There is nothing wrong with making mistakes, so long as you learn from them and don’t repeat them, but with the wrong mindset, it’s easy to do the wrong thing over and over.

It has been said that your current reality is your past’s future becoming real. Or, put another way, your position today is the result of all the decisions you made in the past.

The challenge here is that most people think, all I have to do is change my decisions and I'll create a new reality. Unfortunately, that is too simplistic a way to affect real change.

You can only be what you are and what you are is determined by what you think about every single minute of every single day.

For most people, this reality can be summed up with a simple thought: What you think about are the seeds you plant and what you do is what you grow and if you continue to plant tomato seeds, you can't expect a great oak tree to grow.
You see, people plant seeds, or thoughts, in their mind every single day. Too often these seeds are counter-productive to what needs to be accomplished.

Instead of focusing on what can be accomplished, people think of what they lack, their limitations, what they want or fear, and then they wonder why these thoughts become their reality.

One of the simplest examples of this is when you say to yourself, “Don't forget, don't forget …” and what do you do?

You invariably forget because the seed you planted was the central theme of your sentence, “forget”. Instead of remembering the negative, your central theme should have been to “remember”.

So how do you overcome this? Here’s a simple exercise that should help.

Grab a pen and paper and write a list of the top 20 things you think about every day.

You can start by dividing up your life into business and personal. You could even go further than that with a section for wealth, health, relationships, spirituality or any area that consumes a considerable part of your time.

After you've finished the exercise, start to think of every thought as a seed and ask yourself whether the seeds you're planting are truly going to create the reality you're after.

If your answer is a definite “no way” that's a good thing, because imagine what a difference you'll make when you do start planting the seeds you want to grow.

Brad Sugars

"If you think there's something fishy about this offer, you're right …"

Compared to:

"Buy one fillet of fish, get another fillet FREE!"

Now the first headline uses a clever play on words. A “fishy” offer in relation to a fish sale is quite humorous. But people have to stop and think about what it means.

Chances are that rather than reading the rest of the ad, they'll simply turn the page and keep going.

The second headline, while not as clever, gets the message across fast. Anyone who might be thinking about what they were going to have for dinner that night would be tempted to read on.

The second ad might not be as glamorous, interesting or clever, but it works.

Advertising is about getting people to read your ad, and then spurring them to take action. If people have to decipher the meaning in what you've written they'll simply pass over your ad and forget about you altogether.

Writing ads is not about making people laugh, or having them think you're a genius. It's about communicating with them in the fastest, clearest way possible.

With the majority of people, if the message is not spelled out to them, they won't be able to understand. You need to understand that writing ads is not about you the writer, it's about the customer.

If you want to be a copywriter you need to forget about beautiful writing styles and creative expression and focus instead on getting your message across in a fast and efficient manner. It might not win you any awards but it will win you a lot of satisfied clients and repeat business.

Last month, we looked at the “Five Ways” and showed you how easy it was to get a 61 per cent increase in your bottom line … If you missed it, call for a back issue, because it truly is a great “secret” of business.

This month, we’re going to see how you can use those numbers to achieve an UNLIMITED marketing budget for your business.

That’s right – unlimited. Most companies aren’t good when it comes to figuring marketing budgets, and use a variety of figures, whether it’s a set amount per month, a set percentage of sales or just a number they decide on when a salesperson calls to sell advertising …

So if you could have an unlimited budget, how big could you grow your business? Let me show you how this works before I get into specifics.

Imagine you went to the bank and gave them $100. Then, 30 days later they gave you back $200.  How many $100 bills would you go to the bank with every day?

Now what if you could use that information to create an unlimited number of new leads and customers in your business?

Well, you can – if you focus on your “Acquisition Cost” and the “Lifetime Value” of your customers, topics we’ve looked at before but that now take on new meaning in light of the “Five Ways.”

Acquisition Cost is simply the cost of “buying” your current customer. If you’ve put $1000 into advertising and had 100 phone calls, you’re paying $10 for each of your leads. If only 10 of those leads “convert”, or make a purchase, you’re paying $100 to capture each sale.

Now, what’s this customer really worth?

Typically not much on a first purchase. But, even if it was just $200, you are putting in $100 and pulling out $200.  That said, in most retail businesses, a “bought” customer doesn’t begin to provide break-even or profitable revenues until the second, third or even fourth purchase.

However, the value of every purchase after those initial buys are just like gold for your business.

This is where the idea of the “Lifetime Value” of your customers is so important. Simply put, “Lifetime Value” is the amount of money your average customer will spend with you over a buying lifetime.

I’ve used the example before from my old dog food business. In that business, I knew my average customer would spend $800 a year on their dogs, and the average dog lived about 10 years. I presumed a customer would stay with me half that time, meaning the “Lifetime Value” of my dog food customer would be $4000.

What if I knew I could spend up to $38 to acquire each customer to get $800 a year per customer through my door?

Well, for my first month, I’d do better than break even. By my second month, my customer would be fully profitable, and at the end of the year, my marketing efforts would generate a better than twenty times return on my initial marketing “investment.”

So how often would you spend $38 to get $800?

It’s really just simple “marketing math.” Determine how much each new customer spends with you, figure your gross profit and “presto!” – you have your new marketing budget.

Let me explain …

In my dog food business, my customer’s first purchase averaged 6 weeks for delivery, totaled $108 and had a gross profit of $38.  Thus, my marketing allowance for “buying” each new customer – up to a total of $38 – was simply that.

Do your numbers and know that as long as you can cashflow the timing between when you pay for the advertising and when you get your customers’ money, your marketing results will be the same as if you were using the bank.

The idea of the unlimited marketing budget is to get you thinking in terms of your marketing efforts as investments rather than expenses. And with any investment, you are always looking for a return.

It also forces you to look at your advertising and marketing efforts in a whole new way. Why  toss thousands of dollars out your door looking to build a brand image when you could spend those dollars more tactically to actually increase your bottom-line – and build a brand as you’re doing it by buying customers?

Once you’ve bought your prospects and turned them into customers, know you’ll need to get them buying more, spending more and staying longer with your business. Why?

Because profits really come from repeat business, and your Return on Investment (ROI) is really determined by how long you keep customers.

Now you can see how these two factors – Acquisition Cost and Lifetime Value – add a powerful dimension to the “Five Ways” formula. Again, it works for any business in any industry or category.

In the next few months, we’ll get into more details about how to lower your Acquisition Costs and increase your Lifetime Value. We’ll also look at specific strategies to boost each one of the “Five Ways” factors in your business.

I would also be interested to hear what kind of results you get from these useful tools, now that you’ve realized their real secret is in the incredible value you can gain from getting the best information possible for your business.

A free resource

Our interactive “Five Ways” calculator remains active at the following link:

actioncoach.com/free-business-calculator-profit.php

It’s simple, it’s free, and it’s designed to give you an idea of how powerful the “Five Ways” can be for your business.

This article is reprinted courtesy of My Business magazine, one of the leading business publications in Australia.

Most business owners struggle for years chasing higher profits.

Most fail. And they do so because they are relentlessly trying to make their bottom-line grow by focusing on upping sales or cutting expenses.

After all, those are the only factors you can work, right?

What if I told you there are many paths to bigger profits? And showed you a way to drastically increase your bottom line by working any one – or all of them?

You see, most of the owners coached by my team or me are so stuck on getting more customers, more revenues or more profits, they miss seeing a much bigger picture.

They don’t realize all three of those numbers are the result of 5 other factors …

And when you know all 5, you can MULTIPLY your bottom line.

Would you be a little more excited about your business every Monday morning if you knew your profits were “multiplying”?

Well, in this issue and the next, I’m going to guide you through what I call the “5 Ways” – the formula for profit I believe is responsible for more business growth than any other “secret” I know. Best of all, it works for any business, including yours.

How?

By remembering that profits, revenues and the number of customers are all the result – an end score. And just like baking a cake, unless you change the ingredients, the results stay the same.

The “5 Ways” focuses on the following 5 factors that drive profit in any business – and these 5 alone:  Lead Generation; Conversion Rate; Average Dollar Sale; Average Number of Transactions and Profit Margins.

Those are the same 5 factors are highlighted in our “5 Ways” illustration.

Increase one – or any – of these factors and you start multiplying your profits.

I’ll show you how, and we’ll work through each factor one-by-one.

Leads:

The first factor in the “5 Ways” is leads. So what’s a lead?

It’s simply the total number potential buyers a business has contacted – or that contacted the business – over the course of a year. Leads are also known as “potentials” or “prospects.”

Conversion rate:

This is the percentage of people that actually bought. If 10 people walk through a store and three people buy, that store’s conversion rate of 3 out of 10, or 30%, for that day.

Number of customers:

This is the number of total customers, and is determined by multiplying the total number of leads by conversion rate.

Average dollar sale:

This is the average dollar amount per sale – estimated over the course of a year.

Average number of transactions:

This is the number of purchases the average customer will make over the course of a year.

Revenue:

This is the total amount of overall sales for a business.

Profit margin:

This is the profit percentage of each and every sale. Simply put, if a business sells something for $100, and profit was $25, the profit margin is 25%.

What does this look all look like? Let’s run some numbers.

Your Company

Let’s say your company has determined the following:

Number of Leads                    4000

X                                             X

Conversion Rate                     25%

=

Number of Customers             1000

X

Number of Transactions          2

X

Average Dollar Sale                $100

=

Revenue                                  $200,000

X

Profit Margins                         25%

=

PROFITS                                $50,000

What does this mean? Simply, you are running a business that converts 1 in 4 prospects into paying customers; customers who average two purchases at $100 per purchase each year. Your company enjoys a 25% profit margin on revenues of $200,000. Total profit? $50,000.

A Simple Increase of 10% … in ALL 5 Areas …

Over the next year, let’s aim at an increase of just 10% in each of the 5 areas. Now, many companies will be able to do bigger numbers, and most of the companies we coach do far greater increases over a year. But let’s just aim at some simple things to work in each area.

Watch what happens to your bottom line:

Number of Leads                    4400

X                                             X

Conversion Rate                     27.5%

=

Customers                               1210

X

Number of Transactions          2.2

X

Average Dollar Sale                $110

=

Revenue                                  $292,820

X

Profit Margins                         27.5%

=

PROFITS                                $80,525.50

Interesting, isn’t it?

The $30,525.50 increase in profit ($80,525.50 – $50,000) in percentage terms equates to a 61% boost in the bottom line ($30,525.50 / 50,000). Phenomenal leverage.

Remember, we are multiplying here, not just adding. And if you think 10% is impressive, run your own numbers or the same numbers with a 20% increase and it will start to blow you away.

A free resource

If want to run a variety of numbers on your own, we’ve developed an interactive “5 Ways” calculator at the following link:

actioncoach.com/free-business-calculator-profit.php

It’s simple, it’s free, and it’s designed to give you an idea of how powerful the “5 Ways” can be.

Next month, we’ll see which of the 5 factors to work first, how to best use the formula and how to create an unlimited marketing budget.

Hopefully, this great “secret” will guide you to greater profits, and also show you how powerful knowledge can be for your business.

Because as I’ve said before – there are no secrets in business or life. There’s just information you don’t know yet.

This article is reprinted courtesy of My Business magazine, one of the leading business publications in Australia.

So, you started the company, you built it up, but are you the best person to keep running it?

It’s a tough question.

Entrepreneurs are not always the best managers. In fact, they are often some of the worst.

For entrepreneurs who find themselves “stuck” or see their companies at a growth plateau, a great question to ask yourself is whether or not your greatest strength is managing what you’ve built.

For most owners, it isn’t. For most of them, what they really need to do is get out and start a new venture or enterprise.

Because entrepreneurship is what they do best.

What are the characteristics of a great entrepreneur?

Different from those of a manager or employee. That’s why owners are entrepreneurs in the first place. Beyond a vision and drive for something more, true entrepreneurs realize trading time for money is not the way to get rich.

However, being stuck as a manager in your own operation is not productive, especially when your talents lay elsewhere. But how do you get out of your own business in a way that benefits everyone – including yourself?

First, you must recognize “you” may be the issue. Once you admit that, options and opportunities become more clear. Ideally, you already have some systems in place in your business and a good team you can trust to run at least some portions of your operation.

Then, you must take a leadership position to put new leadership in place.  There are a few great ways you can successfully make it happen that have proven effective for other owners in your position over the years:

1. Recruit two or three high caliber people and let them work their way to the top. Don’t let them know you are looking at them as your replacement one day; instead, mentor them and let them lead their various divisions and see for yourself who would be the best fit for the company long-term.
2. Look within. Here, you’re looking at your current roster of executive staff you currently have for one or possibly a group of employees who could takeover the company and run it long-term. You might even find a way to create an income flow for yourself long-term from this type of arrangement – one that would let you do something else, like….
3. Find and run a business that is not dependent on you. Ideally, this is the business you start after you sell or find a creative way to get your cash out of your existing business.

That said, there are a couple of ways NOT to replace yourself. In some instances, these tactics may have worked. Just remember, those successes are the exception – and not the rule.

1)      Make a clean break. This is the easiest way to replace yourself. Here, you basically go out and hire a pro to come in and run the business. That person comes in, and you go out. Obviously, this isn’t recommended for a number of reasons. First, the new person has little or no institutional knowledge of your business or its history.

Second, such change is usually too drastic for customers and employees. Sometimes, it’s even too drastic for the business owner – who in many instances undergoes a change of heart six months or a year down the road and decides to come back. Many times, the company the owner returns to is not the one he or she left.

2)      Put a family member in charge. This is also an easy way to replace yourself, and it is also not recommended. The reasons for this are obvious:  resentment among top management and employees; perceptions of nepotism; the idea that skill sets don’t match the high standard of a founder.

Putting a family member in charge could be an option if the plan of succession for a business is already laid out that way, all team members are aware of that plan and the person tapped to lead the company has paid his or her dues working in the company from the ground up.

Most times, however, owners aren’t so prepared or long-term oriented in this regard, and the envy and resentment of family members in charge leads to problems from which most companies never recover.

Regardless of the route you take, the important thing to realize is most issues in business start at the top. It’s why a company suffering for lack of sales is probably led by a boss who is not a great sales person. It’s why a company with a dysfunctional team is led by a person who is not a great manager. Or why a company that seems unfocused is run by a person chasing after every new market or idea that seems to hold opportunity.

Maybe you’re the person I’ve just described. You had the great idea, the brilliant innovation or the breakthrough product. But maybe you’ve taken the business as far as you can take it. Maybe it’s time to get out of the way and let a new team of professionals take over so you can move on – and start your next business.

Recognizing you are not the perfect sales person, manager or marketing director isn’t bad. It can be liberating.

Realizing you’re the perfect entrepreneur can be the just what you need to really succeed in business – at a level you may have never dreamed possible.

This article is reprinted courtesy of My Business magazine, one of the leading business publications in Australia.

It’s viral, it’s catching and you need to know what it is and how to use it to your advantage if you’re going to ride the wave of profits it’s yielding.

What used to be word-of-mouth has been turned on its head with the click of a mouse.

Now, people who used to recommend a product or service to their friends can click away to send the same referral to literally hundreds of people in an instant, and they’re doing it.

Take a look at myspace.com and youtube.com

It’s the fastest, greatest, and in many cases, cheapest way to get your company noticed that exists today …

Viral emails and videos are flooding the in boxes of literally millions of your prospective customers every day …

And, where word of mouth used to take weeks, months and years to really penetrate a market place, word of mouse can do it in hours …

And the best part, small business can actually do it better than most big companies can adapt to the technology and ideas.

So, let’s get to the basics first.

Content is king now on the net.

And content is taking the form of everything from web-logs (commonly know as blogs) to libraries of articles, Press Rooms, videos, audios and as much information as you can imagine about your products and services as well as how to buy them, how to choose them and how to differentiate the good suppliers from the bad …

We’ll take a look at each one separately, but suffice to say the more you can upload, the more places customers, researchers, buyers and journalists can find you.

Blogs – These started in about 2004 in any form or reasonable volume and today you can very cheaply and easily build your own blog into your site. Essentially it’s a way that ever week, two weeks or even day if you like you can upload a new article, point of view, story or even journal of your day to day business.

Many companies are using blogs to communicate with their customers, gain feedback, or even build volume of searchable content on their site.  Remember, the web is building every day and the more you have on your site that is both targeted at your potential customers and Search Engine Optimised the better your results will be.

Press Room – This is where every day, week or two weeks you can submit a press release about your company, one where you control the message as you are the journalist. Think about this:  an article in a newspaper is what we pay PR people big money for and may reach tens of thousands of people. Well, if an article is placed on the web, how long will it be there and how many people may find it over the next 10 years?

Put in the time and energy to build a solid Press Room filled with everything from an online press kit to copies of articles that have been published, but also every single release you have ever written. Remember, the Press Room is as much for your customers as it is for journalists.

Article Libraries – If you provide a service this should be a large part f your online marketing, scientists can upload, everyone can write article about their products, their industry and advice for their customers. Imagine a Real Estate agency with literally hundreds of articles on how to buy, how to sell and how to invest in real estate.

Then it’s over to video and audio.

Let’s first look at the Social Network sites of youtube, facebook and myspace. All so massively big, so cheap and so powerful to use. Again, content is king. The more video, the more pictures and the more you write about yourself and with others the better. You can even have every employee in your company build their own @work page showing what they do every day, who they work for and the products, etc.

This is obviously where the power of “word of mouse” really start to show up easily.  I’m sure you’ve been sent a video or two, a funny picture and so on.

You see, today when you make a video, it doesn’t need the world best production techniques, massive camera expense, just a regular digital home video camera and a whole bunch of imagination …

Just think of how many people started to buy Mentos, after the diet coke and mentos fountains were posted and then emailed globally.  If you haven’t seen this, then Google it, you laugh so hard.

Put simply, there is a massive benefit for a few hours learning and a few days site designing here.

This article is reprinted courtesy of My Business magazine, one of the leading business publications in Australia.

You know almost every big business started small, in fact many of them part time from home.

And yet, so many small companies fail to ever become more than a job and a wage for the owner. They fail to become true businesses and remain forever a BUSY-ness for the owner.

And to be blunt, there’s a reason most never grow.  You see there’s a reason your first business is the hardest one.  It’s because you have so much to learn.  Not only do you have to run the company, grow it and finance it, you have to learn as you go.  It’s a great challenge, one of the greatest.

But, let’s be honest, if it were easy, everyone would do it.  The challenge is only up to those of us with true entrepreneurial spirit …

So, let’s examine how to take any small business and make it big …

Here’s my true definition of a business, a “Commercial, Profitable, Enterprise that Works, Without Me …”

That’s right, the whole aim of the game is to get it to a stage where it works, so you don’t have to.

Here’s how you need to break down the definition …

Step 1 … A Commercial Enterprise … here’s where you get the basics right.  It’s vital to build a big company that you have the ability to deliver your products and services with high quality, great service and consistent productivity of your people.  Three main areas you need to work on … money, delivery and productivity.   Money is all about knowing your numbers and knowing you are making a profit on every sale.  Delivery is all about making sure every one of your customers is served consistently and with high quality and great service.  And productivity, about getting the most from yourself and your people.  This is the first stage of business growth and one many never bother to work through.  If you want to grow it, take these first steps …

Step 2 … A commercial Profitable enterprise … Here’s where you build revenues and capitalize on the profitability you built in step 1.  There are 4 areas you will need to build upon.  You will over time build the systems and strategies you have for Lead Generation, Converting Leads into Sales, Repeat Transactions and your Average Dollar Sale.  Building our business beyond a small company will need you to learn and build in these areas.  Over the next few issues of this magazine I will write articles on each one.

Step 3 … A commercial profitable enterprise, That Works … Here’s where you have to build systems, systems that run the company.  As you document, record, film and photograph how everything is done in your company you take it from a business that is dependant on good people to one that is dependant on good systems.  Add to good systems, good people and you end up with a great business that now works …

Step 4 … A commercial, profitable enterprise that works, Without ME … This is all about building a team.  If you want the company to run without you, then you have to build a team and a leader to take your place.

Step 5 … Growth … Get everything you have done to work together in harmony, with Synergy and open multiple offices, shops or territories.  This is where you multiply and use the system you already have working again and again.

Step 6 … Freedom and Results … now it’s big and you can let your team build it, it’s been several years, probably 7 to 10 years of you worked hard and smart, but finally you have made your small business big …

I know this seems like a lot of work, read my books for more details, but it takes time and learning, stay with it, it will be worth it in the end.  Owning your own business is definitely a great challenge, but it truly is filled with great reward.

This article is reprinted courtesy of My Business magazine, one of the leading business publications in Australia.

I want to teach you how it is that the very best companies and the very best salespeople NEVER worry about having a higher price.

In fact, if you’re great at sales, and great in business, you want a higher price.

You want to have to sell, rather than just accept orders.

You see, anyone who can only make a sale when they have the best price has, in my opinion, missed the whole point of selling.

Let me give you an example from my own life …

I needed new tires for my car. I opened the yellow pages and picked three companies to call.  Of course these companies had invested big dollars to have their advertisements placed, so you’d want their people to do a great job at answering the phone.

(Just as an aside, try calling your company and buying something, see if it’s hard, easy or somewhere in between.)

So I make the call, first company, what do I ask … “How much for a set of tires ... ?”

That’s what everyone asks, why …?

Because that’s how we’ve been trained - and even more importantly, what else do we know to ask about?  When I call to ask about airline tickets, do I ask about the pilots’ experience? No. I ask about price.

So, his answer … “That will be $X per tire plus fitting and balancing.”

I said, “Thanks, I’ll call you back.”

Of course I did, same line we all use, what other option did he give me?

Second call was the same, third guy must have been trained by me or Jeff.  He used my “magic line.”

“Yes sir, thanks for your call, just so I can help you best, would it be OK to ask you a couple of questions … ?”

How great is this? He makes me feel good, and then gets my permission to sell to me.

He then went on to ask VALUE based questions.  What type of driving I planned to do, how many passengers I carried and so on, until I blurted …

“So, what does all this have to do with a price … ?”

“Well sir, if I don’t understand your driving habits, I couldn’t possibly recommend the right tire with the right tread pattern, the right tire compound and that would mean your tire wouldn’t be safe and wouldn’t last as long as it could, and you wouldn’t want that would you sir … ?”

BANG … I’m shot dead, I can’t go anywhere …

Suffice to say he got the sale, but the whole point is …

Price only matters if you don’t educate your buyers …

If you let them think price is important, if your questions lead to price objections, if your sales literature focuses on price and if your sales skills are lacking …

Turn yourself into a performer …

Use questions rather than answers, let them show themselves why they should buy, design questions that lead to value answers not price answers …

You see, if you have a higher price, it must be because you are better. So find out why you are better and ask the customer questions about how important those things are to them …

This article is reprinted courtesy of My Business magazine, one of the leading business publications in Australia.

I am often reminded of getting back to basics to build revenues and profits in business.

But none more so than when I am confronted with a business owner who shows me they need more new customers …

If you really want to grow your business and you really want to do it fast, then take a look at grasping these few simple ideas …

You are already getting people contacting you, coming in, emailing you and so on.  Your people are already messing up and not selling to anywhere near enough of these people.  Want to know just how bad it is, ask one of your friends to call your business and try to buy, just wait and see how they go …

Almost every business owner I meet believes that they are selling to the majority of prospects they come into contact with.

Well, put bluntly, you are not … how do I know?  After doing this exercise with literally thousands of business owners, I have only twice been proven wrong.

So, here goes …

For the next two weeks keep a record of every phone call, every email enquiry, every walk in every single prospective buyer that contacts your business.  Ask every single one of them how they found out about your business and keep a record of it.  Was it referral, Yellow pages etc.?

Then, at the end of the two weeks see how many of them have bought from you.  If you think you are at about 6 or 7 out of 10, it will be about 3 or 4 out of 10. I have seen this with so many companies, even restaurants who think they get everybody, then measure the people that call versus the people that book, and the people that read the menu out front versus those who actually come in …

Your Conversion Rate is a massive opportunity … If it is lower than say 50%, then we’ve got to get to work …

First, you’ve got to start measuring it every day.  That focus alone will get it up to 10% higher than it is right now …

Add to that, here’s another 11 ways to boost your conversion rate right now, this week …

1. Get your salesperson with the best conversion rate to train everybody else for a day or two.
2. Script your sales process. Use a lot of questions in the script (it’s NOT a sales pitch) and learn from what the best sales people are doing.
3. Break your sales process down into each and every critical step and work on one step at a time.
4. Measure your conversion from one step to the next and work on improving each step by just 10% more than it was.
5. Work on the letters, brochures and other written or audio and video material you use during each step of the sales process.
6. Use my magic question for phone selling, “Thanks for your call, just so I can help you best would it be OK if I asked you a couple of questions?”
7. Run a competition among your sales people for a week or two around the one area you need to see the most improvement in, then learn from the new ways they start doing things.
8. Learn the critical buying step in your sale, for example in female fashion stores, it’s trying the clothes on, with it you have more than a 50% chance at making a sale, without it, less than 10%.
9. Follow up and follow through, too many sales are lost by salespeople who can’t be bothered to follow up again and again and again … at least 7 times …
10. Make an offer that is either limited or a bonus offer or something to get customers to act now and to give sales people some ammunition …
11. Just plain ask people to buy, usually in sales training the one biggest reason sales people are not getting the sale is that they don’t ask for it …

Stay focused on your conversion rate for 3 months and watch the dramatic effect it has on your bottom line.

Once you’ve got it right, or at least much better than it is today, then and only then is it time to go to work getting more prospects and investing more money into your marketing and fixing the marketing you are doing now.

This article is reprinted courtesy of My Business magazine, one of the leading business publications in Australia.

My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."