure to keep note of why invoices are outstanding. Later, you can improve your billing process this way to ensure no more leaks.

Trim fat by cutting expenses

It’s easy to allow monthly expenses to get out of control. When business is doing well, you don’t notice the small thing. But You don’t have to wait until urgent times to do a review of your business expenses. There’s always ways to cut back. Where to start? Try Asking your employees. For Example: You can reduce your marketing expenses if your employees know that the ROI won’t be good or You can ask for email subscription/marketing services to be suspended a month. Finding ways to trim your expenses will give you extra cash flow into the new year.

Another expense you can look into reducing is your payroll. You can increase your employee morale and satisfaction by offering an option to have 1-2+ weeks of unpaid vacation. Some Employees will appreciate this option as they cherish time with their family and loved ones. In exchange, you get to reduce payroll for the month, and It’s a great way to keep everyone happy.

Build up a cash reserve

It’s always good to have a 2-month operating cash reserve, regardless if it’s the Holidays or not. In the months leading up to the last quarter, stash away some money for your cash reserves. If times get rough, you’ll be glad that you have it. You never know if you might need it for some unexpected tax liabilities or other operating expenses.

Reflect and Plan your attack

During the slow season, you should reflect on the past year of business. Meet with your accounting department to see what month was the busiest, then plan accordingly. Plan to apply strategies that were the most successful and make a note of what services or expenses offered the best ROI. Then Challenge yourself with a realistic goal that you want to beat. This will encourage growth and serve as a benchmark for you to work toward.

It’s not easy running a business. But between balancing your books, keeping your employees happy and solving problems daily – sometimes you forget about relaxing. Our final piece of advice is about stepping away. Taking a Vacation won’t destroy your business. The best time to take some personal time off is during the Holiday slow down. Going away for a vacation can do wonders for your thought process. According to (Forbes), 3/5 people reported having better clarity with their thoughts after an extended vacation. Use our tips to ensure productive use of your downtime.

What on earth could small businesses learn from the tiny house movement if your industry is unrelated? It comes as no surprise that the growth, mission, popularity and purpose of the tiny house movement have grown over the past decade. People are joining this movement for financial freedom, environmental and leisure enjoyment. These owners reduce skyrocketing maintenance costs and living expenses that come from soaring mortgage payments of capacious houses. This movement also frees up more time to spend with family and travel.

Over the past decade, we have seen the increase in restructuring, downsizing and corporate dismantling by many large firms. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 99.7 percent of all employer firms are small businesses. While this percentage is an impressive number, there are some great tips many small businesses can take away from the tiny house movement.

• Compact and mobile: Owners of tiny houses downsize to reduce the overabundance of clutter, high mortgage payments, and freedom to do more things they want to engage in. They have the capability of hitching their home on the back of a vehicle and can save money on hotel costs when traveling. Depending on your type of business, with the ease and digitization of many applications and smart devices, you can mobilize your business and take it anywhere. Even if you relocate, your business can be just as portable. Small businesses may be compact in scale, but can be substantial in their return on investment.

• Energy and cost-efficient: Tiny house owners save money by lower operating costs, energy usage, and maintenance costs. You will find innovative ways to curb your budget in certain areas that will free up money for other important business investments to grow your business. Small businesses may not use up as much energy and power as larger organizations. You can operate more efficiently as well as effectively.

• Environmentally conscious and sustainable: Tiny houses may be built using environmentally friendly and repurposed materials. They are built to last but are as unique and aesthetically appealing as the details in a larger home. Small businesses can apply similar eco-friendly elements and recycled supplies to their organization. Make a statement with personalized and customized brand installations on a smaller scale, but with great innovative curb appeal.

• Technological advantages: Technology is not as big and bulky as it once was. Tiny houses can embody the same level of digitization as larger homes, just on a smaller scale. At one time, big businesses had the upper-hand with harnessing more advanced applications in technology. Nowadays, not only is technology more advanced and constantly evolving, many elements are far more affordable than they’ve ever been.

• Innovative: While tiny house living is not a new phenomenon it is increasing in popularity. The idea of living a quality life on a small-scale pushes us to new levels of residential creativity. We are inspired to try something new, creative, and innovative that will make us stellar in our industry. Since many quality products and services are more affordable and reliable, small businesses can make quality purchases and outsource services that will save on equipment and personnel budgets.

Just because a small business may adopt a few ideas from the success of the tiny house movement, some of these applications may not be feasible or appealing to your particular industry. You don’t have to sacrifice quality for affordability. Small businesses have the power, however, to promote their business with creative, personalized and exceptional customer experiences, regardless of size and budget.

According to Richard Branson CEO and Founder of Virgin “A business’s long history is meaningless if it doesn’t provide the best-designed, most reliable products or services at competitive prices and back up those offerings with the finest customer service. In these fast-moving times, longevity is more the exception than the rule. According to a 2012 study by Richard N. Foster of Yale University, the average lifespan of a company listed in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has decreased to just 18 years, from 61 years in 1958.

Are you becoming complacent?

Almost no products are so good that they cannot be constantly improved on. In the UK they have a great saying: like painting the Forth Bridge in Britain,” which is an unending task. This is because the painters of this massive bridge in Edinburgh were never done – once they had finished painting it, they then were needed to immediately start again. The task came to an end in 2011, because workers had switched to a new kind of paint. This is a great example how your businesses product development should be a similarly endless quest for improvement.

According to Bluecorona Small Business Statistics for 2016/2017

• 66% of small business owners say that finding new customers is a top concern.
• 40% of small business owners say that retaining customers is a priority.
• 43% of SMBs says that improving customer experience and retention is their top strategy to improve revenue growth.
• 30% say that keeping up with technology advances is a major concern of small business owners.

What is Future Proofing?

The term “future-proof” refers to the ability of something to continue to be of value into the distant future; that the item does not become obsolete. This information can be distilled into many principles depending on industry group which can then be applied to many areas.

10 Ways to Future Proof your Small Digital Business

1. Work with millennial and change your thinking.
2. Think from your client’s standpoint and create a positive product experience from this viewpoint.
3. Common Q&A if you get the same questions try re-writing your website copy to better answer common questions.
4. Focus on creating a long-term client not just a one-time sale.
5. Read about marketing trends and the directions on technology
6. Eliminate untrustworthy or toxic people from your life, this could be a lifelong friend, family member, a dishonest bank that has cheated for so long it’s become common practice, or even your mortgage broker who breaches your client trust and confidentiality.
7. Monitor What direction your top 5 closest competitors are doing and create an average for your new direction if a new change is needed.
8. Have a upsell strategy built into your product purchase process.
9. Train your staff right from the start on exactly how to carry out the tasks they are expected to complete.
10. Cut your costs, all businesses have expenses. Most businesses have expenses that can be cut. Don’t wait until you need to cut your operating costs to start eliminating unnecessary services and expenses from your monthly burn rate. Take a look into the expenses that don’t equate to your basic bottom line and ax them. Remember for every dollar you save it’s then directly reflected to your profit.

Small Business Digital Marketing that Converts

If you know anything about small business, then you know its overall mission is to attract customers that are interested in your products and services. You might have tried Google ads, or FB and social media marketing to some success. The problem with many digital marketing methods is you pay your money and cross your fingers that sales with convert. I have personally tried almost every type of digital marketing you can think of and the only one that sticks out for me is official email marketing. Email has been the only marketing method that provides the ability to grow massive contacts databases easily and responsibly. With email marketing you can send out thousands of emails an hour and have a web-based dashboard manage and automate the entire technical process. If I had to choose only one digital marketing platform to build my business it would be email marketing.

On developing YOUR unique expression through business to reflect an elegant simplicity with depth and meaning.

1. Be Nimble

Take a page from the tech startup playbook, and adopt a “Rapid Prototyping” mindset.

You’ve gotta start somewhere, and you won’t know until you take the action, see the results, and learn from real reactions from real people.

Don’t chase your tail in circles, waiting for all those marketing exercises to look perfect. Stop thinking if you get the approval of some business coach, your business will be bulletproof.

Hone in on your genius by doing good work… and see where you excel.

Be willing to pivot. Commit to excellence, not convenience.

Don’t get too attached just because you’ve invested time and money in some training or certification. Everything builds up to a final expression that’s uniquely yours because you’re bringing to the table a one-of-a-kind combination of skills and experiences.

2. Don’t Spread Too Thin

We’ve been told a million and one things we need to “fill the funnel” – the freebies, the tripwire, the eBook, the online course, the big group program, the small group program, the private coaching, and the live event.

When those coaches break up the numbers and show you how to get to “6 figures,” it sounds pretty darn good… if you can do 7 things all at once.

Yet, chances are, you’re not a genius in delivering every single format. You may suck at some and drag your ass on others… people can smell it miles away if you aren’t excited about it.

If it’s just something to check off the list, don’t do it.

You don’t have to fill up every single “rung” of what a “business model” should look like. You don’t have to offer everything everyone is selling.

You need to find the expressions that allow you to be in your zone of genius as much as possible. And get unapologetically good at it.

3. Redefine “Leveraging”

What about “leveraging?” You may ask – because that’s another irresponsible sound byte so many are tossing around.

Irresponsible because it’s defined rather narrowly in most cases and often send us down a rabbit hole.

Think outside “leveraging = 1: many” box in the form of digital products, online courses or group programs.

(Note that you have to invest time and effort to create those content before you even get paid… there’s always an opportunity cost. Is it the best way to spend your time and genius? Have you done the work to make sure you don’t hear cricket when you launch?)

Leveraging can just simply mean that you hone your skills, get amazingly good at it, articulate the value and relevance so you can charge a premium.

4. Forget “Charge What You’re Worth”

This is my big pet peeve.

Don’t tie your self-worth with what people pay you… so disempowering.

I’ve heard coaches being told in whatever training that they’ve to charge some crazy amount per month (even if they’re just starting out)… otherwise, they’re not doing it right.

Stop.

Before we talk number, let’s talk what the number is about.

It’s about what you bring to the table. It’s about how you create meaning and deliver value.

It’s about whether you can say it out loud with confidence and conscience.

Your fee is only as good as what people are willing to pay – and it depends on how confidently and genuinely you can articulate the value, and do good work to deliver above and beyond your promise.

Those who charge $10k a month, and make it worth every penny and more, didn’t start there. They deliver, and they demand a fair exchange for the value they create for their clients.

Get to work. Don’t put yourself on the pedestal. Put yourself in the trenches.

5. Get Out Of the Bubble

All the coaching, programs, and training are putting us in the echo chamber.

It took me almost a year to detox so I can hear mySELF think.

Do what’s right for you. Don’t get sucked into sound bytes and rhetoric.

We’re seeing a backlash to all the sales messages, online courses, and coaching program in this space. When everyone wants to sell you something that sounds just like the next guy, the market gets jaded, skeptical and resistant.

You need to be surer than ever what YOU and your business need at this moment before investing. It’s not “if you’re unwilling to invest in yourself (and whip out the credit card now) you can’t expect others to invest in you” rhetoric – which is selfish, fear-based BS.

It’s not just the money. It’s the TIME and mental space – if you spend time and mental space on one thing, you won’t have it for others that actually matter.

6. Be Honest With Yourself

At the end of the journey, YOU are what matters.

Enough asking your Facebook group buddies how to make your decisions. Don’t be intellectually lazy. Take responsibility.

Most people you meet along the way will eventually fall off – what you do needs to be meaningful to you.

Ling Wong:: Intuitive Brainiac | Creativity Mentor | Copywriting Alchemist. Author of “Copywriting Alchemy: Secrets to Turning a Powerful Personal Brand Into Content that Sells” now available on Amazon.

Through her unique blend of marketing coaching, content strategy and copywriting process, she helps the maverick-preneurs uncover, articulate & transform their WHY into content that connects, resonates and converts – by way of an intuitive yet rigorous iterative process born out of her Harvard Design School training and 15 years experience in the online marketing industry.

Ling is Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing, and Email Marketing certified. Through her writing engagements with various SaaS and marketing companies with the goals of driving organic traffic, building readership and increasing conversion, she’s well-versed in topics including online marketing, content marketing, eCommerce, conversion, UX, social media marketing, and more.

She helps coaches, consultants, service professionals, solopreneurs and small businesses apply these best practices to their specific business models and circumstances.