Last couple of issues I talked about how either moving too fast or too slow can sabotage your success. (You can read part 1 and 2 here: http://www.michelepw.com/blog ) Today I’m going to talk about a place where entrepreneurs typically move too fast — launching their product.

I know. You just finished your product or program and you can’t wait to start selling it. In fact, if you could, you’d start selling it yesterday!

And it’s agonizing waiting to launch your product. You want to be making money NOW, not waiting for weeks or months before you actually see any income. Plus you want to get it into the hands of your ideal clients, they NEED what you’re selling. So who has time to sit around waiting to promote? Just get a sales letter up and start selling it, right?

Okay here’s the thing. There’s a reason why product launches work and there’s a reason why you reach more people (and make more money) if you control yourself and do it right.

What’s that reason? Urgency.

You see, probably the biggest reason why your ideal clients decide not to buy is lack of urgency. They may like the product, they may know they need it, they may like YOU. And I bet they even INTEND to buy — just not right now. Right now they have a million other things going on and a bunch of other things they’re spending money on but in a few months or a year they will have the time or money to “finally” invest.

Well, we all know how that works out.

The more time and energy you spend building up buzz for your product, the more you’ll start creating that urgency. And the more you’ve built that urgency into your ideal clients’ minds, the more likely they’ll buy (and USE) your product, thus getting the results they want.

So it’s a win-win. You win because you get your product into the world while being paid handsomely for it, and your ideal clients win because they get the help they need to solve their problem.

So how much time should you allow for a product launch? Well it depends on the launch. There are a variety of launch systems out there, and depending on what you want to accomplish (and who your ideal clients are) dictates your launch. But here are some guidelines to get you started:

If you’re doing a straight teleclass launch (i.e. a preview call that sells the product or program) I would allow a minimum of a 2 weeks before the preview call. (Note, if you want to get affiliates involved you’ll need to allow a lot more time to plan. The more time you give your affiliates to put in their promotional calendars, the more likely you’ll get them to actually promote.)

If you’re doing more of a “release a special report and/or video” which teases the product by providing information, then you’ll need 4-6 weeks. Those take a little longer to get the viral aspect going. Because a preview call has a “date” when the call is, there’s built-in urgency, but a special report or video doesn’t necessarily have that.

If you want to use surveys or a contest, you might be able to do it in a couple of weeks but it would help if you had a little longer (2 weeks to do the survey then 2 weeks to do something with the results of the survey).

Remember these are minimum times AND these are how much time to actually PROMOTE. No, you don’t have 2 weeks to write a squeeze page, once the squeeze page if up, you need at least 2 weeks to promote. If you wanted to add a couple of weeks to do some other promotions, that’s never a bad idea. (Remember, the more you promote the more urgency you build and the more your ideal clients will want to buy.)

Nearly every organization I have ever worked for or with has a serious problem with training. They concentrate on training rather than learning.

The first indication of a problem is that the mediums chosen to impart learning are the poorest at retaining learning but are the easiest to organise.

Learning retention rates vary depending on the medium that is used to impart the learning. The usual training methods of lectures, reading, audio visual and demonstration (including role plays) have average retention rates of five, ten, twenty and thirty percent, respectively.

A chief financial officer revising these numbers would not have an anticipation of a high rate of return from training.

The average retention rate for discussion groups is fifty percent. Good role plays will result in discussion groups occurring. Unfortunately, most role plays are unstructured with the roles given cursory attention as to what impact they need to have on the learning required and the discussion which follows is as much about the acting ability of participants as it is about the key learnings.

Good role plays will structure the background of the individuals, the behaviour of the individuals, the environment in which they are operating and the responses required to specific situations of at least one of the participants of the role play. The discussion at the end of each role play will be similarly structured, looking for observation about content, not style.

Practice by doing has a retention rate of seventy-five percent. And yet, repetition of a task or a method seems to be considered as demeaning in many organisations. There is still much to be said for drilling concepts into people during and after the “training programme” to aid retention.

By far the most effective ways of ensuring that learning is retained is to immediately apply the learning in a real situation or be required to teach others. I have not seen either of these alternatives to improve retention of learning employed except by the occasional individual diligent manager or supervisor.

When it comes to the medium of training, the tried and true lectures with audiovisuals and a few role plays are the norm. The training department generally checks whether the training was enjoyed and was considered relevant by use of the reaction sheet. This is always in the affirmative of course if the training was conducted overseas or in any location considered exotic.

Reaction sheets bring me to the second indication that training departments concentrate on training rather than learning. Whilst a reaction sheet is important to determine whether the trainer and the programme delivered are suitable, they are only a fraction of the story if the focus is on learning rather than training.

What is more difficult and more important to measure is whether the learning is actually relevant to the participant’s workplace not just intellectually stimulating and theoretically relevant to the workplace, which will score high on a reaction sheet.

Learning which cannot be used in the workplace is not only forgotten, but it has no chance of changing behaviours at the workplace and changing the bottom line of the organisation.

Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation has been around, discussed and built on since 1994 and yet few organisations actually measure beyond the first level, which is the reaction sheet. Kirkpatrick’s four levels are reaction, learning, transfer (to the workplace) and results. Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model is a model for evaluating the level and impact of learning and not training.

A good instructional designer will insist that the determination of the measures to be used at each of the four levels is completed as part of the instructional design. But this rarely happens as organisations remain focused on the training and the trainer rather than learning.

The third indication that organisation’s focus on training rather than learning is that whilst most training is lectures combined with audio visual and role plays with a low retention rate, hardly ever is there an attempt made to increase retention rates by providing a means to revise the material learnt.

People who participate in traditional training methods and have no intervention which requires them to revise the material will forget over eighty percent of what they learnt within eight weeks. People who have some intervention forget about twenty percent of what they learnt.

If organisations introduced something as simple as a revision test, the potential for a return on training investment increases by a factor of four.

Some organisations truly see training as an investment. However, most pay the notion of training being an investment lip service. It is not hard to understand why, when the concentration is so much on training and so little on learning applied to achieve an end result.

Organisations need to learn that training is about the organisation, learning is about the person.

The competition for business is hotting up. The advances in new technology, ease of communication, and increasing expectations from customers have combined to make the marketplace more competitive than ever. In this world it is critical for small and medium businesses to be proactive about creating their future. Without proactivity, things just seem to ‘happen’ without your control.

A management system that is centred around goals is one tool that the business can use to craft its future. This is a system of deciding what you are going to do everyday based on the goals you are working toward.

It sounds simple enough, but the research clearly shows that most businesses don’t set goals – at all. The goal setting process can seem daunting if it’s unfamiliar territory, or if you have so much on your mind that you don’t know where to start. This process will help you to sort through your key issues by setting goals that are innovative, resolve problems and improve results.

A goal-centred management system has 3 elements:

1. The goal or the objective you want to achieve

2. The activities required to achieve the goals, and

3. The review or evaluation process.

Here are the 5 steps required to put your goal management system in place.

1. Identifying your Goals.

Start by asking yourself these three questions. If you have employees, often they have a different view about issues in the business. Including them in this process can be really valuable.

? What are the three things that irritate me the most about my business right now?

? What have I been putting off, that I know will have a positive impact on my business?

? What is working pretty well, but could be improved?

It might help you to think in terms of some common categories such as:

Employees: skill levels, right people in right jobs

Managers: management style, experience

Customers: strength of customer base, number, loyalty etc

Financial: cash flow, capital, low debt, profit margins etc

Reputation: well-known brand, well regarded

Products/Services: leading edge, innovative, short time to market, no competition, price

Environment: flexible work practices, physical working environment, location

Technology: automated, streamlined, productive

Production: capacity, product range

Distribution: low cost, efficient

Sales/Marketing: promotion strategy, marketing materials etc

2. Write down what you want to achieve for each identified goal.

With your answers to the questions, actually write down how each thing would look at it’s most successful. Goals should be in writing, in measurable terms and have specific timelines.

For example, if you had chosen technology, your goal might be ”to implement an integrated and automated contact management system by April 30th that takes away most of the manual work I do now.”

3. Break goals into measurable steps.

For each goal that you’ve articulated, break it down into the steps you need to do. You must include timeframes for each step.

In our example, the steps might be:

? Researching available contact management systems – by 31 Jan

? Analyse each one along cost, technology implications, ease of learning – by 29 Feb

? Decide and purchase – March

? Implement system – April 5th

? Test and undergo training – by 30 April

Ensure that all the people impacted by a goal fully participate in the crafting of the goal and the action plans.

4. Allocate people to do the actions.

Be clear about who is responsible for what activity.

5. Create a fail-safe tracking method to monitor success.

This is absolutely essential. Without it, the business will simply continue to react rather than choose it’s own direction. There are many different ways of monitoring. A simple method is to come together once per week and check where each current activity is at. You also get the opportunity to remove obstacles and plan any additional activity. If you work solo, schedule time in your diary each week to track your progress.

This process of constant review and resetting action steps based on actual progress is the hallmark of having a goal centred management system. A simple goal setting process leaves out this vital step.

So make the time and set your business up for success. Invest a few hours each week in careful planning and consideration, and see your business reach it’s true potential.

Do your knees feel like Gumby’s when you have to get up and speak in front of a group?

Do you feel like the next words out of your mouth are going to be the dumbest words ever uttered by a human?

If you said yes to either of the questions above, be advised, you have a full-blown case of stage fright, says Lenny Laskowski, a professional speaker and President of LJL Seminars.

According to the book of lists, the fear of speaking in public is the #1 fear of all fears. The fear of dying is #7! Over 41% of people have some fear or anxiety dealing with speaking in front of groups. People who have this fear can experience all kinds of symptoms: Sweaty palms, accelerated heart rate, memory loss and even difficulty in breathing.

Some of the world’s most famous presenters have freely admitted to nervousness and stage fright. Mark Twain said it best, “There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars”.

Everyone, even experienced speakers, has some anxiety when speaking in front of a group of people. This is perfectly normal. The best way to deal with this anxiety is to first acknowledge that this fear is perfectly normal and you are not alone. To reduce your fear, you need to make sure you properly and thoroughly prepare yourself before you speak. Proper preparation and rehearsal can help to reduce this fear by about 75%. Proper breathing techniques can further reduce this fear by another 15%. Your mental state accounts for the remaining 10%.

Below are just a few suggestions you should use to overcome your speaking anxiety. The first and most important of all is preparation. I like to think of it as the 9 P’s:

Prior Proper Preparation
Prevents Poor Performance
of the
Person Putting on the Presentation.
Nothing will relax you more than to know you are properly prepared. Below are 10 steps you can take to reduce your speech anxiety.

1. Know the room – become familiar with the place in which you will speak. Arrive early and walk around the room including the speaking area. Stand at the lectern, speak into the microphone. Walk around where the audience will be seated. Walk from where you will be seated to the place where you will be speaking.

2. Know the Audience – If possible, greet some of the audience as they arrive and chat with them. It is easier to speak to a group of friends than to a group of strangers.

3. Know Your Material – If you are not familiar with your material or are uncomfortable with it, your nervousness will increase. Practice your speech or presentation and revise it until you can present it with ease.

4. Learn How to Relax – You can ease tension by doing exercises. Sit comfortable with your back straight. Breathe in slowly, hold your breath for 4 to 5 seconds, then slowly exhale. To relax your facial muscles, open your mouth and eyes wide, then close them tightly.

5. Visualize Yourself Speaking – Imagine yourself walking confidently to the lectern as the audience applauds. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear and assured. When you visualize yourself as successful, you will be successful.

6. Realize People Want You To Succeed – All audiences want speakers to be interesting, stimulating, informative and entertaining. They want you to succeed – not fail.

7. Don’t apologize For Being Nervous – Most of the time your nervousness does not show at all. If you don’t say anything about it, nobody will notice. If you mention your nervousness or apologize for any problems you think you have with your speech, you’ll only be calling attention to it. Had you remained silent, your listeners may not have noticed at all.

8. Concentrate on Your Message – not the medium – Your nervous feelings will dissipate if you focus your attention away from your anxieties and concentrate on your message and your audience, not yourself.

9. Turn Nervousness into Positive Energy – the same nervous energy that causes stage fright can be an asset to you. Harness it, and transform it into vitality and enthusiasm.

10. Gain Experience – Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking. Most beginning speakers find their anxieties decrease after each speech they give.

If the fear of public speaking causes you to prepare more, then the fear of speaking serves as it’s own best antidote.

Remember, “He who fails to prepare is preparing for failure – so Prepare, Prepare, Prepare”

The essentials which go to make up a good business letter may be divided into two classes – mechanical make-up, and contents. Before a letter can come into existence the mechanical side must be attended to. The subject matter may be pertinent and well composed and yet the letter itself be so arranged typo-graphically and so disposed on the page that the unity of the whole is lost.

The display as a whole should balance. Before the stenographer starts the address, calculation should be made as to how many lines the letter will run and as to how it should be disposed on the page. The body of the letter should neither be crowded near the top nor bottom of the sheet, but should be so placed that, viewed in connection with the letter head, it presents a well balanced and artistic effect.

This effect is often underrated, being in fact passed by without a thought by the average stenographer, and the ordinary business man is so busy seeing that his dictation is correctly transcribed that he gives little thought to this essential. Harmony of color effect should be observed. A yellow paper bearing the firm announcement in blue, the letter in green and signed with purple ink is not to be recommended.

Letters blurred in copying and wet from the press or otherwise violating the rule of neatness cannot help but produce an unfavorable impression. Orthography and capitalization, particularly of proper names, should be exact and uniform.

A misspelled word in the body of a letter, particularly if a mere transposition of letters in typewriting, may occasionally slip in and do no particular damage, but the misspelling of the name of the party addressed may lose an order, and cannot help but militate against the general effect of the letter. Neatness uncompromising neatness – that should be the first effect of a letter, giving the idea that the firm putting out the writing is thorough master of the minor (as well as the major) details of its business.

Contents

In letter-writing, contents may be divided into subject matter and expression. The subject matter is, broadly speaking, what the writer says. This should coincide with two other things:

(1) what the writer wants to say, and
(2) what the one addressed wants to know.

Something which is the a b c of life and a mere matter of routine to the writer in a certain line may be abstruse and complicated to a non-technical reader. To avoid an offensive simplicity of language on the one hand and excessive technicality on the other is one of the tests of a good business correspondent. There is a tendency to slight simple questions asked by different inquirers day after day, which must be avoided by putting oneself in the place of the one asking the question, and giving the knowledge for which he is looking.

One of the most, if not the most, important essentials of a good business letter lies in correct expression. The one thing which causes more failures in business correspondence than any other, is the incorporation of personal peculiarities in a letter. There may be called to mind, in fact, more than one established business backed by ample capital, having a broad field and financed by capable and conservative business men, that is at the mercy of a poor correspondent. This is ably expressed by Forrest Crissy, who says:

“So apparent must be the importance of this branch (tact and tone in business letters) of business systematization, that scarcely a word of argument is needed to enforce its necessity. Very recently a large whole-sale merchant said to me:

‘I have recently been obliged to discharge the head of my credit department – my confidential man. He is honest, conservative and shrewd, but recently I have been awakened to the fact that his incapacity to write a letter which does not leave a sting, a chill, or at least a sense of lofty indifference, is hurting my business more than would some downright reckless blunders. When he writes a letter granting a good customer a larger line of credit he gives it a twist that somehow makes that customer wish he hadn’t asked for credit and thus placed himself under added obligations. And if he refuses to meet the request for such a favor the refusal is so put that it seems a studied effort to conceal a strong unwillingness to give any credit at all.

Yet this man has always considered him-self an adept in letter-writing – and for a time he completely hypnotized me into that view. But at last the steady withdrawal of patronage and the occasional out-spoken retorts which his letters provoked forced upon me a recognition of the real condition of affairs. Then I went out after a man who could write a business letter that had just the right ring to it; that was neither so sloppy that it sounded hypocritical or so stiff and stilted that there was no tone of good hearty business friendliness in it.

I have found him. He comes high, but the difference in results is remarkable. Of course, there are other things required than this form of literary ability – that’s what you’d call it. He must have business experience, business judgment and all the other cardinal business virtues; but the addition of this peculiar capacity to write business letters that hit the mark is a rare gift and makes him a star man.’ ”

Simplicity and clearness as an element of expression cannot be rated too highly. The saying of a thing in the plain language of the common people, not only adds to the style and dignity of a letter, but has the most vital element of being understandable. As Chas. R. Weirs says, “Eloquence, either real or imaginary, has no place in a business letter.”

Whatever else may be neglected in writing, courtesy should not be slighted. A man may be told nearly anything face to face – it is qualified by the bearing, tone of voice, manner and earnestness of the speaker. A sentence may be given an entirely different meaning by a tone or gesture – it may even be diplomatically changed after partly spoken, to make it conform to the unconscious demand of the listener, and most of all spoken speech is transient. What is written, on the other hand, is put down in black and white to stay. The record is permanent. It can be offered in evidence, can be dug up years afterwards from a musty file, and discourteously written can queer, not only an immediate sale, but the sales of a decade.

Length

Letters often tend to verbosity from the fact that they are dictated instead of written. Were a man to write his letters himself with pen and ink he would study brevity and conciseness of expression, but having letters written for him, he will dictate more than he would write. Brevity is not always desirable. Some people – particularly those receiving few letters – like to receive lengthy correspondence. Getting few letters, they wish those long and newsy.

A letter is an event to some patrons and cannot be too long for a careful perusal. In this class of letters the party ad-dressed may be often appealed to in conversational style; as, “Judge of the goods yourself, Mr. Brown,” “We ask you, Mr. Smith, if we have not treated you fairly?” etc. At the other extreme is the business man, particularly the city business man. To him, brevity to the point of curtness is always welcome. As someone has alliteratively said, the formula for a business letter to a busy man is: Sir: Say it. Stop!

Judging the Other Man’s Letter.

One of the pre-requisites of a good correspondent is the ability, inherent or acquired to judge the general character and status of the writer by means of his letters. Until the last few years the letter-head of a firm was a considerable guide to the standing of the company putting It out, but good printing is now much more common and many one-horse concerns put out conservative, well-gotten-up stationery.

Ability to recognize the efforts of an amateur or schoolboy inquiring for a catalog with no intention of buying and to treat the writer accordingly, call for almost occult powers. The president of one of the large machinery companies putting out a cement mixer selling at $850.00, relates that one of the company travelers visited Detroit in response to an apparently good lead and found a twelve-year-old boy wanted a dozen cement mixers “to go into the mail-order business with.”

Some companies putting out expensive catalogs write a letter asking a doubtful inquirer to fill out an information blank before sending a catalog. The correct interpretation of the personality of a writer means the saving of dollars of expenditure as well as the ability to write him correctly. In a fire insurance concern employing hundreds of agents it would be easy for a manager to inform himself through his special agents as to each agent’s nationality, education, experience in the business, etc., and vary his correspondence accordingly, while a mail order house might have no means of judging a man but by his bare letter.

Form Letters

A form letter is one of a series of letters, to be sent on similar occasions. Such letters are usually in imitation typewriting with blanks left for the name of the party addressed, and when carefully executed are a close imitation of a typewritten letter. Form letters vary from those not to be distinguished from actual typewriting, to the stock letters of collection agencies, in which no attempt is made to imitate the machine. Some writers use a number of short forms or inserts which they use in dictating to avoid a repetition of dictation.

Letters of Recommendation

The promiscuous writing of letters of recommendation has done much to cheapen the effect of recommends. Many firms refuse such letters entirely. Perhaps the best plan is to have an employee, when leaving, use his former employer’s name as a reference.

I am a firm believer in living each day loving what you are doing. This philosophy has grown even stronger as I mature through life. As a young individual you are so concerned about becoming an adult and wanting the opportunity to have choices. Then you realize that with those choices comes a lot of responsibility. Sometimes we are ready for it and other times we are not. One day I woke up and realized I was exactly where I needed to be. How did I get here? By chance? Perhaps…most likely it was a variety of options, choices, and unknown guidance that lead me to this place. Sometimes we are not sure of where the path will take us, but that’s half the fun and craziness of being an entrepreneur. Who knows where you’ll end up? You have to be in for the long haul and know that the road will be twisting and winding. You may not feel in control throughout the process. Are you onboard? Or are you just standing along the side looking at everyone else? It’s time to follow your passion. Others may not agree or understand, but don’t let them control your destiny. Life is about choices…not doing anything is a choice. Is it the right one for you? Who knows? Take the leap of faith in yourself and see where your passion leads you.

I’m a strong believer that you have to enter business with a lot of passion for the business to be successful. If you are passionate about the things you love, then it comes through in everything that you do. Don’t think only of money. If you are passionate about what you are doing, then it is a natural element for the money to follow that path of passion.

If you won the lottery, would you still do what you are doing today? If the answer is “NO”, then you are not passionate enough about what you are doing. If the answer is “YES”, then you have passion. This is a question often asked in a group of professionals and it always amazes me when less than 1% are still standing after the speaker asks if the audience would do what they are doing if they won the lottery or if they didn’t get paid anymore. Most of them laugh and sit down saying “No way”. Not me…I’m included in that 1% that is still standing. I love what I’m doing. I have the best opportunity as I get to help other business owners be more successful. What more could I ask for?

I’m not naïve or stupid. I understand that money is important. Money is necessary for your business to continue and your family to survive, but that shouldn’t be your main focus. If it is, people will see that and be less in tune with you. I don’t want to buy from someone who is selling a product only to make commission. I realize they are going to make a commission. I want to know about the benefits of the product and how it is going to change my life. I want you to be passionate about the product or service you provide and that will be evident to me in the way you interact.

Are you Passionate? Ask yourself these 7 Questions to determine your level of passion:

Would you do what you are doing today if you didn’t need the money?

1. Do you wake up before the alarm, excited for the day?

2. Do you smile during the day or dread the next appointment?

3. Is helping others your main focus?

4. Do you feel you have a choice in what you are doing with your life?

5. Do you spend your days with people you respect?

6. Do you feel you have control of your own life?

7. Would you change your path if you woke up one day and no longer liked what you were doing?

If you answered “YES” to all of these questions, then it is a sign that you are passionate about what you are doing and I’m sure it shows in every step you take. You love what you are doing and feel blessed with each moment the day offers you. That doesn’t mean you won’t have your moments of being overwhelmed and stressed. That’s part of the package. The key is knowing that it’s all worth it.

If you answered “NO” to more than 3 of these questions, you better reassess what you are doing with your life. We only have one shot to make this life the best that it can be. Are you okay with the path you are on? If you answered “NO” to more than 5, then you are in serious trouble and it’s time to take control of your life TODAY! It’s never too late to start taking control and making this life the one you always dreamed about. It may not be easy, but it will be worth it. No pain, no gain applies here and it’s time for you to save yourself. No one can do it for you. Take control now…one step at a tim