The 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process:

1. Primary Aim
   
2. Strategic Objectives
   
3. Organizational Strategy
   
4. Management Strategy
   
5. People Strategy
   
6. Marketing Strategy
   
7. Systems Strategy
   

These 7 areas will fine turn your plan for the ultimate level of success. In this blog we are going to cover the first three.

In today's blog I want to ask the question....What have you done today, to make a difference in the life of someone else? Much too often we find ourselves so busy with what we think is important only to find that the importance we placed on what we are doing isn't really important at all. We have reached a point in this nation where people really need people, to speak a kind word, to assist where it is needed, to share something you may have and someone else needs it.

You must be observant and notice people around you whether its family, friends, or co-workers, just pay attention and you will feel with your human spirit whether there is a need.

Today I'd like to talk about the three keys to business development and how you can put the right bricks in place to build a solid foundation.  There are three main areas of business development:

• Innovation
  
• Quantification
  
• Orchestration
  

If done well these three areas will help you build a solid foundation for you business. Let’s talk about each one of these for just a minute.

The biggest area of turn-key businesses is franchises. There is franchise for ever industry in the world and they are fairly easy to acquire and come with practically a pop out of the box pre-assembled system. McDonald’s is a prime example. In fact, a $40 billion, 28,707 strong example. 

There are a few things we are going to talk about:

• Business Format Franchise
  
• The Franchise Prototype
  
• Franchise Prototype Standards
  

Did you know that when you stretch yourself and create effective fulfilling relationships that you have your own personal network standing in the wings, ready and waiting to help you get closer to achieving whatever you want in life?

Your problem is that you haven’t stretched yourself to realize their true value and potential.

There is positive momentum and negative momentum. 
Are you creating positive momentum in your life, drawing the things you want in your life, or are you pushing it away? 
In this blog I'm going to give you ten suggestions (or reminders) to help you maintain focus on what really matters.

In this week's blog I'm going to talk about the life cycle of a business and how to get the most out of each cycle while also extended the lifespan of your business. The four different stages of a business life cycle are:

• Infancy
  
• Adolescence
  
• Growing Pains
  
• Maturity
  

I’ll talk a little about what each of these cycle’s means and how they can each help expand your business’ lifespan.

In today's blog I'd like to talk about the different types of support staff you need and what makes them so important. There are essentially three key roles that need to be filled to properly set your business up for success:

• The Technician
  
• The Manager
  
• The Entrepreneur
  

All of these roles need to be played simultaneously by different people with the right talents. It’s all about balance.

Spring has finally here in Atlanta and that always means changes. Those changes have already started, we just don't see them.

They're taking place deep underground where roots are spreading, plants are drawing the nutrition they need to flower and flourish.

Whether you like it or not change is always happening around us, in nature and in your life. Sometimes these changes are subtle, sometimes they're obvious. In some cases you can't control changes, like the changing of seasons. But there are changes that you can create, the kind of changes that you want when you apply a simple process.

In today's blog I'll show you how you can create the changes you want quickly and easily. 
So Read on and enjoy!

Today’s blog is dedicated to Steve Jobs. I want to dedicate his life as an example that we all can follow. I recently listened to his speech on YouTube that he gave to a graduating class and it moved me to the point where I had to write about him and hopefully this blog will interpret the belief system that he had within.

Steve Jobs believed in himself.

Despite having the odds against him, he believed in himself.
He believed in his vision. 
He believed that he could change the world and the way we communicate.
He believed he could make a difference.
And he did.

Wow... time sure does fly... it seems like it was January just yesterday.

Every year we all set certain goals and hopefully you are making progress, or already accomplished some of them.   I know there are all kinds of reasons for not achieving some of those goals... but really those "reasons" are poor excuses that your mind and subconscious mind have been conditioned to accept. Your mind and subconscious mind are trained or conditioned to live the life you're currently living.

It's easy to achieve your goals and enjoy your life when you forget about the failures, do the right things, and make the right choices.

When you take the right actions you know exactly what to do intuitively when you have your subconscious mind and your inner powers working for you so they create exactly you want.

That's when life becomes easy. But no one ever tells you that life can be easy.That you can get what you want. Instead, they tell you that life is hard and that you have to struggle.

If you're not enjoying the success you want; if you're not achieving your goals, if you're not getting what you want then you're not directing your subconscious and your inner powers by being consistent and focused to make it easy for you to succeed.

You'll get what you want and you'll easily achieve your goals when you direct your subconscious mind and your inner powers to bring you what you want.

Just how do you do this?

In today's blog,  I'll show you how to get your subconscious mind and your inner powers to create the success you want by following some simple but powerful steps...

When I sleep, I’m what you call a “light sleeper.”  WHEN I go to bed, I climb into bed and get into maximum sleep mode by turning on my side, burrowing under about two firm pillows, and pulling the covers over my head.
 
I love my power sleep.  And there’s nothing worse than the moment the alarm goes off at 4:00 am.  It’s a shrieking, nasty, shrill alarm.  It could wake the dead.  That’s why I bought it.  It is so loud I placed it in my office to keep from waking the house.
 
You see, I used to hate to get out of bed.  Especially in the winter.  The bed is so toasty, and my daughter Neena climbs in and we play tug of war with my favorite blanket.  But I get up anyway because I know how much it impacts my entire day when I get up early.  I slide out of bed, put my feet on the floor and race to my office to turn off the screeching alarm.  There is a huge amount of power to starting your day with this philosophy; 

“The difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is who wants it the most.”  

But I wasn't always like this.

True Abundance is achieved by stretching yourself beyond your comfort zone to pursue your passion.

When was the last time you stretched yourself to achieve more than what you currently settle for? Switched your routine?
Drove a different route to work? 
Took a risk? 
Every day of our lives we are presented with choices. The easiest – and safest – option is to stick with what we know, snug in our comfort zone.But the price of playing it safe can be high. By following the same schedule day after day, or staying in a job that brings no joy or satisfaction, you may be giving up your chance to live an amazing life. To achieve true abundance you have to be prepared to stretch beyond your comfort zone and pursue what you truly want in life. It’s all about stretching yourself from where you are to where you would like to be.

You've said it before. And it always stops you dead in your tracks.
"I can never do this..."

You've said it at some point. And you've probably said it more often than you realize. Somebody close to you has said the same thing - that you could never do it. It may have been someone you love. Someone you respected and trusted.  And so you believed them.
Today you still believe you can't. So you never do what you really want to do. And it's all because of that doubt that says you can't. But you can.

In our blog this week we’ll take a look at how the BIG DAWGS of industry wine, dine and otherwise persuade prospects.
 
Most of successful professionals use a series of information based ads that build emotion and a call to action. These are much more effective than a standard company branding advertisements. The same principles that go into putting together a high impact (and, often, high priced) ad campaign can be adapted to fit your needs with similar results.

Here are some ways to put together and execute a professional, effective ad campaign: 

There are three key areas of public relations you can use to boost your advertising results ten-fold over your paid advertising.
The key to public relations lie in:

• Public relation or publicity
  
• Merchandising
  
• Promotions
  

With a solid plan in place that encompasses all these areas, you’ll have a great approach to use public relations in the best way possible.

Public relations include all that is the media. Don’t limit yourself. The attention of newspapers, television, radio, magazines, bloggers, ezines and more are all equally powerful. Online marketing is just as, if not more, important as conventional media.

Here are the steps to get noticed by the media:

Balancing work and life is a lot like athletic competition: if you don’t prepare yourself mentally AND physically, you’ll find you don’t have what it takes to play the entire game and you’ll find yourself on the bench unable to help anyone. Balancing work and life and being successful requires you to stretch yourself and leave it all on the floor, but you have to be able to play until the final buzzer!

There are many people that suffer either in health or their relationships as a consequence of living a life that has fallen out of balance.

Success is all about balance.

Today you’ll learn how to use direct mail marketing and, yes, telemarketing to your full advantage. I know, the word “telemarketing” might as well be four letters, but there is a way to help customers feel like they are getting personal attention and keep them from blocking your number!


With the success direct mail marketing has had and the availability of computers, these can be used as a powerful marketing tool for your success. Telemarketing is best for high priced, high margin products/services.

Here are the key steps to putting together a highly effective direct mail marketing program:

1. List all benefits customers will get from the purchase of your products and services.
   
2. Pick the single most powerful benefit out of that list.
   
3. Build an attention-getting headline around that benefit. Remember to use emotion-fulfill the desire to be young, wealthy, desired, popular or successful.
   
4. Develop a sales letter using the headline you created to grab attention, provide information and motivate customers to act.
   
5. Put together supplementary items, such as a brochure, order form, reply envelope or note that encourages them to read the letter.
   
6. Rent or purchase a mailing list.
   
7. Compare cost of mailing vs. cost per order.
   
8. Continue to test and refine your direct mail marketing plan.
   

You can see how direct mail marketing can help you find a local or even country-wide target market to send letters or postcards to and draw in new clientele and customers. Fine-tuning your marketing campaign will bring better results and therefore lower the overall cost of the campaign. To be successful in telemarketing you need to:

• Put together a plan, so you know exactly what you want to accomplish during the call.
  
• Develop a list of topics to discuss and the questions you want to present around these topics.
  
• Input verbiage checking to see if you are calling at a good time.
  
• Include enough questions to keep the conversation interesting, but not too many to sound like you are interrogating.
  
• Start with broad questions and narrow your focus as the conversation continues.
  
• Offer feedback to show them you are paying attention and appreciate their time.
  
• Don’t insult their intelligence or manipulate them.
  
• Listen first, talk second.
  
• Be relaxed and conversational.
  

Telemarketing doesn’t have to be the trauma it’s made out to be. You can put together an honest, personal and effective telemarketing campaign that is endearing, informative and gets the job done. Think of how you would want to be treated on a marketing call. Ask your friends and family what they hate most about the telemarketing calls they get and work hard to craft your plan in a better way.

“When selling by telephone, you have approximately thirty seconds to convince the customer to listen to you. You need an opening statement that captures their attention, conveys who you are, what you want and why the prospect should listen.”  Jay Abraham

It’s easy to see how direct mail marketing and telemarketing can positively affect your business by bringing in new customers and increasing the level of awareness about your products, services and company branding. 

My complimentary business assessment gives you the resources and tools you need to work through these processes and put together the best marketing plan you can. Connect and let's talk about your business and the direction of your marketing. I promise to increase your leads and sales WITHOUT you spending extra marketing dollars.

Today I’d like to talk about how to turn prospects into customers and retain them for future marketing.  

While, your marketing is doing its job, you need to be working on turning those prospects into customers. There are a few key ways to draw them in and seal the deal.  You need to be:

• Inviting
  
• Informative
  
• Enjoyable
  

The biggest fear of most new customers is the dread buyer’s remorse. You want to avoid this at all costs and this should be mitigated if you've provided a quality product/service that delivers on the marketing claims you've made.

However, this can still occur. There are two ways to deal with this:

• Offer to refund money-no questions asked
  
• Offer a bonus they can keep even if they return the product
  

These offers alone will also mitigate buyer’s remorse because the customer will trust you more, just for offering these things.

There are number of other ways to turn a prospect into a customer:

1. Offer a special price as an opportunity for you to test the market.
   
2. Offer a lower price with the reason of pushing inventory to pay a tax bill, for your kid’s' braces, or another tangible reason. Customers love that this makes you feel so much more human.
   
3. Offer a referral incentive.
   
4. Offer a smaller, more inexpensive product first to build trust.
   
5. Offer package deals.
   
6. Offer to charge less for their first purchase if they become a repeat customer.
   
7. Offer extra incentives-longer warranties, free bonuses if ordered by a set date.
   
8. Offer financing options, if applicable.
   
9. Offer a bonus if they pay in full.
   
10. Offer special packaging or delivery.
    
11. Offer “name your own price” incentives.
    
12. Offer comparative data or other comparison tools.
    
13. Offer a trade-up or upgrade to something they already have.
    
14. Offer additional, educational information to help them make the decision.
    

The options really are as limitless as you make it. You can use these or other ideas to find what works the best for your business, products/service and target market. Remember this…

“By making it inviting, easy, informative, non-threatening, educational, inspiring and fun to do business with you, you’ll loft your company above the competition.” Jay Abraham

Need help with figuring out the best strategy for converting prospects into customers? Our complimentary business assessment gives you exclusive access to the STRETCHYOURSELF resources and tools, along with information from some of the greatest marketing minds on Earth.

Thanks, and I look forward to connecting with you!