100 Steps: 38-42

Wednesday, January 17, 2007
By Walt F.J. Goodridge
Special to the Saipan Tribune


The only way to take control of your life, raise your standard of living and move beyond merely surviving is to create your own unique product or service that you offer to increasing numbers of people in exchange for the things of value that you desire. This simple formula applies to countries as well as people. A self-sufficient economy has its own products or services of value to export to the world. Similarly, a self-sufficient individual has something of value to exchange in the global marketplace. That thing of value is based on your natural talent, skill, or interest—in other words, your passion!

>The following is a continuing excerpt from a previously unreleased book entitled The 100 Steps Necessary for Business Success by Walt F.J. Goodridge. It is provided exclusively to Saipan Tribune readers!

STEP 38: USE the magic words

In any marketing plan, there are secret key words that will elicit the action that you desire and save you time and energy. Researchers have discovered and results have proven that you are almost guaranteed to make a lot of money and wield tremendous marketing power when you use the following tested words in your ads. How many of them can you find in the ads you read (or simply in the previous two sentences!).

Discover: Proven: Health: New
Easy: Results: Save: Secret
Guarantee: Safety: You: Power
Love: Money: Free: Tested

STEP 39:ASK the right questions.

Once you understand why people buy, and once you understand the uniqueness of your target audience, you can then begin to ask the right questions. The following questions are especially relevant if your product caters to a niche market:

1. Can I identify individual prospects within the group, including contact information to communicate with them?

2. Do prospects in this group have a strong need for (or a strong desire to have) my product, service or opportunity, i.e., will this sell?

3. Do the prospects in this group have the money to pay for what I’m offering?

4. Can I deliver my sales message to these prospects under favorable circumstances?

5. Is this group large enough to produce the volume of business I need?

STEP 40:LEARN to see the value in everything

Anything that someone can see, feel, hear, smell, or taste has value. Anything that someone can know, do, own, believe, say, describe, evoke or otherwise communicate to another has value as a product or service to be sold, bought or traded. Ideas have value.

If you want to survive and thrive in business, your job is to constantly discover and uncover the value in people, situations and life’s everyday things.

STEP 41: BUILD it to sell it.

This may be the most difficult concept for business owners to grasp, but the only reason to start any business is ultimately to sell it. I’ll say that again. The only reason you should be starting ANY business is for the express purpose of selling it. In other words, as you build your business, you should always be asking yourself, “how can I create this business in such a way that it can operate by itself if I decide to offer it as a wealth-creating opportunity to the highest bidder?”

Thought of in this way, your business then becomes a vehicle for the creation of wealth, rather than simply a time- consuming venture in which you are the hardest-working employee. Thought of in this way, your business grows in the direction of order rather than chaos, documentation rather than haphazardness, and creates real freedom for you rather than servitude.

STEP 42: DEVELOP an organization chart

A powerful exercise you can do to help in building your business to sell it is to create an organizational chart for your business(es). Create a structure for the departments, divisions and subsidiaries you anticipate needing in your company. Key divisions to include are Sales, Operations and Finance. Within the Sales Division, include the departments of Marketing, Advertising, Promotion & Publicity, and Internet Sales. Within the Operations Division, include the departments of Publicity, Research,

Customer Service, Facility/Maintenance and Order Fulfillment. Within the Finance Division, include the departments of Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable. Some positions you may want to include are secretary, web designer, sales manager, research assistant, accountant, business manager and legal advisor.

Even though at this moment, you might be the only one filling all those positions, the purpose of going into business is not to work 10 times harder as you did when you had a job. The goal is to create freedom for yourself by delegating those tasks to others. Ask yourself who you would hire for your board of directors. Enter the individual’s name, his or her title and who he or she reports to. This is a good way to visualize your company, it’s structure, and growth, and it will also help you when you’re putting together your business plan.

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Until next week, remember, success is a journey, not a destination!—Walt

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