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Building a Brand is More than an Idea

For many years now I have been helping individuals bring their passion to life and build a business, with a brand than has true meaning.

I will let Dave Fletcher share with you his experience.

Having run a successful personal training business for nearly 10 years, I started to get itchy feet about the next stage in my career. Was I going to be selling my time forever? How could I build on this success? Should I set up another business as well as my PT business ? What would this business be? And how do I find someone who can coach these answers out of me? I knew that I loved being a PT and had taken huge satisfaction in building my profile by breaking into fitness magazines as a writer, becoming London’s best known fat loss specialist, dominating the google rankings and working with celebrities.

For me though, it wasn’t quite enough and I needed help in mapping out the next stage of my journey. I wanted to progress forward with my PT business but needed to satisfy this grumbling which was starting to haunt me.

At a mutual friends barbecue, I got chatting to a chap called Warren. Within a couple of minutes, it became apparent that what he loved to do was to work with small companies and inspire individuals like me to help them develop their business into a brand. Having exchanged business cards and gone away to look him up online, I was amazed to discover just how successful he had been in this field. Not to mention that he was an author of 3 books and a well known professional business speaker! I was impressed to say the least and had a gut feeling that he would be able to help me carve out the next stage of my career.

We started with a 2-hour mind mapping session where I told him all about my personal training business. I showed him what I had built up and how much it meant to me as well as my ambitions to develop my skills and potentially build another business. He asked me about how I had built up my business and whether I was able to put my success into a formula? He then asked me whether this formula could be taught to other aspiring personal trainers?

BOOM! I had my answer and it had only taken him 12 minutes. We spent the remainder of the session outlining how I was going to create a brand out of this formula and the best way to coach this information to other personal trainers. I was ecstatic and my brain was in overdrive mode after that meeting. It was a real life lightbulb moment which has proven to be a major pivotal point in my career.

We met every other week to discuss the strategies involved in making this happen. His knowledge and experience was staggering and made me feel at ease with this new and exciting venture. He told me that if I was to be taken seriously as the expert on the business side of personal training, I needed to write a book about it which would include my journey towards building my own personal training business. I had work to do! I decided on a title for the book and the exact formula to achieve success as a personal trainer.

Under Warren’s guidance, I chipped away at building the brand. I built the new website, I found my target audience and created an outline for the courses I was going to run to teach the formula to other PT’s.

I simply could not have done this without Warrens expert guidance and could not have wished for a more in-tune mentor who understands the way I think and knows how to get the most out of me.

Publishing my own book and building another business has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I urge all ambitious entrepreneurs to do the same.

Thanks for all of your help Warren.

If you would like to connect with Dave further, tweet him at @Dave_FletcherPT.

I would love to help more people realise their potential and help their businesses grow. If this is something you are interested in, please feel free to contact me.

p.s Thank you for you kind words in the book

 

A Successful Business is not just about #SocialMedia

Having your own business is a great achievement and can be a lot of fun, however if you want your business to be successful, you need to take your sales and marketing seriously.

For many years now, I have been working with start-ups and small businesses helping them build a business with strong foundations with a clear unique selling proposition (USP) and a defined customer acquisition journey.

The online and offline marketing can be the most exciting part of growing a business but the key point to remember is that whatever you place online, will stay online regardless of you deleting it. The chances are, someone somewhere would have already seen it.

It’s simple. Social Media standing alone will fall alone. Using Social Media as your ONLY marketing outlet will not work. You need to have a marketing strategy and customer retention strategy for your business. Yes, there are a lot of businesses that spend a lot of time on their Social Media who have been successful because they have a complete marketing mix strategy, as there is only so much Social Media can do for you and your business for your Sales, Marketing and Customer Service.

Having worked in Digital Marketing for over 5 years, I understand the hype and I have proven case studies of how successful social media can be for a business if integrated into a monthly marketing strategy. I think it’s important to address the issue of Social Media as stand-alone marketing. I get a lot of people coming up to me after my seminars at trade shows telling me that they are enjoying using social media for their business. This is great and it does make me smile however, when I ask them if they are doing any other marketing, their answer is usually no, what else can I be doing?

With successful Social Networks like Facebook, Twitter and the new kid on the block, Pinterest; it’s very apparent that using Social Media correctly will convert into sales. Don’t get me wrong, Social Media can be personal however, I still have traditional face-to-face meetings with clients as well as phone calls, as part of my customer acquisition journey. When someone contacts me, they may do it through social media, email, phone call or at a networking event and all of that’s fine however, each on their own is just the part of the sales cycle. All of these combined must be a part of your customer retention strategy.

You will also need to use a slightly different technic for each network. What works on Twitter, might not work on Facebook. Despite the obvious differences, Facebook is not a push platform, so don’t use it like it. The businesses that over populates their Facebook page with regular daily posts are likely to lose followers, rather than gain them. Twitter on the other hand, works differently and I tend to tweet around 5 times a day, with value added content designed for my target audience.

If your business is struggling, don’t turn to social media to save it. You can’t just use social media in the hope of it saving your business because believe me, it won’t.

Social Media can’t fix a broken business. Fix your business first then turn to social media and utilise the amazing free networks and tools out there.

The Importance of Having a Mentor

While I was with my mentor on Tuesday, watching the sunset over London Town in Hyde Park and seeing the transformation for the Olympics, it dawned on me. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for my Mentor and his help with my successful journey as a Business Owner. I think the importance of having a Mentor is certainly overlooked.

If you didn’t know, I’m going through Seed investment for my Ecommerce Platform Gloople where I am looking to receive £500,000 worth of investment. Voted as one of the Top 100 Start-ups, I’m taking my business to the next level from three staff, up to nine.

When my mentor mentioned that he saw my two minute investment pitch, he commented on how my presentation skills had grown over the past three years. Looking back, I would have only recorded this pitch once. Now, as I have grown as a person, I was able to stand in front of a camera and use my experience in practice to take at least fifty voice memo’s on my iPhone and 10 videos on my flipcam. This helped me deliver a near perfect pitch in one take when it mattered most.

My mentor then reminded me of the first time he heard me talk and asked me how many times I rehearsed that presentation. My response to him was just once.

Having him as a mentor has now enabled me to do things naturally and break old habits and build new ones, which I have a few of since I’ve had him in my life.

Along with my business mentor, I also have two speaking mentors, who have both shared with me very different skills and styles which I have learnt to use when delivering my seminars. Both without a doubt deserve enormous credit for their help in my growth as a Keynote Speaker.

When choosing your mentor, you must think about these 3 very simple things.

1.  Would you invite him/her round for dinner to meet the family?

2.  Does he/she really know their stuff and have other business owners received great value, financially and emotionally from this person?

3.  It’s OK to say NO and walk away if the said person isn’t right for you. Take your time in finding the right person, if it fits, your intuition will guide you.

Looking at the cost of a mentor, it may seem expensive at first, but with the knowledge and skills you will receive, it will be a priceless investment and stay with you forever. Remember, we’re not just talking professionally, what you can learn from you mentor will help your personal life too.

For me, having a Mentor has been well worth the outlay, so much so as buying a house for a return on an investment.

This is my experience with my mentors; I would love to hear about yours.

PS This is dedicated to my 3 amazing mentors, you know who you are.

How to run a Webinar to Promote your Business

With the internet now a crucial way of generating sales and leads for a business, it’s only logical to start running webinars on a regular basis. For a Webinar to be a success, it takes a lot of planning and work. If you want to offer great customer service and ultimately deliver a great Webinar then keep reading for my tips on how to do exactly that.

When looking at a Webinar provider, you need to do your research. It has taken me a long time to find the right company that works for what I want to deliver. You need to think about how many attendees you would like. I have limited mine to 100. If you would like your webinar to be record, you will also need to look into this as some software providers do not offer this service.

After choosing a webinar provider, you need to look at how you are going to present your business. Your presentation must be in line with your brand otherwise you will be unlikely to receive any business. Make sure your branding is correct and you have checked the spelling and grammar of your presentation as there is nothing worse than one of your attendee’s pointing out an error you have made.

Keep your presentation simple and effective. Get straight to the point and don’t over populate your presentation slides. You will also need to run through your presentation with a colleague before presentation to iron out any issues you may be having. You also need to discourage participants from multi-tasking during your presentation, so that you have their full attention. Ask questions, allow for short discussions and conduct polls during your webinar to determine if participants understand your material. Remember, you won’t be able to see them, so it may be harder to judge how well your presentation works.

Struggling to get people to attend your webinar? Speak to your audience. They are a part of your community for a reason. Focus on email marketing and social media to generate interest in your webinar. You may find your attendee list going up in numbers just by tweeting and posting on Facebook. News travels fast in social media so make sure you utilise all of the tools available to you. Also worth noting that if you have a blog, you should use this as one of your outlets to promote your webinar.

What are your top tips for running a Webinar for your business?