Are You Making This Deadly Business Mistake?

The Internet is certainly erupting with opportunities. All it takes is an idea and passion to build a website around it, and in a matter of months you could have a real business on your hands.

Curiously, the abundance of opportunities is also what leads many bloggers and entrepreneurs to fail. How come? Because they end up trying to pursue too many of them at the same time.

I have seen it over and over again (and even stepped there myself). The guy creates a site or blog, and after a while the traffic and revenues become decent. He figures that if he creates 5 more similar  websites, his traffic and revenues will multiply proportionally.

Wrong.

By creating 5 similar websites he will be diluting the amount of  attention and care that each site receives. More often than not he will end up with 5 mediocre websites, each earning some revenues, but with no potential to become a business.

If you want to create a real business out of your blog or website you will need to focus ALL your energies and attention on it. Lack  of focus is one of the deadliest mistakes that a blogger or  entrepreneur can make.

At this point you might be wondering: “But I have seen bloggers with several successful blogs, and entrepreneurs with several successful companies, how do you explain that?”

It is simple, they all started with a single blog or company, and focused 100% of their energies on that, until it reached a point where it could walk alone. For a blog, this would be a point where you have a large and loyal audience, so that you can keep it going by writing content only (which shouldn’t take more than 2 hours  per day, and could even be outsourced). For a company, this would be a point where the owner can have managers or employees taking care  of the operational work, while he steps back and only worries about key strategical decisions.

Once you reach that point you could start a second project without the risk of losing your focus.

The problem is that most people start second and third projects way before their first one is complete.

If you are in this situation, do something to fix it. Analyze all  your websites and find the one that has the highest potential of becoming a real business. Then get rid of the others (either by selling them or by putting them on hold), and focus all your energies on the chosen website.

It is a tough strategical decision, but in the long term it will  pay off.

The takeaway message: focus is vital.

Source
Daniel Scocco

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Four Ways to Enchant Your Customers

“I love to do business with small businesses—in-store, online, for myself, for others, for pleasure, for work—it doesn’t matter to me,” writes Guy Kawasaki at his eponymous blog. Based on his experiences, he has 10 tips for making the customer experience enchanting. Here are four:

Staff your frontline with personable, passionate employees. Customers want to interact with friendly people who care about your product or service and know what they’re talking about. “Ask yourself this question,” he says. “Is the first impression of my business a good one? Because if it’s a bad one, it may also be the last one.”

Build a customer’s trust by trusting your customer. If you need inspiration, Kawasaki cites Nordstrom’s famously liberal return policy, which clearly indicates that the retailer thinks highly of its customers. “If you trust me, I’ll trust you, and we can build a relationship.”

Avoid placing unnecessary barriers in the path to a sale. When someone wants to do business with you, make it as easy and painless as possible. “Don’t ask people to fill out 10 fields of personal information to open an account,” he cautions. “Don’t throw up a CAPTCHA system that requires fluency in Sanskrit.”

Deliver bad news sooner rather than later. Even the best-run companies encounter the occasional problem, and withholding information from customers is a mistake—especially if they figure out what’s wrong before you get around to telling them. “[L]et them know how you’ll solve the problem at the same time that you’re letting them know it exists,” he suggests.

The Po!nt: “The single most powerful way to enchant me is a ‘yes’ attitude,” says Kawasaki. We’ll bet most of your customers—and potential customers—would agree.

Source: Guy Kawasaki.