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Browse every published article connected to Lisa Mininni, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
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Browse every published article connected to Lisa Mininni, or search within this exact expert archive.
After I spoke at a small business association, a brand new entrepreneur approached me explaining how frustrated she was at the lack of results despite her efforts in cold calling. I see this frustration all the time especially with people who are making the switch from employee to entrepreneur.
With over 495,000 new businesses started each month, many new entrepreneurs need help making the transition to business ownership. The task in setting up a business can be overwhelming and many new entrepreneurs are overloaded in assumptions about how expensive it is to market their business. ...
If you want to become a masterful strategic networker, you have to be the one that makes it happen and that means taking a proactive approach to referral marketing. “Don’t wait for the good luck referral. Good luck if you get one, good luck if the person referred to you will talk to you, and good luck if you close it,” states Tim R. Green of President of Referral Institute of Michigan.
Does it seem impossible to work less and earn more? In order to get more done, it has probably been ingrained that you need to invest more time. You might have even gotten into a habit of working 12 or more hours a day, perhaps because you think you’ll be viewed as more accomplished than your colleague who only works 8 hours. Throughout your career, you might have even received added incentives to work more only to discover one day how exhausted you’ve become.
Often times, new entrepreneurs play the commitment game. I want a business, but maybe someone will hire me – I’ll hold off from starting for now. I’m scared about starting a business because I’ve never done it before. Maybe I shouldn’t start because I don’t know if I can be successful. It’s not the right time. What will others think?
Do you like to create your own ideas and have lots of autonomy to execute them or do you prefer to be a member of a team and toss ideas around? Are you a venturesome doer and interested in the achievement of tangible results? Or, do you prefer a work environment where you handle familiar work in which you have experience and training? How you answer these questions will give you great insight on how much autonomy you need to stay motivated and, most importantly, how to structure your business model so you execute it with ease.
Have you ever sat down to your computer, pressed the send/receive button on your email only to have it download a laundry list of emails that you know just by glancing at them aren’t important or urgent to growing your small business? First you look at them. You feel the pressure build up inside. Then, in haste, you start deleting each and every email without opening them just to relieve the stress.
There’s a moment when you reach the tipping point of your business. A tipping point is that split second when something reaches critical mass. It is also seen when the line on the chart starts to shoot upward. Once my clients systematize their marketing, they reach this tipping point quickly. Their prospect pipeline is filled and they bring in consistent income. Then, it happens. The person they hired to help them decides to move on to another opportunity. Just as the momentum starts, they need to put out another fire.
With Spring around the corner, the ground is thawing and seedlings are sprouting up from the soil. It raises the question: What’s your plan for growth? Like cultivating your garden for growth, successful entrepreneurs realize that what is happening on the inside will always be reflected on the outside. In a survey that my company completed with 373 business owners, over 1/3 said their second biggest frustration related to: Quieting their inner criticr Balancing work and personal relationships while seeking new businessr Motivating oneself to take risks
Many business professionals fail miserably at converting a promising lead into a client. Why? Could it be their sales process? Yes. Could it be because they didn’t pre-qualify the prospect? Yes. Could it be because they haven’t asked enough questions before pitching their products or services? Yes. And, there’s something few people ever consider. They operate from their very own wiring which often gets in the way.
Writing about hope in the wake of recession announcements, job losses, and business failures seems counterintuitive. All this negative news calls on emotions of fear not hope. Yet when we hold on to fear, it keeps us in our immediate, short-term thinking. Fear not only stops you from ...
In last week’s blog, I wrote about important prospect-to-client conversion tips. In it, I outlined what happens when you make the mistake of asking someone to do business with you before you’ve developed a relationship with them. Getting the “yes” answer to your proposal often requires more than just one touch point before someone decides to do business with you. The same is true as you expand your business by expanding your sphere of influence. Your sphere of influence is not only the number of people you know but also includes influencers who have a broader network and are in the
The use of strategic alliances or joint ventures has rapidly become popular with a growing number of small business owners. Strategic alliances can be formal or informal where two independent small businesses with the same goals coordinate their efforts often leveraging their marketing efforts for a common purpose. This strategy offers many potential advantages for the small business owner, but can also be riddled with special considerations.
According to Pew research, for the first time, the millennial generation, those aged 18- 34, are now the largest segment of the workforce. If you worked with millennials, you might not be surprised to learn that millennials have a reputation for being married to their phone, using them to text, order food, and play games. Some reports estimate a whopping 80% of millennials even sleep with their phones. Despite access to many modes of communication, many of the reports claim that millennials hesitate when it comes to using their phone to have a verbal conversation with someone.
When you think of the end of the year, what do you think of? Most small business owners think of taxes. It’s a good time to analyze what worked and plan ahead for the next year. At Excellerate Success Institute, my clients use their own Business Blueprint Wizard complete with identified metrics to measure their successes throughout the year.
When your business starts to grow beyond start up and into second stage, you’ll need to expand your capacity to take on more. If you’re thinking how that can be possible when your day is already overfilled, then something needs to change. If you’re constantly delaying decisions or putting off implementing projects, your business will be seeing its own demise rather than dollar signs. The next time you’re delaying decisions, consider asking yourself these questions: What’s the strategy?
How do you get good buzz? It’s not what you might think so before you start sharing your formulas, let me explain. What I mean is - how can you get good word-of-mouth and social media buzz? A common frustration that my brand new small business clients have is how to put all of their marketing pieces together. Once they integrate their marketing systems and put them on autopilot, one of the common questions I get is, “How do I get good buzz, particularly when adding blog marketing to my mix of marketing?”
Every day, entrepreneurs act on their assumptions. Making assumptions is a part of doing business. Assumptions are often based on our experiences and are not often questioned. It’s part of our system of beliefs. If our beliefs are not sound, our assumptions are not sound. These assumptions can serve you or they can deter you from getting your products and services out into the world in a big way. If limiting, they get in the way of creating and selling products or closing on more sales.
Have you ever noticed that when you have two magnets one side repels while the other side attracts? No matter how much you try, if the magnets are not positioned with the right poles, you can’t put them together.
Have you ever skipped a rock across the water? As the rock skims the water, notice how the water ripples. After a moment, each ripple flows effortlessly into the other. The same concept applies when business owners take a systems approach. Each system leads to greater connections and business growth.
Ever wonder how you’re going to get it all done? Recently, someone in my reader community wrote in asking for advice because she was continuously exhausted trying to balance her business and her home life. Even the warrior princess, Wonder Woman had help. While, like you, she was gifted with a wide range of skills, she also had a supply of tools and tapped into her team of counterparts for reinforcement.
I love to watch movies any chance I get. Recently, I watched the 2006 movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, a rags-to-riches story based on the autobiographical book of the same name, written by Chris Gardner. The movie chronicles how Chris Gardner, despite all odds, makes it from down-and-out salesperson to become owner of a multi-million dollar brokerage firm.
One of the best resources to use to quickly establish credibility, add additional streams of income, and attract new clients, is hosting teleseminars. Teleseminars are conducted over the telephone. Just like a live seminar, teleseminars have a speaker and attendees. What you don’t have is the expense of travel, hotel, food, beverage, and room rental. There are many benefits to hosting a teleseminar. These include:
Each year we gather around the table to give thanks for our blessings. In my own life, it’s pretty amazing how people and opportunities have come my way from both expected and unexpected sources. The ease and flow with which I am able to create a life I truly desire has been amazing. And, as I pause and reflect with you today, one thing is very clear, it’s a perfect opportunity to share about the Principle of Conscious Thought and the significant role it plays in making my life extraordinary.
It is estimated that 65% of marketing budgets, on average, are spent on activities designed to generate leads to potential new customers. Yet entrepreneurs only follow up on an estimated 20% of the leads – the rest of the leads generated fall into the abyss of sales leads. Entrepreneurs often spend a lot of their energy attending networking event after networking event but fail to realize they’re actually leaving money on the table by not having a follow up system. They are also working way too hard because they are not automating their pre-qualification process.
There is it – you just made the decision to leverage your business into the one-to-many conversation by offering a workshop. You start promoting it three months ahead of time and are thrilled at the possibility of working with so many more people in your area of genius.
When building your business, the fastest way to leverage it is through systems. If you don’t have systems in place, you’ll also miss out on creating maximum profitability for your business. When my students first work with me, they think they have their accounting system in place because they have Quickbooks, an Accountant or a CPA. Yet,this is only part of managing your profitability. It’s important to manage the very systems you put in place to run your business efficiently. Without ways to manage them, you are letting money slip through your fingers.
We can agree that when systems are broken, they can be our biggest frustrations. If your computer system has ever crashed, then you know what I’m talking about. Just one day without email and you wonder how work ever got done. Without systems or limited systems, you are likely working much harder than you need to. There are different kinds of systems. One system uses technology. The other system is about creating processes.
There are a number of elements to consider when setting up a business, but time and time again I see entrepreneurs struggling with the very thing that describes how their business will create, deliver and capture value: their business model.
One of the best strategies to quickly establish credibility, get known, and differentiate yourself in the marketplace is to share your signature story. A signature story is your own personal account of how you got to where you are today or how you transitioned into your chosen profession.
When you engage in a coordination of knowledge from people who are united in achieving a defined goal, the outcome can be so powerful and riveting. I’ve been a part of and have facilitated many Masterminds over the years. After just one year in one of my Mastermind programs, one of my clients remarked how it got her out of debt and into a 200% increase in her income in just one year. When run well, a Mastermind gives you many things including: • Peak levels of performance. • Feedback and personal improvement. • Critical knowledge in how to do business in this new marketplace.r
Whether you have always thought of starting a business, just started one, or have had one a while, there is one principle that is essential to any small business owner’s success. Without it, you’ll get sidetracked and wonder why things are going awry. When you practice this principle each and every day, you will grow your influence, attract what you do want, and expand your reach in your area of genius. This key principle will help you make a shift from where you are to where you want to be.
Do you consistently get up in the morning drive through the bottleneck of traffic to get to those morning networking meetings and wonder why you’re making the effort? Week in and week out, millions of business owners make the effort to keep their networking commitments so they have a crack at getting more referrals. So, why then is networking not working? My answer is simple. Many business owners don’t have a system in place to leverage their networking. Their time, effort and money spirals down the drain because they lack follow up.
There’s an old folktale called Chicken Little. It’s a story about a chicken who believed the world was coming to an end all because an aco fell on his head. Throughout the story, he kept shouting, “the sky is falling!”
One of the biggest frustrations of small business owners is simply procrastinating on tasks that they know need to be done, but just don’t do them. Other contributing factors that sideline most entrepreneurs include: not setting clear goals, underestimating the difficulty or time required to complete a project or task, using the excuse of "no time", or trying to make something perfect.
Making business decisions are the most important function of any business owner. Throughout each day we make thousands of decisions and many are made instinctively and others learned through habits. For many business owners, however, they get stuck on the fence. Staying on the fence contributes to a lack of clients, limited income, and mismatched marketing messages.
I don't know about you, but shopping is not on my list of enjoyable past times. I think I'm one of only a few women on this planet who actually does not like to shop. When I do shop, I go in, get what I need, and get out. Apparently, when it comes to shopping during the holidays, it's stressful for a lot of people! According to a new survey of over 3,000 people conducted by MemoriseThis.com, 86% of us say they find buying presents difficult and 65% find Christmas shopping a stressful experience.
Are you using partnerships to attract clients and market your business? At The Excellerate Success Institute, we have found creating partnerships extremely helpful in spreading the word to entrepreneurs all over the world on our mentorship programs as well as empowerment and performance events. I recommend collaborating with other businesses to leverage your business while expanding your reach. Regardless if you own an independent home-based business, a store front, or franchise, partnerships are essential to amplify your reach.
There are many advantages to becoming an entrepreneur. I asked accomplished entrepreneurs why they started their own business. They often reply that they saw a need, they had a vision, or they wanted to be their own boss to have more freedom in their life. Entrepreneurship is supposed to bring joy and fun for you and others while making a contribution in the world, right? Why, then do entrepreneurs often find themselves: • Trying to hold it all together at the expense of their time • Overwhelmed or overloadedr
Before you attend your next networking event, start thinking like a successful business owner. When I have chatted with successful entrepreneurs who earned in the millions, they share stories about their relationships they have with other successful people. What relationships do you have? ...
Have you ever been really excited about where you're taking your business and could just feel and taste success, but at the same time were wondering, "Gee, do I have what it takes to make this happen?" I remember those early start-up years wondering if success was possible. When I decided to launch my book nationally, I felt the sheer overwhelm of going national with my book and my business.
Clients are curious about how I manage to get so much done. They ask how I manage my continuously growing business, travel to speak at association summits and free time for the important people in my life. Before you assume I have a magic wand in my back pocket, I have a number of unanswered emails in my mailbox and, every so often, a few things fall through the cracks.
Over and over again, I’ve seen how business owners try tactics that are costing them not only the ability to get new clients (and the money that goes along with it) but their reputation. Often times, they don’t realize that they are even making mistakes. They believe that they are just working hard. What they do know is that they don’t have the sales or the number of clients they were expecting.
Part 1 of 4: Did You Know That You’re Wired to Win? Winning can be defined in several ways. Dictionary.com defines winning as, “to finish first in a race”, to or “to gain the victory”. In each of these definitions, however, it infers someone is going to lose. If you apply the win-lose mindset to the sales process, you’ll end up trying to push. This push sales creates a situation where your customer develops buyer’s remorse and returns the product or you end up spending a whole lot more time trying to satisfy them.
The concept of the Mastermind was made famous by Napoleon Hill about 100 years ago. In his classic book, "Think and Grow Rich", he wrote about the Mastermind principle as "the coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony."
Procrastination can be detrimental to an entrepreneur’s productivity and business growth. It sidelines a project or product going to market. Everyone has a certain activity they choose instead of the project they should be working on. Once you identify those procrastination pitfalls, it’s a little easier to steer clear of them. The next time you feel the angst of procrastination, keep these three thoughts in mind to KISS procrastination away: Keep It Super Simpler
In its simplest form, communication in business is conveying a message through a channel. It can link ideas and things and is a mechanism for connectivity and interaction. Communication is expressed in words, pictures, gestures, signals, and colors. In its most basic context, there is a sender and a receiver. Every day, small business owners receive messages, decipher the message and decide how to respond or if to respond.
Recently, a member of my community wrote in to say that she had her Social Media “up and ongoing” and wanted to know how to capture more leads. Social media marketing has been widely popular because it is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. When social media is used in the right way, it can increase engagement, foster brand awareness, and bring in leads.
It has been estimated that 9 out of 10 sales training courses have no lasting impact after just three months. That’s really unfortunate since many business owners spend thousands of dollars on sales training each year. With a significantly high failure rate, that’s a major cut into your profitability, especially when you calculate the number of training hours you and your team spent in training. If you add up everyone’s time and travel expenses, you might just find you didn't get the return on your training investment that you wanted.
Given that the average new entrepreneur puts in over 60 hours per week and has family responsibilities to consider, you may experience goal conflicts in your life. This conflict could be a recipe for burnout if you’re unclear about your direction and what it takes to get there. First, it takes stepping back and asking a bigger question: what do you want out of life?