The Business Survival Guide: Recent Episodes
Scott McFall
A podcast about the skills and attitudes you need to be successful in business and life, with your host Scott McFall.
Last week we hosted a conference call instead of recording the podcast because of technical difficulties (go subscribe so you'll know if that happens again). Today we're going over some of the questions that came up on that call.
One of the questions that came up on the call was: “How can I increase my revenue by 200% next year?”
There are a couple of things you need to do to work toward's doubling your revenue in 2017. This podcast gets into tracking marketing and advertising, lead magnets, and what's the best way to think about Facebook from a small business standpoint.
Question: In businesses where employees frequently call in sick and everyone else has to pick up the slack, what can managers and other employees do to fix the culture?
Bluntly, the employees who are not the problem are best off pretending the problem doesn't exist. That's in their best interest. They can of course use social pressure to try and change things but that can go sideways quickly.
Managers need to do the fundamentals well: documenting, being direct, and so on. But in this episode we'll get into the number one thing that will stop employees from behaving in this way. It's not what you'd think.
Rely too heavily on word of mouth? Do you get results, but struggle to get clients?
We'll get into why it's so important to learn to advertise, why word of mouth isn't always your friend, and how being embarrassed actually led me into an excellent consulting relationship that changed my business in ways I didn't expect.
Great listener question from Tracy in today's episode:
My biggest challenge is definitely not having the belief in myself to advertise. I always shy away from social media (I am actually trying to master Facebook as I answer this) and there is a self-doubt that always holds me back. I have taken two of your courses, and many others. that When I leave said courses, I actually believe I can use the approaches taught to expand my business, but when I get home, it all disappears. I always seem to fall back into the same old routine. Word of mouth was always my biggest promotor, but five years ago, I moved regions and it has been very difficult not knowing anyone and finding new clients. My clients succeed when I work with them, however, I just struggle to get them.
We talk a lot about the foundations you need in advertising. I recommend How To Write A Good Advertisement by Victor Schwab to get the fundamentals.
I think that there are two different types of thinkers in this world, folks. I think there are performers and I think that there are actually teachers. Teachers can perform but they can also really see what's going on with other people—and selling is really becoming a fabulous decision teacher.
In sales, we talk about all kinds of ridiculous concepts—that almost always make the sales professional focus on their own performance. This is a total catastrophe and it is absolutely the wrong way to think. So I'm going to give you a little recipe today that helps you to grasp how real geniuses focus on sales.
Real sales geniuses are extremely compulsive about being focused on other people. They are problem solvers for other people.
You need to have the sense of security that allows you to know that you are, overall, mostly liked or that you accept yourself so you can just walk in and really be interested in what they want and need—and really feel that you are the facilitator of getting them what they needed or wanted in the first place.
With that attitude your outcome of having the maximum number of people, who need what you're selling, choose to buy, is most likely going to happen from that point of view. This of course also limits returns and it limits problems later.
So as you review this podcast you are going to be hearing an outline that begins with curiosity about them, begins with amplifying their own already perceived wants and needs.
I look forward to visiting with you again in the next edition of the podcast.
Have a question you need answered? Submit a question for the podcast.
There's no way to manage time. It's going. You can't stop it. The real issue is that when you're working for yourself sometimes you "just don't feel like it." Imagine a 3 year old pouting—sometimes that really how we act once we become our own bosses... except we're acting out against ourselves.
So what you really see as an entrepreneur is an incredible need to manage your mood. It's easy to identify in others, but hard to accept ourselves.
The good news is it really doesn't have to be so bad. We're running our own business, we're living the life we want to live, shouldn't we be able to enjoy it? Yes! Let's get into it.
Sibling rivalry, spousal jealousy, overprotective people—we'll get into all of that today. It's time to look at the parts of running a business that most people sweep under the rug. It's a big mess, but we'll get into it today and really dive in if people submit a lot more questions about it.
We've talked about people wanting all of their relationships to be "nice" and neat in their business life. But what about their personal life
Setting boundaries early is great to talk about, but most people can't implement them because they don't first set outcomes. How do they expect to set boundaries that make sense before they know the goals they're trying to achieve?
I’ve been doing this a long time. Running my own businesses, helping other people grow to million dollar businesses, and seeing people make the same mistakes over and over.
If you’re smart, you can learn from the mistakes of others. And those mistakes are exactly what we’re going to talk about in this the second episode of both the podcast and the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp.
Go to TheBusinessSurvivalGuide.com to submit a challenge you’re having with your business and, if you really spell it out, it might make it onto a future episode of the show!
Take a moment and think about your future. Imagine the life you want to live and imagine the successful business (or businesses) you’ll create. This episode is part of our Entrepreneurial Bootcamp series. It’s designed to equip you with mantras that will help you install the beliefs that lead toward success as an entrepreneur.
Your core beliefs need to be aligned with success or they’ll take you down the wrong path. So listen to the episode and then go to TheBusinessSurvivalGuide.com to download the PDF of the mantras. Print them out and put them everywhere!
In future episodes I’ll be answering your questions directly. Go to TheBusinessSurvivalGuide.com to submit your question. Or find me on Facebook or anywhere as AskScottMcFall.