One Coach

At OneCoach, we’re dedicated to helping small business owners around the world become more successful. Small business owners are attributing their success to OneCoach for overcoming the many challenges that have prevented them from growing their business. Here is Lee Hinsley’s story.

.

Lee Hinsley has been a OneCoach client since June 2008. He owns Global Plastic Sheeting Inc., a flexible plastic sheeting/film company in Vista, California. For more information on Global Plastic Sheeting Inc., you can visit www.globalplasticsheeting.com.

.

.

Problem
His business was struggling to sell plastic sheeting and related goods in the construction, shipbuilding/repair, and automotive marketplaces, all of which were depressed because of the economy. He was interested in having a mastermind type of experience where you can have a group of people that get together and talk about things and bounce ideas off of each other. He wanted to grow his business and stay well-versed in the changing business climate. He knew that business coaching would help him in all the areas of his business.

Some of the challenges he faced:

• Not enough cash flow
• Not enough customers
• Didn’t understand Web 2.0

Solution
Since becoming a OneCoach client, Lee has achieved tremendous results. Despite the economy, Lee has:

• Experienced a 340% increase in sales the next 6 months after joining OneCoach (June 2008), and finished 2008 with sales of over $1,100,000
• Broke the $1,000,000 mark on July of 2009

How OneCoach Helped
“The conferences have been great. The speakers that they’ve had are unbelievable. The one-on-one coaching has been amazing. We’ve received a lot from the Millionaire Mastermind Group and the people that we’ve met from there. Plus, we’ve received a tremendous amount of support from our business advisor, Matt Morea. He’s a really great person to work with. Overall, the biggest thing is all of the access to the information and help to be able to stay ahead of the competition. There is so much depth of information and great ideas that are available with the people at OneCoach,” said Lee.

The “aha” moment
“The experts being blunt in giving advice with the tough steps I needed to take in order to significantly cut down on our expenses was a big change for me. We revealed holes in our business where money was going away where money shouldn’t have been spent given the economy. We analyzed things and put together a whole new plan and I instituted all of it. We were able to cut back about $20,000 a month in expenses. I wasn’t thinking along those lines before,” said Lee.

Why OneCoach?
“I’ve never found any place where I can go and get the answers to all of the things I can find out at OneCoach and have them be current and relevant. They do a really great job with all of it,” said Lee. “I think what you offer is exactly what many small businesses need. I’ve been in business for over 30 years and never found a resource quite like this before.”

Continuing to grow
Lee has set a goal for 2010—a 500% increase in sales from 2008.

Learn more about what we do at OneCoach…check out these 7 FREE videos!

We’ve just added fresh content to our Business Momentum Club and it’s now better than ever! This upgraded version is based on valuable feedback from small business owners such as yourself. We have a proven system that will lead your business on a path to success. There is no fluff or theory…just relevant and applicable strategies that many small business owners are using right now to take their businesses to the next level.

Here’s what your fellow business owners are saying about this revolutionary online program:

“I would just like for you to know that the audio and video have made such a significant difference in my life that I personally know that my business will never be the same again. The Business Momentum Club has given me so much insight that I now know that I can resolve the difficulties that I have been experiencing in my business and take it to new levels of success. They have opened up a new world for me!”

Judith C.

“AWESOME STUFF! Finally, after all these years and so many businesses that I’ve started I’m finally getting great information with the Business Momentum Club that actually helps build my business at a ridiculously low cost.”

Jim J.

The Business Momentum Club is a very affordable way to gain access to the strategies and tactics used by business experts all over the world.

Plus you can try the Business Momentum Club for only $1 for the first 14 days, and you can cancel at any time! There is no risk for you.

Click here to learn more about the Business Momentum Club!

This week’s feature article is based on a portion of the OneCoach Expert Interview with Laura Stack, author of “Leave the Office Earlier.”

How many items are on your to-do list? And how many of those will you actually cross off today?

Time management and planning are foundational to personal productivity, yet many people don’t approach each day with a plan, and as a result end up wasting valuable time in a reactive mode. Others at least have a to-do list, but typically attack the easy items first, which means the important items don’t get done very fast!

Of course, one of the big enemies of personal productivity today is e-mail. The constant flow of e-mail alerts during the day can destroy your concentration and cause you to flit from one project or crisis to the next. But you do not have to work in this state of e-mail-induced ADD.

Let’s face it, most e-mails are not that important. And almost none require you to drop everything. Set the expectation that you will respond within 24 hours, then live up to that standard. You can do this by setting a time to look at your e-mail twice a day, say every four hours. But first you have to break the e-mail addiction, and the key to that is to turn off all the alerts.

If you’re using Outlook, go into your Tools, go to Options, E-mail Options and then Advanced E-mail Options. Where it says “When new items arrive in my Inbox” you’ll find four boxes that are checked. This is the default that Microsoft sets, but do you really need all those bells and whistles every time an e-mail arrives? Be fearless and uncheck all four. Your e-mail will still flow in as always, but it won’t be demanding your instant attention.

The next step is to be disciplined about looking at your e-mail for a half hour or so twice a day, and ruthlessly applying the six Ds of e-mail management:

Discard it. This one’s easy. Make a snap decision and hit the delete key.

Delegate it. Can someone else handle it? Does it belong to another department? Forward it with a quick note, and then move it to a personal folder (see below for more on personal folders).

Do it. If you can handle it in three minutes, do it and be done with it. You won’t have to come back and mentally process it again, which is a victory.

Date it. This is for e-mails that you need to reply to, but can’t right now. Many people get stuck here, but there’s a simple remedy if you know your software. In Outlook, for instance, you can automatically convert an e-mail to a to-do item. There’s a “Move to Folder” button. It sits up by the printer key and the X key and it looks like a piece of paper going into a folder. So you click “Move to Folder,” then “Task,” you put in a start date, save and close. It takes it right out of your inbox, and puts it into your tasks, and it appears on your calendar on the day you want to handle that. So your task pad becomes a mini to-do list.

Drawer. For personal e-mails or things that don’t require any action but you don’t want to delete, use the same “Move to Folder” technique and simply move the message out of your in-box and over to another folder.

Deter. This is for the stuff that makes you ask “Why am I getting this?” So take the step of adding the sender to your blocked senders list, or unsubscribe, or set up a rule that says anytime something comes from this address, it’s going into the trash or some specific folder.

There you have it – a simple system for defeating the tyranny of e-mail and taking back your personal productivity. Try it, you’ll be surprised at how much more focused you will be, and how much more you’ll get done.

This is the third in a series of posts excerpted from a conference call between OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and Jill Lublin, CEO of Promising Promotion and author of “Guerrilla Publicity” and “Networking Magic.” See the first post in this series here.

What exactly is guerrilla publicity?

According to Lublin, who wrote the book on it, guerrilla publicity is a collection of simple, easy-to-follow techniques that help you create the credibility and visibility your business needs. Most cost next to nothing, and don’t require an advanced degree in marketing or PR to implement.

To practice guerrilla publicity, start with the basics.

First, understand that you don’t do publicity for sales. You do publicity for the ongoing visibility and credibility, and those are the only two reasons you do it.

Next, have a good story to tell. You don’t need big name recognition in order to create publicity, but you do need a message that resonates with people. Once you have the message, then you can create a strategy around getting and keeping it in the public eye.

To get started:

• Start local. Become a star in your own backyard first. Then leverage your publicity efforts on a nationwide, basis. Even if you start with the smallest local newspaper, it’s still publicity. Start where you can and go from there.

• Be bold. A friend of Lublin’s had written a book, but despite her best efforts could not land a publisher. The friend staked out a busy street corner and stood there with a big sign that said, “Author seeks publisher.” This bold move landed her a full-time editing position at a major national magazine. Eighteen months later her book was published.

• Experiment. Publicity is a little bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall — you have to throw it and see what sticks. Try different techniques and see what sticks for you.

• Share your secrets.  Don’t be afraid to tell your secrets to the media. When you give away juicy tidbits — the things people want to know but nobody talks about because they’re a secret — people will call you. They’ll have no clue how to do what you do, and they will call you.

• Identify your gift. Identify a problem, or problems, in the world that you have the talent, ability and skills to help people solve. Then focus on doing what you do best and taking that message to the public.

• Use everything you’ve got. Don’t be afraid to use gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, background or other affiliations to get publicity. Whatever you have, there’s a media source for it.

Crafting a compelling message is as simple as 1-2-3: “Here’s the problem, here’s our expertise, here are some things you can do to resolve the problem.” Put your message out there and keep putting it out, and good things will happen.

Guerrilla publicity is like farming. You have to plant some seeds, take care of the soil and then watch it grow. However, don’t expect huge results immediately. Consistency and persistency are the keys to success.

Next up in this series: Networking for publicity.

Members of the OneCoach Business Coaching program have unlimited access to hundreds of interviews like this one — see OneCoach.com to learn more about building your business fast.

Are you looking ahead and setting goals for 2010? Here are a few quick tips that your business can use to flourish in the New Year:

1. Find out who your ideal client is and make sure you’re marketing to them.

For any business to succeed, knowing your ideal target market is an absolute must have. Who are the ideal people to purchase your products and services? Why do they want to come to you instead of your competition? Which group of people would you love to work with? Take some time to interview some of your top clients to create an “ideal client profile” and adjust your marketing so that it will speak to them and their wants and needs.

2. Find the time to work on your business, not in it.

When was the last time you evaluated your business operations? Are you too busy dealing with customers, answering phones, creating invoices and running your company? Acquire the necessary infrastructure so that you won’t have to rely on yourself to do everything. Get help in the areas where you don’t excel so that you can spend more time on the things you’re good at. The goal is to have your business perform well without you so that you can spend time on the things that will make your business move forward and grow. Create a model that will ensure things get done right from top to bottom.

3. Create a long-term plan.

What is it that you want from your business? Where do you want your business to be next month? In a year? In five years? Set step by step goals that are achievable. For example, figure out how many sales you must have in order to meet your revenue goals. That way you know what to aim for. Find out what is working and what isn’t and make sure you’re spending time daily to reach toward your goals. Find the right people to help you get the proper strategies in place and keep you accountable. This will help you avoid mistakes and prevent having to rebound from any major setbacks later.

4. Build strong social media channels.

Every business should have a strong presence in social media. It’s not going away. For example, a few months ago Facebook was close to 300,000,000 users. It’s now accounting for more than 70% of the entire Internet population. What’s more is that social media will significantly increase in 2010. Your clients are out there. Whether you’re a dog trainer or a business consulting, it’s very important to start engaging with your target market online.

5. Seek help.

We know that running your business can be difficult and growing your business is even harder. You’ve put all your time and energy into your business and you’ve sacrificed time for yourself and with your family. That’s why at OneCoach, we help our clients take the right steps, in the right order to grow their businesses. We’re committed to helping you achieve your business goals and to live the life you’ve always wanted. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, we’re here to help. Click here to learn more about our Business Coaching programs that are specifically designed to help your unique business succeed.

Is this the year that you and your business will grow to extraordinary levels? That’s up to you.

From all of us here at OneCoach, we want to wish you Happy Holidays! Watch this video message from OneCoach CEO John Assaraf!

Written by:
Zeke Camusio
Internet Marketing Expert

After redesigning over 100 websites I now have a pretty good idea about the most common web design mistakes.

If your site is making some of these mistakes, fix them now! Otherwise, you are leaving money on the table every single day.

1. Bad Layout
Your navigation and layout have to be simple, obvious, and intuitive. If you expect your visitors to figure out how to get to where they want to go, prepare for them to leave. Don’t make them think, make it obvious for them. Forget about “cool” navigation. Make it simple and elegant.

2. Slow Websites
Keep your website light so it loads fast. There is nothing more annoying than those “Loading… 1%” messages. People don’t want to wait. Studies show that if a website takes more than 8 seconds to load, 21% of your visitors will leave and if it takes more than 20 seconds to load, 43% of your visitors will be gone! This is a tragedy. There are ways to achieve excellent designs that are also very light.

3. Bad Colors Choice
Most web designers are not professional graphic designers. They never learned what colors work well together and most importantly, what different colors mean. Make sure your website uses the right colors for your market and it is not hard on your visitors’ eyes.

4. Bad Music Selection
In most cases I am against music at all. I am talking about music that auto-plays (background music). A lot of people will visit your website from work and they don’t want annoying music popping up. Music also makes websites slow to load. If you decide that you want to have music on your website, choose the right one for your audience.

5. Under Construction Pages
What is the purpose of “Coming Soon” pages? This looks really unprofessional. Just don’t have them at all! Who wants to read an “Under Construction” message? If you want to generate curiosity about a section that you will be adding soon, have some teaser copy and possibly a list-building box: “Sign Up to Be Notified When We Release this Feature”.

6. Information is Hard to Find
This happens very often with your phone number and email address. Let’s say you own a restaurant. Most people visit your website to get your phone number and make a reservation. Put your number at the very top and make it huge!

7. Ads on Commercial Websites
If your website is supported by advertising, displaying ads is your business. But if your main stream of income is not advertising, get rid of ads. They look really unprofessional and they make you look needy.

8. Low-Resolution Images
There is nothing that makes me angrier than web designers who use low-resolution images. They look terrible! There are ways to optimize images so they are both light and visually appealing.

9. Splash Screens
Don’t waste your visitors’ time. They are on your website to learn about your company and services, not to see how talented your graphic designer is and the cool animations he can do for you. Don’t force them to take an extra step. They want information. Give it to them.

10. Passive Marketing
Your website is an excellent opportunity to tell prospects why your company is better than the competition, why they should buy from you, and ask them to take action. Be proactive.

Always make sure that your website is properly serving your potential and existing clients!

Do You Want More Great Business Building Tips? Subscribe by RSS Now!

This is the second in a series of posts excerpted from a conference call between OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and Jill Lublin, CEO of Promising Promotion. See the first post in this series here.

One of the first steps in the publicity process is simply getting known.

One of the best ways to get known is to create the “I’ve Heard of You Somewhere” syndrome. It’s a simple tactic that costs nothing and can generate big results.

Here’s how it works: send out periodic announcements that focus on what’s going on with you or your business.

For example, your company opened a new store or hit an important sales target. You hired a new VP of Operations. You joined the board of your local industry group. Anything that might be noteworthy about you or your business is a candidate for an announcement.

At first glance, this would seem to violate the first rule of publicity: don’t focus on yourself. It also doesn’t provide much in the way of useful information for people looking to solve problems.

However, announcements work because they are not the same as a press release. An announcement isn’t your main message, and it doesn’t tell your story. Instead it is nothing more than a simple four- or five-sentence “sound bite” about you, your company, and what you’re announcing. The goal is merely to keep your name in front of the media on a regular basis.

Who do you send it to?

Most markets in America have a Business Journal, a weekly publication that focuses primarily on local business news. These journals usually have a section called, “People on the Move,” “Movers and Shakers,” or “Business Briefs.” Send your announcement, along with your photo, to the editor of these sections.

Your daily paper probably has a similar section that publishes once or twice a week. Send your announcement and photo to that editor as well.

Other good sources include:

• Local organizations you belong to, such as the Chamber of Commerce
• Regional or national associations or trade groups you belong to
• Industry groups
• Alumni magazines

Once you have identified your sources, send an announcement every 45 to 60 days as part of your ongoing publicity efforts. If you don’t have anything noteworthy, make something up. You’re not trying to dazzle the world, simply keep your name out in the public eye so that when you walk into a room and meet people they will say, “I’ve heard of you somewhere…”

Does it work?

Lublin once worked with a consultant who got a $25,000 contract from one announcement in the Movers and Shakers section of her college alumni magazine. An old classmate saw it, gave her a call, and hired her shortly thereafter.

Obviously, those kinds of spectacular results are few and far between, but announcements serve several purposes.

They give you a quick, and easy way to stay active with your publicity efforts. They help to generate momentum and most of all, they create the “I’ve Heard of You Somewhere” syndrome.  Once you become known, generating more publicity is a lot easier.

Next up in this series: How to do “Guerrilla Publicity.”

Members of the OneCoach Business Coaching program have unlimited access to hundreds of interviews like this one — see OneCoach.com to learn more about building your business fast.

This is the first of a series of posts excerpted from a conference call between OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and Jill Lublin, CEO of Promising Promotion and author of Guerrilla Publicity and Networking Magic.

P. T. Barnum once said, “A terrible thing happens without publicity — nothing.”

He was right. You can have the greatest product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, your business won’t last very long.

Despite the dire need for publicity, many small business owners shy away from it for two main reasons. They think, “I can’t afford it” or “I’m not ready.”

The reality is if you’re in business, you’re ready. If you have an idea, product, service, book, or anything you need to sell, you’d better be doing something to create credibility and visibility, which is what publicity is all about.

The good news is that once you’re ready, effective publicity doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, it actually costs very little, as long as you go about it in the correct manner.

To generate publicity:

• Just do it! Make a decision that you are going to do publicity, even if you don’t feel competent or experienced.
• Keep it simple. Don’t over-complicate your message because of a perceived need to look smart. To stand out in today’s media-cluttered world, communicate a simple message with laser-like precision.
• Be consistent. Think of publicity like a snowball rolling downhill — it builds momentum and keeps getting bigger as it goes along. Creating publicity requires a constant effort.
• Focus outward. Any news that focuses too much on you isn’t news.  Instead, talk about what helps the listener, viewer or reader and then relate it back to your product, service or business.
• Be the expert. When reporters and interviewers perceive you as having valuable information, they will actively seek you out. A large part of generating publicity involves establishing yourself as someone the media can go to for reliable information in our field.

If you don’t feel like an expert, “fake it ’til you make it.” In other words, start thinking and acting like the expert in your industry and you will soon become one.

If you believe in your product, your service, your business and yourself, then you have a story to tell. When you act like you have a story worth listening to, people will start looking to you as an expert in your field.

You may not feel like an expert at first, but don’t let that stop you from getting out there and telling your story with passion and confidence. If you want people to believe in you, you must first believe in your business and your ability to deliver the goods.

If you don’t believe in your story, your competitors will darn sure believe in theirs. They’ll be out in front of you telling their story. And once they become the expert in the public eye, it can be very difficult to take that position away from them.

For more about Jill Lublin, visit her site at www.jilllublin.com.

Members of the OneCoach Business Coaching program have unlimited access to hundreds of interviews like this one — see OneCoach.com to learn more about building your business fast.

Next in this series: Creating the “I’ve Heard of You” Syndrome.

What if we could show you a simple, easy, step-by-step process that would increase your revenue from $50,000 per year to $250,000 per year… all within 12 months?

Watch this video from OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and find out how you can create a “roadmap to wealth” with a Gap Analysis and Revenue Plan which will take your business to an entirely new level of performance. Make sure to join us for this week’s Webinar and we’ll reveal how to create and design powerful marketing that works… every time!

If you’re not signed up yet, then register now >>> http://www.OneCoach.com/call

P.S. If you can’t make it, register for the series so you can be notified when the recording is available!