My Favorite Entrepreneurial Tool - Deciding My SWOT

As the owner of four online companies, my job is to sit down every year and decide my SWOT for the next 12 months and then to consistently revisit my SWOT throughout each year and tweak as needed. I base my decisions on my experience and the emerging trends in the industries I serve.

I also network, engage in learning with mentors, and a lot of the time I simply go left when everyone else goes right. I am a rebel that way and it works simply because it helps my companies stand out in a crowded marketplace.

SWOT is my favorite tool to help me understand at the strategic level how to go left when others go right.

SWOT is a business acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

EVERY single company, no matter what size it is, has SWOT.

Success is achieved based on how you leverage this tool. Here is how I apply SWOT to my companies:

* I decide what my acceptable weaknesses will be
* I predict the threats to my business
* I capitalize my strengths
* and finally I seize opportunities!

I have been known to say “yes” quite a few times to risky opportunities even when I have no earthly idea how the pieces will ever fall into place. I know that if I don’t say “yes”, someone else will and that my simply saying “yes” allows me to move forward and signal the universe to send those “pieces” my way.

Your overall goal in business is to communicate your strengths to your current and potential customers via your website and all of the communication systems (newsletters, blogs, podcasts, etc.) you use.

Sheri McConnell is the President of the National Assn of Women Writers and the Assn of Web Entrepreneurs. She teaches online entrepreneurs how to discover, create, and profit from their intellectual knowledge. Get free reports and audios at http://www.nawwfreereport.com or http://www.awefreereport.com

December Inner Circle Mastermind Teleseminar: Why Creating a Membership Based-Business Is So Smart with Sheri McConnell

December Inner Circle Mastermind Teleseminar: Why Creating a Membership Based-Business Is So Smart with Sheri McConnell

Wednesday December 3, 2008 at 3:00 pm CST
(visit www.time.gov for other time zones)

Becoming the center of influence in your chosen niche is an excellent way to build your brand as the expert of choice. An underutilized strategy by many leaders in professional services is establishing your own membership-based business. Find out why the membership-based business model is a smart way to generate more profits and position yourself as the expert in your industry almost immediately.

Sheri McConnell is the CEO of Sheri McConnell Companies, Inc. and the president and founder of two national organizations, the National Association of Women Writers-NAWW and the International Association of Web Entrepreneurs-AWE.  Under the same corporate umbrella she is also the owner of two high-level product and consulting companies: Create Your Group and My Millionaire Friends. You can visit Sheri, access her free article archive, and find out more about all four of her companies at www.sherimcconnell.com. Sheri lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband, their four children, a weenie dog, and two cats.

You will learn:

• The many benefits of the membership-based business model including free publicity, immediate platform, and more
• How to leverage your position as a gatekeeper
• Core elements to consider before creating your own membership-based company
• Key roles as the leader
• How to select your team of professional experts
• What systems you need to implement to run a profitable membership-based company

There are two ways you can access this call:

1) Become a FREE Subscriber Now for complimentary access to the live teleseminar.

2) Become an Inner Circle Mastermind Member for VIP access to the mp3 recordings and CD’s of the month. You can jumpstart your membership today and get 3 months for the price of 1.

Already a member? Just login to the Inner Circle Mastermind Forum and enjoy the benefits of being a member of this exclusive group today like networking tips only seen there.

The FOCUS Marketing Method

Entrepreneurs and small business owners know they need to market their business to make more money and attract more customers, but they often don’t know how to go about it. That’s why my FOCUS Marketing™ Method is such a powerful tool. It gives you specific techniques to make your marketing efforts pay off.

“F” is for Filtered. Concentrate on targeting people in a specific niche market to attract your ideal clients—those people who you serve well and who you are most alike. Think about what types of people you best identify with and what life experiences, interests, hobbies, and roles you might share with them. Then consider whether they are people you’ll want to work with in the long term.

Once you have an idea who your “ideal clients” are, you can attract them with your pricing, packaging, and branding—the image you project on your website and in your marketing materials. You’ll want to filter out people who are not a good fit for your business, such as those who can’t afford your prices, or those who you’ll struggle to get access to, and attract only those people who are most likely to purchase the products and services you offer—the ideal clients for your business.

“O” is for Organize. Once you’ve determined who your ideal clients are, you can create strategies for marketing to them on a regular basis. This means planning in advance what actions you’ll take during any given week or month, such as publishing an ezine, or doing a speaking engagement, or issuing a press release to promote special events and stimulate sales.

I suggest using a large wall calendar that shows month-by-month when to launch new products, have a holiday sale, or offer special discounts to regular customers. By planning strategies in advance, you’ll stay focused on the specific marketing tasks necessary to achieve your objectives efficiently and effectively.

“C” is for Convert. Your organized marketing tasks will attract your ideal clients’ attention and then you can start building a relationship with them. You want to do this so prospects can get to know and trust you, either by subscribing to your ezine, or attending one of your workshops or speaking events, or getting your “freebie” that you give away when they provide you with their contact information.

Essentially, you want to capture their names and addresses (or e-mail address) so you can keep in touch with them on a regular basis. By establishing a connection with these prospects, you 1) more easily convert them into paying customers, and 2) create a bond with your “best” customers who are those people that will give you repeat business, referrals, positive word of mouth advertising, and valuable feedback on your products and services.

“U” is for Utilize. The next step is to utilize a number of marketing theories that will actually help you take your business to the next level. One is the SWOT analysis, which means examining your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats in the marketplace. This requires complete honesty, so you can see what areas you might need to work on personally, what tasks you should be delegating, and what barriers and opportunities might exist—facets of your business or industry that have a direct impact on your earning ability.

Another commonly used theory is the marketing funnel, which simply means offering a variety of products and price points to appeal to customers at different ready-to-buy levels. Some people will move quickly through the funnel to your high-end products (at the bottom of the funnel) while some people will remain at the top for the duration of your relationship.

Another theory is the 3Ps of marketing: promotions, pricing and packaging. You’ll want to review the promotions you’re doing, the pricing of your products and what type of customer that attracts, and the product packaging itself. Many small business owners hesitate to pay for graphic design and other professional touches that can make a huge difference in your income level. Your goal is to attract your ideal clients so your packaging—including what your website looks like and the appeal of your product’s graphics—needs to be designed to attract the ideal customer for your business.

“S” is for Systematic. To achieve the highest level of success, you need to use proven systems to run your business at maximum efficiency. This means: 1) automating certain functions, such as using autoresponders to keep in touch with your prospects, doing article marketing to drive traffic to your website, and adding a shopping cart to your website; and 2) creating a natural cycle that allows you to repeatedly and consistently market to your ideal customers so you can close on sales and resell and upsell to your higher-priced products and services.

FOCUSing will allow you to stay on track and generate new leads on a continuous basis. Let’s face it, your goal is to build an online business with a strong foundation and the FOCUS Marketing Method allows you to do just that.

Sheri McConnell is the President of the Assn of Web Entrepreneurs. She teaches online entrepreneurs how to discover, create, and profit from their intellectual knowledge. Get a copy of her 10 Mindsets Web Entrepreneurs Must Have To Succeed at http://www.aweconnect.com

Want To Use This Article In Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Sheri McConnell (http://www.SheriMcConnell.com) is the President and Founder of the Association of Web Entrepreneurs (http://www.aweconnect.org). She helps entrepreneurs discover, create, and profit from their intellectual knowledge! Sheri’ lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband Seth and their four children. Contact her at info@aweconnect.com or her toll free number at 866-361-9938.