I have had to cut my work hours due to health reasons and I need to focus on building regular income for my leveraged offerings. I have Stop the Social Media Madness, an online course, and Ask Me Anything, a call-in/email-in marketing question and answer membership program, ready to market.

I do already have a plan in place for increasing my leveraged offerings. I have a new freebie and follow-up sequence for the online social media course I developed (and sold a few) 18 months ago to kick start sales again. I created new marketing materials for an online marketing membership program I am re-launching to get that program sustainable.

How am I going to market these programs with my limited hours? I got booths at two area business expos. I have not had booths at either event before so how can I make sales projections that are not unreachable (like 75% of attendees will buy one of my packages)? I am guessing this year.

I have attended one of the expos for the past two years and I based my projections off of attendance I noted at the one I have attended. Several hundred people attend the expo in my city. The other expo is in a smaller city so I am guessing attendance will be a couple hundred or so.

My estimate is at least 25% will make eye contact and I will be able to offer my new freebie. I think 50% of them will sign up for my freebie. That is 25 new email subscribers at the smaller expo. I project 20% of them will eventually buy the Stop the Social Media Madness course which will pay for my booth, time and expenses for the event.

I project 10% of the attendees will want to talk to me about my services and at least 10% of them will purchase one of my show-special packages. That is at least two package sales directly from the small expo which will cover my costs also.

I currently have three times those numbers projected for the bigger expo. I may be way off in my projections. There may be several marketing booths at each event which may dilute those numbers. Bad weather may hit both events and decrease attendees.

I am hoping I was extremely conservative with my sales projections and my actual numbers are much higher than that. If my numbers are much less than that and there is good attendance it will be time to rethink those two offerings. Time will tell…

Until next time…

Have a great day,
Susanne

If you have marketing questions, I have answers. Check out the Ask Me Anything coaching program!

We are talking about moving as much of your back office to the “cloud” as possible. This is part of a series of posts showcasing reasons why this is a good idea. A few of these will not be as beneficial for brick-and-mortar stores because if your hair salon is buried by three feet of snow only sunshine (and shovels and snow plows) will get you open to customers again.

Start with almost no money
I acknowledge this blessing nearly every day. I have the huge benefit of working out of my home. My overhead is very low. I have friends with brick-and-mortar locations and they have to make thousands per month just to break even. If I had revenues of just $1000 per month 90% of the time I would still make a profit that month.

The inequity is in the start-up costs also. One friend bought an existing company and had to acquire a large loan to finance it. Another opened a franchise and although we have never talked actual dollars, I estimate she spent at least $100,000 before her doors even opened. I bought business cards and attended networking events. First month start-up cost = $200.

Now those lower costs did not prevent me from spending more than I made my first year in business, but once I decided my business had to pay its own way -- it did. (No amount of cloud-based software can overturn bad business decisions.)

Although those brick-and-mortar businesses do have aspects that can not live in the cloud, they have parts that do. Colorado Springs is having a snow day today (not even the buses are running). This is when online access to your website, social media, database and other systems is essential.

Of course you would rather have your store open, however you may have office work you keep putting off that you can do. If you do not have a physical product on your website to sell because you repair bicycles, create your own discount gift certificate and post it on social media several times.

“We’re snowed in so you can get a great deal! Buy a Spring tune-up gift certificate for $59 today only and save $40! www.LinkToPayPalOrCreditCardProcessor.com.”

If you do have products on your website offer a flash sale on one or two items and promote it on social media. If your whole town is snowed in you can bet lots of people are on social media posting pictures of the snow on their back deck. (go figure)

The best part is that many of these necessary programs can be started for free or at a low subscription level so you can determine how easy they are to use or if they are even necessary. I have quite a bit of unused software cluttering my computer (part of those early bad business decisions). A fair amount of cloud-based software is available with a free trial period.

I have more reasons to embrace the cloud coming in future posts.

Until next time…

Have a great day,
Susanne

How do you spend your snow days? I offer brainstorming sessions to help you find ways to create multiple streams of income. Click here to find out more.