by MHolland | Jul 25, 2024 | Business Tips, Systems
As I have written in previous blogs, I use an app called Freedom to control my app use on my phone…
There are a few things I do to limit my online usage.
First…
Block Your Favorites
What? Block your favorites? Yup.
Why block where you will never go!?
If you have favorite newsfeeds/sites, consider limiting your use to 30 minutes a day as an example.
For me, I only need to block about 6 sites that I habitually go to for good articles and news.
For example, I do not read CBC online. So, no need to block.
Sometimes I go on a complete fast of all sites, all the time for an extended period of time.
Here is a million-dollar question – if you spend 30 minutes scrolling newsfeeds or social media versus 30 minutes reading a classic novel by Dostoyevsky or Flannery O’Connor, which will nourish your mind and spirit more?
After all, we only have one life and only so much time. None of us would spend hours a day in a casino in Las Vegas month in month out. Would we?
Social media is like spending hours in Las Vegas, with no hope of a payout, except a truckload of non-cashable likes.
The way your cell phone is setup to addict you and draw you in and keep you in is frightening.
Check out this blog post from Freedom to discover all their tricks:
What’s Behind an App Design?
Turn Off Your Notifications
Notifications are a major distraction.
I read somewhere recently that it takes 20 minutes! (yikes) to refocus after a minor disruption in your work.
I use Telegram a lot. For business, for setting up community groups, staying in touch with our children, and for friends.
What I do is archive chat groups that are particularly busy and annoying. By archiving I do not see the notifications at all. When I want to know what is going on, I have to physically go to them and find them in the app.
My email notifications are turned off.
Heck, ALL my notifications are turned off. My phone is usually on silent mode (not even vibrate).
I have all my messaging apps blocked using my Freedom app from 9:30pm to 6:30am. No possibility of late night, nor early morning messaging.
I turn my phone off at night and leave it in another room.
All of the above has immensely improved my productivity and peace of mind.
I wish you the same!
Thanks for reading…
by MHolland | Jul 10, 2024 | Business Tips, Selling Tips, Systems
This week I am sharing a different kind of newsletter…
Updates, business news, and marketing tips from around the world. Let me know what you think.
Would an AI Boss Be Better Than A Human?
The concept of AI managers is pretty out there, right? This is about a Vancouver, BC company who experimented with AI as a manager of their Team, Fascinating results, especially the hybrid approach!
As in all these cutting edge, new technologies emerging in the AI space, cybersecurity risks are lurking.
The 5 Maverick Rules for Social Media Marketing Success
Social media marketing is not for the faint of heart. Implement these five unconventional techniques into your social media strategy to streamline efforts, reduce stress, and consistently deliver value to your audience.
Tips for Successful Lead Generation (Insights from Experts)
Building a high-quality pipeline is challenging, and Google isn’t making it any easier. Discover nine expert insights from a recent webinar to elevate your lead generation efforts.
Understanding Customer Sentiment: Definition, Measurement Methods, and Best Practices
Customer sentiment measures how customers perceive a company, its offerings, and customer support. When utilized effectively, it enhances customer retention and satisfaction, offers insights for product improvement, and sustains competitive advantage.
Key SEO Metrics That Matter in 2024
Tracking essential metrics is key for maximizing online performance and ensuring sustained SEO success. This article identifies the critical metrics for 2024 that will enhance your SEO performance.
Elements of an Effective Retention Strategy
Amid ongoing reports of the Great Resignation, employers must bolster their retention strategies to avert a mass exodus of talent, which could lead to declines in work quality and operational disruptions.
How Your Email Address Could Be Undermining Trust
Your email address presentation significantly affects how recipients perceive your communications. In an era of cybersecurity concerns and phishing attacks, the choice of email address can either build or undermine trust.
Get in touch
Thanks for reading, and know if you have any questions or want to discuss the next steps for your business.
by MHolland | Jul 5, 2024 | Business Tips, Selling Tips, Systems
Three tier pricing – sounds fancy, what the heck is it for?
I love stealing ideas from other industries and applying it to ones no one expects would fit.
When we had an office in Victoria, BC we ushered clients into our conference room, and presented them with a leather-bound menu. As in a high-end restaurant.
We offered large, organic lattes, and expressos. Organic teas, and organic snacks from the Cascadia bakery up the street. Oh, and fresh squeezed orange juice.
In an accounting office??
Yes! And it blew people away. We had clients who would stop in, order a latte, and ask if they could work in our conference room. They loved it, and so did we…
Okay, back to the topic at hand – 3-Tier pricing.
Which industry are we “stealing” this concept from?
3 Tier Pricing in The Software Industry
The pioneers of 3 tier pricing are software companies. Precisely, companies offering software as a service online, in the cloud.
They did it for 2 exceptionally good reasons.
First, let us define it…
3 Tier pricing (we have all seen it by now) is where a software company offers 3 levels of pricing. The levels can be called anything.
Examples are – Core (level 1), Professional (level 2), and Pro Plus (level 3).
Or, Bronze, Silver, Gold.
I have seen a gazillion labels being used. The labels are less relevant as the simplicity of seeing quickly what is included in each level.
By the way, I have never seen 2 tier pricing, nor have I seen 4 level and above.
Two tier is too basic, and anything above 3 levels is too complex.
Simple choices lead people to decide.
Complex choices stop people from deciding (even when they want what you are offering).
What is The Purpose of 3 Tier Pricing?
First, it gets more people try out what you are offering because they can start at a basic, cost-effective level with your core service.
Second, and most important, it gives people real value and does not mean you reject good, potential new customers or clients.
Third, by giving people a choice you do not need to go into hard negotiations on discounting. You have done the discounting for them.
How to Implement 3 Tier Pricing?
Number one, come up some creative and relevant labels for the 3 tiers you want to create.
Start with your basic level and add features that you are offering in a language that your customers/clients will understand.
Make sure they are benefit driven and what they really want.
In the basic level, do not include too much.
Why not?
Because if you include too many features there will be zero motivation for your clientele to move up to the next level.
Make Sure Level 1 is Profitable
Offer enough features in level one that will delight your clients. (Do not leave them starving for more!)
Set the pricing at a level that will encourage people who cannot afford the higher levels to buy.
Set the price of level 1 at the value you feel your clients/customers will pay.
Do not think of your costs.
Now Reverse Engineer Your Offering
Now that you have tentatively set your price, look at what your costs will be for delivering this bundle of products and services.
Make sure you are profitable.
The beauty of 3 tier pricing is that, even at the basic level you will have clearly defined what is included in your offering.
If your clientele demand more, they have simply moved up to the next level of services.
If they do not want the next level, you simply can add some features and add additional pricing for them.
How to Setup Level 2 of Your 3 Tier Pricing?
For level 2, add new features, unavailable in level 1, that you know many of your clients want and will value.
Many of your customers/clients will choose the middle level.
It has to do with core psychology of us humans.
Many of us, do not want to be in the Basic level. Yet, we may have sticker shock with the premium level. The mid tier level will fit most of your clients.
Therefore, spend more time at this level to get it exactly right.
Include more features than the Basic Level, yet not too much more, or it will cost you too much to deliver the total package.
Your Top or Gold Level Package
For the Gold level, add all the features that will offer a white-glove level of service, and will be priced accordingly.
Once done, you will end up with a kind of bell curve of new clients. 20% may choose level 1, 70% level 2, and 10% the Gold or top tier level.
Once you have set your included features, sharpen your pencil, and see if you can profitably offer the Gold package.
It will do you little good to offer so much and find out it will be costing you even more to deliver to your Gold clientele!
How to Present your 3 Tier Pricing?
If you are doing presentations to your customers or clients either online or in person, then here is how it should proceed…
Start with your Gold level. Go through your Ultimate, Level 3 package with all your bells and whistles.
Why?
In order to create some sticker shock!
If you see your client having difficulty breathing after showing level 3, you are doing good! 😊
Once the sticker shock has passed and your client is breathing again, you can present the other 2 tiers.
Many will choose the Silver Package or Level 2.
It will occur as more affordable and just the right amount of features.
For those with tighter budgets, or just wanting to check you out, they will go with Level 1, or Bronze.
In Summary
If you only offer one size pricing, you force your clients/customers into a negotiating stance.
They may want you to strip out features and reduce the price.
By offering the tiers, you leave your customers with the opportunity to simply choose for themselves.
This leads to more customers, and happier customers, who are getting exactly what you promised.
Last bit of advice – do not offer too much in the lowest package, or all of your prospects will choose that level.
And, also, do not offer too much in the middle package or your costs will be driven up.
Thanks for reading….
by MHolland | Jun 27, 2024 | Business Tips, Systems
In business it is quite easy to fall into a common mindset trap…
I call it the Strategic Mindset Trap.
What do I mean?
The Strategic Mindset Trap
Being strategic is not a bad thing. As a kind of mindset or initial focus for your business, it is deadly.
Having a strategic mindset is when you look at everything through the lens of “how can I maneuver my business to make money based on what the market will pay for?”
Everything is based on the following distinctions:
- How can I make money?
- What are people paying for now?
- What do they need?
- How can my business add more services to take advantage of what people will pay for?
So, what is wrong with that?
Nothing. It is just in the wrong order.
The right questions and focus have been neglected if you start with strategy before this…
Vision Comes First
Why are you in business?
What excites you?
What will get you out of bed early in the morning and keep you up late?
What difference do you want to make for others?
If you are only in business to make money, you will not be able to sustain your focus for the long-term.
Here are some examples of a vision statement –
“To give our clients the tools, system and support to create an extraordinary business.”
“To empower entrepreneurs to make better, faster decisions to help their businesses and families prosper.”
“To help small businesses grow by providing automated and reliable accounting services.”
Do you see how the focus is entirely on being a contribution to others?
Boring Strategy Statements
“We will do 5,000 tax returns this season (subtext – so we can make a lot of money and take a few months off work).”
Maybe the business is passionate about doing 5,000 tax returns, if yes, it should be stated as something about the people the business has the privilege to serve.
“We love to legally save taxes for our clients, so they have more money in their pocket.”
Shiny Object Syndrome
Strategic thinking leads to shiny object syndrome.
When a businessperson is thinking strategically, they tend to look at every new idea that passes their desk as an opportunity to…do what? make money of course.
When you have a burning why for your life and your business, you get focused.
What fits your why, you grab. What does not fit you say no to.
When do people get the most strategic in their business?
A Business in Trouble
What I have seen in my coaching of hundreds of businesses is that when a business is in financial distress, they slip into strategic thinking.
They are desperate for a way out of their cash-flow woes.
Every shiny object becomes an answer to their dilemma!
And the problem is this – it will not last.
Without a burning why, you cannot sustain a strategic focus.
Money is never a long-term motivator – for you, nor your Team.
The best thing to do when having cash-flow woes is to revert to your why.
What to Do Next?
Once you have your why, re-focus on your service/product deliveries and create something unique. Package it in a unique way so you stand out from the others.
Find out what problem your why solves.
Price your product and service in a way that relates to the value you bring to your customers and clients.
In Summary
Here are some questions to help develop your why statement…
- What do I love to do? What am I passionate about?
- What impact do I want to make in our customers/clients’ lives?
- What problem does my business solve?
- How can I package my services/products in a unique way that excites me, my Team, and our customers/clients?
- What are people willing to pay for?
- What am I good at, or willing to get good at?
Even if you have a well-established business, these questions can help you get re-focused on what really matters…. making a difference for others.
Lastly, I am sure you noticed that strategic thinking is all about you, and visionary thinking is all about making a difference for others.
Thanks for reading…
by MHolland | Mar 12, 2024 | Business Tips, Systems
Over the next 3 weeks I will be sharing with you 7 Essential Secrets to building a business that works…
Works for who?
Works for you, sometimes the least focused on person(s) in a business. You do not need to be a slave to your business. With focused, intentional design your business nightmare can be transformed into a dream.
These “secrets” individually are not really that secret. However, few businesses put these elements together as a collective whole, and that is a secret.
This week I am going to write about Secret #1 and Secret #2.
Let us get started…
Secret #1 – Vision
The Problem here is most people start building a business without any vision.
They just start making it up and wonder why at the end of it what they have is not working (for them).
In other words, it does not give them the things they went into business for in the first place.
What is it that people go into business for in the first place?
What we have discovered is that most people go into business to have freedom, financial independence, control of their destiny, and peace of mind.
Yet, is that what you think most businesspeople end up with?
Not really, right?
A Vision gives you the direction you are going in.
A Vision needs to be created in a way that has these elements:
- Time frame (usually 3 years).
- Description of your niche and the services you provide that niche.
- Has a strong emotional wording that inspires you every time you say it or even think about it. It gets you out of bed in the morning.
- Lastly, it has a dollar figure in it.
For example, if we decided right now to go on a road trip together and did not discuss where, when, and how we are going to get there (and we do not know where we are going anyway)– how far do you think we will get?
Or where do you think we would end up?
It is ludicrous to even imagine what that would be like, isn’t it?
The same if we were going to build a house and just grab some tools, and start building and hope that when it is all done, we have a beautiful, safe home to live in.
Again, we all know how absurd that is, and yet that is exactly what people do when they start a business. They have some vague sense of what they want, and the industry they are in, and they just start acting.
Why do you think in business that we approach things like that?
It is because we do not know that a business has a design (or needs to have a design) in the same way that a house does.
In fact, it is a bit worse than that! It goes like this – most people think that because they are good at the technical aspects of their trade, or profession or craft that means they are automatically good at that kind of business.
The problem is that a business operates along distinct design elements separate from the work of the business. For example, Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds never knew how to (or did not ever) serve one single hamburger.
His vision was a system that could be replicated repeatedly. This is what I mean by an elegantly designed business.
Secret #2 – There Are Only 4 Ways to Grow Your Business
If we were to start a brainstorming session and write down on white boards each way, we could think to grow a business how many distinct ways do you think we could produce?
If we had enough time, we could list hundreds if not thousands of different ideas and strategies to grow a business, yes?
Well, the problem is, it gets so overwhelming, with so many ideas and we have no way of knowing or measuring the actual cost and leverage of each way!
Where do you begin? How do you know what will work?
Well, the answer is – and this is great news – there are only 4 ways to grow your business!
And each idea we would have listed above will fit inside one of these 4 ways to grow.
We all intuitively know what they are!
Let me share with you…
Way Number 1 – Increase The Number of Customers of The Type You Want
Way Number 2 – Increase The Number of Times Your Customers Do Business with You
Way Number 3 – Increase The Amount of Money They Spend with You in Each Transaction
Way Number 4 – Increase The Efficiency and Effectiveness of Each Process in Your Business
And the exciting part of this way of thinking with the 4 Ways to Grow is that we can measure the impact on your profits for each way, and discover which way is the most leveraged.
Here is a simple way to break this down…
How Are the 4 Ways Measured?
Your total sales are composed of the first 3 ways to grow your business.
Your total customers X the number of times they buy from you on average X the average sale per transaction = your total sales.
When you work at increasing (even in small increments) all 3 ways at once, the compounding effect can be extraordinary.
To measure way number 4, you take your total expenses and divided it by the number of transactions to give you the cost per transaction.
When you lower the cost per transaction without sacrificing quality, service, or on-time delivery, you will be more efficient.
This is way number 4.
Thank you for reading…
by MHolland | Feb 28, 2024 | Business Tips, Systems
I love simple things. How about you?
Design may be complex in its underlying dimensions. Yet when it has that look and feel of simple elegance it comes across like poetry in motion…
When it comes to being more effective in my business, I am an advocate of intense blocks of focussed time.
Multi-tasking diminishes productivity. Using yourself as a testing ground try it out one day. Schedule nothing. Take on nine tasks for the day. Jump from one to the other. Get them all revved up at once and have nine multiple tasks to focus on at once.
The truth is that multi-tasking is a myth because you can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Someone may move from one task to another at lightning speed, yet it is still just.one.thing.at.a.time.
Even a juggler with four balls in the air is only juggling one ball at a time.
My Past Habit
I learned many years ago to focus on only one thing at a time. I list three main things each day to do. Three of the most important things.
Then I schedule three ninety-minute blocks of time that I called Power Blocks.
It has worked for me. The problem I have found as I looked at my actual habits is that is too long a block! And multiple distractions can impinge on those boundaries.
I recently learned a new technique called…
The Pomodoro Technique
Again, this is ridiculously simple…
So stupidly simple that you might overlook its elegance.
It is the brainchild of a man named Francesco Cirillo who developed this technique in the 1980s while a student in Italy.
He needed to focus on his studies one evening and was struggling. He took a tomato shaped timer (Pomodoro is tomato in Italian) from the kitchen and set it for 10 minutes. His hyper focus resulted in astounding results.
Here is the technique in modified form:
- Select one task to work on
- Set a timer for 25 minutes.
- Work until the timer rings.
- When the timer rings, take a five-minute break.
- Repeat
- After every 3 or 4 Pomodoros, take a 15-minute break.
How This Applies in Business
Ask yourself when your highest most natural productive energies emerge.
Are you a morning person, or afternoon person, or evening person?
Schedule your Pomodoros (cool word, isn’t it?) during your most productive time.
Eliminate all distractions. Turn off your notifications on your phone and computer. Do not look at emails.
Get focused on your one task.
Adapt it to Your Own Needs
Some parts of your day cannot (and should not be tightly scheduled). You may need to have open blocks of time to be available to react to specific problems that come up.
The beauty of the 25-minute block with a Pomodoro is that anyone can find one 25-minute block of time in the day!
Today I used the Pomodoro technique to get a report done for a Charity that I had been avoiding.
I went past the 25-minute block because I was almost done at the end of twenty-five minutes!
Frankly, I was shocked that I could get that much done in this brief time block.
Apply This to Business Meetings
A lot of business meetings go on far too long. Try setting a meeting for 25 minutes. Set a tight, achievable agenda.
If you need more time, you can take a 5-minute breaks and add twenty-five minutes.
It may seem odd, yet I will assert that I believe you will accomplish more in two 25-minute blocks than inside of one 60-minute block.
Also, the strange timing of twenty-five minutes versus thirty or sixty minutes will put people on alert that everyone needs to focus to get things done.
In Closing
I used the Pomodoro technique for this blog, and it took just one Pomodoro plus an extra 3 minutes!
To read more about this elegant technique, please click here:
https://freedom.to/blog/the-pomodoro-technique/
Thank you for reading…
