Mindset Challenge

In business and in life there are ups and downs.  Often you can enjoy periods where everything is firing on all cylinders.  Your marketing is working, employees are stepping up, revenue is growing and you are even starting to get free time.  Then there are time that it seems like you are stuck in sludge.  Nothing quite works right, revenue is stagnant or in a decline, employees are complaining and it’s just downright frustrating.

When you feel caught in the muck and it just feels like a grind there is no finer time to focus on your mindset.  While we haven’t exactly been stuck in the muck lately, we have been battling “head trash” that has kept us from firing on all cylinders (some of you may have noticed we missed a few episodes).

In today’s mindset Monday we explore some of the items that have caused us a challenge to help you avoid the pain and get to the period where everything is going your way.

Listen in and read on to find out how you can challenge your mind to help you reach the success you deserve:

Key Items

* Old Recurring Bills - When was the last time you really poured through your credit card statement?  I mean, not just glanced at it and paid it, but really went through each item.  Are you using everything you are paying for?  Have you failed to cancel a bill because it is just “$9 a month and it would take longer to get on the phone than just pay”?  Those nagging recurring bills may not seem like much but they weigh you down.  They distract your hard earned dollars from tackling something new because in the back of your mind you allocate money for those recurring items that you aren’t even using.  Take the next 1-2 months and cancel away!

* Nagging Task List - Do you have items on your task list that just never seem to get done? Have written and rewritten the same task for days, weeks, maybe even months?  Have you asked yourself “is it really that important?” and “why do I keep moving it if it is so important?”.  Take time to really evaluate what is on your list.  If it is a long term project then break it into pieces that you can digest and accomplish so in a few weeks or months that goal really is done! Or cut it completely and it will free your mind.

* Set a deadline - Have you ever noticed you can get your house in order right before guests are coming over?  Or “magically” when you have a new bill that is due your business suddenly really takes off and you find the revenue?  These aren’t accidents these are deadlines that are put in place and you end up achieving to reach those deadlines.  The challenge for many business owners is that no one is putting any pressure on them to hit deadlines.  After all you are your “own boss” you can do what you want….right?  But are you really doing what you want or struggling just “doing”?  Whether it is an accountability partner, business coach, or mentor put deadlines in place to help you get out of the funk and into achievement.

Joe Says So

* Mental Task List - Avoid the mental task list.  When your mind is only thinking of items you have to do in the next hour, or day you will miss your big ideas.  Write down your task lits, put it in One Note, etc, just don't waste your mind on keeping track of tasks.

Sponsors

* Perry Marshall (http://www.bridgestwins.com/perry) – As the co-author of the Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords, creator of the Adwords Bootcamp and one who has developed ninja level marketing programs you are sure to find a marketing strategies and tactics that will help your business get to the next level.

* Email Autoresponders (http://www.bridgestwins.com/email/) – Staying connected with existing customers and prospects can be a challenge when you are relying on only your own activity.  Implementing an email autoresponder sequence will help you to engage prospects over time until they are ready to do business with you and keep existing customers thrilled that you are staying in touch.

Business Challenge

For some reason, unless you are a Dr. or a Lawyer, people seem to think that a process is easy when they hire you to complete it.  We see this challenge occur in many different service verticals (Plumbing, Digital Agencies, Real Est...

Business Challenge

Quite often the best customer is the customer you already have.  While we always want to continue the journey of adding new customers, there is often a missed opportunity of focusing on retention of existing customers and maximizing the value of those customers.  Keep in mind that “maximizing the value” doesn’t just mean raising prices on existing customers (i.e. like some of the big companies do when they know you won’t leave)...no, it means finding ways to add real value to their lives and in turn your business.

In the effort of adding new value to existing customers and revenue to your business, today’s challenge is:

“How do I get my customers to buy more?”

or

“How do I increase my customer value?”

Listen in and read on to find out more:

Key Items

* What do your top 10% of customers and top 1% need? - In any given business there are 10% of your customers willing to pay a higher premium for better service of your existing offering or a higher quality of product.  The top 1% of customers are willing to pay a higher premium (i.e. think VIP or Platinum level).  Understanding the needs of your customer base will help you to craft the right product and offer.  For some businesses this can be dedicated time with you (the businesses owner) and for some it could be providing an over the top guarantee on your top level service.  Consider doing a survey to your clients to understand what more you could offer.

* Continuity offer after a one time Service - In service businesses (i.e. computer repair, plumbing, etc.) the engagement is often a one time service event.  Even if you do a great job it could be months or years before that customer calls you back because you did such a great job for them!  For businesses that are often a one time service event there is an opportunity to provide a continuity service to increase the customer value.  In computer repair we had one client offer a monthly service to each client after service and his adoption rate was over 70%!

* Could you expand your product or service line? - Increasing customer value could be as simple as adding a related service offering.  Now this is one you have to be careful with as you want to remain an expert in what you offer, so being an “expert” in 100’s of products or service lines isn’t likely.  Select your related offerings carefully (avoid the “We sell water and cell phones”...yes we have seen that) to ensure it maximizes the customer value, it is not just chasing revenue.

Sponsors

* Perry Marshall (http://www.bridgestwins.com/perry) – As the co-author of the Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords, creator of the Adwords Bootcamp and one who has developed ninja level marketing programs you are sure to find a marketing strategies and tactics that will help your business get to the next level.

* Email Autoresponders (http://www.bridgestwins.com/email/) – Staying connected with existing customers and prospects can be a challenge when you are relying on only your own activity.  Implementing an email autoresponder sequence will help you to engage prospects over time until they are ready to do business with you and keep existing customers thrilled that you are staying in touch.  Find out more about the solutions that can help your business today.

Want Your Challenge Featured?

With each challenge we tackle, we look to not only solve the problem we look to shed light on new opportunities for our listeners.  We invite you listen to a couple of the business owners who shared their challenges (http://www.bridgestwins.com/challenge) and to submit your own today!

Business Challenge

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Business Challenge

Developing a new product or even a new service line is an expensive endeavor.  From the initial idea phase to production to launch there is a great deal of time, money, and energy that is required in order to be successful.  While t...

Mindset Challenge

It’s a new month and that means a new Mindset Monday.  Items we cover in Mindset Mondays aren’t submitted to us, but they are often the items that we see preventing business owners, entrepreneurs, and business leaders from achieving ...

Business Challenge

In today’s era of Social Media Stars and attention to athletics sponsorship has taken on an entirely new angle.  No longer is the act of sponsoring an event or even a popular individual left for “the big guys” it can be embraced by ...

Business Challenge

Redesigning a website is a big task.  It is such a big task that we couldn't tackle the entire challenge in just one episode.  Listen in to Part 1 of Redesigning a Website (http://www.bridgestwins.com/episode-101-redesigning-my-website-where-do-i-start-part-1/) to get key items that will help you make the most of the project of giving your online presence a new look and feel.

The challenge with redesigning a website is that too often we see that businesses of nearly every size over simplify the task.  The requirements are often something like “please redesign my site, make it look nice”.  Today’s challenge hits right at home with the challenges faced when looking to undertake a redesign.

Today’s challenge is:

“I am thinking about redesigning my website, where should I start?”

Listen in and read on to find out more:

Key Items

* Requirements Document? - This is a tough one for many businesses owners.  Taking the time to set down and write out a 20-60+ page document that outlines the requirements of a website isn’t usually fun.  Whether you plan on investing $5,000 or upwards of $30,000 on a website, a requirements document will help you to ensure you get the most out of your investment and will help the firm that helps you to meet your goals.  Consider documenting overall functionality and even functionality by templates (i.e. a product template, blog post template, etc) to ensure you cover as many bases as possible.  Dig deep into as many areas of your site as you possibly can such as:

* Integrated Systems - From pixels to CRM systems document what is tied in to your site.

* Content - Are you just moving content? Creating new content? Need to enhance content?

* Style Guide - Do you have your H1-H4's documented? Sizes of buttons? Colors?  Get it all documented for a great user experience.

* Forms - Do you have different contact forms on your site? Where do they get directed to?

* Be prepared for the journey - A redesign can easily take 3 months or longer than a year depending on the size of the site.  If you are migrating a large volume of content then make sure you have a detailed plan of how that content is being moved over to the new site.  Understand that something will go wrong (it always does) even with the best plans.

Joe Says So

* Peter Sagan Montage - With the Tour De France over we are left to wait another year for the great race.  Enjoy Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnAX-xcjytE) and Part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LoQuoSydK8) video from Peter Sagan, winner of the green Jersey to enjoy.

Sponsors

* Perry Marshall (http://www.bridgestwins.com/perry) – As the co-author of the Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords, creator of the Adwords Bootcamp and one who has developed ninja level marketing programs you are sure to find a marketing strategies and tactics that will help your business get to the next level.

* Email Autoresponders (http://www.bridgestwins.com/email/) – Staying connected with existing customers and prospects can be a challenge when you are relying on only your own activity.  Implementing an email autoresponder sequence will help you to engage prospects over time until they are ready to do business with you and keep existing customers thrilled that you are staying in touch.  Find out more about the solutions that can help your business today.

Want Your Challenge Featured?

With each challenge we tackle, we look to not only solve the problem we look to shed light on new opportunities for our listeners.  We invite you listen to a couple of the business owners who shared their challenges (http://www.bridgestwins.com/challenge) and to submit your own today!

Business Challenge

Redesigning a website is a big task.  While many businesses redesigned last year with the need to have a responsive website there are still many businesses that haven’t done a redesign in some time and many more that will need to undertake a redesign in the near future.  Truly a website is “never done”...it just goes through different iterations.

The challenge with redesigning a website is that too often we see that businesses of nearly every size over simplify the task.  The requirements are often something like “please redesign my site, make it look nice”.  Today’s challenge hits right at home with the challenges faced when looking to undertake a redesign.

Today’s challenge is:

“I am thinking about redesigning my website, where should I start?”

Listen in and read on to find out more:

Key Items

* What is the goal? - A new look and feel is great, but it is going to be an investment.  As you look to undertake this investment for your business, how will you judge success?  Is the goal to make it more friendly for mobile visitors?  Is the goal to make it easier to launch new landing pages?  Is the goal just to upgrade the “back-end” to make it easier for your team to use?  While the end result might be a nice looking website, understanding what you expect out of the project will help you as you determine budget and to judge the eventual success.

* Does your platform need to be changed? - There are literally millions of people on Wordpress and maybe that is good for you.  With relatively new entrants (founded in 2006 but quite a bit of momentum of late) to the market like WIX or enterprise level solutions like Sitecore, Adobe, and EPiServer you have a great deal of platforms to select from.  That small list doesn’t even include ecommerce focused platforms such as Magento, Big Commerce, Woocommerce, and more.  While a platform change could be part of your big goal, take the time to consider this as an aspect of your redesign efforts as it can add additional investment and time to the project.

Joe Says So

* Google Material Design (https://material.google.com/) - Google continues to push the internet in all areas.  Explore Google Material Design to see how it is helping transform web design.

Sponsors

* Perry Marshall (http://www.bridgestwins.com/perry) – As the co-author of the Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords, creator of the Adwords Bootcamp and one who has developed ninja level marketing programs you are sure to find a marketing strategies and tactics that will help your business get to the next level.

* Email Autoresponders (http://www.bridgestwins.com/email/) – Staying connected with existing customers and prospects can be a challenge when you are relying on only your own activity.  Implementing an email autoresponder sequence will help you to engage prospects over time until they are ready to do business with you and keep existing customers thrilled that you are staying in touch.  Find out more about the solutions that can help your business today.

Want Your Challenge Featured?

With each challenge we tackle, we look to not only solve the problem we look to shed light on new opportunities for our listeners.  We invite you listen to a couple of the business owners who shared their challenges (http://www.bridgestwins.com/challenge) and to submit your own today!

Business Challenge

After 100 episodes we have been pleased to tackle a variety of challenges on the show.  We get the enviable position of people emailing us and even phoning in the challenges they are facing.

Since we just did an anniversary show in Episode 90 (http://www.bridgestwins.com/episode-90-1-year-anniversary-show/), we thought instead of highlights we would share some of the common challenges that are components to the issues we have tackled on the show.  While we have tackled many specific items on the show, we have found that there are common themes to the challenges.

Yes there are differences in each businesses, but the problems each one faces are more often the same than most would want you to believe! Listen in and read on to find out more about the top 5 common challenges we faced to see how tackling these can help you reach the success you deserve:

Key Items

* Business does not have Documented Systems - Many people start their own companies or even new divisions within larger companies because they are tired of how “things” are being done.  They want to blaze a new trail, grow the business, and they will do whatever it takes to get that growth.  This is good, however, that enthusiasm can often translate to working hard but avoiding processes that will help for long term growth and efficiency.  While you don’t want to have documentation for documentation’s sake, having well defined processes from instructional guides to process maps will help you keep quality high and your company growing.

* Relying on One Marketing System - All too often we see a good business running off of one marketing system (http://www.bridgestwins.com/episode-99-i-have-1-marketing-system-working-whats-next/).  That system might be a dealer network making sales, word of mouth advertising, or even paid search...but relying on one marketing system is where we see businesses susceptible to changes in the economy.  With only one system running businesses can often get stuck in survival mode. Be where you need to be as cost effectively as you possibly can.

* Being Goal Oriented instead of Process Oriented - A close relative of not embracing process is focusing too much on the goals.  For example in an environment where sales are driven by in-person meetings staff can get discouraged if they don’t make a sale on a meeting.  While the sale is the goal, the process to embrace is booking more appointments!  Yes you want to have a high conversion rate, but focusing too much on the end result will leave you discouraged when you go on a bad run.

* Not really being open to Change - People want their business to be better, they want growth, but when asked to make changes we get answers like “we have tried that before, it didn’t work” or “we have always done it that way”.  If you want to get to the next level you will have to embrace true change.  Be open to trying a new method, possibly letting go a “favorite” employee or even ditching a product line.  The more open to change you truly become the greater growth you will enjoy.

* Not Maximizing People or Systems - It often takes an outsider to see what is really going on.  For example if you have an employee that you love, that you think is doing great, and they tell you the best they can do is 20 calls a week (for appointments, bookings, etc.) then you likely accept that that really is the best, especially if everything else is working.  But what happens we diagnosed their schedule and found they could 60 calls a week?  And that 60 calls would triple your revenue...what would you say then?  We see that both in people and in systems that the business isn’t being pushed as far as it could go.  This can mean in pay per click raising the budget to 4x normal or it could mean challenging that go-to employee to do 2x as much activity in the same time.

Sponsors

* Perry Marshall (http://www.bridgestwins.com/perry) – As the co-author of the Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords,