Three Things You Must Do to Grow Your Business

By Michael Masterton

To grow a business, there are three things you must do. First, develop a good, marketable product. Second, learn how to sell it. Third, keep doing the first two things even when you’d rather not.

In the beginning, when there is nobody in the office but you, all three responsibilities may be yours alone. Later, as the business grows, you may find someone or several people to take over one or two of them for you.

A perfectly balanced business might have three top executives: a pusher, an idea man, and a marketer. Each would be a master of his skill. The pusher would be relentless in moving the business forward and encouraging everyone to do a good job. The idea manager would know the product completely, understand how and why the market uses it, and make adjustments to it so that it would always be attractive to buyers. The marketer would sell the product at the right price, the right cost, and in sufficient quantities to keep the gross profit where it needs to be.

Think about your own business or profit center. Who is responsible for each of these critical functions? Is that person masterful /competent/adequate to do the job? If less than masterful, is he on his way to mastery?

Of the many businesses I work with, none has all three functions "mastered."

Typically, you have a mixed bag: a good marketer who is also a good pusher running the business himself. Or a masterful product developer (idea man) who partners with a good marketer but has no one to do the day-to-day pushing. I know of one business that has neither a good marketer nor a good idea person but gets by (somehow) by virtue of its CEO’s pushing inexperienced people to try mostly mediocre product and marketing efforts.

Imperfectly balanced businesses can succeed, but you’ll reach your maximum potential only when you have become masterful at generating good ideas, selling them, and pushing everyone to do a good job.

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell says that social epidemics (including business breakthroughs) usually involve the input of three types of people: sellers, mavens, and connectors.

In Gladwell’s analysis, the maven equates to the idea man. He is the one who learns something — an idea, skill, technology, methodology. or even just a perspective — that the world finds valuable. If you need something done, he is the guy that can make it happen. The seller, of course, is the person who persuades the world to buy this new idea, skill, etc. And the connector makes it all happen by hooking up mavens to sellers to buyers.

There is an obvious similarity here between marketers and sellers; mavens and idea men, and (less exactly) connectors and pushers.

If you are in charge of a business or enterprise, assess the strengths and weaknesses of your executive leadership according to one of these two similar models. If you are an employee, think about which one of these "tracks" appeals to you.

To make your company grow and improve, make your three top leaders grow and improve. (And this includes you.) To accelerate the success of your own career, make sure you are on track to becoming a master of one of these functions.

By Michael Masterson

Teach a Man to Teach, and You’ll Feed Him for a Lifetime

"We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own."

Ben Sweetland

Teach a Man to Teach, and You’ll Feed Him for a Lifetime
By Paul Lawrence

Wouldn’t you like to make money doing something you love? And what if you could do that job on your own terms, with complete independence and control? Starting your own business giving private lessons is the perfect solution. I know that from experience, since I started mine about nine years ago.

You see, 10 years ago, I was training to be a ballroom dance instructor. Frankly, I’d gotten into ballroom dancing because I thought it’d be a good way to meet girls - but it turned out I had a knack for it. For close to a year, I worked as an apprentice without pay for about 40 hours a week. But the hard work and no pay seemed worthwhile because I enjoyed the teaching, I liked to dance, and I thought the job would eventually pay pretty well. (At that time, the studio got $60 an hour for a private lesson.)

Once I made it out of training, passed my teacher exams, and was deemed ready to be an instructor, I didn’t make nearly as much as I’d hoped. The studio only paid me $15 out of that 60 bucks. To make matters worse, I was only booking a few lessons a week.

It became clear to me that if I was going to make a living as a ballroom dance instructor, I needed to put out my own "shingle." But I had a problem: I didn’t have any capital to open a studio. I took a whack at seeking out some investors but, since I had no experience, I wasn’t able to find any takers.

That’s when I had a brainstorm! Maybe I could go into business without a studio. I suspected there were a lot of people out there who would like to have a teacher come to their home to give private lessons. And for those who didn’t like that idea, surely I could find some commercial space that I could rent by the hour.

Flash-forward one year to me driving home and listening to a Mariah Carey song - something about finally making it. I was really feeling those lyrics, because I’d just completed my first week of self-employment (and I was finally earning enough money to pay my bills).

If I told you it was a piece of cake to build my private-lesson business, that would be a lie. But I did build it - and with virtually no capital. It took a lot of trial and error, but I finally developed a system that worked reliably.

You’re probably not going to get rich just by operating your own private-lesson business. But if you want to be self-employed … if you want to do something you enjoy … if you want a job that gives you independence and pays decently … this type of venture is perfect for you.

Plus, working part-time at your own private-lesson business can be a steppingstone to even greater success. That’s how it worked for me. I was able to earn a modest living in a few hours each week, so I could spend time on other wealth-building activities that eventually greatly exceeded the earning power of my lesson business.

The private-lesson business is certainly not limited to ballroom dancing. You can create a business by teaching anything from martial arts to cooking to embroidery to day trading to yoga… or almost anything else you can think of. For example, my cousin used my system to build a business teaching clients how to speak Japanese. And a good friend used it to build a business teaching adults how to play the piano.

If the private-lesson business sounds like something you’d like to get into, here are the basic steps in my quick-start system:

1. Gauge the market for your business by studying the competition.

My favorite way to do that is by "shopping" them. Seek out their advertisements in your local Yellow Pages, on the Internet, and in local newspapers and shopper’s guides. Then, pretending to be a prospective client, call to find out what kind of services they offer and what they charge.

2. Devise a marketing strategy.

Get started with small, inexpensive classified ads and space ads in local newspapers. Focused mailings to your target market can also work well. And, naturally, you should have a basic website so you can get listed in search engines (like Google) that prospective clients are likely to use. As your business grows, try the Yellow Pages and other more expensive advertising vehicles.

3. Create a strong USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that will give you a competitive edge.

In my case, I had three big advantages. First, I offered the convenience of going to the client’s home for the lesson … which none of my competitors offered. Second, instead of the packages and programs being sold by my competition, I took a "one lesson at a time, pay as you go" approach that made it easy for prospective clients to book a lesson and give me a try. And, finally, without the overhead of a studio, I was able to charge about half what my competition charged. So, my USP was: "Get convenient ballroom lessons in your home at half the price charged anywhere else … without any pressure to buy expensive packages."

4. Test your marketing plan to make sure you can get enough customers.

5. Determine how you’re going to do business by figuring out where you’ll give lessons, how you’ll take payment, what credentials/licenses you’ll need, the kind of accounting system you’ll use, etc.

For quite a few years, I didn’t take credit cards - and it worked okay. But these days it’s so easy to take them with online services that I recommend giving clients that option. As for any licensing requirements, check state and local regulations to find out what (if anything) you need. Many kinds of lesson businesses don’t require a license, but some do. In Florida, there is actually a rule that dance studios have to be registered with the state (and there is an annual fee to do so).

6. Find suitable places where you can rent space by the hour when you need it.

Depending on the kind of lessons you’re giving, it might not work to do it in the client’s home. And even if it does work, as I said before, not every client is going to like the idea. I found several good spots for my ballroom dance business just by calling up studios and asking if they’d like to make some extra money with no work or hassle. If an office environment would work better for your lessons, you could try executive suites, real estate agents, etc.

This quick-start system will help you quickly and easily build a private-lesson business that can provide you with a steady income by doing something you enjoy. My ballroom dance business really changed the direction of my life - and there’s a good chance you can find similar success.

[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence’s ballroom dance business got him started on the road to success. If you’ve been searching for something that can do the same for you, consider getting into the private-lesson business.]

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

Water

"In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it."

Lao Tzu, Chinese Taoist philosopher, b c.500 BCE

Despite being applied firmly , pressure, by itself,often does not work. A gentler approach over a longer period of time often gives more enduring results.

Even though gentle ,almost innocuous methods of attacking the toughest problems appear laughably weak at the beginning, they may well prove unbeatable over time.

Niagara Falls