When focusing on your profit drivers you can clearly see what areas need adjusting however as we mentioned in the last post you must have some form of measurement to enable you to have a starting point for growth.

For example… Non Financial profit drivers

• How do you measure your client satisfaction?
• How do you measure business culture and value?
• How do you measure your market share?
• Looking at your fixed and variable costs?
• How to improve or maintain employee satisfaction?

These all link clearly with your Financial profit drivers. When you look at the 3 factors that give you your turnover for your business

• Number of customers
• Average Dollar Transaction
• Number of times this client visits you per year

You can improve your business by improving in any one of these areas. You must acquire more customers or sell to them more often or increase the amount you sell to them each time.

Here is the Profit Sticky Point!

Small Business faces the challenge of competing online or with the bigger stores down the road. When I visit my local hairdresser I know staff have pressure to up sell, cross sell and from the clients point of view it becomes quiet frustrating.

Particularly when I can go online order my product have it delivered to me one to two days later with no freight and a lot less than I would pay in the salon.

You can even walk into one of our local pharmacy and find some of the top brands which have always promoted themselves as ‘Salon only’

Same thing happens with just about all products, it can be found somewhere else  or online for a lot cheaper.

Staying Top Of Mind With Your Client List Will Keep Your Profit On Track!

Now he is the hard part, for small business to strengthen their profit line, they must adapt and start to use the tools of the connection economy and use the online power particularly for word of mouth marketing.  Now many small business may say they don’t have time, their too busy I will pay someone to do that.

Well that is great if you have all your profit drivers in place and your producing the extra revenue to cover that. Many small business just do not generate enough revenue to put away for their retirement plan let alone pay some one to do it.

Redefining Courage To Build Your Profit.

Seth Godin has a line in his book The Icarus Deception “Courage is the willingness to speak the truth about what you see and to own what you say”

It is here where I must speak the truth for me. What I see is small business have enormous opportunity to capitalize on this new economy – the connection economy simply by using the tools now available for them. The best part about it is although the business down the road might be seen as your competition. In this new economy that business down the road can now be your connection partner, your joint venture partner.

Let’s look at some profit examples you can use to connect and stay top of mind with your customer.

• Video Email
• Small Business Apps
• Blogging
• Social Media
• Beauty / Health Products
• Cards
• SMS Text Messaging services

Here is just a few, I know after three years online there are many all which will pay you a referral income to use and promote their products.

What is also critical to understand when you connect with the right company for you they provide the most unbelievable training by 6 and 7 figure earners.

My rule of thumb now If it is not paying me a referral income now I do not use it…

Small Business owners can create additional profit streams as well as long term business opportunities going long after they may even sell their existing business.

The connection economy is providing ways for small business to minimize loss by taking a little risk and when you follow the plan clearly gain your additional profit.

How well positioned are you as the industry expert and is it gaining you the profit you deserve?

(Helene is a referral partner for Mobile Marketing  working with small business both online and offline.)

To Your Abundance

Helene Mearing

Skype: creativeinsights

Email: workwithhelene@gmail.com

Work with Helene: Mobile Marketing

Profit Drivers Examples Rule of Thumb – You Cannot Manage What You Cannot Measure

 Truly understand your numbers and you become a master of your business.

These numbers are the start of your profit drivers example and will tell you how well your business is doing and provide you with immediate feedback so you can always make the best decisions. Many Business owners don’t run their business with a dashboard of KPI’s (Key performance Indicators) Could also be referred to as profit driver examples which allow you to see the health of the your business as well as the health of your staff.

You can read more on Profit Driver Examples at my small business page…

Profit Driver Examples Fall into both Financial Profit Drivers and Non Financial Profit Drivers

As you read over the page on profit drivers examples  there I particularly want to point to the area expressed as

• Number (e.g. average number of sales per month)
• Dollar figure (e.g. the average sale per client)
• Percentage (e.g. percentage of clients who are repeat business)

This really can be a challenge as no one has any targets; no one knows what their break even is even at their profit goal. Not knowing these numbers, how on earth will your staff know their KPI’s or profit drivers to give them a level of accountability?

Now when you measure numbers like those above you can clearly see how this will link to your Non - financial profit drivers examples. Areas like ..

• Client satisfaction
• Quality of the product or service
• Training of employees and employee satisfaction

Making Profit Drivers Work For Your Business.

Every business wants 3 things – more customers, more revenue, and more profit.

Let’s start with the customers. As you will see there are two steps that happen before they become customers. Firstly you have to generate the lead and then you have to convert them. Why is that important? Well, we need to find out how many of your leads are becoming valuable clients.

Once you have clients or customers, I believe it is critical to develop a loyal following, keep in contact with your followers and allow your followers to do your marketing for you.

The Number one lesson I have learnt on line is The Money Is In The List…

What perfect opportunity do small business owners have….many already have a data base and yes your data base is gold. The problem is many are not looking after their data base and maintaining their raving fans.

A Perfect Profit Driver Example – For a Restaurant

Have you ever been to a restaurant where they asked you for your contact details? Maybe if you were the one to book the table  but for me know it has never happened.

Remembering the key with any business is to build a loyal following of raving fans… Yet restaurants seem to be struggling and many change hands or close down.

Yet restaurants could build their contact list if they used a Business App to promote themselves. The waitress could say to you down load our app and receive 10% of the total bill or an entree for free.

Now your starting to collect contact details and bang in the next few weeks you could be having a “Winter Warmer” pre dinner drinks 2 for 1 approach and all you do is send a push notification or a mobile coupon to present at the bar and now your starting to develop your raving fans..

Your # One Profit Drivers Examples I can give you is to build a loyal following of raving fans.

To learn more how your own Business APP could work to help you build your list, keep in contact & build relationships with your raving fans then have a look at this video.

In our next post we will look deeper at how you can position yourself as your industry expert.

Till remember to measure your numbers.

Helene Mearing
Skype: creativeinsights1

Email: workwithhelene@gmail.com

Work With Helene: Mobile Marketing 

 Giving Value For Free Is Truly Having Purpose.

As you look online Having Purpose would be the number one thing online marketing leaders have in common.  They all have a purpose and this can be seen through the amount of value they give away.

How do you discover what your life’s purpose actually is?

We all know about setting goals. The question is do you actually achieve all those goals. If not why not, is it because your not clearly having  purpose with what your looking to achieve.

 The Contact List Builder has a clearly defined path to help you work out what having purpose means for you . The Five Step Success Blue Print will clearly help you sort through and find what having purpose means for you. And yes it is FREE to join and get your Success Blue Print.

In the mean time I found this really really interesting video on motivation, having purpose and what people are looking for….

Having Purpose Is Your Greatest Motivator.

Remember to check out The Contact List Builder and grab your Five Steps To Success Blue Print.

To Your Abundance..

Helene Mearing.

Skype ID: creativeinsights1

Work with Helene: Global Apps Network.

So What’s Next For You?

Number one Key..

 Learn about the flow of money with residual income opportunities – This is your first step to stop the struggling badly and creating income in this economy.

Struggling Creating income

With this online connection community creating the success in life you deserve has never been so easy. You just have to be open to learning new skills.

 Let’s just play a quick game here.

1.       Write down what you really want to earn next year?

 2.       Write down what you will earn next year?

How many have the same number, raise your hands? Isn’t than interesting?

So let’s be truthful here. What is your Plan B to close that gap?

The greatest income opportunity, confidence builder, personal growth can happen when you look at developing your knowledge to grow  residual income opportunities  and will help you take positive actions to close that gap!” 

As a network marketer, if I choose not to work all day; I can!

Do you know why?

Well I made a commitment to understand and implement the power of network marketing, the connection economy, direct sales and then you create residual income opportunities.

Being your own boss , or just even using the tools available for you to build residual income gives everyone the opportunity to get our of the financial down turn.

How many of you as small business owners are creating the financial freedom you deserve? Let’s face it being an employee for life is not likely to make you wealth.  And the rate the Governments are taxing Small Business… that is not going to make you financially free.

There is opportunity there… you just need to be prepared to learn and follow through.

Take a listen to Tony Robbins as he is being interviewed… I think this says it all…

If your ready to make a difference with your business or your just looking for a way online… then come and check out what Pure Leverage is doing for so many … best of all you are being trained by some of the worlds greatest mentors.

Click Here To Take Action In Building Your Online Business Now

Pure Leverage The Greatest Place To Start Online.

To Your Abundance.

Helene Mearing

E: workwithhelene@gmail.com

Work with Helene: Pure Leverage

Change Is Upon Us It Is Now Time To Embrace Change!

As a member of our local Chamber of Commerce and a retired Industrial Age business owner I listen to the challenges many traditional business owners face…. tax increases, superannuation increases, penalty rate increases, employment challenges…

The solution to cover these extra costs and provide you with additional income is use the tools of the connection economy.

The problem for many is we learnt a trade, we never had time to really develop  the skills  how to really use the  Internet and Social Media more effectively….  For those of us not skilled in the area of search engine optimization, key word long tail, short tail, deep ….means it is easier to just pay someone to do it or throw your hands up in the air and just forget it.

 Now there are many horror stories how you can pay someone to do it, that is get your page to the top of Google I actually fell victim to   one of those scams myself…. Some one had sussed me out with the Financial Education Group I was working with and promised to get me to the top of Google, get all the leads I needed for my business and my online world would be rolling in the income.

Wrong!!

The Connection Economy, The Knowledge Revolution Means You Must Connect.

When you think about your customer, it is more than just a sale. It is a relationship where you develop a Know, Like and Trust connection. If you were using the tools of the connection economy it could be a video email sent with “Birthday Wishes” may be it is just a simple “Thank You” for being a special client.

I think about the hairdresser I use to go to, the constant product push or add on services creates tension in the salon leaving you feeling why bother… This connection economy is about finding out what makes your customer tick … not pushing your needs to make your figures at the end of the day gaining instant gratification and not looking at the long term impact this will have on your business.

Embrace Connection Economy and Learn From The Masters Pushing This Knowledge Revolution Forward.

I will be honest with you, yes I did struggle for some time mastering this connection economy as it lead me into the area of Networking Marketing and Affiliate marketing. However after a couple of years I soon realized to be successful in business both off line and online… you must use the tools which will provide you with a recurring income while you learn.

Yes you read that right … get paid a recurring income to use the tools which connect you in the Connection Economy. Instead of competing with the business down the road, connect with the business down the road and develop relationships … and get paid for it at the same time….

Worth while thinking?

Tools I Use In This Connection Economy.

I encourage all business to do their due diligence, research the costs, what is on offer, and what type of training and support you get.

How ever for any business with a presence online they must have tools like auto responder, video email, blogging platforms, social media connections, web page, web hosting ..

 It just makes sense to use tools which will pay you to use them when you give referrals.  I do use the first two however there are many more out there just Google them.

Pure Leverage – Provides all marketing tools under the one banner including blogging platform

Host Then Profit – Web Hosting , Domain Registration, as well as all marketing tools 

 Contact List Builder -  An organized systematic way to branding you and developing relationships with your list.

P.S. When you begin to realize the infinite power  the Internet holds for many small business, recognize the potential global business you can develop simply by being prepared to master the connection economy.

 The Connection Economy – The Knowledge Economy is here to stay it will also provide the solution for many struggling small business.

To Your Abundance

Helene Mearing

Skype ID: creativeinsights1

Work With Helene: Contact List Builder

It Begins with Who Do You Need to Be If You Are Going to Achieve What You Want To Have!

In areas of personal development – one of the principles miss understood is Be – Do – Have

Who do you need to be and what do you need to do to achieve the results you want to Have?

The beliefs you hold onto shaping your reality can also be stagnant energy stored in your body. It was interesting learning this when I did some NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Sometimes we all need to find stillness as it is the space where all answers can be found. The beliefs so many of us hold onto can have a detrimental effect on the results in our lives, yet if we could learn harness the power of visualization wow what a difference we could make.  Visualizing who you need to BE , what to you need to DO to get what you want to HAVE.  Be – Do – Have

Visualization is so powerful, and when used correctly combined with associating yourself with your others senses how does it feel, what are you saying to yourself, is there any smells connected … maybe it is taste.

Practicing visualizing success (whatever that means for you) again and again has a major impact on the results you can achieve. It is the key to Be – Do – Have

The problem is most people live their life like this …

 DO    … HAVE …. BE

 

If I DO all these things ….. I will then HAVE what I want …. Then I will BE the success person I want to BE

For years I found myself struggling, doing all the course continually learning till I finally realized I had it all wrong … you must start at BE x DO = HAVE

When you switch to BE x DO = HAVE something strange really happens, it is like the universe is listening and you seem to get better results…

I Don’t want you to think it is easy, but you can when you think you can achieve amazing growth in all areas. Start by BEING the person you dream of being…

• Being willing to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Your Business and life will front you with areas that you’re not good at. Does that mean you will always have challenges? …NO IT CERTAINLY DOES NOT you just have not learnt yet what you need to know.

In order to get something you’ve never got before, you’ve got to do something you’ve never done before. If you want to end up somewhere different to where you are today – you have to DO something different.

Then I realized one of my old memories flashed up …. She is an accountant, she knows more than me about figures and getting results… what the heck I slipped from being the successful business owner to being intimidated by someone who I thought knew more about business than me.

Yes it means you must be comfortable with being uncomfortable sometimes. It will be a part of your learning growth and journey.

There is a great truth in life … We become what we think about most of the time.  People who are stuck, not moving forward thinks about their problem. Achievers Entrepreneurs think about their future and how good their life can be.

Action Steps:

1. Who do you need to BE to lift this business to the next level?

To Your Abundance..

Helene Mearing

Skype ID : creativeinsights1

Work With Helene: Contact List Builder

When You Understand Your Thinking You Sharpen Your Mind And Build Your Communication Skills.

First ways to become a better thinker is to understand …

We all have ways of processing the information we take in from an outside event with all our senses.

• We then delete, distort and generalize according to our filters and this creates our internal representation and will then effect our behavior.

Just to give you a light over view on how powerful this can be have you ever been to a party or event with some one and a few days later your discussing what happened and you both have a completely different story.  What if you were the leader of a team, how often do you experience challenges in the group?

Now is it because some one is just a trouble maker or could it be your were not talking on the same wave length. This is critical in many cases however really important in business, there must be ways to become a better thinker.

This was really obvious in a training session I was doing for a wonderful husband and wife team who were running a Petrol station in the country.  With all the girls they had on their team there was bound to be some issues however when all the team went through training in this area “Ways to become a better thinker”  firstly by understanding their own thinking, they then could understand or relate to the rest of the team.

You see, when you understand how you think you can understand more how others think.

 Ways To Become A Better Thinker Begins  With You!

Understand Your Thinking

Now you could be more…… 1.Visual – involves more watching, looking and seeing then you can duplicate.

May be you could be….2. Auditory … involves more auditory sounds and instruction, being told the steps.

Then you have Kinesthetic ….. This is about the feel and how it feels to you.

Or may be your like me, my learning mode is Ad (auditory digital) I have a lot of self talk as I process my information.

 Thinking About Your Thinking

Just recently on my coaching journey I had 2 people come into my life both that were extremely auditory. This made it extremely difficult for us to communicate and to achieve results as my learning mode was completely different to theirs, in the long run it meant that there was no way we were going to achieve results as both parties were extremely head strong and could not relate to the different processing ways.

Do you have staff you just can’t talk with, that don’t seem to understand what you are saying? May be there is a need to look a little deeper.

 Remember …… Your Passport to Riches is becoming a “Master of You” and uses those tools to model the excellence in others.

To Your Abundance

Helene Mearing

Skype ID – creativeinsights1

Work With Helene: The Contact List Builder.

Business Revival Is Turning The Invisible To Visible…

What is Holding you Back? – It is the thoughts you think that are holding you back

In my E book – My Secret How I Made More Profit In My Salon I did a chapter on thinking.  What was interesting, last night or should I say very early this morning I got up (2.00am) to volunteer in an online coaching session with Janet from the Contact List Builder. This incredible tool gets you back on track when it comes to mastering your marketing online.

Making an Effort to Understand How your thinking really works ….. Is far more important than what you’re wearing out tonight, or what your favorite shop has in the front widow.  As well, think about your thinking  when you have a business. Your thinking is critical.

This is a passage from my e book however I do think it is worth repeating.

You Know What To Do So Why Don’t You Do It?

Have you ever asked yourself this question? Yes it begins with, think about your thinking. 

Has it ever frustrated you, I know it certainly did me. I look at my book shelf, the amazing resources in my personal development library and yet you continue to search.

Well no matter what has held you back from attaining your goals and dreams in the past, which can change for you right now. I do believe when you are an informed consumer it’s easier to become motivated.

No I am not presenting any recipes today, simply choices and options.

When we understand what is happening behind the scenes or should I say, understanding how we are thinking. This really enables us to be more informed and therefore easier to become motivated. Start to think about your thinking.

“You know what to do so why don’t you do it” …….this is all about the creative artist, the amazing hairdresser, the leader who inspired you …… 

But you have never heard of any …… No their names are not forgotten, they were never known.

They were the Hairdressers, Small business owners or Sales people who succumb to

DOUBT.

Perhaps this is about you… do you need to think about your thinking.

Sometimes it is not just as easy as Nikes “Just Do It” What we see as the “lack of motivation” hampering our progress, and sometimes our lack of success is it really due to excuses or reasons. Or could I be right in thinking it is much more than that; we are not a “one size fits all” community. I know for many years this challenged me, I have purchased all the books, attended all the seminars but yes you guessed it, I could not get I happening some times and I want you to know, it is not all your fault.

Understanding how I was thinking, how my staff was thinking also made it easier to understand how my clients were thinking (NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming was my life savior)

Everything now started to make sense. It begins with you …

In my next post I will go further into NLP and how it helped me, in the mean time start to ….

Think About Your Thinking.

To Your Abundance..

Helene Mearing.

Skype ID: creativeinsights1

Work with Helene: Contact List Builder

What Is Passive Income?

On my passive income journey I began by really looking into passive income and what it meant.

Wikipedia - Passive income is an income received on a regular basis, with little effort required to maintain it

Examples – Rent from property; Royalties from publishing a book or from licensing a patent or other form of intellectual property ; Earnings from internet advertisement on websites; Dividend and interest income from owning securities ; Pensions

There is one in particular Wikipedia mentions and this is where my focus is…

Earnings from a business that does not require direct involvement from the owner or merchant.

As a business coach we taught what was called “6 Steps To a Better Business”

1. Mastery – Destination / Time Management / Delivery / Financials.
2. Niche – USP / Guarantee / Leads / Conversions / Average $ Spend/ Number of Transactions / Margins
3. Leverage – Systems & Technology / Delivery & Distribution / Accounting / Test & Measure / People & Education
4. Team – Recruitment System / Environment / Vision, Mission Culture
5. Synergy – Business Can Work With Out You.
6. Results – Growth / Investments.

Although in one area  there was a reference to – Sell via MLM or Party Plan ( possible passive income) when you worked on the margins section; there was never a real focus here.

This was a clash of business models for most involved – the 20th century Industrial Business model clashing with the 21st century – Connection Knowledge Based Business m model

In this new economy the key for business success is to focus on “Your Passive Income Journey”

As Jim Rohan would say

Work Full Time On Your Income and Part Time On Your Fortune…

When you focus on your passive income journey you are focusing part time on your fortune. For example, my back ground is hairdressing and with the salon I owned if I was not working cutting hair my income stopped. Yes I had staff, who were all excellent and the problem with many small business owners from the old business model in thinking … you had to be there to generate the income.

This is what I would call linear income what I wanted was non linear income that pays you passive income.  If you are looking to create a lifestyle with more free time, or maybe you want to put your kids through higher education. May be it is that dream holiday you have been talking about when you retire, your now concerned as the Government is looking to put their sticky fingers into your retirement plan…

You must begin to shift your focus and learn how to focus on your passive income journey.

Look for an opportunity you can use in your business or while you are still working with a JOB that focus on a non linear income, it pays you passive income long term. And I would encourage you to do it now as there is a learning curve. Work full time on you income and part time on your fortune.

One of the greatest areas of growth when you focus on your passive income journey is your mind set. You now are connecting with the most extraordinary people around the world … all who are on the same journey.

Focus On Your Passive Income Journey.

Helene Mearing

Skype ID: creativeinsights1

Work With Helene: Numis Network

Business Revival Taking The Invisible and Making It Visible…

Learn To Drive Traffic By Adding Value.

For some time I found myself jumping from pillar to post with this online world, frustrated, disappointed and concerned it is a totally different world for me. How was I going to generate any income online because I did not understand the basics -

To Get More Blog Traffic You Must Understand You Have To Learn How To Drive Traffic.

In my offline world the coaching franchise I had purchased did a major part of the marketing, you already had a brand attached to you.

My target market was Small Business and as I was a retired hairdresser my focus went in that direction.

Pouring out massive amounts of information on my first blog platform I had lots of traffic, problem was it was mainly all spam. Not happy with my results as I attempted to market a top tier financial education program

I remember receiving a phone call one day from a USA firm, (I live in Australia) They new the program I was involved with, no doubt they were a part of my  attempt to  get more blog traffic. After a week of daily phone calls with pieces of research I had to do …

You guessed it I was suckered down the rabbit hole thinking I was going to get more blog traffic which in turn would create the sales.

To cut a long story short I do not believe there are short cuts just possible a  lot of sharks who will take a bit of you if they can. How ever in saying that I strongly believe blogging is a cost effective way to market your business but no matter what you do need to learn something on how to get more blog traffic.

Along comes Ray Higdon and his beautiful wife Jessica. I have been like a quiet stalker reading Ray’s Blogs on a regular basis, he has an interest I am completely hooked on collecting assets with silver coins and it was here I joined in their team at  Numis Network.

Ray talk’s about  three things you need to do..  which strangely  enough is exactly what was needed when marketing your offline or traditional business..

Ray’s Top Three Tips.. To Get More Blog Traffic.

1.  Determine who you want to visit your site. ( Who do you want to visit your business? And know it is not every one – no point marketing grunge hair in a retired pension area. Same thing goes online)

2. Determine what their problems are. ( For example – My niche is small business who have web pages however need to master how to drive traffic to those pages to increase their online presence)

3. Consistently create content to solve the problems of your target market and as Ray says voila, you should now get traffic.

After watching  this video Ray talks about a tool he uses called Rank Tracker and adding this now to my Google analytic  let’s watch results grow.

Silly thing is as a business coach we all ways talked on Test and Measure…. the one thing I have not done enough of with my online journey – Test and Measure.

Check this video out with Ray sharing what he does to measure when you get more blog traffic.

Enjoy watching your business grow as you start to track your results.

If you enjoyed this post I would appreciate if you could please comment and share on Facebook.

Helene Mearing

Skype: creativeinsights1

Work with Helene : Numis Network

Business Revival Taking the Invisible and Making It Visible..