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No More Wrong Steps How to Make the Most of Each Step You Take for Your Business
Written by: Kim CastleArticle Overview: My first call with a new branding client, Janie, a down-to-earth realtor from Atlanta, GA, began like hundreds before, with Janie saying, “After spending 18 months and $12,300 on designing my logo, collateral, and website, I’m not any where close to communicating my business the way I want to. I’m afraid all my decisions to this point have been wrong and I’m afraid to make anymore.”
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No More Wrong Steps How to Make the Most of Each Step You Take for Your Business
My first call with a new branding client, Janie, a down-to-earth realtor from Atlanta, GA, began like hundreds before, with Janie saying, “After spending 18 months and $12,300 on designing my logo, collateral, and website, I’m not any where close to communicating my business the way I want to. I’m afraid all my decisions to this point have been wrong and I’m afraid to make anymore.”
After several minutes of listening to her get her disappointments off her chest, both of the people she’s hired and in herself for the way she handled them, I told her what I always tell my clients, “There are no wrong steps, only better ones.”
The ability to see the power in where you are currently at in your business lies in how you look at the steps that got you to this point and your vision of the future.
It’s an attitude adjustment of the n*ow and is vital to insuring your success moving forward— especially as you’re developing a brand.
Skipping the rah rah and the woo woo of positive thinking, which is still underrated, he*re are four ways to make the most of each and every step you take in your business.
Every Step Got You Here— It’s easy to see the mistakes and the mishaps that you’ve made as bad when you want to be in a different position. Every person you’ve met, every decision you’ve made, and every wall that you’ve hit has been crucial in establishing your base of knowledge. It is precisely this foundation of know-how that enables you to make your next decision. I’ve learned more from a “D” on a test than an “A”. It’s a fact, you learn more from mistakes than from successes.
The paradigm shift: Success is how you experience each step and not the step itself.
Create a Trusted Power Team— Despite the good intentions of multiple hats wearing entrepreneurs around the world, a successful business is NEVER created alone. By establishing a team of people whose intention, vision, and approach match yours, you will be confident that you have people that you can bounce ideas off of and run decisions by. As you strengthen this confidence, your ability to take bigger risks and faster steps will surprise you and will pay off b*ig time.
The paradigm shift: Assembling a trusted team to help you gain more confidence in yourself.
Know Where You Are Heading— 80% my clients who were fearful of making a wrong step, didn’t have a clear idea of where they wanted their business to be— beyond “I just want to make mo*ney, or “I just want to be famous.” 15% didn’t know that they could choose it ahead of time, and the remaining 5% just didn’t care. This is by far the issue that I find takes down most small businesses today— no vision. Without a clear understanding of why your business exists, your path to get “there” is long, unclear, and plagued with 'mistakes.' By having a b*ig vision, you don’t even need to know the step right in front of you.
The paradigm shift: The small steps in front of you only mean something to the b*ig picture head.
This is why branding is so important in business. Done right, branding sets the path right in front of you by establishing the b*ig picture. Define your brand right from the beginning.
Enjoy the Journey—When it comes to moving forward in your business or personal life, this has never been so true. There are times in my business that I get overwhelmed, frustrated, and even scared— especially when I extend myself outside the bounds of my own closely held comfort zones. But each and every time, I eventually realize how hard I made it on myself needlessly.
The paradigm shift, “every step of the journey IS the journey. If you can’t enjoy that, then what are you here for.”
By combining the wisdom you gained from the past, with your vision of the future, and the confidence of yourself in the n*ow, you simply cannot make a mistake. There is no such thing.
No go out there and take steps, and remember, “there are no wrong steps, only better ones.”
© Castle Montone, Limited
GUERRILLA SOFT STEPS
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Re: Your choice between...
- I will take the $100,000 and double it on it becomes millions before I spend it. Though I am crazy about information, yet I would rather take the money and turn it into a million before I spend a dime out of it. I will do it in 4 steps.
Step 1 turn $100,000 to $200,000
Step 2 turn $200,000 to $400,000
Step 3 turn $400,000 to $800,000
Step 4 turn $800,000 to $1600,000.
After getting the goal of step 4, I will spend the $600,000 on myself then continue to double the millions again. I could then by the book for $1,000,000
Your Intial Mistakes Business
- Hi,
When I started my business I had made a lot of mistakes initially. These helped me in learning the art of the trade and today when I look back, I feel that these mistakes were quite silly. I had made my learnings then and those
learnings have helped me time and again.
Some of the mistakes I made were -
i. Wrong Time Management
ii. Wasting money on glossy Brochures and Business cards
iii. Believing what they taught me at school was 100% correct
iv. Giving too much when it was not required......
I would like to find out what have been your faltering moments in Business when you had started and what/how did they help you grow.
Regards
Step by step approach
- Here's what I would do;
Step 1 - Observe Wal-Mart’s target customers, what does Wal-Mart offer them? How long do they stay? Discover what it is that they might want or need that Wal-Mart doesn't offer, and then write those ideas down. Some ideas to get you started are - A cafe or fast food venue, something for the kids to do while the parents shop, etc
Step 2 - Take that list, and weigh up the pros and cons of each idea, and then select the best one for you. Don't worry about not using all the space.
Step 3 - Start the best business for you, and then release the other ideas to the general market and sublet the rest of the space to those who could fill some of the niches you've come up with, plus any they can come up with. If money isn't a factor then developing the building to suit multiple small leases may be a better option, as it's a diversified income, which is potentially more stable than one big income stream.
Top 19 Copywriting books
- 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley.
2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner.
3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill.
4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin.
7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books.
9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association.
11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books.
12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books.
13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books.
16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books.
17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall.
18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop.
19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley.
This should keep you busy for at least a year.
Enjoy!
Need a book recommendation for writing better
- I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing skills, so I was just wondering if anyone could recommend a good copywriting or copyediting book?
I was actually thinking of reading "The Copywriter's Handbook : A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells" by Robert W Bly [u:w3cg00nn]OR[/u:w3cg00nn] "The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications" by Amy Einsohn. Would anyone know if these books are any good?
Thanks
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