Aleksander Vitkin Podcast

Got any questions? Ask me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/aleksander.vi...

Check out my free business training: http://www.vitkin.net

Want to connect on Instagram? @AleksVitkin

What are the risks you're taking in life and are you taking enough risks? How risky is it to start a business?

Today I’m filming live from Vancouver, Canada with my friend and associate Katya. The topic you’ll be learning about in this video is fear. In particular, fear as it relates to business risktaking. I want to show you through tangible, real-life examples in the experiences of Katya, myself, and other people I’ve encountered in entrepreneurship that most of your fear when starting your own business, believe it or not, is not justified.

The Absurdity of Fear In Business Risktaking

A lot of the people who are current or potential clients in my mastermind first start off with a heavy dose of fear connected to their future in successful entrepreneurship. This is one of the first things that I endeavor to remove when I begin working with them towards their goals for business.

To begin, let’s start with some good news. Many of you watching this (myself included), live in relatively safe and wealthy countries with an abundance of opportunities to be taken advantage of. Many of the perceived problems you may be thinking about are not real problems. Tons of potential victories in business are right here under our noses.

What stops most people from making the best use of this fact is generally fear. What’s funny about this is that it’s not the fear for little unimportant things that come and go with day-to-day existence holding you back… it’s fear for massive life-changing events which are usually out of your ultimate control.

Real Life Examples of Taking The Risk

Let’s look at this in action. My friend Katya here just came to Victoria, Canada about a year ago from Crimea. She’s 18 years old on the other side of the world in an environment about remotely different as you can get from Crimea… and yet she’s pursuing both modeling and pursuing a full-time college education in art history.

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

- 11 ways of managing your focus to double your productivity

- 6 tactics to hack your mindset, habits and motivation and obliterate procrastination

- How to use a journal to be 10x more creative, connect your ideas and track your progress like a Swiss clock

- The "Holy Grail" of Productivity: know the secret technique that athletes and performers use to be the best in the world

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

- 11 ways of managing your focus to double your productivity

- 6 tactics to hack your mindset, habits and motivation and obliterate procrastination

- How to use a journal to be 10x more creative, connect your ideas and track your progress like a Swiss clock

- The "Holy Grail" of Productivity: know the secret technique that athletes and performers use to be the best in the world

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

Today, we’re going to be talking about why you need to start getting paid ASAP online.

If you’re watching this video, it’s likely because you’re either interested in starting an online business or you’re passionate about making your already existing online business work much better.

Why You Shouldn’t Wait A Second Longer

The first immediate steps are fairly obvious. You need to have a basic product or service that you’re providing, detailed in other videos on this channel.

But almost more importantly, having a product or service isn’t enough: you need to start getting paid for it right now.

The reason for this is as psychological as it is financial. Getting paid immediately makes the entire evolution of your entrepreneurial career much more “real”.

Up until the point you start getting paid for your products and services, everything seems theoretical and there is little to no ego investment.

You feel yourself saying things like, “Oh, I’ll just try it a little bit, but if I fail, it’s not my fault…”

You find yourself making all of the classic excuses that stopped you before. This will lead to failure, it won’t lead to business.

Start Getting Paid ASAP The Intelligent Way

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

In today’s podcast, I’m going to give you some practical advice about how much business risk taking you should be doing when starting your small business.

I’ll show you real-life examples of what has happened to me and fellow entrepreneurs when taking risks in business and the common pitfalls (and future successes, hopefully) to look out for.

The Trial-and-Error Period of Business Risk Taking

Some other entrepreneur friends of mine and I started our businesses right in the middle of the recent economic recession. This was around 2008-2010. It was pretty hardcore, I won’t lie.

We didn’t know if our work was going to succeed. Everyone was telling us how tough it was going to be and the risks were too high. People told us to get a job. Some of the people who started back then actually did end up in a job… Though those who didn’t quit are still in business today.

What we learned from this trial-and-error period was how much risk you should take. Now, if you don’t know how to gauge how much risk to take, your business is likely not to grow. Every single entrepreneur I know who doesn’t take any risk usually sees a period of stagnation over months or even years.

These non-risk-taking types commonly treat their business like a vanity or lifestyle business than a serious one. And when the next recession hits, you can bet that they’re not going to have a lot of momentum to weather the storm. They’re unlikely to survive.

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

You are going to find out how to get sales from local clients, how to meet them in person and close deals. You can walk into a business and speak to the owner of the company to offer him your service. Nowadays, people are closing sales online, but the old fashioned ways still work. It is still a viable model to this day.

One of the main benefits to in person sales is that your prospect cannot run away. You have a meeting and it is pretty hard for your client to stand up and leave.

Furthermore, you have a better close rate in person, because you can feel the energy and the body language of the other person.

Moreover, there is a lot more trust when you talk to clients eye to eye. They are much more likely to give you money upfront. If you do things right, you will be able to take large amounts of money for your projects.

Here is a list of ways to get in person meetings:

• The walk in method. You can walk straight into a business and offer your service.

• Cold calling. This is one of the best methods for complete beginners.

• You should join local business networking groups.

There is a significant difference between selling locally and online. When you sell locally, it is very likely that people know your competitors.

Another thing that you have to take in mind is that when you sell locally, you need to wear official apparel. It is hard to be taken seriously if you wear a T-shirt and shorts in United Kingdom for example.

Selling locally requires a lot more time. It could be very painful if you don’t close a sale and you spend so much time traveling to your prospect. However, selling online does not require that much time and it is a big deal if you fail closing the deal. Time is more valuable than money in many cases in business.

Here is how to make $20K a month from face to face meetings.

You need to be able to close 1 in 4 meetings. That means you need to close 5 $4K sales and to have at least 20 meetings per month. Every weekday you need to have a meeting.

You need to run it as a funnel. Use a standard meeting plan that you share with the person you are meeting. Your client has to know approximately how much time the meeting will be. It is important for him to know what he can expect from the meeting.

Having a plan to follow during your sales meetings is essential to your close rate.

At the end you have to give them the contract and they should pay either there or as soon as possible. This prevents huge amount of problems. Get this and use this from day one. It is going to save you lots of headaches.

Another very valuable advice is to close recurring sales. It just does not make sense to travel to their office, waste your time and receive a one – time project.

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

In today’s video, we’re going to get in-depth with a very important aspect of your financial future as an entrepreneur. I’m going to talk about how many skills you need to be successful in business when you’re starting or even already running a fully functioning operation.

The Skills You Need In Business Aren’t Limited To “Intellectual Knowledge”

The ability to know what to focus on in business (and subsequently implement it) is as important as the ability to focus within itself. If you’re able to implement what skills are most crucial for your growth as an entrepreneur, you can translate that knowledge to any field you’d like.

You’ll experience a freedom that many people simply don’t have due to a lack of clarity about what’s important.

Here’s a typical example of how lack of skilled experience can hurt you:

I have a current mastermind who is a very smart guy, but his level of focus is a bit all over the place. He’ll remain anonymous for the purposes of this article, but let’s just call him Steve.

Steve definitely won the evolutionary lottery when it comes to intelligence and intellectual curiosity.

He’s a scientist, entrepreneur, and still currently even has a job. Furthermore, he dives head first into all of them… even his employment position in retail.

He takes the time to really try to understand the processes of each interest he has and wants to know every nuance of the field he’s curious about.

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

Jobs are becoming less and less popular nowadays. People will not have jobs in a few years. More and more people are looking to become a freelancer.

Today, you are going to discover how you can make more money as a freelancer than any job that you can get. You need to learn and master some very valuable skills and eventually progress to owning a business.

Many companies are sick and tired of job interviews and hiring employees. They are sick and tired of people who do not know how to do their job and pretend they do.

More and more entrepreneurs are saying that they do not want to work with employees. The voice of the entrepreneurial world is becoming louder and louder. That is one of the reasons that freelancers are going to replace all employees very soon.

The first thing you need to figure out before you decide to become a freelancer is where you are going to find clients.

There are a lot of places to get clients like freelancing platforms, Facebook groups and so on. However, just having a platform and applying for jobs is not enough.

You need to build a funnel and find a way to get clients on calls and close sales.

Your first funnel is going to be a minimum viable funnel. It does not have to be something super complicated. You just need a funnel that will bring you a good amount of leads that you can close.

You can even message people and asking them to bring them free value. Once the client sees what you are capable of, then he can hire you and bring you more projects.

You need a way to get enough clients on calls and close a sale (even just one a month) where you can work for $30 an hour. Being smart and good at sales can lead you to a successful freelancing career.

There are a lot of complicated services to offer that will take you a few years to master. In the beginning you should start with something simple like video editing, social media management, translation and public relations.

The service that you are looking for is the one that is aligned with your personality, that there is demand for and you know that you can learn it relatively quickly. You should also be looking for something that you can sell for a long period of time.

You may want to sell a more complicated service like Google ads, but especially in the beginning I would recommend to start with something that you learn faster.

You are probably stuck in a job and do not know a way out. I would recommend building a business than being a freelancer. If you are good at sales and outsourcing, then definitely business is for you.

You can choose the more risky path that has higher potential reward. That is to become a business owner.

“Want to connect on Facebook?” Add me on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/aleksander.vitkin

Today, I’m going to show you techniques on how to charge more per hour (and per day) for the same amount of work as your competitors.

We’ll get down to exactly why some professionals are able to demand much higher prices for a similar amount of effort as others who are struggling to get their price point to where it needs to be, and how you can implement the same strategies.

Everybody Wants To Play With The Winners

My colleagues and I have been meeting with professionals and people in business a lot lately.

We found that many positions have a large disparity in price points – in other words, a lot of people in a niche are getting paid $10-$20 while a select few are demanding much, much higher prices in the range of thousands of dollars.

A good example is photographers. Most photographers don’t get paid that much for a job the requires so much attention to detail and added effort.

Many talented people are struggling to make ends meet in this market and yet there is a privileged group of photographers who can charge thousands of dollars for a few hours of work. How is this possible?

The first technique they use is the concept of “social proof”. Successful people in a niche who charge a lot are quick to advertise that they’ve worked with someone of some kind of social importance.