Are You Sending the Right Message? How to Develop Core Brand Messaging that Converts

by Kate De Jong | Feb 24, 2023 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Words are powerful things.

When used correctly, they have the power to clearly convey an idea, thought, or message. And the reverse is also true. The wrong choice or mix of words can leave your customers feeling completely confused, or worse — repelled.

One of the most challenging tasks as a business owner is to find the specific words that accurately reflect the essence of who you are and what you do in a way that resonates with your ideal clients.

When it comes to marketing your business, clarity is everything.

You might have heard the saying “The confused person never buys”. It’s 100% true! One of the biggest reasons why people ‘bounce’ when they visit your website or they look confused when you deliver your pitch is because they can’t figure out what you do and if or how you can help them.

Clear, sharp, and impactful messaging makes all your marketing and sales efforts easier. Get your messaging right, and you’ll see your revenue increase seemingly with ease.

Marketing is not about convincing anyone of anything. It’s about creating resonance with your ideal clients.

As the famous Simon Sinek quote goes:

Your job is not to do business with those who need what you have.
Your job is to do business with those who believe what you believe.

— SIMON SINEK

Your messaging needs to tap into what’s true for your clients at a belief level.

Your prospect then feels a resonance with your words. As one of my favourite mentors, Jeffry Van Dyk, says, “Your message activates something in them.”

And then the deal is done.

There’s no competition anymore.

Your message has reached into their heart and mind and they know that YOU are the one they want to do business with.

Great core messaging is not forceful or manipulative.

It’s magnetic.

So What is Core Brand Messaging?

Your core messaging describes the essence of who you are, what you believe, and what you do, boiled down to a few critical sentences or phrases. What do you want people to know and remember about your brand? It all starts with clearly defining your ‘why’, vision, mission and tagline. This then flows into all your marketing assets and the way you speak about your brand.

To learn everything you need to know about how to develop your core brand statements, check out this article: How to Craft Your Brand ‘Why’, Vision, and Mission Statements

You’d be surprised how many businesses struggle to clearly articulate their brand core message. And they struggle to make sales as a result.

It’s not easy to develop your core messaging. It takes time and it requires a willingness to dig deep down into your beliefs and what drives you to do business.

What’s an example of core messaging?

It took me quite some time to develop my own brand messaging. When I dug deep into why I do what I do, I discovered that this is what I believe:

WHY
Because I believe that entrepreneurs will save the world.

VISION
To empower purpose-driven entrepreneurs to bring their vision to life.

MISSION
To help entrepreneurs master the craft of starting and growing a thriving, scalable business so they can make the difference they’re here to make.

TAGLINE
Grow your business with ease.

When you nail your messaging you’ll see an immediate increase in leads and conversions because people now know exactly what you’re about, who you help, and how. Here’s what my client Zina had to say.

Kate exceeded my expectations in every way. She gave me actionable and practical advice that paid off almost immediately! Her advice on my core messaging was next level and once I implemented the changes I saw an immediate increase in traffic to my website and conversion rates. I’m blown away by how much value Kate was able to add to my business in such a short time.
— Zina Le Sueur, Zina Le Sueur Photography

Do you need help defining or refining your core messaging? Reach out to Kate at kate@katedejong.com or 0424 176 658 or visit https://katedejong.com for more information.

Have you downloaded your FREE copy of The Art of Business Building yet?

Discover the Essential Strategies to Market and Grow Your Business, the Easy Way!

Go here to download it now.

In service to your success

Kate

Soft Skills are the New Superpower: IQ is No Longer the Metric of Choice for Top Global Companies

by Kate De Jong | Dec 20, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Having a high academic score doesn’t necessarily make you a desirable candidate anymore for global tech companies like Google. These days, corporate giants are specifically looking for soft skills in their new employees (Abdul S, 2022)

Soft Skills are the New Superpower

Soft skills are non-technical skills that describe how you work and interact with others. Unlike hard skills, they’re not necessarily something you’ll learn in a course, like data analytics or programming. Instead, they reflect your communication style, work ethic, and work style.

Terms like ‘soft skills’ and ’emotional intelligence’ have only become widely accepted in the past decade. Back in the early 1990s, publishers told science journalist Daniel Goleman not to use the word ‘emotion’ in a business book. The notion at the time was that emotions had no role in the workplace. Business management focused on workers’ physical productivity, not their feelings. It was believed that ‘hard skills’ drove the bottom line.

It wasn’t until 1990 when psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer published their landmark journal article called ‘Emotional Intelligence’ that things started to shift in mainstream perception. They described emotional intelligence as “the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions as well as those of others.” They proposed that emotions serve a particularly useful function and that emotional intelligence (EQ) is not just a group of capacities or skills, but rather, it is an actual intelligence that is equally important as cognitive intelligence (IQ).

There’s now a growing acceptance that emotional intelligence can be taught, measured, and improved.

Companies that focus on developing emotional intelligence in their employees see significant increases in staff retention, engagement, and productivity.

In other words, cultivating emotional intelligence in your workforce significantly improves business profitability (Harvard Business Review). And this is why the most sought-after companies like Google are now using EQ as the single most important metric when hiring new employees.

Emotionally intelligent people are happier and more successful.

Since the nineties, emotional intelligence and self-awareness have been studied extensively by the world’s leading academics. Results show consistently that people with a high EQ are:

More fulfilled.

More creative.

More competent.

Better communicators.

More promotable.

More effective leaders with more profitable companies.

More powerful and better negotiators.

Happier and more successful.

Perform better at work.

Have stronger relationships.

Are less likely to lie, steal, and cheat. [Dr Tasha Eurich]

The Six Intelligences in Business

I’ve been fascinated by the concepts of emotional intelligence and self-awareness for decades now. I love learning more about myself and other people — and helping my clients to do the same — through behavioural tests like the Harrison Assessment (one of my favourites), the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs and DISC (you can learn all about those here).

One of the most powerful tools available to develop greater emotional intelligence that I’ve come across in recent years is the B.A.N.K Personality Coding system which identifies six different types of soft skills that literally give you superpowers in business.

The six intelligences are:

Emotional intelligence.
Personality intelligence.
Sales intelligence.
Business intelligence.
Artificial intelligence.
Spiritual intelligence.

These six intelligences are the engine that drives your business results. When you actively take the time to cultivate skill across these six different areas, it results in your ability to:

Be a more influential leader.

Create more powerful marketing.

Be a more profitable business.

Create high-functioning teams.

Produce high-converting sales.

In short, soft skills create business success.

Discovering and learning the B.A.N.K Personality Coding System has allowed me to:

Increase my sales conversion rate consistently from around 60% to more than 90%.
Produce powerful marketing messaging and assets that convert.
Speak the language of my clients so I can work with them more effectively.
Develop more fruitful relationships and strategic partnerships that benefit my business.

You can ‘crack’ your own B.A.N.K personality code by going to this link.

The 6 Intelligences

1. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Emotional intelligence helps you build stronger relationships, succeed at school and work, and achieve your career and personal goals. It can also help you to connect with your feelings, turn intention into action, and make informed decisions about what matters most to you.

Emotional intelligence is commonly defined by four attributes:

Self-awareness: The ability to recognise your own emotions, strengths, blind spots and your impact on others.
Awareness of others: Ability to recognise another’s emotional state with compassion and non-judgment.
Self-regulation: Able to wisely manage your emotions and impulses.
Empathy: Able to identify with and understand another’s emotions.
Interpersonal skills: Effective at managing relationships that benefit everyone involved.

2. Personality Intelligence

The Greek physician Hippocrates, known as ‘the father of medicine’ (460—370 BC) already defined four different and distinct types of personality during his time. He defined them as:

1) Melancholic: Analytical and literal
2) Choleric: Ambitious and leader-like
3) Sanguine: Pleasure-seeking and sociable
4) Phlegmatic: Relaxed and thoughtful

Modern psychology has embraced those four different types in varying formats, and B.A.N.K is rooted in a similar personality distinction, but it’s the first time a system has been developed around buying behaviour, which is what makes it so powerful in business. When you understand why your clients buy, it’s a powerful weapon.

Personality intelligence means:

You understand and can identify the different types of personalities.
You know and understand how you’re different and similar to others.
You use your understanding of another’s personality to drive your communication.
You know the underlying values of the person you’re talking to and you know how to speak directly to their values.

3. Sales Intelligence

In business, sales intelligence is the information and techniques that salespeople use to make informed decisions in the selling cycle. It’s about having a powerful understanding of why people buy and using that understanding to increase sales conversions.

In sales, the sales velocity equation is a well-known formula used to drive sales growth.

Your sales velocity is influenced by the number of leads you have, the deal value, your conversion rate and the length of your sales cycle. Understanding and using the B.A.N.K system helps you increase the number of leads you generate, increase the conversion rate, and decrease the sales cycle length.

4. Business Intelligence

Business intelligence is the ability to use your soft skills to drive business decisions by:

Know the personality type of your ideal customer.
Know how to speak to all customer types.
Understanding all customer’s buying motivation.
Crafting all marketing messages to appeal to specific types.
Customised sales scripts and communications for different personality types.

The B.A.N.K system helps with all of the above which is why it’s such a powerful system.

5. Artificial Intelligence

The artificial intelligence that’s built into the B.A.N.K system is one of the most powerful aspects of the model. You can copy and paste a client’s emails, communications or social posts into their AI tool and it ‘decodes’ their personality, telling you how to speak to them in a way that resonates with their buying values.

It’s a game-changer!

6. Spiritual intelligence

The B.A.N.K methodology is the first time I’ve come across a business tool that explicitly discusses and measures the concept of spirituality in business. I’ve always been aware of my own spiritual understanding and path, but it’s not until now that it’s been discussed in a business sense. I personally find it refreshing and revolutionary. Spiritual intelligence is about:

Seeing greater meaning and purpose in life.
Actions are driven by wisdom and compassion.
Viewing your business and career as an opportunity for spiritual growth.
Your identity is not defined by your physical self.
Feeling guided in decision-making by a higher power.
Detecting qualities in people that transcend their physical appearance, personality and emotions.
Seeing the potential for good in difficult or tragic situations.

To learn more about the B.A.N.K Personality Coding Methodology, check out these articles:

Selling is Not a Numbers Game: The B.A.N.K Personality Coding System—An Overview

The Powerful Lesson I Learned from Losing One of my Best Deals Ever

How Does an Engineer End Up Becoming a Business Coach?

You can ‘crack’ your own B.A.N.K personality code by going to this link.

I hope you found this helpful! If you’d more information, please reach out.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, PhD
Inspired Business
Business & marketing coach for small business owners
kate@katedejong.com
katedejong.com
0424 176 658

The Rise of Four Different Species of Entrepreneurs—Which One Are You?

by Kate De Jong | Nov 22, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Definition: Entrepreneur

A person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risk in the hope of profit.

If you’re a business owner, or working for yourself, then you’ve ventured into the world of entrepreneurship.

Traditionally, there have been some key differences between ‘entrepreneurs’ and ‘business owners’.

As Melanie Spring writes in her great article Are You a Small-Business Owner or an Entrepreneur? The Difference is Important, these are some of the key differences:

Small business owners take relatively small financial risks. The results may not be huge, but it keeps them moving forward. Entrepreneurs take larger risks, knowing that if they put in their full effort, there will be a good ROI (return on investment).
Small business owners tend to think local, while entrepreneurs think big and global.
Entrepreneurs put their focus on growth and scaling and their core mission is to develop a business that they can on-sell it eventually to make a significant profit.

However, the definition of entrepreneurship is subtly changing.

Bruce Bachenheimer, a clinical professor of management and executive director of the Entrepreneurship Lab at Pace University says:

“Entrepreneurship is much broader than the creation of a new business venture. At its core, it is a mindset — a way of thinking and acting. It is about imagining new ways to solve problems and create value.” - Bruce BachenheimerTweet it

And given the changing nature of our workforce and the emergence of the new Purpose Economy, there are ever-increasing opportunities to solve new problems and create value, and people are responding to these market gaps.

Hence the rising number of entrepreneurs worldwide.

Linda Rottenberg, entrepreneur extraordinaire, founder of Endeavor and author of Crazy is a Compliment: The Power of Zigging When Everyone Else Zags says:

“Today entrepreneurship doesn’t just mean starting a tech company. It means undertaking any bold venture – from improving your neighbourhood to selling crafts out of your basement; from modernising your family business to proposing a new initiative in your corporation.

The techniques involved in sharpening your idea, facing down critics, recruiting boosters, and handling setbacks apply in almost every realm of work.”

Rottenberg describes the increasing trend of entrepreneurs worldwide like this:

“In the world today, there's an unstoppable, unwavering trend toward individuals who seek to improve their own lives and, in the process, improve the world around them. They’re entrepreneurs.”Tweet it

Research in Australia, my homeland, shows that “small and micro business is Australia’s fastest growing employment sector. Aussie start-up culture is burning brighter than ever before as Baby Boomers and Gen Y lead a movement to ditch the corporate ladder in favour of becoming their own boss.” [1].

Research in the USA shows that people are increasingly choosing entrepreneurship too. A study by Intelligent Office revealed that nearly 65 percent of workers would rather be an entrepreneur or independent employee than work in an office.

Rottenberg says:

“If some moments have been ripe for diplomats, financiers, soldiers, or politicians, today is ripe for entrepreneurs.”

The reason for this, she says, is this:

“The reasons behind the shift are complex, but they come down to one simple reality: We live in a time of uncertainty. Our economies, our companies, our jobs, are no longer stable and secure. Change is the only constant. To survive, we all need the skills required to continually reinvent ourselves.”

Everyone needs to take some risk or risk being left behind.Tweet it

As happens with the growth of any field or model, the entrepreneurial field is diversifying and spreading in its form and impact.

Once reserved as a term largely for the start-up industry, it now infiltrates just about any sector you can think of.

Linda Rottenberg has spent her entire career finding, coaching, and financially supporting fledgling entrepreneurs with big ideas through her organisation Endeavor. In her many years of experience of working with thousands of entrepreneurs and speaking on countless panels on the topic, she defines four different types of entrepreneurs.

I found her definitions fascinating and insightful.

Here are the different types and their characteristics. I’m most definitely a butterfly. Which one are you? (All definitions below are taken from Rottenberg’s book Crazy is a Compliment.)

The Four Different Species of Entrepreneurs

1. Gazelles

Gazelles, Rottenberg explains, are the classic entrepreneurs of myth and reality:

“Someone who starts a new business venture and aims for it to explode into a white-hot phenomenon”.

Examples are Home Depot, Facebook, Jenny Craig, and Instagram.

High growth is the goal.

The term ‘gazelle’ was coined by economist David Birch in 1994 to describe high-growth businesses whose sales double every four years. Though only a minuscule 2—4 % of companies fit this model in the USA, this group accounts for nearly all job creation in the private sector.

When you hear politicians say “Small businesses really create most of the new jobs”, they’re talking about gazelles, Rottenberg says.

In her experience, while wildly brilliant and visionary, gazelles tend to make the same mistakes over and over: They expand too quickly, they lose focus, they tangle with their partners and they can’t give up control. But when they have a supportive team around them who can help them balance out these aspects, they’re unstoppable.

2. Skunks

The term ‘skunk’ was adapted by Rottenberg from the Lockheed Corporation, which during World War II set up a secret division to build fighter jets. It was called Skunk Works.

Skunks are:

“Entrepreneurs operating within large corporations [who] go out of their way to stink up the joint.”

They’re sometimes also referred to as ‘intrapeneur’, an employee operating within a company who takes responsibility for “turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation.”

They’re often people who have become fed up with the limitations of conventional company practice and develop a better way to do it, or see something that is desperately needed and go against all bureaucracy, traditions, and resistance to get it done.

Given the rapid pace of change in the world and the need to adapt and innovate, corporations are now urgently requesting and encouraging their employees to be more independent and creative. The corporate world knows it’s essential to their survival.

3. Dolphins

These are people who dedicate their skills and services to helping the social sector become more entrepreneurial. These days they are referred to as ‘social entrepreneurs’.

Rottenberg explains: “Dolphins are contrarians in the non-profit or public sector who are willing to buck the conventions of their professions and agitate for real change.

“Why dolphins? Because they’re smart and social (they live in cooperative pods) and are one of the few animals shown to be altruistic toward others. But they’re not pushovers: Harm a dolphin’s pod, and watch out!”

Rottenberg continues: “Today even causes for which there are no compelling private-sector solutions are ripe for an entrepreneurial shake-up. It’s dolphins making the waves.”

4. Butterflies

This may be the fastest-growing group of all. These are small-scale or lifestyle entrepreneurs. First among these are sole proprietors – plumbers, yoga instructors, freelance writers, organic farmers, artists etc.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that a majority of U.S. businesses have no paid employees. Forty percent of American adults have now spent part of their careers working on their own, and 24 million more are expected to be self-employed by 2018.

Globally the number of independent contractors will reach 1.3. billion by 2020. Rottenberg explains:

“These fields are booming because they’re open to anyone: Moms, dads, grannies, twenty-somethings, even teens starting microventures in their basements, cars or bathrooms. As Jay-Z put it ‘I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.’”

While some of these entrepreneurs aim to be fast-growing gazelles, many are content to stay small and local. Rottenberg’s reasons for calling this group of entrepreneurs ‘butterflies’ is beautiful:

“Butterflies are incredibly varied (there are at least 17,500 different types of butterfly) and [are] driven by freedom and individualism. In both Eastern and Western cultures, butterflies have long symbolised the soul, especially one reborn after a period of cocooning. Beyond personal transformation, butterflies are vital to their habitat and an indicator of its overall well-being. More butterflies equal a healthier ecosystem.”

At first glance, this group may not appear to reflect the ground-breaking level of skills that entrepreneurs usually harbour. Linda says:

“Do you really need to be disruptive when you’re selling homemade cheese at the farmer’s market? The answer: You do, especially because your competitor probably has an in at Whole Foods, now accepts credit card payments with a Square reader and has just launched a vibrant Web business.”

Besides, she says, “butterflies are uniquely suited to this age of disruption. In chaos theory, ‘butterfly effect’ is the term given to the idea that change can come from anywhere. The weather in Central Park can be affected by a butterfly flapping its wings in South America […] Don’t underestimate the tenacity of a butterfly. […] They aren’t waiting for changes to happen to them; they’re making changes happen every day.”

So clearly entrepreneurship is no longer restricted to a minority group of high-growth tech start-ups but is infiltrating increasingly into every corner of life including the public sector, the corporate sector, and the small business/lifestyle sector.

I found it humbling and validating to know that butterflies like me are on the rise and that “more butterflies equal a healthier ecosystem.” At the end of the day, a healthy ecosystem is one in which all species are thriving and growing. And in the case of entrepreneurship, this definitely seems to be one growing, large, and thriving global ecosystem.

In service to your success,

Katie De Jong, Ph.D
Inspired Business
Business & Marketing Strategist
kate@katedejong.com
www.katedejong.com

[1] http://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/business/the-rise-of-the-aussie-entrepreneur.html

[2] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227776

[3] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238502

[4] http://www.preservearticles.com/201101143321/essential-qualities-of-an-entrepreneur.html

Selling is Not a Numbers Game: The B.A.N.K Personality Coding System—An Overview

by Kate De Jong | Nov 3, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

If you own your own business, you’re in the business of marketing and selling.

“The ability to sell is the number one skill in business.
If you cannot sell, don’t bother thinking about becoming a business owner.”
– Robert Kiyosaki

Thankfully, the ability to sell is something that can be learned, which is comforting for business owners to know given that it’s so critical. I’ve completed dozens of different selling courses and programs over the years, but there have been few that I would refer to as a ‘game-changer’—until I found the B.A.N.K Personality Coding System.

Discovering and learning the B.A.N.K Personality Coding System has allowed me to:

Increase my sales conversion rate consistently from around 60% to more than 90%.
Produce powerful marketing messaging and assets that convert.
Speak the language of my clients so I can work with them more effectively.
Develop more fruitful relationships and strategic partnerships that benefit my business.

The use of personality science in selling is not new. Personality science itself is ancient, with Hippocrates (460 BC) being the first that we know of who documented four distinct patterns of human behaviour.

However, this is the first time that personality science has been applied to selling to understand what makes people buy.

So what is the B.A.N.K Personality Coding System?

Developed by Cheri Tree at Codebreaker Technologies in the USA, the B.A.N.K. Personality Coding System is an easy-to-use personality typing system that predicts decision-making behaviour based on your prospect’s deeply held values, ideals, and worldview.

B.A.N.K helps you understand why people buy.
And we’re all different when it comes to our motivation for making buying decisions.

I’m sure you can recall a sales conversation where you’ve been able to easily build rapport and trust and the conversation flows easily. As a result, your prospect wants to buy from you. It’s likely that your prospect was similar to you and you were speaking their language.

On the other hand, you would have experienced a sales conversation where there’s a disconnect and no matter how you try to navigate the conversation, you just can’t seem to connect and as a result, they say ‘no’ to working with you. I wrote about a time like this when I lost a big deal in one of my articles: The Powerful Lesson I Learned from Losing the Best Deal Ever.

The B.A.N.K system helps you understand why that happens and gives you a tool to make sure every sales conversation is a fruitful one.

You’ve probably heard the saying “Selling is a numbers game”

Well, this statement simply isn’t true. You can significantly increase your sales conversion rate by learning to speak the language of your prospect.

There are four personality types in B.A.N.K Codes: Blueprint, Action, Nurturing, and Knowledge. I’ve provided an overview of each one for you below. Each one of us has a ‘B.A.N.K code’ which is the order of the different values systems that are most important to us.

There are 24 different B.A.N.K. codes possible from four different value sets (shown below).

Use B.A.N.K’s Artificial Intelligence to ‘Crack the Code’ of your customers so you can speak their language

The great news is that you can use B.A.N.K’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology to ‘crack the code’ of your prospect before meeting with them, so you can speak to them in their language from the get-go to build rapport and genuine connection.

You can also crack your own code by going to this link.

To help you start understanding the different primary personality types, I’ve provided an overview below.

BLUEPRINT — ‘Inside the Box’

The first BANK code is ‘Blueprint’. These personality types value responsibility, planning, and structure. They’re usually specific with their actions and think things through before making decisions. See below for guidance on how to deal with a customer who leads their code with Blueprint.

Typical BLUEPRINT Behaviours

They expect everyone to follow the rules and regulations.
They need people to keep their word.
Their focus is on minimising risk.
They love to set up and implement predictable systems.
They trust proven authority.
They see everything in the world through the lens of right and wrong.
They learn best through memorising, recall, and drill.
They appreciate agenda-driven, efficient meetings that start and end on time.
They work best with systems, routines, and procedures.
They learn from past mistakes and proceed with caution.
They don’t appreciate spontaneity or unplanned visits.

What to do when meeting or working with a BLUEPRINT

Be well-organized and show that you are organised in the way you work.
Go above and beyond to show respect.
Greet them with a traditional handshake (no high fives, hugging or over-the-top gestures!)
Act professionally.
Demonstrate a system for success.
Present your offer in a way that is low- or no risk to them—blueprints don’t like risk and they’ll do everything to minimise it.
Acknowledge their position, credibility and accomplishments.
Provide full disclosure of costs and timelines and never go over budget.
Give them access to special discounts or savings incentives. They love a good bargain.
Show up on time for appointments—never show up late to an appointment with a blueprint, it will be a no-deal from the get go!
Show them your appropriate credentials for their field of work.

Deal-breakers for a BLUEPRINT. Don’t do this!

Don’t be late to appointments or be late with deliverables.
Have no structure in your process or approach.
Make up your own rules or have no regard for the rules.
Display informal or rude behavior or be insensitive to surroundings.
Interrupt them or make unscheduled calls or visits.
Fail to acknowledge their perspective or point of view.
Use aggressive sales tactics or behaviors.
Set unrealistic expectations or offer false promises.

ACTION — ‘Outside the Box’

Action types care about freedom, opportunity, and excitement. They’re free spirits. If you were to pitch a product to them, you’d want to demonstrate how it’d help them get ahead in life or elevate them. You also might tell them about how your product will give them greater independence in their lives.

Typical ACTION Behaviours

They negotiate skillfully and look for their own win.
They’re optimistic and act on instinct.
They’re competitive and have a propensity for sports and entertainment.
They love beauty, status and anything aesthetically pleasing.
They recognise and go after opportunity.
They’re always looking for a better way to do things.
They rebel against rules, routine and structure.
They takes risks and love getting things done.
They’re entrepreneurial and like to lead.
They learn best through hands-on methods: “Show me, don’t tell me”.
They don’t like boredom or waiting.
They don’t like abstract ideas, excessive details, and useless theory—get to the point quickly.

What to do when meeting or working with an ACTION

Where possible, show your connections to celebrities, business executives, or other high net-worth individuals.
Wear or carry high-end fashion accessories.
Paint a picture of a dream lifestyle that they can achieve through working with you.
Name other successful people you have worked with.
Greet them with enthusiasm. They love high fives and other enthusiastic gestures.
Notice and compliment their fashion or style.
Convey a sense of urgency.
Give them access to VIP experiences.

Deal-breakers for an ACTION. Don’t do this!

Show that you don’t care about style or your outward appearance.
Provide too much detail or get into the minutia.
Lack confidence and courage.
Give the impression you don’t have relationship capital or a sphere of influence.
Fail to recognize them for their achievements.
Be low energy or not engaging.
Lack the ability to motivate and inspire.
Come across as cheap or lacking generosity.

NURTURING — ‘Recycle the Box’

These are the caregivers. Nurturing personalities focus on relationships, authenticity, and personal growth. To relate to a nurturing personality, you need to demonstrate your good intent. They’re able to sniff out dishonesty and greedy sales pitches.

Typical NURTURING Behaviours

They dislike inauthentic or fake people.
They enjoy training, motivating, and coaching others.
They need interaction with people, groups, and teams.
They seek deeper meaning beyond material possessions.
They show appreciation easily and in many ways.
They avoid conflict, contention, and excessive competition.
They’re genuine, kind, and thoughtful.
They’re on a quest for self-actualization and want others to do the same.
They believe in the greater good of people.
They support and empower others to be their best.
They’re empathetic and intuitively understand the needs of others.
They’re here to positively impact other human beings.

What to do when meeting or working with a NURTURING

Give them a warm personal touch or energy.
Connect with them over a common background, shared interest, or mutual experience.
Go above and beyond to show thoughtfulness and gratitude.
Show you’re purpose-driven, not money-driven.
Provide opportunities for charitable causes.
Show you’re passionate about the things that are important to them (if you are of course—be genuine, they can sniff out disingenuity!)
Create a sense of community so they can feel connected.
Try to understand them as a person.
Introduce them to others on your team so they feel a sense of belonging.
Ask them questions about their personal story (e.g., family, vocation, hobbies).
Be friendly and approachable.

Deal-breakers for a NURTURING. Don’t do this!

Show that you care more about the money or making the sale than about them personally.
Be rude or obnoxious.
Be egocentric or lack humility.
Come across as inauthentic.
Forget important personal details (birthday, anniversary, etc.)
Fail to demonstrate high integrity or moral standards.
Show you don’t care about others or a sense of higher purpose.

KNOWLEDGE—’Engineer the Box’

Knowledge-focused personalities find passion in intellectual substance, in the mastery of their craft, comprehending the big picture, and in perceiving the rationality behind statements. For these personalities, you need to lace your sales pitches with analysis and facts. They need to know your claims are credible before making the decision to purchase.

Typical KNOWLEDGE Behaviours

They trust research, facts, analysis, logic, and reason above all.
They’re precise in their speech and they notice contradictions.
They have a need for data and meaningful interpretation of it.
They don’t like to make a decision quickly, they need to do their own research in their own time before deciding.
They easily learn abstract ideas and can process several issues at the same time.
They dislike rote learning without understanding.
They resolve conflict logically and rationally, without emotion.
They use diagrams and models to communicate concepts.
They can easily recognize truths and untruths.
They dislike chitchat and instead seek conversations with substance.

What to do when meeting or working with a KNOWLEDGE

Display a deep understanding of your subject matter.
Be prepared with supporting information to back up your claims.
Give them enough information to make well-informed decisions.
Approach everything logically.
Offer a new perspective.
Be an expert in your field and show that you master your craft.
Provide accurate facts and figures.
Demonstrate a deep respect for wisdom and life experiences.
Come across as smart speak intelligently.

Deal-breakers for a KNOWLEDGE. Don’t do this!

Come across as ignorant, arrogant, or unintelligent.
Have no data, bad data, or made-up data.
Attempt to placate a situation and not deal with reality.
Underestimate or insult their intelligence.
Disregard their opinion or thought processes.
Show that you lack experience or expertise on the subject matter.
Be defensive or debate based on emotion.
Not giving them time to process information or do their own research.
Nonsensical small talk or conversations that lack direction or purpose.

When you’re armed with your customer’s code before engaging with them, you’ll find that your sales or work conversations proceed so much more smoothly!

To inquire about access to the B.A.N.K. artificial intelligence so you can crack your customer’s codes, reach out to me direcly at kat@katedejong.com.

And to crack your own code, go to this link.

I hope you found this helpful! If you’d more information, please reach out.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, PhD
Inspired Business
Business & marketing coach for small business owners
kate@katedejong.com
katedejong.com
0424 176 658

The Powerful Lesson I Learned from Losing One of my Best Deals Ever

by Kate De Jong | Sep 25, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

“We can either be pushed by pain or pulled by pleasure”
—unknown.

I heard this quote a long time ago and it’s always stuck with me because it couldn’t be more true in my experience. Like all of us, my biggest learnings and growth have been born out of loss and struggle.

One of these painful incidents occurred in recent years in business when a prospect came my way who felt like a perfect fit. I was so excited about the idea of working with this particular client because I loved what they were doing and what they were about. I could see the potential of what we could achieve if we worked together. Her work was in alignment with my values and my experience. I knew I could add value to her growing business.

Except it appears I read her completely incorrectly.

I had made certain assumptions about her and her values that I wasn’t consciously aware of at the time. She seemed so much like me and so I spoke and wrote in a way that was in alignment with my priorities and values. In our discussions and in my proposal, I focused on outcomes and qualities that are important to me (and I assumed to her too). But as it turns out, they weren’t as important to her. And she chose to work with someone else.

I was devastated.

It took me completely by surprise because it wasn’t the outcome I was expecting at all. I couldn’t understand what had gone so wrong. It confused me for the longest time.

It wasn’t until very recently during my certification process for the B.A.N.K. Personality Coding Methodology that I finally understood what went wrong with this particular client. As I worked through the learning for each personality type, it suddenly dawned on me that even though this client had seemed so similar to me, her underlying values system was quite different from mine. I’ve been able to figure this out thanks to the incredible artificial intelligence (AI) that is a part of the B.A.N.K. system.

The B.A.N.K artificial intelligence can decode a person’s social profiles, website, and other written material to tell you what their personality code is—which means you can then speak and write to them according to their internal values system.

Each one of us has a ‘B.A.N.K. code’ which is the order of the different values systems that are most important to us. There are 24 different B.A.N.K. codes possible from four different primary value sets (shown below). You discover your B.A.N.K. code (as a preliminary assessment) by ordering the cards below in order of their importance to you.

You see, I had assumed that this prospect was like me. As someone who leads with the ‘Nurturer’ type (my personality code is NKAB), I love to do business with people who:

Are authentic, transparent, and genuine (N).
Show me they are not driven by money (N).
Connect me with their community, team or tribe (N).
They’re purpose-driven and passionate about their cause—and mine (N).
They’re warm, friendly and sincere (N).
They’re smart and know their information (K).
They can provide me with the intellectual substance behind their approach (K).
Their knowledge or system is current and state-of-the-art (K).
They have a sense or urgency and don’t waste time on insignificant details (A).
They get straight to the point (A).

But based on my research since, I now understand that my prospect’s values were more in order of the list below (AKNB)—with A as her highest value by far. She predominantly wanted to do business with someone who:

Focuses on the fun, sizzle, lifestyle, and the dream (A).
Displays excitement and enthusiasm (A).
Can introduce her to other successful, powerful influencers (A).
Is charismatic, cool and dressed to impress (A).
Loves to make money, and lots of it (A).
Has a sense of urgency and remembers that time is money (A).

Had I known this at the time, I would have conducted my communications with her completely differently!

I could have spoken directly to her cherished values and priorities in order to build her trust and confidence in me. I could have focused my proposal directly on the things that are important to her and then worked with her in a way that met her needs and values. If only I’d known then what they were!

But as always, hindsight is a wonderful thing. And this situation taught me a very powerful lesson in what NOT to do when it comes to pitching your services to someone.

Selling and succeeding in business is all about building quick, natural rapport with your prospect and developing trust and confidence in you as the provider by speaking their language.

The B.A.N.K system teaches you exactly how to first understand and then speak the language that is going to resonate with your prospect’s value system.

And the best thing is, you can ask your prospects to crack their own code before you speak to them using the BANKPASS. That way you know exactly how to relate and speak to them in a way that resonates with their core values from the get-go.

This has been a complete game-changer for me in my business.

Want to know what your B.A.N.K personality code is?

Go here to find out now.

Has this article been helpful? Drop me a comment if it has! I love hearing from you.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, PhD
Inspired Business
Business & marketing coach for small business owners
kate@katedejong.com
katedejong.com
0424 176 658

How Does an Engineer End Up Becoming a Business Coach?

by Kate De Jong | Sep 15, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

If anyone had told me back in my early twenties that I would end up quitting my engineering career in my thirties to become a business coach, I would have told them they were crazy.

Stepping away from my fifteen-year-long career as a consulting engineer in my mid-thirties was one of the hardest things I’ve done. No one around me could understand it. I couldn’t understand it either—I just knew I had to.

“But you’re such a good engineer!” people used to say.

“You’ve built such a successful career!” others said.

It didn’t seem to make sense.

I’d been so passionate about my career path and I poured my heart and soul into it. Starting out with a Bachelor of Science (majoring in Biotechnology), I then went on to complete an Honours Degree and eventually a PhD in Process Engineering. For nearly ten years, I worked as an engineering consultant in Australia and overseas, helping water utilities to optimise and upgrade their large-scale wastewater treatment facilities. I was passionate about protecting the environment. I wanted to make a difference. My work felt noble, satisfying, and fulfilling.

Except on the inside, things were unraveling.

What started out as unshakable tiredness eventually turned into what could only be labeled by doctors as chronic fatigue. It was a ‘mystery illness’. I woke up feeling exhausted and unwell every day. Nothing seemed to ease the extreme fatigue and brain fog that pervaded every waking moment.

For nearly ten years, my body was giving me all the signs that I was on the wrong path. I was constantly unwell, whether it be a lingering cold or flu, a gut problem, tonsillitis or hyperactive thyroid. I felt constantly unwell and miserable.

Still, I kept pushing through. I put on a brave face. I’d learned to wear a happy mask to hide what was going on underneath. My suffering was my secret. “I’m great!” was my standard response if anyone asked. No one knew of the hell I was living.

I struggled on until I was brought to my knees in 2010.

I was forced to reassess everything.

In the aftermath of my life crisis (which I write all about in my bestselling memoir Seeds of a Calling), I finally realised that my career was draining the life force out of me and it needed to stop.

Making the decision to quit engineering was massive and it wasn’t a decision I made lightly. But I knew it was what I needed to do.

As soon as I mustered the courage to quit, my health started to improve. It was miraculous. It was like a ten-tonne weight had lifted from my shoulders and my energy and health started returning with ever-increasing speed.

I spent half a year reflecting, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I started my own coaching business in 2013, and I haven’t looked back.

For me, entrepreneurship has been the path to freedom, happiness, and fulfillment.

And now I help others who want forge their own way.

But still, I couldn’t figure out why it had all turned out the way it did. And to be honest, it’s puzzled me ever since.

How could I feel so passionate about my career and yet get so unwell from it?

How did I get my career choice so wrong?

What went wrong?

I’ve had an epiphany in recent weeks.

Despite all the personal growth work I’ve done over the years, I’m always learning new things about myself.

I’m currently doing my certification in the B.A.N.K. Coding Methodology—a personality typing system that predicts our decision-making behaviour based on our deeply held values. Each one of us has a ‘B.A.N.K. code’ which is the order of the different values systems that are most important to us. There are 24 different B.A.N.K. codes possible from four different value sets (shown below). You discover your B.A.N.K. code (as a preliminary assessment) by ordering the cards below in order of their importance to you.

I’d done all the personality typing systems before—Myers Briggs, DISC, the Enneagram, True Colours, LSI etc.

But when my wonderful and talented friend and colleague Christine Thorpe introduced me to B.A.N.K., I knew it was powerful because it’s values-based personality science. It helps you understand what’s driving your decisions and behaviour.

My B.A.N.K. code is NKAB: Nurturing (22), Knowledge (22), Action (20), Blueprint (14).

What’s yours? Go here to find out.

Just this week, two things have dawned on me:

Why I was drawn to science and engineering in the first place.
Why I struggled so much in my career as an engineer.

Suddenly it all made sense.

I’d been drawn to science and engineering because KNOWLEDGE is my equal highest value: I value lifelong learning, science, universal truths, expertise, competence, accuracy, the big picture, technology, and research and development.

But my other highest value is NURTURING which is all about people, relationships, personal growth, teamwork and service. I wasn’t able to fully express my ‘nurturing’ values in my engineering career in a way that felt satisfying.

I’m also very high in ACTION, meaning that I need a lot of variety, flexibility, freedom and spontaneity in my work. My work as an engineer didn’t tick all those boxes.

Plus, engineering requires a dominance of BLUEPRINT qualities: Structure, systems, planning, processes, predictability, stability. Blueprint is not my happy space; it’s by far my lowest value set. And yet it was a critical part of my role as an engineer. I wasn’t operating in my zone of natural genius.

I struggled as an engineer because I was out of alignment with my core, intrinsic values.

And I’ve only just realised this now, in my late forties.

How many other people are struggling in their careers because they’re out of alignment with their core values?

How many other people are struggling with health issues because they’re out of alignment with their values?

BANK has been such a powerful tool to help me understand what makes me tick.

My current role as a coach is in full alignment with my intrinsic values (NKAB) which is why I now love my work. I haven’t had a single significant health issue since realigning my professional work with my natural values.

I’m now living and working full-time in my zone of genius. And it feels great. Are you?

I’d love to know. You can crack your own BANK code now by going to this link. I’d love to hear how you go!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, PhD
Inspired Business
Business & marketing coach for small business owners
kate@katedejong.com
katedejong.com
0424 176 658

How to Grow Your Business and Profits With a Scalable Business Model

by Kate De Jong | Aug 11, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

As those of you who have built your own business know, the first giant challenge when starting out is to beat the statistics and establish yourself as a stable, profitable business in the first one to three years.

It takes enormous grit, perseverance, and smarts to get through what I refer to as ‘the valley of death’ where 85% of all small businesses fail, between the verify and break-even phase (see below).

When you finally get into a phase of sustainable profit, it’s time to celebrate! You’ve overcome the odds to survive the first three years—a huge milestone.

But most business owners don’t even have time to celebrate when they finally reach stable profit because they’re too busy working themselves into the ground trying to keep all the balls in the air. I know that place well, I’ve been there myself too. It’s not fun at all. You feel like a slave to your business and you can only dream about taking a holiday. You can’t leave your business because it can’t run without you yet.

What to do?

Start working on your business, not in it.

The next big challenge after reaching the profit phase is to find a way to untangle yourself from your business so that it can run and scale without your continuous input. This doesn’t happen overnight and it takes careful strategic planning.

The key to growing your business to the point where it can run without you is to do these four things well:

Implement Systems and Automation.
Systems and processes are critical, especially if you want to sell your business down the track. Systems result in efficiency, a critical element of a well-oiled business. Wherever you’re doing repetitive tasks, you’ll need to find a way to automate them. There are systems available these days—many of them free—that allow you to automate your workflows and reduce the time required to do your core business.

Outsource and/or Delegate.
It’s time to start building a team around you who can do the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on high-value activities like business development and serving your clients. Whether it’s taking on virtual assistants, a contractor, or a staff member, it’s important to start delegating in order to grow. Hire people who have strengths that you don’t have so that your team is well-rounded and effective.

Marketing Powerfully.
You need to get strategic with your marketing and invest in channels that deliver a high return on investment. Have a clear marketing plan with specific goals that will generate the revenue you need. Automate your lead generation to create consistent leads and clients.

Develop a CEO Mindset.
Every new level of your business requires a new you. Your mindset needs to grow and expand to allow your business to do the same.

How do you Scale Your Revenue?

Grow Your Revenue with a Scalable Business Model.

Once you’ve covered the four key areas above that allow you to work on your business (not in it) and you’re running as smoothly as possible, it’s time to celebrate again because now you can finally take a holiday!

Hallelujah.

You’ve earned it.

Now (if it feels right for you) it’s time to scale your business so you can increase your profits and enjoy financial freedom and the lifestyle you deserve, without working more. And who doesn’t want that?

But firstly, what’s a scalable business model?

The term ‘scalable’ means that your business has the potential to multiply its revenue with minimal incremental cost. It’s where you uncouple your revenue from your operating expenses in order to easily expand and grow your profits without requiring more of your time and resources.

Scaling a Product Business

If you’re selling digital products, your growth is literally uncapped if you have the right systems and automation in place.

If you’re selling physical products, you can engage a third-party logistics provider to fulfill your online orders so you can scale in an unhindered way.

But how would you scale a service business?

Tips for Scaling a Service-Based Business

The key for service-based business owners is to stop selling your time and start leveraging your time. This can be tricky since the original business was built very much on your expertise, your personality, and your vision for serving others. How do you duplicate yourself? How do you scale up what you do?

The answer is two-fold:
1. Stop trading dollars for hours and start selling a result.
People are willing to pay good money for a specific result. For example, if you’re a personal trainer, you could—aside from offering hourly sessions—also offer a package that delivers a specific outcome, perhaps like ‘Killer abs and booty in 60days’

2. Share your expertise in a one-to-many offering.
How could you develop a program or course that allows you to lead, teach and/or mentor a scalable group of clients?

In order to scale, you need to refine your service offering as well as your target customer. To figure out which of your services you should zero in on, step back and look at the problems you are solving. Look for the most difficult problem that generates the most value for the customer when it’s resolved.

Package your Service like a Product.

Products are offerings that solve specific problems. Take my Inspired Business Collective as an example. It’s an online mastermind group for business owners dedicated to growing their business with ease. After speaking to all my clients, it became apparent to me that they all needed three things to grow their businesses:

Knowledge of how to grow and scale with ease.
Build valuable relationships with other business owners.
Accountability to achieve their goals.

So I structure the Inspired Business Collective to deliver those three things.

It’s a service that I offer, packaged as a product.

To offer your service as a product, you need these three things:

A unique approach or process.
Articulate the problem you’re solving for your clients.
Articulate clearly the results your client will achieve (the benefits).

How could you package your service to deliver a scalable, one-to-many service? The difference is profound in how it frees your time and allows you to make an even bigger impact.

Look at the difference between the two images below. The first image shows how your calendar looks when you’re providing a 1:1 service only. In this case, the service provider is limited to 21 sessions per week. They’ve built free time in their schedule to work on their business, manage admin, and to recharge. As you know, it’s impossible to deliver a 1:1 service all day, every day, without burning out.

Now look at how your calendar looks when you’re delivering one high-value group program that gets amazing results for your clients. And the beauty of the group program is that, if designed right, it provides uncapped growth and revenue, all in the same amount of time input each week. How great is that?!

Do you need help to grow or scale your business with ease?

Our Inspired Business Collective mastermind group is dedicated to helping you grow your impact and profits, minus the struggle. Come on over and check it out now!

Learn More About the Inspired Business Collective

Have you downloaded your FREE copy of The Art of Business Building yet?

Discover the Essential Strategies to Market and Grow Your Business, the Easy Way!

Go here to download it now.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, PhD
Inspired Business
Business & marketing coach for small business owners
kate@katedejong.com
katiedejong.com
0424 176 658

Purpose is an Evolving Thing: It’s Time for a New and Exciting chapter.

by Kate De Jong | May 16, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Find Your Path And Purpose, Katie's Personal Stories, Personal Growth & Healing, Purposeful Business

purpose

[ˈpəːpəs]

NOUN

The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.

As humans, we need purpose like we need oxygen. Purpose gives us energy, motivation and a reason to get out of bed each day. It puts the spring in our step and the inspiration (from the Latin words ‘in spirit’) in our lives.

There’s possibly no one who understands how critical purpose is to our survival than Viktor Frankl, the Jewish Austrian Psychiatrist, who spent three years in four different concentration camps during the Nazi reign. His wife was forced to terminate her pregnancy with his child at the onset of the Holocaust and she later perished in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. He then lost his father to starvation and pneumonia and his mother and brother to the Auschwitz gas chambers.

He literally had nothing left to live for.

But Frankl knew he had to find a reason to live because he had observed around him daily that those who lost hope perished quickly. On the other hand, those who could hang onto a sense of purpose—like, believing that their loved ones could still be alive—managed to endure relentless hardship and torture to survive.

Being a well-known psychiatrist before the war, Frankl decided that his purpose would be to survive the camps so that he could write about the details of the horrors and suffering he endured as a prisoner in Nazi camps for future generations to witness.

Despite horrendous starvation and hardship—and against all odds—he did survive. He lived to write his classic bestselling book ‘A Man’s Search for Meaning’ in just nine days in 1946, which went on to become an international bestseller. It’s still a number one bestseller to this day and has been translated into over thirty languages. His book is compulsory reading in many high schools and universities. Thought leaders like Simon Sinek have said his book is “essential reading for every human.”

Frankl famously wrote:

He who has a ‘why’ to live for, can bear almost any ‘how’.

It’s this sense of ‘why’—of meaning, purpose—that drives each and every one of us. Purpose is the rocket fuel for your motivation and zest for life. I know from personal experience how soul-destroying it feels to be out of alignment with your purpose. I wrote about my fifteen year journey of struggle in my bestselling book Seeds of a Calling, which describes my decade-long challenges with chronic fatigue, illness, devastating miscarriages and eventual breakdown. My knees hit the floor and I was forced to reassess my entire life and what I was doing to myself.

It wasn’t until I finally stopped and stepped out of the rat race and did the self-reflection that was required to reconnect to myself that I found my way forward.

What I discovered is that purpose is not a ‘thing’ you have to find.

Purpose is a feeling that emerges when you’re working in your zone of genius (doing the things that come easily and naturally to you and they feel joyful—your gifts) AND you’re doing something that feels meaningful—work that’s in perfect alignment with your deeply held values. And in the process of doing so, you come alive.

Purpose makes you come alive.

Nothing describes this better, I believe, than the famous Howard Thurman quote:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

—Howard Thurman, American civil rights leader, author, philosopher.

Intuitively, I feel that my purpose is to help heal and uplift humanity by supporting others to find what makes them come alive. Because that’s what makes me come alive.

The thing that makes you come alive can take on many different forms, and it changes and evolves with time.

My first purpose evolution with my business Inspired Careers

When I branched out on my own in 2012, ‘my mess was my message’. What felt purposeful to me after quitting my professional career in consulting engineering was to help those who felt like I had —off-track, unfulfilled, depleted, drained, over-worked in their career—to find a professional path that lights them up. I started with the development of my signature program Pathfinding—How to Find Your Inspired Path & Purpose in 2014.

Hundreds of people have now been through this program with amazing results and I still guide people through it now. The Pathfinding program works because it helps people to reconnect with themselves; to remember who they are underneath all the societal and parental conditioning. This is where they discover what makes them come alive.

My purpose evolution with Fempire

In 2017 I met Marnie LeFevre, the founder of Fempire. Marnie had been my business mentor who helped me to grow my Inspired Careers business. We realised that we worked well together and we had complementary skill sets. When she told me that she wanted to grow her business and asked if I would like to come on board as a contracted coach, helping her to teach her sales and marketing programs, I said—YES! It just felt right. It felt aligned with my purpose. It made me come alive.

And after a year of working together, Marnie announced that she was going to change the business model and launch her franchise called Fempire. I knew I wanted to be involved because it felt like the next evolution of our journey together. Our mission was to give women the tools, strategies and skills to make money and impact doing what makes them come alive, through the vehicle of entrepreneurship.

We launched Fempire in 2019 and in that time, we created programs and platforms and led hundreds of women through Fempire’s signature program called Fempreneur Online. I learned so much from Marnie over the years about selling, marketing and how to be a powerful business owner, for which I’ll be forever grateful. I worked with beautiful women from all walks of life and in different businesses. It was a privilege to serve so many inspiring women.

COVID hit us hard, as it did to most businesses worldwide. We had to pivot quickly, innovate, upgrade our systems and processes and deliver results under extreme time pressure. And we did. I’m super proud of what we achieved together as a team during the years we spent together. We helped so many women to start and grow profitable businesses and we became resilient, smart business women in the process.

But if there’s anything we’ve learned through this whole COVID experience, it’s that we’ve entered a phase of accelerated change. The only thing we know for certain is:

Things don’t last forever and the only constant is change.

Fempire is now pivoting towards a “train the trainer” model, becoming a business that certifies women to become licensed business coaches. Their goal is “to make the business of business coaching easy”.

I love Marnie’s new vision which is “To have a massive positive impact on one billion women and inspire generational change worldwide.”

But intuitively I know that this is now the time for me to step away now and do my own thing.

It’s up to each of us to continuously listen in to our inner guidance. What’s calling you? What feels heavy? Exciting? Light and joyful? Make it your mission to follow the lightness and joy.

It’s time for a new chapter and new phase of purpose evolution for me.

My next phase of purpose evolution as an independent coach as Kate De Jong—Inspired Business.

What’s calling me in my heart right now is to scale back, simplify, and get into flow as an independent coach. I love the hands-on work of helping people to make an impact through their business with good business and marketing tactics and strategy. I want to help people (men and women) to become savvy business owners. Because I’m passionate about the impact that small business has on society. And that’s what I want to be doing right now.

And so over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing with you the next phase of my purpose evolution, branching out on my own.

It feels exciting. It makes me feel alive. And I can’t wait to share the details with you soon.

Thank you for listening and for witnessing my journey.

In gratitude and appreciation

Kate De Jong | Inspired Business

katie@katiedejong.com

https://katiedejong.com (new website coming soon)

Profit Queen (Part 1): 5 Powerful Ways to Optimise Your Business Model for Greater Profit

by Kate De Jong | May 2, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Have you been in business for a while and you’re working your backside off, but you’re not making the money you deserve?

Are you feeling like a slave to your business?

Are you still not able to take a good holiday away because your business can’t run without you?

If so, you’re not alone.

It’s common for first-time business owners to get stuck around the ‘breakthrough’ phase in the 6 stages of business growth (see the image below).

Moving from breakthrough to profit and scale requires a whole new approach - and a whole new mindset.Tweet it

This article is part one of a two-part series on how to grow and scale your business (you can access Part 2 here).

There are two areas you need to focus your attention on so you can finally create the freedom and revenue you desire.

You Have Two Leverage Points as a Business Owner:

1. Your Business Model.

Your business model is the process you apply to you generate your leads, convert them into repeat sales, and how you price your products or services to generate profit. It encompasses the whole ‘customer value journey’ that takes your customer on a journey with you to get maximum results and value, while simultaneously maximising their expenditure with you.

We’re covering your business model in this article.

2. Your Operating Model.

Your operating model is how you operate your business. If you’re doing everything yourself right not, you won’t be able to grow or expand and you’ll remain forever trapped in your business.

Many experienced entrepreneurs often say:

“If you can’t take a break away from your business, then you don’t have a business.”

In a serial entrepreneur’s eyes, a business is something that can be sold on for a profit and it can run completely independently of you.
Your operating model is the piece that will give you leverage, time, and freedom. Discover how in Part 2 (click here).

So to grow and scale your business, let’s first look at the five elements you need to optimise in your business model.

5 Ways You Need to Optimise Your Business Model:

Lead Generation, Sales & Repeat Purchases.

The formula below defines your business growth potential (ref. Ryan Deiss, Digital Marketer, Houston, USA).

Each of the four different elements in the formula makes a big difference to your growth potential. And when you make a small change in each one of them, the compounding multiplying effect is significant.

So what are these elements and how do you go about optimising each one to maximise your growth potential?

1. Increase Your Leads

A lead is anyone who is actively interested in your product or service. How are you letting people know that you exist and how you solve their specific problems? How are you demonstrating your value so that people can become interested in your product or service?

This is the realm of ‘lead generation’ and it’s all about moving prospects from the ‘awareness’ phase into the ‘consideration’ stage of the buyer’s journey.

Methods to generate leads include ‘push’ marketing like social media marketing, advertising, content marketing, email marketing, and networking, just to name a few. And it also includes ‘pull’ marketing tactics like SEO (search engine optimisation).

To get more customers into your pipeline, you need to have strategic methods in place to generate leads. Which strategies can you implement or grow to add more leads into your pipeline?

Ultimately all businesses who want to grow and scale need to have a ‘tap’ that they can turn on to generate new clients when needed. Tweet it

To develop a ‘tap’ of leads that you can turn on and off when needed, you’ll need to enter the world of advertising.
If you spend $1 on ads and you get $3 in return, then you’ll never have to worry about money again.

Advertising allows you to generate clients on demand. Without advertising, you have to rely on your organic marketing strategies and word of mouth referrals, which of course are very important for small business (85% of all small business transactions come through word of mouth referrals).

But if you want to grow and scale, you’ll need to develop a lead generation strategy that includes advertising.

I highly recommend that you learn how to set up a digital marketing campaign (Caffeinate Digital’s 90-Day Lead Generation program is fantastic), or work with a digital marketing agency to dip your toe into the world of Google and Facebook Ads so that you can start to experience the ease and flow that advertising can bring to your business!

2. Increase the Amount of Customers You Serve

The next element to increase your growth potential is the number of customers you bring into the business.

In order to generate customers from your leads, you need to get really good at conversion, i.e. turning your website visitors and prospects into paying clients. This requires that you master the art of selling, both through:
1. An optimised website, landing pages, and sales funnel, and;
2. Powerful sales conversations that close your prospects.

The ability to close deals and convert prospects into paying clients through compelling sales conversations is a real skill that you need to learn, develop, and practice continuously.

If this part makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone, but you must focus on becoming great at selling as quickly as possible!

Selling is the piece that lets most female business owners down. Many women say they don’t want to come across as too pushy or aggressive. But selling doesn’t have to be about being pushy or aggressive. You can be completely authentic and gentle and still close your ideal clients into your programs.Tweet it

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you attend an intense sales training course. I did this a while back and my conversion rate went up from around 10-20% to more than 50% conversion. With a few solid strategies, you can learn how to become much better at converting leads into clients.

If you do nothing else, just focus on learning to close clients through powerful sales conversations and your growth potential will increase dramatically.

An increase in your conversion rate has a significant impact on your business growth potential.Tweet it

Now that you’re able to convert more leads into customers, the next thing to maximise is the profit margin on your products or services.

3. Increase Your Profit Margin

This is all about your pricing strategy. Your profit margin is the difference between your selling price and your cost for delivering that product or service.

For example, if you run workshops at $100 per ticket and you have 10 clients per workshop, then you generate $1000 revenue. But if your cost of venue hire and catering combined is $600, then your profit margin is only $400 per workshop. To increase your margin, you’ll need to either increase your price per ticket or find ways to reduce your venue and catering expenses.

What can you do to increase the profit margin on your products or services to increase your business growth potential?

4. Frequency of Purchase

The final element in your growth potential formula is the frequency in which you bring customers into your business. If you run webinars once every three months to generate leads and clients, then can you find ways to start doing that every two months instead?

The more frequently you’re generating leads and clients, the greater your business growth potential.

What can you do to start increasing the frequency of purchase?

5. Map Out Your Customer Buying Journey

If you want to grow and scale, you need to mindfully map out your customer buying journey because this is how you give maximum value to your customers while maximising their expenditure with your business.Tweet it

Here are the typical steps involved in the customer journey.

BECOMING AWARE
How will you make prospects aware that they have a problem you can solve? At this stage they’re often unaware that they have a problem. Methods I recommend to build awareness are content marketing, free videos, networking, podcasting, SEO, and advertising, for example.
LEARNING
How will you educate your prospects about their problems and the different ways they can solve them? How will you catch your prospect’s attention and invite them into the journey with you? Great methods are social media posts, live videos, free masterclasses, content marketing, blogging, podcasting and YouTube videos, for example.
CONSIDERING
How will you get prospects to engage with you and your brand? The best way to do this is via a compelling lead magnet. A lead magnet is a digital asset of high value, that solves a specific pain point for your clients, that you provide for FREE in exchange for a customer’s contact details (usually name and email address). It’s used to build your marketing email list and to generates sales leads.
ENGAGED
Your prospect has now decided to engage with your brand by downloading something you’ve offered for free. Now it’s your job to ‘nurture’ them into a paying client. You do this by continuing to build trust and confidence in your brand by sharing your expertise and solving their problems for free. The easiest and most effective way to do this is with an automated email nurture sequence via your CRM (email database). Include videos in your emails if you can, they’re very effective at connecting people to your brand. Your prospects will be so impressed by your free content that they’ll now have the confidence to BUY something from you. At this point, they become a paying customer.
CONSUMING
Your prospect has now decided to dip their toe in the water with you by purchasing something that you’re offering. At this point, they’ve entered into your ‘service ladder’ where they’ll work their way through the different services you have to solve their challenges.
REFERRING
Your job is obviously to serve and delight your customer so that the become a brand advocate and start spreading the good word about your business. You’ll need to offer something to keep your brand advocates engaged with your brand, perhaps through an ongoing membership or affiliate arrangement.

An example of a Service Ladder, leading customers from one service to another to gradually solve their challenges.

How will you lead your customers through the entire buying journey with you?

Get crystal clear on your specific customer buyer’s journey and put a strategy in place – including retargeting – in order to maximise your business growth potential.

The implementation of marketing strategies to nurture your buyers along the customer journey will bring far greater levels of revenue into your business – which is awesome. Need help with your marketing plan to generate more revenue? Reach out for a FREE discovery call to see how I can help you today!

So in this article, we’ve looked at Part 1 – Optimise Your Business Model. Head on over to Part 2 to find out how you can optimise your Operating Model to achieve huge profit and growth!

Did you like this article? You might also like…

How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey

15 Great Books that Every Female Entrepreneur Needs to Read

How To Boost Your Revenue Quickly With Google Reviews

How to Craft an Irresistible Offer that your Prospects Can’t Refuse

How to Quickly Grow Your Business with 90 Day Goals

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach
https://katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

What’s in a name? 10 Tips for Finding Your Perfect Business Name

by Kate De Jong | Feb 14, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

It can be super challenging choosing a business name that clearly reflects your business vision and essence – and that someone else isn’t already using!

As I’m sure you’re aware, every country has a business name register. You’re only allowed to register a name that isn’t already in use by someone else, which narrows the options considerably in many cases.

But how do you create a business name that ticks all the boxes? And what makes a great business name?

A great business name is:

Clear.
Compelling.
Memorable.
It speaks for itself.
It makes sense to your target market.
Search-friendly.

A great business name is clear, compelling, memorable, it speaks for itself, it makes sense, and it's search-friendly.Tweet it

If you’re struggling to find a business name you love, I sincerely hope my top ten tips below help you! They’re designed to help you create a business name that you and your customers love.

10 Tips for Finding Your Perfect Business Name

1. Decide Whether you’ll be a Personal Brand or a Business Brand.

A personal brand is where your business is named after you. For example, I’m a personal brand, being Kate De Jong – Fempire Coach Pty Ltd. A business brand, on the other hand, is where your business name is not related to you in any way. For example, Fempire is a business brand. The coaches operate as personal brands within the overarching Fempire franchise.

Whether to personal brand or not is a whole topic unto itself that we cover in other articles and resources. However, here are some quick pointers to figure out whether you should be a personal brand or a business name:

Use a personal brand if your customers are buying you (e.g. you’re a coach or a sole trading service provider of any kind).
Use a personal brand if you are the face of the business.
If you plan on building a larger business with staff and contractors, then it’s probably best to use a business brand name.
Use a business brand name if you intend to sell your business to someone else when you retire or move on.

2. Make Your Business Name Clear.

Ideally, your business name should communicate immediately to your audience what your business is about. If you’re a personal brand and you’re using your name, be sure to include some clarifying words in your name. For example: Rhiannon Blackaby |The Wholesome Health Coach. It’s clear that she’s a personal brand and she’s a health coach. Try to get the balance right: Be descriptive and concise and not too general or vague. Anyone should be able to understand what your business is about from your name.

3. Keep Your Business Name Simple and Positive.

Choose a name that’s as short as possible and simple. Your business name needs to be appealing to your customers, being easy to pronounce and remember. If people trip over your name, they won’t be able to easily tell others about you and they might not remember it themselves! Also, ideally, your name should sound pleasant, familiar and conjure up positive emotions.

4. Try Using Related Words in a Creative Way.

You can try using a play on words of related keywords, provided it expresses what your business is about. A good way to create catchy, memorable business names is to use alternate versions of common words related to the service you’re offering.

Clever examples are: Canva (short for design canvas), Flickr (the flicker of a camera flash) and Compaq (compact). I’ve been working with a client recently who came up with a great name for her new pet food e-commerce chain – Bowlsome. It’s wholesome food in a bowl – very clever!

5. Be Original (Don’t Copy Your Competitors).

Avoid choosing a name too similar to other businesses in your industry. Appearing to be unoriginal (or a copycat) is not good for your brand image. It can also mean potential customers confuse your business with your competition, making it more difficult to get work.

6. Choose a Name That’s Scalable and Future-Proof.

Pick a name that can expand your business. For example, if you sell just books, you might one day sell stationery products or accessories too, so choose a name that can accommodate that expansion. Also, if your service is based in a certain area, you might extend to other cities. So, select a broad name that can encompass your future growth.

7. Make Sure Your Name is Available and You Have a Related Domain.

Once you’ve narrowed down your name options, you have to make sure the name you want to use is available. Check if the name is already registered as a trademark or acquired by another business. You can check the availability of your business name in Australia using this link. If someone’s already using the name you had in mind, you’ll need to find a different business name.

8. Try to Avoid Using Acronyms.

Many big companies use acronyms of their name, like IBM and KFC. But at the start of your business, when your goal is to establish your brand, acronyms will only confuse your potential customers. Also, there’s a great possibility that your business acronym will match with someone else, making it very difficult for you to rank in search engines. I personally find it really hard to remember names of small businesses who use an acronym as their business name.

9. Make it Search-Friendly.

As you know, search engines are always trying to match customer searches with businesses using relevant keywords. Sometimes a simple business name that says exactly what you are works best. For example, the name ‘Perth Business Network’ works great for business owners looking for business networking groups in Perth. Nicholl Plumbing is a plumbing business run by the Nicholl family. Anyone searching for them will easily be able to find them. Sometimes saying exactly what you are is the most powerful approach!

10. Final Advice.

Choosing a name can be challenging when you’re setting out to start a business, but not something to agonise over! Get opinions and ideas from friends, other business owners, family or even potential customers. It’s always a good idea to get a few different points of view.

If you find a business name you love and it’s available, the next step might be to trademark it to prevent others from using it.

You’ll also need to secure the domain name for your website. You can make sure your desired domain is available by doing a domain name check. If someone’s already using it, you shouldn’t necessarily abandon a good business name just because an exact domain is not available. Here are a couple of things that you can do instead:

If it’s a parked domain, consider buying it. It’s probably going to cost you, but a search-friendly, memorable domain is worth it.
Add modifiers to the name. Say your company name is Sleepytime and you sell pyjamas, but sleepytime.com is already taken. Then you can look for domain names like sleepytimeonline.com or sleepytimepyjamas.com.
Be creative with domain selection. Nowadays, businesses use different top-level domains to make their URLs more memorable. For example, the blogging platform Postachio chose postach.io as their domain. Another well-known example is del.icio.us.

Are you starting or growing your own business?

Get your FREE copy of The Fempreneur Success Handbook: How to Start & Grow Your Wildly Successful business and discover everything I wish I’d known back when I was starting my business!

Did you like this article? You might also like:

The Confused Person Never Buys: How to Make Your Offerings Clear so You Never Lose a Customer Again

How to Sell More with Your Three Business Superpowers.

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 1): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level.

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 2): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level.

How to Start Your Own Business: 3 Things You Need to Know.

15 Great Books that Every Female Entrepreneur Needs to Read.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs
kated@fempirecoach.com.au
+61 424 176 658
www.katiedejong.com

How to Get Great Testimonials from Happy Clients with These 10 Powerful Questions

by Kate De Jong | Jan 30, 2022 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Great client testimonials are an essential part of business.

Testimonials (or reviews) provide the social proof that gives new customers the confidence to buy from you.

Businesses with the best and most reviews usually win the sale!Tweet it

But have you noticed how hard it can be to get reviews from clients? There’s something challenging about having to make the time to sit down and think about writing a coherent review for someone. We wonder, what should I write? How do I write it? And because it doesn’t come easily, we procrastinate on it.

And I have to admit, I’m often guilty of procrastinating about writing reviews for people too. When we’re busy, it just keeps falling off the critical to-do list. It can take me weeks, sometimes months to finally get around to writing a review for someone, even when I’ve loved their service!

Surveys – on the other hand – seem to be less problematic, especially when we’re told it will take less than three minutes of our time. When you’re asked a specific, direct question, it’s not hard to write down some short thoughts on the topic.

Over the years, I’ve found that the easiest and fastest way to get great testimonials from clients is to get them to complete a short (less than three minute) survey in which you ask great questions.

You then use their answers to compile a testimonial. Once you’ve created the testimonial from their answers, you send it to them and ask if they’re happy for you to use what they’ve written as a testimonial on your website and other marketing materials (in the eight years I’ve been doing this I’ve never had anyone say no!).

Also ask them if they could take a moment to copy and paste it to your Google Reviews, Facebook Reviews and anywhere else you’re collecting reviews. People don’t mind copying and pasting because it’s easy – there’s no brain power required!

Here’s the process in a nutshell.

How to easily get great testimonials from easy clients.

Create a short survey (10 questions) requesting specific feedback. I’ve provided the questions we’ve been using for years now below (my favourite free app for creating surveys is Typeform).
Take what they’ve written and turn it into a paragraph that serves as a testimonial.
Send it to them and ask if they’re happy for you to use it on your website and other marketing materials.
Ask them if they can copy and past it onto your Google and Facebook reviews (and anywhere else you’re collecting reviews).

However, it’s important to note that not all questions are equal!

The quality of the answers you receive will depend on how you ask the question.

The question you ask should prompt a specific or detailed response that you can use as a testimonial. If you ask them yes/no (closed) questions, you won’t get anything useful from your client.

Below are the 10 questions that I’ve used consistently over the past eight-plus years to build up my reviews and testimonials. Please feel free to use them yourself and let me know how you go!

The great thing about these questions is that they will actually provide you with very helpful, insightly feedback about your product or service that will allow you to continuously fine-tune and improve – which is what we should all be doing in business!

You can also use these questions to conduct market research, so that you understand how your product or service is being perceived by your customers.

These are the three powerful things you can do with these questions:

Get great client testimonials.
Get great market research data.
Get important, constructive feedback about your product or service so you can continuously improve.

Keep reading to discover my 10 powerful questions!

Our Top 10 Questions to Help You Get Great Client Testimonials

On a scale of 1 – 10, with 10 being the highest, how would you rate your overall experience with [program / event / service / product]?
How would you describe how you feel now after [finishing the program / attending the event / using the service / using the product], and how did you feel before [program / event / service / product]?
The promise of the [program / event / service / product] was to help you [ … ]. To what extent do you feel the [program / event / service / product] enabled you to achieve this? (On a scale of 1 – 10 with 10 being the highest).
The [program / product] contained [ … ] different [modules / segments / areas / benefits] to help you [ … ]. Which was your favourite [module / segment / area / benefit] – and why?
How satisfied were with with [program coordinator / event organiser / service provider / product provider]‘s level of expertise? (On a scale of 1 – 10 with 10 being the highest).
Do you have any specific feedback on [program coordinator / event organiser / service provider / product provider]‘s style / method / techniques?
Do you feel you received the right amount of value for the amount of money you paid? If not, how much would you be willing to pay for this [program / event / service / product]?
How likely are you to recommend this [program / event / service / product] to others? (On a scale of 1 – 10 with 10 being the highest).
Do you have any suggestions for improvements to the [program / event / service / product]?
hat was the thing you most enjoyed about this [program / event / service / product]? And least enjoyed?

I hope you get great results using these questions! If you do, please reach out and let me know! Send me a message to kated@fempirecoach.com.au. I love hearing from you!

Are you starting or growing your own business?

Get your FREE copy of The Fempreneur Success Handbook: How to Start & Grow Your Wildly Successful business and discover everything I wish I’d known back when I was starting my business!

Did you like this article? You might also like:

The Confused Person Never Buys: How to Make Your Offerings Clear so You Never Lose a Customer Again

How to Sell More with Your Three Business Superpowers.

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 1): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level.

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 2): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level.

How to Start Your Own Business: 3 Things You Need to Know.

15 Great Books that Every Female Entrepreneur Needs to Read.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs
kated@fempirecoach.com.au
+61 424 176 658
www.katiedejong.com

The Confused Person Never Buys: How to Make Your Offerings Clear with Productisation

by Kate De Jong | Dec 21, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

You might have heard the saying:

The confused person never buys.

When we’re confused, we don’t purchase. Simple as that.

I’m sure you’ve been there yourself many times. You see something you’re interested in online, so you click through. But then you end up confused about exactly what they’re offering, or maybe there are too many choices and you don’t know which one’s right for you, and because it’s all too hard and you’re busy, you bounce. You click away and get back to what you were doing.

This happens so often and it's one of the main reasons that advertisements or offers don't convert: Your prospects are confused.Tweet it

So as a business owner, you need to do everything you can to make sure that your product and service offerings are clear and concise.

If you’re a service business, you’ll need to master the art of ‘productisation’, which means turning your services into clearly defined products. The official definition of productisation is:

Productisation = The process of developing services into standard, packaged, and marketed products.

(Reference: Investopedia).

People like to buy service packages that are clearly defined, that have a beginning and an end, and that promise a significant transformation as a result.

Presenting your services in the form of ‘products’ allows your prospects to get an understanding of the range of services you offer and the results you achieve, so they can choose a package that suits their needs and budget.

Interestingly, research has shown that psychologically, people like to choose between THREE options. It gives them a sense of the full range of options available to them and they can choose the tier they want depending on where they’re at.

Don’t include more than three options in your productisation table! It’s too confusing and your customers are likely to remain indecisive.

If you run a product-based business, then simply use the process I describe below to present the most popular product packages your clients buy.

Here are some rules to apply to your productisation:

Develop three different service packages that represent different ways clients can work with you.
Present your three service packages in a single table ranging from lowest price (left) to highest price (right).
Use a catchy (emotional) name for each package that speaks to the transformation you deliver.
List the features that are included along the left vertical column.
Use ticks to show what’s included in each service package.
Highlight your middle package as being the most popular (if in fact, it is!). If your products are priced and constructed the right way, most people will choose the middle tier.
Show the investment at the bottom. Pricing should increase from left to right.

To help you develop your own productisation, here is Fempire’s table showing the productisation of our private coaching programs.

Fempire Private Coaching Productisation

The process of productisation is the easiest way to showcase your products or services in a way that is clear and concise, giving you the best chance of closing the sale.

How can you present your products or services in a table like the one shown so that you give your prospects the best chances of buying what they need?

I hope you found this helpful!

Please reach out at kated@fempirecoach.com.au if you need help figuring out your productisation process. I’d love to help!

Are you starting or growing your own business?

Get your FREE copy of The Fempreneur Success Handbook: How to Start & Grow Your Wildly Successful business and discover everything I wish I’d known back when I was starting my business!

Did you like this article? You might also like:

How to Sell More with Your Three Business Superpowers.

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 1): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level.

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 2): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level.

How to Start Your Own Business: 3 Things You Need to Know.

15 Great Books that Every Female Entrepreneur Needs to Read.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs
kated@fempirecoach.com.au
+61 424 176 658
www.katiedejong.com

Why You Need to be Spying on Your Competitors to Achieve Business Success!

by Kate De Jong | Dec 19, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Purposeful Business

If you want to be a successful business owner, you need to be keeping a close eye on your competitors.

In marketing, the act of monitoring your competitors is referred to as Competitor Analysis or Competitor Intelligence. And even though you might protest and say that what you do is unique and special, which I’m quite sure it is, the simple fact is that there are other businesses out there delivering a similar outcome to you. And when people are shopping around for the best person to deliver that outcome, rest assured they’ll also be checking out your competitors and assessing all their options before deciding to buy. I’m sure you do your due diligence and shop around before you decide to purchase something, right?

Unless your business marketing and social presence is compelling and instils trust and confidence in your brand, it will be difficult to win business over your competitors.

But that’s not the only reason you should be spying on your competitors.

You should also be doing Competitor Analysis with the intention to find ways to improve your own business strategies, and to elevate your business above the rest.

Competitor Analysis can give you inspiration and ideas on how to do things better.

And don’t worry. By doing Competitor Analysis you’re not doing anything wrong. On the contrary! Competitor Analysis is an established requirement of all marketing teams in all businesses. It’s completely legal. It’s simply the act of collecting information that is already available in the public domain and using it to better understand your position in the market.

When I first engaged in Competitor Analysis (which I resisted for a long time), I found it strangely empowering and liberating. It helped me to understand how I’m the same, but also different to my competitors. It helped me clearly establish my USP – or Unique Selling Proposition – which made all my branding efforts much more powerful. Your USP is one of the most critical ingredients in your marketing strategy.

There are 9 steps we recommend you follow for a simple but powerful competitor analysis. There are all kinds of clever ways to get competitor information online (for example Spyfu, iSpionage, Fanpage Karma etc), but it’s not necessary for a robust competitor analysis. Keep it simple to start.

Follow the 9 steps below to spy on your competitors and set yourself up for maximum business success!

How to do a Simple but Effective Competitor Analysis

1. Stay Ahead of Industry Trends & Competitors with Google Alerts

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of competitor analysis, the first thing that every business owner needs to do to stay on top of industry trends and announcements is to sign up to Google Alerts. This is a free service offered by Google that notifies you of all publications across the web for keywords that you can specify. For example, if you’re a Life Coach, you could set up an Alert using the keyword ‘Life Coaching’. Then Google will send you a daily digest of everything that’s published each day that contains that search term.

This is a fantastic (and essential) way to learn what’s happening each day across your industry and to stay on top of what your competitors are doing. These Alerts can also provide great content for your curated posts on social media.

2. Make a List of Your Top 5 Competitors

Set yourself up with a spreadsheet or table with 7 columns: 1 column on the left for the headings outlined below, 1 column next to that entitled ‘Your Business’ and then 5 vertical columns labelled Competitor #1 through to Competitor #5 (you’ll have one vertical column per competitor).

Do a simple Google Search using your industry keywords to determine who else is delivering a similar service, in a similar way to you. For example, if you’re a Health Coach specialising in the Keto diet in Sydney, Australia, you might search for ‘ Keto Health Coach Sydney’. Write down all the names of other coaches who appear in the search results. If you’re in the online space then location is not as important. Simply search for keywords that are relevant to your perfect customer and service or product.

Try to imagine that you are your perfect customer and you’re trying to find the service you offer. Which search terms would you use?

Keep searching online until you find five competitors who you feel are most similar to you in terms of business size, service or product and the specific market they’re targeting.

Before you proceed, make sure you have a table with five columns with five of your most relevant competitors at the top of each column.

3. Analyse Your Competitor’s Business Profile

Your first task is to try to understand a bit about your competitors’ businesses. In the left-hand side of your table, write down the following row headings:

Business Overview: In this row, write down any general notes that you observe about their business. What’s their business name? What’s their brand promise?
Year Established: See if you can find information in their About section on their website about how long they’ve been operating.
Website URL: Write down their domain name (e.g. ketohealthcoach.com.au).
Company Size: Can you find out how many staff or business partners they have, if any?

4. Analyse Your Competitor’s Marketing Profile

Now try to find out everything you can about your competitors’ marketing strategy by looking carefully through their website, social media profiles, and publications they’ve produced.

You might even want to sign up for their newsletter or lead magnet if they’re offering one so that you get an insider’s perspective on what’s being offered. Don’t feel awkward, people join their competitors’ email lists all the time! It’s the best way to understand how your competitors are marketing themselves. You probably have several competitors on your email database too!

Try to write down detailed information about the following:

Target Market: Who do you think is this competitors’ perfect customer? Who are they targeting? Try to be very specific, including their gender, age, education, interests etc.

General Marketing Strategies: How are they marketing themselves? Do they run live events? Do they frequent trade shows? Do they offer free discovery sessions? Are they using Facebook Ads, and if so, what exactly are they pitching? What appears to be their main way of attracting clients?

5. Analyse Your Competitor’s Product & Service Profile

Now it’s time to analyse the different products and/or services your competitors offer. In your table, write down row headings as follows:

Products/Services: Describe their products and services. What types of programs do they offer

Pricing: How much do they charge for their various products and services? This may require some digging around or joining their newsletters in order to get pricing information.

Gather as much intelligence as possible about their products and services and write it all down in your table.

6. Analyse Your Competitor’s Website Profile

I recommend doing ‘website walks’ through each of your competitors’ websites. This means taking some time to browse through all their different web pages to get a good understanding of their business. Make notes as you go.

In your table, include the following headings:

Website Overview: Is it easy to navigate? Does it look good on mobile? Is it professional? Is their branding and messaging appealing and compelling? Would you buy from them?

Lead Generation: What do they offer on their home page? Do they offer something for free in exchange for your email address (i.e. a lead magnet)? Do they offer a free consultation to get you in the door? Or do they simply provide their phone number and tell you to ‘Book Now’? Are they offering a free challenge, webinar, or telesummit? Write it all down.

7. Analyse Your Competitor’s Social Profile

Visit your competitors’ social media accounts. Write down the following headings in your table.

Social Media Overview: Which platforms are they present on? Do they get good engagement? Are they actively replying to comments? Which one appears to be their dominant platform?

Social Media Strategies: Try to figure out what social media strategies they’re using. How are they getting their followers to engage? Are they running different promotions? Do they send people to an opt-in page? Write down all the details.

Social Media Following: Make a row for each of the social media platforms and write down the number of followers they have across each one. Capture the number of followers they have on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, SnapChat and anywhere else they have a presence.

8. Rate Yourself Against Your Competitors

Now it’s time to use the information you’ve collected to rank yourself and each of your competitors relative to one another across the different categories. This allows you to assess how you currently stack up against your competitors.

In your table, give yourself and your competitors a score out of 10 for each of the following categories:

Branding
Messaging
Professionalism
Marketing Strategies
Quality
Website
Social Media presence
Pricing (overpriced/under-priced/average)

9. Determine Your Strengths & Weaknesses Relative to Your Competitors.

Now that you’ve spent some time researching your competitors, you should have a really clear idea of your strengths and weaknesses relative to your competitors. Your table of Competitor Intelligence gives you a clear understanding of your position in the market, as well as the threats and opportunities for your brand.

Focus on building on your strengths!

While it’s good to be aware of your weaknesses, be sure to continue building on those areas where you’re a step ahead of your competitors. This will continue to set you apart from the rest.

Can you see how powerful this research can be? You should now feel confident and strong in where you are as a brand and know which steps to take to continue to establish your unique position in the market.

We can’t overstate the importance of Competitor Analysis for you and your business.

If you take the time to do it well, you’re setting yourself up for success!

We wish you all the best on your business building journey.

Have you downloaded your FREE copy of THE FEMPRENEUR SUCCESS HANDBOOK yet?

Learn the 6 stages of business growth and exactly what to focus your time and resources on in each phase so that you can fast-track your success and establish yourself as a thriving, profitable business as quickly as possible!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs
katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

The 10 Most Important Tactics That Will Set Your Business Up For Success

by Kate De Jong | Dec 12, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Purposeful Business

You have passion, a huge vision and a burning desire to get your work and message into the world through your business – but how do you navigate your way through the mountains of conflicting information out there?

How do you know which advice to follow, or what to focus on first?

Our mission at Fempire is to help you cut through all the noise and help you focus on what matters most when it comes to establishing yourself as a sustainable, profitable business.

Loyal customers and consistent revenue are a result of your ability to develop trust and confidence in your brand, which takes time to build. But if you commit to implementing the following ten elements, and keep plugging away at your business with focus, passion, and determination, business success will be yours!

Here are our recommendations for the 10 most critical elements you need to implement in order to provide a stable foundation for your business success.

The Top 10 Most Important Elements That Will Set Your Business up for Success.

#1. A Professional-Looking Brand.

Don’t cut corners when it comes to your brand image. Remember, first impressions count, and in business it’s all about developing trust and confidence in you and your brand. Take the time to find a good, professional designer to create your logo, your brand colour palette and your brand fonts, and stick to your brand style consistently. Invest in some high quality portrait photos and in-action photos of yourself that allow your personality and authentic essence to shine through.

It takes time to build brand awareness among your potential buyers, but it will be so much easier (and faster) if your brand looks credible and professional.

#2. A Professional Website.

There’s a lot of advice out there about how you can build a business without a website and do all your marketing and sales through your social media channels. But if you take this approach you’re limiting yourself. Consumers searching for business in search engines will never find you if you don’t have a website. And most people will want to check out your website before they do business with you because they’re trying to establish whether they can trust you.

Your website builds brand awareness, allows you to be discoverable in search engines, establishes your credibility, and allows you to stay connected with your potential buyers through contact forms, blog comments, and your email list. Also, a website gives you the ability to host your own blogs, videos or podcasts, which can get you upwards of 4.5 times more leads! In this day in age, a website is a ‘must’ for your long term business success.

Is your website a client-generating machine? Check out this article to make sure you’re doing all the right things: 10 Essential Things You Need to Have on Your Website.

#3. Compelling Social Media Profiles.

In this modern age it’s essential that you have an online presence across multiple social media platforms. Your social media profiles display your credibility, expertise and authenticity. Choose at least two platforms that you will commit to and show up there consistently. You don’t have to be posting every day, but choose a consistency that you can commit to and maintain. Two times a week can be enough to get started. Consistency and transparency shows that you are reliable and professional.

Find out which social platforms your target market are hanging out on and show up there consistently to build your brand awareness and win clients.Tweet it

Not sure which social platforms you should be focusing your time on? Check out this article: Discover the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Business.

#4. Make Your Business Find-able.

Take some time to research the important long-form and short-form search terms that people are searching for in your niche and use these search terms across your website so that Google and other search engines can find you.

Invest in your website SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) because you want to show up in search results when people are searching for services like yours. There’s a funny – but true! – saying:

Where’s the best place to hide a dead body? On page two of Google search results. – anonymous.

People won’t be able to find you without good SEO!

Also, use appropriate hashtags so that you can be found on platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. SEO is essential for gaining paying customers. I write all about the essential fundamentals of SEO in my articles How to Use SEO to Skyrocket Your Business Growth on Autopilot and 3 Important SEO Trends You Need to Know About in 2020.

#5. Show Ample Social Proof.

Social proof is validation of you and your brand by your clients, business partners or colleagues. It includes things like testimonials, reviews (Google, Facebook), brand associations, partnerships, accreditations, awards, featured articles, guest blogs and recommendations (Facebook, LinkedIn).

Social proof proves your credibility and establishes trust and confidence in your buyers. You might have great marketing materials and strategies, but if you don’t show your potential customers evidence of where your service or product has worked for other people, they won’t be convinced. It’s essential that you find a way to show genuine, compelling social proof of your product or services.

Are you capturing and showcasing your five-star reviews?

#6. Offer Compelling and Valuable Lead Magnets to Build Your Email Database.

A lead magnet is something of high value that you offer for free via your website or social media, in exchange for someone’s contact details. It’s the most effective method to grow your email database with high quality, warm leads. Is email marketing dead? Absolutely not! It’s still one of the most effective forms of marketing and selling, especially if your audience has come to you via a strong lead magnet.

Your lead magnet might be an E-Book, a downloadable checklist or guide, a free video series, or a free training. Choose a lead magnet that allows you to showcase your expertise in your niche and allows people to experience you and your brand – for free. For examples, you can check out my lead magnet page here.

Lead magnets grow your email database with potential buyers, which then allows you to nurture the relationship with them, build trust and confidence in your brand, and eventually offer your services to them so that they become paying clients. This is hands-down the most effective marketing strategy to build your business.Tweet it

#7. An E-mail Database Manager and Follow-Up Campaign.

Once you have a lead magnet that allows you to collect the contact details of your potential buyers, you’ll need a mechanism to store all those contacts somewhere and have a way to communicate with your leads regularly. For that you’ll need an email database manager (or CRM – Customer Relationship Management) such as Hubspot, MailChimp, or AWeber (my favourite), or ConvertKit or InfusionSoft. For a great overview of how CRMs work and why you need one, check out this article What is a CRM by Christopher Sirk.

Did you know that on average, people require around 20 touch points with you and your brand before they’ll consider buying from you? This is why it’s so important that you begin a process of communication with your subscribers so they can get to know you and trust you. Implement a welcome campaign that includes around 2 – 5 welcome emails (spread out over 1 – 2 weeks) that provides your subscribers with information and valuable resources that showcase your expertise and establish you as an authority and leader. This will make them more likely to buy from you when you finally make your offers.

# 8. Offer and Deliver Great Services and Products.

This one goes without saying. In order to be successful in business, you obviously need to deliver services and products of a consistently high standard. Focus on delivering outstanding service and you will get great word of mouth referrals. Statistics show that 85% of small businesses get customers through word of mouth, which means you can spend less time and money on marketing and more time on doing what you do best – serving!

Find a way to package and price your services and products in a way that’s compelling and encourages repeat, long-term business with you. Develop an effective business funnel to move clients through the different offerings you have, along the Customer Value Journey. You can learn more about that here: How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey.

Try to move away from charging per session or a time-for-dollar model. It’s essential that you find ways to package and leverage your services so that you can serve more people more effectively.

# 9. Produce Great Content, Consistently.

‘Content’ is the term for any original material you produce to educate or connect with your audience. Content includes blog posts, video trainings, social media posts, podcasts, or downloadable workbooks and checklists to name a few. You need to create content to build your brand awareness, to generate and nurture leads, and ultimately to generate sales.

Content is Queen! Good content showcases your expertise, establishes you as an expert in your field, and builds that much-needed trust and confidence in you and your band. You’ll need to find a way to new, original create content regularly in order to establish yourself as a credible brand. To discover how, check out this article: The Art of Content Marketing: How to Build Your Brand Credibility and Easily Win New Clients.

#10. Invest in Systems, Processes and People.

You won’t be able to do everything in your business if you want to do all of the above and focus on growing your business. You’ll need to invest in a good CRM that automatically captures and nurtures your new leads, and you’ll need to automate things such as your Customer Value Journey (automatically moving customers through your funnel), calendar bookings, your social media post scheduling and payment procedures so that clients can easily pay you.

It’s key that you learn to work on your business and not in your business in order to grow.

As you grow, find good people to outsource your time-consuming activities to so that you can focus on serving your clients and growing your business.

Are you starting or growing your own business?

Download your FREE copy of my FEMPRENEUR SUCCESS HANDBOOK to fast-track your business success! This value-packed guide contains everything I wish I knew back when I was starting my own business in 2011.
Click here to download it now.

Did you like this article? You might also like:

The Top 10 Mindset Qualities You Need to Embrace to be Successful in Business.

5 Powerful Strategies that will Triple Your Income: A Case Study with Business Owner Revi Chai.

How to be a Mother and Successfully Grow a Family and a Business at the Same Time.

In service to helping you live your brightest life,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach
kated@fempirecoach.com.au
www.katiedejong.com

How to do Set Powerful Goals that Drive True Business Growth

by Kate De Jong | Nov 5, 2021 | Abundance & Prosperity, Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Purposeful Business

Energy flows where intention goes.

Business planning is one of the most powerful activities you can undertake in your business.

Do you feel resistance when it comes to goal setting? I know I have in the past. The whole process of setting goals can feel too masculine, pushy, or ‘corporate’.

But I’ve come to appreciate that goals are simply clear intentions for the things you want to create, experience and achieve in your business.

I’ve tried running my business both with and without clear goals, and I can safely say – hands down – that my business has thrived and grown so much more when I’ve started the year with clear intentions.

And over the many years of coaching women to start and grow their own businesses, I know this for sure:

The women who succeed in business are those who…

Set aside time to strategically plan their business goals for the year ahead.
Set clear goals and intentions for their business.
Get support from a business mentor to find the fastest and most effective path to achieve their growth goals.
Translate their goals into actionable 90-day plans.
Measure their progress and pivot where necessary to stay on track.

Plus, stretch goals elevate you and inspire you, because research (like this) has shown that you feel happiest when you having something to work towards that allows you to grow, unleash your full creativity and potential, and contribute to something you care about (that’s larger than you).

Business planning more than doubles your growth potential (Biz Trends, 2016).

And as the old cliché goes: Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Trying to run a business without having a clear vision of where you’re heading and what you need to do to get there is like flying blind.

At Fempire, we spend several days in October, November and December mapping out our annual goals and marketing strategy. It’s how we stay on top of our game and continue to grow, year after year.

And while money goals are important, there’s more to setting goals than just focusing on revenue growth. Goals can be a great way to intentionally create a personal and professional life you love.

What does ‘success’ mean to you?

For me it's not just about the money. Success means waking up every day feeling excited to get on with the day. It means loving what I do. It means working in my zone of genius. It means feeling healthy and energised. It means making a positive difference in the lives of others. It means feeling connected and valued. It means feeling fulfilled and peaceful. It means having meaningful relationships and connections. It means living in the moment and appreciating what I have.Tweet it

An essential component of setting goals that work is the act of first tuning into how you want to feel.

I give full credit to Danielle LaPorte and her Core Desired Feelings concept that has been a major force in shaping how I now approach goal-setting. Danielle was one of the first people to make me aware of how we have our traditional goal-setting processes backward. Traditionally, we focus on an end goal without taking the time to figure out how we actually want to feel, which often leaves us feeling empty and discontent when we actually reach the goal, because it didn’t actually make us feel how we wanted.

Your goals should excite you.

The thought of achieving them uplifts, inspires and motivates you.

How to do Set Powerful Goals that Drive True Business Growth

Step 1: Acknowledge & Celebrate the Year that Was.

Sometimes we don’t give ourselves enough credit for everything we’ve done, and instead focus on what we think is still missing. The simple act of documenting, acknowledging, and celebrating everything you did in the previous year lights the fires of passion, purpose, and creativity for the year ahead.

Gratitude and appreciation for all the goodness that manifested in your life provides an inspiring and exciting platform from which to springboard into your goal setting process. The easiest way to do this step is to write it all down, making sure you document:

What you DID;
How you GREW;
What you LEARNED;
Which new CONNECTIONS or networks you established;
And any other highlights of the year that feel significant.

Make sure you find a way to celebrate and give gratitude for all the goodness that manifested in your life. If it feels right for you, close your eyes and spend some time in quiet gratitude. Perhaps light a candle. Practicing gratitude stimulates all the wonderful high-frequency emotions that are necessary for getting into an effective frame of mind for goal setting (including appreciation, joy, optimism, hope, grace, ease etc).

Step 2: Tune into Your Business Why, Vision and Mission.

Before launching into your goal setting process, it’s important that you tune in again to your business why, vision and mission, to align your compass in the right direction.

If you don’t yet have powerful and succinct why, vision and mission statements for your business that excite you, I highly recommend you take your time to develop them. To help you, I’ve written an article all about that called Why You Need to Know Your Business ‘Why’, Vision and Mission.

My ‘why’ statement is: Because I believe the world needs more successful female entrepreneurs.

My vision and mission statements are below. What are yours?

Step 3: Prioritise Yourself First: What do you need to be the best version of yourself next year?

This reflection is relatively new for me. I used to be someone who put my work before everything else, but that led to severe burnout in my mid thirties (you can read my story here).

Now in my forties, I make sure I do everything I can to protect my emotional, mental and physical well-being. As a businesswoman, you need to get into the habit of prioritising your personal needs, because your business is a reflection of you.

That means prioritising and fiercely protecting the things that I need to do to feel happy, healthy and balanced.

So here’s what I invite you to do. Reflect on these questions.

1. What are your personal needs and what do you need to prioritise to be the best version of yourself in 2021?

For example, I know that I need a sound healing every two weeks, plus a yoga retreat twice a year, plus regular date nights with my husband, and two family holidays (just to name a few), in order to stay balanced. So I book them into my calendar for 2021 NOW so that nothing interferes with those things.

2. Block time in your calendar for your personal needs and make them non-negotiable.
If you have to change it, just move it somewhere else, but don’t ever delete it!

3. If you have children, get all the school holiday dates and pupil-free days into your diary so that they never take you by surprise.

As someone who’s often been taken by surprise when school holidays are suddenly upon me, I’ve learned to get them all into my diary at the start of the year so I can plan around them.

4. Decide how you want to FEEL in the year ahead.

I believe this is the critical missing piece in all of our goal-setting processes. Failing to take the time to do this step can set you up to achieve goals that don’t necessarily make you happy or satisfied or fulfilled – or burn you out, even.

To tune into how you want to feel, take some time to get quiet. Take a few deep breaths in and out. Place your attention into your chest area if you can. Take a few deep breaths and really feel into the energy in your heart centre. As you try to keep your focus there, ask yourself:

“How do I want to feel this year?”

Write down whichever words come up for you. My words for this year are:

If you need some inspiration for possible feelings, take a look at my Core Desired Feelings Library inspired by Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map. Click here to go to the Core Desired Feelings Library.

Step 4: Engage in Divergent Thinking to Imagine Quantum Leaps for your Business.

If you want to set exciting stretch goals that drive business growth, it’s critical that you undergo some form of DIVERGENT THINKING before you narrow yourself down and choose goals that you want to shoot for in the year ahead.

So many people go straight into convergent thinking in their goal setting, without going through divergent thinking, which makes them choose goals that are ‘same old-same old’ – and don’t stretch them beyond conventional thinking into a true growth zone.

We use divergent thinking to CREATE CHOICES, and then we use convergent thinking to MAKE CHOICES.

An important part of the divergent thinking process is allowing yourself to DREAM BIG and to expect ‘quantum leaps’ in your business. Price Pritchett defines Quantum Leaps in his book You2 – A High-Velocity Formula for Multiplying Your Personal Effectiveness in Quantum Leaps. I highly recommend reading his book if you want to learn more about his approach, which integrates quantum physics principles into personal effectiveness tools.

Don’t you think it’s a pretty amazing thing that the only thing limiting us in life is our imagination? That we can literally do anything we want if our heart and soul want it badly enough? We get to literally dream up the life we want to live. As Price Pritchett says in his book You2:

“Seeking the quantum leap means violating the boundary of the probable. It means achieving well beyond the obvious. So don’t limit your desires to what you think you ‘can have’ …. start going after what you ‘want’. This means you must give yourself permission to dream, to risk. You must set yourself free.”
– PRICE PRITCHETT

What kind of goals would represent Quantum Leaps for your business next year?

What could you strive for that would drive quantum business growth?

Do you struggle to set goals for your business that feel really inspiring and motivating? Annual goal setting is so critical. The act of setting business goals more than doubles your growth potential. Trying to run a business without having a clear vision of where you’re heading and what you need to do to get there is like flying blind. Read on to learn seven steps that we follow at Fempire to set powerful goals that drive business growth, year after year. #goalsetting #businessplanning #annualplanning #goals #businesscoachforwomen #fempire #fempirecoach #businesscoach

Step 5: Choose 3 – 5 Goals that Will Drive Business Growth.

Now that you’ve been through a process of divergent thinking to dream big, now it’s time to ‘converge’ and choose which goals you want to aim for in the year ahead. When doing this, remember that ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘better’. Choosing a few quality goals that are closely aligned with your vision and mission – and represent quantum growth – will position you to have a great year.

Choose 3 – 5 big goals that feel exciting and motivating.

If you’re looking to increase profits in the year ahead, check out my article Profit Queen: 5 Powerful Wats to Optimise Your Business Model for Greater Profit to understand your leverage points to grow your business.

Step 6: Translate Your Goals into Milestones and 90-Day Plans

Now that you have your high level goals, it’s time to translate them into:

Your business plan
Your marketing plan.
Your marketing schedule.
Your financial budgets.

This is where the rubber hits the road and you get super specific and clear about what you want and need to achieve in the year ahead.

Each year at Fempire, we spend several days planning out our goals and translating it into major marketing and business initiatives. We then get those events or milestones into our calendar with specific dates that drive all of our efforts.

There are many reasons why 90-day goals are the most effective in driving business growth. Go here to learn all about it: How to Quickly Grow Your Business with 90 Day Goals.

I’m sure you’ve heard of SMART goals before. We recommend using the PACT system instead for defining your goals, which stands for:

P: Purposeful
A: Actionable
C: Continuous
T: Trackable.

To learn more about PACT goals, go here.

Step 7: Get your Goals and Milestones into your Calendar.

To make your goals real, you’ll need to schedule them into your Yearly Planner so that you can work towards them. Put them somewhere where you can see them and be reminded of them consistently.

Lastly, have a think about some support structures you can put in place to make sure you regularly check in with your goals and modify them if needed if they’re not aligning with your desired feelings.

What support structures can you put in place?

A vision board?

Hanging your goals up somewhere where you can see them?

Telling your partner so they can remind you? Telling a friend and asking them to check in with you?

Joining a group that will actively support you in pursuing your goals?

One of the most powerful things you can do to stay on track with your goals is to get a Business Coach who will support you and keep you accountable. The average return on investment for business coaching is five times! Invest in mentoring now to take your business to new heights.

If you’re interested in learning how I can support you to grow your business, book your Discovery Call (at no charge to you) with me to see if we’re a good fit. Book your call now.

Do You Need Help with Your Strategic Planning for 2022?

Have you started thinking about your business goals for next year yet? If not, you need to!

Business planning more than doubles your growth potential.

How would you like to:

Arm yourself with strategic business goals that feel clear and exciting – that are achievable but will stretch you in all the good ways.
Go away on your Christmas break knowing you’re ready to hit the ground running in 2022.
Start 2022 stress-free by getting all your business planning done now.
Feel clear and inspired about the year ahead.

I have a very special offer for you and I only have FIVE spots open for November – will you be one of the wise women who invest in strategic business planning to make next year your best ever?

Be quick! These always fill up FAST.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D.

Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs

www.katiedejong.com

katie@katiedejong.com

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

The Three Hats that Every Business Owner Needs to Wear

by Kate De Jong | Oct 22, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

The idea of running your own business is incredibly appealing: Be your own boss, work your own hours, do things on your own terms, make money doing what you love.

But the reality is that forty percent of businesses fail within the first year and eight percent fail within five years.

Why do so many businesses fail?

In Michael Gerber’s fantastic book The E-Myth, he explains that the reason why most businesses fail is because of the big myth – or fundamental misunderstanding – in what it takes to be successful as an entrepreneur.

The Big Myth:

The notion that skilful technical work and a good idea form a sufficient basis for business success.

You probably started your own business because you excel in a certain field, maybe graphic design, or personal training, coaching or counselling. Or you have a fantastic product that people need. We call the art of delivering your product or service the ‘technical work’ – and you’re the Technician who does this work. If you’re like most business owners, you’re incredibly passionate about making a positive difference using your technical craft.

But if you believe that this is enough, you’ve made the fatal assumption :

The Fatal Assumption: The mistaken belief that knowing how to do technical work means you know how to run a business

(From: The E-Myth, Michael Gerber, 2004)

The technical work is obviously essential, but it’s just one hat out of three that you need to wear as a business owner. And learning how to master these all three hats is the key to business success.

The Technician

We’ll assume you’ve got this hat covered! It’s why you started your business, because you’re great at what you do. And you love it. You’re a technician, extremely gifted at your craft. This is all about delivering a great product or service.

The Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurial skills are absolutely essential to business success, and if you’re lacking in this area, you’ll need to find ways to consistently grow and upskill in this area. Some people are natural entrepreneurs, while for others it’s a skill set that needs to be learned. You can test your entrepreneurial potential using tests like this one.

So what are the qualities of an entrepreneur?

The entrepreneur is the innovator who looks around and sees a world of opportunities. They’re dreamers and visionaries, forging strategic relationships and collaborations, leveraging their network and pivoting to new possibilities when required. They think like a CEO, focusing on ways they can grow, scale and generate more revenue. They’re public-facing and natural marketers. They love to get in front of the cameras to spread the good word about their business. They know how to make the most of publicity and to build their brand visibility and awareness. They know they’re great and they’re not afraid to tell everyone!

Here are just some of the things you need to do, wearing your Entrepreneur hat:

Regularly attend networking events or meet with a business connection one-on-one at least once a week. Consistently grow your network.
Find other businesses with a similar target market and create offerings that benefit your mutual customers and provide a win-win for your businesses (collaborations/joint ventures).
Proactively grow your brand’s visibility in the market: Seek out public speaking opportunities, be a guest on podcasts or start your own, go live on social media regularly, find creative ways to grow your brand’s visibility.
Market yourself effectively, generate leads, close sales.
Take risks and invest in new opportunities with a good Return on Investment.

The Manager

The Business Manager is the pragmatic one who craves order and structure. Rather than seeing opportunities, they see operational problems to fix. They love to get things organised and efficient. They want things to be streamlined and effective so that your business becomes a well-oiled machine.

Managers engage in forward planning, they set goals, measure progress, and track numbers. Consider them the manager of operations, always looking for ways to free up your time to focus on the technical work.

Here are just some of the things you need to do, wearing your Manager hat:

Use an online platform to organise your business. Our favourite project management platform at Fempire is Trello – we run our entire business through Trello and couldn’t live without it!
Get yourself set up with a professional bookkeeping and accounting software like Xero, MYOB or Quickbooks to manage your business finances.
Actively track your monthly Profit and Loss statements and monitor your revenue against your goals.
Set clear goals to drive your business efforts and measure your progress against them every quarter.
Adopt systems, processes and automation to streamline your business operations and free up your time to focus on revenue-generating activities.

Where are You in the 6 Stages of Business Growth?

If you’re not familiar with the six different stages of business growth yet, I highly recommend you check out my article The 6 Stages of Business Growth – and Why You Need to Know Which One You’re In.

During the first four phases of business growth, unless you’re blessed with great start-up capital or angel investment funding, you’ll need to figure out how to wear all three hats – the technician, the entrepreneur, and the manager. You simply won’t have the cash flow to hire a business manager or marketer to get your products and services out to market and to cover all the activities required by the entrepreneur and the manager. Plus, you’ll need to know how to do things in your business yourself before outsourcing to someone else, otherwise you run the risk of getting over-charged by service providers who spot a naïve business owner.

It’s absolutely possible to learn how to be a great Entrepreneur and Manager, and this is precisely why we developed our programs Fempreneur and Female Entrepreneur Mastery – to teach you how to get your business from validate all the way through to profit as quickly as possible, through developing great entrepreneurial and managerial skills.

Once you hit profit, you’ll then be able to start outsourcing some of your key entrepreneur and manager tasks so that you can free up your time to work ‘on’ your business and not ‘in’ your business. Typically the first things to start outsourcing are your marketing and your business admin tasks. As you get comfortable with outsourcing, you can start to delegate more and more tasks to virtual assistants or contractors so that you can focus on doing the work you love.

Business heaven is where you have systems, structures and processes in place such that your business can run without you.

You can start working towards this ideal situation – right now – by establishing and documenting your business procedures and automating your processes wherever possible. That way, you can bring new people into the business and all they need to do is follow your clear procedures or use the systems you’ve set up. And the great thing about this is – not only can you go and take a holiday when you want to – you’re also creating a business that can be sold onto someone else, if this is what you desire.

Need help mastering the three hats required to run your business?

Reach out for a FREE discovery call and we can chat about how I can help you! Go here to book now.

Did you like this article? You might also like:

How to Start Your Own Business: 3 Things You Need to Know

How to Quickly Grow Your Business with 90 Day Goals

The Art of Content Marketing: How to Build Your Brand Credibility and Easily Win New Clients

6 Powerful Productivity Strategies that will Help You Get More Out of Your Day

The Top 10 Mindset Qualities You Need to Embrace to be Successful in Business

Are you starting or growing your own business?

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach
kated@fempirecoach.com.au
www.katiedejong.com

How to Sell More with Your Three Business Superpowers

by Kate De Jong | Sep 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Are you comfortable telling your prospects what makes you so great at what you do?

If not, you need to be!

When it comes to marketing and selling your products or services, people will only know why they should work with you if you tell them.

I recently learned a technique from Petar Lackovic at The Sales Insititute which I refer to as Your Three Business Superpowers.

Your superpowers summarise:

What makes you so great at what you do.
Why your clients choose you.

Once you know what your superpowers are, you should tell people about them! Market them across your social media channels, write a blog or video about them, and get them onto your website for your prospects to see.

Learn how to succinctly describe your superpowers to your prospects during sales conversations and watch how your conversion rates increase easily and effortlessly!

Your superpowers allow your prospects to quickly and easily identify if you're a good fit to work together and if they resonate with you and your brand.Tweet it

There’s a format you need to follow when articulating your superpowers. Be sure to keep it clear and succinct (and the rule ‘less is more’ applies here).

Here’s the format:

A ‘green brain’ (i.e. emotional/powerful) name.
The background or story that makes your superpower important.
Your superpower.
The result for your client.

To give you some inspiration, I’ll share my personal business superpowers, as well as the Fempire superpowers. I hope you’ll use these examples to develop your own descriptions.

My personal superpowers: Kate De Jong, Fempire Coach

My three business superpowers are (based on what my clients have told me):

I’m a lightning-fast strategic thinker and problem solver.
I’m kind and compassionate while also being results- and action-oriented.
I easily cut through the noise to focus on what matters most in your business.

If you’re not sure what yours might be, ask your clients!

Here’s an example of how you would break down one of these superpowers further for your clients, using the format I’ve given you:

[‘Green brain’ name] I’m a lightning-fast strategic thinker and problem solver.

[Background/story] Business is a constant game of problem-solving and strategising. You need to constantly troubleshoot your marketing strategies, develop compelling ways to sell your products or services, and come up with innovative ways to serve your clients to get results. This is where my first superpower comes in handy, which is my lightning-fast ability to solve problems.

[My superpower] I have a highly technical background, spending four years completing my Ph.D and then 15 years as a consulting engineer on large water projects worldwide. My highly analytical mind allows me to diagnose your business quickly.

[The result for you as a client] What this means for you is that I help you cut straight to the core of what needs to be done to generate profit as quickly as possible. No more spinning wheels or wasting time or money, I help you get on the straight and narrow quickly and easily.

Do you get the idea?

To give you some more examples and inspiration (if you’re like me, you might learn best through examples), here are Fempire’s three business superpowers and a breakdown of one of them.

Fempire’s Three Business Superpowers

We’re unapologetically a female-focused brand.
We have a 12-step Business Breakthrough Formula that provides a business-building roadmap for you.
We have a Sisterhood Community for success.

Breakdown of superpower #1.

[‘Green brain’ name] We’re unapologetically a female-focused brand.

[Background/story] Our experience has shown us that women learn differently, run our lives differently, and we think differently. And the only person who really gets this is another woman.

[My superpower] Because of this, we are unapologetically a female-focused brand. All of our business coaches are women. We intimately understand how women achieve and how they need to be supported to thrive in business.

[The result for you as a client] What this means for you is you feel fully understood and supported as a woman in business, which allows you to business success more quickly and easily.

So what are your business superpowers and how will you articulate them succinctly to your prospects?

I urge you to take the time to brainstorm your superpowers because this level of clarity will greatly accelerate your sales conversions.

And let me know how you go!

Did you like this article? You might also like:

15 Great Books that Every Female Entrepreneur Needs to Read

How To Boost Your Revenue Quickly With Google Reviews

How to Craft an Irresistible Offer that your Prospects Can’t Refuse

How to Quickly Grow Your Business with 90 Day Goals

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach
https://katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

15 Great Books that Every Female Entrepreneur Needs to Read

by Kate De Jong | Sep 1, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Personal Growth & Healing, Purposeful Business

Business success requires an almost obsessive desire to constantly learn and grow.Tweet it

Business success requires an almost obsessive desire to constantly learn and grow. And reading is a fantastic way to do that. As I’m sure you’ve heard before, your business is a direct reflection of you. The more you strengthen and grow your mindset and your business knowledge, the better you’ll do in business.

Here’s a list of fifteen books that I think every female entrepreneur needs to read. These are my favourites and the ones that have had the biggest impact on me. Whether you’re just starting out or you have an established business, the following books are guaranteed to give you many “ah-ha!” moments and inspiration. There’s always more to learn. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I did.

1. Out of the Closet: A Business Book for Women (Marnie LeFevre, 2016)

Topping my list is the wonderful book written by our Fempire founder Marnie LeFevre. I’ve always found it really helpful to learn how other women have managed to create a business from the ground up and in this book Marnie does exactly that. She describes with authenticity and vulnerability how she started her first business in her tiny closet, next to the ironing board, shoes and clothes, while raising her two small children. Having gone from working for Richard Branson and large corporations to becoming a stay-at-home mother and wondering if she could survive another Wiggles video, Marnie finally realised that staying at home was not serving herself or her family.

In her book she describes how she built her very successful marketing agency from scratch while raising her family and growing several other businesses locally and globally, receiving awards and recognition for her work.

What I love most about this book is not only the step by step guidance on how to brand, market and grow your business, but also the specific focus on what it’s like to be a woman in business. As women we face different challenges that only a woman can truly understand, which is why Marnie wrote this book – as a female entrepreneur – for female entrepreneurs, so that you feel understood and supported on your journey. Filled with practical advice and actionable strategies, Marnie writes with humour and grounded wisdom, making this book a page-turner and oh so enjoyable to read.

Get your copy of Out of the Closet on Amazon

2. Girl Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Success, Sanity & Happiness for the Female Entrepreneur (Cara Alwill Leyba, 2017)

Cara Leyba writes about personal growth and entrepreneurship in a way that’s unique, glamorous, and refreshing. She first became famous through her blog The Champagne Diet, which started out being an outlet for her to chronicle her own personal transformation. She ended up with a huge following and her blog connected her with thousands of women around the world who were experiencing similar things. She realised that no matter where we come from, we all share the same fears and desires.

Cara explores the important questions:

“Why do women keep falling victim to the traps of jealousy, comparison, negativity and cattiness?”
“Why hasn’t everyone discovered just how fabulous life can be when we empower each other rather than tear each other down?”

In her eight rules of Girl Code, Cara describes how we, as women, need to do the work to rewire our thought patterns, shift our mindsets and truly practice Girl Code so that we can become more successful than we ever dreamed possible. She steps you through exactly how you can do this and there’s some great advice in this book. If you’re in need of a mindset shift and some fantastic motivation, this book is for you!

Get your copy of Girl Code on Amazon

3. Unstoppable Influence: Be You. Be Fearless. Transform Lives (Natasha Hazlett, 2018)

I had a light bulb moment while reading this book. I’d never really understood why I feel so much fire and passion in my belly to make a positive difference. Natasha Hazlett explains it in a nutshell in her book. It’s because I have ‘influencer DNA’.

Are you someone who can’t help but always try to positively influence those around you and inspire to them to do more and be more? Do you have influencer DNA? If so, you need to read this book. It’s full of nuggets of wisdom and insight to help you on your journey to creating the impact you desire.

Hazlett is a former attorney, a speaker and a business coach and she gives practical advice and strategies to kick your approval addiction and negative self-talk to the curb, reboot and recharge your life and business to make the money you deserve without working longer hours, and to instead welcome true freedom, happiness and abundance into your life.

Sounds great, right? And it is! I highly recommend getting your hands on this book. You won’t regret it. It will give you the inspiration you need to create your biggest impact as an entrepreneur.

Get your copy of Unstoppable Influence on Amazon

4. Chillpreneur: The New Rules for Creating Success, Freedom, and Abundance on Your Terms (Denise Duffield-Thomas, 2019)

Finally! Here’s a book for female entrepreneurs that explains how running your own business doesn’t have to be all about hustle and grind. Denise shows you how you can make great money doing what you love, while taking great care of yourself and your family along the way. She defines the rules for running a business without the stress or the burnout.

Denise gives practical advice on how you can trade in stress and overwhelm for strategic flow. And get richer while doing it. She’s the ultimate money mindset mentor, and has a masterful way of helping you see where your mindset is holding you back in business. Denise shows how each one of us has the ability to create so much success when we let go of our limiting beliefs and substitute them for the Chillpreneur business principles.

If you’re not yet making the money you deserve, you need to read this book!

Get your copy of Chillpreneur on Amazon.

5. Everything is Figureoutable (Marie Forleo, 2019)

It’s no surprise that this book is amazing because everything that Marie Forleo touches turns to gold. This book was inspired by Marie’s mother who once told her:

“Nothing in life is that complicated. You can do whatever you set your mind to if you roll up your sleeves. Everything is figureoutable.”

This one, single belief paved the way for Marie to create her multi-million dollar business, the life of her dreams and to be able to impact hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide.

Marie describes how there are no ‘quick fixes’ in business, but rather it’s all about how we respond in the face of obstacles, challenges and setbacks. She shares the attitudes, beliefs and mindset that have enabled her to become one of the most sought after coaches, speakers and writers worldwide. This book is guaranteed to get you inspired and focused and if you follow her advice you’ll become…. unstoppable.

Get your copy of Everything is Figureoutable on Amazon.

6. She Means Business: Turn Your Ideas into Reality and Become a Wildly Successful Entrepreneur (Carrie Green, 2017)

Carrie Green started the Female Entrepreneur Association as a business woman who felt lonely and realised there wasn’t a platform to support female entrepreneurs worldwide. She turned it into a thriving membership hub that now supports 350,000 female entrepreneurs across the globe.

I loved this book because Carrie describes in logical steps how you can up-level your business and life and get your ideas and messages into the world with maximum impact. It’s no surprise that once again, so much of what she shares is about mindset and developing positive inner self-talk. Her perspective and ideas are refreshing and very practical. If you need some tangible strategies around how to develop a positive mindset and put yourself out there in the market in an impactful, get yourself a copy of this book.

Get your copy of She Means Business on Amazon.

7. Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living (Glennon Doyle, 2020)

While this book isn’t written for women in business specifically, it’s a book that every woman needs to read. My copy of this book has post-it notes and highlights all through it because there are so many powerful sentences and nuggets of raw wisdom that really touched and changed me.

As a female entrepreneur, you need to learn to live by your own rules and expectations and trust your own inner voice and intuition. And that’s exactly what Glennon explores in this book. She describes with raw authenticity and humility how she finally discovered peace and joy when she stopped striving to meet others’ expectations and started to trust the voice deep within herself. She shares, through telling her own very personal story of bulimia, divorce, and finally marrying her love Abby Wambach, how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honour our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become powerful women, grounded in our own self-love and truth.

Get your copy of Untamed on Amazon.

8. The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know (Katty Kay & Claire Shipman, 2014)

Authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman are journalists, reporters, and founders of Womenomics – a movement based on the idea that women’s economic advancement improves economies. In their book, they discuss how some of the greatest female leaders have an extraordinary, almost unimaginable belief that they can succeed, even when the odds are stacked, boulder like, against them. They have unshakeable confidence. As it turns out, these women are Unicorns because they’re so rare.

Over two decades, Kay and Shipman have researched confidence and interviewed some of the most influential women around the world. They realised that even these powerful women swim in self-doubt. During their research they discovered that low self-confidence is prevalent amongst most women, even when holding high positions in leadership and outwardly appearing to be very confident.

The authors discovered that self-confidence is in fact partly genetic – some of us are simply born with more confidence than others. But newest research shows that we can literally change our brains at any age (the scientists call it plasticity). Which means that if you choose to, you can develop this essential quality. Apparently confidence is what psychologists call volitional: our choice. With diligent effort, we can expand our confidence. And in this book they tell you exactly how. If your self-confidence is holding you back in your business, then you need to ready this book!

Get your copy of The Confidence Code on Amazon.

9. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Brene Brown, 2012)

I read this book soon after it was first published in 2012 and it was a major turning point for me. Starting off with Theodore Roosevelt’s famous “The Man in the Arena” speech, Brene makes a case for how vulnerability is the key to a successful and fulfilling life. She says:

“Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity for both; it’s engaging – getting in the arena. It’s being all in.”
– Brene Brown

When I read this book I was in the process of launching my own business. And it gave me the courage and confidence to just do it. I put aside all my doubts, fears and insecurities, and fears of what other people would say, and I just decided to go ‘all in’. And it was the best decision I ever made.

If you’re struggling to go ‘all’ in with your business, or you’re stuck in procrastination or afraid of criticism or judgement, you need to read this book!

Get your copy of Daring Greatly on Amazon.

10. Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich: 75 Avoidable Mistakes Women Make with Money (Lois P. Frankel, 2005)

If you want to be a successful business woman, you need to learn how to get smart with money. There’s no two ways about it. Business women who pay close attention to their money and consciously apply strategies to grow their revenue, end up succeeding. And those who don’t stay stuck in scarcity.

Lois describes the key behaviours and beliefs that keep women from being financially independent and following their dreams (and I’ve been guilty of many of them!). She shares her tried-and-true coaching tips on how to take control of your money and your life. She describes all the ‘nice girl’ behaviours that sabotage your success and gives you specific strategies to overcome them.

If you’re serious about succeeding in business, you need to get your hands on this book, read it front to back, and apply everything she suggests!

Get your copy of Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich on Amazon.

11. Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me This Sh*t Before? Wit and Wisdom from Women in Business (Marcella Allison & Laura Gale, 2019)

There’s nothing better than reading stories from women who have blazed the trail before us. This book is a collection of more than 60 letters from female leaders of multi-million dollar companies, solopreneurs, and every kind of woman in between. Each woman explains in detail what it’s like to be a female business leader, and shares her story in order to help other women succeed.

The stories are filled with truth, experience and hard-won wisdom. Because as the authors say “the only way we can begin to change the world is if we break the silence and begin to speak.”

I found these stories to be a lifeline and a road map to navigate our increasingly complex business world. Some of the stories describe extreme hardship but there’s also laughter, growth and triumph, and there’s so much to learn from these stories.

This is a comforting and inspiring read and it allows you to learn from the experience of business women just like you. Their stories of strength, courage and a fierce will to succeed will inspire you to continue on and build the business and life of your dreams.

Get your copy of Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me This Sh*t Before? on Amazon.

12. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder (Arianna Huffington, 2015)

Arianna Huffington knows a thing or two about starting and growing a business into a global phenomenon. She co-founded the media company Huffington Post (which she sold for $315 million in 2011), before launching her extremely popular global wellness site Thrive Global, which provides science-based solutions to end stress and burnout. She’s a serial entrepreneur, mother, author of fifteen books and a highly sought after speaker.

Arianna had a big wake up call when she injured her face severely after falling down from exhaustion and lack of sleep. She realised that she’d sacrificed her health and well-being for the sake of her career and she knew she had to do something different. She’s since been on a mission to try to change our corporate business culture from stress and overwhelm into a culture where self-care is at the centre of our agenda.

Her story is incredibly interesting and she talks candidly about her own challenges with managing time and prioritising the demands of her businesses and raising two daughters, juggling deadlines and family crises. She has a very analytical mind and draws on the latest groundbreaking research and scientific findings in the fields of psychology, sports, sleep, and physiology that show the profound and transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness, unplugging, and giving. There’s a different way to do business and Arianna describes exactly what that looks like. Every business woman needs to read this book.

Get your copy of Thrive on Amazon.

13. Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business (Barbara Corcoran, 2003)

Real estate mogul Barabara Corcoran tells her captivating and entertaining story of how she grew $1000 into a multi-billion dollar Fempire. It’s an inspiring story that all female entrepreneurs should read. What struck me is the key ingredient that plays out in the background, all throughout her book. And that is, her unshakeable belief in herself and her abilities, in part thanks to the great role modelling and support from her mother and her grandmother.

Barbara proves that if you believe you can do it, you absolutely can. Once again, her story highlights just how incredibly important self-belief is for success. She proves how unstoppable we can be when we’re not held back by limiting self-beliefs.

Her story also shows how important strong and positive female role models are in our lives. And if you haven’t been fortunate to have strong female role models in your own life, then now is the time to step up and be that inspiring role model for the women coming behind you.

Get your copy of Shark Tales on Amazon.

14. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It (Michael E. Gerber, 2001).

Every person who’s determined to succeed in business needs to read this book. Gerber is an incredibly experienced entrepreneur, having helped more than 25,000 businesses worldwide since 1977, and he knows what it takes to achieve business success. As he often says, there’s no ‘magic bullet’, but it’s about doing ‘the right things’, consistently.

When I first read his book it was a revelation, because he finally articulated what I had already grappled with over the years, and that is that as business owners we need to wear three uniquely different hats – that of the Technician, the Entrepreneur, and the Manager. We need to develop a level of mastery in each of these areas in order to success, and he explains how.

As Gerber says “This book is about an idea – the idea that says your business is nothing more than a distinct reflection of who you are. If your thinking is sloppy, your business will be sloppy. If you are disorganised, your business will be disorganised. If you are greedy, your employees will be greedy, giving you less and always asking for more. …. So if your business is to change – as it must continuously do to thrive – you must change first.” And armed with the insight and knowledge in this book, you’ll finally know how to go about doing this.

Get your copy of The E-Myth Revisited on Amazon.

SELL LIKE CRAZY: How to Get As Many Clients, Customers and Sales As You Can Possibly Handle (Sabri Suby, 2020).

As a woman in business, the single, core competency you need to master is the art of selling. Having the best product or service won’t get you there on its own. You need to know how to sell your great product or service in order to thrive.

My copy of this book has more than 100 post-it notes and highlights in it. It seems every page contains some important nugget of wisdom that’s worth remembering. Suby’s ruthless, direct, and honest style shakes you up and makes you realise that selling is all about mindset and the application of tactics that work.

Suby describes his eight phase ‘secret selling system’ that’s earned he and his clients over $1 billion. His advice is practical and actionable and will help you understand how to optimise your sales funnel to achieve sustainable success.

Get your copy of Sell Like Crazy on Amazon.

Are you starting or growing your own business?

Get your FREE copy of The Fempreneur Success Handbook: How to Start & Grow Your Wildly Successful business and discover everything I wish I’d known back when I was starting my business!

Did you like this article? You might also like:

The 6 Stages of Business Growth – and 3 Important Reasons Why You Need to Know Which One You’re in.

3 Important SEO Trends You Need to Know About in 2020

The Reality for Women in Business: 11 Fascinating Things I’ve Learned as a Fempire Coach

10 Essential Things You Need to Have on Your Website

Why You Need to Know Your Business ‘Why’, Vision and Mission.

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs
kated@fempirecoach.com.au
+61 424 176 658
katiedejong.com

When is it Time to Take the Leap of Faith and Quit Your Corporate Job?

by Kate De Jong | Jul 23, 2021 | Career Change & Transition, Entrepreneurship & Small Business, Find Your Path And Purpose, Purposeful Business

Do you fantasise about quitting the rat race to start your dream business?

Thanks to high-speed internet and cloud-based systems, it’s easier than ever before to work from anywhere you like. Culturally, we’re getting tired of the rat race and more and more people are craving more flexibility, freedom, purpose, and creativity in their work.

I quit my corporate engineering consulting career back in 2011 and I haven’t missed it at all. I now get to create my work days on my own terms, and I fit my work life around my busy life as a mother to two young boys.

Freelancing and ‘gig’ workers are on the rise.

Freelancers now make up 35% of the American and Australian workforces, and these numbers steadily are on the rise.

The percentage of freelancers is even higher among the younger workforce. A survey conducted by Upwork and published in The Herald Sun showed that in Australia, among workers aged 18 - 24 years old, 47% are freelancing either part-time or full-time, versus 28% of Baby Boomers.Tweet it

Having grown up in the digital world, it’s natural that young people in the modern era are more flexible, agile, and connected with big networks – the perfect ingredients for entrepreneurship and freelancing.

It’s interesting to note also that the majority of older people who chose to start their own business did not do so out of necessity, but by choice (57% of the total), with flexibility, freedom, and improved work-life balance “luring them from the rigid confines of the 38-hour work week.”

I know that when I was growing up, entrepreneurship always seemed incredibly risky to me; the responsibility for generating your own income throughout all economic cycles seemed like a far bigger risk than I was willing to take. However, independent workforce surveys such as the UpWork survey in the USA show that freelancers are now, in fact, earning more relative to their old jobs. Among respondents in the UpWork survey, more than half are earning more than they did getting a steady pay cheque in their former job. A total of 46% were able to successfully raise their rates in the past year.

53% of freelancers believe that having a diverse portfolio of clients is more economically secure than having one employer. Times are changing indeed.Tweet it

But if you’re sitting on the fence about whether to finally answer that little voice that’s nudging you to quit your day job to pursue something closer to your heart, I understand from personal experience how hard it is to make that decision.

Deciding to leave a stable career path and a reliable salary for an unknown outcome, no matter how exciting or appealing the idea, is absolutely not an easy decision to make to. And it’s not one that I made lightly myself. It wasn’t until I started suffering from severe chronic health issues that I was finally forced to change direction (you can read my full story here).

And even when all the signs were pointing to the fact that I needed to branch out on my own, it was still an absolutely terrifying thought; I had a lot of fear and insecurity to overcome before I was able to consider the idea of becoming a ‘business owner’ seriously.

But taking the leap of faith to start my own business was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life, for the reasons I’m about to share with you. Of course, it hasn’t always been easy.

Starting your own business is not for the faint-hearted. It requires enormous resilience, grit, perseverance, and most of all, belief in yourself.

But the rewards more than outweigh the challenge.

There are days when it all feels too hard and I want to give up on my dream (as I write about in my article 7 Powerful Strategies to Get You Through Those Days When You Just Want to Give Up on Your Dream). But they’re happening less frequently as I establish more reliable structures, systems, and approaches that allow me to earn a more reliable and predictable income. Establishing yourself successfully in your own business won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. As long as you approach it with a practical, low-risk strategy and get advice from those who have gone before you, you’ll find a way to make it happen.

Here are 5 big reasons why you should break free and start your own business.

1. You’ll enjoy greater freedom and flexibility.

If you’re tired of the groundhog days of alarm clocks, rushing and commuting, then you’ll love being your own boss. No more forcing yourself into the office early in the morning no matter how late you stayed up the night before, or the complete lack of free time to do the things that sustain and nourish you.

As your own boss, you can work according to your own schedule and work with the natural rhythms of your body clock and creative impulses. I love that I can now take time off when I need to and catch up on my work in the evening if I have to. Freedom and flexibility have become especially important to me since becoming a mother to our two young children.Tweet it

Yes, you’ll need to have robust self-discipline and sufficient structure in your days to force you to be productive and be able to enjoy the traction and momentum you need in your business. But when you’re doing something you love, it’s not hard to find the motivation to get onto your work.

It’s been my experience that structure and routine are your best allies as a small business owner. The good part is, you get to decide on the business structure and routine that suits you.

2. You can do things on your own terms.

If you’re someone who finds it hard to be micro-managed or to follow someone else’s ideas (especially if you don’t agree with them), then you’ll love being your own boss. In the great article “Why entrepreneurs choose freedom over money”, they conclude:

“Despite the fact that people who work for themselves often work more, have fewer benefits and experience more on-the-job stress than those who work in a company, the majority of Americans would prefer to be entrepreneurs. Our research shows that entrepreneurs are more satisfied with their jobs – and happier in general. Workplace autonomy is a powerful motivator.”

3. You’ll experience more fun and fulfilment.

I really needed to pinch myself the first time I received money for my coaching services; it seemed such a gift to be paid for something I found so enjoyable and enriching. Doing something you love really is the biggest gift you can give yourself. Plus, entrepreneurs are a fun bunch of people! It continues to amaze and inspire me to see how much entrepreneurs seem to enjoy their work. One of my favourite mentors Jeanna Gabellini always says:

“If it ain’t fun, don’t do it!”
– Jeanna Gabellini

A central part of Jeanna’s work and message is teaching people how to harness the Law of Attraction in their business to attract more profits and abundance, and having fun is an essential part! This was something that took me a long time to get used to. I was used to having to work hard and to ‘struggle’ at work; I’d come to accept that work is a necessary evil to pay the bills and to get ahead in the world. It feels so great to now to actually have fun in my work each and every day. To learn more about the Law of Attraction, check out my blog article: How to Create More of What You Want Using the Law of Attraction.

4. You get to fully express your unique gifts and talents.

You have your own unique zone of ‘natural genius’ – the things that you’re naturally good at without even trying. You’ll experience greater fulfilment and fun when you’re operating in your zone of natural genius most of the time.

During my corporate career, I was operating in my zone of natural genius only about 20% of the time. The rest of the time I was doing things that weren’t aligned with my natural strengths and they felt hard and draining.

I know that every career includes tasks and activities that we like and many task and activities that we don’t like. But when you’re working in a way that allows you to fully express the gifts you do have, somehow the other parts don’t feel so onerous or annoying – they’re in service to the beautiful thing you’re creating through your business.

Are you working in your Zone of Genius? Find out in my article: How to Live & Work in Your Zone of Genius: Your Strengths are More Than Just the Things You’re Good at.

5. You get to see the direct results of your efforts and enjoy making a positive difference.

Do you often wonder whether your daily work is having any impact? In my former career I spent countless hours writing Business Cases, proposals and strategic plans that were often shelved, delayed due to lack of funding, or often dismissed because it was “not the way we’ve always done things”.

And while I was part of some important breakthroughs during my career, I wanted to spend less time justifying and defending my ideas and more time just getting on and doing them.Tweet it

When you work for yourself, you can pitch your idea and philosophy clearly and those who resonate with your vision – and need exactly what you’re offering – can engage with you. And then you can get on with the task of serving those people directly and effectively. I believe the more people who embrace their yearning to make a difference and put themselves out there to start serving in their own unique way, the faster we’ll see things improve in the world.

Are you ready to leave your day job to start your own business?

If you’re at the point of wondering whether you should leave your career behind to pursue something closer to your heart, H elena Klein suggests asking yourself these questions:

Do you have to justify your job to yourself and others? Do you find yourself saying your work is actually ‘not that bad’, when in reality you know there must be a more joyful and fulfilling way to spend your working days?
Is your work giving you energy or draining you of it? Is there at least one part of your work that you look forward to each day? If there’s no part of your work that truly excites you, it’s time to make some changes.
Is there anybody I work with whose life I would like to have? If you don’t see any positive role models at work to look up to and who have the kind of life you want, then why are you there? There is no use in working your way up to a job that you don’t want to have.
Do you feel inspired by your work? Are you able to think freely, out of the box? Or do you feel trapped and patronized? If you spend too much time completing other people’s tasks, ignoring your own thoughts, or withholding your talent from the world, then it’s time to think seriously about change.
Last but not least: is my work in line with my personal values? If the things you’re doing at work don’t feel good to you, this is a big warning sign. You should feel proud of what you do and feel good about yourself when you do it.

As Farnoosh Ahram says:

“If you want to venture out on your own, pursue a call to greatness and live a meaningful life on your own terms, do it. Do not wait for permission. Do not wait for acceptance or validation. Do.Not.Wait, my friend. Because time is the one thing that you cannot buy back with all the gold and power in the world.” - Farnoosh AhramTweet it

Do you want to break free but you’re not quite sure how to go about setting up your own business? Get yourself a FREE copy of THE ULTIMATE FEMPRENEUR SUCCESS HANDBOOK and learn everything I wish I knew when I decided to start my own business back in 2011!

Are you still trying trying to figure out what you’re meant to be doing with your professional life? This FREE E-Book will help you: PATHFINDING: How to Find Your Inspired Path & Purpose.

Learn how to build a career that unites your true nature, your passion and your natural genius into work that is a full expression of yourself, allowing you to get your unique and valuable gifts into the world in a way that is FUN and deeply fulfilling!

Did you like this article? You might also like:

How to Be a Mother and Successfully Grow a Family and a Business at the Same Time.

How to Live and Work in Your Zone of Genius: Your Strengths are More Than Just the Things You’re Good At

Why is it So Hard to Find a Career You Love? 5 Powerful Tips for Finding Your Inspired Professional Path

Career Bliss: How to Find Your Inspired Professional Path & Purpose

The 12 Best Work From Home Gadgets & Accessories

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D

Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs

katie@katiedejong.com

www.katiedejong.com

Life’s too short to spend your days doing work that you don’t absolutely love. What’s holding you back from taking the leap of faith to finally do what really want to do? Read on to find out. #fempire #fempirecoach #smallbusiness #womeninbusiness #businesscoach #businesscoachforwomen #womensupportingwomen #entrepreneur #workfromhome

Profit Queen (Part 2): 5 Powerful Ways to Optimise Your Operating Model for Greater Profits

by Kate De Jong | Jul 19, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Have you been in business for a while and you’re working your backside off, but you’re not making the money you deserve?

Are you feeling like a slave to your business?

Are you still not able to take a good holiday away because your business can’t run without you?

If so, you’re not alone.

This is Part 2 of a two-part blog series that teaches you how to finally achieve greater revenue and freedom in your business through optimising your Business Model (Part 1) and your Operating Model (this article).

If you haven’t read part one yet, I highly recommend you do (click here). And then come back to read this article as both pieces need to go hand in hand to grow your business.

So let’s look at how you can break through to achieve greater levels of revenue and freedom in your business through changing your operating model.

5 Ways You Need to Optimise Your Operating Model:

How To Run Your Business to Give You the Lifestyle You Desire.

So you started your business as a solopreneur and most likely you had to learn how to do everything yourself because of budget constraints. But now you’re still doing everything yourself while also trying to juggle your client load, win new clients, and keep up with the accounts and admin.

And it’s not sustainable anymore, right?

If you’re serious about breaking into a new phase of healthy profit and growth, you need to make some big changes.

Here are the five big ways you can untangle yourself from the business to finally create the freedom and revenue you desire.

1. Start outsourcing.

To reach profit and scale, you need to start working ‘on’ your business, not ‘in’ your business. You’ll need to surround yourself with a team of people who are reliable and competent and can take the administrative burden off you.

If you haven’t dipped your toe in the world of outsourcing yet, it can be scary, especially if you struggle with perfectionism and letting go.

But you need to find a way to work through this, otherwise, you’ll be forever stuck in the breakthrough phase and you’ll never get to profit and scale.

This doesn’t mean you have to start bringing on employees. Simply start by hiring a virtual assistant for just a few hours per month to do some simple tasks like social media scheduling and posting or payment tracking and client onboarding. If you’ve never worked with a VA before, check out my article: What is a Virtual Assistant and Why Do You Need One?

My advice when it comes to hiring virtual assistants is to go by word of mouth. Work with those who have proven themselves to competent and great value, because otherwise, you can burn lots of money and not get very far.

But when you find a great virtual assistant, you’ll start experiencing the true freedom of outsourcing. It will help you see how you can untangle yourself from the ‘doing’ so you can focus on growing your business.Tweet it

And when it comes to outsourcing, always follow this rule:
Any activity that you can pay someone else to do for a lower hourly rate than your rate, outsource it now!

2. Stop flying by the seat of your pants and start planning.

If you want to grow and scale, you must make annual planning an integral part of your business operating model!

What are your growth targets?

How much revenue do you want to make?

Set some solid revenue goals to work towards. And chunk them down into 90-day goals that you can work towards every three months to maximise your productivity.

Determine the marketing strategy that will enable you to achieve your revenue targets. How many times a year are you going to conduct your main lead generation strategy, whether it be a webinar, or an event, or a challenge? Plan them into your diary so that you can start developing your marketing calendar, which will include the delivery of your follow on signature program.

Or if you have a product line, plan in your seasonal promotions and offers so you can get your marketing schedule aligned.

Planning so critical to business success.

As the saying goes: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Take the time to get all your events and marketing milestones onto a single page marketing calendar and get busy working towards it. The gold is in the planning!

3. Start measuring your performance against your growth targets.

Once you’ve set your revenue and marketing goals, you’ll need to measure your progress against them on a regular basis. I recommend doing this every three months (90 days). That way you can revise your targets as you go and (hopefully) increase your targets upwards.

There’s no point in setting goals if you don’t check in regularly and monitor your progress against them.Tweet it

4. Automate your systems and processes wherever possible.

Now that you’re ready to grow and scale, it’s time to invest in systems and processes that take the administrative burden off you. As a minimum, here are some of the processes that should be automated:

Your client onboarding processes including proposal signing, sending of T&C documentation, payment, client set up.
Your email welcome sequences when clients subscribe to a lead magnet or discovery call.
Your calendar booking system and appointment reminders (I recommend Calendly).
Client payments (use an auto-debit system so you’re never chasing payments).

5. Leverage your time. Move away from time = money.

If your revenue relies on your time, then you’ll need to think strategically about how you can uncouple yourself and leverage your time more effectively. Here are some ways you can do this:

Package your knowledge into digital products like online courses, programs or membership sites.
Move from one-on-one service provision into group work. Make your private service a premium price so that you only take on a small number of high paying, private clients, and the rest you serve in a group format.
Develop other streams of passive income through affiliations or joint ventures.

What are some ways that you could start uncoupling your business from your own personal time input so that you can finally start growing your revenue, independently of your time input?

If you found this valuable, be sure to head on over to Part 1: How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 1): 5 Ways You Need to Optimise your Business Model to Achieve Growth.

Did you like this article? You might also like…

15 Great Books that Every Female Entrepreneur Needs to Read

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How to Craft an Irresistible Offer that your Prospects Can’t Refuse

How to Quickly Grow Your Business with 90 Day Goals

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach
https://katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

Discover the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Business

by Kate De Jong | May 20, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn… the list seems endless.

Did you know that there are now over one hundred different social media platforms? And the list keeps growing!

The world of social media can be overwhelming.

How do you know which platforms you should be spending your precious time and energy on?

In this article I’m giving you an overview of the top eight most used social media platforms worldwide so you can figure out which ones are right for your business!

Firstly, Why Use Social Media in Business?

Social media platforms are a critical part of any business growth strategy today.

Here are just some of the reasons why your business needs to be on social media:

8 Reasons Why Your Business Needs to be on Social Media.

To raise your brand visibility and brand awareness (i.e. to let people know you exist!)
To build your audience of potential customers (it’s so much easier to sell to a ‘warm’ audience as opposed to a ‘cold’ audience who’s never heard of you before).
To connect and engage with your potential customers and to learn more about their key challenges and struggles.
To inform, educate, and inspire your audience and move them up the Customer Value Journey from ‘problem unaware’ to ‘solution aware’ (discover everything you need to know about the essential Customer Value Journey is my article here: How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey.)
To build trust and credibility in your brand. Your customers want to know whether they know, like, and trust you before they’re willing to invest.
To establish your authority and leadership in your field.
To grow your email list so you can nurture your audience and build the relationship with them.
To sell! You can use social media to convert your audience into paying customers.

So now that we’ve established why your business needs to be on social media, the next step is to figure out which platforms you should focus your marketing efforts on.

You have only so much time in your day and you don’t want to spend it all on social media. Tweet it

The best thing you can do on social media is to pick one or two platforms and focus your energy there to start with. Don’t try to spread yourself too thin! Your target audience won’t be on every single social media platform so you shouldn’t be either. Use this guide to figure out which social media platforms you should be using to see results in your business.

The Key Thing to Consider When Deciding on Which Social Platforms to Use

The key question you need to ask yourself when trying to decide which platforms to use is:

Where is your target audience spending their time?

There’s no point in spending lots of time on TikTok if your ideal clients aren’t even on there! Where are your ideal clients hanging out?

The following information is intended to help you decide which platforms to use in your business based on some of the statistics available for each platform. I’ve collated this information from several different sources (see the sources at the end of the article!)

The social platforms below are ranked in order from highest number of users to lowest number of users worldwide. All stats are accurate as at May 2021.

Are you ready?

Here we go!

Everything You Need to Know About the World’s Biggest Social Platforms

1. Facebook

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a platform for social connection. People tend to jump onto Facebook to catch up with what’s going on in their friend circles and to stay up to date with social happenings. It’s by far the most widely used social platform worldwide.

Facebook’s Company Vision Statement: “People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.”

Number of active users per month: 2.7 billion

Who Uses the Platform?

86% of people aged 18-29.
77% of people aged 30-49.
51% of people aged 50-65.
34% of people aged 65+.
54% of users are female.
46% of users are male. A
Average income ranges widely from $30K – $100K+.

Important Characteristics of Facebook

Facebook is the most widely used social platform with the most varied demographics of users, meaning your target audience is probably on Facebook.
It’s a ‘pay to play’ platform, meaning you’ll need to invest some money to promote your business page, your offers, and your content. Of course, you can post without paying, but organic (unpaid) reach is very low these days and building your brand visibility without Ads is a long process and requires a lot of effort.
Facebook Ads is a very powerful platform to use for promoting your business offerings, with good ROI on average. You can target very specific audiences and demographics with Ads because Facebook collects lots of personal information about its users.
Using a low budget and trying to reach a large audience is less effective than a larger budget targeted to a more niched audience.
People are generally on Facebook for social reasons as a form of time out. Your content will need to be captivating in order to disrupt your audience and gain their attention.

2. YouTube

What is YouTube?

YouTube is a search engine for video content. Video is the most powerful form of content these days because showing is more powerful than telling. Plus, it allows you to make a direct connection with your audience. They get to see you and know you as if they’re in the room with you. That’s why video traffic is predicted to make up 80% of all traffic online by the end of 2021. If video isn’t part of your marketing strategy yet, it probably should be!

Plus, being a search engine, your audience is actively searching for content on YouTube and so when you’re using the right keywords, it can be a powerful marketing machine for your business.

YouTube’s Company Vision Statement: “Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world. We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our stories.”

Number of active users per month: 2.0 billion

Who Uses the Platform?

81% of people aged 15-25.
71% of people aged 26-35.
67% of people aged 36-45.
66% of people aged 46-55.
58% of people aged 56+.
55% of users are female.
45% of users are male.
Average income ranges from $30K – $100K+.

Important Characteristics of YouTube

YouTube is a search engine, hosting and streaming platform for video content.
Owned by Google, it gives you access to Google’s advertising platform, which you can use to your advantage when running YouTube ads.
Being a search engine, you’ll catch people who are actively looking for your product or service. You’ll need your videos to use appropriate keywords and tags so people can find your content.
Optimize your search rankings by including searched keywords in your title.
If you prepare a lot of video content (which most businesses should do!), you can create your own YouTube channel for free and use it to host and showcase all of your video content.

3. Instagram

What is Instagram?

Instagram is a free social media platform for sharing images and video content. It’s a great platform for making connections with people and other businesses who see the world in interesting ways. You can find and follow people and businesses based on their content, and if they like yours, they’ll follow you back.

It can be a powerful marketing mechanism for your business. It’s essential for E-Commerce businesses and creative businesses that rely on your customers seeing your visual content.

Instagram’s Company Vision Statement: “To capture and share the world’s moments.”

Number of active users per month: 1 billion

Who Uses the Platform?

67% of people aged 18-29.
47% of people aged 30-49.
23% of people aged 50-64.
8% of people aged 65+.
51% of users are female.
49% of users are male
60% of users earn $100K+ (more affluent platform).

Important Characteristics of Instagram

Instagram is for visual content, including infographics, photos, and video.
Instagram is owned by Facebook so you have access to the same extensive user base and advertising platform. Ads can be run across both platforms simultaneously for a wider reach.
Instagram posts can be directly cross-posted to Facebook.
It’s one of the best platforms for E-Commerce and creative businesses.
Instagram Reels are now providing strong competition to TikTok for animated videos.
Instagram is a great platform to directly engage with your followers and to have conversations with them in direct messages.

4. TikTok

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos. The app is used by people as an outlet to express themselves through singing, dancing, comedy, and lip-syncing, and allows users to create videos and share them across a community. It’s starting to get more and more traction with businesses as a way to connect with their audience.

TikTok’s Company Vision Statement: “TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy.”

Number of active users per month: 800 million

Who Uses the Platform?

41% of users are aged between 16-24 years old.
Further stats pending. TikTok was only established in 2018.

Important Characteristics of TikTok

TikTok is a mobile app for creating and sharing short videos.
TikTok’s mission is “to capture and present the world’s creativity, knowledge, and precious life moments, directly from the mobile phone”.
The platform is great for business and content creators, allowing you to engage with customers through video, in short, bite-sized clips.
You can share your business core content messages in marketing videos.
Your TikTok videos can be shared across your other social platforms.
Younger users create and share animated videos that commonly include singing, dancing, lip-syncing, and comedy.
Adult and business usage is growing: In less than 18 months, adult users grew 5.5 times from 2018.
This platform is one to watch!

5. SnapChat

What is SnapChat?

Snapchat is a popular messaging app that lets users exchange pictures and videos (called snaps) that disappear after they’re viewed. Some businesses use it as a way to directly connect with their potential customers.

SnapChat’s Company Vision Statement: “Snapchat is an app that empowers people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. It’s the easiest and fastest way to communicate the full range of human emotions with your friends without pressure to be popular, pretty, or perfect.”

Number of active users per month: 381 million

Who Uses the Platform?

53% of people aged 15-25.
34% of people aged 26-35.
18% of people aged 36-45.
11% of people aged 46-55.
4% of people aged 56+.
61% of users are female.
38% of users are male.

Important Characteristics of SnapChat

Snapchat is a mobile app for Android and iOS devices designed mainly for social interaction in a casual and fun way.
It’s about being authentic, not picture-perfect.
Photos and videos that you take in Snapchat are known as ‘snaps’ that can be posted, sent, and received.
Known as the app for #RealFriends, ‘snaps’ are lighthearted and creative.
87% of users are younger than 35. So if your target audience is young, Snapchat is an essential platform for your business.
One of the core concepts of the app is that any picture or video or message you send is only accessible for a short time before it disappears. This temporary nature is designed to encourage a more spontaneous and natural flow of interaction.

6. Twitter

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as “tweets”. Its intention is to provide a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. “Tweets” can contain photos, videos, links, and text. These messages are posted to your profile, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

Twitter’s Company Vision Statement: “The mission we serve as Twitter, Inc. is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers. Our business and revenue will always follow that mission in ways that improve – and do not detract from – a free and global conversation.”

Number of active users per month: 330 million

Who Uses the Platform?

38% of people aged 18-29.
26% of people aged 30-49.
17% of people aged 50-64.
7% of people aged 65+.
50% of users are female.
50% of users are male.
Largest demographic (41%) is households with annual income > $75,000.

Important Characteristics of Twitter

Twitter is a live, interactive platform where users post and view short ‘tweets’ of up to 280 characters.
The platform is very popular with academics, students, policymakers, politicians, celebrities, news channels, and the general public.
You can reach practically any person or business simply by tagging them in a Tweet.
You can witness real-time conversations and debates between people around the world.
Stay up to date with the latest trends, conversations, and news-making headlines via their trending notifications.
We recommend you only use Twitter for your business if you know that your target audience is actively spending time on there.

7. Pinterest

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a search engine and visual discovery platform for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, personal growth and development guidance, business growth resources, and so much more. You can create your own ‘pins’ which lead to different articles on your website. It’s a great tool to drive traffic to your website when you use the right keywords and hashtags in your pins. It’s a very powerful – and often underestimated – platform for showcasing your expertise and growing your email database and your brand visibility.

Pinterest’s Company Vision Statement: “Our mission is to help empower people to discover things they love and inspire them to go do those things in real life.”

Number of active users per month: 322 million

Who Uses the Platform?

34% of people aged 18-29.
35% of people aged 30-49.
27% of people aged 50-65.
15% of people that are 65+.
70% of users are female.
30% of users are male.
Largest demographic (41%) is households with annual income > $75,000 (same as Twitter).

Important Characteristics of Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual search engine and is an essential platform for those in the creative industry (jewelry, home design, crafts, clothing etc).
The platform helps people to find and do the things that they love, from deciding what to do for dinner to planning a holiday or redecorating their home.
A ‘pin’ is a long vertical visual image (600 x 900 pixels) containing visual content that is connected to a URL.
Users can click through to the pin owner’s website.
All businesses can use Pinterest to showcase their products and services, share their content, educate and inspire their audience, build their brand visibility, and grow their email database with a compelling lead magnet that requires an opt-in.
The visual element of the platform helps you to tell your brand story.
Pinterest is a source of inspiration for many entrepreneurs to launch their business, and for others, it’s the tool to help them grow.
Being a search engine, Pinterest is connected to Google and can drastically increase your SEO when you use your power keywords regularly.

8. LinkedIn

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network on the internet. You can use LinkedIn to showcase your expertise, market your business, find the right job or internship, connect and strengthen professional relationships, and learn the skills you need to succeed in your career. It’s sometimes referred to as ‘Facebook for Professionals’.

LinkedIn’s Company Vision Statement: “To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

Number of active users per month: 260 million

Who Uses the Platform?

21% of people aged 18-24.
60% of people aged 25-34.
17% of people aged 35-54.
3% of people aged 55+.
43% of users are female.
57% of users are male.
60% of users earn $100K+ (more affluent platform).

Important Characteristics of LinkedIn

Known by some as ‘Facebook for professionals’.
Originally developed as a recruitment platform, it’s now widely used by professionals to connect with other professionals, engage with each others’ content, and market their services.
The platform is used predominantly by professional service businesses. If your target audience is professionals, you should definitely be marketing yourself on LinkedIn.
It’s currently the most effective platform for organic reach, engagement, and lead generation (with 59% lead generation rate compared to Facebook’s 24% – Ref. 2).
You should definitely be on LinkedIn if you run a professional service business.
The platform is less relevant for trades, E-Commerce, and product businesses.
Algorithms give preference to those who engage regularly on the platform with other peoples’ content.
Make engagement part of your daily strategy if LinkedIn is part of your marketing strategy.

Whew! You made it!

You should be much clearer now about the qualities of each platform and which ones are best for your business.

Everything You Need to Know About the World’s Biggest Social PlatformsTweet it

Here are some key takeaway messages:

You should probably have a presence on Facebook, given that your audience is most likely on there (most people are!).
All professional service businesses should have a visible presence on LinkedIn.
If your brand is creative or highly visual, you should be on Instagram and Pinterest.
If your target audience is young (<35 years old), you should be on TikTok and Snapchat.
Video content gets by far the most engagement on social media, so make it part of your content strategy. Take some time to learn how to create animated, visual content on platforms like Instagram ‘Stories’ and ‘Reels’, and TikTok, or simply using a tool like Canva. It’s really easy to create short, engaging videos in Canva!

Are you starting or growing your own business?

Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

Did you like this article? You might also like:

How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey

How to Speak Transformationally So You Can Sell More

How to Drastically Increase Profits with a Product or Service Ladder

The Confused Person Never Buys: How to Make Your Offerings Clear so You’ll Never Lose a Customer Again

The Art of Content Marketing: How to Build Your Brand Credibility and Easily Win New Clients

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Professionals
Katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

References

REF 1: https://khoros.com/resources/social-media-demographics-guide
REF 2: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/linkedin-vs-facebook
REF 3: https://au.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics
REF 4: https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/snapchat/131313-what-is-snapchat-how-does-it-work-and-what-is-it-used-for
REF 5: https://prowebmarketing.com/which-social-media-platform-should-i-use-for-my-business/

How to Be Authentic, True to Yourself, and Run a Profitable Business

by Kate De Jong | May 9, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

In a world of paid influencers, polished celebrity profiles, and relentless advertising, consumers are craving authenticity more than ever.

According to the latest marketing research, consumers are craving depth and substance, and less hype. People want “real and organic”, not “perfect and packaged” (Frontify, 2020).

Eighty-six percent of people say authenticity matters when deciding what brands they like and support. To win the hearts and business of your target customers, you have to convince them you’re trustworthy and authentic.

You show your audience you’re trustworthy and authentic by getting real, raw, and vulnerable.

You’re wasting your time if you’re trying to create perfect, polished posts. In fact, the statistics consistently show that imperfect, raw posts get the greatest engagement and build trust and confidence in your brand. My social media post that got the most engagement last year was a makeup-free selfie of me looking all hot and sweaty after a yoga workout, sharing how passionate I am about yoga. People want to see the real you; the imperfect, unpolished you, doing things that are important to you. Your audience is trying to figure out if they know, like, and trust you, and they can only do that if you share the ‘real’ you regularly – your beliefs, your values, and your priorities.

This should be good news for you if you hate all the marketing 'hype' out there. You don't have to follow any formulas or scripts that an 'expert' tells you that you need to follow. Just show up and be yourself.Tweet it

Just show up as yourself with your own, genuine message, and that is enough. You don’t need to dance and jig on a reel if that doesn’t feel authentic to you. If it does – great! Reel your heart out! But if it doesn’t, find a way to show up regularly in a way that feels genuine to you, whether it be through writing, or video blogging and sharing messages from the heart.

You have full permission to be yourself – in fact, we implore you to please be yourself – because you will attract more ideal clients and your bank account will reflect your authenticity.

Because authenticity sells.Tweet it

Your ‘Why’ is Everything

The Edelman’s Trust Barometer 2020 found that 64% of today’s customers are belief-driven buyers. They think brands “can be a powerful force for change,” and they use their wallets like votes to support the ones willing to take a stand.

To build trust in your brand, you need to share your beliefs and your values on a regular basis.Tweet it

What do you believe?

Are you telling your audience about it regularly?

What’s your business ‘why’? If you’re not sure yet, check out my article called Why You Need to Know Your Business Why, Vision, and Mission.

People buy from brands who have a similar belief system. As Simon Sinek always says:

Your job is not to do business with those who need what you have. Your job is to do business with those who believe what you believe. - Simon SinekTweet it

At Fempire, we believe that the world needs more successful female entrepreneurs.

We believe that all the masculine energy (yang) in the business world needs to be balanced with an equal amount of feminine energy (yin), just as the yin-yang symbol reminds us. We believe that until the masculine and feminine energies are balanced – until we have more women leading in the business world, and more women are involved in decision making at the highest levels in all areas – the system will not be balanced, harmonious, and whole.

If you believe what we believe, you'll be attracted to our brand and our work. And if you don't believe that what we believe, our message won't resonate with you, and you'll find someone else that resonates. Your 'why' is a great way to find and filter out those who are meant to work with you and those who aren't.Tweet it

Genuine Marketing Without All the ‘Hype’

So many women who come to us say they hate marketing and selling because it feels icky and inauthentic. They don’t want to be ‘saelsy’. They don’t want to follow a sales script or a video formula to create the perfect ‘pitch’.

And the good news is that you don’t have to hype up your marketing. In fact, please don’t!

People can smell out inauthenticity from a mile away and they’ll cringe if they sense that you’re out of alignment with your truth.

But that doesn’t mean that you can get away with avoiding sales and marketing. As Fempire founder Marnie LeFevre always says:

If you have a business, then you’re in the business of sales and marketing.
– Marnie LeFevre

So you need to find a way to get comfortable with selling, which means getting comfortable with sharing why people should work with you. You need to tell them regularly about the problems you solve and how you can help them find solutions. It’s your duty as a business owner to tell people how they can work with you or buy from you. But you can do it in a way that feels authentic. Show up as yourself, speak from the heart, and tell your audience how you can help them.

If it doesn’t feel genuine and authentic, don’t do it.

Stay true to yourself and your customers will love you for it.

Stay true to yourself, and you will sell more.

And if you need any help, please reach out. We’re here for you.

Did you like this article? You might also like:

The Art of Being Yourself: 5 Ways to Embrace Authenticity as Your Way of Life

How to Maintain Strong Boundaries in Business and in Life

What Does it Mean To Be True To Yourself? My Personal Journey of Finding My True Path & Voice

How to Speak Transformationally So You Can Sell More

The Confused Person Never Buys: How to Make Your Offerings Clear so You’ll Never Lose a Customer Again

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 1): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs
https://katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

How to Make Your Product Launch a Spectacular Success

by Kate De Jong | Mar 5, 2021 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Have you ever tried to launch something and it flopped?

Did you pour your heart and soul into an offer that you were super proud of and yet no one seemed to want it?

We see it all the time with new businesses. And it’s heart breaking when that happens.

But the good news is that it can be completely prevented with a comprehensive, powerful launch strategy.

Where Do Launches Go Wrong?

Launches go wrong when there’s no thought or strategy put into the build up period prior to the launch. Most people tend to put all the thought into creating the actual product or offer itself, without the same thought and care applied to the launch process.

Have you been guilty of putting something out to market without implementing a carefully considered launch process? I know I have, especially in the early days. And then we wonder why it doesn’t convert.

A launch is when you’re going out to the market and asking people to buy something from you.

Let’s think of a dating analogy. Just like you can’t ask someone to sleep with you before you’ve been on several amazing dates, you also can’t ask someone to buy from you when you haven’t spent time romancing them or allowing them to get to know you.

You might have heard of this quote or similar before.

One of the biggest mistakes most businesses make is they’re walking around trying to sleep with complete strangers.

– Sabri Suby

It sounds a bit harsh, but this quote is metaphorically very true with any marketing strategy and it’s especially true for launching!

Did you know that most people need at least 7-20 touch points with you before they’re willing to buy?Tweet it

That’s because of the extremely important concept in the world of marketing known as The Customer Value Journey (read all about it here: How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey). The Customer Value Journey leads your prospects through a series of touch points that are designed to ‘romance’ and warm up your prospects. The different touch points help you to build a relationship with your audience, establish trust and credibility, and generate a willingness and desire in your prospects to buy from you.

People need to know, like, and trust you before they’re willing to buy from you. And a great launch strategy will help you do just that. Tweet it

If you launch to an audience that hasn’t been warmed up appropriately, they won’t want to buy from you.

So How Do You Make Your Launch a Spectacular Success?

There are a series of steps to follow to maximise the chances of your launch’s success. You should start your launch preparation around 30-40 days before you intend to launch, to launch like a Queen!

Here are the steps we recommend you follow.

1. Set a Launch Date.

It’s essential to have a launch date to work towards. Like everything in business, you need a specific goal that keeps you accountable and helps you avoid procrastination. Choose a date that’s realistic but also stretches you a little. Most people work more efficiently with a little pressure!

2. Grow Your Social Followings, Your Email List & Establish Promotional Partners.

You don’t want to launch to an empty theatre! Put a concerted effort into growing your social platform followings and your email database before you launch so that you’re launching to as big an audience as possible. Find colleagues in your field who are willing to promote your offer to their audiences on your behalf and set up a simple affiliate arrangement where they get a small percentage of the sale if the prospect comes from their list. This will get your offer out to much larger audiences.

3. Start Building Anticipation.

Make a public announcement across your social profiles and your email database about when you’ll be launching your product or service offering. Be specific, tell them the exact date and be sure to launch on that date!

Start to romance your audience with high value content related to your business or product so that you continue building anticipation. Provide content that piques curiosity and teases your audience so that they’ll want to see what comes next!

4. Release High Value Content Piece #1: ‘Why’

You’ll need to prepare a series of content (blog posts, videos, social media posts, or infographics) that answer that question ‘Why?’

Why should your audience care about your product? What’s in it for them?
Why should they listen to you?
What’s the transformation and the result you will offer them? Why do they need it?
What do you believe? Remember, your job is to do business with those who believe what you believe (see Why You Need to Know Your Business ‘Why’, Vision and Mission).

You don’t need to give your audience any details of your offering at this stage, simply explain why they need it, and let them know you’ll be providing all the details in upcoming posts.

5. Release High Value Content Piece #2: ‘How’

Now you need to educate your audience about how you will deliver the transformation that you promised in your first piece of content. Present a short case study or demonstrate how your offering works. Answer common questions, which is a way to address any objections they might have. Help your audience to see the big picture and how it can impact their life. Let them know you’ll be explaining the offer in detail in the next post and to ‘stay tuned’; this keeps building the anticipation.

6. Release High Value Content Piece #3: ‘What’

Now you get to announce your offer and let them know all the details they’ve been waiting for! Tell your audience exactly what your offer is. Teach some key concepts related to your offering so that they can see the benefit of your offer. Explain how your offer is different to your competitors. Give them a tip or trick that is really valuable and that they can implement right away. What can you give them or teach them that will make an impact and make them want more?

7. The Countdown

For the final seven days before you launch, continue to build the anticipation and excitement by doing a countdown with your social media posts or emails. For example you could post a big number 7 with balloons and champagne one week before launch, and continue with the countdown 3 and 1 day before launch. Send an email to your database to get them excited about the impending launch.

8. Launch Day

This is when you finally ‘open your shopping cart’ and announce that your product is now live and available for purchase. Your offer should be irresistible, meaning, your audience perceives it as high value for a great price – which it absolutely should be! It should seem like a ‘no-brainer’ for your audience and an easy ‘yes’, because it is. To learn more about crafting irresistible offers, check out this article: How to Craft an Irresistible Offer that Your Prospects Can’t Refuse.

If you have a sales page, give your audience the link to your sales page where they can go to purchase your offer. Or tell them clearly the process they have to follow in order to work with you. Tell your audience exactly which action you want them to take to engage with your offer. Be clear and specific. Remember, the confused person never buys!

9. 7-10 Day Launch Period

You’ll want to keep your offer open for 7 – 10 days, and then close it down. People need a deadline to make a decision, it’s just human nature! That’s the beauty and power of launches, it creates anticipation, builds tension, opens the offer, and then closes it down. It provides urgency and scarcity, the key ingredients to successful sales. People feel the FOMO (fear of missing out) if they choose not to engage with your irresistible offer, which motivates them to buy now.

With a legitimate sense of scarcity and urgency, you’re helping people to make a decision that you know will positively benefit them.Tweet it

Hopefully now you can clearly see what it takes to successfully launch a product. It’s a lot more than just putting your offer out to the market. It takes a lot of work, but the results are well worth the effort. If you can develop a process and templates for your business, then it becomes a matter of rolling out the same process over and over again each time you go to market with a new offering.

Give it a try and watch how your conversion rates drastically increase! And please reach out if you have any breakthroughs, I’d love to hear about them!

Did you like this article? You might also like:

How to Speak Transformationally So You Can Sell More

How to Drastically Increase Profits with a Product or Service Ladder

The Confused Person Never Buys: How to Make Your Offerings Clear so You’ll Never Lose a Customer Again

How to Sell More with Your Three Business Superpowers

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 1): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Professionals
Katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

How to Outsource Effectively So You Can Grow Your Business Faster

by Kate De Jong | Nov 6, 2020 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Have you hit a wall in your business where you’re trying to do everything yourself and you’re becoming an over-worked, frazzled human in the process?

If so, you’re not alone!

You have to wear so many different hats as a business owner. You need to be the saleswoman, the marketer, the manager, the content creator, the service provider or product developer, the operations manager, the networker, the business development manager, and more.

Eventually you get to the point where you realise that you just can’t do it all on your own.

Eventually you get to the point where you realise that you just can't do it all on your own.Tweet it

If you’re serious about growing your business, you need to start working ‘on’ your business and not ‘in’ your business. You’ll need to get serious about training other people up to do what you do, or you’ll be forever caught in a cycle of stress and overwhelm.

To grow and scale your business, surround yourself with a team of people who are reliable and competent, and can take the administrative burden off you. Outsourcing is a critical and absolutely essential step that’s required to move from ‘Breakthrough’ to ‘Profit’ in the 6 Stages of Business Growth.

This doesn’t mean you have to start bringing on employees. You can start by hiring a virtual assistant for just a few hours per month to do some simple tasks like social media scheduling and posting or payment tracking and client onboarding, to get started. If you’ve never worked with a VA before, check out my article: What is a Virtual Assistant and Why Do You Need One?

If you haven’t dipped your toe in the world of outsourcing yet, it can be scary, especially if you struggle with perfectionism and letting go.Tweet it

Outsourcing is not something that women seem to find naturally easy to do. Over the years working as a business coach for women, here are the biggest objections I hear when I suggest to a client that it’s time they start outsourcing.

Common Objections to Outsourcing

“I’m not comfortable with letting go of control.”

“I haven’t got the time to get organised enough to train someone else. It’s easier to just keep doing it all myself.”

“No one can do it as good as me.”

“What if they make big mistakes that make me look bad?”

“How do I trust someone else to deliver my high standards?”

Have you been guilty of saying any of these statements or similar?

If so, find a way to work through this resistance.

The good news is, all of these objections be easily overcome with great outsourcing processes in place, which I’m sharing below.

The Benefits of Effective Outsourcing

Here are some of the things that business owners say when they’ve been able to build up a team of reliable, trusted assistants around them:

“Oh my goodness, I wish I’d started outsourcing sooner!”

“Outsourcing has given me my time and freedom back.”

“I can finally focus my time on doing the work I love and growing my business.”

“I can take a holiday and my business keeps running without me!”

“Other people can actually do things better than me!”

What To Outsource?

The general rule for outsourcing is:

Any activity that you can pay someone else to do for a lower hourly rate than your rate, outsource it now.

Any activity that you can pay someone else to do for a lower hourly rate than your rate, outsource it now.Tweet it

The easiest things to start outsourcing are shown in the table below. Bookkeeping and accounting are the obvious things to start outsourcing if you haven’t started doing that already. Getting someone else to manage your client onboarding processes (organising payments, organising social media access, setting up email sequences etc) will also free up your time significantly.

If possible, you should continue to create your long-form content yourself. In my article The Art of Content Marketing I explain how you can repurpose and leverage one long-form piece of content into many different social media posts. Your virtual assistant can do all the repurposing and scheduling/posting for you, allowing you to spend your time putting your brainpower into a single, high-quality piece of long-form content.

How to Outsource Effectively

Effective outsourcing is all about effective communication. Outsourcing starts to go wrong when there’s a breakdown in communication.

Here are four steps you absolutely must follow in order to establish a successful outsourcing relationship.

1. Set Clear Expectations

Let your contractor or virtual assistant know exactly what you require of them. They can’t read your mind, so you’ll need to lay out all your expectations and requirements very clearly and succinctly. Don’t leave any room for ambiguity because this is where things can start to go wrong.

2. Provide a Clear Process to Follow

You’ll need to lay out the exact steps you want your assistant to follow. Once again, don’t assume they know anything, because they’re stepping into your business cold and they’ll need to know exactly what to do. It takes time to set up processes and procedures, but they’ll give you so much freedom and flexibility once you’ve established them because then your outsourcing can flow easily, freeing you up to focus on what you do best.

Plan out your content calendar and then get clear on what you want you want to post, and when. How many times per week do you want to post, and to which platforms? If you haven’t worked out your content strategy yet, then you’ll need to read this article: The Art of Content Marketing: How to Build Your Brand Credibility and Easily Win New Clients.

Here’s an example of daily instructions that I give my virtual assistant in Trello, which allows her to tick off the items as she goes.

Setting up checklists is a great way to set clear expectations and instructions for your virtual assistant.

3. Establish a Clear Review Process

To avoid any reputation risk, be sure to have a clear review process established with your VA so that you can review their work before they put it out into the world. My VA puts all her planned content into Trello before posting and scheduling it so that I can check over it and do my quality control before she sends it out. This way, you won’t be having to pull posts down if they haven’t met your high standards.

4. Establish Clear Communication Channels

Let your VA know how you want them to communicate with you. Do you want to set up a Slack channel for your work together? Or will you communicate via WhatsApp? Or Voxer? Again, be clear on where and how you want them to communicate with you so you can enjoy a fruitful and productive relationship together.

I hope you found this helpful on your journey to outsourcing.

If you liked this article, you might also like:

The Art of Content Marketing: How to Build Your Brand Credibility and Easily Win New Clients.

How to Drastically Increase Profits with a Product or Service Ladder

How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 1): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level

Why You Need to Know Your Business ‘Why’, Vision and Mission.

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach
https://katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

How to Speak Transformationally So You Can Sell More

by Kate De Jong | Oct 27, 2020 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Cambridge Dictionary:

‘Transformation’

UK /ˌtræns.fəˈmeɪ.ʃən/ US/ˌtræns.fɚˈmeɪ.ʃən/

Noun: A process that results in a marked change in form, nature, or appearance.

If you want to win more clients in your business, you need to learn to speak in terms of the transformation you provide.

What is the ‘before’ and ‘after’ state that you lead people from and to?

What are the results and the outcomes they get through working with you?

Have you ever spoken to a business person who starts telling you all about an amazing product or program they have, or an incredible app they’ve created that has all these incredible features? And you’re left wondering – “But why would I want that?”

Many business people get so excited about the features of whatever they’re selling, that they forget to tell you why you would even need those features. To what end? What results do you get from using their product or service? What’s the outcome? What’s the transformation?

Are you selling the end destination or the aeroplane?

When you want to book a holiday and you go to the travel agent, what’s the thing you’re most excited about? The end destination, right? If the travel agent starts telling you about the amazing aeroplane you’ll get if you choose one service over another, do you really care? All you’re thinking about (if you’re like me) is the cocktails by the pool, and the beautiful beach you’ll be close to – the end destination. I don’t care how I get there. I just want to know that I’ll get there.

It’s the same in marketing.

People don’t generally care about the process you’ll use to get them from A to B. They just want to know that you can transport them from their current ‘before’ state into their desired ‘after’ state.

They want to buy the transformation. And if you can learn how to speak in terms of transformation, you're going to sell more.Tweet it

Let’s use an example from Fempire to demonstrate the difference between speaking in feature-based language and outcome-based language.

At Fempire, we offer a twelve-month coaching program that helps female business owners bring their business vision to life and to finally make the money and impact they deserve.

Check out this image below. In the top section, we’re using feature-based language. In the bottom section, we’re using outcome-based language.

One of them sounds much more powerful, right?

So how can you start to change the way you market your products or services to be much more outcome-focused? Learn to speak transformationally, and you’ll start to sell more.

Try it and see for yourself.

Did you like this article? You might also like:

How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey

How to Sell More with Your Three Business Superpowers

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 2): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level

How to Start Your Own Business: 3 Things You Need to Know

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach
https://katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

How to Drastically Increase Profits with a Product or Service Ladder

by Kate De Jong | Oct 23, 2020 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Repeat customers are highly profitable.

If you want to create a significant increase in your revenue quickly, focus your time and efforts on encouraging repeat purchases from your existing clients. Getting happy customers to come back and buy again is more valuable and cost-effective than constantly acquiring new ones. And a product or service ladder will help you do this.

In this article, I’m going to explain why repeat customers are profitable and how you can encourage repeat purchases in your own business.

Why Are Repeat Customers Profitable?

Did you know that most businesses spend more than 80% of their marketing budget on the acquisition of new clients?

Repeat customers are highly profitable because there's no cost to acquire the customer. All the revenue goes towards your profits. Research by the Harvard Business Review shows that a 5% increase in customer retention results in a 25 - 95% increase in profitability.Tweet it

And while repeat purchases only make up 8% of purchases (according to statistics from the online world), they happen to result in 41% of revenue.

According to smile.io:

A returning customer spends three times more than a first-time buyer, and a loyal customer spends five times more.

This is because repeat customers are already familiar with and comfortable with your brand.

It all comes down to trust and confidence in you and your brand.

If you haven’t heard of the Customer Value Journey before, it’s a process where you turn a stranger from not knowing you exist into a loyal brand advocate. It’s a very reliable and essential process that you need to have in place to help your new prospects develop trust in your brand. But it’s also lengthy and takes time. The customer value journey is powerful but it’s also the reason why customer acquisition is costly, because build trust and confidence takes time and money.

Encouraging repeat purchases from existing happy clients allows you to avoid the expensive costs of customer acquisition and puts more profits in your pockets.Tweet it

What is a Product or Service Ladder?

A product or service ladder is a range of products or services rising in price and value. A higher price gives your clients more features and benefits.

One way to do this is to make your entry-level products or services (bottom of the ladder) free or relatively cheap. If your customer is happy and they feel they’ve received value, they’ll come back for more. And your profits increase easily as a result.

See Fempire’s service ladder below.

Your product or service ladder makes it easy to start small and build trust so that it’s easy to come back for more.

Your product ladder must give your customers the opportunity to take one step at a time.Tweet it

Each step of your ladder builds trust.
And when you trust that someone is going to provide you with value, you’re likely to come back for more.

How to Create Your Product or Service Ladder

If you’re already in business with one or two products or services, you can break them up into smaller products or services, or offer a ‘starter’ version.

What’s a way that someone can experience your work and the value it provides for a relatively small cost? Or for free?

For example, if you offer virtual assistance services, perhaps your signature offering might be a full social media management package including content creation (e.g. blog), graphics creation, captions, hashtags, and social media post scheduling. But not everyone is ready or financially able to jump into this big offering. Perhaps your ‘starter’ package could be comprised of graphics creation and post scheduling only. And once your clients recognise the value and freedom it gives them, they might want to progress onto one of your more comprehensive packages.

If you’re selling physical products, you could offer your products in a range of bundles, for example, starting with a single item, and then bundles of three or larger, each bundle providing more value than the next as you move up the ladder.

If you haven’t yet gone through the process of productisation for your products and services, check out this blog article How to Make Your Offerings Clear with Productisation and be sure to do this as well. It will help you set up your product ladder and be clear about what you’re offering at each step.

How will you set up your product or service ladder to maximise your profits?

I hope this article has helped you. You might also like:

How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey

How to Sell More with Your Three Business Superpowers

How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 2): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level

How to Start Your Own Business: 3 Things You Need to Know

Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach
https://katiedejong.com
kated@fempirecoach.com.au

How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey

by Kate De Jong | Oct 16, 2020 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Do you need more clients? More leads or sales?

If so, it’s likely you need to optimise your Customer Value Journey.

One of the biggest mistakes most businesses make is they’re walking around trying to sleep with complete strangers.
– Sabri Suby

This might sound harsh, but metaphorically it’s very true.

Has this happened to you before? You go to a lot of trouble to create a great product or service offering that delivers value and transformational results for your client, and you’re super excited to put it out to the market. So you send your great offer out to your email list and post it all across your social media channels multiple times. And then you wait with bated breath for the clients to start rolling in.

Except all you hear is … crickets.

If that’s happened to you before, you’re not alone. It’s a very common problem that first-time business owners encounter. And it’s completely normal that no one responds to your offer if you haven’t yet taken the time to move your leads and prospects through a powerful Customer Value Journey.

In this article, I’m explaining what the Customer Value Journey is and why you need one.

A Customer Value Journey is a step-by-step process that attracts and converts prospects into paying clients and keeps them coming back. It's an invaluable digital marketing tool that helps business owners improve their conversions, their sales, and their Return on Investment (ROI) - definition by ViralSolutions.net #digitalmarketing #sales.Tweet it

Marketing and selling is all about building relationships

People only buy from people they know, like, and trust.Tweet it

When was the last time you bought something from someone who you don’t know or trust? I’m guessing you’re like the rest of us, and you’ve never done that.

It takes time to build a relationship and there are roughly eight different stages.

You know how it goes when you meet someone you like. You might first invite them for a coffee, and if that goes well you might invite them out for dinner, and if that goes well you might do that a few more times before inviting them back to your place, and so on.

If you were to invite someone back to your place before you even know them, that would be creepy! You need to build the relationship slowly. And the exact same is true for marketing. You need to give people time to get to know, like, and trust you before you start asking them to buy from you.Tweet it

The diagram below shows the eight different stages of a human relationship, which coincides with the eight different stages of the customer value journey in marketing.

Both are a process of building a relationship naturally and organically. If you try to skip a step, it feels weird for everyone involved.

Figure 1: The 8 Stages of Relationships & Marketing

So how do you apply this to your marketing?

You’ll need to provide different types of content during each different phase of the customer value journey with the intention to move them one step further along.

Below is an overview of how you might apply the different steps to your marketing strategy (courtesy of Caffeinate Digital).

Figure 2. The Customer Value Journey – courtesy of Caffeinate Digital

Phase-Relevant Content Types

Here are the different stages and the different types of content you can use to organically move prospects along the customer value journey. The content is divided into ‘top of funnel’ strategies, ‘middle of funnel’ strategies, and ‘bottom of funnel’ strategies.

Discover the different types of content to use during the different phases of the Customer Value Journey in order to easily generate more leads and paying clients. #digitalmarketing #customervaluejourney #marketing #fempire #smallbusiness #businesscoach #businesscoachforwomen #entrepreneur #womensupportingwomen

Figure 3: Content Marketing and the Customer Value Journey

Now let’s look at the eight different stages of the Customer Value Journey in detail.

The 8 Stages of the Customer Value Journey

(adapted from Digital Marketer’s Customer Value Journey)

Step 1: Make Your Prospects Aware

The first step is to make your customers aware that you exist and that they have a problem that you can solve. During this phase, you’re simply educating, entertaining, and inspiring your audience. It’s all about giving value with no strings attached. You’re not asking them to spend any time or money with you, you’re simply giving lots of value for free.

In terms of human relationships, this is like the ‘romancing’ phase (see Figure 1).

The types of content to offer during this phase include blog posts, free events, social media posts, podcasts, video, etc (see Figure 3).

Step 2: Get Your Prospects to Engage

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, engagement is defined as “emotional involvement or commitment”. During this phase, you’re still continuing to show up and offer great value with no strings atttached, because your prospects are still trying to figure out if they know, like, and trust you. If they’re liking what they see so far, you’ll see your prospects engaging with your posts and your content, either through clicks, comments or shares. They’re starting to trust you.

If you can prove your value during this phase (by giving lots of great value), then they’re more likely to want to spend time or money with you, which comes during the ‘subscribe’ phase (next).

Your goal in this phase is to keep giving great value and informing your audience about how you solve the different challenges they may have so they’ll feel more compelled to get involved with you and your brand.

Step 3: Ask Them to Subscribe

As Digital Marketer says: “When someone likes their experience with your brand, trust begins to build. Once that happens, it’s time to ask for a small commitment – subscribing – and giving you permission to email them.”

In this phase, you offer them a lead magnet (something of high value that they can download for free), in exchange for their contact details. This allows you to continue marketing to them via email, further nurturing the relationship with them, and further building the trust and confidence in your brand.

You offer something they want, they fill out a form to get it. It’s that simple.Tweet it

There’s just one problem. Today, people are careful about giving out their email address. You have to offer something valuable that makes it worth their while. Think webinars, free samples of a product or chapters of a book, demos, reports, and guides.

You offer something they want, they fill out a form to get it. It’s that simple.

Step 4: ‘Convert’ – Make Them a Customer

As the team at Digital Marketer says: “If your free offers have enough value (answering questions and solving problems), your prospects are often eager to deepen their commitment. They just need to know how.

The best way to do that is through an entry-point offer—a high-value, low-risk offer that lets them sample your wares without putting too much skin in the game.

To be clear, an entry-point offer is not designed to make you a profit. Its only purpose is to create a smooth transition from subscriber or follower to a paying customer. You can focus on profits later in the customer value journey.

Now, in this phase, you only need to ask for a small commitment: say, $8–$20. Your goal is simply to cover your costs in acquiring the customer.

Step 5: Get Them Excited About Your Brand

This is all about creating memorable experiences for your new customers.

As Digital Marketer says:

Buying generates warm fuzzies. It’s a scientific fact.

Buying generates warm fuzzies. It’s a scientific fact. The dopamine from a new purchase gets people excited—which is why the fifth stage of the Customer Journey is to build on that excitement.

How do you do that? By giving your new customer a memorable experience.

Consider offering a quick-start guide… bonus features that surprise and delight… quick wins… any content that makes your new customers happy.

Step 6: ‘Brand Advocate’ – Turn Your Customers into Multi-Buyers

At this stage, your goal is to generate repeat buys and real profits. While your entry-point offer was designed for conversions, your ‘ascension’ phase offers should be geared for profits—because if you’re serving your customers well, they’ll want to buy again and again. Your ‘ascension’ ladder is how you can upsell your existing customers from your core offer into higher ticket items with you.

As a general rule of thumb, the profit margin increases with every upsell you generate, because you have no cost to acquire the customer. They're already a brand fan and advocate.Tweet it

Ascension offers may be simple upsells made after that initial purchase… bigger, better solutions… or “done for you” add-ons.

Step 7: ‘Referrals’ – Ask Them to Spread the Love

Happy customers love to share their experience…

Happy customers love to share their experience, but sometimes they need some encouragement to do so. The cool thing is, once they do, they become even more loyal to your brand.

So, at this stage of the Customer Value Journey, ask people to share their positive experience with your brand by writing a review, by sending referrals your way, or sharing social media posts with their audience.

Step 8: ‘Promote’ – Make Them a Promoter

Up until now, any “promotion” your customers have done has been passive. But in the promotion stage, your customers actively spread the word about your brands, products, and services. They tell stories, make recommendations, and share your offers because they truly believe in them.

Active promotion may be an affiliate or commission relationship—or just a free offer for sending some new customers your way. The point is, it’s a win-win for both of you.

How to Help People on Their Journey

Digital marketing is about helping customers move along this journey faster. That’s why you can’t use just one tactic or an ongoing series of unfocused marketing campaigns.

You need a plan that addresses every stage of the Journey. And you need to think in terms of optimising that journey.

Did you like this article?

Are you starting or growing your own business?

Get your FREE copy of The Fempreneur Success Handbook: How to Start & Grow Your Wildly Successful business and discover everything I wish I’d known back when I was starting my business!

In service to your success,

Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Entrepreneurs
kated@fempirecoach.com.au
+61 424 176 658
www.katiedejong.com

How to Start Your Own Business: 3 Things You Need to Know

by Kate De Jong | Aug 25, 2020 | Entrepreneurship & Small Business

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Words are powerful things.

When it comes to marketing your business, clarity is everything.

Marketing is not about convincing anyone of anything. It’s about creating resonance with your ideal clients.

Your messaging needs to tap into what’s true for your clients at a belief level.

So What is Core Brand Messaging?

Soft Skills are the New Superpower

Companies that focus on developing emotional intelligence in their employees see significant increases in staff retention, engagement, and productivity.

Emotionally intelligent people are happier and more successful.

The Six Intelligences in Business

In short, soft skills create business success.

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The 6 Intelligences

1. Emotional Intelligence

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2. Personality Intelligence

3. Sales Intelligence

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4. Business Intelligence

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5. Artificial Intelligence

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6. Spiritual intelligence

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In service to your success,

Definition: Entrepreneur

A person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risk in the hope of profit.

However, the definition of entrepreneurship is subtly changing.

Hence the rising number of entrepreneurs worldwide.

The Four Different Species of Entrepreneurs

<img decoding="async" class="wp-image-14606 alignleft" src="https://katiedejong.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-KATEDEJONG.COM_.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="480" />1. Gazelles

High growth is the goal.

<img decoding="async" class="wp-image-14607 alignleft" src="https://katiedejong.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-KATEDEJONG.COM-1.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="480" />2. Skunks

They’re often people who have become fed up with the limitations of conventional company practice and develop a better way to do it, or see something that is desperately needed and go against all bureaucracy, traditions, and resistance to get it done.

“Why dolphins? Because they’re smart and social (they live in cooperative pods) and are one of the few animals shown to be altruistic toward others. But they’re not pushovers: Harm a dolphin’s pod, and watch out!”

<img decoding="async" class="wp-image-14608 alignleft" src="https://katiedejong.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-KATEDEJONG.COM_.png" alt="" width="212" height="212" />4. Butterflies

“These fields are booming because they’re open to anyone: Moms, dads, grannies, twenty-somethings, even teens starting microventures in their basements, cars or bathrooms. As Jay-Z put it ‘I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.’”

So clearly entrepreneurship is no longer restricted to a minority group of high-growth tech start-ups but is infiltrating increasingly into every corner of life including the public sector, the corporate sector, and the small business/lifestyle sector.

If you own your own business, you’re in the business of marketing and selling.

“The ability to sell is the number one skill in business. If you cannot sell, don’t bother thinking about becoming a business owner.” – Robert Kiyosaki

So what is the B.A.N.K Personality Coding System?

B.A.N.K helps you understand why people buy. And we’re all different when it comes to our motivation for making buying decisions.

You’ve probably heard the saying “Selling is a numbers game”

Use B.A.N.K’s Artificial Intelligence to ‘Crack the Code’ of your customers so you can speak their language

BLUEPRINT — ‘Inside the Box’

Typical BLUEPRINT Behaviours

What to do when meeting or working with a BLUEPRINT

Deal-breakers for a BLUEPRINT. Don’t do this!

ACTION — ‘Outside the Box’

Typical ACTION Behaviours

What to do when meeting or working with an ACTION

Deal-breakers for an ACTION. Don’t do this!

NURTURING — ‘Recycle the Box’

Typical NURTURING Behaviours

What to do when meeting or working with a NURTURING

Deal-breakers for a NURTURING. Don’t do this!

KNOWLEDGE—’Engineer the Box’

Typical KNOWLEDGE Behaviours

What to do when meeting or working with a KNOWLEDGE

Deal-breakers for a KNOWLEDGE. Don’t do this!

In service to your success,

“We can either be pushed by pain or pulled by pleasure”—unknown.

Except it appears I read her completely incorrectly.

I was devastated.

The B.A.N.K artificial intelligence can decode a person’s social profiles, website, and other written material to tell you what their personality code is—which means you can then speak and write to them according to their internal values system.

Had I known this at the time, I would have conducted my communications with her completely differently!

The B.A.N.K system teaches you exactly how to first understand and then speak the language that is going to resonate with your prospect’s value system.

If anyone had told me back in my early twenties that I would end up quitting my engineering career in my thirties to become a business coach, I would have told them they were crazy.

Except on the inside, things were unraveling.

I struggled on until I was brought to my knees in 2010.

I was forced to reassess everything.

For me, entrepreneurship has been the path to freedom, happiness, and fulfillment.

And now I help others who want forge their own way.

I’ve had an epiphany in recent weeks.

Suddenly it all made sense.

I struggled as an engineer because I was out of alignment with my core, intrinsic values.

I’m now living and working full-time in my zone of genius. And it feels great. Are you?

In service to your success,

As those of you who have built your own business know, the first giant challenge when starting out is to beat the statistics and establish yourself as a stable, profitable business in the first one to three years.

Start working on your business, not in it.

1. Gazelles

2. Skunks

4. Butterflies

“The ability to sell is the number one skill in business.
If you cannot sell, don’t bother thinking about becoming a business owner.”
– Robert Kiyosaki

B.A.N.K helps you understand why people buy.
And we’re all different when it comes to our motivation for making buying decisions.

“We can either be pushed by pain or pulled by pleasure”
—unknown.

To develop a ‘tap’ of leads that you can turn on and off when needed, you’ll need to enter the world of advertising.
If you spend $1 on ads and you get $3 in return, then you’ll never have to worry about money again.