10 September 2021

S is for Selling

  The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here. 

B is for Business Plan



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S is for Selling

The process of making a sale is vital for the survival of your business. This means that you need to consistently take steps in order to sell to either existing or potential customers. Just making a fantastic product or offering an important service is not enough. Today there is a hugely competitive market and you need to have sales campaigns to ensure that your customers know about your existence.

Many women entrepreneurs do not know where to begin their sales. They may have great products or services on offer, but are not selling a thing. Typically, because they have told next to no-one about what they are offering. With the sheer amount of white noise bombarding most of us online and otherwise, it's possible that your half-hearted attempt at posting a social media message went unread by the majority of your ideal clients.

There is no need to sound pushy or act like a sleazy salesman when you bring your offer to your buyers. Don't make tall claims or offer false features. Stick with the truth of what your product or service can do for your customers. People do not want to be lied to. They simply want a solution to a problem that they are facing. It is perfectly possible to be authentic and still make great sales. 

If you want to increase your sales, there are four ways to do so.

  • Increase the number of people you sell to. 
  • Increase the size of your average sale. 
  • Make an established customer come back frequently for more purchases. 
  • Increase the price you charge your customers.

Do you know your ideal customer?

Your ideal customer is the person who buys from you early in your set up. They also keep coming back to purchase the product repeatedly, and are happy to spread the word about it to their friends. These ideal customers will not bat an eyelid when you charge premium prices, because they understand the true value of what they are buying.

The Exercise 

What You Will Need: Parience and a Plan to find your ideal customer and keep selling

How do you get comfortable selling, when the thought of talking to a stranger is causing you major resistance? You put a process in place. To understand what you need to do, consider the questions below carefully.

Do you believe in what you are selling? 

It's impossible to convince anyone else to buy something, when you are not convinced that it is worth the money you are asking for it. If the product or service is providing your ideal client with value, you will have no hesitation in selling it to them. 

How well do you understand your customer's Pain Point?

Everything that is sold, is meeting a need. The Pain Point, is a need of your customer that your product or service helps to resolve. Depending on what your offering is, you will have to test run it to see if it truly helps your customer. Often the entrepreneuer runs with an idea that may not truly address the underlying Pain Point.

Are you comfortable with your prices?

A lot of this depends on what value you place on your product or service. If someone was to offer you the deal that you are offering your customers, would you take it up? If yes, why? If no, why not? This can help you come up with a price range that is economical for your customer, at the same time does not de-value the time and effort that you spend on making  and delivering it.

Is it a Me-Too or are you offering something Unique?

Selling what a dozen other people are selling in the market, is a surefire recipe for disaster. There needs to be a unique selling point for what you offer to make it stand out in the memory of your potential customers. 

Let's take an example of a common product here...soaps. Yes, a lot of companies sell soaps, and a number of people are selling handmade soaps as well. Does that mean you should not consider selling soap? No, it means that you should educate people about the difference between using a commercial soap full of chemicals and preservatives and a made from scratch, cold process soap that doesn't even use artificial colorants. 

You know your ideal client. Now you need to make sure that they find you. Then buy from you, because they are aware that you are offering the best deal to address their Pain Point.

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03 September 2021

R is for Recuperate

 The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here. 

B is for Business Plan
H is for Harmony



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R is for Recuperate

Do you have days when you want to curl into bed and not get out? Nothing to worry about. We all have them. You are the heart of your business. That is why you are involved in all aspects of the creation, marketing, selling and dispatching of your products. Your passion is what keeps you going, day after day, no matter what. Till it becomes too much and you just don't feel like doing it anymore. Even the sales figures and profits that the business is making are no longer a motivation factor.

When you realise that you are simply running through the motions, with no passion or interest, it is the time to take a step back and re-evaluate what you want to do next. Do you want to restore your passion for your business? Or sell out and relax? Before you make these decisions it is important that you first recuperate and get back to your normal self. Once you have restored your Body, Mind and Soul, to what you consider your usual self, then you can consider taking more decisions.

Self care is super important for any woman entrepreneur. It is a mandatory requirement to look after yourself, so that you can continue to look after your business. Taking a day off from the regular daily routine. It doesn't need to wait till the weekend. You can do it on a Monday if you prefer. the idea is to schedule down time for yourself to avoid burnout. At least in my case the best ideas for what to do next come to me when I am doing nothing. Os simply vegetating with my eyes closed.

It is very important to shut the world out and just sit with yourself for a while. Setting these boundaries can help you retreat into a space where you have to pressure to do anything physically or men tally. To simply be in the moment. It could be a ten minute meditation, a half hour evening walk, a scheduled weekly body massage, or even cooking up a favourite snack. Give yourself a complete break from everything. It makes a huge difference.


The Exercise 

What You Will Need: A fixed day and an activity to do in it. The only rule is that it should have nothing to do with chores, errands or the business itself.

If you are unsure about how to start off, you may like to have a look at these suggestions. Remember what works for someone else may not be what you need or want. It's perfectly okay to try out different activities till you find the one that fits your needs.

For a start take one day each week off work. This means not doing anything related to your business on that particular day. You can make it a weekly off and make sure that you inform your customers about it. This will allow them to contact you the next day without wondering about why you have disappeared and are not answering their calls/ emails.

Another tip is to ensure that you fix your work hours as much as possible. This may not be easy to do initially, but if you set down your boundaries well, you will actually be doing yourself a favour in the long run. So if you want to work only from 8 am in the morning to 4 pm in the evening, do that. If you only want to work from 2 in the afternoon till 9 at night do that. Find what time works best for you and then stick to it.

Go for a holiday or retreat. It's tough being the one in charge all the time. So pick a place where you get to be the participant or student. You can learn something new, and still be rejuvenated when you get back. Taking short breaks is recommended every six months.

Can't leave town? Work with what you have locally. A spa day with facials and massages is a good choice to unwind and relax. Don't want to step out of the home? Get a good book, close your room door. Tell everyone you can't be disturbed for the next three hours and relax.

Enjoy more physically active hobbies? Go out for a hike, attend a sporting competition, do yoga with a class, meditate or simply take a walk in the neighbourhood. As you can figure out, what activity you choose is not as important as the break from work. Give yourself something new to do and you will help yourself come back at the business feeling more energized.


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02 September 2021

Q is for Quit

The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here. 

B is for Business Plan
H is for Harmony





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Q is for Quit

Your business is your baby, and you will guard it fiercely. This is natural, but at times can be counter-productive. When you become too attached to trying to make it a success, you may work in a manner that hurts rather than helps you. Just like there is a time to get going and follow up on your work, there also comes a time when you may need to take a step back. To take a careful inventory of what processes are working, and what are not. 

If there is a goal that you had set some time ago, and you are flogging yourself to meet it, you may like to consider if it's still as important to you. For instance, it may have been important to connect with ten new potential clients each week when you had just started out. However, it's been six months now and you are fairly well established. Does it still make sense to keep seeking out ten new contacts each week? 

It's a matter of figuring out if you want to simply reinvest your energy in existing clients who have already bought from you, or you want to keep expanding your customer base. What's interesting is that there are no right or wrong answers. Both options work well at different times for an entrepreneur. The idea is to pick the one which is the best fit for you and your business at the current time. 

Should you want to consolidate the business, and spend more time on product or service development for a while, it's perfectly okay to quit the goal of contacting ten new people each week. Quitting intelligently saves you energy, time, resources and even gives you a better direction. You release that low grade anxiety in the pit of your stomach which builds when you fail to meet the goal. Replacing it with an excitement to work on an aspect of your business that you may not have focussed on recently.

The Exercise 

What You Will Need: A pen and paper and some time to go through the checklist to formulate what you need to really continue doing. 

As you have been running your business, there has to be a set of rules that you have been following. Maybe they are not formally written down, but they exist in your head. These are usually loosely based off the goals that you have for your business. Now is a good time to write these down. Even if they seem inconsequential and trivial, please make a note of all the actions that you expect yourself to take in the course of a day, week, or month. 

Now that you have your list of goals and actions, take a moment to chek if they are aligned with what you are trying to achieve in the current time and space for your business. Here are some questions that you can ask yourself. Please be honest as you answer for each item on your list to truly understand that sometimes quitting is more productive.

  • Do you feel like doing the task?
  • Is the task important to the health of your business?
  • Do you need to do the task?
  • Is it something that you enjoy doing?
  • Is it helpful to you personally in any way?
  • How difficult is it to achieve?
  • Does it work, or do you need to keep trying out new angles to get it to work?
  • Does it affect your well being physically?
  • Is it making you more stressed out and anxious?
  • Does your energy get drained when you do it?

Once you simply answer these questions you will know if you need to quit doing these actions. Should you find that you need to continue doing the actions, but they have a higher toll on your own physical or mental health, you may consider quitting doing them personally.

It may be easier for you to get someone else to do them for you. Hiring an assistant is often something women entrepreneurs are hesitant  to do. While financial implications of hiring a person do intrude, you need to consider the cost to your personal wellbeing as well.

It's tough to do everything on your own. Imagine if one person tried to do everything in a multinational company? So if you need to quit being the cleaner to free up time to being the creative director, make it easy on yourself. Quit what doesn't need your direct involvement to redistribute your time better amongst the remaining tasks.

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