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Business building – make your own luck

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Make your own luck!

FOR BUSINESS BUILDING CALL GARY DIRECT ON 0408 756 531

Luck is really nothing more than chance!   It is a random event!  In business building it is better to be a lot more deliberate and purposeful.

Would you like to leave the success or failure of your business building to chance or random events?  I don’t think so!

We are talking about the future money machine that you are building for you and your family; the one that you have already invested valuable time and money into; the one that you hope will finance the rest of your life.

You make your own luck in business!   Feeling lucky is about feeling in control.  It is about ‘knowing your business’ well enough to know what works and what doesn’t.

It can be a mistake to blindly follow others.  It is often the case that other people’s strategies don’t work so well in your business.  But don’t worry, everyone takes these wrong turns.  Don’t be despondent!  It is a matter of finding the right path for you.

As you find your own way, leave your mind open to the great impact that your own presence, personality and imagination can have on your business.  It is probably far more than you ever thought.

That is what I mean when I have said in previous posts, that when business building, don’t miss the opportunity to paint your business the colour of you!

Business is still about people!  A smiling, positive and attractive YOU will create personal connections that can’t be easily duplicated by others.  It will also save you a fortune on 3rd party marketing.

For more reading on business building, go to Business building – a dream income stream

More on business building next time!

Gary

Business building – Cash is King

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Gary Weigh

It might sound old fashioned but when you are business building, living within your means is not such a bad idea.  Knowing how much is in your bank account on any day, and knowing that the balance is in the black, ensures survival in any economy.

When you look around and see business owners driving around in flashy cars and installing reception areas more expensive than there house, be suspicious.  All is not what it seems.  In my experience as a consultant and coach, most are living on borrowed money.

Leveraging is a fancy business school term for borrowing money.  For some it is squandered on trimmings and toys to give the illusion of success.  For others, it is spent unwisely on ‘throw money at it’ strategies that simply don’t work. 

I am nor saying that you can’t grow your business using borrowed money.  What I am saying is that you must be aware that the economic landscape can change in a heartbeat.  In an environment of slow sales and falling asset values, a significant core debt is the last thing you need.

No one ever thinks that a recession will always follow a boom, even though it has been a regular 7-8 year cycle for the past 100 years.  The bottom line is that when things get tough, borrowed money still has to be repaid.

Recession is the time when ill-advised business financing strategies are found out.  It is always the over-borrowed businesses that go under.  It is much safer to grow your business slowly and steadily from the profits of your business. 

That means that for a while at least, you will have to engage in that other old fashion concept of long hours and hard work to bring in sales revenue.

Email me at gary@garyweigh.com for your FREE Business Finance Fact Sheet.

More business building next time!

Gary

Business building – deliberate non-conformity

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One of the most common and very damaging mistakes you can make in business building is to be the same as everyone else.  Imitating others is the quickest way to see your business become lost and invisible in the background noise.

It is easy to prepare a business plan on a me-too business.  All the information is available or can be deduced.  Why?  Because everyone is doing it!  It’s much harder to make informed estimates about something that has never been done before.

It is not easy to sit down with a blank piece of paper and think of a new business idea.  In any case, that is not the way most innovative businesses start.

When you study the birth and evolution of what is different and new in recent times, you will find that more often than not, the entrepreneur was simply following his or her passion or attempting to make life easier for themselves.

Regardless, there are many things you can do to transform yourself into a deliberate non-conformist.  Here are just three:

1.    Keep an open mind

One of the surprising things that often happen in business is that your customers are not the group you first planned on.  Consumers have a habit of adapting products and services to their own needs.  They create the market; you just have to be alert to it.  So your products and services end up satisfying needs; just not the needs you first thought.

2.    Do online research

Even though the basics of life remain the same, tastes are constantly changing.  Therefore, finding out what people want is really helpful.  This can be achieved by communicating with your blog readers or by conducting online surveys at a survey site such as Survey Monkey.

3.    Tell stories

Everyone loves a good story.  Even people who wouldn’t otherwise buy your products and services will still follow your story.  So long as you don’t deceive or mislead, your stories can be very creative and can serve to set you apart from your competitors.

Check out my Aikido Secrets blog at http://www.aikido-secrets-to-calm-success.com/

Until next time!

Gary

Business building – a different mindset

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In my last post I announced that I was making myself available for a limited number of Mind-body Balance private classes, both personally and online.

Over years of business building I have come to realise that the martial mind skills that underpin the phenomenal art of Aikido can also have wide application and a very profound effect on business.   They also form the basis of Business Mind.

Aikido is known the world over as the art of peace.  Its popularity is soaring because it is a defensive art that can be used by anyone and everyone because it doesn’t rely on size, or physical strength.

Aikido is as important as Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ as an Eastern martial philosophy with instant appeal and widespread application in Western business.

Indeed, Sun Tzu’s Art of War strategies were designed to win without the need to fight.  However, his strategies were largely devoid of moral considerations as is often the case in war.  This is not surprising given that they were written in a feudal age where life was cheap.

Whilst Sun Tzu’s warfare strategies deserve their place in revolutionizing Western business, Aikido can go one giant step further.

Aikido, the art of peace, is built upon a foundation of moral considerations; such as valuing life and taking care of those who seek to do us harm.  Furthermore, Aikido provides more than just strategies.  It develops the mindset for peace, in the form of the non-fighting mind.

This is Business Mind’.  It is achieved through the application of the Japanese principles of Ai-ki.  It is a strange sounding concept that means harmony (ai) with the universal energy (ki); the life-giving energy that invisibly connects all people and all things.

I will reveal the secrets of a powerful business mind in my coming business building blogs.  Meanwhile, check out my Aikido Secrets blog at http://www.aikido-secrets–to-calm-success.com

Until next time!

Gary

Business building – non-conformity wins the day

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Save the TALL poppies

Looking for business building tips Brisbane? Try non-conformity!

In the area of career and vocation, conformity is getting a job, commuting to work each day and putting in a solid 8 hours or a stressful 10 hours, and doing much the same thing next day and every day after that until retirement.  That’s what the vast majority of the working population does.

So many entrepreneurs choose to start a business specifically to get away from the herd mentality.  They have a good idea; come across an opportunity; and give it a go.  Money is usually a problem but as far as escaping the rut, the commute or the unreasonable boss goes, there is nothing to lose.

In Australia there is a social phenomenon where people of talent and achievement are resented and criticised if it is popularly perceived that they regard themselves as being a cut above the average Australian.  It is called ‘the tall poppy syndrome’.

That is why many successful Australian entrepreneurs carefully craft their image as that of an ‘Aussie battler made good’, insisting that they are still Aussie battlers at heart, and always championing the cause of the everyday Australian.

I will continue on the need for a powerful business mind in my next business building blog.  For more on breaking free of herd thinking, check out my Aikido Secrets blog at http://www.aikido-secrets-to-calm-success.com/

Remember that Ai-ki mind power is good for business.  If you are looking for your own Personal Ai-ki Mentor to guide you into a powerful business mind, and help you’re your business education, check out my previous blog below and drop us a line at coach@garyweigh.com

Until next time!

Gary

Online business building – what is involved?

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Business building online is a lot cheaper than doing it in the bricks and mortar world but there are still real costs to outlay.  Here’s how it works.

In general, these are the steps required to profitably build business online:

  1. Build a suitable internet marketing site
  2. Communicate with potential customers
  3. Build target traffic
  4. Induce desired behaviour (e.g. call, opt-in, click, buy)
  5. Make sales transactions
  6. Turn transactions into repeat sales
  7. Build a qualified customer list

There is an abundance of free tools on the internet that will allow you to do some of the things listed above.  Their mere availability leads many to the mistaken assumption that online business building is free.

Online business building is not free.  It requires a wealth of diversified talent; and rarely does this talent reside in just one person.  Good internet marketers outsource each part of their processes to specialists around the world.

Site builders, programmers, SEO experts, sales copy writers, product researchers, advertising specialists, article writers …. just to name a few.  Every sub-contractor expects to be paid, hence the costs.

Fortunately, many reside in countries where the Australian and US dollar are extremely valuable, so costs are low relative to onshore labour costs.  At the same time, productivity tends to be high.  Subcontractors either perform and do the job right the first time or they never get a second chance.

Like any business, there are upfront (site) establishment costs and ongoing service costs.  The bigger is the online business, the bigger are the costs involved.  However, there is one important difference between online business and offline business.

Regardless of the costs involved, the income potential of a 100% online business, operating in world wide cyber space, is actually limitless.  The same can’t be said of most offline businesses.

If you are interested in maintaining a happy Life Balance whilst business building, go visit my other blog at http://www.aikido-secrets-to-calm-success.com

Until next time!

The Coach

Business building – a dream income stream

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The business building dream is to establish a recurring income stream; one that just keeps rolling in and doesn’t depend on you having to sell your time.

At first, it sounds a bit too good to be true but it is possible with a little smart planning.  Here are the desired elements of your dream income stream.

You need:

1.      to attract a big audience

2.      a product to sell (yours or someone else’s)

3.      the sales admin to be automated

4.      the net sales proceeds automatically directed to your bank account

5.      to be able to operate it from home or from any hotel room in the world

The answer of course is an online business.  If your products are electronic, or they are someone else’s (affiliate) products, then your entire business can be built online.  You need not have a physical presence at all, other than ABN and tax file number.

With today’s extraordinary online business tools, it is all possible.  But here is the catch.  It doesn’t come free and it doesn’t come without commitment and work.  To believe otherwise is to subscribe to one of the great internet myths of our time.

Like business building anywhere, you must be prepared to invest both time and money to get your online business up and running.  It is true that setting up an online business is generally a lot cheaper than setting up a bricks and mortar business but all other business principles still apply.

Besides having the advantage of a much lower capital investment, building a business that is 100% online means that you have complete independence and life balance.  You make money while you sleep and you can operate it from anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in maintaining a happy Life Balance whilst business building, go visit my other blog at http://www.aikido-secrets-to-calm-success.com

Until next time!

The Coach

Business building– recession is a blessing in disguise

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It is true that many iconic business empires around the world were started by entrepreneurial business builders during the depths of recession.  About half of the public companies that make up the Dow Jones index began in recession.  Why? Because that’s where the opportunities were (and still are)!

In recession, entrepreneurial spirit is often borne out of necessity.  Put simply, if you have lost your job or have been cut back to part time, there may no other choice but to go it alone.

Hunger and scarcity can breed creativity faster than any business degree.  You may have been harboring a good idea for a long time, but involuntary unemployment or retirement creates an opportunity and the need to act.

Before you start however, stop to think whether yours is a recession product or not.  You can’t introduce just any old product into recession markets.  It has to reflect recession-type needs.

A product that is popular in recession is likely to remain popular in times of abundance.  However, the reverse may not hold true.  Many boom time business builders have found that out the hard way.

There are many good reasons to start a business in a recession. They include:

  • The resources you need to start a business can be a lot cheaper because decreased demand and oversupply drives prices down
  • Many businesses downsize, shed resources and fail to fulfill contracts in tough times, thereby creating opportunities for newcomers
  • There are many opportunities because of the rapid belt-tightening and changes in consumer demand; most businesses can’t adapt quickly to the changed market conditions
  • Competitors are struggling and often weakened
  • Suppliers are struggling as well so they are more inclined to negotiate better terms

Ironically, it is the creation of new small businesses that helps lead the economy out of recession because the small business sector plays a significant part in driving the economy.

If you are interested in business building and you want to retain a happy Life Balance, go visit http://www.aikido-secrets-to-calm-success.com

Until next time!

The Coach