Motivating Mum UK

There are five ways or “levers” you can work on to grow your business. By regularly working on your business and not just in your business you will be able to “pull” these levers to achieve year on year growth. These five levers are leads, conversion rate, transaction value, number of transactions and your margin. To understand the things you can do to improve your performance in each area to achieve the business you want..

Leads

• Define who your best customers are and clearly define their characteristics
• Work out how many leads you need to meet your turnover target
• Talk to your best customers

  What do they like about you
  What else could you offer them
  Do they know other business owners who would require your services

• Do some marketing every day

  This does not have to take a lot of time
  There are many cost effective ways e.g. social media
  Do not rely on one or two tactics, use 8-10

• Review what is effective and do more of it

• STOP doing anything that does not work

Sales

• Have a sales pipeline that you regularly review
• Consider what it would take to move prospects to the next stage
• Understand where your clients are in the buying process
• As well as looking to get new business, you need to ensure that you also look after existing clients and see what further/future services they require.
• Remember that existing clients will have a shorter buying cycle as they have already bought from you.

Transaction value

• Work out the average £ spend per client
• Consider how you might differentiate your services to reflect the needs of different clients/target markets
• Some clients will be very happy with a premium service and the additional cost that incurs
• Other clients will only require a basic service but should understand that for instance call out times might be greater.

Number of transactions per year

• Are there other services that you could offer to your clients – not only will this increase their spend but it will fulfil their needs e.g. an accountant offering a half yearly review.
• Do you regularly keep in contact with your clients? You need to regularly remind them that you are there and that you care about them.
• Are your clients aware of everything that you offer?

Margins

• Regularly review the costs in your business – are there areas where you could make savings?
• Look at your pricing – make sure that you are charging correctly for
  Your services
  The time you spend delivering your product or service

• Could you outsource some tasks e.g. bookkeeping or admin which would allow you to spend more time generating business
• Are you making best use of technology?

Mary is the Managing Director of the Business Fit Club with responsibility for the operational delivery and financial management. Outside of work Mary spends her free time walking, running, going to the gym, reading and cooking, the first of which she shares with John Basinger her husband, the latter which he enjoys. She also loves to socialise and spend time with her adult son and daughter and their partners, as well as friends.

You can contact Mary by email mary.carter@businessfitclub.co.uk or telephone 0800 731 7022

This guest post by Diane Dryburgh of Buy a Dating Agency, will give you some ideas as to why a franchise business may (or may not) be the right way for you to start up a business

The decision to buy a franchise is a major, life-changing decision: it is not a choice to be taken lightly. Our aim certainly is not to scare away potential franchisees. However, a happy franchisee is a prepared franchisee, and one certainly must be one-hundred per cent clear on what, exactly, they are getting into. As such, we at BADA have compiled a list of the pros and cons of buying a franchise. Be prepared, be aware, and get ready to conquer the entrepreneurial world! Read the rest of this entry »

My name is Robyn Hatley and I run a MLM business with Arbonne – alongside my other businesses!

Deluded? NO!  Crazy? MAYBE! Having Fun? YES! Enjoying Succcess? OH YES!

Some of you will already know me through my other business Mums The Business  and through my associate partnering with Motivating Mum .  In these 2 businesses, I act as a mentor & trainer for ambitious mumpreneurs.  I help mums who are either working within a MLM business or who are considering taking on a MLM business – I train & mentor them to be better business women, and to ask the right questions before deciding if MLM is the right business for them.  So in this role I have to be impartial and independent, and I don’t promote (nor criticize) any particular MLM company.  What this does mean though, is that I have had the wonderful privilege of truly understanding the business model of MLM, how MLM Companies differ from each other, and how to be successful at MLM!

Ok, so let’s get serious (well, just a little!) – initially I didn’t think that traditional MLM was for me.  Whilst MLM is a successful, tried & tested business model, and you can “hit the ground running” with a new business within weeks (sometimes days!), I just  didn’t think I could squeeze it in!

I also knew that with some MLM companies, the emphasis is on selling.  Great if you have that in your skills set – but I unfortunately didn’t!  You see, my previous career and current businesses were all about training, mentoring, helping others succeed (I’m an ex HR Consultant for an international blue chip company & I now run my own businesses training & mentoring mumrepreneurs).

So here’s what happened: I was introduced to Arbonne two years ago, by a close friend, who joined the business networking group that I managed.  I soon became a customer of Arbonne as I personally loved the products and their commitment to being green.  The products are a highly regarded, premium brand with a Swiss heritage (healthy, botanically based, pure and safe). As a conscientious mum, I’m always reading labels and avoiding the “nasties” that are often in our food and skincare / cosmetics ranges.  Also, one of my daughters suffered from very dry skin, with outbreaks of eczma, and one of the products in the Arbonne range certainly did the trick in resolving this nasty condition.

What I didn’t fully understand at the time, was what a fantastic GLOBAL business opportunity Arbonne offered.  I was already running 3 home-based businesses, and a family – so believe me, I wasn’t looking for another project! It was only when the prospect of relocating countries emerged on my horizon, that i began to look at my lifestyle and career / business options – and Arbonne again!

Opportunities arise when you least expect them!  The key to success is being open to explore them!  DO YOU HAVE A PLAN B…? Most people don’t and I didn’t really either. Considering the current economy, and also that my husband is involved in professional sport, which can take us anywhere in the world, I decided to look at Arbonne more seriously.  And besides the effective, award winning Skincare, Cosmetics and Nutrition products, here are the other key reasons why I personally decided to start up an Arbonne business:

Arbonne is a 21st Century MLM business – it is an online business.  That means I don’t personally manage stock, payments or deliveries.  It also means that I can create a residual income (“earning money while I sleep”), so it can be run alongside my existing businesses.  It also means I can run my Arbonne business from anywhere in the world (whether on holiday or permanently relocated).  I found the start up costs to be lower than I expected.  The products are daily consumable products, so my success is based on the effort of repeat business, not constantly finding new customers.   And for me, the most exciting prospect of all, is that Arbonne is a $billion company, but currently only available in 4 countries: USA, Canada, UK and Australia.  And because I am not geographically limited with Arbonne, I can grow myself a global MLM business. And I suspect, that like me, you have friends and family scattered across the world too. Its not very often that you come across an established 30 year old, successful Company that still has HUGE growth potential.

Please feel free to contact me for a coffee, a chat to find out more about the business, and the opportunity to test drive the amazing Arbonne products.

Thank you for your time and curiosity!  Robyn Hatley
Tel:(0044)7946 018 971
email: robynhatley@myarbonne.co.uk
website: http://robynhatley.myarbonne.co.uk/

If you have been to my blog before, or if you are a regular blog reader you may have noticed the Comment Luv box at the bottom when you come to leave a comment. You may have wondered what is so great about the Comment Luv system, and why people would want to use it on their blog. Here for the record are the main reasons, in no particular order, why I choose to use Comment Luv Premium on Motivating Mum.

1. Comment Luv asks you to tick a box to confirm that you are not a spammer.  That very small action means that the vast majority of spam that was coming to my blog before, now doesn’t get through.Comment Luv Premium comes packaged with some very efficient anti-spam software called GASP, which so far has proven even more efficient on Motivating Mum than the premium version of Akismet. That one feature in itself makes Comment Luv Premium worth the money.
2. When you leave a comment on Motivating Mum, you are encouraged to post a link to your most recent blog post. That is great for you and great for me too.
   - It’s great for you, because why wouldn’t you want a back link to your site coming from Motivating Mum?- It’s great for me because I love to see who my followers are, read their blogs and communicate with them.  I promise that wherever possible I will come, visit and comment on your blog if you leave a sensible relevant comment on mine.  If you have Comment Luv too, I will come back several times (I like my backlinks…).

   This is how communities are formed and I just love it. Motivating Mum has had lots more comments since I installed Commentluv Premium and I’ve been to see lots of interesting blogs

3. When you come to leave a comment on my blog you are also prompted to leave your twitter handle and also to Like the post on Facebook, Tweet and/or +1 the post. Once again, if you do this little job for me (it takes all of one second to press those little buttons) then I promise you, I will come and do likewise, and I will follow you on twitter too. Share and share alike!
4. If you hang around a bit and make three sensible comments on different posts of mine, then you will get all sorts of cool benefits. Firstly you can choose any of your last ten posts to link to – so you can show me lots of your wonderful content, and I will come and read and comment on it all! Also you can put keywords after your name when leaving a comment, so you get a link to your site from mine with a keyword of your choice, How much more of a present would you like me to give your blog?   (by the way, if you have Comment Luv Premium too, you will get this benefit on all Comment Luv blogs even before you leave 3 sensible comments….)
5. As you can imagine, once people find out about the cool benefits of Comment Luv enabled blogs, not only do they want to get Comment Luv installed on their own site, but they also want to go out and find loads of Comment Luv enabled sites to leave comments on and build those juicy backlinks. It’s becoming quite a community.Those of you who want to go looking for a targeted list of Comment Luv enabled blogs, here is a great list curated by my friend Ana Hoffman of Traffic Generation Cafe.

   Her list is sorted by Page Rank and all the blogs on it have something to do with internet marketing.  It’s a great resource to start Comment Luv blog hopping. And yes, Motivating Mum is on it! (PR3 for those of you who care about such things).

So those are the reasons why I have Comment Luv Premium installed on my blog.  I think you will agree that they make a fairly comprehensive and exciting package.

If you want to get Comment Luv on your blog, you need to register on the Comment Luv site – the next batch of Comment Luv Premium licences will be for sale in a few days.

While you are waiting – the author of Commentluv, Andy Bailey will treat you to a series of free videos entitled How to Get Noticed on the Internet

These videos are worth signing up for on their own even if you didn’t want to buy Commentluv Premium at this point. Andy is an amazing presenter and his content is fresh and compelling.

Once you have signed up on Andy’s site, and while you are waiting, why not test this fab new plugin by leaving some comments below or on some of my other posts, then tweeting and liking them. Then look out for me lurking near your site sometime soon…..

Now that I have been back from New York a couple of weeks, time to report on how I have put my newly acquired savings skills into action.

For those of you that didn’t read my earlier post, here again is the link to the video of the Extreme Couponing class, delivered by Jenny Martin of Southern Savers at the recent SaveUp11 conference. The video is about 25 minutes long – great to watch just to see how much one very entertaining and energetic speaker can pack into such a short time. Some of it is universally applicable to the USA and to here – some of it is unfortunately only relevant to our American cousins.

For those of you that haven’t got the time to watch the video – here are the main points that I took out of it, which do transfer to the UK and which I am now using in my own shopping:

1. Watch Out for Deals – Retailers are falling over themselves to get us through the doors at the moment – there are money off offers all over the place – you just have to know where to look for them.
2. Know What You Want – You need to be very well aware of what your family actually eats and uses. If you won’t use a product, it doesn’t matter if it is 5 for the price of 1 – you are not saving money by paying for anything that you don’t need. Also, know the base price of the products that your family uses, so that you can recognise a good deal when you see one.
3. Shop Around – Try not to be a brand snob – be open to trying different branded items, whichever has the big money off savings. Try different tea, coffee, washing powder, cleaning products, toothpaste… The retailers are happy to give you a huge slab off your first purchase of something new in order to get your loyalty. So play them at their own game – take the big discount then go back to your regular brand (or a different deal) next time.
4. Buy in Bulk  When you do see a good deal on a non-perishable or freezable  item, buy several weeks supply of it. Jenny recommended six weeks worth, although I think that was based on the offers coming round every six weeks in her supermarket. You will need to see how often the offers come round in your own supermarket to get an idea on how much to buy. Some of the American stockpiles on the Extreme Couponing show were a bit extreme, but a few weeks supply of non-perishables does make sense with winter on the way…
5. Subscribe – Sign up for all the online retailers’ newsletters, pick up free magazines in stores and look for supplements in magazines and newspapers – even the stuff that drops uninvited through your door. When you are not particularly thinking about saving money, all these retailer newsletters just seem like so much spam. When you are looking to save you realise that they are teeming with money off offers. Use a separate email account for them, then dip in before you go shopping.
6. Share the Love  – When you do find good offers, share them with your friends on a site like Savoo. As A DealPro with Savoo, I’ve been posting up all the deals that I have found over the last few weeks (and there have been loads of them). Then I can see what everyone else has posted, plus the exclusive discounts that Savoo has managed to negotiate for its regular customers and save all over again.

So far, just in the last two weeks, I have saved a huge amount on a mattress (which we were planning to replace anyway) with Groupon, saved 20% off personalised gifts and labels with Stuck on You, and saved £20.00 on a £100.00 shop at Ocado, just by shopping the offers pages first and filling in with essentials later. I’m sure I’ll be able to improve on that – I’m working on it.

With Christmas looming, I have now decided that I am not going to pay full retail price for any of my Christmas presents, food or decorations (I already bought my cards back in January). I’m really enjoying the thrill of the chase – saving a few pounds here and there. Savoo have tipped me the wink that they have got a load of specials coming up in November, and I’ll continue to feed in my own deals that keep popping up everywhere. Once you get started this whole couponing and sharing mentality can get a bit addictive.

If you would like to hear more about how I am saving money this Christmas, or would like to be informed when I start teaching couponing in the UK (scheduled for the New Year) please sign up to my new Money Saving Tips newsletter.  You could win £30 of John Lewis vouchers.

This video is for those of you who remember Alli.   She has set up a hugely successful business in Australia, and is much more brave than I am when it comes to doing video blogging.

Here she is on the subject of working with your competition. Some great points in this video. Go Alli!

5 Practical and 3 Confidence Tips for Delivering Great 60 Second Speeches

by Grace Marshall

One thing that terrifies most people when they start attending networking meetings is the prospect of standing up in a room full of strangers and speaking for 60 seconds about your business.

“What do I say?” we wonder. “What if I keep rambling or go off on a tangent?” “How do I keep to time? I keep running out of time!” or even “I can’t think of enough to say to fill 60 seconds!”

Here are five practical tips that I shared about what to say and how to structure your 60 seconds.

1. Start and end with your company name.People may not catch your name at the beginning. And often, it’s only when they hear about what you do, or what referrals you’re looking for, that they are prompted to write your name down. Reminding them at the end helps them to remember who you are and to be able to get in touch with you after the meeting.
2. Talk about what you doKeep it brief and focused. Rather than put yourself under pressure to reel off a list, start with a broad statement, like “I’m a Virtual Assistant” or “I’m a photographer” and then focus on one service or one product that you provide, for example “one thing I specialise in is “wedding photography” or “I’d like to talk to you today about my copy editing and proofreading.”If you attend a regular networking meeting, this approach also keeps your 60 seconds fresh, holds attention and educates other members of the group on an ongoing basis, giving something different for them to be thinking about and looking out for each week or month.
3. Talk about the benefitsMake sure you talk about who your clients are and how they benefit from hiring or buying from you: “I help… to… with/by/so that….” Be sure to talk about the benefits, not just the features of your product or service. So if you offer a 24 hour turnaround as a feature, depending on your product, the benefit might be that your clients avoid missing their proposal deadline, avoid paying a fine or getting into trouble for leaving an anniversary gift till the last minute! Or if you design beautiful logos and websites, talk about the increase in visitors and paying clients who respond to a more professional or distinctive image.
4. Be specific about who you want to be referred to“Anybody and everybody” draws a blank. You’re more likely to bring someone specific to mind if you say “someone who is expecting a baby” or “an arts student” or “an accountant” – someone that people can go away and contact, or be on the lookout for. You could even name a particular company you’re trying to get in touch with.Don’t forget useful contacts and referral partners too. Complementary businesses who serve the same types of clients as you can be great for mutual referrals. Someone at the meeting may not know of anyone about to get married, but they may well know of caterers, wedding planners, dressmakers, cake makers and contacts with venues.
5. Have a call to actionDo you want a potential client to ring you, visit your website, have a card or sign up for your free newsletter? Or do you want permission to call them? If you tell your networking partners what to say once they have spotted a potential referral, this makes it a lot easier for them to refer more business to you.And here are three tips to boost your confidence with 60 second networking introduction:

1. Be yourselfYou don’t have to be a comedian, a silver-tongued salesman, a natural speaker or incredibly outgoing to deliver an effective 60 second introduction. And it’s ok to be nervous! Networking is about developing relationships, and people connect much more naturally when you are honest, authentic and willing to communicate. So smile, be human and be friendly whether you’re delivering or listening to a 60 seconds speech.
2. Be preparedSeasoned networkers may look like they make it up as they go along, and get it right effortlessly, but there’s often more practise and preparation that goes on behind the scenes. If it helps your nerves, don’t be afraid to write yourself a script, practice it beforehand so you feel confident and comfortable with the timing, and even use it in the meeting itself if it helps you. Reading from a script may mean you’re not maintaining eye contact with your audience, but it will help you to deliver your message with clarity and confidence.Preparation is especially key for introverts, who often communicate better when they’ve had the chance to think through and prepare what they want to say. For example, when the senior minister at our church preaches, he seems so confident and conversational that you wonder if he just makes it up on the spot. Truth is he prepares and practises A LOT, and yes he’s an introvert too.
3. Be creativeYou don’t have to be a performer to deliver a great 60 second speech. You can be creative in finding other ways of communicating. With pictures, videos or samples of your work, for example. Or even a client’s testimonial.

Grace Marshall is mum to two young children, and a life and business coach who loves to help other mums create their own definition of motherhood and business. You can get her free report: YES YOU CAN! Top Ten Ways to Grow a Successful Business without Compromising Your Family at www.Grace-Marshall.com/YesYouCan

This blog is one of 45 featured in my ebook  Motivating Business Mums – now available from Brightword publishing.

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by Rebecca Jones

Watch any business programme on the TV read a business book or spend time with other business owners and you will hear time and time again how “cash is king” and “turnover is vanity and profit is sanity”.  But have you ever heard the phrase “I’m just too busy to make sales calls”? I have, and I hear it all the time.

But you and I know that sales are everything to the success of any business, right.  You know that you can have a great product or excellent service but if no one buys it you don’t have a business.  Instead you have a very expensive and time consuming hobby.

Yet time and time again I speak to business owners who may as well be telling me that they are just too busy killing their business to make any sales calls.  Ok so they dress it up a little “I have so much paperwork to do I’ll do my chase up calls next week” or “I need to re-design my website so those sales leads will have to wait for now”.  Best of all “I don’t even know if these people who made enquiries are ready to buy yet”.

If this is you STOP right now as you’re killing your business.

You know that being a business owner is hard work; there are lots of tasks to do.  You also know that you enjoy some tasks more than others.  Maybe it’s because they are closer to your skills set.  But have you considered your CONFIDENCE.

Think about it for a moment.  Which jobs do you tend to put off, leave till last on your TO DO list and always find seemingly more important tasks to do.  I’d put money on it that these tasks tend to take you out of your comfort zone and that you are less than confident about carrying them out.

If anything to do with sales come on your list of jobs I put off and jobs I feel least confident about you need to take action now.  If your confidence is holding you back from making sales calls or you’re worried about hearing “No not today” or “I buy from someone else” then consider these suggestions.

• Plan your sales calls and meetings so you feel more in control.
• Practice before you contact potential clients so you know what you are going to say.  Think  about your opening lines and practice them until you are able to deliver them confidently and clearly
• Consider what objections people may have to purchasing.  Pre-empt them within your discussions or be ready with responses (this comes back to being prepared)
• Accept that not everyone is going to like your product or service and that doesn’t matter.  You still have to talk to people about it because there will be people who do like it and do want to buy from you
• Don’t take sales rejections personally, they are saying no to the product not you, even if you designed it, made it or deliver it.
• If someone says no, thank them for their time and ask them if they may be interested in the future.  If you feel it is appropriate ask for some feedback, maybe the timing isn’t right or they don’t like the price, colour or something else which you may be able to change now or in the future.
• Be aware of buying signals and stop selling and change to closing the deal.
• Don’t forget to close the deal and ask for the sale “Are you able to buy from me today?”
• Consider using a coach, mentor or buddy system with another business owner to help develop your confidence in sales.  You can speak to them when a sales call has gone wrong to discuss what you could do differently next time, rebuild your confidence and have someone to celebrate with when you successfully make a sale.
• Don’t be tempted to buy in sales people, you are the most knowledgeable about your product and you need to sell it.  Once you have grown and need sales people it will be your job to motivate them and build their confidence in your product, but you will still need to sell to investors, customer and your team. Business is about sales its best to accept that early on.

So if you hear yourself saying you’re too busy to make sales calls consider these questions.

• Is your lack of confidence in selling holding you and your business back?
• Could you improve your business by just developing better sales techniques?
• What strategies can you put in place to build confidence in yourself and your ability to sell?

Rebecca Jones opened her first business at the age of 19.  Over 20 years on she has a huge amount of knowledge, experience and ideas.  Regularly working with women business owners, Rebecca has become known for her easy style and friendly approach to real business success. Her new book ‘Business in Red Shoes’ sums up years of work as a coach and mentor to business owners.  www.businessinredshoes.co.uk

This is one of a series of  guest blogs from successful mumpreneurs and coaches that will be published on this site every day during March. Please look at some of the other fabulous posts that we have published over the last few days.

To receive a daily notification of the blog of the day, please sign up for the Mummy Mentoring Month newsletter at Motivating Mum.

I got my groceries delivered the other day. Nothing earth-shattering about that but what I experienced while I ordered my fruit and veg was.

So usually I am a Sainsburys or Tesco girl for the mix of price and service, and the loyalty cards.  I love Waitrose but tend to think of them as a little expensive, however, the other day I got a voucher offering £15 off my first online order. I made sure to use it as the offer felt like a good sized amount and it meant the groceries wouldn’t be anywhere near as expensive as what I felt they usually were.

Ordering was no different to the other supermarkets, however, delivery was where Ocado really came into their own. I got a free text reminding me of the impending delivery and any substitutions that had been made, the delivery docket also outlined the use by dates of all the products, all groceries were delivered in colour-coded bags for freezer, fridge and cupboard and the bags contained a sample of gourmet tea and a flyer documenting further services offered by Ocado. One of which I will take advantage of in the future.

I was left floored. Not only had Ocado got me to order from them when I was sure I never would, they impressed me so much with their service that I would go back again. And what had I learned?

1. That you need to understand what barriers there are to people not buying from you/using your service and develop offers that address this.
2. That you need to look at every point of contact with your clients and work out the best ways to impress at each stage.
3. That you need to engage in dialogue with my clients and see where you can improve.
4. That you need to look at your competitors and see what you can do better or differently.
5. That you can charge more for something, if you offer amazing service. Also, don’t you think people talk more about the amazing service they got, as opposed to the cheap price?
6. That the little touches can make a huge difference!