If you know the URL of a site you want to visit, it’s sometimes faster to type it in the address bar at the top of your browser instead of finding it in your bookmarks. Only sometimes these URL’s are soooo long.If you use Firefox, you can go to properties of the bookmark and put a short code in the keyword section. Next time, type in the code in the address bar and voila! URL found!

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6 Steps to Creating a Constantly-Improving Sales System

Sometimes, it helps to take a step back and look at the BIG picture of different areas of your business.  When it comes to sales systems, one big picture view that bears examination is the process by which a good sales system becomes a great sales system

If you follow these six steps with some degree of consistency you can’t help but see increasingly better results from your online selling efforts. Of course, the more consistent and focused you are the better your results will be.

Step 1: Plan

Before you start to build your sales system, give it a bit of thought. You don’t need an exhaustive plan, and it need not take you a long time, but make sure you know what you are building before you build it.

I’ve found that the easiest way to plan a sales system is to create a map, like this one…

If you are a VisiOlo member, you can use the set of template maps we have created for you. If not, no sweat, you can create a map easily with a pencil and paper.

Step 2: Build

This one is pretty clear, right? The next step after planning is building.  You’ve probably already built a sales system or two, but I can offer some advice from my experience.

First, it’s really critical to separate the Build process into stages; write the copy, design and format the pages, set up autoresponder, set up ecommerce system, test. When you are writing, for instance, do very minimal formatting, just enough so that it is clear where the headlines, sub-heads, and text emphasis should be.  For instance, if you want a box around a testimonial, don’t create the box, just put a note in brackets saying [box here]. You don’t want to lose any writing momentum you have built by switching suddenly into design and layout mode.

Second, many of the tasks in this stage are perfect for outsourcing. If you can afford to outsource anything, I would suggest starting with the design or ecommerce system setup. For instance, if you use Rapid Action Profits, John Burnette will do a complete setup for you, including testing, for just $45.  He’ll do a great job and you won’t have any of the headaches.

Step 3: Deploy

Now that your system is set up, you need to turn it on and start driving traffic to it.  For brand new systems, I’m not an advocate for a big ‘event type’ launch.  There are plenty of ways to do re-launches, or special events using launch tactics after you get rolling, but until a system is tested and refined a bit, I think glitches, mistakes, and missed opportunities absorb a lot of the launch energy.  Along those lines, many times, I prefer to have a ‘hidden’ launch before I open up the real thing.  A hidden launch is a private offer to previous customers or members of a certain community and it’s a good way to start momentum rolling for a new sales system.  Plus, you’ll get testimonials and some conversion rate history to share with possible JV partners.

After deployment, there is always traffic coming into your system through your promotional efforts, But the focus of this post is not really traffic generation. The Deploy step is more about getting the system up and running than anything else and it takes a bit of traffic to do that.

Step 4: Measure

Now that you have deployed your system you want to measure your results.  You’ll need data on at least two levels 1) a summary level that gives you key metrics and 2) a detail level that allows you to measure conversion rates for each step of your selling process and also how each traffic source is performing for you.  There are ways to get this data with various free tools, but, of course, VisiOlo makes it a lot easier.  This is, after all, what we are best at.  Regardless of how you get your data though, please don’t ignore the overwhelming significance of easy access to marketing metrics.

Step 5: Plan

Based on your measurements, you should be able to identify areas that you would like to target for optimization.  The biggest improvements come from making improvements to your offer pages — perhaps improved headlines, or a sweeter offer.  But there are many places in your sales system where you can either add offers, build feedback loops, remove extraneous steps, or communicate better. Target one part of your sales system and develop a plan for improvement.  Again, your plan does not have to be extensive, but just writing down a few steps will keep you focused.

Step 6: Optimize

With your plan in hand, all you need to do is make sure the steps get done.  If you do *anything* to improve your sales system after it is deployed, you will be miles ahead of most people. It can be a simple step, but any step toward improved performance will be well rewarded.

Now, simply repeat steps 4 through 6 consistently, and, over time, you will find you can make substantially more profit, and create substantially more satisfied customers if you follow this process.

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Graph Courtesy of TweetStats.com

About 7 months ago, several things came together that drove me to back off (way off as you can tell from the graph above) of my interaction on social sites.  Businesses go through phases and this particular phase was a very inwardly-focused phase for me and my business.  There are times when the focus of a business dictates the removal of extraneous activities, and this, for me was one of those times.

So what caused my retreat away from social media activities?

There are a lot of reasons, but the two most prominent ones are…

• About 7 months ago, we hit a big snag in the development of VisiOlo that required some significant re-tooling of the core functions of the software — this required a *lot* of my attention.
• About 7 months ago, I realized that, while the social web has the potential to have a huge impact on my business, the business itself was not set up in a way that worked well with the social web.  I was spending a lot of time on a low-return activity and resolved to re-structure my business in a way that sharing information on the social web would more rewarding (to me and my connections/followers).

In short, my focus needed to be elsewhere.  But I’m happy to say that I’m now in the position to participate more consistently and bring more value to my network. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with some friends I haven’t interacted with in a long time.

How about you?  Have you had periods, in this socially connected world, where you have either intentionally or by necessity pulled away from online social networks?  What was the impact on your business and connections (both positive and negative)?

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As I completed my last post, which was about operating principles for my business, I realized that It would probably be helpful to explore these ideas a little deeper. To show you how they might look when applied to my business.

Of course, I consider it unlikely that you will use the exact same operating principles in your business, but if you see what they mean in my business, I hope you will consider developing your own operating principles.

You may remember that one of the operating principles is “Focus on the Core.”  Today, I’d like to take a deeper dive into this principle because it is one of the top-of-mind challenges I’ve been working to resolve for several years now.  Without a major sharpening of my focus, I probably would not be here writing on this blog today.

A Bit of History

Let me just tell you where I was two years ago.  I had over 40 ‘active’ projects.  I was doing small business consulting on a fee for service basis, publishing a daily marketing tip ezine, I was involved in no less than 3 joint venture startups, I was dabbling in information products, and I had a big vision to build a new company around a software tool for Infopreneurs.

Oh, and I still had a couple of clients in the corporate world too. In short, my business was a mess and I knew it. I was working way too hard and the value I was providing was spread way too thin to have any real impact for me or my clients.

When I took a hard look at my business, I realized that there was one part that was bringing in consistent income, one part that made sense as the future foundation of my business, and many other parts that just did not fit at all. That’s when I resolved to focus my efforts on the core of my business, and clear out the rest of the projects and distractions.

Out of necessity, I have gotten much better at focus. Now, two years later, I have just one consulting client, and the rest of my focus is on creating VisiOlo (my #1 project) and making it the best it can be.  So, while my business still has two sides, it is much more manageable and I can build a lot more value for the markets I serve.

So, what I really have is two businesses. One is a high-involvement consulting practice where, at this point, I can only handle one client at a time.  I get deeply involved in their business and develop various marketing projects to help build their bottom line.

I don’t really write much about that business, I only mention it here because it is relevant to this idea of focus.  When I say “my business” on this blog, I’m always referring to the second business I run, which is a digital publishing business focused on software.  The publishing business has launched several products and publications, but VisiOlo is our #1 project — it’s the foundation of everything else we want to do.  More about those other products below.

I realize that my idea of focus is contrary to the way many people approach an information marketing business, especially with my strong belief that 99% of micro-publishing businesses (Infopreneurs) should focus on just one niche.  But this approach has served me well and I think it will serve you well too.

As a refresher, here’s how I described Focus on the Core in my previous post…

I think focus, or lack thereof, is one of the biggest challenges Infopreneurs face — self included . Everyone knows about focus in general, but what I’ve found helpful is to look at focus in my company as having 4 different elements:

• • Audience: Who is our ideal prospect? What are their core needs?
  • Best At: What are we better at than anyone in the world?
  • #1 Project: What is our most important project? Is this project a good combination of what our audience needs and what we are best at?
  • Next Step: What do we need to do next to move closer to completion of #1 project?

Given these 4 elements, let me tell you where I think my company is with each.

Audience

This was one of the things that came sharply into focus right after the ‘turning point’ I described above.  I knew that my entire business would depend on which audience I chose to serve, so the decision was not taken lightly.  It was, however, taken quickly.  I already knew that the place were I could serve best would be with the Infopreneur audience.  I did, however, take the time to run some numbers and do a market analysis.  All of the facts supported my desire to focus on the Infopreneur market.  Since then, I can honestly say that we have a great focus on this market as a company, and it is only getting sharper.

Best At

I have to give a big nod to Jim Collins and his book Good to Great.  This one took a while to define, and it is also a bit aspirational (in other words, we are getting there).  Defining what my company is best at was a bit challenging because we are very good at many things — we have a generalists organizational skill set — but we had not been clearly great at any one thing.  Or at least that is what it felt like at the time. But the answer, looking back on it, has been very clear all along.

What we are ‘best at’ is helping Infopreneurs measure and optimize the effectiveness of their online selling systems (make more money with the same or less expense).  Are we truly the best in the world at this?  I say, maybe… because it’s not really a contest.  I can honestly say, though, that for most of our customers we will absolutely be the best in the world at helping them measure and optimize the effectiveness of their selling systems.

#1 Project

Hooo boy, this has been an interesting one and a constant source of dissonance.  It took me a long time to realize it, but I was addicted to the energy, excitement and hope that comes at the start of a project.  I rarely, if ever, said no to a project.  If I had an idea or someone came to me with one I’d literally go from ‘that’s a great idea!’ to ‘let’s do it!’ without much thought in between.

At the same time, I have known that VisiOlo was my #1 project for five or six years now.  Hence the dissonance.  When you have a clear #1, and don’t really have much time to focus on it, you set yourself up for a lot of frustration.

So, it took all of two years to clear out (most of) the clutter but I can honestly say that my company is totally focused now on it’s #1 project.

I have even made the decision to close every other project and discontinue every other product (more details to come on each specific project, and maybe some deals

Next Step

This principle is clearly borrowed from David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology. GTD contains many components, but the idea of defining and focusing on the next step in a project has been a breakthrough for me.  Without this focus, I would have gone crazy about 6 months ago when it seemed like we would never get this project to launch.  Right now, every VisiOlo team member knows exactly what their next task is. It’s a huge productivity enhancer.  I use a mind mapping software (FreeMind) to maintain all of the task groups and tasks. It’s very easy to see what is next and we are pretty good at staying focused until it’s done.

We still get distracted, and make mistakes, but overall we are mostly working on the next step with good focus.

Conclusion

I hope it helps to see how these operating principles work in my business. As you can see, with these for elements of focus in place, we stand a much better chance of success in our plans.

Just by focusing on these four elements we can avoid common problems like… making a product that isn’t suited to the audience, spreading focus so thing among multiple projects that nothing gets done, getting distracted by shiny objects.  If we constantly re-visit these four elements, we generally stay on track and headed the right direction.

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It’s been almost a year and a half since I started the VisiOlo project. And during that time, VisiOlo has gone from an idea, to a concept, to a spec, to a prototype, to a multi-stage beta, and now, to a functioning software and membership site.

It’s been slower than I expected, more expensive than I expected, more intense than I expected, and more rewarding than I expected.  This project has been surprising, challenging, frustrating, and interesting, but most of all, it has had a galvanizing effect on how I look at and operate my business.

One of my old bosses used to say “when you drain the swamp, the stumps rise to the surface.”  What he meant by that is when resources are scarce and sales slow down, that is when you start to see the ugly stuff that lives under the smooth surface of a full lake.

That kind of explains the effect this project has had on my business, but not quite.  For me, this project hasn’t been so much about exposing the stumps as it has been about pushing the envelope of resources and expertise in a focused direction — this kind of push will reveal your weak points, for sure.

So, because this time of year is naturally conducive to both looking back and looking forward, and because I want my prospects and customers to understand where we are coming from, I’ve given some thought to the core operating principles we use at VisiOlo.  These are the ‘rules of engagement’ in our business — they are the basic components of our culture.  These are the principles upon which this business operates.

1. Focus on the Core
2. Prototype and Iterate
3. Consistent, Paced Improvement
4. Share Information
5. Create Indispensable, Everyday Tools
6. Remove Complexity from the Process

I’ll briefly explain each of these principles below, but this will just scratch the surface, so I’ll follow-up with more in-depth posts later.

Focus on the Core

I think focus, or lack thereof, is one of the biggest challenges Infopreneurs face — self included . Everyone knows about focus in general, but what I’ve found helpful is to look at focus in my company in light of four different elements:

• • Audience: Who is our ideal prospect? What are their core needs?
  • Best At: What are we better at than anyone in the world?
  • #1 Project: What is our most important project? Is this project a good combination of what our audience needs and what we are best at?
  • Next Step: What do we need to do next to move closer to completion of #1 project?

If we are clear about who our audience is, and we are focused on what we are best at (as a company), and we are focused on our highest priority project, and that project is a good match between what our audience needs and what we are best at, and we know what our next step is, I feel that we are focused on the right things and the rest of the details will fall into place.

Prototype and Iterate

Nothing beats a prototype for moving a project forward quickly. But, more importantly, prototypes also are the perfect tool for gathering user feedback.  The idea behind ‘prototype and iterate’ is this: the faster you can get a working prototype in the hands of users, the better. This applies not only to new product development, but also to business processes, brands, messaging, positioning, feature development — basically anything you want to create ends up better and becomes ‘real’ faster if you focus on getting the prototype made and into the hands of users. Then you get feedback, and go back and make the next iteration of your prototype.

• • Prove it Early: If it sounds like a good idea, prove it (early) by getting it in front of users.
  • Make it Small Enough to Deploy Quickly: The only way to move quickly, is to start small, so make the first step as small as possible, then make it smaller, then ask ourselves how it could be even smaller.  We, essentially, want the smallest first step that can generate revenue.
  • Iterate Based on User Feedback and Input: There is only way one way to learn how effective a product is, and that is to let our Ideal Prospect experience it and tell us what they think of it.  A little feedback can go a long way to aligning our solutions with the audience.
  • Consistent ‘Paced’ Improvement: Consistent improvement is, in my opinion, one of the secrets of running a profitable business.  But I also like to have ‘paced’ in there because I’ve found that we have to find our own pace if we want to last for the long haul.  It’s all about starting from where you are, then slowly increasing speed as you gain resources and streamline processes.

Facilitate the Free exchange of Information in our Topic Area

I’ve always enjoyed sharing what I know about Internet Marketing and running a digital publishing business and also advancing that knowledge through learning from others.  But, until recently, I’ve not had a really great platform for sharing my knowledge and that of my team.  VisiOlo was intentionally structured in a way that allows us to share our knowledge much more freely.

After the initial VisiOlo launch, we’ve got some exciting projects planned that will give Infopreneurs unrestricted free access to a large body of information about how to sell effectively online.  In a related project, we are considering a partnership with a non-profit, open-source repository of Infopreneur reference resources. If it pans out, it will be very cool .

Create Indispensable, Everyday Tools

A core focus would not be complete at VisiOlo without this key principle because what we are about is creating great tools for Infopreneurs.   But we don’t just want to create tools, we want to create tools that our users would not want to live without and ones they use every day.

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Efficiency is doing the job right.

Effectiveness is doing the right job.

In business, both of these words are about making more profit, but one is about ‘little dollars’ and the other is about ‘big dollars.’

In other words, one of these words can make you a LOT of money and one of these words can save you a little bit of money.

Way to many people use ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’ interchangeably. These words do not have the same meaning, not by a long shot.

Which one is more important to your business?

Why?

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Many executives and self-employed business people often find themselves in a position where they are struggling and they sometimes get stuck there.  Here are the top 10 signs that you need an assistant to turn it around.

1. Creativity has dropped.  In today’s marketplace being creative is almost a necessity in order to be able to drive a successful business.  Competition is fierce and customers are inundated with information.

Protecting your creativity and designing an environment that nurtures it could make or break you in the market place and hiring an assistant could be the deal maker you’re hoping for.

2.  You feel overwhelmed.  Nobody operates at their best when they’re feeling overwhelmed.  Sometimes just being able to delegate some of the busy work can create just the space you need to start working smarter – not harder!

3.  Details are being overlooked.  Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said that “God is in the details”, and certainly projects and tasks run a lot smoother when attention is paid to them.

Having an assistant working in harness with you means that two pairs of eyes – not one – are looking out for the details.

4.   Opportunities are being missed.  If you find yourself smacking yourself on the forehead on a regular basis because you’ve realized you’ve dropped the ball on a great opportunity then you are an ideal candidate for a personal or virtual assistant.

Sometimes self-employed business owners feel that they can’t afford to hire the help they need, but if you’re missing opportunities then maybe you can’t afford not to.

5.  The doing has overtaken the managing.  It takes leadership to get to the finish line of running a successful business.  If you’re spending all of your time “in the trenches” and never get to the business of actually managing your business then you could be in some very risky territory.

When was the last time you devoted a significant amount of time and energy focusing on managing your business?

If it’s been a while, you might really want to consider taking immediate action on hiring an assistant.

6.  You simply recognize the opportunities it offers.  If you’re looking forward to working with an assistant but something is stopping you, then how can you remove the obstacle to making it happen?

Now is always the time to take action.

7.  The busy work is consuming your time and energy.   If you spend your entire day working like a demon but don’t feel that you’ve accomplished anything meaningful by the end of the day it may be because the busy work is consuming your valuable resources.

Beginning a brand new relationship with an assistant certainly has a learning curve for both of you, but bringing your assistant up to speed is an investment; throwing your time and energy at the busy work isn’t.

8.  You have lots of great ideas that you don’t follow through on.   I’m incredibly creative and brainstorming is one of my strengths, so I know that for me even if I had a battalion of personal assistants I’d still never get to take action on all of my ideas, but having an assistant not only frees up more of my time to take action on the best ones, it also gives me a partner to help me sift out what the best ideas are from the ideas that I find exciting but wouldn’t be a profitable use of my time and energy.

A personal assistant can be a lot more than someone to delegate to if you’re willing to develop the relationship.  They could turn out to be your most committed cheerleader as well as your coach and advocate for your highest success.

9.  There are never enough hours in the day.  It can be a lot of fun to be engaged in a challenging life and constantly stretching to meet its demands, but if you never get to end your day feeling like a winner then it’s time to step back and re-evaluate how you’re spending your time.

10.  You’ve reached a frustrating impasse.  If you’re just throwing up your hands and feeling like you don’t even want to play in the sandbox anymore, you need to expand your team.  And maybe the team member you need to add is a personal or virtual assistant.

How could an assistant help to move you through the impasse?

About: Tracy Phaup is the founder and President of the Tracy Phaup Group, a consulting group specializing in custom consulting services for Internet marketers, Professional Bloggers, and Infopreneurs. Affectionately known as the Social Media Marketing Maven, her specialty is relationship marketing. Her many years of experience in Coaching, Consulting and Team Building allow her to bring to bear expertise across mediums and to share her expertise in developing relationships that rock!

http://www.tracyphaup.com
http://www.tracyphaup.com/facebook

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“It is true that what you measure, gets managed. But it’s also true that you should only measure the things that matter. And Google Analytics can often send people down rat holes and many different decision trees — spending time on many things that won’t necessarily have a huge impact”

Tim Ferris – From Tim’s Blog

This is a hugely valuable video for bloggers, but the ‘fact based’ mindset of Tim Ferris is it’s most valuable lesson.

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I’ve found the FireBug plugin for FireFox to be very helpful in figuring out which CSS elements control which part’s of the design. I recently used it to customize the theme of this blog — something I probably would not have been able to do without FireBug and this video from Kristarella for editing the Thesis wordpress theme with FireBug.

Using Firebug for CSS from kristarella on Vimeo.

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An assumption is a proposition that is taken for granted, as if it were true based upon presupposition without preponderance of the facts. (From WikiPedia)

I used to base almost all of my decisions on assumption — business and personal. And I still base most of my decisions on assumptions because assumptions are necessary if we expect to get through the day.  I don’t need a “preponderance of facts” to decide where to stop to get coffee in the morning or to decide what podcast to listen to first because these are not high-value decisions. On the other hand, critical decisions (like what to prioritize in my marketing activities) should never be based on assumption.

You don’t have to base every decision on “a preponderance of the facts,” but important decisions should not be based on assumption.

Here’s the problem with assumptions — they are often wrong.

Of course, right? If you make a decision based on little or no facts, your decision stands a good chance of being “wrong” (or as I prefer to think of it, ‘not optimal’ because a decision can often be OK, but sometimes OK is the result when the result could have been ‘fantastic’ given a slightly different decision).

Assumptions are basically gambles where you hope for winning hand even though you can’t really see the all the cards.

Now making the ‘wrong’ decision about where to pick up a latte in the morning isn’t a big problem — so what if the line is a little longer than you expected or they are out of cinnamon chip scones?

But if you are talking about planning your marketing activities, then it pays to see as many of the cards as you can.

Think about it… in the absence of facts the only way to know if you are on track or not is to wait and see what happens.  The problem is, with some decisions it may be months or years before you know you’ve made the wrong decision.

Take, for instance, the big decision of which niche to target.  If you make your niche decision based on assumption, you might spend 6-24 months working at building a presence in that market, building a list, creating products, developing JV relationships, etc. before you know if that niche is profitable. But with just a few facts (niche size, competitive analysis, etc.) you can greatly increase your chances of making the right decision about what niche to target.  The wrong decision can, in this case, put you out of business.

For every one fact you acquire relative to any decision, your chances of making a serious error decline dramatically.

Like in a card game, a single fact goes a long way. If you are seeking a four-of-a-kind in Kings, and you see another player pick up a King from the discard pile, that one fact will tell you that your strategy is not likely to work out.

If you are trying to decide where to focus your traffic generation efforts, knowing which of your current traffic sources is the most profitable will help you dramatically.

Lately, I’ve gotten much better at forcing myself to make fact-based decisions; especially when it comes to anything that requires my time.  Time is my most precious asset and where to spend my time is among the most critical of decisions for me.

Facts are not always statistics, sometimes they are simply true statements.

For instance, I mostly use ‘true statement’ type facts when deciding what VisiOlo projects to spend my time on.

Here are the key statements that I want to be ‘true’ in order for me to spend my time on a project.

• This project serves the needs of my core audience.
• This project will result in increased profit for my business.
• This project is something that my team is technically capable of doing without excessive effort.
• I have/have not proven the core assumptions of this project through testing.
• This is project is more critical than any other project on my ‘open project’ list.

Now, these statements are usually ‘relatively’ true for my projects — which means they are tru-ER for my top priority projects than they are for my lowest priority projects.  For instance, I may not know (for sure) how much increase in profit I will see for a given project — no one has a crystal ball — but I can know that relative to my other projects, my highest priority project appears to have the highest probability of generating profit.

OK, that is getting a bit too technical, what I mean is when I say “this project will result in increased profit for my business,” what I really mean is “based on what I know today, this project looks like it will generate more profit than other projects I could work on.”

I haven’t really formalized the process, but these are generally the statements that guide my project choices.  When I do get around to formalizing this ‘project vetting’ process, I’ll add a quantitative scale to each statement.  I’ll have something like a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being false and 5 being true.

Hmmm. That would be a nice feature for VisiOlo too, because the more I think about it, I think the VisiOlo’s true role is to help Infopreneurs make the right decisions about where to spend their ‘project’ time.  We do a decent job of providing data about sales systems, but I’m also interested in helping with the decision making and prioritization process because facts without implementation are useless.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/ / CC BY 2.0

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