Good Morning, Afternoon, Evening, where ever you are in the world as we speak, Welcome to The Takeover Strategy, WELCOME, WELCOME, WELCOME!
So I guess you are reading this Blog Post because your business is failing miserably you don’t know what to do, you don’t know where to turn, who to look to, what questions to ask, where to ask them, you don’t know who will know the answers, you have no social media followers or a lack of them, no one is interested in your blog, no one is interested in what you have to say or what you are selling you feel like a total loser and you feel like jacking it all in! You can’t see a way out, you can’t see how you are going to be successful, you don’t have the money to give up your full-time job, it’s difficult running both jobs side by side, you have had to let people go in your life you loved. You couldn’t give them what they truly needed, because your mind was focusing on your dreams, and sadly they didn’t understand you or your dreams!
Does that sound like you? Because if it is DO NOT WORRY and I truly, sincerely mean it DO NOT WORRY, we have ALL been there every single business you see up and running right now and been in the exact position you are today, and guess what each one of those business owners felt the same as you do now, heck I felt the same as you do now. It doesn’t last forever, ok it lasts for a long time, a very long time, the road is long my friend, but there is a rainbow at the end of that road and you are standing there with a successful business at the end of it, that you have built from scratch, with strong foundations! The harder the journey, the more rewarding it will be when you finally have your business making HUGE profits, the harder the journey the more abundance you will feel later down the line, and that’s not me bigging you up, that’s facts! If you ask most business owners they will tell you they went through hell setting their businesses up, setting a business up is a tough tough thing to do, one of the toughest, so you need to pat yourself on the back for even getting this far and attempting to put a business together, because I will tell you now, not many have the BALLS to attempt it, they don’t have the will or the belief to achieve anything, and they wouldn’t dream of attempting to create a business, so before we get into this Blog post I want you to sit there for a minute and think to yourself, do you know what, John he is right! You name ten people that you know who could start a business, you will probably struggle to name four!
So Number One is PATIENCE!
OK, so now I have picked you up from the floor, let’s get stuck in, it’s party time, it’s time to give you four key tips on how to get your business rolling! I’m a coach/mentor as you know, well you should know by now anyway, I teach and mentor people every day about Business/Personal/Spiritual Development and do you know the one thing that always pops up in every call I do about building a successful business, actually now I am writing this I have noticed this comes up with all my clients as it also comes up in personal and spiritual development clients too, do you know the one thing that not many human beings have, and it’s mainly down to the way we live our lives, although there are some childhood things I could throw in there too, we will leave that for another Blog, the biggest thing is PATIENCE! Not many people have patience, they expect everything now, they expect it quickly! And as I say to all my clients, if God/Universe was to give everyone everything within a matter of minutes, hours, days, weeks even months, what would you learn from that? What would you gain from that? And if you were honest about it to yourself, you would be bored of everything within five minutes, it’s a fact you don’t get everything within minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months because it keeps you pushing forward, even if you don’t have goals in your life, you will still be pushed in some way to get something, might be just a bar of chocolate, who knows, but you will be pushed, you can’t stay in this life without getting some form of growth, it’s impossible! So, as I say to all my clients, have patience, enjoy the journey, journey the learning, enjoy the pain, enjoy the struggles, because they will eventually get you to where you want to be, whether it’s learning to meditate or you’re growing a business, patience is key, it’s massive when you achieve patience, you won’t notice how long it takes you to do anything, you will be too busy enjoying the moment, so live in that moment. People get so drawn into the money, they don’t see anything else and this is the problem, this is why so many businesses fail, they are looking at creating a business from the WRONG perspective, blinded by Shiny things, don’t be misled!
Right, so number two of the four things you need to implement is PLANNING!
Please, Please, Please DO NOT START A BUSINESS unless you have done at least two months’ worth of planning, at least two months! For me the Takeover Strategy was the longest I have planned for a business, I planned roughly six months, other businesses I grew I did roughly three months. So how do we plan? What do I mean about planning? What I mean is a BUSINESS STRATEGY based on three months, six months, nine months, and twelve months which covers your first year. If you are already working full time, how much of your salary are you able to pay out of that salary to give you the bare minimum to start the business? Because if anyone tells you it costs nothing to start a business, it’s horse s***! It takes money to start a new business, but not a lot of money at the start! So you need to financial plan for the first three months. So I will give you an example of what I would look at with my clients, what’s the business? Niche? Makeup, ok, your stock or drop shipping? Drop shipping, ok, where will you drop ship from? I have found a business online that does drop shipping. ok, based? Europe, you are based? The UK? Monthly fee? Sign-up fee? How much does delivery to the UK cost? I would then write this down, website £39.00, Drop Shipping £69.00, plan every outgoing for four weeks, and then base it on a three-monthly period. You start with a niche, and you then work out how much financially it is going to cost you out of your pocket over a twelve period, I would even add in extras, say you put an extra 200.00 pounds on top for safe keeping, just in case you want to do something or something comes up, once you understand your commitment, you will automatically work it to the budget you can afford. You must start with this research pattern before you do anything because you will be funding this business, so it’s your job to know what you will need and how much it will cost you, so when you write them down, and then research you will find the best deals possible on the things you need. But that’s just the start, you need to do a full business plan for a twelve period, I do this with my clients before I do anything, we work out how long you want to work with us, and we then put a business/strategy together with the things that need to be done in that period, or we can tell you what you need to do and you can go off and try and put it together yourself, but we will always be there for you if you needed to come back, we are a very open team and we respect anyone who attempts to start a business. So as I said you need to plan everything to the finest details, and one more thing before we move on, that plan you make will change, my plans change every four to six weeks, it might not change financially that regularly, but it will change, so make sure you are ready for change. You just need a foundation to work from the offset.
Number Three is RESEARCH!
Research is part of planning so this would be in your two months minimum planning, this is why I said it takes a lot longer, you can’t go into something with your eyes shut, you need to have a clear picture and have your eyes wide open. Many people when starting a new business get stuck on what to sell, and what to do, I will say it’s important to have a passion for it or some kind of connection to it. As I mentioned in planning you need to research the financials, this is very important, as many clients I have found don’t even know what costs what, or they never looked at how it could be done cheaper or in a better way, this boils down again to be patient, many people don’t want to spend the time looking through pages and pages on the internet making endless notes, they want a business, they want the shiny objects, they want the money! In the research stage, you need to be focusing on understanding your target audience, and what the industry is currently doing. Is it highly competitive? What’s the difference between the ripe fruit at the top of the tree to the low-hanging fruit that isn’t getting much sunlight? What do they do differently? OK, do they have a higher advertising budget? But what keywords are they using? How much are they turning over per year? When did they start the business? How long have they been running? What was the industry like when it first started? Although you don’t need to put too much focus on your competitors at this point, it’s handy to start to get pictures of how they achieved their current status, as you will look at them more heavily later down the line. I also like to look at their adverts, how are they being written? Look for patterns in how their adverts present themselves, you will probably see patterns that the content writer uses, try your versions in organic posting on your social media. Let’s say it is Makeup/Cosmetics you choose as a niche, part of our strategy we choose five large businesses, five medium, and five small, we then look at their, turnover, budget/advertising, products, prices, lead times you will see just by that what the smaller ones can’t do that the larger ones can do. So again when I sit down on Zoom with my clients we make a list of everything that needs to be researched, and we tell you exactly how to do it, and also where to go! Some niches will differ from others, so the research might be different, but don’t expect to come on a call with us and we have a magic pot of gold because we don’t, what we do have is a set of tools for you to implement making sure you correctly grow your business, so it gives you a life you could never have dreamed of for years to come, not something that will last five minutes and you will end up at the beginning again in six months.
Number four is MARKETING & BRANDING!
Creating a strong brand and identity is very important, this will reflect you as a person and your business, I would spend some time on this. Again as you did with the research you need to be researching how other businesses in your niche have branded themselves, and whether have they changed over some time, there are ways to see what they were like when they first started, and how have they progressed. How are other businesses in your niche branding themselves, is there a pattern of how a business is branded in this niche? What colors are being used? Does their social media differ from their websites, do all their social media platforms differ in how they brand themselves, perhaps branding is different on each social media platform for a reason, check out one of your other top five competitors, one of your medium competitors and one of your low-level competitors as mentioned in the research, see if there is any difference, what content are they putting out, how regular are they sending content out? A brand needs to reflect its core values in a way, if we take the takeover strategy, this represents me, I have used yellow as my brand color. Why? Because it’s light, it brings light to a client who perhaps is in darkness, it reflects me as I live in the light, it also reflects my personality because I am a light for others, I shine, I shine for others, why do you think I use the photos I use for my blog posts? Because they represent me, it’s your business, so let yourself be seen in that business, it’s an image of you after all. I think from my research many coaches/mentors might say don’t focus on your competition focus on you, which is great, but there missing a valuable point, your competition has been there and done it. They have been on the dusty track until 3 am night after night, so why wouldn’t you follow someone who has been there and done it? I am not saying copy them, no, as I just said “in your image”, but focus heavily on your competitors in this stage, especially ones that have been where you are. When you focus on them also, it gives you a lift, because you can see where they came from and where they are now, they have the same human makeup as you, so if they can you can, they may have slightly different skills, but as long as you fight, you have dedication and yes you got it the belief, and The Takeover Strategy you will make it!
So I hope you enjoyed that, we are going to start getting technical soon with our Blogs and videos, so make sure you sign up and get to know when they come available, otherwise, you may miss out. And as I said in my other blogs, if you don’t get on that boat and set sail, someone else will take your place, don’t live your life in regret, SIGN UP to the BLOG, then CLICK HERE to fill out the questionnaire which takes two minutes and book yourself a 15-minute FREE strategy call, and let’s get your business started properly!
The Takeover Team
