Business is easy – well it is when you learn to keep it simple

Lesson 5 My Business Defined

My head hurts this week, as I knew it would. I loved the Foundation’s course but like Cindy I was looking forward to the meat and gravy; – even though I knew that it would be unsettling and bring me well out of my Internet comfort zone. I have already worked out during my foundation work that I am not focused enough and I would never have dreamed of running a physical business as I do an internet business. I knew I faced answering some tough questions to myself, but that was why I signed up to the Online Marketing MBA so I could take massive action on what I learned and thus increase my sales

So I began lesson 5 with a little apprehension as well as a tingling in my toes!

What do I SELL and who are my Customer’s now that sounds so simple, but not as easy as it should be. The first part is easy, my products they are two things one is physical and the other is a service. So far so good, but selling it who am I targeting?

In many respects I was dreading this part of the course because I knew I would have to answer some hard questions, I was not prepared for my reaction. I actually fell about laughing; I laughed so much it hurt. Dee has a habit of hitting me with something so simple, but so laser targetted, I wonder how I can miss something so simple.

His three steps of business are so totally universal that you can’t get lost and say well my business model does not fall into that because it does! There are only three steps and I knew that so instinctively that I had never thought about it.

Where I had got so waylaid was the fact that I did not know who my customer’s were and I made things very complicated in my life because I did not want to define that to myself. My excuse was I was limiting the potential of my business, and yet I knew in my heart of hearts that I was limiting my business without it.

I did not need Dee to tell me that without me defining my customer’s very clearly I can’t connect with them. As I am making my target audience too wide I need to drill down into it. I am and have been looking at the wrong end of the funnel at the wrong time. I want the top big of the funnel at all times and funnel by definition narrows done.

The simple knowledge imparted in this lesson is so powerful that it hit me like a sledge hammer, I expected to have long agonised decisions and instead got hit by an epiphany in two seconds just this lesson alone makes this whole online marketing MBA worthwhile. I would say to anyone who is not sure just go for it and then follow your instinct

Dee has a bet with himself when he wagers that fifty percent of his customer’s could improve his sales by using just this one module in the online marketing MBA course and nothing else. All the way through this foundation course I had that nagging uncomfortable truth pulling and gnawing at the edges of my mind like a nagging toothache, but one I wanted to avoid as I have avoided it for the last twelve months.

Despite the fact Dee had made this lesson so clear and so simply, but the homework was not easy. Yet I stuck with it because I got the point, the more effort I put in now, the less I will be swimming against the tide in the coming weeks and I feel as though I have been swimming the wrong way up the Saragossa Sea for a long time now. I have to confess that when I have put this blog in I have not actually finished my homework. It is broadly finished but I need to drill down deeper and I have allocated two hours tomorrow to get it done. It does not mean that I am opting out I am definitely not, I need more time. The content of this lesson is not new to me, but the way it has been applied will have revolutionary ramifications for my business and I can’t do it one day.

One thing I know is that today I learned more about my business than I have in years. Dee is teaching in a completely different way from anyone else, but he is tapping into the really important bits and I for one can’t wait to see the changes that will come about personally and in a business sense, because I know I will stick with this course like a limpet because it is the gateway to my success. I am so grateful I found the online marketing MBA, I could have fumbled onwards in the dark forever and that would have meant that I would never make the success I now know I can in my business.