As someone smart enough to be reading this blog, you know math.
So that means you understand that:
1 + 1 = 3
And 1 + 1 + 1 = 9
And 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = a-heck-of-a-lot
This isn’t some kind of wacky math. It’s the power of groups. They work “to the power of.”
Kind of an exponential thing.
Last night I was the guest speaker on a teleseminar for business owners in a particular industry. The theme of the call was – naturally – newsletters. I supply a newsletter that these business owners use as the core of their marketing programs.
Although I was the one doing most of the talking, the power of groups is such that you always get back as much as you give. Often more.
(This is the reason I’m a member of a mastermind group here in Toronto. I know that I’ve added thousands of dollars worth of income to my business through being a part of this – ideas multiply when several smart people are in one room.)
Anyway, I thought I’d share with you some of the things I learned – or at least had reinforced – last night. There’s a kind of random nature to this – but I hope you find it interesting anyway.
- One person put a folder of newsletters on the side of his car when he was out on a job. People could pick a newsletter up as a kind of business card as they were passing by.
- Someone else said that the most successful real estate agents in his town used newsletters. We talked about why that might be – I suggested that it was because they had long-term perspective, because they understand a value of a client over time. (One of the reasons people leave my program is that they want to get results instantly – they’re not thinking of a client’s lifetime value. Instead of building a viable business, they go from shiny object to shiny object, never building any customer relationships.)
- On the theme of lifetime value, we talked about the cost of sending a newsletter over the lifetime of a client vs. the income you get from that client. (Understanding that the newsletter is one of the tools that keeps a client with you forever.) I did that math once for real estate agents.
- Treat nodes in your community with extra respect. Nodes are people with lots of connections to the kind of people you reach. If you’re in real estate, for example, a node might be an interior designer. Make sure they get a newsletter -even several. These people could be power-distributors for your message.
- Focus on marketing your business, not doing your business. This is an old one, but something people often still don’t get. You can leverage your time by investing it in marketing and systems instead of trading hours for dollars by working “in” the business. (I shared my story about why learned marketing as my first step into being a business owner – because I knew that without knowing how to market my business, I would have no business.)
- The power of customer profiles. A great way to get engagement with your clients and to share their success stories. Goes back to the old newspaper law that says it’s names and pictures that sell papers. People like to read about people who are like them.
Anyway, like I said, this is all a bit random. But I hope you can see how much value you an extract from just one hour.
If you can get together with other business owners – preferably outside your industry – you’ll be able to get the same wacky math value that I got last night.