Interview with Zahra Yarahmadi, Founder of BG Financial Consulting and SaaS Pricing Specialist

Interview with Zahra Yarahmadi, Founder of BG Financial Consulting and SaaS Pricing Specialist

Today, I am delighted to introduce Zahra Yarahmadi, the founder of BG Financial Consulting Group, specializing in pricing strategies and revenue optimization for B2B SaaS startups.

This is a new series I am creating inside my blog to bring trailblazing founders, entrepreneurs, and service business pros to you so that not only you get a dose of inspiration but also be exposed to real-life strategies that the guests implemented to grow their businesses.

I met Zahra through a business community and found her niche intriguing. Although she is well versed in all things financial management, she made a decision to strategically position herself to be the go-to for SaaS pricing and revenue optimization.

This led me to reach out to her for her insights on her profitable niche.

My hope for this post is for you to get inspired by her journey and incorporate some of the ideas into your niching strategy.

So, let’s dive in!

How To Create a Value-Packed Quiz that Will Grow Your Business

How To Create a Value-Packed Quiz that Will Grow Your Business

*Disclosure: I am an affiliate of the quiz creation platform, Interact. While this partnership gives you the chance to take advantage of a discount upon signing up with them, I also get a cut directly from Interact. 

#TrueStory – I had resisted creating a quiz to promote my business for the longest time.

I thought it was too gimmicky for my brand, as I wasn’t about to create a, “What’s Your Spirit Animal?” quiz. I thought the quiz craze was going to quickly die down. I thought it was just another flavor of the month that I didn’t need to give my attention to.

So, I warned myself not to jump on this bandwagon only to end up as another case study for allowing shiny object syndrome to side-track me from my vision for the business.

The reason I finally convinced myself to give it a try was when I gained clarity on the benefits of doing so. I realized that a free quiz could potentially serve more than the one purpose of building my email list on autopilot.

More on this later.

Little did I know that starting on my quiz creation journey was going to be one of the few best decisions I’ve made for my business.

By the way, I call this a “journey” because it took me a long time to finish it.

Wait, don’t bounce just yet because I said it took a long time. It’s not that it took me a long time to work on creating a quiz day in & day out. It took me a long time because I had to walk away from this for a few good months before I came back to finish it.

Actually, believe it or not, I walked away from both of my quizzes.

Yep, I have 2 quizzes, and I had to walk away from both of them. For the first one, it took me more than 5 months to revisit it. The second one took me a lot less time, about 2 months or so.

But the good news is that you don’t have to go through the same journey.

How to Maximize Free and Low-Ticket Offers for Your Business

How to Maximize Free and Low-Ticket Offers for Your Business

Let me share a heartbreaking story that fueled me to write this piece. It goes like this:

"Guys listen, to be perfectly honest with you, I'm shocked,” said a bright young YouTuber during one of his live streams where more than 4,000 people were watching in real time.

He continued, "I've given you all the free tools. I've given you short educational videos. But most of you watching this right now don't even use them. I know this because I check the analytics."

He was clearly upset & disappointed, but not because his viewers weren’t buying anything from him. He only provides free content on YouTube.

"You guys are just waiting for me to save the day. If things don't go your way, you just shit-talk in the comments. All you want to know is whether this coin is a buy or that coin is a buy."

"I decided to start this channel (that I'm contributing to) to help people generate ‘generational wealth.’ That's my mission. I don't need to do this for a living. I don't need to do this if you aren't serious & committed."

I genuinely felt for him. I knew exactly how he was feeling.

Here's a quick backstory about this guy.

He's 25 years young. He lost his father to suicide last year. He was barely making ends meet with his construction business. Then he got scammed & lost all of his money in the crypto market.

He only had $400 left to his name & he went back to work to learn how to trade the right way. From scratch.

He stopped watching TV. He cut down on spending time with his family & friends. He was determined to make it work.

And, he made it work.

Niche Myths Debunked: 9 Myths You Should Be Aware of (If You Are a “Multi-Passionate” Entrepreneur Who Wants to Scale Your Business)

Niche Myths Debunked: 9 Myths You Should Be Aware of (If You Are a “Multi-Passionate” Entrepreneur Who Wants to Scale Your Business)

Let me guess. You’re here checking this post out because you’ve heard of the expression, “The riches are in the niches,” or you might have heard someone say, “You have to nail your niche. Appealing to everything is appealing to no one.”

You sort of get why business experts say these things, but you are still a bit skeptical as to how this can be applied to your service business.

Then, this post is perfect for you!

If you are new to me or my business, you may not know this, but I’ve written a few posts about why finding your profitable niche is important and how to go about it.

For this post, though, I wanted to take a completely different approach. The reason is this:

What I have come to realize by helping entrepreneurs find their profitable niches in my business is that no amount of information about the importance of niching down will help if their minds are already fixed on resisting this concept due to their limiting beliefs.

Here, you will learn about 9 common myths among entrepreneurs that cause stagnation in their business growth. In other words, they force entrepreneurs to take a longer route to scale their businesses.

While you go through these 9 myths, I want you to ask yourself if any of these describe your impression on the concept of niching down. Understanding why you might feel this way & what the solutions are to shifting your thinking is the first step on the path of finding your profitable niche.

My goal for this post is to help you remove all of the doubts & resistance you have about niching down so that you can grow your business faster by finally being ready to try this effective way of positioning your business in the sweet spot.

After reading this post, if you feel super excited about taking a fresh look at your business, then I can safely say I’ve done my job!

Keep in mind, whatever I share with you in this post comes from my own experience and from the work I do with service business owners. These are not just theories; these are real life examples.

How to Experience Breakthroughs Under Any Given Circumstance Using Your Word of the Year

How to Experience Breakthroughs Under Any Given Circumstance Using Your Word of the Year

I’m glad you found me here because I’m about to make a bold statement. Are you ready?

This year would be so much worse if it weren’t for
the Word of the Year that I chose to live by.

About a year ago, I brainstormed my Word of the Year for this year not knowing what was in store for us, more specifically, how CRAZY this year was going to be for most of us regardless of where we are located.

Yet, the word I chose was just perfect for this year.

If you are interested in understanding why this matters & how I go about choosing the word that helps me grow as a person and moves my business forward, do check out How to Pick Your Perfect Word of the Year that Will Help You Finally Achieve Your Massive Business Goals in the New Year.

As I said in this post, this is not some kind of cute exercise to do to make you feel like you are doing something. On the contrary, if you take this seriously, you are going to produce the results that you want.

In order to produce results, you want to experience as many breakthroughs as possible. When I say “experience breakthroughs,” I don’t mean for you to sit back and experience them. That’s not how it works.

Instead, what you want is to induce breakthroughs by doing things that you’ve never done before faster and more often. By having your Word of the Year in place, it will help you get through the fear of trying something new and/or resistance to sticking with it.

I don’t know what your year looked like or how hard or easy it was for you, but if you are here because you know you can be unstoppable in achieving great things and you are more than ready for the new year, this is for you.

In this post, I’m going to share my experience using my Word of the Year, “Limitless” and what I took away from it. Then I’m also going to share the stories of 2 fabulous guests I had on my monthly Business Therapy Hour on how they choose their Word of the Year.

Take These 5 Solid Steps When You Feel Unappreciated for Providing Valuable Content

Take These 5 Solid Steps When You Feel Unappreciated for Providing Valuable Content

I see you. I see your disappointed, exhausted face after cranking out content after content. For free.

You consider yourself a hardworking and good student of marketing, and you know that getting your business off the ground by just relying on word-of-mouth isn’t sustainable.

So, you tune into podcasts, read up on articles and follow experts on social media to see what they suggest and what they are doing. It won’t take long before you learn it’s all about “giving away the best stuff” and “engage, engage, and engage” long before making an offer.

You roll up your sleeves and start creating content even though the process is scary and uncomfortable. You press on by navigating through fear of judgment, imposter syndrome, the dreaded feeling of how you look on camera…(or how much you hate your own voice). You are a trooper.

But…the problem is…it’s not working. You aren’t getting any traction, let alone inquiries for hiring your business. You wonder, “What am I doing wrong?! I’m grinding myself into the ground by creating content!”

You find yourself feeling resentful. Your brain is fried to the point where it’s crispy. You are on the edge of giving it all up.

The good news - You are here. The bad news - I’m going to tell you that you have been somewhat misinformed. But I won’t just leave you there. I am going to tell you what to do. So, I think that’s still good news.

Just to be clear, the advice of “giving away the best stuff,” and “engage & don’t sell” isn’t wrong. What’s wrong is your understanding of doing that at which stage of your business and for whom. This, in my strong opinion, is not explained well enough by those experts. We’ll get into that in a minute.

Now take a deep breath & stop whining. We have work to do.

Business Continuity Plan 101: The Top 11 Positive & Resilient Moves to Make During Hard Times Based on the 5R’s of Risk Management

Business Continuity Plan 101: The Top 11 Positive & Resilient Moves to Make During Hard Times Based on the 5R’s of Risk Management

“We are more often frightened than hurt;
and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”

— Seneca

9 out of 10 business owners I encounter, their answer to this question is a big, fat “no.” Can you guess what THE question is?

“Do you have a contingency plan in place?” – This is one of my questions that is part of the initial form everyone must fill out when they come through my doors.

Believe it or not, this to me is perfectly understandable considering that the past several years have been somewhat stable (in the US.) But this also calls for a big wake up call. Many of the things you can do to bulletproof your business are incredibly easy to do while things are seemingly normal.

The biggest reason is that you aren’t under pressure. This allows you to do all of the business continuity planning (a.k.a. contingency planning) with ease. This is the reason having a regularly scheduled CEO day on a monthly or quarterly basis is highly recommended so that you get to work “ON” (and not “IN”) your business.

For more about how to conduct one, you can check out this post.

If you are finding this post because your business has been hit by any of these risk factors, do not despair:

● Macro/Micro Economic Factors

● Technology Threats

● Pandemic/Epidemic

● Natural Disaster

● New Competition

● Government Policy/Regulation Changes

This post is not to shame or guilt you about the fact that you may not have a business continuity plan in place. This is about giving you the easy steps you can take right now to have the initial one ready to go.

Should You Stay a Solopreneur? - The Definitive Guide to Deciding Whether to Scale or Not to Scale Your Service Business in Under 1 Hour

Should You Stay a Solopreneur? - The Definitive Guide to Deciding Whether to Scale or Not to Scale Your Service Business in Under 1 Hour

“Should I stay a solopreneur or should I build a full-fledged firm (or an agency or a company)?

This is a $100K question.

Why $100K?

As I’ve explained in my previous post, “The Ultimate Roadmap: How to Instantly Reduce the Amount of Uncertainty in Your Entrepreneurial Journey,” you can make up to $100K without a solid business model or structure or even a clear long-term vision.

You don’t believe me?

Well, all I can tell you is that I’ve seen countless amounts of people who have done it. Either you take my word for it, or don’t believe me. Your choice.

But here is the thing. Once you reach this revenue mark consistently for more than 2 years or so, possibly up to $200K, you will have to face a question like this one to gain clarity on “where to go from here?”

The good news is this is great timing to ask yourself this question for 3 reasons:

1. You have enough confidence at this point that your business generates revenue. In other words, you have your proof of concept down.

2. It’s unlikely that you are in a dire, survival mode, so you can spend some quality time making a sound business decision.

3. It’s not too late to clean up your business that grew organically, without a massive cost, to mold your business into your desired version.

To top it off, I’m making this outlandish claim that you will be able to make this decision in under 1 hour after reading this post.

Yep, you heard me. Under 1 hour.

Any successful entrepreneurs you may look up to will tell you this, your business growth is heavily dependent upon how fast you can make sound business decisions (and take required action accordingly.)

It’s because being stuck in the space of indecisiveness is the silent killer of all businesses as it causes stagnation. Money, in case you didn't know, loves speed and hates stagnation. This is why I’ve designed this post to ensure that you will be able to make a quick but solid decision for your business.

Here’s the spoiler alert:

Abundant Selling: How to Fill Up Your Pipeline Without Selling Like the Rest Pt. 2

Abundant Selling: How to Fill Up Your Pipeline Without Selling Like the Rest Pt. 2

Many of you seemed to love the “Abundant Selling” approach that cuts sleaziness & awkwardness out of your sales process. Not only that, you feel truly inspired to get out there and talk about what you do with full confidence.

Today, I’m jazzed about bringing you part 2 of this concept so that you can continue building up your customer pipeline.

By the way, the juiciest part of this post will be my 3 secret tips at the end, so don’t forget to check that out!

In case you haven’t read “Abundant Selling Pt. 1,” go there first (link) & come back to this because if you don’t start off right, the rest of the steps won’t add any value to your effort. Trust me on this one.

Just to recap, the entire cycle of the Abundant Selling framework looks like this:

Be Seen (Cultivate Curiosity)

Invite (Extract & Learn)

Offer Possibilities (Offer Beyond Their Desires)

Part 1 was all about “cultivating curiosity” by executing the S.O.S. method. I don’t care if you are an extrovert or introvert. Increasing your chance of being seen is the most optimal way to avoid coming across as sleazy or awkward. And, there are many “introvert-friendly” business activities you can do to protect your energy level.

Through the S.O.S. Method, you are basically doing your part by simply showing up while allowing people to decide whether they want to know more about how you help others through your business.

That was part 1.

The next step, the step we are going to cover today is Invite. As I previously outlined, even here at this stage, you don’t have to feel obligated to sell or make an offer.

Instead, consider this step to be the Intel-Gathering stage by extracting information from people you are interacting with in more of a focused setting such as video conferencing, calls & meetings as opposed to being at conferences and/or networking events.

The core objective of the Invite stage is to:

One Thing that Gets Your Prospects to Say “Yes” Faster: Closing the Gap Between Value and Perceived Value

One Thing that Gets Your Prospects to Say “Yes” Faster: Closing the Gap Between Value and Perceived Value

There is one lighthearted question I wish I could have asked my grandmother who passed away a few years ago, at the age of 103, just for giggles.

“Hey, grandma. Did you know that young people nowadays don’t mind paying $12 - $14 for a big bowl of quinoa salad? They even eat millet, willingly. Mind you, willingly. What do you think of that?”

Yeah, I didn’t get to ask her this, but I’m not too disappointed because I know what she would have said (although it would have been a treat just to see her reaction).

My guess is she would have said something like this:

“Why in the world would you want to eat QUINOA when you can eat bowls of pearly white rice?! Feed that to birds!”

Bear with me for a few more seconds. There is a point to this story, and it is related to how you can make your prospects say “yes” to your offer faster. I promise. 

Quinoa was never a trendy health food until now, especially from where I am from, Japan. 

Back in the old days, commoners couldn’t afford highly processed white rice, so they ate brown rice. When they couldn’t afford rice - any form of rice - then they would eat barley mixed with quinoa, millet & other hardy grains that didn’t taste as good as white rice.

Even if you are not of Asian descent, you get the idea by just replacing white rice with white bread and how people in the old days would kill to trade their whole wheat bread for a loaf of white bread. 

OK, getting back to the story.

So to older generations, having to eat quinoa is like a punishment. For the rest of us, eating quinoa is a symbol of “I’m taking good care of myself.” 

Punishment vs. A Status Symbol. What a stark contrast! Right?

So what changed? 

Suck at Leading and Managing People? Follow These 3 Quick Steps to Become the Boss Even You Would Want to Work For

Suck at Leading and Managing People? Follow These 3 Quick Steps to Become the Boss Even You Would Want to Work For

I’ll get right to it. Most of us spend our early career focusing on sharpening our crafts. Unless you have been specializing in HR (human resources), chances are, you were never properly trained to be the boss that people would want to look up to.

To make it even more challenging, the reality is that most of us have experience working for a toxic boss or working in a toxic work environment before. And, most of us swore to ourselves right then & there that we would never do what they've done to us.

In other words, we are aware of what NOT to do from our own experience, but many of us don’t exactly know how to go about breaking the vicious cycle and what to do instead as a business owner.

That’s not all. Now that you are running your own business, all eyes are on you. You are ultimately responsible for leading your team, regardless of whether or not you have a management team right below you.

This is why today I want to check in with you to see how your people management skills stack up. Becoming an aspiring business leader isn’t fluff or an ego-driven wish; it’s a lifeline that can make or break your business.

Why?

Simple. Being a crappy leader costs an enormous amount of money in your business due to the deadly chain reaction of a high turnover rate with wasted training time, causing low productivity among employees resulting in piled-up, missed business opportunities.

If you don’t want anything to do with this chain reaction (I certainly do not), then just follow the quick steps I’m sharing here to fast-track your people management skills.

Even if you are reading this thinking, "I think I'm pretty OK at this," I still want you to read it to become self-aware of some pitfalls you may not even have considered before.

So, here are the 3 steps:

Beyond Handwritten Cards: 3 Types of Thoughtful Holiday Gifts that are Guaranteed to Wow Your Clients

Beyond Handwritten Cards: 3 Types of Thoughtful Holiday Gifts that are Guaranteed to Wow Your Clients

Just the other day over on Twitter, someone asked for suggestions for gift-giving ideas for her clients. She wanted to thank her clients by coming up with thoughtful and affordable gift ideas, but she didn’t know where to start.

“What good timing!” I thought. I was just planning on writing a post about this topic, so I immediately bullet-pointed my suggestions to test my ideas. Turns out my suggestions were well-received.

So, here I am today to share the same suggestions but more in-depth in hopes of making your life easier.

For all of us, it seems to get awfully hectic once we get into the holiday season. We have gifts for family members, friends & peers to worry about while we plan out our travel logistics and holiday-themed events to attend.

Before we know it, shipping deadlines are just around the corner & the last thing we want to agonize over is…what to give to our clients! Right?

But I don’t want this to stop you from moving forward with this. The benefit of gift-giving outweighs the bit of prep work required, which I will explain in this post.

The good news is that what I am about to share will help you avoid the “deer-in-the-headlights” situation. I know you will thank me later. So, let’s begin.

 

Before Diving In… The Objectives!

The question here is, “Why would you want to give gifts to your clients?”

With anything you do in your business, you want to develop muscles to get super clear on why you should do something before taking actions so that you will use your precious time wisely. This is no exception.

Abundant Selling: How to Fill Up Your Pipeline Without Selling Like the Rest Pt. 1

Abundant Selling: How to Fill Up Your Pipeline Without Selling Like the Rest Pt. 1

Did you like math when you were in school? If you did, you are my hero.

I hated math as a kid. I loved reading & drawing. The place I wanted to live in forever was a fantasy land where fairies existed & I could use magic.

Naturally, daydreaming was my jam and daydream I did. But it all had to change when I was at a halfway into junior high.

I was sick of the public school I was attending because of the many meaningless rules & restrictions that came with it. Stupid rules made me feel worthless as if I didn't know any better on how to conduct myself. I hated it. With a passion.

Then I learned about how getting into a prestigious high school would grant me more autonomy because all teachers cared about was how many students would get into…prestigious universities & nothing else mattered--like how I modified my school uniform, how I did my hair, how I wore non-white socks, or whether or not I wore makeup.

My mom may have lied about this. But I bought it. I bought it HARD.

One problem - I had to nail both math & science exams in order to get into the one I had chosen...the best in the region. My teacher begged me (and my parents) to reconsider. He said I had lost my mind & it was virtually impossible with my grades even if I aced all 5 subjects with perfect scores.

You probably know how this story ends. So, I will fast forward it for you. I learned to LOVE what I hated by gamifying everything. I aced. I got in. People cheered witnessing the impossible becoming possible. End of story.

“Selling” is kinda like math in business. Many despise it. But business needs to sell. No getting around that.

So, what do we do?

My friend, Lisa, coats meds with peanut butter before giving them to her dogs. Clever, I thought. 

Can sales be like that? Can we put peanut butter on it? Then we close our eyes & swallow our pride?

5 Super Effective Tips on Setting Boundaries Without Sacrificing Relationship Building-While Still Providing Exceptional Experience

5 Super Effective Tips on Setting Boundaries Without Sacrificing Relationship Building-While Still Providing Exceptional Experience

Have you ever felt ‘a little off’ when interacting with would-be clients, peers or anyone you met in your circle before?  I have. 

Something about their boundaries that give us wrong signals, but they are so subtle that we just let them slide… Then later on, we realize that we engage less and less with them somewhat subconsciously.

The question of the day is, “What if the way you communicate your availability boundaries is hurting your business?”

Don’t get me wrong.  We can all agree that setting boundaries is key to the longevity of our businesses.  They help us streamline and avoid spending hours on time-consuming (and low value) tasks that keep us away from providing meaningful work.

Dilemma!  I know. 

So, how do we go about maintaining a healthy level of boundaries that won’t hurt the quality of interactions you offer to people in your business?  Is it even possible? 

It is.  Totally possible.

Today, we are going to explore:

1.     Why some boundaries give us the wrong impressions?

2.     Identifying your fears that are messing up your communication about your boundaries.

3.     5 super effective tips to help you implement this successfully.

Before diving in, I want to clarify that this post is going to focus mostly on “time & availability boundaries.”  We are not going to cover privacy, security, and special treatment (favors) boundaries.  These will be another lesson for another day.

Don’t Make These 6 Critical Mistakes When Carving Out a Profitable Niche for Your Service Business

Don’t Make These 6 Critical Mistakes When Carving Out a Profitable Niche for Your Service Business

Hello, multi-faceted creative entrepreneurs with mad skills! 

 

If this is you AND your desire, vision & mission is to build a high-functioning, profit-generating business, then you’ve just landed on a gold mine. I am about to share 6 deadly mistakes that many creative service business owners make while they are on the hunt to discover a profitable niche that they can then double-down on.

 

There are many articles out there that cover steps (usually anywhere between 5 to 7 steps) to find a profitable niche. They are helpful, but no one really talks about the pitfalls that come with the process.

 

You may have already entertained the idea of niching down your wide range of offers before. Perhaps you may have tried by yourself, but it didn’t work out. That’s totally OK.  In this post I will show you why some attempts fail. These mistakes can be avoided so long as you are aware that they exist.

 

Just in case… if you are wondering why finding your profitable niche is so vital to your business, I’ve got you covered as well.  Before reading this post, start with “How to Niche Down Your Services When You Have So Much to Offer pt.1” (link).  This post explains 6 major reasons why it helps you grow your business exponentially.

 

OK, one more thing before diving in, allow me to clarify a bit about who this post is for. Better yet, let me explain this post is not designed to help those who:

1.     have not yet started a business and are looking for one to start

2.     are wanting to find a niche product to sell online, i.e. Amazon FBA

3.     are searching for a profitable affiliate marketing niche

These require a completely different set of playbooks. Instead, this post is particularly designed for multi-faceted service business owners who have existing offers that are generating revenue but want to narrow down (niche down) and redefine their profitable niches.  

Without further ado, let’s dive in.  

Everything You Need to Know About Hiring a Business Consultant for Your Service Business: Questions You Didn't Even Know You Had... Sorted!

Everything You Need to Know About Hiring a Business Consultant for Your Service Business: Questions You Didn't Even Know You Had... Sorted!

I’m almost afraid to ask, but I’m going to ask you anyway:

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the term “business consultants”? 

You might think of Ryan Bingham from the movie “Up in the Air” who travels around the country to help businesses restructure & downsize by firing people. 

Not a particularly good impression.

Or you might think of MBA’ers, whose #1 goal is to get hired by top management consulting firms like Bain, Boston Consulting, McKinsey, Accenture, etc. 

OK, another not-so-great impression, especially if you are a creative business owner.

In a way, these are stereotypical descriptions of business/management consultants.  But, in reality, they can help you find solutions to various business challenges faster. 

From my own experience communicating with small business owners, they often don’t consider hiring a business consultant because of these objections:

1.     It’s too expensive

2.     Their business is not big enough in size to hire a consultant

3.     They feel they need help in other areas in their business

It’s a shame because they may be missing out on spectacular growth opportunities by not teaming up with a business consultant.  Later in this post, you will see why these are just misconceptions about what business consultants can bring to the table. 

So, think again if you thought hiring a business consulting firm or a business consultant was a privilege only available to major brands and corporations. 20 years ago, maybe.  But in this day & age, it isn’t.

This post is a comprehensive overview covering the basics of how to find out whether you need to hire a business/management consultant for your business. 

Let’s Address the Elephant in the Room

Because I do roll my eyes when I see a blog post about why we need to hire an accountant on an accounting firm’s website and/or a guest-post about why it’s important to hire a social media strategist written by a social media strategist on an online business publication, I get why you might be rolling your eyes reading this post right now.

It’s a bit cheesy.  I agree.

How to Craft Brand Messaging that Resonates & Converts (Without Bashing Your Head Against the Wall)

How to Craft Brand Messaging that Resonates & Converts (Without Bashing Your Head Against the Wall)

Getting your messaging right is the first step to convert leads and prospects into buyers.

Why? 

It’s because your brand messaging can act as a conversation starter.  You probably have heard many marketers use this dating analogy when they explain the concept of know, like & trust, which helps turn spectators into buyers.

“You don’t just ask him/her to marry you on the first date.”

If you have your brand messaging down, this serves as the first date that goes really well so that it will lead to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th date to develop know, like & trust between you and your leads.

Sadly though, many business owners don’t allocate enough time and energy to crafting their brand messaging.  This became apparent through local Meetup events I host in NYC.

There are 3 types of not-so-ideal messaging I’ve picked up on while listening to the event participants introduce themselves to the rest of the crowd. 

1.     Too generic as for what they offer & who they are, i.e. social media strategist, accountant, SEO specialist.

2.     Too clever with flashy words but unclear as to who they help or what problem they solve.

3.     Only list what they sell.

There is absolutely no need to beat yourself up if you are guilty of these.  Trust me, I can speak from my own experience that crafting good brand messaging for your business is no small feat.

This is why I invited Zach Messler, a.k.a. “Messaging Guy”, as the guest speaker for my May Meetup event in Brooklyn to get to the bottom of this messaging challenge we all face.  He is the master of helping business owners identify what to say and how to say it so that they make a bigger impact on the world and their wallet.

When I met Zach earlier this year, I immediately liked the way he breaks down the process of crafting messaging that resonates and converts with simple steps.  After checking out his website, it was a no brainer for me to have him for one of my events.  

In this post, I am excited to share his framework and how you can improve your brand messaging to generate measurable results without bashing your head against the wall.

So, let’s dive in!

How to Handle Collections & Refund Requests: The Secret for Keeping the Money & Keeping Your Customers Happy

How to Handle Collections & Refund Requests: The Secret for Keeping the Money & Keeping Your Customers Happy

“Maiko, there was a client who just called up the office really angry, demanding a refund.  He was really angry & rude yelling at me the whole time...  What do we do?!!!  I didn’t know what to say, so I just told him someone will get back to him… He wasn’t happy to hear that…”

 

Clearly, the person who took the call was caught off guard and was shaken up by what she had to go through.

Before going any further, let me paint a picture here.

In this particular case, the person who called angry isn’t my client.  That is my client’s client.  Nonetheless it is a huge deal.

Why?

Because here, we aren’t talking about a mere $195 refund.  If it were, I would be saying, “Please don’t waste my time with it.”  How about 100x that?

Yep, try $19,500.

What if this happens to YOU?

What would be your first reaction?

Let me guess, right about now there are hundreds of scenarios running through your mind a mile per second. Am I right?

 

“How do I NOT refund this guy?  What are my options?”

“How much would I be able to keep?”

“What if we don’t have any choice but to give the money back?!!! We don’t have any room for this!”

 

If this happened 10 years ago, this kind of news would put me in a panic attack for 5 min. My heart would be racing with an immense amount of stress. Since then, I’ve handled countless non-payment and refund cases over $30K+ per pop. 

So nowadays, my usual response is:

“Alright. Get me all the intel about him.”

See, ideally no business owners should get to this point without doing due diligence to consistently weed out clients from hell. At the same time, though, even with the best intention & strategy, we aren’t completely immune to this kind of incident from time to time.

Here we are.  What's done is done.  There’s no going back. 

So, what do we do now?  What would YOU do?!

7 Signs Why Going Hyper Local & Offering Super High-Touch Interactions Are the Ultimate Future-Proof Strategy: The Hidden Business Gold Mine You May Be Overlooking

7 Signs Why Going Hyper Local & Offering Super High-Touch Interactions Are the Ultimate Future-Proof Strategy: The Hidden Business Gold Mine You May Be Overlooking

As a kid growing up in Japan, I used to daydream about what might be out there waiting for me beyond the ocean lines. 

Because I lived in an island nation, my excitement for the unknown and the future was that much more intense. Unlike living in Austria or Bolivia, islanders are truly isolated by oceans. We simply have no concept of “just crossing the border.”  In other words, living abroad is very foreign to us.

I had all sorts of romantic & wild notions about the idea of living abroad & how different and special my life could be.

Fast forwarding 10 years to when I found myself in the US as an exchange student, I realized it wasn’t all that I imagined as a kid. Right then & there, I realized I took so many things for granted when I lived in Japan, especially things my parents had provided for me. 

This was a priceless lesson in my teenage years:  Appreciate everything; do not take things for granted, however small they may be. How ungrateful I must have looked in their eyes, dying & rushing to get out of where I was, all just to be let down by reality later on?  Like a deserter tumbling down the sand dunes, I ran towards a flowing spring of water, only to discover it was a mirage.

Wanting to rely on getting easy leads online is a lot like this story.  Many of us often romanticize what it would be like to get online prospects into our sales funnel semi-automatically by offering free, downloadable cheat sheets, check lists, webinars, video trainings, etc.  Heck, we can even invest a little in paid ads.  How wonderful it would be!

Now your brain will go haywire with all kinds of expectations.

“No more networking.  No more cold calling.  No more selling.  No more RFP’s.  I don’t even need to leave my house.  Better yet, I can sit by the beach with my laptop & WIFI… I’ll hire help remotely.  People will just buy my stuff online… One-to-one is so yesterday.  One-to-many is the future!”

The Essential Guide to Long-Form Content Creation: Why This Is All You Need to Do for Your Service Business

The Essential Guide to Long-Form Content Creation: Why This Is All You Need to Do for Your Service Business

This guide is for you if the bulk of your leads comes from offline, i.e. referrals and sales, and not from online, i.e. social media, webinar, live stream, and you want to boost your business’s online presence to build repetition (future-proof'ing), and you aren't sure where to start.

"Should I give Instagram a try?"

"Should I do a podcast?"

“Should I hire someone for social media?"

I hear these questions a lot from business owners who haven’t done many of these online activities and only have a very basic website with no content that gets added regularly. If this is you, there is nothing wrong with getting your leads offline.  But at where you are, these are wrong, fragmented questions that will keep you from building a solid base online.

Instead, I'd love you to take a step back and ask this question:

"What content creation strategy should I invest my time in to increase my online presence and stick with & leverage?"

The answer is:  Invest in long-form written content & post on your website regularly.

This strategy comes from my deep belief in building the smallest, meanest profit generating machine, in which you can do business activities that require less effort but produce the maximum effect over time. (Link) 

OK, it doesn’t sound like the sexy answer you were looking for.  But as you read along, you will find out just how smart this strategy really is.

When you focus on what generates compounding effect in your business, you will find yourself putting a lot of effort in the beginning of the process. This is actually the way it should be.  What you are aiming for is to eventually automate the process you are building right now.  To do this, front-loading work is inevitable.

This is the same reason many entrepreneurs don't opt for this route because it completely lacks instant gratification. The work seems endless and tiresome in the face of headlines like:

"How I got 5,000 followers on Instagram in just one week.” 

"How I made $10,000 directly from my Facebook group with 1 offer."

"The secret to my 200K traffic per month to my blog."

What these headlines don't tell you is what goes on behind closed doors.  Most of these posts do not answer the following questions: