Revitalizing Your Business – How To Get Your Booklet Adventure Back On Track And Moving Forward

Have you ever put up with something or someone out of convenience?  It’s human nature to want to do what’s easy, but in business this can be DEADLY!

When The Adventure Stalls

Think of your booklet publishing business like an adventure movie.  At times things will go extremely well and you’ll feel like cheering.  Other times you will be on the edge of your seat.  But, what if that adventure movie just didn’t go anywhere?  What if it was dull?  What if there were no real adventure at all?  You probably would feel that your money was wasted on that movie ticket.

Your booklet adventure is the same way.  Sometimes things are all working out great and you feel like you’re on top of the world.  Other times you find yourself anticipating something big.  But, if everything stalls and you allow it to stay that way, you’ve wasted your time and efforts up to this point.  You need to do whatever it takes to get things moving in the right direction again.

It’s Not Their Dream

The key word in the above paragraph is YOU.  This is YOUR booklet adventure.  YOU are the one in charge.  YOU are the one with the dream and vision of where you want to go.  Nobody else can do it for you because it’s not their dream, it’s yours. 

Sometimes in order to reach your goals you have to be willing to get your hands dirty or do the difficult thing instead of the easy thing – like giving someone the boot or changing the way you have always done something.  I have had to do this myself.  There were times in the past when people I had hired to do a job never met their deadlines.  A one time emergency from an otherwise dedicated worker I could overlook.  But when someone gives me excuse after excuse, or worse – doesn’t communicate at all, it’s time to give them the boot!

You Don’t Have Forever

This is your dream.  Nobody else will ever care about it as much as you do.  And nobody but you can make it happen.  Don’t put up with methods that don’t work.  If something isn’t working, change it now!  The sooner you make that change the sooner you’ll find something that does work, or that works better.

The same goes for anyone you hire to do a job for you – even if it’s a family member and you are not paying them for their help.  You don’t have forever.  You can’t put your life and your business on hold to accomodate someone else.  You need to keep your booklet adventure on track and moving forward, gaining momentum and building both equity and income.  The only way you can do that is with dedicated, motivated people.

If your business has stalled or become sluggish, take a look at your methods for getting things done and ask yourself if there is a better way of doing things.  And, take a look at the people who are helping you and ask yourself if they are an asset to you or a liability.  Once you answer those questions, you’ll know what you need to do!

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS:  Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?  Do you want that first booklet to fly out the door once it’s finished?  Click here!

PPS:  Remember, it only takes ONE idea to start the riches flowing to you!  Subscribe to this blog now and you’ll get new ideas for your own booklet adventure every week!  Click here!

Spring Into Action – The Million Dollar Test

Most authors don’t think of themselves as business owners, but whether you write a book or a booklet, that’s exactly what you are.  Like all business owners, you have a product to sell, and you want to sell as much of your product as you possibly can.  But, how do you get from nowhere to making real money? How can you build a million dollar a year (or more) business from scratch?

The Beginning Of Something Tangible

As a potential booklet author, there is an adventure that lies before you waiting for you to decide whether you will move forward, or step aside.  Your decision to move forward is the very beginning of something tangible, although you won’t see it for a while.

The decision to begin your adventure is a bold move that puts YOU in the drivers seat, and it is this first decision that gives a spark of life to your adventure.  You have taken the reins into your hands and embarked on a journey of creation – the creation of your booklet and, ultimately, the creation of a business.

Success = Making The Best Choice

Once you have stepped over the threshold of that first decision you are no longer nowhere.  You are now somewhere. You may not have a booklet yet, but you have a commitment to yourself to create one.  That commitment is something you didn’t have before you made the decision to move from where you were to where you are.

And now that you are past that first big decision, many more await you.  In fact, you might say that owning a business is simply going from one decision to the next, and owning a successful business is a matter of making the best choices most of the time.

Moving into uncharted territory

Everything on this planet began with an idea – from the very basics used to sustain life such as the homes we live in and the clothes we wear, to the McDonnalds and Starbucks down the road.  And, at some point, someone said YES to that idea.  They thought it over, and they made the decision to move forward into that adventure.

Without some kind of idea or choice, there can be no decision.  There is nothing to move forward to.  But, once an idea presents itself a choice must be made.  What will you do?  Will you continue on as you always have, or will you embark upon the new path before you?

Making the choice to take the new path is the beginning of the million dollar a year business. It means that you’re tired of the status quo and you’re ready for something more.  It means that you’ve got the right stuff to succeed because you were able to make this decision – the decision to go into new, uncharted territory.  This is the million dollar test because, if you don’t pass this one, you’ll never even have a business, let alone one that brings in a million dollars a year.

Not everyone can pass this test. Some people have a very difficult time making decisions even when the answer to the question is obvious!  And if too much is left to the unknown, most people would rather just forget about it.  So, congratulations!  By making the decision to embark upon your own booklet adventure you’ve proven yourself and taken the right action.  And now that you’ve passed this test, the next decision awaits you. But, we’ll save that one for the next post!

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS: Ready for more action?  Do you want to speed up the process and get that booklet done NOW?  Click here!

PPS: Don’t miss the next post!  Remember, it only takes one idea to start the riches flowing to YOU!  Subscribe to this blog today.  Click here!

Keys To Building A Successful Business – Monthly Review

It’s time to wrap up our February theme!  Here’s a review of what we covered this month….

1)  It All Begins With You - If you think you can you’re right, and if you think you can’t, you’re right.  Having the right attitude and the right mindset is essential to your business success!

2)  How Quality Control Helps You Sell Again and Again - It’s important to maintain a high standard and continuously give your customers what they want.  This is called quality control.

3)  The One Thing You Absolutely MUST Have In Order To Make Money - You may have created the best booklet in all the world.  But, if you don’t know how you’re going to sell it, you’ve wasted your time.  A marketing plan is an absolute must for every business – including yours!

4)  How To Create Loyal Customers Who Come Back For More – Having good customer relations is vital to your business.  Delivering a good product makes customers happy, but delivering a good experience is what makes customers come back for more.

5)  An Extremely Important Asset You May Have Overlooked - Good vendors are like gold!  They are an essential component to your business.  Without them, you wouldn’t have design, layout, printed copies, and a host of other services needed to run your business.  Make sure you treat your vendors well!

6)  The Single, Most Important Thing You Must Know In Order To Make Money In Booklet Publishing - Know your numbers!  While doing the math isn’t as exciting as doing the writing, it’s exremely important if you want to make serious money.

7)  Growing Beyond Yourself And A Single Booklet - If you’re serious about growing your business beyond a single booklet, you need to be prepared to hire others to share the workload.  Remember, you want to RUN a booklet business, NOT work in it!

Stay tuned for March’s theme – Making The Most Of Your Time. Everyone is crunched for time, including me.  I’ll be sharing a few tips to help you make the most of the time you have, so that you can reach your goals faster!

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS: Are you ready to join the ranks of published authors and write your first booklet?  If you are, click here!

PPS: Be sure to subscribe to this blog so you never miss a single, important post!  Remember, it only takes ONE idea to start the riches flowing to you!  To subscribe, click here!

Keys To Building A Successful Business – Growing Beyond Yourself And A Single Booklet

The first phase of your booklet adventure is an easy one.  You come up with an idea for a booklet, create it, and publish it.  The next phase of your booklet adventure happens when you begin to think beyond that first booklet.  This is when your booklet business begins to grow.  Growth is a wonderful thing because it means not only growing your business, but also your profits.  However, there is one very important thing, which if overlooked, will stunt your growth and your profits and keep you small.

Be Prepared

When you first begin your booklet adventure, your focus is a narrow one.  You have one booklet to create and publish.  This is simple because it’s just you and your booklet.  That’s not too much for one person to handle.

As time goes on, however, you may decide to add additional booklets and other products to your business.  And once you do, you’ll have more business because now you have new things to offer those customers who have already purchased your first title, as well as something for those potential customers who were not interested in your first title. This is what every business owner hopes to achieve because more business means more profit, but you must be prepared to handle the extra workload or your business will suffer.

Do you have a job or a business?

Nearly everyone who starts a business does so in order to achieve autonomy.  That is, they want to be in control of their own life.  They want to have the freedom to choose how they spend their time, and how much money they make.  Unfortunately, most people who choose to start a business never achive this goal.  Instead, they end up with another job – albeit one where they can call the shots – rather than living the lifestyle of their dreams.

Rather than looking at your booklet adventure as something you DO, you must train yourself to look at it as something you RUN.  There is a huge difference here.  Imagine a large corporate with only one employee.  This single person does it all.  They’re the janitor, mail room clerk, accountant, file clerk, marketing direction, and on and on right up to the CEO.  It would never work.  No one person can do that much.  Nobody could ever run a corporation alone.  And your business is just like that corporation, only on a smaller scale.

Let Go And Watch Your Business Grow

Have you ever heard of a business that started in someone’s kitchen or living room and grew into a large scale business?  There has been quite a number of these over the last several years, especially since the dawn of the internet.  The one thing these kinds of businesses have in common is that they started out very small, with one person at the helm, and grew from there into a company that employed other individuals in order to handle the workload.

If you are really serious about growing your business beyond a single booklet, you will need to be prepared to hire others to share the workload with you.  That’s the only way it can be done.  There will come a day when you will no longer be able to single handedly run your business.  That doesn’t mean that you need to have a large building with hundreds of employees.  Today, there is virtual help which is far less expensive for someone with a small business.  But, it does mean that you need to be willing to let go of some things, and allow other people to handle them for you.  Your goal is to run a business, NOT work in it, so that you’ll have more time to do the things you enjoy – both in your business and in your life!

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS: Are you serious about writing that first booklet?  Click here!

PPS: Be sure to subscribe to this blog so you never miss a single, important post!  Remember, it only takes ONE idea to start the riches flowing to you!  Subscribe now!  Click here!

Keys To Building A Successful Business – The Single, Most Important Thing You MUST Know In Order To Make Money In Booklet Publishing

Today I want to discuss with you what is probably the single, most important factor to building a strong, successful publishing business.  While all the keys I have mentioned are important, if you miss this one, your business will never get off the ground and your booklet adventure will come to a screeching halt!

The Statistics Are Grim

Approximately 81% of people alive today would like to write a book.  Most will never get started.  A handful will start and never finish, and fewer still will actually complete their work and end up with a book to place on the market.  Of those who do complete their book, the majority will sell less than 500 copies.

Why are the statistics so grim?  Because like most entrepreneurs who go into business for themselves, the writers focus on what they love to do – write – and forget that what they are really doing is starting a business. Anytime you create a product or service to offer to the public, you are starting a business.  Writing books or booklets and offering them to a particular audience is a business, and it can be a very lucrative one, but you MUST be able to look beyond the writing and the finished product before you ever write a single word.

Why The Most Important Thing Is NOT Writing

As a booklet author, you probably think that the most important thing you do in your business is your writing.  After all, if you didn’t write your booklet(s), you would not have a product to sell.  But, the writing is really only a small fraction of your business.  There is something far more important that you need to focus on in order to make your booklet adventure a success.  What is it?  It’s the math.

Before you publish your first booklet, there are some numbers you should know.  These numbers are extremely important because without them you can’t make a profit, and a business without profit dies.  Profit is the lifeline of any business, and the larger the profit you can bring in the better your business will do – and the more successful you will be!

The Most Important Number You Need To Know

What are these numbers you need to know?  First, you need to know your production costs. If you were writing a book, I would say you would also want to figure in your time for creating your work, but booklets take very little time to write.  So, production costs are first on the list.  Why is this important?  Because you can’t figure out how much profit you will make if you don’t know your production costs.

Many authors overlook this.  They look at the sticker price of their book or booklet, and not until AFTER production is finished do they realize that they won’t be making as much per booklet as they originally thought they would.  Knowing the cost of production up front will help you price your booklet so that you make a profit rather than breaking even or worse, accepting a loss of revenue.

Other Numbers You Need To Know

While the cost of production is an extremely important number to know, it’s not the only one you need in order to be a successful booklet publisher.  You should also know the size of your market, how much competition you have, how much your market buys from competitors, and how much each new customer you get is worth to you in terms of lifetime sales. Will a customer buy from you only once, or are they likely return for more?

Other numbers you should consider are the costs of reaching your market and product delivery. These numbers can range from very small to very great, depending on your budget and the methods you choose to use.

Knowing your numbers up front will help you keep costs down and profits up.  Doing the math may not be as fun as doing the writing, but it’s essential if you want to make serious money.

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS: Would you like to discover the profitable way to write a booklet?  Click here.

PPS: Be sure to subscribe to this blog so you never miss a single, important post.  Remember, it only takes ONE idea to start the riches flowing to you!   Click here to subscribe now!

 

 

Keys To Building A Successful Business – How To Create Loyal Customers Who Come Back For More

Have you ever ordered anything from Zappos?  If you have, you probably had a very good experience.  Zappos understands that they’re not in business to sell shoes.  They’re in business to get customers.

A Mistake That Will Cost You Big

When you began your booklet adventure, you probably gave alot of thought to selling your booklet.  You imagined what your finished booklet would look like and who would buy it, and how many copies you would sell.  But, you probably didn’t give much, if any, thought to your customers’ experience in buying from you.  This is a mistake that can cost you UNTOLD SUMS OF MONEY!

The whole point of starting your booklet adventure is to get customers. Without customers you can’t make money.  You can create the finest products available anywhere – booklets or otherwise – but without customers your products won’t sell, and you’ll be out whatever time and money you put into their creation.

The Key To Making Repeat Sales

Customer relations is a buzz word heard in corporate circles, but it applies to every business, including yours.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re a one man band running your own show, or you’re the head of a giant corporation.  Without good customer relations your business will become anemic, which is something you want to avoid.

What is customer relations?  It is the relationship you have with your customers.  Every company has a relationship with their customers.  That relationship is based on the customer’s experience when they come into contact with your company, and it is the key to making the sale and getting the customer to return.

Why It’s All About The Experience

When a potential customer first discovers your booklet, they probably won’t reach for their wallet.  They’ll want to learn more about you, the author, and about your company before they consider a purchase.  This is a crucial time because the speed at which their questions are answered and the way those questions are answered can make the difference between a sale and the customers going elsewhere – never to return.

Once the customer does decide to make a purchase, the way that purchase is handled is of the utmost importance.  If their experience is a very good one – they get all the information they need to make the decision to buy, the sale goes smoothly, and they receive their booklet or other product very quickly – that pleasant experience will be remembered.  Likewise, an unpleasant experience will also be remembered.

The key to good customer relations is to make your customers love you or your company, and your products.  Delivering a good product makes a happy customer, but delivering a good experience makes a loyal customer, and loyal customers come back for more.

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS: Are you ready to start your booklet adventure?  Click here!

PPS: Be sure to subscribe to this blog so you never miss a post.  Remember it only takes ONE idea to start the riches flowing to you!  Click here now!

 

 

Keys To Building A Successful Business – The One Thing You Absolutely MUST HAVE In Order To Make Money

You can create the best booklet in the world, but if you don’t know how you’re going to sell it, you’ve wasted your time. Every business, from the kid’s lemonade stand on the corner to the mega corporation that sells millions of products ever year, must have some kind of marketing plan for how they will get their product into the hands of consumers or they are doomed from the start.

Why A Marketing Plan Is So Important

The majority of writers who become book or booklet authors don’t usually give much thought to how they will sell their work once it is finished.  They get an idea and the excitement that is generated from that idea carries them forward to finishing their project.  And then it hits them.  They need to sell their now finished product.

If those writers had created a marketing plan before creating their booklet (or book), they would not have had to stop working once their writing was finished and their booklet created.  They could have easily transitioned from the creative phase to the sales phase of their booklet adventure.  In fact, they might have even been able to sell copies of their booklet before it was printed, or even completed.

What A Marketing Plan Is

A marketing plan is part of your business plan, but they are two different things.  Your business plan is a map of where you want your business to go within a certain period of time, and how you plan to get there.   It shows you which areas of your business to focus on, and what steps you need to take to achieve your overall business objectives and goals.

A marketing plan deals with one thing, and only one thing – how to get your booklet into the hands of people who will pay you for it. Unlike your business plan, which is more general and applies to your overall business activities, your marketing plan should be very focused and very specific. It should tell you exactly who your market is, and how you will tell them that your booklet exists.

What To Include In Your Marketing Plan

Just like your business plan, your marketing plan doesn’t need to be complex. It just needs to have enough detail to push you in the right direction toward making sales.  Your marketing plan might only be one page in length when you begin your booklet adventure, and later it might expand to two or three pages.  The important thing is that you have one.

Your marketing plan should tell you who your audience is, who your buyers will be (if they are different from your audience), how you will reach those buyers, how much you expect to make from sales, and how you will measure your sales tactics and progress so you know how to chart your course and make corrections when necessary.  These are the basic components of a good marketing plan, and they are probably all you will ever need throughout your booklet adventure.

If you don’t have a marketing plan, take a little time and create one today.  It’s a crucial key to making real money with your booklets.

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS: Are you ready to write your first booklet?  Click here!

PPS: Be sure to subscribe to this blog.  Remember, it only takes ONE idea to start the riches flowing to you!  Click here to subscribe now!

 

Keys To Building A Successful Business – How Quality Control Helps You Sell Again And Again

If you’ve ever spent any time in the corporate world, you’ve heard of quality control.  But what is it, exactly, and how does it relate to a smaller business like yours?  Quality control is another essential key to your success.

Maintaining The Standard

Have you ever eaten in a fast food restaurant or at a restaurant that was part of a franchise or chain?  Nearly everyone has.  And, chances are you’ve eaten in more than one location of the same restaurant.  Have you ever noticed how the food was the same at each location?  The burgers are just as juicy, the milkshakes are just as sweet and creamy, and the fries are just as perfectly crisped on the outside and soft on the inside from one location to the next.  This is due to quality control.

Quality control is a way of maintaining a certain level of quality in your products across the board. In the case of a restaurant, that means all of their locations must meet the same standard and level of quality.  But, in the case of your booklet business, which doesn’t have multiple locations, it means that all of your products meet a certain level of quality.

What Is Good?

When you sell your first booklet, you are setting a standard and level of quality that your customers will come to expect from you. That standard can be low, in which case you may have few customers, or it can be extremely high, in which case you may find it difficult to meet that standard with every product you produce.  The best standard is one that is in the middle. It’s not perfect – anyone who has ever produced anything and sold it will tell you there is no such thing.  But, it’s not a poor quality product either.  The product you produce should be good.

Every product you produce, whether you decide to write only booklets, or whether you branch out into other media, should be good.  What’s good?  Good is good enough for YOUR audience. That means they like your product and they buy it.  The booklet author who sells to doctors may have a different standard of what good is than the booklet author who sells to parents of toddlers.

Give Them What They Expect

Some people think that good enough applies only to the physical look of their product, but actually it goes much farther than that.  Your booklets and other products need to look professional and they should be eye catching to your audience, yes, but, they also need to have compelling content. This is something else that quality control will insure.

While it’s easy to create booklets that look the same, it’s more difficult to create booklets that sound the same.  That is, they speak directly to your audience in a voice your audience will pay attention to.  Once you have their attention, you want to keep it.  Quality control will help you do that.  How?  By making sure you maintain the same standard from one booklet to the next, one cd to the next, and so on.

Quality control makes it easy for you to employ the same standard of quality from one product to the next, and give your customers what they expect each and every time. Think of it like starbucks.  You go to starbucks and order your favorite drink.  You have a certain level of expectation, and if your drink is disappointing, it ruins the experience.  Your booklets are just the like the starbucks drink.  Make sure each one meets, or better yet exceeds, your customer’s expectaions, and you’ll be able to sell to them again and again.

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS: Just starting your booklet adventure?  Click here!

PPS: Be sure to subscribe to this blog so you never miss a post.  Remember, it only takes ONE idea to start the riches flowing to you!  Click here!

Keys To Building A Successful Business – It All Begins With You

This month we’ll be talking about what it takes to build a successful booklet publishing business, and an appropriate place to begin is with you!

Stiff Opposition

Your booklet publishing company begins with you.  You come up with an idea, and then you must decide what the next step is.  Will you write that first booklet and start your business (what I like to call your booklet adventure)?  Or will you sit on that idea until it becomes stale and fizzles out?

Once you make the decision to write your booklet, you may find that you come up against some stiff opposition.  Your friends or family might discourage you – not because they don’t want you to try, but because they don’t really believe you can be successful. After all, they haven’t been terribly successful themselves, and by talking you out of pursuing your idea they believe they’re doing you a favor and saving you alot of wasted time and grief.

What Do You Think?

You have two choices at this point.  You can listen to the nay-sayers and pack it in before y0u ever really get started, or you can politely tell them thank you for their advice but you’ve decided to forge ahead and give it a try anyway.

It’s really a matter of your mindset and what you believe you can do. There’s an old saying that says if you think you can you’re right, and if you think you can’t, you’re right.  If you don’t believe you can do something, why bother trying?  But, if you really believe you can do it, then it doesn’t matter what anyone says. Their words will either bounce off you as if you were protected by an invisible shield, or their words will actully spur you on to prove them wrong.

The First Key

Even if you have all of your friends and family in your corner rooting for you and cheering you on, you’ll still face challenges that will require you to have a positive mindset.  What’s the point of writing that booklet if the first challenge you face is going to cause you to quit?  You need to have a mind of steele.  You need to decide that no matter what, you will succeed.

The idea for your first booklet, and ultimately for your business, comes from you.  If you don’t have the mindset to whether the storms, you’ll never make it.  The first key to building a successful business is to believe in yourself and what you can accomplish. And while that’s not all you need, it’s at the very core because without it you’ll fail.

To your riches!

Kim Hillman

PS: What do you think?  Can you do it?  If you think so, click here!

PPS: Be sure to subscribe to this blog so you never miss a post!  Remember, it only takes ONE idea to start the riches flowing to you!  Click here now!