by Angela Taffs | Jun 14, 2016 | Business Success
Are you sick of being told you should be earning a six-figure income to be successful?
Does your heart sink when you see people on social media telling everyone they are earning six figures whilst you are earning just four-figure sums each month if you are lucky?
Do you wonder what on earth they are doing that you are not?
Do you sometimes think that you can never reach those giddy heights of success so you might as well give up now?
Well, stop!!
I am saddened and fed up with women I speak to who think they are failing because they aren’t reaching these dizzying heights and being told by others that this is the figure they need to achieve to be successful.
Some of these six-figure earners might be truly successful, but I can guarantee you quite a few are pulling the wool over your eyes. Whilst they may not be lying to you, they are being somewhat economical and misleading with the truth.
Whilst these people constantly talk about their 5 figure income months, what they don’t tell you about is their gross profit. Basically, what they have to spend in order to achieve these 5 figure months. (if you want to know how to work this out have a read of Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity). They also fail to tell you their personal situation and how happy they are.
I spoke to a coach a few months ago who claimed in all her marketing to be a six-figure earner. And she was. But she was also spending over £20,000 each month on Facebook ads! So whilst she was earning six figures she was also spending six figures to obtain this.
I have met a business owner whose sales were just shy of £180,000 yet the costs to her of getting these sales were a staggering £171,000!!!!! Yes, I kid you not. So she only had a gross profit of £8,000.
The same day I met another businesswoman who felt she was failing. She was getting sales of £19,000 each year but once her expenses were taken out she was left with £12,500. Her business was more financially successful than the first six-figure income business.
The magic income figure for happiness
Did you know that past research from Gallup found that the optimum income for Americans was $75,000? The research showed that up to the magic figure of $75,000 a year, people’s day-to-day happiness rose. After that, people just bought more material possessions with no real gain in happiness.
In 2015 in the UK, research by Anchor Cheddar revealed a salary of £37,000 is the ‘tipping point’ at which any more money isn’t worth the sacrifice, additional responsibilities and stress, therefore making earning extra money worthless.
What do you want in your life?
You need to stop and consider what you want in life, not what someone else tells you you should have. Who has the right to tell you that you should be aiming for a six-figure income? It all depends upon your personal circumstances and what you want in life and what you need to live the life you want.
I have been truly successful in life. I have earnt the levels of money that have set me up for life. I have paid outright for my beautiful home. I have absolutely zero debts. I live the lifestyle I want without having to worry about where the next penny is coming from. I deem that to be having achieved success. I really don’t need someone telling me that I need to be earning six figures to be successful.
I don’t feel the need to chase the big numbers anymore because I have everything I want. I am happy and content with my life. I don’t feel the need to be the next Karen Brady or Oprah Winfrey.
I also know of a few ‘highly successful’ six-figure earners who are living in rented two-bedroom apartments (nothing wrong with that by the way) with mountains of debt to pay off. Good on them for going out there and earning the money to sort their lives out but stop misleading others by giving the impression they are living in castles and working from the beach all day.
Recently, I saw a self-proclaimed seven-figure earner telling everyone how much money she was making on Facebook. As my wonderful friend and colleague (who is one of the most successful businesswomen I know) pointed out if that were truly the case would this person not want to just turn over, tan her back, pop another bottle of Cristal, dip her toes in the cool ocean off the back of her mega yacht and stop worrying about spreading the word. Good point huh?
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some super successful and super happy genuine six-figure earners out there. And for them I am happy. It is the tribe who are trying to fool others with smoke screens and telling others what to do that I have a problem with.
So stop being told what to do by others, take some of these six-figure claims with a pinch of salt and decide what you want your income level to be and what your definition of success is.
by Angela Taffs | Jun 7, 2016 | Business Success, Running a Business, Starting a Business
There are three key things you need to build a successful business:
If any one of these is lacking, it is going to need to be made up for in one of the other areas.
Let’s take a look at them one at a time.
Time
Building a successful business takes time. And it is likely to take a lot longer than you think. All too often we set up our small business thinking we are going to be drawing a full time wage within a month or so. All too often the reality is different. We end up working for nothing for the first 12 months or just drawing a paltry sum that barely covers a pair of tights each month.
And on the subject of time, everything we do seems to take longer than expected. I will just write a quick blog I hear you say. And three hours later you are still staring at a blank screen. I will just make a quick update to my website I hear you say. And two weeks later you are still playing around with the design and the layout. I will quickly set up a mailing system I hear you say. And days later you are still tearing your hair out and wondering what the hell everyone else is on it about when they say it is all so easy.
If you don’t have time, you are going to have invest money to make up for it. You are going to have to spend money on marketing rather than trying to do everything for free on social media. You are going to have to spend money outsourcing all those tasks that are eating up the precious hours in your day.
Energy
You are going to need massive amounts of energy to build your own business. The time it takes will easily leave you feeling drained and exhausted and it will be all too easy to feel like throwing in the towel.
One of the dangers of building a business, particularly when working from home, is that we let healthy habits slip. We stop taking exercise as we just want to get one more task squeezed into the day. We stop eating healthily and grab chocolate bars and coffee whilst chained to our computer screens.
This soon leaves us feeling sluggish and out of kilter.
To build a successful business, you need to take of yourself first and foremost and keep your energy levels up. You need to take regular exercise, you need to keep healthy and you need to get enough sleep. If you energy levels drain, you will end up either ill or having to take time out to recharge the batteries.
If you don’t have energy, it is going to cost you more in time and money. It will take more time to build your business or you will have to invest more money to get someone to take over your work for you.
Money
Yes, you are going to have to invest some money! I’m sorry to break the bad news to you but those get rich quick schemes where you only have to put in a few pounds or dollars up front just don’t work. I have had numerous people send me their schemes but when I ask to see their bank details or profit and loss statement to validate their claims, they disappear into the mist never to be heard of again.
You need to invest in the tools to do the job. You can get many free versions of systems and software, but if you really want to build your business, it is the paid versions that you need. You need to invest in yourself and the businesses that really move forward faster than the others invest in a coach. I invested in thousands for a coach for myself. Even though I am a business coach, I still need someone to help me with new ideas and to hold me accountable for achieving results. Without this, my business would have taken vastly longer to be successful.
If you don’t invest money it is going to cost you more time and energy. You can try to build a business on a shoestring but you are likely to end up just running a very expensive hobby for many years to come. And more time is going to take more energy. You really need to look at the potential return on investment and savings in time and energy rather than holding on those purse strings.
Do you have these three key areas covered or is the lack of one of these hampering your success? Let me know in the comments below.
by Angela Taffs | Apr 26, 2016 | Business Success
Discover the secrets to small business success by watching a marathon
Yesterday it was my birthday. It was also the day of the 2016 London Marathon. And I should have been running it. But instead, I was sat on my sofa with tears of disappointment rolling down my cheeks as the race started due to my being injured.
I sat and watched the marathon and during the race it dawned on me the number of similarities between running a marathon and running a business.
Let me share them with you here:
Preparation
Firstly, the preparation. If you just rock up on the start line of a marathon with no prior preparation, you are going to be in for a big shock and it is highly unlikely that you will make it to the finish. Remember the old adage, ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. And it is the same in business. Before jumping into a new business venture with both feet, you really do need to do some prior preparation to test if your small business idea is viable, find out where there are weak spots and then do something about those weak spots to make them stronger.
Planning
Next comes the planning. With running a marathon, you are going to need to plan what resources you are going to need such as kit, hydration, training plan etc. and are likely to want to plan what time you want to finish in. In business, you need to plan the resources you are going to need so that your small business will run efficiently and you also need to plan what you want to achieve over what time period so that you can put steps in place to achieve this. Without planning, whether running a marathon or a business, you are going to fall by the wayside, particularly if you don’t have the correct resources. And without a timeline and goal, you will just drift along with no idea if you are on track or not to achieve your best.
Be prepared for the unexpected
It is inevitable at some point that something is going to trip you up and scupper all your long-held plans, quite literally! In my case, when out on a long training run for the marathon I did exactly that. I tripped and broke my ankle! My marathon plans were dashed as there was simply not enough time for the bone to repair and for me to get my training back on track. Yes, I sat and sulked, got angry and felt sorry for myself. And then I decided that I would just have to adjust my plans and aim for next year. In business, we can easily get thrown off track and this can be the critical point of whether you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get yourself back on track, or whether you simply throw in the towel and give up. It invariably takes far longer to have a successful small business than we initially hoped, and has far more heartache and tears along the way than we ever could have ever imagined. But when you finally succeed, there is no other feeling like it. Just as it feels to cross that marathon line and take your medal.
Support
If you try and train for and then run a marathon alone it is incredibly lonely and the likelihood is that you will lose motivation along the way and give up. You will make so many mistakes and waste so much time and money that you could have easily avoided with the right advice. The same goes for running a small business. You need to find someone that you can discuss your ideas and goals with and who is there to support you when the times are tough. Those who do best in marathons and business are those who get professional coaches who have been there, done it and have the experience to guide you on the right path and stop you making all too common mistakes. We all that helping hand if we are truly going to be the best that we can be.
Be aware of unseen opportunities
We may start out on our path with a very clear idea in our mind of what we want to achieve, but we must be careful not to become blind to opportunities that may appear under our noses. It was heart-breaking this year to see Eliud Kipchoge come across the finish line in first place, achieving his goal, but then looking back at the clock to realise that he had missed the world record by a mere 8 seconds. The disbelief and despair on his face were palpable. He had been so focused on his goal of finishing first, that he simply not realised that he could comfortably have taken the world record title by speeding up a few hundred yards earlier at the finish. In business, yes, you want to keep focused on the end goal but always be open for any other opportunities that may come along to help you succeed even further.
Celebrate achievements
As the marathon runners get given their medal as they cross the finish line, you need to reward yourself for your achievements in business. Running a successful business is not easy. If it was, everyone would be doing it. It is tough. As with marathon training, there and many highs and many more lows. With each step forward that you achieve, stop and realise how far you have come and reward yourself for sticking with it and making it work
Know when enough is enough
Whilst I am one for saying never give up, if you really have given it your all and your health or relationships are now suffering because of it, you may just need to realise that your dream is going to have to take a different route. This does not mean that you have failed, but simply means that you are going to have to find something different to fulfil your passion for success. Whether it is constant injuries whilst running, and you realise your body simply isn’t suited to constant pounding of the streets, or your small business is simply not working, bills are not getting paid and you are in danger of losing your home, sometimes you have to face the hard truth and find a different way of doing things. This may be switching from the long distance marathon to competing in a triathlon with a shorter run or taking your business down a different route that will generate more income for you.
So there you have my similarities between running a marathon and running a small business. I would love to hear of any others that you may have so please leave a comment below.
by Angela Taffs | Apr 18, 2016 | Business Success, Personal and Lifestyle
It happens to the best of us. We are striving away running our home based business but one day we get up but find that our motivation has decided to take a day off. We know what we should be doing but the body and mind simply aren’t willing.
Half a dozen cups of coffee later and even the caffeine isn’t helping. All we want to do is crawl back into bed and hide. No amount of staring at the laptop screen is producing any sort of work of an acceptable standard and the clock is slowly ticking away whilst you feel like you are swimming in a vat of treacle.
You scroll through your emails half a dozen times and can’t muster the energy to reply to any of them. They will have to wait until later, or perhaps tomorrow. The phone calls you need to make get left for another day as the effort required to speak to another person in even a slightly engaging manner is simply too much.
When you get a day like this, follow these ten tips to get your motivation back on track and get moving forward once again.
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Have a welcoming workspace
Having a clear, decluttered workspace that makes you feel good when you sit down can help you get motivated to get on and do some work. Only have things that you need on your desk along with a couple of personal items that you love looking at such as a vase of flowers or favourite picture.
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Find an accountability partner
Get someone who will chase you up and make you accountable for getting those pesky tasks finished. Knowing that someone is going to be checking up on you to see what you have done can help spur you into action.
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Review your goals
Take a closer look at your original goals and make sure you have not gone off track which is leaving you feeling somewhat demotivated. Re-define your goals if you need to and also take time to realise how far you have come since you started. This can help make you feel good and give you the oomph to get moving forward again.
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Define your why
Why did you start your business? What was that burning passion that you wanted to fulfil? Go create yourself a vision board of what you want to achieve and realise that if you don’t get off your butt and do some work these things are going to slip you by.
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Network
Working from home can be lonely and it is easy to sink into a lull. Get out and mix with other like minded people who understand what you are going through and can help lift you up again. Find a local group that you connect with and make it a habit to meet once a month to help lift your spirits and get inspired.
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Find a hero
Who do you admire? Who would you love to be like? Go print off a picture of them and pin by your desk. When you are feeling out of sorts and de-motivated, take a look at their picture and ask yourself what they would do. Put yourself in their shoes and model yourself on their behaviour. They wouldn’t have got to where they did by not putting in the effort so think about the action they would take in your position and go do it.
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Get off social media
One of the biggest de-motivators in this day and age can be social media. You constantly see a raft of your competitors who are all professing to be raking in the money whilst sipping cocktails on the beach whilst you are still slogging away trying to make ends meet. Well, stop looking at them! Have a social media detox for a couple of days and start to see how much better you feel.
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Exercise
When you are feeling low and de-motivated, one of the last things you feel like doing is exercise. But just going for a simple walk in the fresh air can help clear your head and make you feel so much better. Doing energetic physical activity releases endorphins – the happy bugs – which give you energy and make you feel full of life again ready to tackle the world.
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Dress the part
Slouching around in your pj’s all day is not going to help get you in the right frame of mind for doing your best work. So get up, get dressed, slap on the lippy and act as though you are going to a high level board meeting or to meet your idol in point 6 above. Dress up and show up! It is incredible how by just dressing the part can help change your mood and your attitude.
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Take a day off
Sometimes the simple fact is that you just need to take a day out to chill, read a book, watch a movie or hide under the duvet with a box of chocolate. Everyone needs a down day sometimes. The world won’t end if you take a day out. Just go easy on yourself, take a break and promise yourself you will get back on it again tomorrow.
P.S. If you really are struggling and would like some one to one support to get you back on track, become a member of The Small Business Kit and let me help you out.
by Angela Taffs | Apr 12, 2016 | Business Success, Customer service
Have you ever had a complaint on social media?
Today, more and more people take to social media to make a complaint. But there is such a huge difference in how businesses deal with these complaints.
If you get a complaint on social media, do you want to keep that client who complains (and create a raving superfan for your business) or just get rid of them (and take others with them)?
Things go wrong. If they don’t, you probably aren’t that busy or aren’t trying hard enough.
[Tweet “Things go wrong. If they don’t, you probably aren’t that busy or aren’t trying hard enough.”]
And this past week two retail giants had major problems. Their websites broke! Sainsbury’s was online but whatever search went in ended in ‘no results’ available. Boots UK site was completely down and simply couldn’t be accessed.
Sod’s law dictated these problems happened on the very day that I was trying to do some online ordering. After numerous frustrated attempts to order what I wanted, I gave up and took to Twitter to ask when they would have their problems rectified.
Within minutes of my tweet to Sainsbury’s, they responded to say they had checked and yes, there was a problem and would report back to me. In a short while, they tweeted me again to say they were doing their best to rectify the problem and would I bear with them and try to order in a few hours time.
Boots? The silence was deafening! No response at all.
Later that evening Sainsbury’s asked if I would send them a contact number so they could speak to me direct. I duly sent this and they called me to say the site was back up and had I managed to place my order. I told them that I hadn’t placed my order as time had run out and I had gone elsewhere. They apologised profusely for the inconvenience caused, told me how much they valued my custom and immediately sent me an e-voucher.
I was impressed.
Boots? After sending a second tweet they responded 48 hours later to say their site had only been down for one hour. Utter rubbish, it was down for over 6 hours! And no further correspondence was had from them.
So what can you learn from these two companies and the way they handled a problem? As I am sure you can guess, it’s not rocket science.
What to do when you get a complaint on social media
If you get a complaint or a client/customer flags up a problem try the following:
- Immediately acknowledge there is a problem and it will be looked into
- Ask for contact details to take the complaint off line
- Inform the client of when they can expect a response
- Respond
- Let them know what went wrong and what has been done to rectify the problem
- If you and your business were not at fault, there has still been a misunderstanding of some sort so acknowledge this and look into ways of ensuring the misunderstanding or problem does not happen again
- Let them know how much you value their custom and apologise for inconvenience caused
- Go over and above to make them feel special and offer them a freebie/voucher or similar to show you genuinely care
This is an effective way of regaining trust and credibility with the client and retaining their custom.
It is also possible they will be so impressed that they will turn back to social media to say how impressed they were with how your problem was handled, raising awareness of your business to others.
What not to do when you get a complaint on social media:
- Ignore them
- Deny there was a problem – this is basically calling them a liar – not recommended as insult will be taken
- Get into a public argument
- Do absolutely nothing to let them know you value their custom
If you do the above, you are most likely to lose their custom forever (there are plenty of other places to buy the same products and services from).
It is also quite probable that the client will take to social media to highlight your poor attitude giving a bad impression of your business to others who may have been thinking of buying from you and will now go look elsewhere.
Create a customer care policy
If you don’t have a customer care policy in place, go create one now. It doesn’t matter if you are a one woman band or a multi-million corporation. The principle is exactly the same.
Hopefully, you will never have to use it but as the boy scouts famously state, it is always good to be prepared.
by Angela Taffs | Mar 22, 2016 | Business Success, Sales and Marketing
Top tips to create a survey online
- What is your objective
Decide what you want and why you want to create a survey in the first place. Have a clear objective as to what information you want to get from the results.
Do you want to know what they think of an existing product? Do you want to know what they love about you so you can use this in your future marketing message? Do you want to know what frustrations clients have so you can look to add a new product or service to help them?
- Who is your target audience
Know exactly who you want to the answers from. In other words, who is your target audience. There is no point getting teenage girls to answer a survey about anti ageing products.
Identify your target market clearly and in your opening statement make it clear to only complete if they fit the mix.
If you are a woman over 40 who cares about her appearance and would like to keep your skin as youthful as possible for a long as possible, please complete my survey and be in with a chance of winning a sample pack of my new product
- Let your audience know how much time the survey will take.
If they know it will only take 2 minutes, then tell them. If it is going to take them 15 minutes, let them know and tell them to go grab a coffee. There is nothing more frustrating than getting to question 6 with no idea of how many more questions there are and how long it is going to take. Many people (including myself) will simply give up if they think it is going to take too long so set expectations at the beginning.
- Give an incentive
You are asking people to give up their valuable time so incentivise them to help you out. When you create a survey, offer a prize draw to win one of your products or a complimentary session if you sell a service. Everyone loves to think they are in with a chance of winning and if you have targeted your audience correctly, they are going to want what you are offering.
- Keep in short and sweet
Leading on from point number 3, short surveys get the best response unless there is a golden incentive for giving up longer periods of life to complete more in-depth ones. I always try to stick to 10 questions maximum as this is enough to glean the information I want and to not overwhelm the respondent.
- Keep it simple
Keep questions as simple as possible. Don’t overwhelm respondents by asking them to describe in detail a situation/feeling/opinion. This is going to take them time and thought which may put them off. If you have one area that you really would like to know more about, leave it until the end. Have the simple questions that they can get through quickly at the beginning and keep anything more detailed for last.
For simple questions, use multiple choice or checklists.
- Don’t use closed questions
Closed questions give a yes or no answer so should be used sparingly. Asking someone ‘Do you love our products’ is closed and can only be answered with a yes or no which doesn’t really give you any valuable information.
Ask open questions such as ‘What do you love most about our product/service?’ followed by another question of ‘what one thing could we do to improve our product/service?’. This will give you much better insight into vital information to help your business.
- Gather email addresses
Ask people to give their email address and by offering an incentive as in point 3, this is an easy way to get them to hand it over. However, don’t make it compulsory. The survey is to gain you valuable information and insight for your business and you don’t want to lose people who aren’t willing to give up this information.
You can then add survey respondents to your mailing list or send them a personal message to offer help with a specific problem that they have highlighted in their answers.
- Have a cut-off date
Don’t let the survey run forever. Have a clear cut-off date to collate and analyse answers, and of course, for the competition winner to be decided and announced.
- Promote!
Post your survey wherever you can. Send to your mailing list, post the link in social media groups, send to existing and past clients and all of your prospects.
So there you have it. My top tips to create a survey online that gets results.
If you create a survey that you would like me to share for you, simply come on over to my Facebook group and I will be more than happy to help.
