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Today more than ever people like you are thinking about starting a business. Record layoffs, have forced very talented people to lose their only source of incomeand in many ways the loss of a job leaves them emotionally devastated. If you’ve been laid off all of the sudden not only have you lost your income but if you’ve worked for a number of years in your profession you may have lost your self worth. You may have taken the layoff personally.

Well if that is the case, remember a few things. You have skills, talents, interests and hobbies that may be easily converted into a business that can either tide you over until you find a new job or perhaps prevent you from ever having to find another job.

So,the question is how to you leverage your talents, skills and interests and create a business that can bring in some money and more importantly how do you minimize the startup risk. How do you know your business idea will work, resonate in the market and find customers that are willing to PAY for your new business. The answer is to Start a Business Backwards, with the end (of the startup in mind), the end being customers that are paying for your service. or products. Thats what starting backwards means. It means you find your market and customers first and (in some cases) get them to pay before you launch.

Next post. How to Start a Business Backwards

Dedicated to your success

Dwight

In the next couple of weeks, I will be talking about starting backwards, how to find customers, how to test to success and more. Register for this very limited FREE seminar today Start A Business Backwards

One of my biggest lesson is that business is a team sport and the successful entreprenuers primary role is to recruit and movitvation a great team. In this video I talk about the importance of having a team as a real estate investor to a group of business owners and investors.

I recently talked to Bill Parlaman of Radical marketing Solutions about starting a business, tracking your numbers and how to build a successful business. Checkout the interview at http://www.radicalmarketingsolutions.com/bill-parlaman-and-radical-marketing-solutions-interviews-dwight-miller-super-guy-and-super-entrepreneur/

• Quantum Builders LLC – The Power of having a great team in Investing http://aweber.com/b/1t.f7 #
• @davidbullock , Hey Dave, you good in reply to davidbullock #
• @TynishaThompson fast busy, no calls, you are having phone troubles good luck in reply to TynishaThompson #
• @TynishaThompson strange things with phones 2day. Mine accepts calls but doesn’t ring in reply to TynishaThompson #
• @colderICE that was the exact problem. sometimes smart gene takes a break. Or why doesn’t the damn phone just know to turn up the volume in reply to colderICE #
• If you need a team for philly real estate investing checkout this video http://tinyurl.com/am9abe #
• @colderICE I’ll send a few over, you can have them I’ve been growing them on my farm in reply to colderICE #
• @themediamogul still tweetdeck, using on my mac now in reply to themediamogul #
• RT @Szetela: RT @davesnyder: Hotel code for IM Spring Break, http://zi.ma/dabc13 , is “SEO” .. please retweet #
• RT @Taiwriter: just posted Dare to Be Brilliant – Drop the Excuses http://tinyurl.com/dmwtby #
• RT @colderICE: ICEism: “Adding Value” is one of those psychobable B.S. terms & means NOTHING…”Make a difference” to get repeat customers #
• @ron)hudson We on for this Thursday? Ican send call info #
• Trust Me…Your Customers Don’t Trust You..How to Build Trust in Your Business, thoughts from @colderice interview. http://ping.fm/IvjO9 #
• @Taiwriter Like bumping heads, thanks for the bm, looks like your doing good work in reply to Taiwriter #
• Build your business by giving people what they want Black Genius Network , Jennifer Dent The Money is in the giving http://bit.ly/hHeu8 #
• @colderince, nice job on new live show http://www.wednesday114.com/ http://bit.ly/WCZ9p #
• @SacredGlo Could not AGREE more, in reply to SacredGlo #
• RT @SacredGlo: THE CARTOON IN THE NY POST IS DOWN RIGHT UGLY! THE NY POST SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO ALL AMERICANS #
• RT @Szetela: RT @andybeal: We just posted: Google Analytics Integrates Telephone Leads and Live Chats http://snipurl.com/c512y #
• RT @TynishaThompson: do “how to attract leads” at 1pm EST 2/19 w @suzannefb. 1st time i’m revealing this content. http://is.gd/k7m0 #
• memorex #
• RT @Ron_Hudson: Mastering Influence Tip #11: It’s not about what you’re getting in life, it’s about who you are becoming. #
• @zhodgins, @lornefade, @Ron_Hudson thx for ther tweet love, look forward to an amazin interview with @ron_hidson #
• Reviewing a powerful interview with Monique Caradine, coming on Monday 2/23. http://www.blackgeniusnetwork.com #
• Reviewing a powerful interview with Monique Caradine, coming on Monday 2/23. http://ping.fm/yYc0x #
• RT @JuletteMillien: Be proactive. Decide 2take no offense 2day. Nothing 2 4give tomorrow. 4 2day, give EVERYONE benefit of doubt #
• @JuletteMillien I’m gonna live this today in reply to JuletteMillien #
• RT @MoniqueCaradine: GM! IChicago? Watch my show on My50 WPWR at 9a CST. We’re breaking down the Chris Brown/Rihanna- Violence fiasco. #

In todays world nobody trusts anything, right now banks don’t trust other banks and they damned sure don’t trust you.Democrats don’t trust Conservatives, Muslims don’t trust the US, basically distrust is running rampant in the world today making the peace process difficult and economic developement impossible.

There is little reason for your customers to’t trust you and frankly many business owners  haven’t done a great job of creating any reason for them to trust. After all, many of us treat customers like transactions, we take their money and let them leave with barely a thank you. No wonder they don’t trust us. (it’s like a one night stand, wham bam, ok I went to far)

In this post, I’m revealing some of the things I will be doing in my business to build “a reason to believe“. Now I’m under no illusions, I know it is going to take some work to create the “reason to believe” but in this tough times I need an edge and building trust is an additional edge. Here is what I plan to do.

1. Get testimonials and tell the whole story. This is an easy one to understand but more difficult to execute, I am going to literally ask every client to tell me honestly what they think about my services and as afraid as I am, I’m going to post the good, bad and ugly and here is why. We don’t do everything perfectly, so showing only the good doesn’t tell the whole story. I want my prospect to know the  the whole story,  good and bad and I hope that helps build “a reason to trust“. I am also going to fix the bad and see if I can get the same customer tl tell that story as well. You should too.
2. Guarantee – scares business owners. One of my clients is afraid to guarantee their services and thats a mistake. It’s a tough economy and my clients want to know that I stand behind what I do, so I am going to be working on an results based ironclad guarantee, no results no pay.
3. Show the Data and Demonstrate the Service. I’ve got the great numbers, I can prove my results, so I’m gonna show them. I;m going to demonstrate that I know what I’m doing and provide proff of the results.

Thats my start at showing proof and building trust. In my real estate business, we show proof of great rehabs on Youtube (as far as I know nobody does this) in my marketing consulting business we show results of conversions (actual leads generated) not click thru. Thats how I hope to create a “reason to believe“. What are you going to do in your business.

In todays world ALL of your customers are mystery shoppers. Here’s what I mean. I recently went to a new steak restaurant in my neightborhood. To set the stage, where I lve is not known for fine dining. Up until recently,great restaurants where typically family owned affairs but recently we’ve seen an influx of larger restaurants and some chains.

On Sunday, I decided to try a new restaurant named Flemings Steak House. I sat at the bar ( I was alone) and  ordered a shrimp appetizer, a filet and a salad as well as a single malt and a lager. As I was waiting  I was using my Iphone to write a review on http://www.Yelp.com and once the appetizer arrived I was well into the review.

The appetizer tasted good but it was slightly cold and kind of gooey but I ate it (it was spicy and I like spicy food) anyway. When I finished the bartender Jason, asked how I liked the dish and I mentioned that it was cold. I was getting ready to write my review when the restaurant manager came over and asked me how I liked the dish. Again I hemmed and hawed but told him the dish was cold. He immediately took the dish of the bill and offered a sincere apology. They went above and beyond normal service to ensure I was happy and turned a OK review into a great review (see my Yelp.com review of Flemings SteakHouse).

The point is in today’s world all of your customers MAY be mystery shoppers. They all can (and more often will) review your business online and expose your warts to the world. If you’ve got shitty products, the world could know, if you have great service the world will know. The question for you is “CAN YOU CONTROL THE PROCESS”. The answer is a resounding MAYBE, but doing something is better than doing nothing.

Discover what to do NOW, Discover HOW you can influence your customer reviews.

What a bunch of bull. I was watching a show about a very famous entrepreneur and the show made it seem as if this entrepreneur built the business himself. Complete bulls%$t, building a successful business requires many skills and nobody is good at everything.

When I read books about successful entrepreneurs, the one thing that strikes me is how successful they have been at building a team. Here’s an example from my own business life. I have built or helped build and sold 4 businesses. Now mind you many entrepreneurs have never built one business, I’ve built or helped build three. I also have been able to do something that many small business owners haven’t been able to do and that is selling my business.

My greatest success, the one that was the most financially lucrative came as a result of building a great company and a great team. On the other hand, my biggest failure and my most financially disastrous failure came when I didn’t build a team and tried to do everything myself.

So, Start A Business Backwards Strategy 15 is simple, find great people, sell them on your vision, make sure they are financially rewarded based on their effort and create a great team.

Dedicated to your Success

To describe what Start A Business Backwards means I must first talk about words. You see, for me words have meanings and in order to understand the words you have to understand the meanings clearly. I also believe that words are things (they create things for sure) and that the more specific you are with your words the closer you get to your goal. So first lets get some definitions.

What is a business? The word business derives from the word “bisy-ness” Middle English (14th century) and the word means “a usually commercial or mercantile activity engaged in as a means of livelihood”. So a business is an entity that create profits. In order for a business to be a business it needs customers or clients, so lets define both of those words. The word customer means “one that purchases a commodity or service” and word client means “one that is under the protection of another”.

These definitions are important to our next post where will define the goal of a business and how a business with customers differs from a business with clients.

Almost every business blog I read has a post about the recession, despite the fact it is already a year old. So while I titled this article “Sales…..Recession”, these are really tips designed to keep you from experiencing a personal recession. I believe with proper planning you can avoid a recession in your business and thrive in tough times if you incorporate and automate these tips. So here we go

1. Design an automated strategy for asking for referrals. Now this is a system that needs to be automatic, most business owners don’t ask for referrals and don’t follow up on them when they get them because they don’t have a system. I’ve designed an automated system to ask customers for referrals when we complete a project. Basically, I use a survey to ask about our service and then I ASK for the multiple referrals. The referrals are automatically emailed to me and assigned to my to-do list. I do a bit more but thats the start, the key is an automated system.
2. Keep the funnel full of leads. This strategy allows you to run your business like a water faucet. When you need more money, you turn up the lead faucet and when you are at capacity you turn the faucet off. I have a ton of ways to keep the funnel full including newsletters, sales letters, postcards (notice they aren’t all internet based) and more and I use everyone. Again, the system needs to be automated, so it works without you having to think about it.

Thats a start, check back soon and I’ll post more. If you implement just these tips, your business will survive.

Dedicated to your success

This post is about value and how to build value in your business that can be transfered. What do I mean by transfered, basically I mean value that can be easily valued and sold. Thats right this post it about what you need to think about when you start your business that will make it attractive to sell at some point in the future.

You may ask, “Why should I think about selling my business when I start it?” Thats a great question and the answer is simple, becaus eyour life will change. You may decide after building a business for years that you no longer enjoy the process (this happened to me), your health may decline, you may want a change, life changes and when your life changes your goals change as well. Being able to sell (or transfer) your business is a valuable option.

How do you build transferable value or value that demonstrates your business value. You think about it from the beginning. Transferable value (saleable value) is built and tracked consciously and if you start the process at the beginning then every step builds evidence of transferable value.

and I will reveal on January 29, 2008 at 8pm. the exact steps that would have helped my friend add a successful leg to his business. This Teleseminar will reveal the secrets that I’ve discovered to practically guarantee business success so register today for the Start-A-Business-Backwards Teleseminar Click here to register for the call and How to Build A Business You Can Sell.

Dedicated to your success