Quiet Power Strategy
Does the idea of “going corporate” make you cringe? “Being corporate,” “going corporate,” and “working for corporate” have been slurs for small business owners and independently-minded workers for at least 30 years.
Maybe you’ve felt exploited by corporate greed. Maybe you’ve felt the man condescending to you.
Or maybe you just started your business to do something different a different way.
It’s time to reclaim corporate.
What does “corporate” really mean? Well, the root of the word (corporare) means to form into a body. It’s been used to describe communities coming together to govern themselves and it’s been used to describe people of faith coming together to worship.
When it comes to business, going corporate means to create a body of systems: policies, models, frameworks, procedures. Going corporate means being organized, knowing how things work, and intentionally choosing to operate in a way that gets results.
Too many micro and small business owners choose to make it up as they go.
They’re fighting the need to set their marketing, product development, outsourcing, client intake, or sales into systems because they fear those systems create rigidity. But systems and frameworks don’t create rigidity, they give you a clear space to play and create in.
Going corporate gives you the ability to be more creative and take more risks.
The other reason people fear going corporate is that corporations have a reputation for hurting people. They create systems for the purpose of profit instead of for the purpose of taking care of people.
It’s like that old adage: Systems don’t hurt people, people hurt people.
There are plenty of corporations run by people who care who create systems that are efficient, effective, profitable, and people-driven. If you care about people, your systems can too.
And, just like systems and frameworks allow for more creativity, systems and frameworks also allow you to take better care of people. When people know what you expect of them, they feel more comfortable and better able to do what they need and want to do.
If you’ve been resisting going corporate with your business, it’s time to rethink your fears. There’s a whole new world waiting for you, your business, and your customers when you make the decision to strategically and intentionally run your business.
Art of Growth, Quiet Power Strategy
So you want to grow your business. You start tracking new Facebook likes, new email subscribers, and your website traffic. You discover how to move the needle on each and do more and more of the activities that create growth in these metrics.
It takes a lot of time. You’re posting to Facebook 5 times a day—which takes creative energy to come up with posts, reading time to share others posts, and productive time to tear yourself away from the onslaught of other people’s posts. You’re looking for new ways to gain email subscribers—hosting webinars, planning joint ventures, hosting telesummits, setting ad campaigns. You’re writing more blog posts, adding pillar content pages, and optimizing the SEO on your site.
The metrics you’re paying attention to are constantly pulling you away from time with clients. But you’re growing your business!
Or are you?
Are you paying attention to the right things? What have those new Facebook likes, email subscribers, or website visitors gotten you? Have they brought in new revenue? (Do you even have a way to tell?) Have they streamlined your production? Have they helped you develop new opportunities?
Most likely, no.
And if they have, they’ve only entrenched you further into the business you have instead of helping you grow the business you want.
Now, I’m not at all opposed to new Facebook likes, email subscribers, or website visitors. Those are 3 metrics I track myself.
However, I don’t spend time on those metrics until I’ve actually gone about the business of working on my business.
You see, building your Facebook page, growing your list, and buoying your website traffic isn’t working on your business. Marketing your business is an “in” your business kind of activity. And if it’s the only thing you’re making time for, it’s not going to do you a lot of a good in the long-term. Unless you’ve got the right systems, strategy, and development plan set up, it’s not buying you any more time, money, or sanity.
Let me say that again: Promoting your business isn’t buying you any more time, money, or sanity.
You might have noticed that. You might have realized posting more on Facebook—even sending more emails, one of my personal favorite activities—isn’t improving your quality of life.
But if your metrics of growth are all things that lead to more time spent on marketing, you’re wasting time and not creating the kind of systems that lead to true growth, true profit, and true sanity. And I write this as someone who loves marketing with a burning passion.
You’re paying attention to the wrong things.
And it’s costing you time (not to mention money and energy, too).
So what should you be paying attention to?
(more…)
Business Brainstorm, Quiet Power Strategy
You’ve done the work. You’re confident in yourself, your ideas, and what you have to offer.
You might even be starting to believe your own hype (and frankly, I don’t think that’s a bad thing).
You don’t need another cheerleader for your business. You need someone with the chops to guide your decision-making. You need someone who can challenge your assumptions and point you toward the truth. You need someone who has ideas that break through the noise.
This is why I do what I do. This is why I don’t create personal development programs masquerading as business development. This is why my team is full of people who are doing the work every single day. This is why I’ve spent years putting together a methodology and training people how to use it.
Quiet Power Strategy Team Meeting: Suzi Istvan, Natasha Vorompiova, Jen Vertanen, Brigitte Lyons, Breanne Dyck in non-coordinated gesture of deep thought
This was the subject of an all-hands on deck Quiet Power Strategy team meeting a couple of weeks ago. We talked about how important it is that we’re more than cheerleaders for our clients. They come to us because we’ve got the chops. We’re direct. We’re ruthless. We’re ambitious.
Why? Because that’s what you need. Whether you’re a client, a trainee, a member, a viewer, or a reader, you need more than a cheerleader.
I don’t want to be your cheerleader. I don’t want my program to be your pep rally. I don’t want you to read this blog because you need a visit from the t-shirt cannon.
I want to sit with you in the situation room and hash out possible scenarios for making it through—and prevailing—in the long fight. I want to challenge your assumptions, orient you to new insights, and help you lead yourself to the results you want. I want to tell it like it is—and tell you what’s possible.
I want to do the math. I want to crunch the numbers. I want to look for a Plan B, C, D, and E you can get excited about.
Before you read another feel-good business article or spend money on another inspiration course, ask yourself if what you need is another fight song or a serious look at the playbook.
Art of Growth, Quiet Power Strategy
In a crisis or quandary, my default mode is isolation. No matter the problem, I’ll opt to try to solve it myself before involving others. I would rather brood than ask for help.
I will think and think about possible solutions until I’ve come up with a solid plan. Then, and only then, will I tell someone else what the issue is and how I’m going to fix it.
I trick myself into thinking that this “strategy” is about being well-prepared, as opposed to a coping mechanism for being scared, confused, or worried.
Luckily, I’ve learned this is not a helpful strategy. And, I’ve figured out that it’s not about being well-prepared; it’s about not being courageous enough to ask for help.
I’ve also recognized that this coping mechanism often bleeds over into decisions about opportunities, too. In default mode, I spot an opportunity and ponder it until I’m ready to act on it.
Either way, I miss out.
As much as I’d like to think otherwise, I do not always have the right ideas. I do not always have the most experience. And I do not always see all the possibilities in front of me.
In default mode—isolated from those who could really help—I’m blind to everything but my own narrow perspective.
And I’m really good. But I’m not that good.
If your response to a problem, opportunity, or idea is to go to your thinking spot and think until you have a plan before you loop anyone else in on what’s going on, your default mode is isolation too. And, just like me, you’re prone to missing out on great ideas, even better opportunities, and innovative solutions.
Isolation is a fast track to failure.
Of course, your default mode is not the only operating mode you have. You can choose to do things differently, to seek out help when you need it most and often when you don’t.
Change your operating mode to “community & collaboration.”
Your business community—the people who support you, cheer you on, challenge your conventional thinking—allows you to see your blind spots. Seeing your blind spots is the first step to avoiding a collision.
Your community also helps you detour around traffic. They can show you the most congested parts of path to your intended destination and give you a new route. You get there faster and with less anxiety.
And best of all, your business community can help you see how to connect all the dots to where you want to get. Running a business is like renting a car in a town you’ve never been to. You know where you’re at (hopefully!) and you know where you want to go, but you have no idea to navigate there. Others have been there, they’re accustomed to the roads in the area. Your community is your personal GPS device.
Over the last few years, I’ve made a real commitment to not living or working in isolation and engaging a business community to support me. I’ve made small changes like always looping in my partner on questions I have about my business. And I’ve made much bigger changes like opening my team to people who aren’t looking for direction so much as they’re looking to make a contribution.
Whether you’re looking to hire or whether you just need a fresh perspective, you need to be proactive in involving others in your business.
That could mean posting on a Facebook group that’s full of people you respect and trust.
It could mean joining a business association where everyone is working for the success of other members (btw, you can get a free 30-day trial of ours).
It could mean joining a group business coaching program like Quiet Power Strategy™, making a biweekly Skype date with a colleague, forming an accountability group, or having a weekly local business owner meet up.
Next time you feel yourself going into isolation mode, change the setting.
Look for help. Ask for an opinion. Bounce an idea.
Situate yourself in a community and take advantage of it.
Your thinking spot will still be there when you get back.
Art of Earning, Quiet Power Strategy
Want to make more money? Afraid it’s going to take a lot of time to create something new or devise a fresh offer so you can do it?
It doesn’t have to. An important concept we work with Quiet Power Strategy™ clients on is reworking what you’ve got to make it easier to sell. We also show our clients how to develop sales cycles that sell those offers throughout the year–and how to plan those sales cycles so you always know where your next dollar is coming from.
Last week, I heard from Lacy Boggs about a big success she had with very little work. It’s exactly the kind of result I like seeing from clients because it means they’ve developed a process they can use time and again to make more money. Here’s her case study:
In January 2015, I made my Blogstorm course (my lowest priced, introductory offering) evergreen after doing the revenue planning exercise in Quiet Power Strategy. I had realized that launching and running the course live was waaaaay too much work for the amount of revenue I was generating from it, so something needed to change.
I saw a nice spike in sales when I made the evergreen announcement, and since then I generally get 1 or 2 sales a month without doing anything, which is fine by me. When I mention it in a blog or newsletter, I usually get 1 or 2 more.
Since the course helps entrepreneurs get 6 months of blogs planned in an editorial calendar, I was inspired by a random comment on Facebook about the year being almost half over to do a “launch” push for June. I decided to offer a value add of going through it “live” with me in the Facebook group. And I made the decision to do this “launch” about a week before June 1st!
Note from Tara: This is what we call a sales cycle. It’s the same type of content, pitch, and follow-up you’d use in a launch, but it’s used to boost sales of an existing or evergreen product or service offering. Normally, I recommend using our Revenue Planning tool to forecast these sales cycles. But the power of an unplanned sales cycle to boost your revenue unexpectedly–and pleasantly–can’t be overstated!
But, I’ve had great success! I sent one dedicated email to my list, and wrote a blog post promoting it using Tara’s CEAD content framework (it’s usually spread out over four posts or emails, but I didn’t have time).
I also had my message fresh in my mind from working on it with Tara and Brigitte at the Quiet Power Strategy™ retreat, and tried to really drive home what I want to be known for in both the blog post and the email—no more being polite about my opinions, no holds barred. Since the email went out on Monday (the Memorial Day holiday, no less) I’ve sold 20 courses and made about $1200 in unplanned income five days later.
That’s more than double my last “live” launch in 2014!
By tweaking my sales message for this course based on the work I did in Quiet Power Strategy™, I realized I don’t have to run a lengthy, all-consuming “launch,” but rather focus on giving people what they really want. The course hasn’t changed, even my “value add” is the same as when I ran it live, but my message made a huge difference.
At this point, it’s like the best of both worlds. I have the trickle of income from the evergreen product, but I can run it “live” as a value add—with my newly improved messaging—twice a year for a healthy boost in sales without all the DRAMA of a big launch. Just one more example of Quiet Power Strategy™ giving me the guts and permission to do things my way, and having it pay off almost immediately.
***
Let me recapped what worked so well here for Lacy:
- She created fresh messaging for an old product to make sure it was obvious it’s exactly what her customers need.
- She reinvigorated her sales by creating content for a sales cycle and publishing it to her blog and list.
- She planned for the future by incorporating new sales cycles for this product in her overall Revenue Plan instead of just waiting for sales to come.
These are all things we create strategies for in Quiet Power Strategy™ and these strategies are something that Lacy can use over and over again for other products and new offers. It’s timeless, effective, make-more-money technique.
Put this to work for yourself. Look for a product that you know you could sell more of. Create messaging that ties that product to a problem or goal your customers are regularly talking about. Then create content that supports that messaging and send it out to the people most likely to buy from you. Finally, make a plan to do this throughout the year.
In the mean time, you can find out more about Lacy Boggs, the Content Direction Agency, and how to get more from your blogging effort: get instant access to her resource library.
Quiet Power Strategy, Uncategorized
It’s almost half-way through the year and that means it’s a great time to take a minute to figure out if you’re where you wanted to be when you set your business goals back in December or January.
What were you thinking when you read that sentence?
- Uh, I didn’t set goals for 2015. I just take things as they come.
- Yes, sure am on track! Thanks for asking.
- No, things aren’t turning out the way I planned.
Regardless of how you answered, it’s time to set your course of action for the next 6 months (because who wants to be working hard in December?).
“Uh, I didn’t set business goals for 2015.”
Look, I get it. In Myers-Briggs, I’m an INTP and P stands for “not gonna plan ahead for anything I don’t have to.”
I used to resist planning ahead, setting long-term goals, and committing to a course of action. I could create small victories on the fly—what more could I want?
Turns out, I wanted a lot more. If you’re resistant to set long-term goals or commit to a long-term course of action but you still have ambition informing your vision, I hate to break it to you but it’s time to make a change. You don’t have to over-plan, but you want to action with a particular destination in mind.
Your Next Question: Where do you want to be a year from now? Where do you want your business to be a year from now? What’s it going to take to get there?
Setting your destination helps to set your strategy.
“Yes, sure am on track!”
Congratulations! So am I. I’m exactly where I planned to be. And now that I’m here, I’ve been able to adjust my plan to reach a stretch goal I had in mind but couldn’t quite see the path to.
If you’re right where you want to be, it can be extremely helpful to look a little farther down the field. Maybe you were hoping to kick a field goal at the end of this drive and instead, you’re in position to go for the touch down.
Do you know the course of action you’ll need to get there? Do you have the tools or planning processes in place to make that happen?
Your Next Question: What decisions will help you reach your stretch goal? Is it time to hire some one new? Raise prices? Offer something that’s been on your mind? Cut away deadweight from your business?
Strategy is all about decision-making and you’re in a great place to do it.
“No, things aren’t turning out the way I planned.”
I’ve been there. I’ve created great plans only to have certain variables not go my way.
One of our Quiet Power Strategy™ clients, Jennifer Racioppi, who helps high-performing women create the personal fortitude they need to put in the work, talks a lot about resilience. Resilience is the ability to change course when the going gets tough. It’s the quality you need to spring back up when you get pushed over.
Resilience is hard work.
But it’s so worth it.
If things aren’t going to plan halfway through the year, it’s time to make a commitment to yourself, your business, and your customers to reexamine the plan and adjust it based on the new information you have.
Your Next Question: What course corrections do you need to make?
Whether you haven’t had time to finish the project you thought you could, whether deals didn’t close as easily as you thought they should, whether all your pitching for media mentions and guest posts as fallen flat, you’ve got new data to work with. Take what you’ve learned and change course.
No matter how you answered…
No matter how you answered, it’s probably time to get some support in reaching your business goals. I’ll be opening pre-registration for the Fall session of Quiet Power Strategy (my hands-on business coaching program) in a couple of weeks. It might be exactly what you need to get where you’re going.
Of course, you can find support lots of place: colleagues, friends, mentors, and team members. Just don’t try to go it alone, okay?
You don’t get where you’re going (whether you’ve just decided where that is, you’re picking out a stretch goal, or whether you’re changing course) without help.
