Your Business Sucks Because You Suck at Business

Before I get into todays guest post from Ethan Waldman I thought I’d prod you gently one final time and let you know my e-book ‘How Do I Set Goals That Work?’ will be shipping to my newsletter readers free of charge within the next week.

If you want a copy get yourself signed up in the box on the left and without doubt you’ll be the Supreme Lord of the Universe by this time next year, so it would be silly not to.*

*Whereas becoming Supreme Lord of the Universe will almost certainly ensue from reading and implementing the sage advice contained within ‘How Do I Set Goals That Work?’ I make no promises.

As such, I will not be held  legally accountable if you only manage to become Assistant to the Lord of the Universe or just end up feeling much happier with life. Suck it up!

Your Business Sucks Because You Suck at Business

As a technology coach for businesses that don’t usually use technology, I get a chance to talk to a lot of sole proprietors. People come to me with the desire to leverage technology to increase sales and get more clients (totally doable).

These are businesses which have either just launched are just squeaking by. Unfortunately, learning some new marketing techniques can be helpful, but they don’t get to the root of the problem.

Let me remind you that your website, email list, and social media presence are just means to an end.

They are communication platforms that enable you to reach your customers.  What you do with these channels of communication is entirely up to you and goes beyond technology for your business.

If you’re screwing this up, you don’t need a prettier website: Your business sucks because you suck at business.

Learning how to use social media or an email list to save your business is like trying to use duct tape to re-attach the side view mirror to your car after you’ve accidentally driven into the mailbox.  It’s a temporary fix, and it looks ugly.

Does this sound like you? Let’s step back and look at the underlying problems that are common amongst people who suck at business:

Talking To Customers

Remember them? Customers? They are the people who visit your website, sign up for your email list and like your page on Facebook.

They do those things for a reason: They want to interact with you. They don’t want to feel like they are interacting with a robot or an advertisement.

Here’s how to fix it:

Consistency

Say you’re a Life Coach and you collected a bunch of email addresses at a recent speaking event you attended.

You presented, you worked the room, and you had lots of people write their info down on a sheet of paper.  Great job!

What you didn’t do is get home that night, load them into your email list provider immediately, and send them a tailored message thanking them and welcoming them to your email list.  Now it’s been 6 weeks and you still haven’t contacted them.

Unfortunately, when you finally do contact these people they may not remember you at all.  “Who is this person and why are they sending me an email?” will be a more common response.

You suck at business if you do not consistently communicate with your clients.

This is easy to rectify. Take out your calendar and mark off one day each month that you’re going to sit down and write a message to your list.

Update your social media “outposts” at least once a week.  It shouldn’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes to post an intriguing question to your Facebook wall that people will want to answer.

Exchanging Value

This is where we talk about not sounding like a walking advertisement.  When you boil it down, there are two modes of communication you can have with your clients (outside of actually doing work for them).

Giving Value: These are your helpful blog posts, insightful emails, free content, webinars, public events, etc.  They are attractive to customers because they are getting something from you without paying.

Promoting: I don’t want to call this “taking value”, because promoting yourself doesn’t take away value if you do it properly. But this is the communication where you are promoting an event, service, or product. This is when you are asking for them to sign up, buy, or attend something.

You need to strike a balance between these two kinds of communication. Here’s why:

• If all you ever do is give value, people come to expect it. (Tims note: This was definitely a situation I got myself into – so listen up!)  When you finally do try to promote yourself, people will react harshly and probably unsubscribe from your list, un-like you, etc. Remember how you felt when your favorite band “sold out” and put their song in a toothpaste commercial? Your customers will feel the same way if all you ever do is give and never promote.

• If all you ever do is promote, people will quickly get turned off to your communications because people don’t like to feel like they are being sold to all the time. You become the equivalent of the direct mail that goes straight to the recycling bin when it gets delivered.

Getting Paid

People who suck at business usually suck at getting paid. Here’s an example:

I have a close friend who is a fabulously talented woodworker who for some reason feels compelled to work for free or cheap.  It turns out that all of his clients are his friends.  If they aren’t a friend when he starts working for them, they are usually a friend by the time he’s done.

He’s a social magnet and can’t help but buddy up with everyone he meets.  When it comes time to get paid, he throws in way too many favors and charges way too little.  The result is that although he has plenty of work and rave reviews, the business is struggling because he sucks at getting paid.

At it’s core, this is usually a confidence issue that stems from not valuing your own work. It can also come from the belief that making a profit is wrong, or that you can’t charge people you know.

If you are struggling financially in businesses, think back to your last 3 interactions and ask yourself if you actually got paid what the job was worth. If the answer is no, why did you discount your work? Did the customer even ask to pay less?

If you have a Life Coach or mentor, this would be a great thing to talk about with them.

You can be an exceptionally talented Coach/craftsperson/artist, but still struggle at making ends meet. Getting better at your craft won’t fix this problem.  Learning how to communicate with your customers and how to get paid will.

Before you think about building a better website or joining another social network, remember that you can’t solve a business problem with technology alone.  Technology may very well be part of the solution, but it is only a channel through which to communicate with potential clients.

Your business sucks because you suck at business.

Ethan Waldman helps offline business owners create an online presence to get more customers. Right now, many people are using his free 4-day course, Pre-Sold & Hooked, to build a profitable and responsive email list for their businesses.