Is it really Business?

Posted by Roberta Budvietas on Mar 20, 2013 in Behavior, Business, Change | 5 comments

Over the last few weeks we have been undergoing change.

Change in address.
Change in philosophy but no change to vision or purpose
Passionate Purposeful Performers Learn
Change in operational methods
Change in ideas and positions.

Several things sparked this change.

The researching of “Stop the Success Thieves” and the writing of the book. The interviews around the book but more importantly looking at a new direction for our life by undertaking the Rich Dad Poor Dad Real Estate Coaching Program.

Now in looking at the program, two things stood out:

The concept of Rich Dad’s CASHFLOW Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom
And the systems required by every business for optimal efficiency.

In looking at the systems one thing we found – we are great at implementing them in other businesses, just remiss in implementing them in our own. So that changes NOW!

Want to know the key systems a BUSINESS needs?

Broadly they are

Daily Office Operations Systems – need to do every day things like phone, mail, email, managing orders and delivery
Product Development Systems – those things that you need to do to ensure you legally have products to sell
Manufacturing and Inventory Systems – even in today’s online information products, what happens when your website goes down?
Order Processing Systems – how do you take and fulfill orders
Billing and Accounts Receivable Systems – unless you get the money in, your business will fall over
Client Services Systems – what happens if there is a problem/
Accounts Payable Systems – you need to pay your bills
Marketing Systems – Finding out what people want and telling them you have it
Human Resources Systems – getting the right people working for you
General Accounting Systems – keeping track and paying taxes
General Business Systems – how and why you do business
Physical Space Management Systems – even virtually, people need to work somewhere and have the tools to work.

To find out more get yourself a copy of Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

So yes self employment is great but to move to a business person and investor, we are upping the game. The idea here is to share the journey and help you become more successful too

To your future

Roberta Budvietas

3 Ways to Test your Ideas

Posted by Roberta Budvietas on Mar 6, 2013 in Business, Marketing, Research | 0 comments

There are more than three ways to test your ideas but these three can be a great time saver as well as a good indication that there is a need your idea can meet profitably. (NOTE: Profit = money in your pocket)

In business the number one challenge with any idea is to get the idea to market and once to market, get information to enough people who then are willing to buy the product or service. Money is usually needed to do both so before you put your hand in your pocket or the pocket of investors do some simple testing and see if you have an idea that can earn $$$$s.

Remember: There are millions of GOOD Ideas

but only a few actually ever generate significant money

Test ONE

On Amazon, how many books are published about your idea? Rather than look for what your idea specifically, look for what people have written that solves a similar problem.

Let’s say we have an idea of to keep skin supple. We could then look on Amazon for books on skin care, appearing younger or even looking more beautiful. Skin care gives us 447,958 entries, appearing younger gives us 91 entries, and looking beautiful gives us 57,870 entries. From this we could say that a few others have identified a similar problem and come up with some workable solutions. But we have no idea how big the market is.

Test TWO

On Google or Bing do a similar search. Skin care gives us 165,000,000 items which says a few people look for skin care. We can confirm this number by going to Google keyword research and seeing what the competition is.

Now as you can see, lots of people deal with skin care but appearing younger and looking beautiful are not as popular or searched for quite so often.

If I enter supple skin, we see that the competition for the term is at a

Medium level but only

2,400 people search for that monthly.

So what that tells me is that while there may be a need, the chances of making good dollars without investing a lot of time and money is small.

Redefine your need and how you would approach the market

Test THREE

Conduct some surveys. Survey monkey is a great free tool for surveys but for you the challenge will always be to get enough responders. It takes time and money to reach enough people to find out if anyone wants that glorious supple skin that your idea will produce.

So other surveys you can do include Facebook Questions. Questions on other social media sites. You could create some conversations around the idea with people on Google+ and in forums. But find out the language people are using and how they see this problem.

This is a key test because it actually engages your audience and helps you develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

WARNING: While you can ask family and friends, they will either pan the idea to prevent you losing out or out of jealousy or they will love your idea because they want to be supportive. Either way, their opinion is colored so treat the information carefully.

Caveat

Unless you are prepared to test your idea, you could have loads of great product going off in your garage or basement.

I will never forget throwing out $500,000 of women’s vitamins because the company I worked with did not test their idea before they went to market.

ARROGANCE brings many a producer and marketer to their knees.

TEST and test again

To your success in taking ideas to $$$$s

Roberta Budvietas

Turning Ideas into $$$$s takes WORK!

Posted by Roberta Budvietas on Feb 27, 2013 in Advertising, Business | 0 comments

Are you always on the outlook for new ideas to turn your ideas into $$$$s?

Do you look at new promotional media and new ways to to get the word out about your product or service or do you do the same old

media (magazines, newspapers, Television)?

DIGITAL has CHANGED the WORLD

According to an article in Newspaper Death Watch professional marketers are changing their use of media, especially print. Depending on their target audience, they are using the media that is actually relevant to their audiences. That sometimes means digital. That could mean visual in places where their prospects frequent or it could mean finding new fun promotional techniques to help people reach their audience.

The professionals are aware that the world has changed.

(professionals meaning here people who are paid to do the promotion)

Competitions, social media promotions and games or contests allow direct and indirect promotion. They create fun and excitement. One such option is a scavenger hunt like the one currently being run by Firepole Marketing. (Wow do I admire what they are doing)

Now doing a contest or a competition, a scavenger hunt or even a social media campaign takes WORK.

You need to keep priming the pump.

You need to keep the excitement happening.

You need to track what you are delivering.

You need to keep people informed about what is happening

In the good old days of advertising, you designed your ad, placed it in your media and made sure that when people responded to the ad, your suppliers and staff could fulfill the orders. The work came in preparing the ad and making sure you could deliver what was promised in your advertisement.

In the second decade of the 21st century, you need to keep the energy and excitement going.

You need to respond to the tweets,
Support the Facebook likes, shares and comments,
Answer questions and comments on blogs and
Spend time and energy interacting with people to keep the excitement up.

And that is WORK.

Work that many small business people fail to understand or plan for.

Yes Virtual assistants can help you but only if they have clear, measurable goals.

The other day, Sherryl Perry, in Keep up with the Web wrote a blog on what to measure (Tracking Your Blog Post SEO Meta Tag Data). I asked Sherryl about how she tracks and I am hoping that she will write a blog around her answer to my comment. One thing – even to track takes WORK.

Writing a book takes WORK!

Writing a blog takes WORK!

Creating a product takes WORK!

Delivering a service takes WORK!

Building a relationship takes WORK!

Maintaining a relationship once built takes WORK!

Work is a four letter word but it is one that will help you earn dollars rather than one that gets your mouth washed out with soap (do they still do that?).

If you want to turn your ideas into dollars, you need to plan to work. And finding out what to work at, what to do takes PLANNING and PREPARATION.

Remember if you have the money to pay others to do the work, you are using the money that you worked for to save you time and buy the time and effort of others.

WORK costs – money and time.

What work are you doing today to help your ideas become the dollars you want? Share your work in the comments below. And yes that takes work but it helps get your message to a wider audience.

To your success in making those ideas = $$$$$s

How to use Blogging to turn Ideas into $$$$s

Posted by Roberta Budvietas on Feb 20, 2013 in Business, Promotion | 6 comments

Blogging helps you turn your ideas into $$$$s.

Blogging is a promotional tools that allows you to tell the story about your idea and still ask for the order. It is usually a subtle form of advertising but more importantly what it offers your reader is the opportunity to connect with you and see you as a person interested in helping them solve their problem.

In a blog, you can tell stories of how your product or service works. You can show video, do podcasts or just provide information that helps build a relationship. But a powerful tool for blogging is learning to Guest Blog. Over the last few months, I have been learning the importance of Guest Blogging from Jon Morrow.

Guest blogging can take several forms:

You can be invited to guest blog. I have been privileged to guest blog with wonderful people like Lynn Brown of Learn It 2 Earn It plus several other Facebook friends.
- This usually means that your friend believes your content will be benefit their readers.
- You can volunteer to write blogs for your friends if your content fits their content and then they invite you to contribute.
- You can join sites that allow you to share unique blogs.
Ask to guest post. There are dozens of posts on the market that depend on guest posters to post on their blog. Jon Morrow is one of the most successful in teaching how to do this. You can find out more by clicking the link at the side.
- And Jon’s Headline Hacks is a tool I use almost every day when I write blogs, landing pages, sales pages, articles or chapters for a book or a presentation. They are FABULOUS and FREE.
Submit posts just as you would articles. While this is strictly not guest blogging, if someone searches Squidoo or Mashable and finds your blog then it has the same effect as a guest post just less directed and focused. You can submit your post to groups and if your headline is good enough or your friends are helping you, they will share your post, comment on your post or just generally help build your credibility. In 2009, I joined a group on Facebook that helped me take the blogs on Get out of Stuck Excel from an Alexa ranking of 5 million to under 1 million. Unfortunately since then, it has gone back up to over 1 million. (But working on that).

Why Guest Blog?

Thousands of blogs are posted EVERY HOUR of the day. Take a look at some of the infographics on Pinterest to see some of the infographics and numbers, especially the content Marketing Explosion Infographic.

This blog’s readership grows every day but blogs like Firepole Marketing, Copyblogger, Problogger or Stepcase Lifehack to mention just a small number grow even more because a blog with thousands of followers has a bigger pool to pull followers from.

“Some Simple Math”

1% of 100 blog readers = 1 new follower

1% of 1000 blog readers = 10 new followers

1% of 10,000 blog readers = 100 followers for your blog.

Learn about Guest Blogging.

Blog on your own website.

Blog on organisational and association websites (but make sure you follow their rules).

TELL the WORLD about how your product or service Helps

Blogging is replacing many different off-line communication tools. Blogging allows you to tell your story and help people LOVE YOU or your product!

Blogging is one of the least expensive ways of testing an idea, promoting your idea and building the fan base to have people FOLLOW and BUY your products or services.

Will you blog today? In the comment box, promote your blog and I promise to comment on your blog link.

Enjoy today

Roberta Budvietas

What is your idea worth?

Posted by Roberta Budvietas on Feb 14, 2013 in Business, Mindset, Needs | 0 comments

Everyday someone, somewhere has an idea. An idea for a new way to deal with hair, gardens, food, a new design for clothing, furniture or software application.

But 99.9% of those ideas will never see the light of day.

And 99.8% of those ideas will be thought of by several people at around the same time.

Why?

Because ideas to become dollars takes WORK.

Willingness to invest – time, energy and money to take the idea to dollars
Objectives – a strategy, goals, a clear purpose and vision so that the investment has a chance of paying off
Rationale – people either have the want or the desire and the willingness and the wherewithal to buy the results of your idea.
Knowhow – you know how to plan, develop the idea, find the resources to take your idea to market, promote your product and convince people to part with their money for your finished product or service.