Keep it simple silly… well the original K.I.S.S. acronym said, “keep it simple stupid”. That is rude so we’ll rock with replacing the word stupid with the word silly. After all, it is silly to complicate what doesn’t have to be hard. I mean entrepreneurship is hard enough without choosing to make it harder. Simplicity in your business can pave the way for clarity, consistency, and growth. Let’s talk about 4 ways you can make things simpler.

Simple Names. Your marketplace title, your business, your social media handle, your offer, your Facebook group, etc… can all benefit from a simple name that includes the solution you bring or the pain point that you solve using words that can be found in searches. When naming your assets, stop being cute because you could block your cash. Stop trying to be unique before you are unfound. Stop being too creative before you cut your money. When you select made-up names that no one would associate with the value you give, you do you and your business a disservice. Keep it simple and use keywords and phrases to describe your assets so that potential clients find you when they are searching and primed to invest. A great way to find what keywords and phrases your potential clients are using, is to utilize the search tools given in a past article HERE.

Simple Selection. Give your business a simple focus by having one forward-facing offer. It is a myth that you leave money on the table by not displaying all the things you can do for money. Instead, be known for your most popular and/or transformative offer. Make that the offer featured on your website, in your social media, as a part of your bio, etc… Eliminate confusion about what you do by being known for doing one thing well. Think of it as a storefront. Everything in the window points to one offer. When they come into the store, they see one offer. However, if they come to the “register” and ask questions about needing, wanting, or wondering about a cheaper offer, a related offer, a progression from your advertised offer, etc… that is when you go in the back room and pull out a different option for their needs. This is where having an ascension ladder of offers, different formats of your offer, different access levels of your offer, and/or different price points that reflect receiving more value comes in handy. The key is not to overwhelm potential clients with vast options and instead be the expert and recommend the right offer.

Simple CTA. Your social posts, live streams, and especially sales pages, benefit greatly from having a single, simple call to action. Remove any other request that can distract away from your main goal for the reader of your blog post, potential registrant for your event, viewer of your video, listener of your podcast, and purchaser of your offer. When it is the priority, there should be only one… a single, simple call to action.  

Simple Focus. It’s funny how research has shown that only 2.5% of people can are able to multitask effectively, but if you ask most people they swear they are in the 2.5%. The human brain can only focus on one involved task at a time. By involved I mean you actually have to focus to complete the task well. If you are arguing with me right now that you are in fact in the 2.5%, I ask that you evaluate your efforts differently. Think about it this way, are you actually getting more than one involved thing done at a time OR are you simple completing more than one involved thing one after the other within a short amount of time? It is my belief that the latter applies. Multitasking also isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Did you know that research shows that attempting to achieve it can lower your I.Q.? Not only are you lowering the effectiveness of your performance of the tasks, but you may be adding injury to critical areas of your brain used for sorting sensory information in decision making or even reducing memory. It’s best to focus on one involved task at a time and even incorporate breaks and proper rest. Doing so will serve you better than doing a half job on two things or less than that on more things at a time.

If you need support with creating simpliclity in your business, let’s talk. It’s FREE. ShaCannon.info/talk

It takes a lot of a lot of nerve to take your genius and pour it into a product or service. The self-doubts and feelings of imposter syndrome can be prevalent. But for those that overcome the negativity that comes from within, there is an entirely new level waiting… You created it and now you must push it out to the world. The world that may be critical. The world that may ask who are YOU to be the one to put this out for others. Yes, that’s right. Should you survive the scorn from within, you could very well encounter feelings of judgment from others.

Well, let me assure you of this: if you share the steps you know to work for the transformation at hand, someone needs it just the way YOU put it together. No, you do not have to teach it the way that the well-known person in your industry teaches it. No, you do not have to create it like the other expert in your network created it. You need only be you and do it the way that you do it. However, creating it is not enough.

STOP creating things to be of service to others and keeping them hidden away from those that need it. Once you have created a thing, you must get it in front of those that need it and let them know that it is just for them. Share it on your website. Share it on your social media. Share it to your email list. Share it and share it often.

Share your offering directly. Run a social media ad. Post about it with a link to buy it. Speak about it and give a call to action to buy it.

Share your offering in directly. Tell a story about someone with the pain point and how you solved that pain point. At the end of the story, let the audience know that if they are interested in getting help with that point pain too, they can learn more, then share the link to buy.

Creating solutions is not enough! You must get those solutions in front of who needs them most. Gifts are meant to be shared.

For more blog posts like this, go HERE. 

Self Made: Netflix’s Depiction of Madam C.J. Walker…

The four-episode series released on Friday, March 20, 2020, and I was front and center to watch it. As a black woman and entrepreneur, I expected Madam C. J. Walker’s story to connect with me. Although usually around black history month, I’ve heard tidbits of her story throughout the years. What I did not expect was for it to empower me in entrepreneurship.

Armed with a full page of notes from the series, all about business, here are the top 3 nuggets that I took away:

#1 Explore sales objections and be ready to counter them. There was a scene where the main character’s antagonist was readying her sales force to go door-to-door to sell the hair product. One of the salespersons brought up an objection to buying the product that she felt she would encounter. She was then promptly armed with what to say to overcome that objection.

One of the things that make sales perceived as hard is receiving the reason someone does not want to buy. It actually is a great thing. When you know why someone does not want to buy, you can put that reason to rest and give them a better reason to buy.

ACTION TIP: Come up with as many objections as possible to the purchase of your product or service, figure out what will counter each objection, and give those counter reasons as a response to the objections when you get them.

#2 Build a BETTER mousetrap. When the main character is refused a chance to sell the antagonist’s hair product, she set out to make her own version of the product. She took what she knew about the original product, what worked and what was undesirable, to upgrade the product to appeal to more customers.

There are very few new products and services under the sun these days. Original innovation seems to have been replaced with duplicate options. The best way to stand out from the crowd of competitors is not to offer the same thing in the same way. Instead, take what competition offers and upgrade it.

ACTION TIP: Ask users of the original product or service what could make it better or more valuable. Ask potential users of the original product or service what stops them from buying it. Compile this information and use it to make your version of that product or service better. Use these differences to sell the product by highlighting them in your sales pitches and advertising write-ups.

#3 Brand Stories are important. The main character used her own story of using the hair product to grow her hair to connect with potential customers. She was able to share her problems with her own lack of hair growth before she used the product to relate to where the would-be customers were with their hair now. They could see that her hair was longer, but she also shared how life was much better because her hair grew.

A high converting way to sale any product or service is to get the potential customer to see themselves as having the problem to be solved and needing your solution to the problem to be happy. Buying often has an emotional component.

ACTION TIP: Know the exact problem that your product or service solves and the emotions around them. In your sales and marketing describe the problem, the negative emotions around that problem, receiving your solution, getting their desired results and the positive emotions associated with those desired results from the solution that you offer.

The lessons inspired by this series about how a black woman created and scaled a hair product business with her vision and drive have done a lot to reinvigorate my faith, determination, and journey in entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurs are notorious for investing in more knowledge. There are conferences, large and small, dedicated to subject matter valued by Entrepreneurs. Meet-ups, workshops, seminars, etc… fill up the calendar of platforms like EventBrite, Facebook Events, and Meet Ups. I’m not sure what the percentage of ads for business webinars are as compared to other industries, but I am sure that you see a lot of them.

Let’s not forget coaching. Entrepreneurs have a number of coaches to choose from to invest in making their business better: mindset coach, sales coach, content coach, marketing coach, leadership coach, speaker coach, business strategy coach, brand management coach, etc…

Yes, most Entrepreneurs are not afraid to invest in their business by investing in themselves, but what about getting a ROI (return on investment).

Let’s be clear, you should not plagiarize or steal someone’s exact concepts. However, building a better mouse trap is the foundation of business. So if you can learn, apply, and adapt the knowledge you learned into a new system, here are 3 ways to turn your version of that knowledge into revenue:

1. Write an eBook based on how you apply the knowledge you learned.
2. Sell tickets to your own workshop or webinar to teach your clients what you’ve learned so that they improve their business too.
3. Create an eCourse or eTraining as a digital product based on the knowledge you learned.

The more you know, the better a resource for your clients you should be. You shouldn’t be paid for the time it takes you to something, but instead for your knowledge of how to do it well. If you know more, make more. 

We are in the last month of the third quarter. This year has flown by! After talking to a lot of the Entrepreneurs in my network, I realized that an extraordinary amount of them have been winging it for most of the year. They started out with good intentions of planning the year but family happened… business happened… LIFE happened. As Entrepreneurs we are already frequently overwhelmed and always trying to tow the line between growing our business and self-care.

Well, if you haven’t figured it out by now… the purpose of my business is to help you, the Entrepreneur, get to the money in a way that creates freedom for you to live your chosen life design. None of us have overwhelm as a part of our desired design. To keep things simple but achieve the goal, here are two important focuses:

• What products and/or services will you focus your marketing on each of the three months of the quarter?

• Based on those products and/or services, what is the content you will create and publish to support the need for and sale of those products and/or services for the three months?

This is the simplified version of the information you will need when you sit down to plan. Here is an example of how to use that information:

• The product/service focus will be book publishing for experts.
• A sales page will be created for details on the publishing package and how to purchase it.
• The content creation focus will be experts needing credibility, passive income, and a physical product to sell at events.
• The content will be placed on the blog and social media posts, as well as live streaming around these topics to push traffic to the sales page.
• Social media ads will also be purchased to push traffic to the sales page.

Should you follow this example to create your own plan for each of the three months of the quarter, then you are banking on purpose! Need a plan for your product/services and your content? Let’s talk. 

I remember when the Labor Day holiday meant a 3-day weekend off of my corporate job. Lord knows I worked hard at that job. Yeah, I was finally making a total of 6-figures BUT I felt like cheap labor. I was always trying to pack 2 to 3 days of work into one day. I hardly ever got to enjoy a full lunch hour… and that’s if I even got a chance to get away from my desk where I more than likely had to choke down something quick and get back to work! On top of all of that, I seldom knew for sure what time I was going to get to leave for the day. I can tell you now –I DO NOT MISS WORKING IN CORPORATE AMERICA!!

A lot of people want to the freedom of owning their own business, but fear keeps them punching someone else’s clock. They experience the fear of steady income, fear of the being the one that makes all the decisions and therefore being the only one to blame for failure, fear of letting their family down, etc… Well, those of us that stepped out to become full-time Entrepreneurs also have fears. We fear letting our dreams die while we work way too hard to build someone else’s. We fear not having the freedom to work in ways that bring about the best results for us and our clients. We fear living a life of stress due to being unnecessarily overworked because of inadequate leadership and nonsensical company policies. We all have fears, you simply have to pick the ones you are willing to live with.

Being an Entrepreneur doesn’t mean that you will work less than 40 hours a week. In fact, a lot of Entrepreneurs work 50 to 60 hours a week (sometimes more if the business is just getting off the ground). The difference in working long hours for yourself and working them for someone else is that it isn’t just labor… it’s a labor of love. We experience milestones that keep us going: the first client that pays us full price, the first referral because we did a great job getting our past client results, another expert recognizing us as an expert and wanting to work with us, etc…

Even a labor of love needs to make money, so here are 3 bankable reminders:

1. There is nothing wrong with having an beta/introductory price. However, as soon as you get your first round of clients the results promised, raise the price.
2. If you focus on the client experience in addition to the client results, you will be worth a price higher than your competitors.
3. When running sales, consider adding value to the product or package with bonuses rather than lowering your price.

Need help pricing your offers? Let’s talk about it. 

I live and work my business from all over the world. Over two years ago, I decided I wanted my life to be a vacation. My answer to get me to that kind of freedom was Entrepreneurship. If you’ve followed my journey then you know I started with living in the country of Belize. My current home outside of the United States is Mexico. I live in the city of Playa del Carmen, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The main tourist strip here is 5^th Avenue or La Quinta Avenida. This street is two blocks over from the Caribbean Sea and spans several blocks down in length. It includes shops, restaurants, nightlife options, and street performances.

With the exchange rate of dollars to pesos AND the cost of living here being so affordable, I eat out a lot. In frequenting many of the restaurants on the strip, I’ve seen a few things regarding business. Here are my observations and the tips I’ve created from them:

1. Client support is a company duty. Just like anywhere else, at the restaurants in Playa you have a waiter that is assigned to your table when you are seated. However, when your food is ready, it is brought to you by the first waiter available to bring it. When your glass is empty, the first waiter to notice your empty beverage offers you another one. In essence, serving the customer is everyone’s job. When you build a team for your business, infuse into each position that everyone that sees a client need is to take charge of seeing that the need is met.

2. Speak the client’s language. Because these restaurants attract a lot of tourists just from their location, they do everything they can to make sure that language is not a barrier. Their client facing staff speak conversational English. Their menus are in Spanish and English. They also use pictures on their menus for popular selections. Everything about the order process is put in language that best results in the customers getting exactly what they want. Sometimes as experts in our field, we use a lot of jargon specific to our industries. Do not use language that is understood by a few. Instead, speak using words even a child can understand to make sure that you encapsulate (see that unnecessary word)… to make sure that you include (see much better word choice) all persons fitting your client avatar. I call it speaking in lowest terms. Some call it K.I.S.S. or keep it simply, stupid. Since none of you are stupid, just remember to keep it simple.

3. Know your ideal client. The restaurants here really cater to tourists’ expectations. When you go off the strip to eat, you are faced with dingy, older structures with a more local feel. Because the restaurants on the strip are very clear that tourists will associated lack of building upkeep with unclean service and food, you will find that they cater to the tourists’ expectation. The restaurant is clean, neatly and cohesively decorated, and the staff wear clean, easily identifiable uniforms. 

Are you on my email list? If so, you will get four more bonus tips from what the restaurants in Playa del Carmen can teach you about business later this week. My email list people are my V.I.P’s, they always get more value, sneak peaks, etc… You can become a V.I.P. today by signing up to be in my free mastermind. the sign up is located on the home page. 

Are you giving your clients what they expect? Have you invested in getting to know what they expect? Can you see how this can be extremely important in clients being satisfied with the results that they get from your business? If you are looking to better your business using these strategies but need guidance, let’s talk about it.